unit 6 american gothicism and anti transcendentalism

ELAALRL3 The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.

ELAWLRL1.3.a.i The student identifies and analyzes elements of poetry from various periods of world literature and provides evidence from the text to support understanding; the student:

• a. Identifies, responds to, and analyzes the effects of diction, syntax, sound, form, figurative language, and structure of poems as these elements relate to meaning.
  • i. sound: alliteration, end rhyme, internal rhyme, terza rima, consonance, assonance

ELAALRL2 The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in a work of American literature and provides evidence from the work to support understanding.

Essential Questions:

• What draws people toward things that are mysterious?
• Are people generally good or generally evil?
• Think about the Transcendentalists' philosophy for a moment. With which of their ideas would you disagree?

Key Terms:

• Gothicism
• Narrative Poem
• End Rhyme / Internal Rhyme
• Alliteration

Me personally, i fall inbetween transcendentalism and dark romanticism. I believe in original sin, but i just believe that was where sin started. Original sin is the reason we know how to sin, but not neccessarily the reason why people are evil or have insane thoughts. On the other hand, i dont believe in the philosophy of transcendentalism either. No human being is perfect, everyone sins on a daily basis, but i see where they are coming from with their views on the government.



     The story "the black cat" had alot of examples of dark- romanticism or gothicism. The story starts out with a normal human like anyone else. He has a normal family, he loves pets, and he is suppose to be happy. Really he isnt happy with life. There was no evidence of something that really caused the main charachter in the story to gain evil thoughts. His evil thoughts came after day to day of life.
     He loved his black cat, he often reffered to the cat as a friend or buddy. Over time he had became so angry with who knows what, that he became violent. he took his violence out on an innocent creature, which was much easier to do then to hurt his wife or hisself. He took the cat and ripped out his eye ball, and he got an abnormal feeling from what he done. I think he liked the feeling cause it was different from the norm of life which he had obviously gotten tired of.
     He was human, he did have feelings, he did feel remorse, but the feeling he got from his violence was greater than those other emotions that he had. At the smallest aggravation of the cat, he killed it. He didnt only kill it but he hung it, and made it suffer. The evil the main character had relates to the philosophy of gothicsm. The evil he had in his brain came from nowhere, believed to be from original sin. He felt bad at first but then he killed his wife. When the cops came and searched for her, he felt no remorse. The evil thoughts obviously grew.



the raven:

"and my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor"
shall be lifted "nevermore"

"then this ebony bird beguilting my sad fancy into smiling. by the grave and stern decorum of the coutenance it wore."

INTERNAL RHYME :
ah destincly i remember, it was in the bleak december, and each seperate dying ember.

END RHYME:
let me see then what thereat is, and this mystery explore
let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore

ALLITERATION: