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In the Romantic Era, known as the reaction to the age of reason, the emotional aspect of humankind was explored and embraced. Many writers used different types of characters and rhetorical devices to convey individual beliefs of human nature. Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe were famous for their works of romanticism. While Irving creates a humorous tone through his setting and characters, Poe’s mood is one of despair to convey the human condition.
In Poe’s The Raven, Poe describes a Gothic setting in a bleak December. The narrator appears in a lonely apartment with silken purple curtains rustling unsettlingly. “From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lenore – Nameless here for evermore.” (Poe 10-11) This line intensifies
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Irving further describes the forest as each stump around the Devil was hollow and “corrupted” at the core creating an ominous feeling. Yet, the mood changes again to one of humor as Tom’s wife is informed of Tom’s meeting with the Devil and takes it upon herself to bargain with the Devil. “At length she was determined to drive the bargain on her own account, and if she succeeded, to keep all the gain to herself.” (183) The reader is given a delightfully humorous tone through the cold, marital relationship between Tom and his wife. “He leaped with joy; for he recognized his wife’s apron and supposed it to contain the household valuables. – We will endeavor without the woman.” (184) Irving gives a more humorous tone as when Tom finds his wife is gone, he proceeds not to care. Despite the dark undertones, Irving’s humorous tones give a lighthearted twist to a rather corrupt story. Finally, Irving’s humorous tone turns bitterly …show more content…
Although the two writers are very different, Poe and Irving share very similar inputs on the corrupted human condition. Either through humor or despair, romantic writers opened up the reality of the human condition for everyone to
In,”The Raven”, Poe utilizes diction, syntax, and rhymes to convey his theme of depression towards his lost love, Lenore. The raven flew into Poe’s home uninvited and stayed perched on his chamber door. In the story, the raven symbolizes the undying grief he has for Lenore.
Many literary critics have observed and noted the use of single effect in Edgar Allan Poe’s works. In “The Raven,” Poe chooses single effect as a dominant attribute to the poem as a whole. Edgar Allan Poe is widely recognized for his use of darkness in many of his works. In “The Raven,” the darkness in the poem encourages the namelessness of Lenore and the despair of the speaker. The darkness the speaker sees beyond his door is actually Lenore. However, his beloved is still absent. The darkness the speaker sees is not only Lenore but it is also the dreaded raven. A shadow, which haunts his soul, is hidden in the darkness beyond his door. In the fifth stanza, it is no more a darkness but the word “Lenore” being echoed. In the sixth stanza, the haunting echo transforms into the wind and “nothing more!” In stanza 7, all the forms become a raven that speaks “Nevermore.” Poe also uses darkness in an effort to achieve clarity. The effort to differe...
Tom Walker takes a shortcut through the swamp. Although, “the swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high; which made it dark at noonday,... It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses; where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools,... and where trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half drowned, half rotting, looking like alligators, sleeping in the mire” (Irving), Tom ventured in anyway. Typically in Romanticism, nature has a positive effect on its visitor, acting as a mental and spiritual escape. Irving, however, takes a different approach: using nature to conjure up a negative situation instead of a positive, renewing one. Even when the devil approaches Walker in the swamp, he is not, “troubled with any fears of the kind” as he, “was a hard-minded fellow, not easily daunted, and he had lived so long with a termagant wife, that he did not even fear the devil” (Irving). This attitude will secure his unfortunate demise. The devil promises Walker wealth beyond his belief, on one condition: the devil takes ownership of Tom’s soul. After a lifetime of scamming innocent people out of their money, the devil comes back for Mr. Tom Walker, whisking him away into the forest just as he had entered it-
When a writer starts his work, most often than not, they think of ways they can catch their reader’s attention, but more importantly, how to awake emotions within them. They want to stand out from the rest and to do so, they must swim against the social trend that marks a specific society. That will make them significant; the way they write, how they make a reader feel, the specific way they write, and the devotion they have for their work. Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgard Allan Poe influenced significantly the American literary canon with their styles, themes, and forms, making them three important writers in America.
Romanticism is an essential part of the early forms of American literature. Romantic’s, who value feelings and intuition as opposed to reason, seek to reveal higher truths through their writings. One way to reveal these truths is by the use imagination, as Washington Irving and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow do. Through the utilization of imagination, Washington Irving and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow reveal distinct truths about life.
The Romantic period was an entirely unique era in American history that produced new life philosophies through the focus of nature and exploration resulting in the evolution of the American Dream. Consequently, some of the world’s greatest advancements in arts and literature were accomplished during this time period. Authors such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Fennimore Cooper, and Oliver Wendell Holmes sparked the imagination of American audiences through newfound literature such as lyrical poetry, myths, legends, folklore, and the new American novel. Romantic age writers emphasized nature, especially in poetry, as an inspiration for imagination and emotion. The American Dream during the Romantic era was to lead a life of emotion and intuition over reasoning through exploration of the countryside and the recognition of natural beauty displayed by imaginative literature that reflected this American Dream.
The life of Edgar Allan Poe, was stuffed with tragedies that all affected his art. From the very start of his writing career, he adored writing poems for the ladies in his life. When he reached adulthood and came to the realization of how harsh life could be, his writing grew to be darker and more disturbing, possibly as a result of his intense experimenting with opium and alcohol. His stories continue to be some of the most frightening stories ever composed, because of this, some have considered this to be the reason behind these themes. Many historians and literature enthusiasts have presumed his volatile love life as the source while others have credited it to his substance abuse. The influence of his one-of-a-kind writing is more than likely a combination of both theories; but the main factor is the death of many of his loved ones and the abuse which he endured. This, not surprisingly, darkened his perspective considerably.
During the American Renaissance, writers were put into one of two categories. The categories were the Dark Romantics and the Transcendentalists. Some Dark Romantics include Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Washington Irving. The Dark Romantics stories included creepy symbols, horrific themes, and psychological effects of guilt and sin. The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving gives a few examples as to why life is meaningless to some people.Humans are not all good, there are some cruel people in this world. The Pit and the Pendulum tells you exactly why.
Poe has a different style of writing from any other. It is an inanimate type of writing. This makes his works interesting and suspenseful. If Poe did not have this type of style he would not be as well known today. Edgar uses his obscure styles to create his visual stories. The Tell Tale Heart is mechanical and scientific in the way that Edgar Allen Poe has written it.
characteristics are sometimes found in abundant quantities or limited amounts in each of his short stories. However, no matter what short story Washington Irving wrote, the Age of Romanticism and its defining characteristics are found in each of his selections. So, too, do each of the author’s short stories present a unique study about the author’s intentions for creating his work. In Washington Irving’s selection “The Three Kings of Bermuda”, the author portrays tone in a way that he changes it often throughout his writing to help the reader understand the emotion and atmosphere taking place during this short story. He brings his readers almost on a rollercoaster of tone by giving different points to look at what is going on. Washington Irving gives many insights and key points by doing this. This blend of both Romanticism and this particular one of the author’s many purposes for writing this work will enrich the reader’s understanding of this selection. It will also make the reader aware of the author’s other works and their meaning/ themes. Using both the characteristics of Romanticism and a significant idea about the story, Washington Irving creates an interesting and meaningful selection for his readers’ enjoyment and learning.
...s, and demons. Upon a deeper inspection, I feel the two poems are reflective of Poe himself. Poe was a troubled soul that dealt with these themes during the course of his life. This could be an indication as to why the dark themes is so prevalent in these poems. Regardless of the reason for the similarities, much like the darkness that surrounded Poe’s life, the connected correlations of these poems will persist evermore.
While Irving may poke fun at the idea of a simplistic moral, a clear maxim that one can easily digest, he nevertheless infuses his work with a message. If any “moral” could be taken from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” it is that there are some places where reason cannot guide us. The possibility of a place where reason and rationality are no longer useful is a direct and sharp critique of the ideals of the Enlightenment. Through his “tools of the trade” as a storyteller, Irving effectively denounces the limits of Enlightenment thinking, and opens the door for the possibilities of Romanticism and the Gothic.
Edgar Allan Poe?s ?The Raven? is a dark reflection on lost love, death, and loss of hope. The poem examines the emotions of a young man who has lost his lover to death and who tries unsuccessfully to distract himself from his sadness through books. Books, however, prove to be of little help, as his night becomes a nightmare and his solitude is shattered by a single visitor, the raven. Through this poem, Poe uses symbolism, imagery and tone, as well as a variety of poetic elements to enforce his theme of sadness and death of the one he loves.
In the Poem, “The Raven”, Poe chooses the theme of morbidity and grief to depict a story that reflects depression. In order to exemplify the story through depression and morbidity, Poe uses symbolism to really have the reader understand his twisted mentality. For example, Poe uses the word Pluto in numerous of his poems and tales; the word Pluto, is derived from a Roman Greek god Hades. This symbolic meaning should right away warn the reader that grief and agony is yet to arrive. Moreover, by mentioning “night” and “midnight” throughout the poem shows the Poe is using that word as a symbol for death. When beginning the poem, Edgar created a background in which a man is sitting and pondering in his library. After hearing a sudden knock on the door, the man approaches the door and realizes there is no there to greet him. However, a shiny black raven shows up at the men’s window and inflicts feelings of negativity, agony, and grief that later on in the poem overcame the narra...
The first two stanzas of The Raven introduce you to the narrator, and his beloved maiden Lenore. You find him sitting on a “dreary” and dark evening with a book opened in front of him, though he is dozing more than reading. Suddenly, he hears knocking on his door, but only believes it to be a visitor nothing more. He remembers another night, like this one, where he had sought the solace this poem thinking daffodils and sunshine, but howling winds and shadows. By using these words, Poe gives you the sense of being isolated and alone. He also contrasts this isolation, symbolized by the storm and the dark chamber, with the richness of the objects in the library. The furnished room also reminds him of the beauty of his lost Lenore. Also, Poe uses a rhythm in his beginning stanza, using “ta continue reading. And at the end of each stanza, “nothing more” or “nevermore” is like the door slamming of the library. One of the genius factors of Poe’s writing is his way of working his way into the human psyche, with nothing more than a few words and a perfect setting. You can not really relate to someone, who is being chased by a monster, because even though it only answers in the negative over and over again to whatever question is asked, slowly driving the narrator insane. One wonders if Poe himself wrote this poem late at night, under the flickering of candlelight, not having enough sleep or enough to eat, yet under influences such as alcohol, etc. With the narrators mention of the angel-named Lenore, “Nameless here for evermore,” Poe is possibly reaching out for his lost love long dead to him. People wanted to be taken away from the torments of the physical world, the Revolutionary War had ended years before, yet the country was still trying to be a united country, and to clean up the ravages of war. Families had lost vital members of their home, and more and more immigrants were coming into the country to make something of themselves. The cities were filled with business and urban development, while the rural areas were filled with crops growing up again on the torn land, and people progressed closer and closer to the edges of needed a release from everyday life, something they could read by the fire at night that would take them away into another world. Poe was a master at this. In the first two stanzas of Poe’s The Raven, we learn of the setting for the narrator’s psychological breakdown. The tone and mood is set from the opening line, “Once upon a midnight dreary,” which captures the reader and holds tight. heritage. The sandstone of the sandstone. And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain.