gothic literature
Use: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/gothic/gothic.html
European Gothic architecture included these six characteristics:
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4.
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5.
3.
6.
The upward movement of many of these details was meant to suggest _______________
This Gothic architecture provided the perfect setting for the tales that would become
known as Gothic literature in Europe, and later, in America.
USE: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/gothic/gothic.html
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~saw2z/gothicfictionweb/AmericanGothic.htm
Typical Elements of American Gothic Fiction:
 Setting:
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Characters:

Plot:

Supernatural Details:
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Emotion:
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Romantic themes:
The Gothic creates feelings of _________, __________, and ____________ and tends to
the ______________ and the ________________.
A tendency to the _____________ and _____________ which appears in writers like
_____________________, Truman Capote, and ______________________ has been
called _______________________.
USE: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/topic_2/welcome.htm
Gothic literature was launched in the ____________________________.
European Gothic literature featured accounts of terrifying experiences in ancient castles
(family estates in later American Gothic tales). These experiences were connected with
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
EDGAR ALLAN POE
Biography:
USE: www.online-literature.com/poe/
Edgar Poe was born ________________________ in Boston. His parents were both
____________ and both ________ before Edgar was three years old.
3 Facts about Poe’s Education and Career:
1.
2.
3.
He married ___________________, who was ____ years old and his _____________.
After his wife died in 1847, Poe turned to _______________ and displayed increasingly
_________ behavior.
There are conflicting accounts surrounding the last days of Edgar Allan Poe and his cause
of death. Some theories are that he died from ________________, _________________,
or ________________.
Literary Anthology:
USE: www.online-literature.com/poe/
His first published book was ___________________________.
Contributing greatly to the genres of horror and science fiction, Poe is now considered
the father of the _________________________ and highly lauded as a _________.
Poe’s verses illustrate an intense faculty for technical and abstract beauty, with the rhyming
art to excess, an incorrigible propensity toward nocturnal themes, a demoniac undertone
behind every page. … There is an indescribable magnetism about the poet’s life and
reminiscences, as well as the poems.
Walt Whitman in his essay titled “Edgar Poe’s Significance”
In his oft-quoted works we can see his darkly passionate sensibilities________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1840):
I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape
features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter
depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to
the after-dream of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the
hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the
heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination
could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it - I paused to think - what was it
that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?
In this opening description of the setting for this tale, what kind of tone is set by the
words used above? Highlight specific phrases that set this tone. What do you think this
story might be about?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Use: www.poemuseum.org/poes_life to explore more about Poe’s life and works. List
below his most famous pieces:
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6.
SAVE http://www.poemuseum.org/selected_works/index.html to your FAVORITES.
You will need easy access to it for the next couple of weeks.