• Introduction to Gothic literature with a presentation of Edgar Allan Poe by two students.

    Presentation of the movement, within Romanticism.

    Defining sanity and mental illness.

     

    Gothic literature developed during the Romantic period in Britain; the first mention of "Gothic," as pertaining to literature, was in the subtitle of Horace Walpole's 1765 story "The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story" which, the British Library says, was meant by the author as a subtle joke. "When he used the word it meant something like ‘barbarous,’ as well as ‘deriving from the Middle Ages.’" In the book, it's purported that the story was an ancient one, then recently discovered. But that's just part of the tale.

     

    The supernatural elements in the story, though, launched a whole new genre, which took off in Europe. Then America's Edgar Allen Poe got a hold of it in the mid-1800s and succeeded like no one else. In Gothic literature, he found a place to explore psychological trauma, the evils of man, and mental illness. Any modern-day zombie story, detective story, or Stephen King novel owes a debt to Poe. There may have been successful Gothic writers before and after him, but no one perfected the genre quite like Poe.

    13/05

    https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the_tell-tale_heart_0.pdf

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