Diamond Hudson

Ms.Geiss
AP English III
3/10
The Romantic Literary Era consisted of two primary styles: Transcendental and
Gothic. Having dealt with the Transcendental, it is time to explore its spooky
opponent Gothic Literature.
Lit Review
Colonial/Puritan (1660-1776)
Instructive
Reinforces the authority of the church
All people are corrupted and must be saved by God
Ethics, Responsibility, and survival
Revolutionary War (1775-1783)
This war led to the Enlightenment Era (1776-1825)
- Catalyzed by desire for Rev.
- Patriotism grows
- Instills pride
- Creates common agreement about issues
- National mission and American character
- Instructive in values
Romantic (1825-1865)

Reacted against the restraints of the Enlightenment period

Reveled in new freedoms and possibilities

Utilized themes of spontaneity, imagination, subjectivity, and the purity of

nature

Included the gothic and transcendental periods

Transcendental (1835-1860)

American philosophical and spiritual movement

Primacy of the individual conscience

Rejected materialism in favor of closer communion with nature

Romantic Lit.
Themes

Interest in the common man and childhood

Strong sense of emotion and feelings

The sublime nature

Heroic outcast

Importance of imagination
Romanticism --> Dark Romanticism (Gothic lit.)

Themes
- Haunting setting
- Mysterious Atmosphere
- Ancient Prophecy
- Omens,foreshadowing,dreams
- Supernatural Events
- Overwrought Emotion
- Damsels in Distress
- Metonyms of doom and gloom
- Gothic Vocab.
Gothic vs. Romanticism

Gothic

For some Gothic

writers, the imagination
led to the threshold of
the unknown-- the
shadowy region where
the fantastic, the
demonic and the insane
reside
- When the Gothics
saw the individual,
they saw the
potential of evil

Gothic writers were

peering into the
darkness at the
supernatural

Romanticism

Developed as a
reaction against the
rationalism of the Age of
Reason
- The romantics freed
the imagination
from the hold of
reason, so they
could follow their
imagination
wherever it might
lead
- For some romantics,
when they looked at
the individual, they
saw hope (think A
Pslam of Life)

Romantic writers
celebrated the beauties

of nature

The Gothic tradition was firmly est. in Europe before American writers had made
names for themselves.
By the 19th century, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathanial Hawthorne, and to a lesser
extent Washington Irving and Herman Melville were using gothic elements in
their writing
Edgar Allan Poe was the master of the gothic form in the U.S.
The gothic dimension of Poes fictional world offered him a way to explore the
human mind in these extreme situations and so arrive at as essential truth
Characteristics of Gothic Lit.
1.
The villain is a murderous tyrant with scary eyes
2.
The heroine is a pious, virginal orphan, prone to fainting
3.
Its set in a spooky castle or stately home
4.
There probably a ghost or monster
5.
Its set in the olden days
6.
It takes place in foreign parts
7.
The weather is always awful
8.
Anyone who isnt a white middle-class Protestant is frightening
9.
The laws of the land brazenly flouted
10. People talk funny (Gothic Vocab.)
Gothic requirement of creating images of gloom and doom

Thudding, scraping, murderous, sparkling, dark, ghostly

Gothic architecture
Trident is often linked towards the devil