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![]() Thompson sums up the characteristics of the sub-genre, writing:įallen man's inability fully to comprehend haunting reminders of another, supernatural realm that yet seemed not to exist, the constant perplexity of inexplicable and vastly metaphysical phenomena, a propensity for seemingly perverse or evil moral choices that had no firm or fixed measure or rule, and a sense of nameless guilt combined with a suspicion the external world was a delusive projection of the mind-these were major elements in the vision of man the Dark Romantics opposed to the mainstream of Romantic thought. Thompson, "the Dark Romantics adapted images of anthropomorphized evil in the form of Satan, devils, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and ghouls" as emblematic of human nature. The name "Dark Romanticism" was given to this form by the literary theorist Mario Praz in his lengthy study of the genre published in 1930, The Romantic Agony. Romanticism's celebration of euphoria and sublimity has always been dogged by an equally intense fascination with melancholia, insanity, crime and shady atmosphere with the options of ghosts and ghouls, the grotesque, and the irrational. Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe's story by Harry Clarke (1889-1931), published in 1919. Within Romanticism, two conflicting sub-genres arose: optimists who believed in human virtue and spirituality formed the Transcendentalism Movement, while pessimists who accepted human fallibility and our proclivity for sin formed the Dark Romantic Movement. Between 18, American Romanticism authors were at their most productive. The Romantic Movement began in Europe at the end of the 18th century and migrated to America in the early 19th century. It was driven on emotions and imagination rather than science and rationality. The term " Romanticism" originates from a Latin word called "romant", which means "in the Roman Manner." Not only has it become an iconic style of art, but also had an effect on literature and music. Dark Romanticism focuses on human fallibility, self-destruction, judgement, punishment, as well as the psychological effects of guilt and sin. Edgar Allan Poe is often celebrated as one of the supreme exponents of the tradition. Often conflated with Gothic fiction, it has shadowed the euphoric Romantic movement ever since its 18th-century beginnings. See also apathy, tender- and tough-minded.See also: Romantic literature Edgar Allan Poe is among the most well-known authors of Dark Romanticism.ĭark Romanticism is a literary sub-genre of Romanticism, reflecting popular fascination with the irrational, the demonic and the grotesque. Other elements in a philosophy may be affected by the optimistic or pessimistic temperament, such as susceptibility to scepticism (pessimistic) or realism (optimistic). This attitude is again expressed by Schopenhauer, and becomes common in the 20th century. The Eastern religion that is most closely identified with pessimism is Buddhism, where the eightfold path is a training in the renunciation of desire and complete withdrawal from the world. ![]() However, Christianity also offers a pessimistic version, with the stress falling on sin, the Fall, the likelihood of predetermined damnation, and the propriety of anguish and guilt. The most famous result of this exercise (theodicy) was the panglossian vision of Leibniz, satirized by Voltaire in Candide. Christianity can come in either flavour: philosophers have mostly been concerned with the optimistic project of reconciling divine excellence with apparent evil. Optimistic philosophies include Platonism, with the ruling place assigned to the form of the good, Aristotelianism, with its sense of the harmony of nature and the attainability of ends, Epicureanism, which denies the evil of death, and Stoicism, which denies the evil of pain as well. The best-known and certainly the starkest expression of pessimism is from the Greek dramatist Sophocles: ‘Not to be born is best, but having seen the light, the next best is to go whence one came as soon as may be’ (Oedipus at Colonus). The term ‘pessimism’ is recorded as first used by Coleridge in 1795. The term ‘optimism’ is first used in English in 1759, in reference to the work of Leibniz.
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