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Comparing the Literature of Romantics, Transcendentalists, and Dark Romantics

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Comparing the Literature of Romantics, Transcendentalists, and Dark Romantics 2003, Matthew Hagaman Comparing the Literature of Romantics, Transcendentalists, and Dark Romantics The style of Romanticism was a movement that focused on intuition and imagination rather than the earlier themes of Rationalism and divinity. The time before and during the American Renaissance was a period in which three new literary groups arose: Romantics, Transcendentalists, and Dark Romantics. Together they formed a genre known as Romanticism. Romantics write in a distinct style that include escapes (especially into nature), new themes (including the supernatural), and original characters. The style supports feeling over reason, places faith in experience and imagination, reviews at the past to discover the truth of the present, and moves the focus of the plot away from God. For instance, Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving follows an old man who sleeps for twenty years deep in the forest and wakes up to find his home town very different than when he began to slumber. The story displays aspects of an escape into both nature and the future. The story also exhibits an element of the supernatural in the new people and places Winkle experiences in his dreams. For example, Winkle met “a company of odd-looking personages playing at ninepins.” This unusual scene demonstrates the imagination of Romantic writers. Irving, unlike the Puritans who preceded him, does not reference God in his works. Transcendentalists write very spiritually, value individualism and self-reliance, and believe that spontaneous feelings and intuitions are superior to rationality. Transcendentalists tend to write in the form of an essay or a personal experience, rather than poetry or fiction. An example of a Transcendentalist is Henry David Thoreau. In Thoreau’s Walden, he reflects on the portion of his life that he spent on Walden Pond. It was written in the first person, a format very rarely used at the time. In Walden, he retreats to his own self-built cabin deep in 2003, Matthew Hagaman the woods and reflects, “There is some of the same fitness in a man’s building his own house that there is in a bird’s building its own nest.” He connects himself to nature and detaches from society to live the self-reliant lifestyle of the Transcendentalists. Thoreau thought that by returning to nature, he would he would better understand the essential fact of life. Dark Romantics also value intuition over logic and explore the conflict between good and evil. Three authors from this group are Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Edger Allan Poe. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne greatly focused on sin, pain, and the evil of human life. The story tells of two adulterers who try to hide their sin and attempt to stop a devil-like man from shaming them. In Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, he introduces the foundation of two new genres, Science Fiction and Horror. Poe uses dark and melancholy tones in his writing to thoroughly describe the scene. For example, “I looked upon the scene before me-upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain-upon the bleak walls-upon the vacant eye-like windows-upon a few rank sedges-and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees-with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the afterdream of a reveler upon opium-the bitter lapse into everyday life-the hideous dropping off of the veil.” This passage shows the gloomy tone of Transcendentalist works. These three groups can be deemed similar, and are therefore categorized under the Romantic genre. In all three groups, the literature often deals with escapes, especially into nature and the unknown. All groups value intuition and imagination over logic and rationalism. They also share the common style of using new ideas, themes, and characters. In addition, none of the groups reference God. Lastly, most Romantic authors wrote about or referenced the past in their works. In addition to the similarities between each of the Romantic literatures, there are also 2003, Matthew Hagaman many differences. Each group has their own style of writing; Romantics prefer poetry, Transcendentalists draft essays, and Dark Romantics create stories. Romantics and Transcendentalists believed in optimism, while Dark Romantics tended to write in pessimistic and dark tones. Reading selections from Rip Van Winkle, Walden, and The Fall of the House of Usher can give one the feelings of the Romantic attitude. Each exhibits the appropriate style..
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