Everyone Loves a Horror Story: American Romanticism
Romanticism: Historical Background & setting the scene:
Romanticism:
- An American Literary movement that elevated the ______________, the _____________, and
the _____________.
- It stressed strong ______________, imagination, freedom from classical correctness in art
forms, and _____________ against social conventions.
1. Why is the term “Romanticism” sometimes misleading?
Scary Elements:
- Through the exploration of the past and ______________, even ________________, realms –
the gothic novel—old ___________ and folklore.
- Through the contemplation of the natural world-- _________________-- its underlying beauty
and truth.
- Explored conflicts between __________ and ___________, psychological effects of guilt and
sin, and ___________.
Famous American Romantics and Mystery Writers:
- ______________________________
-
______________________________
-
______________________________
Scary Elements:
- Exploration of the past and of ___________, even _______________, realms—the gothic
novel—old legends and folklore.
- Contemplation of the natural world
- Supernatural ___________ and an atmosphere of _________ terror pervades the action.
- High emotion, sentimentalism, but also pronounced anger, and ____________.
- Use of words indicating __________, ____________, etc:
List some of the words here:
-
Explored conflicts between ___________ and ___________. Psychological effects of guilt and
sin, and _____________.
Mr. Amaral English II:Everyone Loves a Horror Story
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Literary Style and Themes:
- Recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of
decomposition, concerns of __________________, the reanimation of the dead,
and___________.
Washington Irving:
- “The Devil and Tom Walker”; “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”; “Rip Van Winkle”
- First American writer to achieve an ______________ ________________.
- Spent quite a bit of time abroad
Faust Legend:
- A tale about a man who sells his soul to the _________ for earthly benefits. Each retelling
involves a person who trades his soul for experience, knowledge, or treasure. Endings vary
with the protagonist either,
o Doomed to ____________
o Redeemed by _____________
The Myth of Robert Johnson (http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/jaal/2-03_column/)
At the age of 17, Robert Johnson would shyly stand just offstage while musicians entertained the masses with
verses and riffs of the Mississippi Delta blues. And in the wee hours of the morning, when the couples had worn
themselves out on the dance floor and the men on stage were picking at what was left of their callused hands, Robert
Johnson would quietly ask if he could play a few songs on the battered strings of his guitar. In their exhaustion—and
orneriness—the men would nod their approval, and Robert Johnson would take the stage.
Before the end of the first song, the groggy stragglers in the audience would holler up taunts and jeers at the
young boy on stage. And when he refused to quit and continued to play, patrons would begin throwing whatever was
within their reach—glasses, whiskey bottles, chairs—in hopes of convincing this pathetic wretch to return to the cotton
fields where he belonged. But Robert Johnson kept playing. He did his best to sing and strum with a passion that boiled up
from the depths of his soul while he ignored the ridicule. It did, however, take its toll.
Eventually, when the bar patrons left for home with the first rays of the rising sun, Robert Johnson, frustrated and
embarrassed, would make his way home with his guitar case dragging along like a tail between his legs. And the very next
week, the entire scene would play itself out again in a different "jukehouse" with the same disconcerting result. Until one
day, when he no longer desired to face the derision, Robert Johnson simply picked up his guitar and vanished into thin air.
Months later, a road-wearied Robert Johnson returned to the Delta taverns and bars, looking unmerciful and indifferent, to
wait his turn for a little time on stage. He offered no explanation for his disappearance or his whereabouts. He simply
stood quietly against the wall, sipping a bottle of whiskey with his guitar in hand, waiting for his chance at redemption.
And as the evening came grinding to a halt and the musicians began packing up, Robert Johnson once again climbed on
stage to the jeers of the audience that remained.
Despite his long absence, the sense of torment still had not left his soul. Every time he tuned his guitar, he
remembered the embarrassment, frustration, and humiliation of his previous performances. Nevertheless, he continued.
When Robert Johnson fell into the verse of the first song of his mysterious return, the people's attitude and demeanor
changed almost instantly. As his mournful voice, full of a brooding sense of despair, filled the small confines of the
predawn light, the myth and the reality of Robert Johnson began to take shape. He continued through his set, rarely
pausing in his sweeping visions of a darkened wasteland mirrored against the ominous moan of his tenor voice.
As the morning light started to filter through the cracks in the shuttered windows, Robert Johnson continued to
entrance the minds of his audience. When he reached a technical guitar phrase, he would turn his back to the audience to
conceal his fingers upon the instrument's neck, and the cataract in one of his eyes would make his gaze appear to drift
evilly over the dance floor. By the end of his final haunting note, the audience stood mesmerized by what they had seen,
heard, felt, and lived. The legend of Robert Johnson had begun. To this day, experts are mystified by some sounds Robert
Johnson was able to produce with his guitar, for there appears to be no manner in which one human being could play such
music by himself.
