Dark Romanticism is a type of Romanticism, a literary style that shows people's interest in strange, scary, and unusual ideas. It is often confused with Gothic fiction, which also includes dark and mysterious themes. This style began in the 18th century and has always been connected to the more joyful Romantic movement. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous writers linked to this tradition. Dark Romanticism explores human mistakes, self-harm, the consequences of actions, and how guilt and wrongdoing affect the mind.
Historical context
The word "Romanticism" comes from the Old French word "romanz," which means stories written in the local language called "Roman" (not Latin). This term evolved from the Latin phrase "romanice," meaning "in the Roman manner." Romanticism became a well-known style in art, literature, and music. It focused on emotions and imagination instead of science and logic. The Romantic Movement started in Europe at the end of the 18th century and spread to America in the early 19th century. American Romantic writers were most active between 1830 and 1865. Within Romanticism, two opposing groups developed: one believed in human kindness and spiritual strength, forming the Transcendentalism Movement, while the other saw human weakness and a tendency toward wrongdoing, creating the Dark Romantic Movement.
Definitions
Romanticism's focus on joy and awe-inspiring beauty has always been paired with a strong interest in darker themes, such as sadness, madness, crime, and mysterious or eerie settings. These themes include ghosts, ghouls, strange and unsettling images, and things that defy reason. The term "Dark Romanticism" was first used by literary theorist Mario Praz in his 1930 book The Romantic Agony, which studied this style in detail.
According to critic G. R. Thompson, Dark Romantic writers often used evil characters like Satan, devils, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and ghouls to represent the darker parts of human nature. Thompson describes key ideas of this sub-genre:
People struggling to understand strange reminders of a supernatural world that doesn't seem real, confusion about unexplainable and deeply mysterious events, a tendency to make choices that seem morally wrong or evil without clear rules, and a feeling of guilt without knowing why, combined with the belief that the outside world might be a false image created by the mind—these were major ideas in the vision of humanity that Dark Romantics presented, which differed from the main ideas of Romanticism.
"Cannibals? Who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy pate de fois gras." – Herman Melville's Moby Dick: or The Whale
Characteristics
To understand dark romanticism, we must look for specific features in the artwork that help us recognize it. Dark romanticism is defined by questioning whether humans are naturally perfect, believing that humans can never be perfect and will never achieve perfection. People began to view religion in less traditional ways, focused more on disasters, and started to explore difficult truths in their everyday lives.
The most common ideas include the belief that humans are naturally prone to sin and destruction, that people cannot escape sin or be saved from it, and that humans may harm society, religions, and themselves.
Artists' impact
Artworks often explore themes such as loneliness, sadness, desire, death, fear, and the strange nature of dreams. Artists like Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Paul Klee, and Max Ernst continued to create art with these ideas in mind during the twentieth century. Dark Romanticism developed as a response to the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the spread of rational thinking. This movement focused on strong emotions, pure artistic experiences, and intense feelings.
In Switzerland, Johann Heinrich Fuseli studied to become a preacher. He created a famous painting that represents Dark Romanticism. This artwork begins the exhibit, which is displayed across two levels of a temporary exhibition space. The painting shows a demon and a lustful horse in a modern setting, which surprised people who saw it at the time. The artwork also included scenes that appealed to those interested in forbidden or intense themes.
This painting shows the struggle between good and evil, suffering and desire, and light and darkness. Fuseli’s unique style influenced many artists, including William Blake. One of Blake’s well-known works, The Great Red Dragon, is displayed at the Brooklyn Museum.
Francisco Goya was a major figure in Spanish painting. He helped shape Romanticism by exploring real life and the world of dreams in his art. He also used new painting techniques. Goya described himself as a student of Velázquez, Rembrandt, and nature. From Velázquez, he learned to use soft, layered colors. From Rembrandt, he took inspiration for dark and mysterious backgrounds. From nature, he drew a wide variety of shapes, some beautiful and others unpleasant.
John Constable’s goal was to paint nature honestly, showing its beauty and simplicity without being overly dramatic. He did not see himself as a symbol of nature’s emotions, but he found comfort in nature’s landscapes. He believed his life and art were in ruins, and he found a connection to his spirit in the bleak scenery of Hadleigh Castle in Essex.
Eugène Delacroix is often seen as the founder of the Romantic movement in French painting during the nineteenth century. His paintings used bold, energetic brushstrokes and bright colors to express strong emotions, fascination with distant cultures, and the idea of the sublime. His life and work reflected the Romantic movement’s focus on passion, exotic themes, and the sublime.
18th-/19th-century movements in national literatures
Dark Romanticism was a common feature within the larger Romanticism movement in literature and art around the world. It began in Germany, with writers like E. T. A. Hoffmann and Ludwig Tieck, as well as earlier writer Christian Heinrich Spiess. These writers focused on themes like loneliness, the dark side of human nature, and strange or unsettling experiences. At the same time, the more peaceful and everyday style of Biedermeier art and writing was also popular.
Schwarze Romantik, a type of German Gothic writing, shares similarities with Gothic novels. Both often include settings like castles, ghosts, and monsters. However, Schwarze Romantik has unique elements such as magic involving the dead and secret groups. These themes appear in Friedrich Schiller’s unfinished novel The Ghost-Seer (1786–1789). Secret groups also appear in Karl Grosse’s Horrid Mysteries (1791–1794) and Christian August Vulpius’s The History of Rinaldo Rinaldini (1798). Benedikte Naubert’s Hermann of Unna (1788) is considered very close to the Schwarze Romantik style.
Other early writers and works include Christian Heinrich Spiess’s Das Petermännchen (1793), Der alte Überall und Nirgends (1792), Die Löwenritter (1794), and Hans Heiling (1798); Heinrich von Kleist’s short story “Das Bettelweib von Locarno” (1797); and Ludwig Tieck’s Der blonde Eckbert (1797) and Der Runenberg (1804).
For two decades, E. T. A. Hoffmann was the most famous German writer of Gothic fiction. His novel The Devil’s Elixirs (1815) was influenced by Lewis’s The Monk and even mentions it. The story also includes the idea of a Doppelgänger, a term created by German writer Jean Paul in his novel Siebenkäs (1796–1797). Other important writers of the time included Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (The Marble Statue, 1818), Ludwig Achim von Arnim (Die Majoratsherren, 1819), and Adelbert von Chamisso (Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte, 1814). Later writers like Wilhelm Meinhold (The Amber Witch, 1838) and Sidonia von Bork (1847) also wrote in this style. Theodor Storm’s final work, The Rider on the White Horse (1888), used Gothic themes.
British writers such as Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Shelley, and John William Polidori, who are often linked to Gothic fiction, are sometimes called Dark Romantics. Dark Romanticism often includes stories about personal suffering, people who feel disconnected from society, and questions about whether humans can be saved or destroyed by their nature. Later writers like Bram Stoker and Daphne du Maurier also wrote in this style.
In America, writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville explored similar themes. Charles Brockden Brown was an earlier American writer who influenced them. Unlike the optimistic ideas of Transcendentalism, these writers focused on human mistakes, the tendency to sin, and the challenges of trying to improve society.
After 1830, 19th-century French fantasy writing was strongly influenced by E. T. A. Hoffmann and later by Edgar Allan Poe. French writers like Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud wrote about dark themes similar to those in German and English literature. Baudelaire was one of the first French writers to admire Edgar Allan Poe, and this admiration became common in French literary circles by the late 19th century.