Poe and GOthic writing
Gothic, Romantic, and Enlightenment periods are all have differences in the way the author writes. Gothic writing however, is a major shift in how a person looks at the human race and its qualities. Gothic literature was born in 1764 when Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto, which is considered to be the first gothic novel ever written. Many gothic writers were to come after him. Most notably, Edgar Allen Poe. Gothic literature was originally written as a reaction to the age of reason, order, and the politics of eighteenth-century England. Containing anti-Catholic sentiments and mythical aspects, Gothic literature explored the tension between what we fear and what we desire. ... The most important elements to the structure of gothic literature, however, are supernatural and unexplainable events. Supernatural and unexplainable events are crucial to the plot of a gothic story. ... In Edgar Allen Poe’s work, they act as the coincidence drivers as well as supply some of the omens and visions, another element of gothic literature. Without the element of supernatural and unexplainable events, much of the gothic literature would not stand on its own. To study the extent that Poe conforms, the conventions of the genre must first be identified. A dictionary definition of Gothic Horror states that it is of or like a style of writing popular in the late 18th century which produced stories set in lonely frightening places with ruined castles, haunted graveyards, and eerie noises.