Dissecting the Dark Side: Dragons, Demons, and Dark Lords 2

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Weekly Reading Plan

This page provides a week by week plan of reading for this course, including alternative texts, and indications of their relationships to the possible themes and their connection with The Lord of the Rings. It may be adapted and printed out for students as a guide to what they will or should be focussing on.

Week 1

This week is devoted to the introduction of background and contexts.

At AS/A2 level the focus can be entirely on coping with the texts.

The contexts for Macbeth, Dracula, nineteenth century fantasy poetry, and The Lord of the Rings -The Fellowship of the Ring should include:

• an introduction to the status and implications of blank verse in Shakespeare's drama;
• the change from poetry and drama to the rise of the novel and the use of prose;
• the rise of the gothic novel and its delight in horrific images and suspense;
• the nineteenth-century romantics and their love of all things medieval in contrast to industrialism. Their interest in the fairy world, for similar reasons;
• Tolkien's work, its epic scale (explain 'epic'), its use of medieval imagery and medieval sources. The pleasure of fantasy as escape from reality. Tolkien's knowledge and scholarship in Anglo-Saxon and medieval studies. The importance of his work as a pattern for the mass of fantasy literature that takes its inspiration from it. Its cult status in USA during the 1960s/70s - the time of the Vietnam war and the 'counter-culture'.

If the course is used for pre-university students other relevant contexts and background may include:

• the significance of Christianity,
• Anglo-Saxon warrior culture,
• religious change during the Elizabethan period,
• the English Civil war,
• the rise of science,
• the rise of the novel,
• the gothic and romantic modes can be introduced.
• Ethics should be introduced through the discussion of changing concenpts of good and evil.
• Each text should, however briefly, be placed in its historical context and therefore the texts can be related to the study of history as well as to the study of literature.

At undergraduate level Week 1 should provide an Introduction to cultural background and contexts such as

• Christianity,
• language, including historical changes, the use of rhetoric, poetic language, form and metre
• religious change
• the rise of the bourgeoisie
• post-Cartesian science,
• the significance of fantasy and mythology,
• the rise of the novel and the rise of film.
• An introduction to Jung may be included.
• Ethics can be addressed in a discussion of changing views of good and evil.
• Indication of critical techniques to be used where relevant such as feminism, postmodernism, post-colonialism.

Undergraduates should read the whole of each text.

Week 2 any good translation of Beowulf - pagan monsters, and Anglo-Saxon bravado. Reading: Beowulf 's first encounter with Grendel; the onslaught of Grendel's mother and the fight in the mere; Beowulf s recital and the awakening of the dragon; Beowulf 's vow and fight with the dragon. Undergraduates may note similarities between Beowulf's arrival at Heorot and Chapter 6 of The Two Towers. (Line numbers differ according to the version chosen)

Week 3 Dr. Faustus - Tudor tragedy and the price of knowledge, the Elizabethan anti-Hero, and dramatic imagery associated with the devils and their appearances. Reading: The complete A-Text.

OR The Faerie Queene, Book 1 - The Hero-knight in need of help; good and evil women, and the dragon-fight. Reading: for pre-university students - only Canto 11, just the dragon fight. Note that the old dragon signifies Satan in Christian mythology, and he is eventually destroyed by the Red Cross knight. Undergraduates may observes the imagery associated with villainy and women.

Week 4 Macbeth - Jacobean horror and the grotesque. Reading: the complete play but concentrating on Acts VI and V. Note the taboo placed on Macbeth's death, the moving wood, the line of kings, and the crack of doom. Undergraduates should note the linking of villainy and women again, and the early modern pre-occupation with witchcraft.

OR Paradise Lost, Book 1 - Reading: Satan's Fall and the imagery of Hell. Concentrate on imagery and Satan's defiance, the use of blank verse and classical references in additon to Christian mythology. Undergraduates should note the context of the English Civil War, Milton's revolutionary politics, and Satan's rebellion against God.

Week 5 Frankenstein -Creation in the age of science and gothic horror. Reading: Chapters 2-7, and 10-17 inclusive. The demonising of masculinity and science; look for the significance of language as a sign of humanity and selfhood. Late eighteenth century 'sensibility' drives the use of descriptive language associated with landscape and scenery. Note the vocabulary used. Note the connections and disruptions between family life and forms of evil. Consider the depictions of mostrosity and evil - are they equated?

