Transcript Gothic Literature - SchoolWorld an Edline Solution

Gothic Literature
Edgar Allan Poe
“Father” of Gothic Literature in America
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1809-1849
Lived with foster parents (Allans) since age 3
His mom, foster mom & wife died of TB
Expelled from West Point for deliberately
misbehaving
• At 22, he moved in with Aunt & cousin
• Married cousin in 1836 (he was 27, she was 13)
Poe’s Legacy
• He reached popularity while alive, but lived
most of his life in poverty
• Considered the “founder” of the modern
short story
• Originator of the detective story
• Collapsed in a Baltimore street; died in the
hospital a few days later
Poe’s Unique Style
• Use of dashes or other interrupters in
sentences to suggest hurried or excited
speech
• Strong rhythm, produced by repetition of
phrases and word patterns
• Frequent use of figurative language (similes &
metaphors)
• Formal language suited to upper-class settings
and/or intellectual characters
Works by Poe
• “The Masque of the Red Death”
• “The Raven”
• “The Black Cat”
Nathanial Hawthorne
• 1804-1864
• Born in Salem, Massachusetts
• Had an unhappy childhood, and became
reclusive, like his mother
• Good friend of writers Longfellow & Emerson
• Like Poe, he was successful in his life, but
made little money
Hawthorne, Continued
• Died while visiting Former President Franklin
Pierce
• Best known/most successful work was a novel
called The Scarlet Letter
• Wrote “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” an
allegory
Hawthorne’s Style
• Like Poe, Hawthorne used formal language
• He used foreshadowing, to give clues about
what is to come
• He used imagery and figurative to create a
creepy “mood” or atmosphere in his works
Southern Gothic
• A modern offshoot of Gothic literature,
inspired by Poe and Hawthorne
• Popular in the early to middle 1900’s
• Writers still used creepy characters and
strange situations, but not to scare audiences
• Purpose was to comment on society
Flannery O’Connor
• 1925-1964
• Her characters are obsessed with sin and
salvation
• Characters are quirky and “grotesque”
• Wrote “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”
William Faulkner
• 1897-1962
• Adopted a strange style which used “stream of
consciousness” and fractured chronology
• Won the Nobel Prize in literature
• Wrote “A Rose for Emily”