Dark Romantics

1
Dark Romantics

• Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Irving and a few living
  people too

2
Characteristics

• 19th century America (1800s)
• Intense period of EMOTION
• Very pessimistic
• Individuals prone to SIN and SELF-DESTRUCTION!
• Inherently evil

3
Frequent emotions/instances

• Death, sin, pain, the loss of a love one,
  divorce, heart-ache, hardship, mystery,
  obsession, obscurity, tragedy, madness, guilt,
  evil, darkness, decay, materialism, greed

4
Also includes GOTHIC characteristics

• Setting is in bleak or remote places
• Plot involves morbid or violent incidents
• Characters are in psychological and/or physical
  torment
• A supernatural or otherworldly element is often
  present

5
Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Believed evil was a dominant force in the world
• Wrote The Scarlet Letter and The Ministers
  Black Veil

6
Herman Melville

• Wrote Moby-Dick which is widely regarded as one
  of the finest novels in all of American
  Literature
• Bartleby the Scrivener
• The Lightning Rod Man
• The Confidence Man
• Billy Budd
• Typee

7
Edgar Allan Poe

• Wrote The Raven
• Widely accepted as the inventor of the detective
  story
• Known as an eccentric writer his dark and
  dismal life probably had something to do with it
• The Cask of Amontillado
• The Black Cat
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• The Tell-Tale Heart
• The Murders in the Rue Morgue

8
Dark Romanticism Today?

• Can you think of any television shows, websites,
  movies, people that fall into the dark
  romanticism category?

9
The Dark Knight

• Bruce Wayne both parents killed
• Believes that the world is inherently evil
• Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not
  the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him
  because he can take it. Because he's not our
  hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful
  protector. A dark knight.

10
Twilight

• Evil vs. good
• Betrayal
• Darkness
• Forbidden love
• Omg

11
The News
12
Dark Tourism

• Visiting sites of extreme death or destruction
• Examples
• Ground Zero
• Prison camps
• New Orleans ruins
• Genocide sites
• War sites

13
Society in General

• Emphasis on wealth and materialism
• Credit crisis
• National debt
• Foreclosures
• Financial chaos