5. Perversity

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this final module, we consider the nature of Jekyll/Hyde’s perversity in the novel, thinking in particular about several theories that see the Jekyll/Hyde figure as representative of particular neuroses, psychoses and/or repressed sexual desires.

Course

In this course, Professor Nick Groom (University of Exeter) explores Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde’. As we move through the course, we consider a number of topics including the novel’s interest in language and literature, the nature of the Gothic, the urban setting of the novel and its interest in criminology and forensics, the novel’s engagement with contemporary science and medicine, and the nature of Jekyll’s psychology.

Lecturer

Nick Groom is Professor of English Literature at the University of Exeter, a critically acclaimed author on subjects ranging from the history of the Union Jack to Thomas Chatterton, has edited several books and regularly appears on television, radio and at literary festivals as an authority on English Literature, the ‘Gothic’ and ‘British’ identity.