Literature both explores and exerts enigmatic forces of attachment. For Max Weber, ‘charisma’ represented a source of authority that inheres in neither rationality nor tradition but in the mysterious attraction exerted by an ‘extraordinary’ individual, and was thus close to notions of grace and the sacred. Literature provides a particularly apt medium through which to depict and analyze the subtle power of charisma, which so often resists precise definition. The course will examine a variety of modes and paradigms through which charisma has featured in European literature from the Medieval period to the 20thcentury. Particular attention will be paid to ‘dark’ charisma, which, figured variously as corruption, seduction, or hypnosis, has often lured individuals and communities to act in contrast to the dictates of reason or morality.