Anti-TranscendentalismAKA

Dark Romanticism

This is where it gets weird…

• They had much in common with Transcendentalists.

• Dark Romanticism explored the potential evil in the individual.

• Also explored conflicts between good and evil, psychological effects of guilt and sin, and madness.

• AKA Gothic Romantics

Three Dark Romantics or

Anti-Transcendentalists

1. Edgar Allen Poe*

2. Nathaniel Hawthorne*

3. Herman Melville

• All 3 authors’ styles have multiple levels of interpretation and is loaded with allegories (short moral stories/fables), but each have a slightly different version.

The main theory of Dark Romanticism is that the “self ” is the only thing that can be known or verified.

Characteristics of Dark Romanticism

• focus on the tragic

• belief in sin and evil

• attention paid to the mysteries of life

• not bitter or pessimistic; man is the victim

• reverence for human nature and all struggles

• believe that individuals are prone to sin and destruction

• the natural world is dark, decaying and mysterious

• show individuals failing in their attempts to make

changes for the better

Gothicism• Middle Ages

• Literature, art, architecture

• Ominous (gloomy/evil) settings

• Psychological stereotypes

for characters

• Themes of anxiety

Gothic Elements:• Grotesque, mysterious, desolate• Powerful symbolism• Extreme situations and settings• Focus on characters’ hearts and/or

minds • Themes of

claustrophobia, projection, entrapment

Edgar Allan Poe

1809 - 1849• Mother dies, father leaves

• Lives with Allan family, but never adopted

• Marries Virginia, his cousin

• Travel, job instability, alcoholism

• Virginia dies at 25…Poe goes downhill

• Dies at age 40 in Baltimore

Poe’s Writing• Truthful, often vicious, editor• Worked hard at horror elements to

affect reader• Created detective story at age 32• Very influential (worldwide) and very

debated• Extreme situations & settings to expose

true human nature

Poe’s Works• “The Raven”

• “Annabel Lee”

• “El Dorado”

• “The Cask of Amontillado”

• “The Tell-Tale Heart”

• “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Nathaniel Hawthorne

1804 - 1864• Father dies early, mother becomes

recluse

• 12 years of intense reading & writing

• Married in his 30s

• Scarlet Letter cements his popularity

• Friend to Franklin Pierce, Herman Melville, Emerson, Longfellow

Hawthorne’s Writings

• Focus on heart under conditions (greed, betrayal) to see important truths

• Great psychological insight

• Theme: past influencing the present (Puritan ancestors)

• Theme: impossibility of erasing sin from human heart

Hawthorne’s Works

• “Young Goodman Brown”

• “Dr. Heidigger’s Experiment”

• “The Minister’s Black Veil”

• The Scarlet Letter

• The House of the Seven Gables