Gothic LiteratureThe Dark Side of

Romanticism Notes

Transformation from Romanticismand Transcendentalism to Gothic/Dark

• Developed as a REACTION against the rationalism of the Age of Reason

to

Once the Romantics freed the imagination form the age of reason,

they could follow the imagination wherever it might lead them.

For some Romantic writers…

• This led to the threshold of the unknown – that shadowy region where the fantastic, the demonic, and the insane reside.

GOTHIC TERRITORY

Why this sudden change?

•Why did we go from looking at the individual with hope, to looking at the individual and seeing the potential of evil?

The answers usually lie in the history of the setting!

WAR!

1861 – 1865 American Civil War

• Suffering• Killing• People needed an escape• Monsters and other creatures

invented to take society’s mind off the world around them

Gothic Tradition Origins

• 1764 Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto• Medieval (Gothic setting)• Creates feelings of …

• Gloom• Mystery• Suspense

Is dramatic sensational diabolical terrifying etc.

When did the Gothic tradition begin in

American Literature?

• Late 18th – 19th Century

Two Greatest Creatures of Gothic Tradition …

The spirit and imagery of the Gothic literary tradition was born from…

•Gothic Architecture

Gargoyles• A grotesque creature• Mascot of Gothic• They ward off evil spirits because…• They often looked more demonic than the

spirit

Romanticism sparked the Gothic literary

tradition

Gothic Tradition or

The Dark Side of Romanticism

Gothic writers saw the potential of evil when

they looked at the individual.

Romantic vs. Gothic inspiration

• Romantics = beauty and nature

• Gothic = peering into the darkness and supernatural

Four Most Well-Known Writers Using Dark/Gothic Elements by end of 19th Century

The Master of Gothic Form!

Common Elements of Gothic Literature

• Setting: medieval castles/decaying estates

• Characters: – male: narrators - insane – female: beautiful – dead

• Plots: Weird, terrifying events Murders, live burials, physical and mental torture

Edgar Allan Poe once said,

People revealed their true natures only in extreme situations

Nathaniel Hawthorne• Rather than looking at the mind and its

functions (like Poe did)• Hawthorne examined the human heart under

various conditions of fear, greed, vanity, mistrust, and betrayal

Gothic writing waned during and after the Civil War.

Gothic Spirit had to wait until the 20th century before it came back into vogue

Two 20th century authors inspired by Poe and Hawthorne

• William Faulkner – Poe• Flannery O’Connor - Hawthorne