Gothic Romanticism, Then and Now

In the dark, mythic stories so abundant in today's popular culture, remnants of the founders of the genre can still be found. Before there was Interview with the Vampire and a new zombie movie every other year, there was Poe and Hawthorne.

Both these authors, among many others not discussed in class, helped to create the area of literature dedicated to the sensational and the supernatural that would thrive to include many various works and sub genres present today. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote of manipulating atmosphere by darkening shadows and making the experience on the surreal side while still containing at least a shred of plausibility. This particular idea has been explored thoroughly in films made about zombies. While the aspect of the supernatural is certainly present, and those situations do not actually happen in our realities, the stories are not completely impossible. The characers are real people, neighbors and friends, and how they react to the threats makes the reader or audience wonder what they would do if they were in the character's place. It is this little aspect of the potential truth or possibility, present first in the work of Hawthorne, that gives the stories an extra dose of emotion or fear, irrational as it may seem when the lights come back on.

Edgar Allan Poe also has had an effect on contemporary writers popular in today's culture. While he may not abide by Poe's one-sitting rule, Stephen King has thoroughly traversed Poe's idea of eliciting a reaction from a reader with unusual or unsettling incidents or narrators. King even admits, ""I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out." This emphasis on the sensations felt by the reader brought by words is very reminiscent of Poe's attitude toward his own works, and the attention to emotional response more than moral preaching. Both Poe and King employ unstable situations and characters, leaving readers across generations with a unique experience, full of unease and chills.

The roots of works popular today such as Twilight, Harry Potter, and even slasher horror movies, are clearly that of Gothic Romanticism, with an emphasis of the dark aspects of the human nature and experience. And while these pieces are prone to criticism for their supernatural aspects and irrationality, it is these exact features that developed and popularized their ancestors, and added to the experience of reading and enjoying literature.