Dark Romanticism: Anti-Transcendentalism

Characteristics of Dark Romanticism:

Explores the conflict between good and evil.
Explores the psychological effects of guilt/sin.
Says people are essentially perverse, or given to evil.
The are like the transcendentalists in that they believe man has free will to do as he chooses. But, unlike the transcendentalists, dark romantics believe that given the choice, most people will make bad choices. Like the romantics, they believe that intuition prevails over logic, and that there is the existence of the supernatural.
They believe truth is to be found in nature.

Characteristics of Gothic Literature

Closed setting: story takes place in a single setting. These are often old drafty houses or castles.
Stories are literally dark—take place in the dead of night, where there is little light…
Concerned with murder and mayhem—dark deeds
Often involve the supernatural: ghosts, spirits…
There is an atmosphere of mystery or suspense
Often involves obsessive love, or explores madness of the human psyche

Poe is a dark romantic who is also considered to write in the gothic style. Certain features are predominant in his works: unnamed narrators, grotesque and arabesque terror, characters guided by their emotions rather than logic, unity of effect.
Poe was a poet and short-story writer. He is credited with creating the detective story genre. He was also known to be one of the finest literary critics of his time.
Poe’s stories were concerned with grotesque (physical) agony and arabesque (spiritual) agony.
Poe’s invented the concept called Unity of Effect. This idea, simply stated, means that all details should relate to the central idea of a short story.
“The Black Cat”
The narrator blames his problems on everyone and everything else: His wife and his cat drive him crazy; he drinks too much, and mental illness runs in his family.
After he kills his first cat, he imagines he is plagued by a second cat that has a stripe of white fur on his back in the shape of a noose. This probably symbolizes his guilt for having hanged his first car.
The second cat (not real!) makes him so distracted that he can’t sleep.
His insanity becomes clear when he barely mentions his wife’s murder. This shows how obsessed he has become with the cat.
Gothic elements of this story include the double murder of the car and the wife, supernatural events (appearance of the 2nd cat) and the highly charged emotional state of the unnamed narrator.
“Hopfrog”
Hopfrog tells the story of a dwarf who plays the fool to a fat and cruel king.
The story contains both grotesque and arabesque torture.
This story has similarities to “The Black Cat”: drinking, abusers and abusive behavior, revenge, murder.
In the end, Hopfrog takes his revenge on the king for humiliating Tripetta. Hopfrog and Tripetta escape. The fact that Hopfrog escapes punishment for murdering the king shows that the writer believes the king has been justly punished for being an abusive master.

Hawthorne: “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment

Hawthorne is a dark romantics, but his stories are not as gory or creepy as the stories of Poe.
Hawthorne wrote novels and short stories.
Hawthorne was a descendant of Judge Hathorne of the Salem Witch Trials. He loved exploring the hypocrisy of the Puritans.
“Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment”

The four main characters of the story are unhappy old people who have not led fulfilled lives.
Dr. Heidegger conducts an experiment in which he encourages his guests to drink a youth potion. Unlike his guests, he is the only person who learns from this lesson. All the others care about is becoming young again.
This experiment shows that given a chance to go back time, people tend to make the same mistakes.
Hawthorne’s story is didactic. It preaches a moral lesson.
This story is an example of dark romanticism because it reveals that most people are essentially perverse—given to evil.