The Dark Romantics/ Webquest
http://hem.passagen.se/hehe/what_is_dark_romanticism.htm
1. What is Dark Romanticism?
a movement in literature, music, movies, comics etc. towards the unfettered expression of the
decadent natural world and the obscure supernatural world.
2. What is Romanticism? (third definition)
the quality or state of being romantic; the reaction from classical to mediaeval forms and to the
unfettered expression of romantic ideals which originated in Germany about the middle of the 18th
cent., and reached its culmination in England and France in the first half of the 19th cent.
3. Who provides the theoretical background for DR?
Edmund Burke
4. What did Dark Romanticism React against
Age of Enlightenment and it's blind materialism and faith in reason
Ignore section on Dark Romanticism Today
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_romanticism
Section on Relation to Gothic
1. Where did Gothic Fiction originate
mid-nineteenth-century reaction to the American Transcendental movement in New England
2. What are some of the elements of Gothic Fiction?
The literature is less confident with respect to perfection to show the quality of mankind, basing off of
Transcendentalism beliefs
Dark Romantics present individuals as prone to sin and self-destruction
3. What major Authors are considered Dark Romantics?
Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction
(intro only)
1.
2.
What is the primary feeling associated with Gothic Lit? terror
What is the sublime? (click link and return)
is the quality of greatness or vast magnitude, whether physical, moral, intellectual,
metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic
3. Describe what might be present in the Gothic landscape?
Crumbling, decomposing buildings, skulls, dark, depressing weather
4. How did Gothic writers feel about the medieval period?
Gothic writers found the medieval period similar to their writings
5. Choose three stock characters from Gothic Fiction to define (click on links)
Supernatural- pertains to an order of existence beyond the scientifically visible universe
Darkness- is the absence of light
Death- is the termination of the biological functions that define a living organism