I. Note-taking Section – American Romanticism and Edgar Allan Poe
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Using the graphic organizer below, you are to take notes of important events, people, and places that comprised the American Romantic Movement in literature.
Use your notes to answer the questions which follow.
Objective: I will identify ten characteristics of the American Romantic Movement and five characteristics of the Gothic story.
Characteristics of
American
Romanticism Characteristics of the Gothic
Story
Romantics’
Point of View
Subject Matter
American
Romanticism
Rationalists’
Point of View
Characterization
Intuition and
Emotion
Setting and
Time
Edgar Allan Poe and Romanticism
Few writers exist outside of the currents of the times in which they live, and Poe is no exception. He is clearly a product of his time, which in terms of literature, is called the Romantic era. The Romantic Movement was one which began in Germany, moved through all of Europe and Russia, and, almost simultaneously, changed the entire course of American literature. Among England's great Romantic writers are
William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Lord Byron, Percy
Shelley, and Sir Walter Scott. Romantic writers in America who were contemporaries of Poe include Hawthorne (whose works Poe reviewed and admired),
Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, whom Poe did not like and to whom he was rather insulting in a review.
Poe's brand of Romanticism was akin to his contemporaries but most of his works often bordered on what was later called the gothic genre. The following discussion is not a comprehensive view of Romantic concepts, but instead, it is intended as a basic guide and explanation for some of the conventions or some of the devices often found in Poe's stories.
(1) Intuition and Emotion
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Perhaps the most dominant characteristic of the Romantic Movement was the rejection of the rational and the intellectual in favor of the intuitive and the emotional. In his critical theories and through his art, Poe emphasized that didactic and intellectual elements had no place in art. The subject matter of art should deal with the emotions, and the greatest art was that which had a direct effect on the emotions. The intellectual and the didactic was for sermons and treatises, whereas the emotions were the sole province of art; after all, Poe reasoned, man felt and sensed things before he thought about them. Even Poe's most intellectual characters, such as M. Dupin ("The Purloined Letter," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," etc.), rely more on intuition than on rationality. As one examines M.
Dupin, Poe's famous detective, one notes that he solves his crimes by intuitively placing himself in the mind of the criminal. Throughout Poe's works, his characters are usually dominated by their emotions. This concept explains much of the seemingly erratic behavior of the characters in all of the stories. Roderick Usher's emotions are overwrought; Ligeia and the narrator of that story both exist in the world of emotions; the behaviors of the narrators of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat" are not rational; in "The Cask of Amontillado," the hatred of Montresor exceeds all rational explanations.
Throughout Poe's fiction, much of the behavior of his characters must be viewed and can be explained best in terms of the Romantic period in which he wrote.
(2) Setting and Time
Usually in a Romantic story, the setting is in some obscure or unknown place, or else it is set at some distant time in the past. The purpose for this is so that none of Poe's readers would be diverted by references to contemporary ideas; Poe created new worlds so that his readers would concentrate wholly on the themes or atmospheres with which he infused his stories. Poe believed that the highest art existed in a realm that was different from this world, and in order to create this realm, vagueness and indefiniteness were necessary to alienate the reader from the everyday world and to thrust him toward the ideal and the beautiful. Thus, Poe's stories are set either in some unknown place, such as in "The Fall of the House of Usher," or else they are set in some romantic castle on the Rhine, or in an abbey in some remote part of
England, as in "Ligeia," or else they are set during the period of the Spanish
Inquisition (the fourteenth century), as in "The Pit and the Pendulum." In other words, Poe's reader will not find a story which is set in some recognizable place in the present time. Even Poe's detective fiction is set in France rather than in America, thus giving it a Romantic distance from the reader.
