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- - - - Melville, Poe, and Whitman shaped American literary identity in different ways:
        
        Melville: The Philosophical Novelist, explored the struggle between civilization and nature.
        
        Poe: The Master of Gothic Horror, focused on psychological horror and the macabre.
        
        Whitman: The Trandescentalist, celebrated democracy, individualism, and human experience.
  - - - This was a period of great prosperity & growing nationalism (a strong sense of national identity & pride), made possible by a remarkable increase in population, aided by a significant influx/arrival of immigrants attracted by the prospect of land, economic prosperity and freedom.
        
        The 1830s was an age of optimism & rapid westward expansion. At this time Boston and its neighbouring towns and villages were filled with a great intellectual excitement and activity. These young intellectuals (like Ralph Waldo Emerson & Henry David Thoreau) were dissatisfied with the old patriotism (from American independence) and were not interested in America’s power or wealth, and there was much talk about “The New Spiritual Era”. Instead they proposed to explore the inner self, the individual. In order to do this most of them kept diaries of their lives and feelings, studied philosophy, became vegetarians or nudists… In the centre of this intellectual activity was Trandescendalism.
  - - - Trandescendalism was a philosophical movement that, like abolitionism, has its origins in Christian theology (based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation & the innate goodness of humanity). Transcendentalists, like Ralph Waldo Emerson & Henry David Thoreau, emerged among New England intellectuals in the 1830s, and reacted against a continuing development of science (& materialism) in the 19th., trying to find truth through feeling & intuition rather than through logic (against rationalism). They believed that individuals had an innate sense of right and wrong and should trust their own judgment rather than conforming to external authority. Also, they saw nature as the main source of inspiration & spiritual connection with the self & the universe.
        
        They supported true individualism, stayed out of society and aimed to withdraw the individuals from the masses, as they encouraged the "New American" to be intellectually & morally self-sufficient /independent, that is, true to themselves & their beliefs, even if it meant going against societal norms/expectations (non-conformity). Many transcendentalists were also involved in social reform movements, including abolitionism & women's rights, out of their belief in the inherent goodness of humanity.
  - - - Rooted in European Romanticism, which emerged in the late 18th c. with figures like William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, American writers absorbed these themes but adapted them to uniquely American concerns, such as the frontier, democracy, and individual freedom. Writers like Washington Irving & James Fenimore Cooper crafted American myths and legends, drawing on native landscapes and folklore.
        
        The 18th-c. Enlightenment emphasized logic, science, and reason. Romanticism rebelled against this, celebrating emotion, intuition, and the mysterious aspects of human existence. Writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville & Edgar Allan Poe explored the darker aspects of human nature, questioning the Enlightenment’s optimistic view of progress. Dark Romanticism or Gothic Fiction was a subgenre of Romanticism that explored obsession, guilt & the supernatural, directly opposing the Transcendentalist belief in innate human goodness. Its key characteristics are:
        
        Human Fallibility and the Dark Side of Nature: rather than as pure and restorative, nature as a force of terror or decay.
        
        Psychological and Physical Horror: focused on madness, guilt, obsession, and inner torment rather than external adventure.
        
        The Supernatural and the Macabre: used ghosts, demons, curses, and haunted settings to create a sense of dread, symbolizing psychological or moral conflicts rather than literal hauntings.
        
        Guilt and the Burden of the Past: characters often struggle with inherited sins, personal guilt, or past trauma.
        
        Obsession: protagonists are often driven by an uncontrollable obsession
        
        Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, the house itself seems alive and cursed, mirroring the mental state of its inhabitants.
        
        Poe’s The Black Cat & Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter explore how guilt and paranoia drive individuals to madness.
        
        Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, where the Headless Horseman is a spectral figure said to haunt the countryside.
        
        Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil explores hidden sin and hypocrisy in Puritan society.
        
        Captain Ahab in Melville’s Moby-Dick is consumed by his desire for revenge, leading to his downfall.
- - - - Born in New York, Melville was raised in an atmosphere of financial instability, worsening with the death of his father when he was only 12 in 1832. This fact influenced his adolescence and the rest of his life, leading to a theme in many of his novels; the child's search for his father in Moby Dick, Redburn & Billy Budd. He attempted to help support his family, working in various jobs that did not bring him fulfillment. However, the bankruptcy of the merchant family business where his oldest brother had been in charge forced him into a life at sea.
        
