Unit 6
American Gothic
Ambiguity and Anxiety in the Nineteenth Century
Authors and Works 297
Overview Questions 297
Learning Objectives 297
Instructor Overview 298
Student Overview 299
Video Overview 300
Discussion Questions for the Video 301
Timeline 302
Author/Text Review 302
Charles Brockden Brown (1171-1810) 302
Teaching Tip 303
Questions 303
Web Archive 303
Washington Irving (1783-1859) 304
Teaching Tip 304
Web Archive 304
Questions 305
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) 205
Teaching Tips 306
Questions 306
Web Archive 306
William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) 307
Web Archive 307
Teaching Tip 308
Questions 308
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) 308
Teaching Tips 309
Questions 309
Web Archive 309
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) 310
Teaching Tip 311
Questions 311
Web Archive 311
Herman Melville (1819-1891) 312
Teaching Tips 312
Questions 312
Web Archive 312
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) 313
Teaching Tips 314
Questions 314
Web Archive 314
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) 314
Teaching Tip 315
Questions 315
Web Archive 315
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) 315
Teaching Tips 316
Questions 316
Web Archive 316
Suggested Author Pairings 317
Core Contexts 318
Swamps, Dismal and Otherwise 318
Questions 319
Web Archive 319
The Spirit Is Willing: The Occult and Women in the Nineteenth Century 320
Questions 322
Web Archive 322
America on the Rocks: The Image of the “Ship of State” 322
Questions 324
Web Archive 324
Extended Contexts 324
Unnatural Reason/Weird Science 324
Questions 325
Web Archive 325
“Sleeping Beauty”: Sentimentalizing Death in the Nineteenth Century 325
Questions 326
Web Archive 326
Assignments 327
Personal and Creative Responses 327
Problems-Based Learning Projects 327
Glossary 328
Selected Bibliography 329
Further Resources 330