Big idea #3- The power of darkness

1. Romanticism Big idea #3- The power of darkness

2. Quickwrite: • What do you fear? List everything you fear, realistic or not.

3. Overview: • We fear the evils we know • Poverty, violence, disease, madness, and death • The first parts we talked about were the influences of nature, optimism, and the belief in the individual • Other writers in this time viewed those writings as “unrealistic,” or that “optimism was ‘nonsense’ that ignored the disagreeable facts of life” (184).

4. Hawthorne and Melville • Hawthorne- fiction based on stories of the past • History and legends of Puritan ancestors • Explorations of good and evil • Melville- gained literary reputation for romantic tales of adventure in the South Seas • Sea stories- explore the mystery of the evil that he saw in both human life and the forces of nature

5. Gothic Horror • Recognized the power of darkness • England’s example = Shelley’s Frankenstein • Relies chiefly on atmosphere and mood to achieve its effects • Create an atmosphere through plot, characters, and settings = all chilling

6. Gothic Literature Atmosphere • Plot = mysterious happenings, tragic events, and hideous outcomes • Characters = often mad, half-mad, or frightened to death • Strange behavior and physical traits • Settings = dark and often contain decayed dwellings with shadowy passageways, haunting sounds, and damp rooms

7. Poe and the Terror of the Soul • Most of the stories and poems deal with: • Loss and sorrow • Ruin and revenge • Disease and death • Works reflect his own troubles and fears • Readers embrace it and confront their own fears

8. Poe and the Terror of the Soul Cont. • Transcendentalists and Emerson believed that humans are inherently good • Poe thought humans had dark impulses

9. Poe’s Short Stories • He invented the new type of short fiction, the detective story • First detective story = “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” • It was gothic horror and solid reasoning by Poe’s fictional detective • Poe’s stories show his idea that any artistic composition should have a single, unique effect

10. Poe’s Short Stories Cont. • Poe’s stories show his idea that any artistic composition should have a single, unique effect

11. Comprehension Check: • Answer the following question based on the excerpt you’ll see on the following slide: • In what sense were Poe and Emerson both Romantics? How did their Romanticism differ?

12. Poe’s excerpt from “The Fall of the House of Usher” During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was- but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.

13. Continued: • I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me- upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain- upon the bleak walls- upon the vacant eye-like windows- upon a few rank sedges- and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees- with an utter depression of soul…”