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The Romantic Period

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Title: The Romantic Period


1
The Romantic Period
  • 1798-1832

2
Romantic Period
  • During this time period Mary Shelley published
    Frankenstein
  • (Published in 1818)

3
Romantic Period
  • You may be wondering
  • What does the word ROMANTIC
    mean in the context of this period?

4
Romantic Period
  • The word romantic comes from the term
    ROMANCE, and romance was one of the most
    popular genres of medieval literature.

5
Romantic Period
  • Medieval Connection
  • Romantic writers self-consciously used the
    elements of romance in an attempt to go back
    beyond the refinements of neoclassical literature
    to older types of writing that they saw as more
    genuine

6
Romantic Period
  • The romance genre allowed writers to explore new,
    more PSYCHOLOGICAL AND MYSTERIOUS aspects of
    human experience.

7
Romantic Period
  • The writers of the Romantic period lived in
    England during a time of SOCIAL UPHEAVAL.
  • The INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION in England changed the
    way people lived, where people lived, and how
    business was done.
  • (England changed from an agricultural society to
    an industrial nation w/ almost everyone living in
    the city)

8
Romantic Period
  • Writers before this time period tended to rely on
    SCIENCE and REASON to base their writings
    on(This period was called Restoration,
    Englightenment or Age of Reason)
  • Writers soon after this time period, such as the
    Victorian era, wrote to AFFECT CHANGE in society.

9
Romantic Period
  • In contrast, the Romantic writers focused on
    PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and IMAGINATION in their
    work. (This change in thinking was thought to be
    NEEDED b/c of all the political, economic, and
    social changes taking placeremember INDUSTRIAL
    REVOLUTION)
  • Thus, they were not as concerned with REASON
    Imagination was superior!

10
Characteristics of Romanticism
  • The predominance of imagination over reason and
    formal rules
  • Primitivism
  • Love of nature
  • An interest in the past
  • Mysticism

11
  • Individualism
  • Idealization of rural life
  • Enthusiasm for the wild, irregular, or grotesque
    in nature
  • Enthusiasm for the uncivilized or natural

12
  • Interest in human rights
  • Sentimentality
  • Melancholy
  • Interest in the gothic

13
Romantic Period
  • Mary Shelleys Frankenstein calls into QUESTION
    THE AIMS and METHODS OF SCIENCEwell explore
    this more while we study the novel..Muah Ha HA
    HAAA

14
Romantic Period
  • Romantic literature that included the elements of
    mystery, horror, and the supernatural is known as
    GOTHIC
  • Frankenstein is a Gothic Novel

15
Gothic Context
  • The gothic was first used as Medieval
    architectural term to describe a style of
    building that included gargoyles, scenes from
    Hell, and souls in torment

16
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17
Gothic Literature
  • The characters INNER EMOTIONAL
    LIVES receive a lot of attention.

18
Gothic Plot Elements
  • Ancestral Curse
  • The current generation suffers for the evil deeds
    of ancestors
  • Example Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher"

19
  • Body-snatching
  • Stealing corpses from graves, tombs, or morgues
  • Illicit trade in cadavers
  • Violation of religious space
  • Commercially motivated by science
  • Example King's Pet Semetery

20
  • Dreaming/Nightmares
  • Dredge up strong emotions ecstasy, terror, joy
  • Reveal urges, impulses, desires, even truths
    about oneself that one tries to hide
  • Reveal the future premonitions
  • Example Freddy Krueger

21
Signs/Omens
  • Reveal the intention of cosmic forces
  • Often represent psychological or spiritual
    conflict

22
  • Entrapment/Imprisonment (often physical but
    sometimes psychological)
  • Being confined or trapped, shackled to a floor or
    hidden away in a dark cell
  • Heightens the psychology of feeling there is "no
    way out"
  • Example Saw movies

23
  • Setting and "gadgets"
  • Physical elements allowing supernatural to
    display uncanny presence and abilities
  • "Supernatural props" vocal and mobile portraits,
    animated statues and skeletons, doors (portals)
    which open and close independently, secret
    passageways, secret messages manuscripts,
    forbidden/sealed chambers, etc

24
  • Gothic Counterfeit
  • Playful fakery of authenticity
  • The text is presented as a discovery or recovery
    by the editor, sometimes of an ancient or
    forgotten text
  • Cloaks the real writer's authorship
  • Complicates the point of view (makes things fun
    and intriguing)

25
  • The Grotesque
  • Mutations, deformities
  • A mix of two separate modes, such as comedy and
    tragedy, creating a disturbing fiction, in which
    comic circumstances often preclude horrific
    tragedy or vice-versa.
  • Example The Hunchback of Notre Dame

26
  • Mystery
  • An event or situation that appears to overwhelm
    understanding
  • Example Sherlock Holmes' mysteries, elements of
    The Picture of Dorian Gray and Frankenstein

27
  • Necromancy
  • The dark art of communicating with the dead
  • Examples Ouija boards, "Bloody Mary", séances
  • Also may involve journies to Hell Odysseus,
    Dante, among others

28
  • Revenge
  • Examples Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" or
    Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride
  • Somnambulism (sleepwalking)
  • Hidden sources of stress may be revealed or acts
    of guilt replayed
  • Superstition
  • Considered a belief in the supernatural or
    mystical and valuing ritual or miracles

29
  • Supernatural
  • Events or phenomena that defy the rules of
    natural law
  • More often (and intriguingly) could be explained
    or dismissed by the laws of everyday reality
    (however ambiguously)

30
  • Transformation
  • A striking change in appearance a change in form
    or function of an organism by a natural or
    unnatural process
  • Example Stevenson's Mr. Hyde, King's It, Count
    Dracula

31
Gothic Characters
  • Devil
  • spirit of incarnate evil
  • Ranges from
  • tragic villain-hero
  • punisher of sinners
  • tempter and deceiver
  • pure evil

32
  • Doppelganger
  • German doublegoer
  • Ghostly counterpart of another person
  • Body double, alter ego, identical other person
  • ExampleDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

33
  • Assorted monsters (supernaturally malignant
    beings)
  • The Pursued Protagonist
  • a force relentlessly, terminally and unavoidably
    pursues, persecutes or chastises another for a
    real or imagined wrong
  • Crime and retribution cycle
  • Hero-villain can be both pursued and pursuer

34
  • Unreliable narrator
  • Narrator's ability to accurately relate events is
    suspect
  • Narrator makes incorrect assumptions or
    conclusions, or misunderstands situations or
    other characters
  • Example Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart"

35
  • Villain Hero
  • The villain poses as a hero at the beginning of
    the story or...
  • The villain possesses enough heroic qualities to
    be seen as more than just a bad guy.
  • Example Dexter

36
  • The Pursued Heroine
  • A virtuous, idealistic and usually poetic young
    woman is pursued by wicked older, potent
    aristocrat
  • The pursuit threatens the young lady's morals and
    ideals (and often her virginity)
  • She usually responds with passive courage
  • Modified Twilight series

37
  • Revenant
  • the return of the dead upon the living
  • a ghostly being who returns to life

38
Settings
  • Cemetery
  • Haunted house, castle, estate
  • Presence of mist/fog

39
Other components
  • Often the protagonist is searching for
  • Forbidden Knowledge or Power/ Faust Motif
  • Attempts to turn himself into a god-figure
  • This usually causes the protagonist to become a
    "Fallen Man "

40
Thats all folks
  • THE END
  • Any Questions?
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