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Stoker - Bram Stoker Videos 11 videos
What is Dracula really about? Just Count Dracula? Or is there more to it than vampires? This video addresses some major ideas in Bram Stoker’s cl...
There are plenty of famous vampires that send chills up our spines, but Dracula was and still is the king of them all. No one else can touch him. N...
Readers may be already be familiar with Dracula, but what about the mathematician and author, Bram Stoker? And yes, he graduated with a degree in m...
Dracula Part 1: Course Introduction 29641 Views
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Description:
Readers may be already be familiar with Dracula, but what about the mathematician and author, Bram Stoker? And yes, he graduated with a degree in math. We’re not confusing him with The Count from Sesame Street. We won’t make that mistake a seventh time.
Transcript
- 00:01
We speak student!
- 00:07
Dracula
- 00:08
Introduction
- 00:11
a la Shmoop
- 00:13
All right.
Full Transcript
- 00:14
Welcome to Dracula a la Shmoop.
- 00:16
We're here with Dennis Jones,
- 00:17
who's a comparative lit PhD student at Stanford.
- 00:20
He specializes in the literature of terror.
- 00:23
No! No! No!
- 00:27
Let me just kick things off. So, Dennis,
- 00:29
can you frame for us first
- 00:31
who is Bram Stoker?
- 00:33
Bram Stoker is an Irish novelist from the 19th century,
- 00:38
the late 19th century.
- 00:39
He's best known for Dracula.
- 00:42
[ high-pitched noise ]
- 00:44
But I think he was --
- 00:46
I think he began as a mathematician.
- 00:48
He at least got a math degree.
- 00:49
He was involved in the theater.
- 00:51
[ applause ]
- 00:52
He crossed paths with Oscar Wilde. They're both Irish.
- 00:56
[ instrumental music ]
- 00:58
And then, in the 1890s, he penned Dracula,
- 01:00
and that was pretty much
- 01:03
it for him in terms of what we know about him,
- 01:05
or what we care to know about him.
- 01:07
Understood.
- 01:08
So Dracula and many of the works in this zone
- 01:12
- are framed in the genre of Gothic literature. - Mm-hmm.
- 01:19
What is a good definition
- 01:22
for Gothic literature?
- 01:23
So the Gothic is kind of difficult to pin down,
- 01:25
- since it's so protean and changeable. - What does protean mean?
- 01:29
Like it's changeable and fluctuates.
- 01:33
I would say --
- 01:35
So a good way to define the Gothic
- 01:37
as a sort of a literary mode that makes use
- 01:40
of terror and suspense and affect.
- 01:43
It's a pretty broad definition,
- 01:45
but I think you --
- 01:47
The genre consists of a broad variety of novels.
- 01:50
So I think it's probably the most generous
- 01:52
definition you can have.
- 01:55
Got it. Makes sense.
- 01:57
[ whoop ]
- 01:58
Who is Bram Stoker?
- 02:00
What is Gothic literature?
- 02:05
[ high-pitched screeching ]
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