"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

This story catches a readers imagination because it leaves you with not know where Ichabod went or if he was killed. It leaves you with clues like horse tracks and Ichabod's hat. But you don't truly know if he was killed or ran off. The author leaves you to imagine that yourself and what you believe in.

Personally I believe that Brom is the headless horseman because he was jealous of him taking his girl. And he acted pretty suspicious at the end. But hey, who knows? Just a little something to imagine up.

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

This song is about escaping the physical conditions of slavery because it's saying "carry me home" where "home" is seen as a place of relaxing and healing and freedom when slavery is a harsh environment were slaves were treated terribly.

This song is about religion and faith because "home" can be seen as Heaven, where everything is good. They have faith in a time of goodness and freedom.

During that time period, there were many discouraged slaves who have lost all faith and this song is for their faith to stay strong.

It relates to today because many people are in a time of hurt and sorrow and are discouraged. This song helps keep spirits up saying that there will be a time and place that is good and healing.

Essential Questions

1) The Romantic's belief of optimism and individualism are reflected in their writing when you see traits of darkness or the elements of death, love lost, and/or tragic endings. You see the death/murder of Pluto in "The Black Cat" and that shows the dark idealism in Edgar Allan Poe. The authors express what they feel, and want something different than the rest of the authors of that time. 

2) Romanticism:  movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual.
Gothic Romanticism:  A genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance.
Southern Gothic Romanticism:  A subgenre of Gothic fiction unique to American Literature that takes place exclusively in the American South.
They are all similar because they all have those elements talked about above in number 1.
Southern Gothic Romanticism is similar to the others but instead is strictly unique to American South. Gothic Romanticism is different than Romanticism because it takes the elements of Romanticism and mixes it with horror. 
3) The Southern Romanticism is a manipulation of romanticism because it takes stories very similar to Romanticism stories and places them in the South or adds southern elements to it. 
4) People began to get ideas of dark tragedies and authors put them into literature.
5)  The Dark Romanticism has affected today's writing greatly. You see Dark Romanticism in hits like Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga and the "Beautiful Creatures" series. You see sides of the supernatural world in these modern books. Vampires and Casters falling in love with Mortals. It's the love story everyone wants to see, and you can find much of this in the Dark Romanticism literature from back when.