        At 20, Melville’s most important experiences in life started when he became a sailor. On board ship, he was deeply shocked by the life of the low class sailors. Their personal morality was completely different from anything his family had taught him. But when he began to write, life at sea became the most important material for his books & short stories. Melville drew heavily from his own experiences & historical accounts. The most famous inspiration was the history of the sinking of the Essex in 1820, a whaling ship rammed and sunk by a massive sperm whale, leading the survivors to resort to cannibalism. Based on personal experience, during his journey in the Pacific, Melville deserted his ship in the Marquesas Islands and spent several weeks among the indigenous Taipi people, who were rumored to be cannibals. His time with them was far from hostile, and he later chronicled these adventures in his first book, Typee, A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846)
        
        Melville initially enjoyed great success. His first few novels, Typee & Omoo, were popular for their exotic and adventurous tales. However, Moby-Dick (1851) was misunderstood by critics & readers of his time. It did not bring him any popularity or financial success during his lifetime, as his genious was only discovered posthumously.
        
        In the summer, Melville bought a farm near Nathaniel Hawthorne’s home at Pittsfield, and the two men became neighbours & friends. Hawthorne was a mentor figure for Melville and The Scarlet Letter's style and themes, with its narrative, moral & psychological complexity, and use of symbolism & allegory, deeply influenced both Hawthorne & Moby-Dick.
        
        His 30s were the worst period of his life. He was permanently in debt and with a growing family to look after (two sons & two daughters), frequently in ill health & feeling in the verge of insanity. But he never ceased writing; partly for the little money he could make, partly in order to explain himself to himself. Eventually, unhappy & unsuccessful, he died of a heart attack, completely forgotten in his country as he had lost all contact with the American public, unlike Hawthorne. Today, his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, is considered perhaps the greatest novel in the US history.
        
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- - - - The basic premise under the short story as conceived by Poe was that it “should be read at a single sitting” in order to get a unified effect. Like Melville, he was interested in psychology and the darker side of human nature.
        
        His technique was to put his characters into unusual situations and next he would carefully describe their feelings of terror or guilt, as in The Pit And The Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat. The common element in all his stories is that he rarely shows the actual object of horror. Instead, the reader has to use his imagination.
    - - Born in Boston, his mother's death from tuberculosis and his father abandoning the family when he was only 2 y.o. led him to be cared for by a childless couple, John Allan & Frances Allan. John was a wealthy merchant from Virginia who was more inclined to punish than to understand him. Poe’s love of writing was something his foster father didn’t understand or support, leading to conflict, so the relationship with him was quite difficult. Poe attended various schools as a child, as he was partly brought up in England (where he became acquainted with the Gothic literature that was popular in Europe at the time) and displayed early literary talents.
        
        From 22 to 26 y.o., Poe lived in Baltimore with his aunt Maria Clemm & his cousin Virginia Clemm, who soon who became his literary inspiration as well as his love interest. At the age of 27, they married when she was only 13 years old, but a decade later she would die of tuberculosis. The next years after his marriage were Poe’s most productive period as a fiction writer, where he composed most of the tales of terror Berenice (1835), Morella (1835), Ligeia (1838), The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) & William Wilson (1840). Despite the age difference, they had a close, affectionate relationship. Virginia suffered from tuberculosis, which began affecting her teens. This devastated Poe, who became deeply depressed and turned to alcohol & opium to cope. When she finally died at the age of 24, Poe spiraled into grief and self-destruction. Poe never truly recovered from losing her, leading to his erratic behavior in his final years.
        
        Poe's life as a writer was marked by constant financial hardship. He worked as an editor for various literary magazines and published numerous stories & poems, but he struggled to make a steady income. The most significant period in Poe’s life was when The Raven was published, which gave him national fame at once. Despite its popularity, he only earned a small sum for his now-famous poem (around $9 at the time).
        
        Poe is credited with inventing the detective story with his character C. Auguste Dupin, who first appeared in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. He called them tales of reasoning (where the crime itself sometimes becomes secondary to the efforts taken to solve it). Dupin's analytical approach to solving mysteries laid the groundwork for modern detective fiction, influencing future authors like Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, as well as Agatha Christie.
        
