Have you ever thought of the romantic era of literature and what it symbolizes. Well there are many elements that surround Romanticism. It focuses on the individual, feelings and emotions. There are many but I will talk about three of them in this essay. The three are the dark side of man, Picturesque writing and the influence of the past on man. These three elements are in two great stories, and one poem two of which are by Edgar Allen Poe and one from Nathaniel Hathorn, These three great stories of Romantic literature are "The Black Cat", "The Raven" and Dr. Heidegger's Experiment. .
In the "The Black Cat" the Picturesque side of Romanticism is shown, were it graphically displayed through writing how the narrator had stabbed the I out of his black cat "I took from my waistcoat pocket a penknife opened it grasped the poor beast by the throat and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!". .
Another side of Romanticism show is in one of the other stories, Dr. Heidegger's Experiment. In this story the past is show when Dr. Heidegger invites a few guest to his house to have a drink of a magic drink that will make you young again. The four guest made very bad choices in there past. Here is an example of past "They were all melancholy old creatures, who had been unfortunate in life, and whose greatest misfortune it was that they were not long ago in their graves". This is another example of the past from Dr. Heidegger Experiment "Mr. Medbourne, in the vigor of his age, had been a prosperous merchant, but had lost his all by a frantic speculation and was now little better than a mendicant". .
The last element of Romanticism I will discuss is gothic there are many examples of gothic in each and every one of the stories but especially in the raven. Where a man lets out his fears of the darkside consume him just because of some black raven. Here is a example of that "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend! I shrieked, upstarting".
