I NEED HELP ASAP, I NEED SOME INSIGHT ON HOW POE, HAWTHRONE, MELVILLE, AND WHITMAN EXEMPLIFY THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM BY ANALYZING A SPECIFIC WORK OF EACH. (EX. INDIVIDUALISM, DEATH, LOVE, ETC.) I HAD A VERY DIFFICULT TIME UNDERSTANDING SOME OF THEIR READINGS (AFTER SEVERAL ATTEMPTS) SO I NEED HELP ON COMPARING ALL OF THESE TOGEHTER, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ANY HELP!!!!

-- Anonymous, February 11, 2004

Answers

I'm not totally well versed with all of the other authors, except Hawthorne - but thats only because the others are actually very hard to understand. However, I have a small grasp on them, so I hope this helps.

The whole Romanticism era was to experiment with human emotions at the rawest level you could. There was no order or control - it is all about chaos and feeling. Poe used death and extrodinary narrator skills to compliment the Romanticism period. Think of THE TALE-TELL HEART, the narrator is obviously crazy. The narrator spends a great deal of time trying to prove that he is not (by at least saying that he is), yet he claims to hear the heavens and hell, yet the eye is driving him mad.... odd how the eye (sight) is driving him to insanity, rather than the ear (hearing) which he acknowledges as incredibly strong. He murders and almost gets away with his crime until his hearing hears the heart that drives him to confess his murder. Where are the characteristics? The insanity, the paranoia. Those emotions that the narrator had and shared with the audience feeds off the basis of the Romanticism period.

Hawthorne was very similar. Think of GOODMAN BROWN, the Puritan who went for a walk in the woods only to discover his township was in the control of the devil. His wife Faith (undoubtedly named that to question HIS faith when at the trial) was at the trial which made things more interesting. This too uses emotion. He was upset and confused - the people he knew best for being wholly religious were in the works with the devil. He then went angry - for being lied to. He left victorious, for not succumbing to the devil. Which leaves the ultimate question - is he victim or victor by reason of his own doing or the society he lives in? The characteristic you should look for is in fact the whole victim/victor persona - what emotions go with each? He is victor for not going with the crowd, yet victim because he is never fully the same. Again, you also want to read the final scene of the hellfire assembly - it could all just be a dream. Another factor in the Romanticism era... dreams can go all over, chaotic... they are not real or orderly.

Here is where I might not be of too much assistance, sorry!

Melville was not to much on it. Yet he PLAYED on the emotions of others. Which is something to look at. I think BENITO CERRINO (sp??) is a good one to look at. Babo knows where the world stands, what they are thinking - he uses that to his advantage. I can't really say to much more without being sure - but look at that angle. The Romanticism tie would be the emotion factor (again, HUGE importance in that era). He doesn't reveal the emotions, he USES them. However, Melville isn't in the Romanticism period - I think he came BEFORE it... the whole rhyme and reason period.

Whitman, I am assuming your talking about Walt Whitman, here? He wasn't too much the Romanticism period... he was the Realistic period or something further down the line. One of the more recent. But if your determined... Look at SONG OF MYSELF. He writes from an individualistic point of view that is connected with EVERYTHING. Meaning it is one persona, not two. He is writing as part of everything. Look at it from the point of view of: not so much emotions, but as the individual/community parasitic relationship - except without the parasitic thing. They go hand in hand, they are one being, granted with two identities.

I know the last two authors weren't much help, but again they weren't Romanticism authors. Poe and Hawthorne are the best to work off of, seeing that their styles are unquestionably similar.

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2004