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Edgar Allan Poe literary analysis
Edgar Allan Poe literary analysis
The influence of the gothic novel and romanticism on mary shelley
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1764 saw the birth of Gothic literature with the novel 'The Castle of Otranto', written by Horace Walpole. Although, this novel was based on some much earlier literature it set the standard for all the gothic novels that followed.
The 18th century was a time when political power was in the hands of a few rich men. Women did not have the vote, let alone any legal rights. The majority of the population lived in poverty. However things were changing ? the Church was no longer as powerful and the social structure was being questioned. For example, in 1789 the French monarchy was overthrown by the masses starting the French revolution. People were no longer so willing to accept their ?lot in life?.
It was in this background that the genre of Gothic literature was first written. It was called gothic because it placed emphasis on emotions such as awe, terror, insignificance and vulnerability. Gothic novels were fascinated with the grotesque, horrible and supernatural. They were a reaction against realistic literature of the 18th century. Some saw it as a sub-genre of romantics but others argued it was a genre in its own right.
Whatever its genre, gothic novels were typically characterized by their romanticism, melodrama and dark foreboding settings. They were critical of the society of the day and fiercely anti- catholic, disliking the church?s power and brutality. Some of the main gothic writers of the time included Edgar Alan Poe, Charles Dickens, H.G.Wells, Charlotte and Emily Bronte. By the end of the19th century Mary Shelley?s famous novel of Frankenstein had been published and later on Bram Stoker?s Dracula. Of all the stories written in the gothic era, they all contain many of the typical gothic ...
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...ation and descriptive language. Also, with The Tell Tale Heart the tension and suspense has great effect, making the reader wanting to read on. The building of suspense through specific language and literary devices is so firm and efficient that ?The Tell-Tale Heart? has become one of the most famous Gothic short stories in English literature. Poe?s choice of words is known to be precise and concise, and so is his writing style: no devices are used without having certain effects. The Cask of Amontillado is the least representative of the genre because it does not contain so many gothic features and the narrator has a reason for killing: revenge. I believe gothic literature has remained so popular because people like to be thrilled by horror and ghost stories and the central themes never age. The reader can empathise with the story without having to believe it.
Gothic Literature was a natural progression from romanticism, which had existed in the 18th Century. Initially, such a ‘unique’ style of literature was met with a somewhat mixed response; although it was greeted with enthusiasm from members of the public, literary critics were much more dubious and sceptical.
Gothic Literature is a literary genre that combines the elements of fiction and the ideas that is related to horror, death,
Gothic Literature is a literary style made popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th . This style usually portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the grotesque and other "dark" subjects. Gothic literature was named for the apparent influence of the dark gothic architecture of the period on the genre. Also, many of these Gothic tales took places in such "gothic" surroundings, sometimes a dark and stormy castle as shown in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, or Bram Stoker's infamous Dracula. These stories were romances, due to their love of the imaginary over the logical. Gothic literature gave birth to many other forms, such as suspense, ghost stories, horror, mystery, and also detective stories. Gothic literature wasn't so different from other genres in form as it was in content and its focus on the "weird" aspects of life. This movement began to slowly open may people's eyes to the possible uses of the supernatural in literature.
In today’s literature there are many types of genres that people find fascinating, all the way from fantasy to non-fiction. A very interesting genre is Gothic Fiction, where many elements are used to such as violence, ghosts, monsters and many other dark and mystical elements that make up Gothic Fiction. There are many great authors who are well known for their dark gothic style such as Edgar Poe, who has written the short story “Fall of the House of Usher” and the “Black Cat,” or Horacio Quiroga who has written “Feather Pillow” and a more recent author, Ransom Riggs who has written Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children. These three author’s stories all have gothic elements, such as psychological issues, death and fear that parallel one other which shows a common trend between gothic literatures.
Gothic literature was developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth century of the Gothic era when war and controversy was too common. It received its name after the Gothic architecture that was becoming a popular trend in the construction of buildings. As the buildings of daunting castles and labyrinths began, so did the beginning foundation of Gothic literature. The construction of these buildings will later become an obsession with Gothic authors. For about 300 years before the Renaissance period, the construction of these castles and labyrinths continued, not only in England, but also in Gothic stories (Landau 2014). Many wars and controversies, such as the Industrial Revolution and Revolutionary War, were happening at this time, causing the Gothic literature to thrive (“Gothic Literature” 2011). People were looking for an escape from the real world and the thrill that Gothic literature offered was exactly what they needed. Gothic literature focuses on the horrors and the dark sides to the human brain, such as in Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein. Gothic literature today, as well as in the past, has been able to separate itself apart from other types of literature with its unique literary devices used to create fear and terror within the reader.
Edgar Allen Poe was an English short-story writer whose work reflects the traditional Gothic conventions of the time that subverted the ambivalence of the grotesque and arabesque. Through thematic conventions of the Gothic genre, literary devices and his own auteur, Edgar Allan Poe’s texts are considered sublime examples of Gothic fiction. The Gothic genre within Poe’s work such as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat, and The Raven, arouse the pervasive nature of the dark side of individualism and the resulting encroachment of insanity. Gothic tales are dominated by fear and terror and explore the themes of death and decay. The Gothic crosses boundaries into the realm of the unknown, arousing extremes of emotion through the catalyst of disassociation and subversion of presence. Gothic literature utilises themes of the supernatural to create a brooding setting and an atmosphere of fear.
Key Elements of Gothic Literature Jasmine Giles People enjoy reading gothic literature due to its heart rate exciting nature. Without having to engage with any real danger, it is common for the reader to feel anxiety and impaitence when reading gothic fiction. In order for the reader to feel these emotions, the author uses certain elements, such as a gloomy setting and old-fashioned dialoge. In the stories “The Black Cat” and “The Tell Tale Heart”, by elgar allen poe, and “The Landlady”, by Roland Dahl, there are many similarites that remanticize the idea of horror and mystery. Some elements, however, bring out the disbolical horror of gothic literature: the setting, characterization, and the motif of suspense.
Older Gothic literature was in castles and deserted buildings. Modern Gothic novels were written in more populated areas. Another text that can be classed as ‘Gothic’ is the novel ‘Frankenstein’. The reason for it being a ‘Gothic’ novel is the way it has a mutant character. Frankenstein is a mutant and is made by a crazy scientist ‘I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of.
The period of the gothic novel, in which the key gothic texts were produced, is commonly considered to be roughly between 1760 and 1820. A period that extended from what is accepted as the first gothic novel, Horace Walpoles The Castle of Otranto ( 1764 ), to Charles Maturins Melmoth the Wanderer ( 1820 ) and included the first edition of Mary Shelleys Frankenstein in 1818. In general, the gothic novel has been associated with a rebellion against constraining neoclassical aesthetic ideals of order and unity, in order to recover a suppressed primitive and barbaric imaginative freedom ( Kilgour, 1995, p3 ). It is also often considered to be a premature ( and thus somewhat crude ) manifestation of the emerging values of Romanticism. Although the gothic genre is somewhat shadowy and difficult to define it can be seen as having a number of characteristics or conventions which can be observed in Frankenstein including stereotypical settings, characters and plots, an interest in the sublime, the production of excessive emotion in the reader ( particularly that of terror and horror), an emphasis on suspense, the notion of the double and the presence of the supernatural. (Kilgour, 1995; Botting, 1996 ; Byron, 1998 : p71 )
Gothic writing was usually written in mysterious and ominous tine. Most Gothic novels were filled with death and terror. The authors of Gothic novels most commonly filled their books with omens and foreshadows, showing the dark side of mankind.
In the examination of Northanger Abbey and Frankenstein one comes to very different conclusions as to why their authors used gothic elements. The two authors had very different purposes for their stories. Powerful emotions are often an element of gothic literature as it was a genre that took Romanticism to excessive extents. While Austen used this gothic element to satirize the gothic novel, Shelley used it to display a deeper point about the evils of ambition. Both authors exhibited characters severe emotions to show the importance of rationality instead of extremes, but ultimately had a different purpose in presenting this view.
In this period of time, an increasingly popular genre was gothic. A gothic novel contains mystery, doom, decay, old buildings, ghosts and madness but also subtler features such as courage, mysterious places. a sense of place, dreams and weather, but mainly abnormal events and... ... middle of paper ... ...
Gothic Tradition was said to have started in Europe. Gothicism came from the Romanticism in the early 19th century (Book Rags). Two people who are said to have started the gothic writing movement are Ann Radcliffe and Horace Walpole. They started this style with their stories: “The Mysteries of Udolpho” and “The Castle of Otranto” (Book Rags). The gothic movement also came about because it was related to the art and architecture during the Renaissance era. Edgar Allan Poe three main elements romance, horror, and supernatural events are used in his short stories and poems. A few of his most famous short stories are “The Raven”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Tell-tale Heart”, “The Black Cat”, “Eleonora”, and “Annabelle Lee” (Book Rags). Some of his writing is dark and gloomy while others have romance and comedy.
A work of Gothic Literature is one that contains at least some of the following qualities: a serious tone; ruins, a castle, or a dark, melancholy setting; scenes involving dungeons, underground passages, crypts, basements or attics; shadows, a beam of moonlight in the blackness, a flickering candle, or the only source of light failing; extreme landscapes, like rugged mountains, thick forests, or icy wastes; omens and ancestral curses; magic and/or the supernatural; a villain-hero or villain who loses the self or self-control; a curious heroine with a tendency to faint and a need to be rescued-frequently; a hero whose true identity is revealed by the end of the novel; and horrifying (or terrifying) events or the threat of such happenings. Poe's work includes many of these aspects of Gothic works.
The Gothic genre, or otherwise known as a Gothic romance, was a popular form of literature during the time that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Mary Shelley used the Gothic genre of Romantic literature in the writing of the novel Frankenstein. She a may have even been influenced by the Gothic structure, Castle Frankenstein, to write the Gothic novel Frankenstein (Williams 3). Gothic novels were a type of fiction that became popular in England during the 1700’s and early 1800’s (Dunn 279). Gothic novels were mysteries that often involved the supernatural and heavily filled with horror (?). Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein was one of the most prominent Gothic novels in the time of the Romantics (?). According to Frank J. Dunn, “In the 1800’s, elements of the Gothic novel appeared in other forms of fiction that shared its interest in the terrible and the exotic (279).” Gothic novels follow a set of many characteristics and aspects that help define what it truly is. Gothic novels have many different characteristics: they evoke terror both physical and psychological, they have character that keep themselves isolated in time or space from contemporary l...