American
Dark
Romanticism
1840 – 1860
Mrs. Sweet
The realms of darkness
Edgar Allan Poe
Name __________________
DARK ROMANTICISM
D
ark
R
omanticism has characteristics of the earlier Romantic Literary
period and is a ___________________________to the Transcendental Movement.
In general, Dark Romantics believed:
-
humans are not necessarily good, nor will they reach perfection
through wisdom
-
nature is a deeply spiritual force but it reveals evil
-
instead of being capable of achieving social reform like the
Transcendentalists, man is very selfish and fails to make changes for
the better
ELEMENTS OF GOTHIC LITERATURE
What makes a work Gothic is a combination of at least some of these
elements:
A ___________________________, ruined or intact, haunted or not
_________________ ____________________ which are sinister or which arouse a
pleasing melancholy
____________________________, underground passages, crypts, and catacombs which,
in modern houses, become spooky basements or attics
_______________________________, dark corridors, and winding stairs
_________________________, a beam of moonlight in the blackness, a flickering
candle, or the only source of light failing
Omens and ancestral curses, magic, _____________________________ manifestations,
or the suggestion of the supernatural
A passion-driven, willful ___________________________-hero or villain
A curious ________________________________ with a tendency to faint and a need to
be rescued–frequently
A hero whose true identity is ____________________________________ of the novel
______________________________ (or terrifying) events or the threat of such
happenings
(http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/gothic/gothic.html)
In general,
E
lements of a
G
othic
T
ale include:
Mysterious _________________________________________
Mysterious __________________________ and ___________________________________
Live __________________________________
Mysterious ____________________________________
Suggestion of the ______________________________________________
Psychological Journey in and out of ____________________________________
Tale within a ________________________________________
Villain-Hero or ________________________________________________
Famous American
AUTHORS
of Gothic Literature
Herman Melville
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Stephen King
The mystery of edgar allan poe
1. ____________________________ Poe’s mother Elizabeth worked as an ______.
1. ____________________________ Poe’s family was deserted by his ______.
2. ____________________________ In Richmond, Elizabeth came down with ______ & died at age 24.
3. ____________________________ Poe went to live with the family of John ______, yet not adopted.
4. ____________________________ John’s wife also suffered from ______.
5. ____________________________ Poe enrolled at the University of ______.
6. ____________________________ He was short of money so he tried to raise cash by ___.
7. ____________________________ He had to leave school when ______ refused to cover his debts.
8. ____________________________ Escaping from his debts, Poe joined the ______ under an assumed name.
9. ____________________________ Poe attended ______ briefly.
10. ___________________________ By the age of 20, Poe had published two books of ____.
11. ____________________________ After Mrs. Allan’s death, Poe moved to ______ to live with his aunt Marie Clem and her daughter Virginia.
12. ____________________________ In 1834, John Allan died and left Poe out of the ______.
13. ____________________________ In 1835, Poe became the ______ of the Southern Literary Messenger.
15. ____________________________ Virginia was ______ years old when she married Poe.
16. ____________________________ In 1842, Poe asked President ______ for a government job.
17. ____________________________ Poe created the ______ story.
18. ____________________________ “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” was the first ______ story.
19. ____________________________ C. August Dupin was the first ______ in fiction.
20. ____________________________ “The Telltale ______” is the story of a murderer whose guilt gives him away.
21. ____________________________ In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Poe is probably using the Red Death to represent ______.
22. ____________________________ Virginia suffered from ______ for five years.
23. ____________________________ In 1845, Poe received his greatest public fame from his poem “The ______.”
24. ____________________________ For this poem he was paid only $______.
25. ____________________________ Poe never recovered from Virginia’s death. His poem “Annabel ______” immortalizes her.
26. ____________________________ Poe died at the age of ______.
27. ____________________________ In his last year, he pursued many women, looking for a bride. Among them was Helen ______.
28. ____________________________ Poe left for New York to tell Maria Clem about his engagement, but he disappeared for several days. He was finally found in ______ (city name), under
mysterious circumstances.
