Essential Questions:

1) Romanticism's beliefs of optimism and individualism is shown in the writing by the emotions and feelings of a particular character. In other literary works, such as Gothic and Southern Gothic, emotions are shown just not as often as Romantics.
2) Romanticism has to do with nature, love and freedom. Gothic Romanticism is dark, gloomy, and has very creepy characters who are usually dealing with a self pain. Southern Gothic Romanticism takes place in the deep south, and the typical country folk are seen. The character that is seen of suspicion usually rises from the towns curiosity, and they are typically secluded. These works are different because they all have different self values. For example, Romanticism revolves around love, while in Gothic Romanticism, a happy ending is not promised. In other words, Southern Gothic, usually with a secluded character, is different from Gothic because the villain is easily seen throughout the story whereas Southern has suspicion. All of these literary works are the same, because they all revolve around a typical person dealing with some type of misfortune or condition. They all have a character striving for something they want, whether it's love(Romanticism), pleasure(Gothic), or justice(Southern Gothic).
3) Southern Gothic Romanticism wasn't necessarily a "new" creation. It responded to the other literary movements by pulling qualities from Romanticism and Gothic Romanticism. As seen in "A Rose for Emily", there was love, yet there was death. Emily had fallen in love more than once, but the town failed to see what was really going on behind closed doors. This expresses both Romantic and Gothic traits. It manipulated Romanticism by these combined qualities. It was seen as something new, although really it was just two and two put together.
4) The American culture encouraged the dark sides of Gothic and Southern Romanticism, simply by feeding off of it. America liked the new twist in literature. This huge movement took place in the 1800's where a lot of change and new technologies where taking place. It was just another thing that was changing, and it was encouraged.
5) The writings of this time period reflects on the writers of today. This time was open to new ideas, and new writers can take what was old and make it into something new. What the authors of today are doing, is no different than what the authors of the 1800's were doing. For example, Dracula, is now seen as a corny, stupid interpretation of a vampire compared to works like Twilight and The Vampire Diaries. Both time periods took something from the past, and made it the new future.