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Explore the eerie world of Gothic Romanticism through the elements of Edgar Allan Poe's writing. Emphasizing on settings like landscapes and castle-like architecture, delve into buried family secrets and brooding characters. Uncover themes of duality, dreams, and the heart versus the head in Poe's tales. Discover the enigmatic motifs of eyes, hearts, and time, as well as the stranger within oneself. Engage with the unnamed narrators and the chilling concept of premature burial. Enter a realm where reality blurs with dreams, and darkness meets light.
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Gothic Romanticism & Edgar Allan Poe Elements of Gothic Writing: • Emphasis on setting • Exterior: landscape • Interior: houses • Castle-like architecture • Characters are brooding, secretive • Buried family secrets • Long history of family tied to place
Theme • the general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express. • Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. • A simple theme can often be stated in a single sentence.
Examples of themes in The Crucible • The Crucible illustrates the role that hysteria can play in tearing apart a community. • In an environment where reputation plays such an important role, the fear of guilt by association becomes particularly insidious.
Motif • recurring structure, contrast, or literary device that helps to develop and inform the text’s major themes
Eyes are considered to be window to the soul One of Poe’s most common motifs
Heart • As consistent with the Romantics (literary movement), Poe places greater emphasis on the HEART (representing emotion and experience) than on HEAD (representing intellect, rational thought, and scientific reasoning)
? Unnamed Narrator • Unnamed narrator frequently tells stories (narrator not meant to represent Poe) • Lack of specific identity gives him an EVERYMAN quality
Premature Burial/Suffocation • “Life-in-death” motif • the idea of being enclosed with the dead while still part of the living
Dreams/Dreaming • Dreams are the porthole into the inner workings of the mind • Poe’s narrators may awaken from dreams and question whether they are awake or not • Reside in a state of twilight. . . • Rarely are dreams soothing or pleasant
Two Sides of Oneself • Duality of man (man is both good and evil; light and dark can be contained in same person)
Time/Clocks • Many of his stories are set in ambiguous times and places, making them universal and contemporary to the reader of any era • Poe frequently uses HOURS and times of day (especially 3:00, 6:00, 9:00 and 12:00)