Gothic Literature

Gothic Literature
Romanticism
Transcendentalism

Include definitions, visuals, and examples of stories, including authors, for each.


Gothic Literature- is a type of literature that combines elements from both romance and horror.This genre is believed to have been invented by Horace Walpole. Melodrama and parody were in Gothic literature were also made by Walpole. Gothic literature origins can be traced to historical, cultural, and artistic examples. In Gothic novels you can find figures such as the demon lover, the devil, and other demons. The writers of this genre wrote very much on along with the time. The impact from social and political was very high in that time. One thing that impacted their writing would be the French Revolution. The Gothic worlds were said to illustrate fear about what might happen, what might go wrong, what could be lost if they stayed on the path of what the government wants. This also reflected the want of to return to fantasy and the belief in supernatural things as in the middle ages. This type of work could be seen through the writings of William Shakespeare in stories like Macbeth and Hamlet.

Romanticism- does not necessarily mean romance although occasionally romance is in this type of art. Romanticism is known as an international and philosophical movement that illustrated again the ways people of the Western cultures thought about themselves and the world. Romanticism began in the 1770's and went on into the second half of the nineteenth century. It came later for American literature than European though. After the type of literature had been found we later find that it was put into art and music. A few Romantic writers were Robert Burns and William Blake of England who wrote poetry, Goethe and Schiller had writings in Germany, and Rousseau's writing through out Europe had a big impact for this type of writing. The Romantic period would also be known as the "age of revolutions". This meaning the time was when the American and French Revolutions occurred. (One book written in that time was a Tale of Two Cities about the French Revolution written by Charles Dickens). It was said that a revolutionary energy was found in Romanticism. It transformed not only the ways of writing, but also the way people saw the world.

Transcendentalism- is an American literary, political, and philosphical movement in the early nineteenth century based around Ralph Waldo Emerson. Other Trascendentalists were Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Amos Bronson Alcott, Frederic Henry Hedge, and Theodore Parke. In an essay written called An Essay on Transcendalism by Charles Mayo Ellis he said, "Transcendentalism... maintains that man has ideas, that come not through the five senses, or the powers of reasoning, but are either the result of direct revelation from God, his immediate inspiration, or his immanent presence in the spiritual world, and it asserts that man has something besides the body of flesh, a spiritual body, with senses to perceive what is true, and right and beautiful, and a natural love for these, as the body for its food." They had no doctrine, but Emerson would not accept the term of Christian when speaking of God. He wanted the term "thiest" which they thought applied more to their beliefs.