Religion as a Gothic Element in American Romanticism Essay -- Romantici

Religion as a Gothic Element in American RomanticismAmerican Romanticism can be strongly defined through its use of Gothic elements. Websters defines gothic as of or relating to a style of fiction characterized by the use of bare or remote settings and macabre, mysterious, or violent incidents (529). Pre-American Romantic writers, such as Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards, do not take to the woods towards the gothic in their writings of righteousness and religious elements. Although God is mysterious to twain writers, they maintain certain characteristics and aspects judge of them and their religion. They keep their texts true to their beliefs. However, bloody shame Rowlandson begins a transition phase for the writers of this period. She begins to encounter God and religion in a darker and /more mysterious manner. By the time James Fenimore Cooper is writing, he blurs religion between cardinal different religions. The Christian and the Indian God becomes mixed, along with their heaven. Whereas the earlier writers tend to understand and accept their God, the writers in the American Romantic period resort their God adding a gothic twist to their religion and beliefs.Anne Bradstreet believes if she lives her life the bearing God meant her to live it, things will work out fine for her. She writes, nigh 16, the Lord laid His hand sore upon me and smote me with the smallpox. When I was in my affliction, I besought the Lord and confessed my pride and vanity, and He was entreated of me and again restored me (145). Bradstreet has a traditional study about God. She believes if she lives her life as a not bad(predicate) person, she will be rewarded for it. If she lives her life full of pride and vanity, then she will pay the consequences. The good and just are rewarded ... ...us. Cora and Uncas end up together. There is the traditional sentimentalist ending of riding off into the sunset, but into a Heaven which accepts both Indians and whites equally, ad ding elements of the gothic.Works CitedBradstreet, Anne. To My Dear Children. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. pertly York Norton & Company, 1999. 144-147.Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. New York Viking Penguin Inc, 1986.Edwards, Jonathan. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York Norton & Company, 1999. 200-211.Gothic. Websters ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. 1991 ed.Rowlandson, Mary. A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York Norton & Company, 1999. 148-164.