Dark Romanticism

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Dark Romanticism

• Edgar Allan Poe

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Dark Romanticism

• Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel
• Hawthorne and Herman Melville

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Dark Romanticism

• a literary subgenre of Romanticism
• does not embrace most Romantic or Transcendental
  themes
• not optimistic about humankind, nature, and
  divinity

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Romanticism Transcendentalism/ White Romantics Dark Romantics/Anti-Transcendentalists
Interest in and reverence for nature Nature is divine, connection between nature and humanity, Over-Soul Nature is sinister, bad things happen when isolated from society
Concern with mystery/supernatural/ unknown self-reliance, intuition Natural world is dark, decaying, and mysterious, gothic elements
Interest in picturesque past Some interest in past
Idealization of common man uncorrupted by civilization No evil in the world People are inherently good Social reforms improve society Saw evil, must know how to deal with it People are inherently evil Individuals fail in attempts to make changes for the better
Celebration of natural beauty and the simple life Society does not allow this to happen Simplicity, simplicity Society is good
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Gothic Ingredients

• buildings old castles, monasteries, gloomy
  mansions, haunted houses
• heroine weak or strong, alone in the world,
  caught in a web of horror and mystery
• hero often a hero and a villain

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Gothic Ingredients

• secrets plot usually hinges on an unrevealed
  secret (family mystery, mysterious objects,
  unexplained disappearances)
• revenge
• dark forces supernatural (graveyard, witches,
  storms, earthquakes), unnatural and evil powers,
  curses, succubus, incubus, body-snatching,
  vampires, werewolves

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Edgar Allan Poe

• 1809-1849

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Evil According to Poe

• The inability to balance imagination with reason.

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