Edgar Allan Poe

Romanticism and the

Gothic

Romanticism vs. Gothic

Romantic writers celebrated the beauties of nature.

Gothic writers were peering into the darkness at the supernatural.

Romanticism developed as a reaction against the Age of Reason. The romantics freed the

imagination from the hold of reason, so they could follow their imagination wherever it might lead.

For some Romantics, when they looked at the individual, they saw hope.

For some Romantic writers, the imagination led to the threshold of the unknown—the shadowy region where the fantastic, the demonic and the insane reside. When the Gothic's saw the

individual, they saw the potential of evil.

Gothic Movement in America

The Gothic Tradition was firmly established in Europe before American writers had made names for themselves.

By the 19th century, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathanial Hawthorne, and to a lesser extent Washington Irving and Herman Melville were using the Gothic elements in their writing.

Edgar Allan Poe was the master of the Gothic form in the United States.

Edgar Allan Poe His stories have:

Settings that featuring○ Dark, medieval castles○ Decaying ancient estates

Characters that are○ Male—insane○ Female—beautiful and dead (or dying)

Plots that include○ Murder○ Live burials○ Physical and mental torture○ Retribution from beyond the grave

For Poe, it was only in these extreme situations that people revealed their true nature.

The Gothic dimension of Poe’s fictional world offered

him a way to explore the human mind in these

extreme situations and so arrive at an essential truth

The Raven

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The RavenPage 273

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Poetry Terms

“Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.” ~Thomas Gray

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” ~Robert Frost

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonant sounds, in two or more neighboring words or syllables.

The wild and wooly walrus waits and wonders when we will walk by.Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers, and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees…

-- from Silver by Walter de la Mare

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? (almost ALL tongue twisters!)

Consonance

The repetition of a consonant sound at any place in a series of words.

I dropped the locket in the thick mud.

Eric liked the black book

“And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain.” –Edgar Allen Poe

Assonance

A repetition of vowel sounds within words or syllables.

Fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese.

Free and easy.

Make the grade.

The stony walls enclosed the holy space.

Rhyme

Internal Rhyme: The rhyming of words within one line of poetry

RhymeEnd Rhyme: Rhyme that appears at the end of two or more lines of poetry

Dust of Snow by Robert FrostThe way a crowShook down on meThe dust of snowFrom a hemlock treeHas given my heartA change of moodAnd saved some partOf a day I had rued.

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The Raven

and Poetry

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“Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers…”

- from “Three Days to See” by Helen Keller

Alliteration Examples

The Eagleby Alfred Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Assonance Example

Consonance Examples

"'T was later when the summer wentThan when the cricket came,And yet we knew that gentle clockMeant nought but going home.

'T was sooner when the cricket wentThan when the winter came,Yet that pathetic pendulumKeeps esoteric time."

Description: In these lines, Emily Dickinson has used the consonant 'm' frequently through the poem to emphasize the words.