Dark Romanticism • Another aspect of Romanticism that goes back to its beginning.
• Frankenstein novel was a famous product
• Associated with the “gothic” style through the demonic statuary of medieval cathedrals
• Assumptions of Romanticism re-examined for its dangers o Nature: goodness, power, order
o Self: independent, harmoniously connected to Nature Nature
• Evil or uncaring o Natural catastrophes
o Ex. Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, combined earthquake, 12 meter high tsunami and massive fire, took 30,000 to 60,000 lives "Are you then sure, the power which would create The universe and fix the laws of fate, Could not have found for man a proper place, But earthquakes must destroy the human race?" -"Lisbon Earthquake Poem" (1755) by Voltaire • In the novel, Moby Dick (1851), the White Whale represents an indifferent universe that doesn’t care about humanity.
• “I see in him outrageous strength, sinewed with an inscrutable malice.” –Captain Ahab
Self
• “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.” –Emerson, “Self-reliance” could lead to: o Solipsism (complete self-absorption) and insanity
o Immorality: pride, hubris, arrogance • Dr. Victor Frankenstein is the archetypal mad scientist who violated the natural order by creating life artificially but was destroyed by his own work. Dr. Victor Frankenstein American Dark Romantics
• Nathaniel Hawthorne Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
• Drop-out from West Point
• Worked as a literary critic
• Wrote stories of madness, tragedy, and the forbidden
• At age 26, married his 13 year old cousin whom he remained with for 11 years until her death
Famous Works
• “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1842)
• A prisoner of the Inquisition undergoes physical and psychological torment from a swinging axe.
• “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846)
• A tale of revenge in which a person is walled up alive
• Paradoxically, Poe invented the detective story where grisly and baffling crimes are unraveled through pure reason.
• Detective hero: Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, a French Sherlock Holmes Ex. He deduces that a baffling and grisly murder in a high apartment was committed by a runaway circus ape.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
• Explored the psychology of guilt and suffering.
• Most famous work, The Scarlet Letter (1850), deals with adultery and revenge in a Puritan community