Unit Three: Dark Romanticism and Realism

Dark Romanticism

I believe that the dark romantics thought that everyone had a evil side inside of them, and how much of it shows determines what kind of person you are. I believe I am more on the dark romantics side because if a person is too mean or just a plain jerk I dont like them very much, but I also share the nature views from transcedentalism. That nature is from god and should be enjoyed as such. Seeing as I have to deal with people more than be out in nature I would fall on the dark romantics side of the divide.

The Masque of Red Death

The Masque of Red Death is a story where a prince is worried about catching the "Red Death." The Red Death is a disease that would give you sharp pains, sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding through the pores of the skin. The whole process takes around thirty minutes to kill you. So the prince takes his closest friends along with several different types of entertainers to hold up in a so-called safe house to make sure that he doesn't catch the Red Death. They make it six months before the persona of the Red Death comes into the safe house to kill them all. This writing goes against the Transcendantalists views on the basis that diseases come from nature. This particular one is killing a lot of people really fast. Transcendantalists wouldn't think that nature or god could do this to the people especially if it comes after a specific target as it did with the prince and his party. In the Transcendantalists view god is pure, so he wouldn't kill all those people or harm them in anyway.

The Raven

The Raven is a poem about a man who has lost someone dear to him. He decides to get over his grief, or at least try and lessen the amount of grief he feels, by reading something relaxing. As he his nodding off he gets disturbed by a raven tapping on his door. The man believes this bird was sent from god or the angels to help his suffering but when the bird responds to his questions, the man hears nothing pleasant. This piece of writing would be anti-transcendentalism because nothing good has come from this bird who was sent by an angel of-sorts. Anything that is believed to be sent by god should give you hope or make you feel better because it is supposed to be good. This bird only strickens the man with more grief and rage towards the bird.
""Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore.""
This displays that the man is really mad at what the bird has told the man and that he does not want to see him near him again. The bird gives him still graver news that he will never leave, hinting that the man will have to deal with his grief of his lost one forever it will never leave.

Use of Symbolism in The Raven

Edgar Allen Poe uses symbolism very well in The Raven by using the raven and where he sits during his talk with the man. The raven, which gives the man more grief, could symbolize death. The man was trying to forget or get over the death of his dear friend "Lenore". The bird refusing to leave at the end could in turn show that his grief of his lost one will never go away. Also using the anti-transcendentalism idea of there being a bad side to everyone, the "pallid bust of Pallas just above the chamber door" that the bird is sitting on could represent the goddess Athena. The goddess Athena is the goddess of wisdom, among other things, which could represent that a dark figure could invade your "wisdom" or intuition, which your voice of intuition could come from the wisdom you have acquired over time. To transcendentalists your voice of intuition comes from god, to suggest that something dark or evil could take over could be blasphemy to them.