As the legend grew, people became more and more curious about the origin of Johnson's phenomenal skill and
expertise. It seemed impossible to comprehend the vision of the man on stage and the boy they had laughed at only a short
time before. His long absence had certainly been curious enough, and there were several claims that Johnson had been
seen during that time alone in the town cemetery, strumming away on his guitar while seated on a tombstone in the black
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of night. Despite the questions of how he acquired his amazing skill, Johnson refused to offer an explanation. The only
semblance of an answer resided in his lyrics. According to the myth, the greatest of all Mississippi Delta bluesmen,
Robert Johnson, traveled to a country crossroads and, at the stroke of midnight, sold his soul to the devil in exchange for
masterful musical abilities on the guitar.
His assault on the world of the blues lasted only a few short years; in the middle of a 1938 performance in Three
Forks, Mississippi, he crawled upon his hands and knees out into the street and collapsed in the gutter. Eyewitnesses said
that Robert Johnson spent his final hours "barking at the moon"—a reference to the guttural sounds of severe vomiting
associated with strychnine, the poison a jealous husband had placed that night in Johnson's whiskey bottle. However,
according to the mythology of Southern culture in the United States, a person barked at the moon when the devil appeared
to claim his or her soul. Even Johnson's infamous last words, "I pray that my redeemer will come and take me from my
grave," seemed to point to a mysterious connection with the afterlife.

The above is a Faust legend. Based on what you have read, define Faust legend below.
The Devil and Tom Walker vs. “The Devil went Down to Georgia”
The Devil and
Tom Walker
Similarities
“The Devil went
Down to Georgia
Characters
Conflict
Plot
Resolution
The devil went down to Georgia
(Charlie Daniels Band)
The devil went down to Georgia
He was lookin' for a soul to steal
He was in a bind
'Cause he was way behind
And he was willin' to make a deal
When he came upon this young man
Sawin' on a fiddle and playin' it hot
And the devil jumped
Up on a hickory stump
And said boy let me tell you what
I guess you didn't know it
but I'm a fiddle player too
And if you care to take a dare I'll make a
bet with you
Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy
But give the devil his due
I'll bet a fiddle of gold
Against your soul
'Cause I think I'm better than you
The boy said my name's Johnny
And it might be a sin
But I'll take your bet
And you're gonna regret
'Cause I'm the best there's ever been
Johnny rosin up your bow and play your
fiddle hard
Cause hell's broke loose in Georgia and
the devil deals the cards
And if you win you get this shiny fiddle
Mr. Amaral English II:Everyone Loves a Horror Story
made of gold
But if you lose the devil gets your soul.
The devil opened up his case
And he said I'll start this show
And fire flew from his fingertips
As he rosined up his bow
Then he pulled the bow across the
strings
And it made a [sic] evil hiss
And a band of demons joined in
And it sounded something like this
[Instrumental]
When the devil finished
Johnny said well you're pretty good old
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son
Just sit right in that chair right there
And let me show you how it's done
He played Fire on the Mountain
Run boys, run
The devil's in the House of the Rising
Sun
Chicken in a bread pan picken' out
dough
Granny does your dog bite
No child, no
The devil bowed his head
Because he knew that he'd been beat
In our society, it is not uncommon to see political
candidates caught doing illegal or morally/ethically
questionable acts to win elections; business executives
who make money in a dishonest way; athletes who bend
the rules to advance their sport; or students who cheat to
enhance their grades. While these individuals may not
face the devil and make a verbal pact, they are selling
out morally to obtain a desired result.
“The Bells” Edgar Allan Poe
I
Hear the sledges with the bells Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II
Hear the mellow wedding bells Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight! From the molten - golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle - dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! - how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
Mr. Amaral English II:Everyone Loves a Horror Story
And he laid that golden fiddle
On the ground at Johnny's feet
Johnny said, Devil just come on back
If you ever wanna try again
I done told you once you son of a bitch
I'm the best there's ever been
III
Hear the loud alarum bells Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now - now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale - faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells Of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells In the clamor and the clanging of the bells!
IV
Hear the tolling of the bells Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people - ah, the people They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
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On the human heart a stone They are neither man nor woman They are neither brute nor human They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls: And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells: Of the bells:
Poe As Immature Genius
__________________
Your Name
Keeping time, time, time
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells: To the sobbing of the bells: Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells To the tolling of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells, To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
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Mr. Amaral English II:Everyone Loves a Horror Story
Poe as Mature Craftsman
__________________
Your Name
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