(3) Characterization
Often the characters are not named or else they are given only a semblance of a name. The narrator in "Ligeia" does not even know the Lady Ligeia's last name or that of her family. With the exception of a story like "The Cask of Amontillado," where the narrator is addressed by another character, or a story like "William
Wilson," where the title identifies the pseudonym of the narrator, we usually do not know the names of the narrators of the other stories discussed in this volume, or even the names of the narrators of most of Poe’s other works. For a Romantic like Poe, the emphasis of literature ought to be on the final effect and the emotion produced
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thereby. The greatness of "The Pit and the Pendulum" is not in knowing the name of the narrator but in sensing his fears and his terrors.
(4) Subject Matter
The Romantic writer is often both praised and condemned for emphasizing the strange, the bizarre, the unusual, and the unexpected in his or her writing, and it is out of the Romantic tradition that we get such figures as the monster in Frankenstein and Count Dracula. The Romantic felt that the common or the ordinary had no place in the realm of art. Poe eschewed or despised literature that dealt with mundane subjects. Such things could be seen every day. The purpose of art, for Poe, was to choose subjects which could affect the reader in a manner which he would not encounter in everyday life. Thus, the subject matter of many of his tales dealt with living corpses, with frightening experiences, with horrors which startled the reader, and with situations which even we have never imagined before.
In conclusion, what might sometimes seem puzzling in a story by Poe, such as an unexpected ending or an unexpected event, is not puzzling if we remember that what he created was a result of his writing during the Romantic tradition. While his tales can be read as "stories," they take on further significance as superb examples of the
Romantic tradition.
The 10 Characteristics of American Romanticism
1.
Values feelings and intuition over reason
2.
Places faith in inner experience and the power of the imagination
3.
Shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks unspoiled nature
4.
Prefers youthful innocence to educated sophistication
5.
Champions individual freedom and the worth of the individual
6.
Contemplates nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development
7.
Looks backward to the wisdom of the past and distrusts progress
8.
Finds beauty and truth in exotic locales, the supernatural realm, and the inner world of the imagination
9.
Sees poetry as the highest expression of the imagination
10.
Finds inspiration in myth, legend, and folk culture
The Gothic Story
The Fall of the House of Usher represents the highest achievement in the literary genre of the gothic horror story. By gothic , one means that the author emphasizes the grotesque, the mysterious, the desolate, the horrible, the ghostly, and ultimately, the utter fear that can be aroused in either the reader or in the viewer. Almost everyone is familiar with such characters as Dr. Frankenstein’s monster and Count Dracula, two of today’s pop culture horror characters who evolved from the gothic tradition, and it is probably not an exaggeration to say that most adults in the Western world have been exposed to some type of gothic tale or ghost story. We all know that a gothic story will often have a setting that will be in an old, decaying mansion far our in a desolate countryside; the castle will
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be filled with cobwebs, strange noises, bats, and an abundance of secret panels and corridors. The haunted castle is a classic setting of the gothic story. The author uses every literary trick possible to give us eerie sensations or to make us jump if we hear an unexpected noise. All these effects are created for one reason: to give us a sense of the ghostly and supernatural.
One of the primary aims of The Fall of the House of Usher is to create the single effect of an eerie and ghostly atmosphere and to do so, the story emphasizes the physical aspects of the various structures—the deep caverns or vaults where the Lady Madeline is buried.
In the story, a super-sensitive hero is presented. For example, Roderick Usher is a man who can not function in the “normal’ world. Often in the gothic story, the characters seem to possess some sort of psychic communication; this usually occurs between a member of the living world and a “living” corpse.
One of the stock elements of the gothic story concerns the possibility of returning to life after one is dead and, moreover, inhabiting one’s own corpse. Poe uses this effect to its very best—The Fall of the House of Usher climaxes with such an event. In addition to the above features of the gothic story, Poe placed a strong emphasis on the life of the mind after the death of the body. There is a superhuman strength to live—even after death.
Now that you have read and completed the graphic organizer, create ten questions, based on your notes that you would include on a test. The questions should be thought-provoking, challenging, and require more than a simple answer. Also, you need to provide the answers as well. Questions should be written in complete sentences.