“
Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE;--
And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.
She was a child and I was a child, In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love-- I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsman came And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me:--
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling And killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we--
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in Heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea--
In her tomb by the side of the sea.
Edgar Allan Poe
“The Raven”
SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS
1. What is the speaker’s mental and physical state in the first stanza?
2. What important information do we lean in the second stanza?
3. What words and phrases in the third stanza show the increase in emotional tension in the speaker?
4. Pallas is:
5. What loss of control is indicated in line 64?
6. From line 79 on, the speaker seems to lose whatever emotional control he had. How is the disorder of his senses indicated in lines 79-80?
7. What is the weather that night?
8. What is the mood/ tone of the poem?
9. Why does the speaker talk to the raven?
10. What does the raven tell him?
Edgar Allan Poe
“The Black Cat”
1. What is the common belief held by people about black cats?
2. Who tells the story?
3. From what point of view is the story told?
4. Why does he tell the story? Please provide exact quote.
5. Where is he when he tells the story?
6. What is going to happen?
7. How many cats are in this story? Under what circumstances do they appear?
8. What do they look like?
9. What is the name of the first cat and why is the name appropriate?
10. What brought about the change in the narrator from his childhood to now?
b.
11. Define pervert.
12. Define perverseness.
13. What did the speaker do to the cat?
14. What happened that night?
15. When he visited the ruins after the fire, what did he see?
16. What happened to his wife?
17. How does he propose to dispose of her body?
a.
b.
c.
d.
18. What does he choose and why does this seem like a good choice to him?
19. How does the narrator give himself away? To whom? Why?
20. Explain “I have walled the monster up within the tomb.”
21. Who is the monster?
23. What is the narrator’s state of mind at the end of the story?
Edgar Allan Poe
“Masque of the Red Death” Pre-reading activity
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Look up before reading.
Vocabulary – find a one to three word synonym for each word
1. Masque 2. Profuse 3. Termination 4. Dauntless 5. Sagacious 6. Dominions 7. Seclusion 8. Pestilence 9. Extremity 10.Emanating 11.Writhed 12.Hue 13.Waning 14.Appals (appalls) 15.Cessation 16.Habiliments 17.Impetuosity 18.Illimitable
What is the Black Death or Bubonic Plague?
What are its symptoms and what happens to those who acquire it?
What is
tubercu
losis?
What are its symptoms and what happens to
“The Masque of the Red Death”
Map Activity
While reading “The Masque of the Red Death,” take note of the following items.
Room (in order
of introduction) Color of Room Color of floors andwindows within rooms, if anyDistinctive item(s)
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
Now, re-read the section about each room. Underline or highlight the part of the story that answers the following questions:
1. What is the layout of the seven rooms?
2. What is the lighting like in the rooms?
3. What is the lighting like outside of the rooms?
4. Which room is the most western room of the seven?
A
llegory
is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative,
are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has
moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of
abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.
Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment”
1. Define the following words:
a. Mendicant
b.Infamous
c. Melancholy
d.Hippocrates
e. Effervescent
f. Delirium
2. Who is Dr. Heidegger?
3. What is the experiment?
4. Who participates?
a.
b.
c.
d.
5. How are they alike?
6. Why do they accept his offer to participate?
7. What is the symbolism of the rose?
8. What is the symbolism of the mirror?
9. Why does the doctor not participate?
11. Explain the lines: “Well, I bemoan it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, I would not stoop to bathe my lips in it—no, though its delirium were for years instead of moments.”
12. Define allegory:
13. How do the people in the story revert to their younger personalities? What is each one like?
a.
b.
c.
d.
14. What abstract quality does each character represent?
a.
b.
c.
d.
15. Now, write three questions – be sure to make them open-ended – for open discussion:
a.
b.
c.
GOTHIC ELEMENTS
Mysterious setting Mysterious sounds and sights Live Burial Mysterious Illness
Suggestion of the Supernatural Psychological Journey in and out of sanity
