Notes over the American Gothic Period of Literature
Elements of Gothic Writing:

Weird Settings

macabre plots

fantastic, demonic, insane

saw potential evil in people

supernatural

imaginative distortion of reality

Famous Gothic Writers:
European: Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker
American: Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Herman
Melville
Poe's Philosophy: Only in such extreme situations as the Gothic story portrayed
would people reveal their true nature. He used these extreme situations as
a means to explore the human mind to arrive at an essential truth.
The Gothic Period came about as a reaction against Romanticism, which itself
was a reaction against the Age of Reason.
The Southern Gothic:
The Gothic period of literature started in the early 1800's and lasted until just after
the Civil War (1861-1865). Later, in the 20th century, Southern Writers used many
of the same elements as the Gothic period, earning their writing the distinction of
being classified as the Southern Gothic.
Differences:
medieval castle became a decaying plantation; ghostly figures became the
haunting of one's past; criminals, con men and fools replaced ghosts as the
antagonists
Authors of the Southern Gothic: William Faulkner, Truman Capote, and Flannery
O'Connor.