II. Journal
Respond to the below prompt in a minimum of one paragraph.
Objective: I will discuss three reasons on how horror movies and violence affect society.
Why do people watch movies like Dracula, Psycho, and Saw? Why do we read book by
Stephen King or Anne Rice? In your opinion, do you feel today’s horror movies and literature, desensitize our society against the value of human life?
III. Literary Terms
Using the red section located in the back of your book, define the following terms.
As you read, locate one example for each term.
Objective: I will identify four terms in Poe’s literature which contribute to the overall atmosphere of the story.
 atmosphere
 allegory
 allusions
 stanza
 rhyme scheme
 alliteration
 sound effects
 onomatopoeia
 refrain
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IV. Vocabulary
Poe was a master of word usage which created atmosphere in his stories. For each of the below vocabulary words, define using your textbook. Then, using a Thesaurus, find one synonym or its antonym for each.
Objective: I will list one synonym for each word, and then recite ten sentences using the synonym to the teacher.
 pervaded
 sojourn
 equivocal
 discernible
 obstinate
 specious
 scrutinizing






 profuse vivacious prodigious pallid inordinate insipid palpable





 potency stupor morbid similitude demeanor emaciated
V. United Streaming – Edgar Allan Poe
Log onto Unitedstreaming.com. The login and password are below. Then, type
“Poe” into the search field. Click on the first search result entitled, “Great Books:
Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.” As you watch, answer the following questions in complete sentences.
Login: fb_student01
Password: fbisd
Objective:
I will investigate five reasons of how Poe’s real-life was mirrored in his works.
1.
What are his parent’s names? When were they married?
2.
What is Poe’s birth date?
3.
How did the family live?
4.
What happened when Poe was two-years old?
5.
Name the disease that afflicted Poe’s mother? How old was she when she died?
6.
How would his father’s abandonment and his mother’s untimely death affect the rest of Poe’s life?
7.
Who ended up taking Poe in after his mother’s death?
8.
Describe the new life Poe encountered when he moved to Richmond, Virginia.
9.
What had Poe always resented?
10.
What did Poe’s foster mother die of? How old was Poe at the time of her death?
11.
After her death, how does Poe begin to view himself? Especially to whom?
12.
By witnessing these deaths, what is created in Poe’s works?
13.
Poe’s stepfather dies when he is 27-years old. Now alone, what does Poe begin to create?
14.
Who does Poe fall in love with? Are they related? If so, how? How old is she when they marry?
15.
How does Poe destroy his own success?
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16.
With the last of his savings, what does Poe buy? For whom does he buy it?
17.
What is Virginia afflicted with?
18.
During her illness, what does Poe write? What is the poem about?
19.
What is Poe’s name synonymous with?
20.
What happened to Poe’s wife? What is ironic about the situation?
VI. “The Fall of the House of Usher” – page 264
Besides having a fascination for the weird and the spectral, Poe was also interested in the concept of the double, the schizophrenic, the ironic, and the reverse. It is important to note that there is a special importance attached to the fact that Roderick Usher and the
Lady Madeline are twins . Poe is creating in this story his conception of a special similarity between a brother and his sister; it is almost as if Poe were “inventing ESP”, for this accounts for the fact that Roderick Usher has heard the buried Lady Madeline struggling with her coffin and her chains for over three days before the narrator hears her.
Read the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” on page 264 in your textbook. Answer the following questions in complete sentences. Use the below strategies if you have trouble reading the story.

If the sentence is very complicated, look for is main subject and verb. Then, look for words that the phrases modify.
 If you do not understand Poe’s allusions, use the footnotes and the glossary.

Use the context clues to guess the word’s meaning.

Use the question boxes in the margins of the story. These questions will help you sum up important sections or note the main ideas of key passages.

Make predictions and modify them as you read.
