And Romanticism: Edgar Allan Poe And Romanticism

Edgar Allan Poe and Romanticism

Edgar Allan Poe, an archetype of the Romantic writer, was one of the first American writers to become a major figure in world literature. Poe focused mainly on the effect the style of the piece had on its readers. By replacing the technical side to the written word, Poe was able to establish a new genre. Frequent themes in Romanticism are: imagination, sensitivity, feelings, spontaneity, freedom, introspection, intuition, individualism, nature, solitude, and emotion. How do examples from texts taken from Poe prove that the most dominant characteristic of the Romantic Movement was the rejection of the rational and the intellectual in favor of the intuitive and the emotional?

The Romantic Movement began as a

This coincides with how Poe favored intuition over intellect. The narrator senses the solemn environment and the brooding tension that forebode desolation but nonetheless, embarks on his quest. Geoffrey Hartman explores the different dynamics that play into romanticism. There are various theories regarding the introduction of Romanticism and what it necessarily attributes to. Romanticism was, in essence, a movement that defined itself in opposition to the Enlightenment but nonetheless, was a poetic form of the Enlightenment. The romantics, rather than valuing symmetry and harmony, valued individuality, surprise, intensity of emotion, and

For a Romantic writer, the subject matter of art should deal with the emotions of the character and the reader, and the greatest art was that which had a direct effect on the emotions. Throughout Poe’s works, his characters are usually dominated by their emotions. This characterization explains much of the erratic behavior of the characters in his stories. For example, in the “Fall of the House of Usher” Roderick Usher’s emotions are overwrought. He is hypersensitive to his surroundings and because of this, his behavior became erratic. Daniel Hoffman’s “Edgar Allan Poe: The Artist of the Beautiful”, provides insight into the life of the troubled writer and how he took inspiration from his own tormented life and embedded that in his own literary work. He discusses how Poe’s work explores darker periods in one life and transcends ideals that are widely shared. His own suffering speaks through his characters who are often characterized by: toxic affliction, terror, and mental instability. This article focuses on Poe’s history and how that shaped his writing. It is made apparent that Poe suffered from a troubled past and that greatly affected