Living Dead Girls

In his 1846 essay, “The Philosophy of Composition,” Edgar Allen Poe writes “the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.” Taking this sentiment as a point of departure, the course will explore the motif of “living dead girls” as it develops through time and across national and linguistic traditions in literature and film. Our study will begin in the Italian Renaissance with Petrarch’s Canzionere in which the poet represents the dead girl and we will continue through the early 21st century where the dead girl finally narrates her own story in The Lovely Bones. In addition to analyzing the representation of dead girls in genres ranging from poetry to film, we will discuss how these texts immortalize their subjects, thus making them live forever. In order to fully explore the complexity of our theme, we will also discuss the living dead—ghosts, zombies, and the possessed. Some important questions we will ask are: Why is the literary motif of the deceased young woman so popular? How does the motif communicate cultural ideas about love, gender, sexuality, and beauty? Can “living death” be a metaphor for the often-fraught status of female subjectivity? How does literature immortalize its subjects and its authors, granting them life after death? Crucial to our examination of the motif of “living dead girls” from a comparative perspective is a critical engagement with gender theory. In addition to primary texts, we will read and discuss critical essays that address gender, how “living dead girls” are represented artistically in literature, and the often-problematic way women are depicted on screen.