1. What adjectives does Poe use to convey the atmosphere? Is there any alliteration?
2. Draw a sketch of the Usher’s house using the descriptions the narrator provides.
3. What question compels the narrator to think the way he does of the Usher’s house?
4. Who is the proprietor of the House of Usher?
5. Why has the narrator come to the House of Usher?
6. What was contained within the letter?
7. What quote from the narrator tells the reader it has been awhile since the narrator’s last
seen his friend?
8. What type of science have the Ushers been involved in for quite a while?
9. When the narrator is discussing one of the possible reasons for the Usher’s exquisite
musical sense, what reason does he believes allows for this?
10. How does having only one son to carry on the family name link the Usher family to
its ancestral home?
11. What does the narrator consider at the base of his superstitions about the Usher
mansion?
12. Describe the hallway the narrator is being led down in order to meet Roderick
Usher.
13. How does the studio where the narrator is led different from the hallway? List
specific words or phrases which compare and contrast the two.
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14. What did the narrator breath in the room?
15. How does Usher greet him?
16. Based on the physical descriptions the narrator provides, what can you deduce about
Roderick Usher’s appearance?
17. What inconsistency does the narrator discover about Roderick?
18. Describe Roderick Usher’s voice.
19. Roderick states the purpose of the narrator’s visit is what?
20. What is Roderick’s malady?
21. How does it display itself? Using your own words, describe the symptom in detail.
22. Roderick has resolved himself to the fact that he will struggle with _____.
23. What else does the narrator learn about Roderick’s mental condition?
24. In retrospect, what is the more palpable reason, the narrator deduces, for Roderick’s
current mental condition?
25. At the mention of her name, Lady Madeline does what? How does the narrator feel?
26. After seeing his sister, what does Roderick begin to do?
27. What do you learn about Madeline’s illness from footnote 18?
28. Name the types of activities the narrator and Roderick Usher do to alleviate
Roderick’s sad disposition.
29. How does the narrator interpret Roderick’s paintings?
30. Paraphrase, or rewrite, “The Haunted Palace” in your own words.
31. Name Roderick’s favorite book. What is his favorite book’s literary genre?
32. How long does Roderick plan to preserve Lady Madeline’s body? Where, specifically
in the house, is the burial place located?
33. What reason does Roderick give for this decision?
34. The narrator comments on the vault. Why does he call it “oppressive”? What does the
vault remind you of?
35. What seems strange about the deceased Lady Madeline’s face?
36. Describe what happens to Roderick in the days following Lady Madeline’s death.
37. When does the narrator begin to feel like Roderick?
38. What did the narrator notice in Roderick’s eyes that he hadn’t seen before?
39. In your opinion, what does the strange whirlwind symbolize?
40. How does the story Poe’s reading to Roderick relate to the actual tale?
41. When was the grating sound first heard in the story?
42. Describe what is happening to Roderick.
43. What terrible secret does Roderick finally reveal?
44. Who enters the room?
45. After this entrance, what happens to the narrator? to Roderick Usher? and to the
Usher mansion?
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VII. Vocabulary from The Raven
Using a dictionary, define the following words.
 lore
 pallid
 maiden
 entreat
 implore
 mien
 decorum
 craven


 discourse dirge fowl
VIII. The Raven – page 282
“The Raven” has the sound of a lyric, but, actually, it is a narrative poem with a plot that leads the reader from curiosity to horror. The poem explores one aspect of the dark side of human nature: what Poe himself called “that species of despair which delights in self torture.” In the jargon of psychology, the narrator “projects” onto the bird whatever his own wild imagination dredges up.
You may either read pages 282-286 or you may log onto www.teachersfirst.com/share/raven/start.fl.html which is an interactive version of the poem. The online version allows you to scroll over unfamiliar words and identify the many various literary elements Poe uses in throughout the poem. If you would like to listen to the poem being read, notify the teacher. He/she has it on CD. As you read, answer the following questions in complete sentences.
