Gothic Literature Notes

Gothic Literature: characterized by grotesque characters, bizarre situations, and violent events.
- 19th century (originated in Europe)
- Edger Allan Poe, Steven King, and Nathaniel Hawthorne
Age of Reason: Puritanism, fear of God
Romantic Writers:
-saw limitations of reason
-celebrate individual spirit
-emotions
-imagination
-saw: basic elements of human nature
-facination of supernatural
- splendors of natures that the fear God
-Washington Irving = example of writer
-romantic preoccupation with atmosphere, sentiment, and optimism.

Transcendentalism: forms of truth exist beyond reason and experience.
- every individual is capable of discovering this higher truth on his or her own, through intuition.

Dark Side of Individualism:
- Gothic architecture of the middle ages
- Gothic Cathedrals
- Gargoyles
- high stained glass windows
- imaginative distortion of reality that Gothic represents
- imagination lead to the threshold of the unknown then see the potential for dark.
- fantastic, demonic, and insane reside

Romantic see hope
Gothic writers see potential for evil

Edger Allen Poe:
- many of his stories are with dark and medieval castles or decaying ancient estates that provide weird and terrifying events.
- plots involve extreme situation such as
-live burials, physical/mental torture
- male narrators:insane
- female characters: beautiful and dead or dying
- only when pushed to extreme did you see the dark side.

Hawthorne:
- fear, greed, vanity, mistreat, betrayed