Week 7

This week we are going to look at Wieland (1798) by Charles Brockden Brown (published the same year as Lyrical Ballads!).

1. Robert D. Hume describes the Gothic novel as “one kind of treatment of the psychological problem of evil.” What kind of moral ambiguity is conveyed in the novel? What role does death play in the novel? In what ways and to what extent does the novel respond to the notion of the supernatural? Is the novel advocating the Enlightenment notions of reason and rationality or against it?

2.Fred Lewis Pattee remarks that “The Wieland family is abnormal, but the reader holds the key to this abnormality. The novelist has skillfully furnished all the materials for a clinic. The book is a study in dementia: all four of the main characters are touched with it”. How does the novel engage the reader? Is Clara a reliable narrator? What impact does Clara as the first person narrator have on the reader? What kind of character is Carwin? Is he guilty or innocent of the tragedies in the novel? Is he a hero or a villain?

3. What role does nature play in the novel? How does the novel engage with the idea of America? How is the notion of American myth – America as the new Garden of Eden, examined in the novel?

Further recommended readings:

William M. Manly, “The Importance of Point of View in Brockden Brown’s Wieland”: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2923337

Clara F. McIntyre, “Were the ‘Gothic novels’ Gothic?” PMLA 36.4 (1921): http://www.jstor.org/stable/457355 or Learn: https://www.learn.ed.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_295606_1&course_id=_6962_1&launch_in_new=true

Robert D. Hume, “Gothic versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel,” PMLA 84.2 (March 1969): http://www.jstor.org/stable/1261285 or Learn: https://www.learn.ed.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_295601_1&course_id=_6962_1&launch_in_new=true