Notes on Gothic Literature

*Gothic Literature
-is characterized by grotesque characters, bizarre situations, and violent events.
-orginated in Europe
-United States during the 19th Century
-Edgar Allan Poe and Hawthrone (Stephen King Now)
-Age of Reason, Fear of Gods, and Puritans
*Romanticism
-romanticism writers saw: Basic elements of human nature
.limitation of reason
.celebrated the individual spirit (Puritans believed in a whole)
.emotions
.imagination
.splendors of natures than the fear of God
.fasination of supernatural
-Washington Irving: one of the promnant writers in the USA
-romantic preoccupation with atmosphere, sentiment and optimism
*Transcendentalists
-transcendent forms of truth exist beyond reason and experience
-"Every individual is capable of discovering this higher truth on his or her own through intuition" Ralph Waldo Emerson
*Dark Side of Individualism
-gothic architecture
.gothic catherderals
.high stained glass windows
.gargoyes: mascot of gothic
-Imaginative distortion of reality
-Imagination led to the threshold of the unknown
-Shadowy region where the fantastic (dark, great) the demonic (demon) and the insane region
-Gothic tradition can be called the Dark Side of Individualism
-Romantics looked at the individual saw hope
-Gothic looked they saw potential evil
*Poe
-Many of his stories were in medieval castles, decaying ancient estates provied weird and terrifying events for the settings
-Male narrotors are insane
-Female characters are beautiful and dead (or dying)
-Plots are extreme situations-Not just murder
.live burials
.physical and mental torture
.retribution from beyond the grave (coming from the dead)
-Only when put in extremem natures show your true colors which was the dark side.
-Romantics would show the good side
*Hawthorne
-Exmained the human hear under various conditions:
.fear
.greet
.vanity
.mistrust
.betrayal