Anyone who enjoys literature or movies has the Romantics of the 19th century to thank. The romantic ideals are now so engraved in this societies thinking that most don’t even realize that it is romantic thinking at all. Almost every movie or book nowadays has a trace of romanticism in it. Romanticism started around the 1800’s as a contradiction to rationalism. Rationalism was a thinking that attempted to use rational thinking and reason to solve the problems being faces at its time. Romanticism is basically the opposite of those thoughts. Romanticism is described as, "a revolt against Rationalism that affected literature and the other arts, beginning in the late eighteenth century."("Elements of Literature," Page 1179). Romanticism bases its problem solving instead on ones intuition and feelings. Romanticism focuses on the power of ones imagination and praises individuality. Romantics also find inspiration form the supernatural realm, legends, myths and folk culture. (1) The Romantic ideas use art as inspiration, they focus on the spiritual and aesthetic dimensions, and they use metaphors about organic growth. It was this era that inspired Edgar Allan Poe. Poe used the basics from Romanticism and put a darker spin on them, creating mystery and horror, seen in many works nowadays. Poe’s works are now widely popular and he is considered the best dark romantic (3). The works of Edgar Allan Poe reflect the romantic period by their creativity, little-known characters, and use of emotion.
The Romantic Movement had its focus on the human imagination and the power of the mind. Poe’s stories are nothing short of pure imagination and creativity. They are full of exotic situations that create eerie moods. In Poe’s story, “The Raven”, the ...
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...erature and movies could be a lot different. Edgar Allan Poe revolutionized the Romantic era using his many works. Edgar Allan Poe showed the romantic ideas by the creativity, little-known characters, and use of emotion in his works.
Works Cited
1. http://www.angelfire.com/ga3/english/Notesfolder/11TH_GRADE_NOTES/american_romanticism.htm
2. Elements of literature, RINEHART AND WINSTON HOLT
3. http://www.rocketswag.com/biography/famous-poets/edgar-allen-poe/Romanticism-And-Edgar-Allen-Poe.html
4. http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/stress/art1957.html
5. http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/poes-short-stories/critical-essays/edgar-allan-poe-and-romanticism
6. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/romanticism
7. http://poestories.com/summaries.php
8. http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/poes-short-stories/critical-essays/edgar-allan-poe-and-romanticism
Romanticism is a revolt against rationalism. The poets and authors of this time wrote about God, religion, and Beauty in nature. The romantics held a conviction that imagination and emotion are superior to reason. One such author is William Cullen Bryant, he wrote the poem Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood. This poem uses many literary devices, and has a strong message to portray to the reader.
Throughout time, Edgar Allan Poe has been recognized as a famous writer that wrote about his tragedy of a life. Just thinking of his name, Poe, makes one think about his dark felt Poems. Most people believe that Poe had to be depressed or even evil to write his historic writings. He had to deal with a numerous amount of death of love ones throughout his lifetime. Though he had to deal with death and depression he became one of the United States famous authors of all times.
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.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential writers to date. His thrill filled tales of darkness and death helped people see a different side of romantic literature. Many believe that his isolated life and drinking problem helped influence his works. Poe showed his most prominent life accomplishment and disappointments through his life in his stories. He defined a lot of his life’s parallels through his works.
“All we ever see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” This was a quote by Edgar Allan Poe that was included in his poem A Dream Within A Dream. This quote basically means that life is nothing but a dream, a long one perhaps, but it is one that you only awaken from when you died, or about to die. I really like this poem because sometimes I often wonder, what if life was really just a dream, and death is when you awaken and cross into another world; one that is more perfect and jovial than the one that existed in “life.”? Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer in the Poe often wrote about death and fear, for these two things seem to be the main focus points of Poe literary works. Edgar Allan Poe’s writing are often serious, talking about dark things, and they usually seem to reflect his childhood,his love life, and his view of what life basically is.
Poe became a huge role model in American romance literature. "Edgar Allan Poe helped to establish the image of the Romantic artist as a being who not only created art from the essence of his own personal suffering but also came to define him through this suffering." (Magistrale 1). Poe's life and all his heartbreaks and suffrage through it all are what made him such a good writer. He wrote about sad, depressing, dreary feelings because that is how his childhood and later life was.
Poe, Edgar A. “The Raven.” Elements of Literature. Fifth Course Literature of the United States
Romanticism was a movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in revolt against the Neoclassicism of the previous centuries. The romanticism movement in literature consists of a few of the following characteristics: intuition over fact, imagination over fact, and the stretch and alteration of the truth. The death of a protagonist may be prolonged and/or exaggerated, but the main point was to signify the struggle of the individual trying to break free, which was shown in “The Fall of the House Usher” (Prentice Hall Literature 322).
Despite being faced with many hardships, Poe was able to harness his woes and transform them into works of art. Although quite sinister at times, the works of Poe have the power to leave readers breathless. It is with this power that “The Raven” was created. Poe created a way in which repetition would provoke meaning instead of boredom. He shaped symbols that would encourage the exact thoughts to occur to the reader that he had been thinking upon writing “The Raven.” His characters were crafted in a way that would be relatable to everyone and be easily understood. These characters not only make “The Raven” more universal, but they make the message of the poem more intense to the reader. In order to produce work that makes people feel and suffer, a stroke of genius is necessary. This stroke of genius was distinguished in the life of Edgar Allan Poe. It is works like this that encourage the literary world to expand. This inspires writers to fabricate their own claim to fame. “The Raven,” of course, has influenced many works (Bloom 49). To create a masterpiece as extraordinary as “The Raven” again is quite literally impossible. The use of characters, symbolism, and repetition sets this poem on its own little shelf, to be outshined,
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is a dark reflection on lost love, death and loss of hope. This poem dramatizes the emotions of the poet, who has lost his beloved, and unsuccessfully tries to distract himself from sadness, through studying books. However, books are little help and a single visitor, a Raven, disturbs his solitude. Through the poem Poe uses symbolism, imagery and tone to enforce his theme of sadness and loss. Also, with the use of assonance, alliteration, rhyme and repetition, the poem achieves a melodic level that almost feels like singing when read out loud!
Despite its name, the Romantic literary period has little to nothing to do with love and romance that often comes with love; instead it focuses on the expression of feelings and imagination. Romanticism originally started in Europe, first seen in Germany in the eighteenth century, and began influencing American writers in the 1800s. The movement lasts for sixty years and is a rejection of a rationalist period of logic and reason. Gary Arpin, author of multiple selections in Elements of Literature: Fifth Course, Literature of The United States, presents the idea that, “To the Romantic sensibility, the imagination, spontaneity, individual feelings and wild nature were of greater value than reason, logic, planning and cultivation” (143). The Romantic author rejects logic and writes wild, spontaneous stories and poems inspired by myths, folk tales, and even the supernatural. Not only do the Romantics reject logic and reasoning, they praise innocence, youthfulness and creativity as well as the beauty and refuge that they so often find in nature.
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.
The effects of Romanticism are seen in the styles of writing that often appear in today’s writings. Idealism and romance are strong themes, as are supernatural forces and creatures. Many of the books read today have happy endings where everything is resolved in the end. Not only did Romanticism affect literature; it affected much of the entertainment of the modern era, including television. The themes of the era never died out. If anything, they have dominated most of the literature that is read today.
In the late eighteenth century, a movement spread throughout the world that was known as the Romantic Era. The works of authors, artists, and musicians were influenced by emotions and imagination. Characters in literature during that time period heavily relied on impulses to guide them in their decisions. Whether it is the logical choice or not, they followed their hearts instead. The image that Romanticism created was one of a perfect, unrealistic lifestyle because of the worship to the beauty of nature and human emotions. Although some romantic plays ended in a tragedy, it was due to the emotions that we are capable of feeling. Romanticism promoted the idea that people should follow their hearts. This, however, gradually came to an end in the mid-19th-century.
During mid-17th throughout the early 18th centuries the literary movement of Romanticism swept the world. This is a way in which they people praised for emotion, imagination and intuition to create a better story for the reader. Writers used this style so people could have a direct and complex picture of the story the author is telling. Before this movement writers used a very broad picture, leaving the reader to create their own image.