1. Three “Types” of Romanticism

2. Dark (or Gothic) Romanticism

3. What’s the difference?
The three “Dark Romantics” were Poe, Hawthorne, and Herman Melville
Both value intuition over reason, see symbols in events, and believe that spirituality is located primarily in nature.

4. DARK Romantics:
Believed nature was NOT necessarily good or harmless, and that it could sometimes actually be evil.
Were fascinated by the psychological effects of sin, guilt, and even madness.
Thought that “duality,” or the good and evil sides, coexist in each of us.

5. Think of it this way:
For the Romantics, the “supernatural occurrence” might be a fantastic dream
Wrote “supernatural” tales like “Paul Bunyon” or even fantasy

6. But… For the DARK or GOTHIC Romantics, the dream is instead a
NIGHTMARE!
Wrote GHOST STORIES and MONSTER tales

7. Transcendentalism living close to nature, dignity in manual labor.
Thought that within human nature, there was something intuitive that transcended (existed above and beyond the limits of) the human experience.

8. Facts About Transcendentalism
Originated from German idealism and philosophy
Based also upon writings of Thomas Carlyle
Centered in New England
Famous Transcendentalists: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott

9. Theological Ideas of Transcendentalism
Idea that God “transcends being”
Emerson’s oversoul

10. Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson 5/25/1803- 4/27/1882
Father died when he was young
Scholarship to Harvard
Became a schoolmaster

11. Emerson cont.
Returned to Harvard for divinity degree; became Unitarian minister
Resigned over philosophical quandary about administering communion
Supported self giving lectures; when he couldn’t make it, Frederick Douglass filled in
Friends with Hawthorne, Thoreau
Married twice, but also attracted to men
Later in life Walt Whitman?

12. Emerson - 3
Founded Transcendentalism with the anonymous publication of “Nature” in 1846
Owned the pond that Thoreau lived on (Walden)
Thoreau left Walden to stay at Emerson’s house while he was off on lecture circuit
dementia in later life

13. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-Reliance
“To be great is to be misunderstood”

14. Emerson’s Transparent Eyeball

15. Henry David Thoreau July 1817 – May 1862 Harvard educated
Died of bronchitis
Emerson, though they had argued, gave his eulogy
Emerson = ideas, Thoreau = action

16. Thoreau “Civil Disobedience” inspired Ghandi, ML King
“Passive Resistance”
Spent night in jail because he refused to pay his poll taxes
Walden: “I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately”