Above all American gothic writers, however, Edgar Allan Poe stands alone as the father of the gothic movement. The above traits of gothic literature can be perfectly experienced in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Because of such beliefs, gothic literature can easy be described as mysterious, ill-omened, containing of gruesome death and terror, and exposing the dark side of human nature it also includes horrific supernatural beings and women in agony and torturous situations. In retaliation to the transcendentalist movement, which heavily supported the idea that all human beings have the abilities and opportunities to accomplish and experience greatness, gothic writers created their own genre of literature using their own belief of the existence of evil and the idea that individuals are partial to sin and self destruction. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, both Europe and America witnessed the rise of a new literary movement known as the gothic, or anti-transcendentalist, movement. Edgar Allan Poe grew up through some of the worst evils in the world, giving him the horrid world view he was famous for in his literature, some examples being “The Haunted Talace,” “The Premature Burial,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” But out of Poe’s many great works, the one work in particular that epitomizes the gothic genre is his poem entitled “The Raven.” It’s easy to see why Poe was so successful as a gothic writer when one looks at his childhood he lost everyone and everything he was close to beginning at age two with his mother’s death.
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Although the named authors are still celebrated and adored, Edgar Allan Poe is considered the father of the gothic movement. Such characteristics can easily be seen in popular American gothic literature such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Many gothic stories included horrific supernatural beings and women in distress. Gothic literature was generally mysterious and ominous, filled with death and terror, used omens and foreshadowing, and showed the dark side of human nature.
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Gothic writers, however, believed that such ideas were too optimistic they saw life as menacing and tragic, and instead created a new genre that was filled with their own beliefs of the realities of evil and an individual prone to sin and self destruction. The American gothic movement came about in reaction to the transcendentalist movement, which strongly supported the idea that everyone has both the ability and opportunity to accomplish and experience greatness.