Midnight Rides, Death, and Specters: Bürger’s Lenore and the International Gothic
Gottfried August Bürger’s ballade Lenore (1773), the story of a young woman who joins her dead lover on a ride to the grave, became an international sensation for all the wrong reasons. Though its author never intended it, Lenore’s reception abroad established the ballad as an early and and influential text of Gothic literature. In this lecture, we depart on a wild ride through translation, adaptation, plagiarism, and parody that always ends in doom for the protagonist.