1. The Darkness within
Unit of Study: No. 4

2. Who is invited to this shindig?
Edgar Allen Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Stephen King

3. Questions to ponder
How does a conscience drive an individual’s actions or feelings?
Are actions that benefit yourself but harm others justifiable?
Is passing judgment upon others acceptable?
Why do people fear the unknown?
How does reputation influence a person’s identity?

4. A slight journal
Write a journal entry answering the following questions.
What is the scariest or most frightening thing about yourself?
What is the worst thing that you have wished upon another?
What is the highest price you would pay for what you really wanted?
Remember, price isn’t limited to money…

5. Literary Movement
We’ll be discussing a major literary movement or period
The works within a literary movements share many similar qualities.
Movements are gradual shifts

6. Romanticism
When literary theorists and critics speak of Romanticism, they do not mean this:

7. Literary Romanticism
Begins in the 1770’s and runs strong until around the 1870’s (one hundred years or so)
Starts in England and Germany with poetry and art
Response to Rationalism
Coincides with the “age of revolutions”
American Revolution
French Revolution
Industrial Revolution
Various political and economic upheavals

8. Elements of Romanticism
Imagination
Nature
Symbolism
Individualism
Everyday and Exotic

9. Imagination Imagination is the most important use of the brain
It allows us to be creative
We not only perceive out world, but help create it
Human’s version of the power of creation found in Nature or God
Where feeling and intellect work together

10. Nature Work of art created by the divine A language of symbols
A healing power
A refuge from artificial civilization

11. Symbolism A symbol represents other ideas/concepts
Romantics saw this as a superior means of communicating ideas than a one-to-one relationship
Nature was a collection of symbols that God used to communicate to humans

12. Individualism
Romantics were for individualism, uniqueness, and eccentricity
Hero-artists, men who spat in the face of God, outcasts
Preferred boldness, suggestion, free-experimentation
Rejected absolute systems, each person must figure out their own system
Art as creation

13. The everyday and exotic
Society was complex
Revered the common man, children
Alternately, set writing in exotic times/places
Appeared in paradoxical situation
Paradox – a statement that seemingly contradicts itself, but shows the possibility of truth

14. Paradoxes “Je ne parle francais pas” – Bart Simpson
Can a man drown in the fountain of eternal life?
Nobody goes to that restaurant; it's too crowded.
“Do not read this sentence.”
"What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young."-George Bernard Shaw
Time Traveler’s Paradox

15. Write again
Can you think of anything you have read, seen, played, or listened to that might be considered Romanticism?
What was it? Where was it?
Why do you think it was Romanticism?