        Following the death of his wife, his decadent lifestyle resulted in a series of flirtations with various women, an attempted suicide, drug-addiction & attacks of delirium tremens. One night he was found in a delirious state on the streets of Baltimore, wearing someone else’s clothes. He died some years later at age 40. Poe’s death remains one of the most mysterious aspects of his life. The exact cause of his death remains unknown, with theories ranging from alcohol poisoning to rabies to murder.
        
        Works
        
        Gothic horror
        
        Stories of death
        
        Emphasizes atmosphere, emotional depth & the unknown
        
        The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)
        
        The Masque of the Red Death (1842)
        
        The Pit and the Pendulum (1843)
        
        The Premature Burial (1844)
        
        A man visits his ill friend, Roderick Usher, in a decaying mansion. Usher buries his sister alive, and she later emerges, leading to their deaths and the collapse of the house.
        
        Prince Prospero hosts a lavish masquerade to escape a deadly plague. However, Death itself appears as a masked figure, killing all the guests, proving no one can escape fate.
        
        A prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition faces psychological and physical torment, including a swinging blade and a collapsing room. He is rescued at the last moment as the French army arrives.
        
        A narrator who suffers from catalepsy, a medical condition that causes sudden and temporary paralysis and unconsciousness, making the person appear dead. Because of this condition, he becomes obsessed with the fear that he might be mistakenly declared dead and buried alive—a common fear in the 19th century due to the lack of reliable death-detection methods.
        
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        Murder stories
        
        The Black Cat (1843)
        
        The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)
        
        The Cask of Amontillado (1846)
        
        A man descends into alcoholism and violent madness, ultimately murdering his wife and sealing her body behind a wall. His crime is exposed when a black cat, a symbol of his guilt, wails from within the wall.
        
        A murderer, obsessed with an old man’s "vulture eye," kills him and hides the body. However, his guilt manifests as the imagined sound of the victim’s beating heart, driving him to confess.
        
        Montresor lures his enemy, Fortunato, into a wine cellar under the pretense of tasting rare Amontillado. He chains him in a niche and walls him up alive, enacting his chilling revenge.
        
        Focus on inducing fear & terror in the reader
        
        Stories of love & obsession
        
        Berenice (1835)
        
        Morella (1835)
        
        Ligeia (1838)
        
        A man obsessed with his cousin’s teeth digs up her grave to extract them, only to realize she was buried alive. The story ends with his horror at what he has done.
        
        A man's wife dies after giving birth, but their daughter grows up to look and act exactly like her dead mother - until she also dies in the same strange way, leaving the father terrified that his wife's soul keeps coming back.
        
        A grieving husband loses his first wife, Ligeia, only for his second wife to mysteriously transform into Ligeia’s form, suggesting her supernatural return from the dead.
        
        His technique was to put his characters into unusual situations and next he would carefully describe their feelings of terror or guilt.
        
        Others
        
        Detective stories
        
        the father of ~
        
        The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841): the 1st ever Detective story
        
        The Purloined Letter (1844):
        Hidden in plain sight
        
        The Mystery of Marie Roget (1845):
        Real-life unsolved case
        
        Considered the first ever detective story where the crime takes place in a seemingly impossible location. Here, the fictional French detective Auguste Dupin is first introduced as he investigates the brutal murders of two women in Rue Morgue, a street in Paris, revealing that an escaped orangutan was the unlikely perpetrator.
        
        It involves the theft of a compromising letter. Dupin uses his analytical skills to recover the stolen letter, which is being used to blackmail a prominent individual. Finally, Dupin outsmarts the police by realizing that the best place to hide something is in plain sight, presenting the theory that when all other possibilities have been discarded, the one remaining, though apparently improbable, must be correct.
        
        Based on a real-life unsolved murder case, Dupin uses logical deduction to reconstruct how a missing woman’s body ended up in a river, attempting to solve the case through reasoning.
        
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        Auguste Dupin
        
        Adventure stories
        
        The Mr. Found in a Bottle (1833)
        
        The Gold-Bug (1843)
        
        A sailor is caught in a supernatural storm and boards a ghostly ship, which heads toward an unknown abyss. The story ends with the ship seemingly plunging into darkness.
        A treasure-hunting adventure dependent on the deciphering/solution of a coded message and a search for a buried treasure.
        