Objective: I will deduce one event from Poe’s life which is reflected in the poem.
1.
Look at the first 2 stanzas of the poem, lines 1-12. Identify the rhyme scheme.
2.
How does Poe use the second refrain of the poem to fill in crucial background information?
3.
How does he use it to establish a central recurrent idea in the poem?
4.
Where is “ here
” and what is the significance of “evermore”?
5.
In Greek myth the Raven symbolizes both wisdom and prophecy. What does the raven’s perching on the bust of Athena imply?
6.
Why does the speaker think at first that Nevermore is the bird’s name?
7.
What explanation does the speaker offer for why the Raven replies “nevermore” to every question? What do you think of this explanation?
8.
In lines 71-73, what sound effects does Poe employ? What do these effects tell the reader about the speaker’s mood and state of mind at this point in the poem?
9.
On page 286 look at the first two stanzas. How does the speaker’s attitude toward the bird change?
10.
In your opinion, what makes the raven’s response, “Nevermore”, in lines 93-96 possibly the most heart-rending throughout the entire poem?
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IX. Activities
Layer E: Using the paintings below, compare and contrast the paintings of Lady
Madeline. Then, answer the questions which follow.
Objective: I will locate five ways in which painters use gothic elements in their works.
1.
What do both paintings have in common?
2.
What difference do you notice in each painting?
3.
Referring to your notes taken from Part 1, the notes section, identify gothic elements in each painting.
Fall of the House of Usher II
By: Greg Hildebrandt
Lady Madeline
Artist Unknown
Layer D
Objective: I will discuss the raven’s symbology in three different cultures.
Poe’s use of the raven in his infamous poem draws on his wide readings about ancient and foreign cultures. For this option, you are to research the raven’s symbolism and lore in other cultures. Next, you must write a 250 word essay on your findings.
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Layer C
Objective: I will visually diagram Roderick Usher’s descent into madness from the beginning of the story until the ending.
For this option, you are to create a painting/drawing/movie poster of Roderick’s mental state from the beginning of the story all the way to the ending in “The Fall of the House of Usher”. The painting should incorporate a minimum of three gothic elements and convey to your audience how Roderick’s mental state deteriorated.
The drawing will need the following: color, literal or abstract elements, two paragraph explanation about the gothic elements in your painting.
Layer B
Objective: I will demonstrate comprehension of plot by connecting five musical movements to five events from The Fall of the House of Usher or The Raven .
You are to listen to Camille Saint-Saens “Danse Macabre” which is located in the
CD case at the Student Listening Station. As you listen, notate parts in the song where major events from either “The Fall of the House of Usher” or “The Raven” would take place. See the example below. Then, you must choose a contemporary or modern song or opera which, in your opinion, represents the plot of either reading selection, and complete a second diagram like the one below.
EVENT 1
The narrator’s first viewing of the Usher mansion.
Saint-Saens uses the brass section to create suspense.
EVENT 2
The narrator’s first meeting with Roderick
Usher
Saint-Saens uses the crash of the symbols, then the wind section to create a clandestine meeting
EVENT 3
?
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Layer A
Objective: I will evaluate the gender differences in one literary genre.
In the nineteenth century, many women began writing Gothic novels because it was socially more acceptable for them to write in that genre than to write “high” literature or philosophical treatises. In different cultures and times, there have been varying views on what kinds of writing were “suitable” for women. For example, in eleventh-century
Japan, women wrote diaries and romances rather than the learned, Chinese influenced poetry written by men. Ironically, the women’s work not respected in those days, such as
The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, have clearly stood the test of time.
Choose a literary genre which interests you to evaluate whether there are difference between men’s and women’s work, and to discuss what might cause these differences. Use the diagram below to compare and contrast your findings. Then, you are to write a 300 word essay explaining your findings. You must use at least one literary critique which can be found in the library, and present all your research with the final draft of your paper.
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