Dark Romanticism

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Dark Romanticism

• This is where it gets weird

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As the second piece to the Romantic movement,
Dark Romanticism explored the potential evil in
the individual.
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Gothicism

• Middle Ages
• Literature, art, architecture
• Ominous settings
• Psychological stereotypes
• for characters
• Themes of anxiety

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Gothic Elements

• Grotesque, mysterious, desolate
• Powerful symbolism
• Extreme situations and settings
• Focus on characters hearts and/or minds
• Themes of
• claustrophobia,
• projection,
• entrapment

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Edgar Allan Poe
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1809 - 1849

• Mother dies, father leaves
• Lives with Allan family, but never adopted
• Marries Virginia, his cousin
• Travel, job instability, alcoholism
• Virginia dies at 25Poe goes downhill
• Dies at age 40 in Baltimore

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Poes 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

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Poes Works

• The Raven
• Annabel Lee
• Eldorado
• The Cask of Amontillado
• The Tell-Tale Heart
• The Fall of the House of Usher

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Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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

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Hawthornes 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

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Hawthornes Works

• Young Goodman Brown
• Dr. Heidiggers Experiment
• The Ministers Black Veil
• The Scarlet Letter
• The House of the Seven Gables

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