The renowned writer of weird fiction H.P. Lovecraft famously claimed that “the true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule” – rather “a certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present.” This section of English 110 will consider drama, poetry, and prose fiction that meets these criteria: stories of monsters, demons, unfathomable horrors, metaphysical mystery, and cosmic awe. We will examine the ways that “weird” literature evokes emotions of wonder, fear, and disgust while engaging with political, social, and philosophical questions, interrogating boundaries, norms, and categories. Beginning with theepic poem Beowulf, a blood-soaked tale of monster-hunting in a world governed by a cruel, inhuman fate or “wyrd,” we will trace the literary history of the weird, following it through the fallen, omen-haunted tragedy of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s eerie poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and Christina Rossetti’s sensuously malevolent “Goblin Market,” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s chilling tale “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The course concludes with a consideration of twentieth-century weird fiction, including the short stories of Angela Carter and Octavia Butler and the novel The City & The City by China Miéville.