21M.013J | Fall 2013 | Undergraduate

The Supernatural in Music, Literature and Culture

Readings and Music

Additional Readings

For further exploration of the course topics, the following optional readings may be utilized.

On Witches

Context

Briggs, Robin. Witches & Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft. Penguin Books, 1998. ISBN: 9780140144383.

Gibson, Marion. “Witchcraft in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.” Chapter 2 in Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550 –1750. Cornell University Press, 2003, pp. 28–36. ISBN: 9780801488740.

Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 3rd ed. Routledge, 2006. ISBN: 9780582419018. [Preview with Google Books]

MacFarlane, Alan. “Map 9: Cross-village Accusations at the Assize Courts.” In Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: A Regional and Comparative Study. 2nd ed. Routledge, 1999. ISBN: 9780415196123. [Preview with Google Books]

Demos, John Putnam. “Map of Home-Lots in Easthampton, Long Island, ca. 1658.” In Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England. Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780195174830. [Preview with Google Books]

———. “Map of Home-Lots in Springfield, Mass., ca. 1651.” In Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England. Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780195174830. [Preview with Google Books]

———. “Map of Home-Lots in Marblehead, Mass., ca. 1650.” In Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England. Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780195174830. [Preview with Google Books]

———. “Map of Home-Lots in Easthampton, Long Island, ca. 1658.” In Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England. Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780195174830. [Preview with Google Books]

———. Tables 2–4, 11–3, and 15–8 in Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England. Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780195174830. [Preview with Google Books]

Shakespeare

Wills, Gary. Witches & Jesuits: Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780195102901. [Preview with Google Books]

Willis, Deborah. Malevolent Nature: Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern England. Cornell University Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780801481949. [Preview with Google Books]

Stallybrass, Peter. “Macbeth and Witchcraft.” Chapter 9 in Focus on Macbeth. Edited by John Russell Brown. Routledge, 2010. ISBN: 9780415612173. [Preview with Google Books]

Purcell

Walking, Andrew R. “Political Allegory in Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’.” Music & Letters 76, no. 4 (1995): 540–71.

Harris, Ellen T. Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Oxford University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780193152526.

Verdi

Schmidgall, Gary. Literature as Opera. Oxford University Press, 1977. ISBN: 9780195022131.

Rosen, David, and Andrew Porter, eds. Verdi’s Macbeth: A Sourcebook. W. W. Norton & Company, 1984. ISBN: 9780393950731.

Budden, Julian. “Macbeth.” Chapter 12 in The Operas of Verdi. Vol. 1, From Oberto to Rigoletto. Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780198162612.

Albright, Daniel. Musicking Shakespeare: A Conflict of Theatres. BOYE6, 2007, pp. 117–91. ISBN: 9781580462556. [Preview with Google Books]

On Spiritualism

Context

Crowe, Catherine. The Night Side of Nature, or Ghosts and Ghost Seers. The Classics.us, 2013. ISBN: 9781230351841.

Blum, Deborah. Ghost Hunters: William James and the Hunt for Scientific Proof of Life after Death. Penguin Books, 2007. ISBN: 9780143038955. [Preview with Google Books]

Owen, Alex. “Culture and the Occult at the Fin de Siècle.” Chapter 1 in The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern. University of Chicago Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780226642048. [Preview with Google Books]

James

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. 2nd ed. Edited by Deborah Esch and Jonathan Warren. W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. ISBN: 9780393959048. [Preview with Google Books]

Britten

Howard, Patricia, ed. Benjamin Britten: The Turn of the Screw. Cambridge University Press, 1985. ISBN: 9780521283564. [Preview with Google Books]

Seymour, Claire. The Operas of Benjamin Britten: Expression and Evasion. BOYE6, 2007. ISBN: 9781843833147.

Course Info

Learning Resource Types
Written Assignments