        Poetry
        
        The Raven and Other Poems (1845)
        
        One of the most famous poems in US literature. A grieving man is tormented by a talking raven, which repeatedly utters "Nevermore," symbolizing his descent into despair over his lost love, Lenore.
- - - - The son of a carpenter and the second of 9 children, Whitman was born in Long Island, New York. His parents had no intellectual interests, so his formal education was limited, and he left school at an early age to work & help support his family, taking on a wide range of jobs, including printer’s apprentice, teacher, journalist, and editor. His experiences working with people from all walks of life contributed to his empathetic outlook and democratic ideals, which heavily influenced his poetry. At 12, Whitman began to learn the printer’s trade, and fell in love with the written word. Largely self-taught, he read voraciously, becoming acquainted with the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible. At 17, he began his teaching career, but he loathed the circumstances he was forced to teach under. From 22 to 29 y.o. were Whitman’s period of inner growth: He turned to journalism as a full-time career, where he founded a weekly newspaper (the Long-Islander), and later became editor a number of Brooklyn and New York papers and magazines.
        
        Whitman, finally finding the style and voice he'd been searching for, self-published a thin collection of 12 untitled poems with a preface titled Leaves of Grass, of which he could only afford to print 795 copies, by using his earnings from various jobs to finance its printing. The following year, Whitman published a revised (second) edition of Leaves of Grass that featured 32 poems as well as a letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson praising the first edition despite it receiving little attention (a commercial failure). Whitman continued publishing several more editions of the book throughout his career, with the final "deathbed edition" containing over 300 poems.
        
        Whitman was bold in expressing his ideas, including themes of sexuality, individuality, and spirituality, which were controversial at the time. His work challenged the moral standards of his day, especially with candid, often sensual language about the body and human connection, which led some critics to view his work as indecent. Nonetheless, his openness inspired future generations of writers and thinkers.
        
        The start of the Civil War drove the publishing companies out of business. Deeply affected by the Civil War (1861-65), Whitman volunteered as a nurse in Union hospitals, spending time with wounded soldiers and offering emotional & physical care. He often wrote letters home for the soldiers and developed a profound respect for them, which inspired his later works, such as Drum-Taps. The experience brought him face-to-face with the brutal realities of war and shaped his views on patriotism and humanity.
        
        While Leaves of Grass eventually gained popularity, Whitman struggled for most of his life to be recognized by the literary establishment. Financially, he was often in need and depended on friends, including fellow writers and admirers, for support. Later in life, however, he gained a circle of admirers and disciples. He became something of a local celebrity, and many admirers visited him at his home. His ideas about equality, democracy, and human dignity were ahead of their time, and his work went on to influence modern poets like Allen Ginsberg.
        
        Leaves of Grass
        
        Continuous evolution: 12 untitled, anonymous > +300 poems
        
        Pioneered "free verse": mimics natural speech for ordinary people (Message over Form)
        
        Viewed as "unpoetic": Repetition of words, sounds, stress & pauses
        
        "Obscene"/Controversial for its Explicit sexual content
        
        The first, self-published edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855, consisted of just 12 untitled, anonymous poems. Whitman continually revised & expanded Leaves of Grass throughout his life, with the final "deathbed edition" (published in the year of his death) contained over 300 poems. Hence, it represents the result of his personal development, both as a poet & as a human being.
        
        Whitman popularized the use of free verse (without rhyme or metre), which broke away from the strict rhyme & meter of traditional poetry. His style was revolutionary, marked by long lines and a cadence that mimics natural speech. Hence, he invented a completely new & completely American form of poetic expression. To him, message was always more important than form. In his poetry, the lines are not usually organized into stanzas; instead, they look like ordinary sentences. And yet, it can still be heard or felt a clear rhythm thanks to the repetition of words & sounds, patterns of stress, pauses, etc. However, to most of his contemporaries it seemed completely "unpoetic". But Whitman wrote in a plain style so that ordinary people could read him.
        
        The book was considered highly controversial for its explicit sexual content & candid discussions of the body. Some critics deemed it obscene, which affected its reception. However, this boldness also contributed to Whitman's reputation as an innovator.
        
        Song of Myself
        
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        Children of Adam & Calamus
        
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        Song of Myself
        
        Children of Adam & Calamus