What is gothic

romanticism?

Gothic Romanticism

• Definition: Gothic romanticism is a form of

romanticism that focuses on temptations of sin and evil in

society and the will to succumb darkness in the

human soul.

Characteristics of Gothic Romanticism

• Curses• Cemeteries• Demons• Dreams or nightmares• Supernatural elements• Eerie settings• Mysteries• Death• Castles• Evil

Gothic Romanticism

• Setting- bleak, remote places • Plot- morbid, or violent incidents• Characters – psychological or physical torment• Supernatural element present

Gothic Romanticism

• Share the same attributes as romanticism like emphasis on the past, nature, deep feeling, and the supernatural or unnatural

• Gothic Romantics studied Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper

• Gothic Romanticism accents more the fantastic aspects of human experience– Examines darker facets of humanity: death, loss,

greed, vanity, guilt, and the seven deadly sins

Gothic Romanticism

• Narrators are terrified or distraught • Characters are ill of mind or body or carry

terrible haunting secrets– Characters usually go insane or die

• Hidden Evil– Unspeakable mysterious crimes– Obsession with death• Ghosts, blood, body parts

Gothic Romanticism

• Viewed as anti-transcendentalists because of gloomy view of the world

• Wanted to move beyond sunny world of optimists and ordered world of rationalists

• Influenced authors such as Stephen King, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Fyodor Dostoevsky

Practitioners of Gothic Romanticism

• Nathaniel Hawthorne• Washington Irving• Herman Melville• EDGAR ALLAN POE

Edgar Allan Poe

Childhood

• Was born January 19th, 1809 in Boston

• His mother died two years later• He moved to Richmond Virginia

and was raised by John Allan a successful tobacco exporter

Education

• He was sent to the best boarding schools around

• He enrolled in the University of Virginia

• He did very well academically and excelled greatly but had to leave because John Allan would not lend him money for his gambling

debts.

Growing Up

• Relationship with the Allan’s worsened • He left Richmond for Boston

• He then enlisted in the United States Army• During that time period he published his

first few collections of poetry, neither of which landed him with any public attention• Admitted into the United States Military Academy, he could not continue for lack of

financial support

Life On Track

• Moved to Baltimore, Maryland and in with his Aunt Clemm and her daughter Virginia

• He began selling his works to magazines and edited the Southern Literary Messenger back in Richland

• He married his cousin Virginia at age 13 and brought her and her mother to Richmond with him

His Works

• Journals for New York and Philadelphia• “The Fall of the House of Usher”• “The Tell-Tale Heart”• “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”• “The Raven”• “The Masque of the Red Death”• The Cask of Amontillado” • “Annabel Lee”

Father of the short story and the detective story

Nearing The End• In 1847, his dear wife/cousin died of

Tuberculoses• In Poe’s mind the saddest theme was death of a

beautiful women because of the loss of his mother, stepmother, and wife

• From then on, he struggled to maintain himself and support his aunt while suffering from severe depression and alcoholism

• He made his last stop in Baltimore, where they found him semi-conscious on October 3rd 1949

• Four days later he died of “acute congestion of the brain."

Bibliography• “Edgar Allan Poe.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, 2010.

Web. 7 Apr. 2010. <http://www.poets.org/ poet.php/ prmPID/ 130>.• James, Wilson Southall. “Poe’s Life.” Poe Museum. N.p., 2004. Web.

30 Mar. 2010. <http://www.poemuseum.org/ poes_life/ index.html>.

• Stewart, Lynn, Mrs. “Dark Romantics.” room 124, Seneca Valley Senior Highschool. Nov.-Dec. 2009. Class presentation.

• "Gothic Romanticism." Lower Dauphin School District. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2010. <http://www.ldsd.org/5561209414221490/lib/5561209414221490/ Gothic_Romanticism.ppt>. Powerpoint in which gothic romanticism is explained