Genre

Stevenson: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

In this course, Dr Christopher Pittard (University of Portsmouth) explores Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novel, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. In the first module, we think about the genre of the novel, before turning in the second novel to consider the implications of its title – not 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', but 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'. In the third module, we provide a close reading of the opening paragraph of the novel, thinking in particular about the character of Mr Utterson and the extent to which the first paragraph introduces the reader (if obliquely) to some of the key themes in the novel. After that, we think about the theme of degeneration, before turning in the fifth, sixth and seventh modules to some Freudian themes in the novel: the unconscious, the uncanny and sex and sexuality. In the eighth module, we think about the extent to which the novel reflects on its own conditions of textuality, before turning in the ninth and final module to think about how the novel explores anxieties about national identity.

Note: Page numbers in these lectures refers to the Penguin Classics edition of the novel (‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror’, ed. Robert Mighall). Students using a different version of the novel may encounter slight differences in page numbering.

Genre

In this module, we think about the genre of the novel, focusing in particular on: (i) the range of different genres that the novel might be said to participate in; (ii) the idea of the 'urban novel', a genre that might be familiar to us from the Sherlock Holmes novels; (iii) the elements of detective fiction in the novel, especially it use of multiple, fragmented narratives (cf. Wilkie Collins, 'The Moonstone'), and the influence of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) more generally; (iv) the similarities between Jekyll and Hyde and Poe's 'Murders in the Rue Morgue' (1841); (v) the blurring in the novel between the scientific and the supernatural; and (vi) the similarities and dissimilarities between Jekyll and Hyde and Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Man with the Twisted Lip' (1891).