1.
Romanticism

2. Beginnings of a New Era Industrial Revolution in Europe
French Revolution
American Revolution
Time of renewal and freedom!
Satirized politics
Shift in focus on Individual place amongst all of the factories and sprawling industry
Man is Machine/ Man vs. God

3. Revolt against the Age of Enlightenment
Reaction against rationalism
Confronts the sublimity of nature

4. Turned to Nature for self-fulfillment
Relied on self and individual freedom
Embraced imagination and feeling
Embraced the gory and the imperfect
Embraced the exotic
Gothic Elements in Literature
Byronic ideals: gifted, imaginative loner

5. 1st Generation - Major Literary Figures
1789 – Mary Wollstonecraft
“Vindication of the Rights of Women”
1798 – Lyrical Ballads
“Lines written a few miles from Tintern Abbey”
William Wordsworth
“Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (handout)
Samuel Taylor Coolridge

6. William Wordsworth Born April 1770 Lost mother at 8 and father at 12
Separated from neurotic sister Dorothy
Attended Cambridge University
1795 met Samuel Coleridge
Published “Lyrical Ballads” and “Prelude”

7. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Born 1772
Father died when he was 9
Joined military to escape a woman
Made plans to make a utopian commune
Unhappy marriage
Suffered from many ailments
Became addicted to Opium
Died of heart failure in 1834

8. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Audio of the Poem
An old mariner relates events while at sea
Gothic Tale
Albatross
Ghostly visitations
Death personified
Sea monsters
Video of the Poem

9. The Byronic Hero Exile or outcast Conflicting emotions; bipolar
Self-critical
Distaste for
social norms
Troubled past
Rejected by
society
Self- destructive
Lack of respect for rank
Cynical; demanding; arrogant
Loner

10. Gothic
Gothic: inspired from the Middle ages. Supernatural connotations of Good and Evil Inspired art, architecture, literature

11. Macabre: literary quality that is characterized by a grim or ghastly atmosphere. In these works, there is an emphasis on details and symbols of death
Elements of Macabre
Repellent descriptions of the destructive effects of sin
I.e. Pardoner’s macabre trade in bones and relics
I.e. Mysterious and dark figure of the old man who has a supernatural ability to stay alive

12. 2nd Generation - Major Literary Figures
1816 –
Percy Shelley
John Keats
Lord Byron
1818 – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Daughter of William Godwin and
Mary Wollstonecraft

13. By Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley
Frankenstein
By Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley

14. Some things you need to know:
Author’s background
The gothic novel
The Byronic hero
The cautionary tale
Doppelganger
The Villa Diodati The Granger Collection, New York

15. Who was Mary Shelley? Born in London to Mary
Wollstonecraft and William
Godwin in 1797
Mother died 11 days later
of puerperal fever
Mary married Percy Shelley
They had 4 children
1st was born prematurely
The dream
Telling ghost stories
She was 18 when she wrote it.
Mary Shelley Corbis-Bettmann

16. The Gothic Novel Set in castles, dark towers, and torture chambers
Decay
Romanticism
Death
The Gothic Novel
Doom
Psychological and physical terror
Reader passes from everyday world into the dreadful and supernatural
Madness

17. The Byronic Hero Exile or outcast Self- destructive
Conflicting emotions; bipolar
Self-critical
Distaste for
social norms
Troubled past
Rejected by
society
Self- destructive
Lack of respect for rank
Cynical; demanding; arrogant
Loner

18. The “cautionary tales” in literature
Teach morals
Warn readers of dangers in society
What cautionary tales do you know?

19. Doppelganger German for “double image”
Two characters mirror each other
Represents a divided self or two alter egos who are more similar than dissimilar

20. To Begin Read: “Rime of Ancient Mariner”
Read: Frankenstein Letters 1-4
Answer Responding Questions

21. Framework Story A story within a story
Used in Canterbury Tales and many Shakespeare plays.
Frames the story

22. Arctic Travel

23. “Wild Fancies”
Alchemists: field of philosophy that speculated about natural processes
Involved chemical experiments
Medieval Alchemists
Believed they could transform ordinary metals into gold or
Create drinks that would extend life or youth forever
Discovered mineral acids and alcohol
Invented lab equipment

24. Alchemists Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa Magnus (1260)
imagined as having created an elixir allowing his apprentice to survive for hundreds of years.
Magnus (1260)
Believed in the peaceful coexistence of science and religion
systematic thought and exposition.

25. Alchemists Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus (1493-1541)
advocated the use of specific remedies for specific diseases,
introduced many chemicals (e.g., laudanum, mercury, sulfur, iron, and arsenic) into use as medicines

26. The Author’s Craft Suspense Produces tension for the reader
Reader grows curious about what will happen next
In a plot it depends on
Uncertainty about which of the two opposing forces will win
Desire to see one force defeat the other

27. Images of the Creature