The Literature Book

141

the way for the modern horror story.

Since the truths the Dark Romantics

sought to reveal were primitive

and irrational, they favored the use

of symbolism—a mode of

communication that bypassed the

faculty of reason. Edgar Allan Poe

wrote stories and poems featuring

somber, dreamlike details such as

people being buried alive, decaying

mansions, and a raven that inflicts

psychological torment. Nathaniel

Hawthorne, who found his own

nightmares in the hypocrisy

of Puritanism in the real world,

wrote about shame and secret sin.

On August 5, 1850 two of the

great writers of Dark Romanticism,

Hawthorne, 46, and Herman

Melville, 31, met on a hike up a

mountain in Massachusetts.

Melville, in the throes of writing

his great whaling novel Moby-Dick,

was greatly inspired by the

older writer’s intense Romantic

inwardness and his rejection of

conformity. Later he moved with

his wife and family to live near

Hawthorne, and he included a

dedication to him in the opening

pages of Moby-Dick, which read

“in token of my admiration for

your genius.”

The revenge quest

Rich in language, incident,

character, and symbolism, and

displaying an extraordinary depth

and breadth of knowledge within

its maritime subject area, Moby-

Dick; or, The Whale is the first

great American fictional epic. It is

a book driven by an intense literary

ambition; from its famous opening

line, “Call me Ishmael,” it sweeps

the reader along, following the

narrator’s quest to discover

meaning “in the damp, drizzly

November of [his] soul.”

In fact, Ishmael’s own quest

is paired with an obsessive and

ultimately tragic adventure ❯❯

See also: First Folio 82–89 ■ Frankenstein 120–21 ■ Leaves of Grass 125 ■ Wuthering Heights 132–37 ■

Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque 152 ■ The Scarlet Letter 153 ■ Dracula 195 ■ Gravity’s Rainbow 296–97

ROMANTICISM AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

Nature is a divine

spiritual force that

mediates between

man and God.

Humankind possesses

a divine spark, making

humans innately good.

Individuals are at their

best when self-reliant

and independent.

Nature is a sinister

spiritual force that

reveals terrifying

truths.

Humankind is

imperfect, and inclined

toward sin and self-

destruction.

Individuals fail when

trying to change things

for the better.

Transcendentalism and Dark Romanticism were two opposing sides of

the American Renaissance of the mid-19th century. The Transcendentalists

saw both nature and people as inherently good; conversely, for the Dark

Romantics, nature was a potentially sinister force and humans infinitely fallible.

Transcendentalism Dark Romanticism

For all men tragically

great are made so through

a certain morbidness ...

all mortal greatness is

but disease.

Moby-Dick

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