Dark Romantics
Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Irving
and a few living people too
Characteristics
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19th century America
(1800s)
Intense period of
EMOTION

Very pessimistic

Individuals prone to SIN
and SELF-DESTRUCTION!

Inherently evil
Frequent emotions/instances

Death, sin, pain, the
loss of a love one,
divorce, heart-ache,
hardship, mystery,
obsession, obscurity,
tragedy, madness,
guilt, evil, darkness,
decay, materialism,
greed
Also includes “GOTHIC”
characteristics
 Setting
is in bleak or remote places
 Plot involves morbid or violent
incidents
 Characters are in psychological
and/or physical torment
 A supernatural or otherworldly
element is often present
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Believed evil was a
dominant force in
the world
 Wrote The Scarlet
Letter and “The
Minister’s Black
Veil”

Herman Melville

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Wrote Moby-Dick
which is widely
regarded as one of the
finest novels in all of
American Literature
Bartleby the Scrivener
The Lightning Rod Man
The Confidence Man
Billy Budd
Typee
Edgar Allan Poe
Wrote “The Raven”
 Widely accepted as the
inventor of the detective story
 Known as an eccentric writer
– his dark and dismal life
probably had something to do
with it

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The Cask of Amontillado
The Black Cat
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Tell-Tale Heart
The Murders in the Rue
Morgue
Dark Romanticism Today?
 Can
you think of any television
shows, websites, movies, people
that fall into the dark romanticism
category?
The Dark Knight



Bruce Wayne: both
parents killed
Believes that the world is
inherently evil
“Because he's the hero
Gotham deserves, but not
the one it needs right
now. So we'll hunt him
because he can take it.
Because he's not our
hero. He's a silent
guardian, a watchful
protector. A dark knight.”
Twilight

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Evil vs. good
Betrayal
Darkness
Forbidden love
Omg
The News
Dark Tourism
Visiting sites of
extreme death or
destruction
 Examples

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

Ground Zero
Prison camps
New Orleans ruins
Genocide sites
War sites
Society in General

Emphasis on wealth and materialism
 Credit
crisis
 National debt
 Foreclosures
 Financial chaos