Week 6 Dracula - a proliferation of Heroes. Reading: Chapter, 3, 5, 14-16, 18, 19, 21, 26-7, inclusive. Contextualises the belief in vampires, dracs and werewolves; projects nineteenth-century depictions of women, and images of evil and horror.

Week 7 Nineteenth-century fantasy poetry and the Celtic Twilight: Reading: Tennyson's Lady of Shallott and 'Blow Bugle Blow', William Allingham's 'The Fairies', Robert Browning's 'Childe Rolande',* and W.B. Yeats 'The Shadow Waters', 'In Tara's Halls', 'The Magi'. From nineteenth to twentieth century: the writers' reaction against industrialism, their contributions to medievalism as a genre, and the political impulse implicit in the flowering of the 'Celtic twilight'.

*Note 'Childe Rowland to the dark tower came' is the first line of a poem which Edgar (as Poor Tom the Fool) begins to recite in King Lear (III, iv, 179). The original is not known, but Browning recreated the ballad which tells the story of Roland, nephew of Charlemagne. 'Childe' means a young man (not a child) who has not yet been made a knight.

Week 8 The Lord of the Rings - . This week covers images of security and insecurity in The Fellowship of the Ring. Students should read at least as far as the hobbits' arrival in Bree. This links back to vampires, dracs, and the undead encountered in Dracula. If they get as far as Chapter 7 they will notice an echo from Yeats's The Shadow Waters.

Week 9 Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers, this week covers defining and locating evil. Reading: Books 3 and 4. The material looks back to Beowulf showing how Tolkien reused the Anglo-Saxon poem. Students should consider the ents and Burnan Wood in Macbeth. Students will notice an echo of 'Childe Rolande' Book 4 Chapter 1.

Week 10 The Lord of the Rings -The Return of the King, this week covers epic battle and its surrounding actions. Reading: Book 5, Chapters: IV, V, VI. VIII. Students should be shown how Tolkien reuses the metre of the Authorised Version (King James) Bible, as well as considering why it is used in the context of war, and how Tolkien's experiences in the First World War may have influenced his description of the forces of evil and their actions. Students could also be given extracts from The Saga of King Heidrek (see Bibliography page) to compare with the representation of Eowyn. Echoes of Macbeth's taboo may be observed, comparisons may be sought with Canto 11 of The Faerie Queene.

Week 11 The Lord of the Rings - changing Heroes in the films. Students should consider the film makers' depiction of evil and good, and how and why they changed or retained what Tolkien wrote. Given the epic length of the films, only selected scenes should be used. These should be the film versions of the extracts of text already studied so useful comparisons can be made.

OR The Lord of the Flies - the allegorising of twentieth century evil. This book was published before complete version of The Lord of the Rings but may usefully be compared with that text and any Harry Potter film in discussions of the confrontation between the 'diminishing hero' and the forces of evil. Images of evil, the processes and action of evil, its scale, and its relation to childhood experiences may be explored. Allegory may be explained and the relationship between the small-scale evil of the boys on their island may then be traced onto world politics in the aftermath of WWII and the rise of the nuclear age in the 1950s.

Week 12 - a choice of films:

• Star Wars (episode 4 The New Hope) - the Dark Lord and the Hero in space fantasy. This film allows for the study of influences as well as the transferring of mythology into another dimension. Students should look for imagery and vocabulary associated with medieval knighthood and discuss its significance. Consider the dialogue in the film and its effect. Consider the 'out-of sequence' format, suggesting part of an ongoing history or story, and the effect of this.

OR

• Independence Day - this film enables the study of the preoccupation with the proliferation of evil in a post-modern context, and the post-colonial Hero. Consider the inclusion of references to older films such as War of the Worlds.

OR

• Harry Potter: the film versions- the boy hero in a post-modern world. Students should discuss the use of many influences from literary and other sources as well as considering the effect of the vulnerbale youth as hero.

Whichever film is chosen, students should be asked to compare and contrast the depictions of heroes, villians, women, weaponry, imagery, between the film chosen and The Lord of the Rings films.