Volume I, September 2001

If Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, or Nathaniel Hawthorne ever got a hold of a Pentium III Processor with a cable modem and an SVGA monitor displaying the contents of http://surfin.spies.com/~gus/trenchcoat/, The Trench Coat Mafia Website and Webpage, several things would spill from their stiff mouths. Melville would mumble, "What stuff all this is!" (qtd. in Elements, 213). Poe would shout, "Lord help his poor soul, he is the spirit of perverseness!" (qtd. in Elements, 261). And Hawthorne, though reticent, would yawn and moan, "Positively a hell-fired young man, into which I find it almost impossible to see any cheering light" (qtd. in Elements, 297). And Hawthorne certainly would not. If the Dark Romantics recognized Eric Harris' zeal for bloodshed as an element of the inherent evil of man, they would also disapprove of his plan to assault Columbine High School unconditionally. In short, they would nod to themselves; each would acknowledge the truth of the horrifying evil in man, and how attempting to uproot it from the wasteland of human motivation would be futile.

Futility is essential to the development of humanity as a whole. Where one errs, one learns, and eradicating the dreadful aspects of mankind is as fruitless as physically removing one's own shadow. The Dark Romantics saw the optimism of the Transcendentalist as similar to the arising tragedy of a dog chasing its own tail. Man had his dark side, and it motivated him to do things that were unthinkable by the transcendentalist. This is evident in Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, in which Roger Chillingworth, succoring to revenge, unravels his twisted mind to reveal his inner demons. After he sees Hester's headstrong demeanor up for display upon the platform in the town square, he swears revenge, and forever devotes himself to the destruction of Arthur Dimmesdale, an imperfect and fractured man:

"…cried old Roger Chillingworth,… 'Better had he died at once! Never did a mortal suffer what this man has suffered. And all, all, In the sight of his worst enemy! He has been conscious of me. He has felt an influence dwelling always upon him like a curse. He knew, by some spiritual sense-for the Creator never made another being so sensitive as this-he knew that no friendly hand was pulling at his heart-strings, and that an eye was looking curiously into him, which sought only evil, and found it…But it was the constant shadow of my presence!-the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged!-and who had ground to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge!…A mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment!'" (168)

Thus Hawthorne makes Chillingworth susceptible to wrath, rage, and sin. While gathering herbs growing on the outskirts of the forest, he meets Hester Prynne, who confronts him with the matter of her fellow-sinner, Arthur Dimmesdale, weighing heavily on her mind. Roger, once a gentle and kind man, attempts to explain how he has morphed into a frightful beast:

"Dost thou remember me, Hester, as I was nine years agone? Even then, I was in the autumn of my days, nor was it the early autumn. But all my life had been made up of earnest, studious, thoughtful, quite years… No life had been more peaceful and innocent than mine; few lives so rich with benefits conferred. Dost thou remember me? Was I not, though you might deem me cold, nevertheless a man thoughtful for others… Was I not all this? … And what am I now?" demanded he, looking into her face, and permitting the whole evil within him to be written on his features. "I have already told thee what I am! A fiend! Who made me so?" (169)

Hester makes him so. It is her pride, stubbornness, and consequent shame that denigrates Roger Chillingworth's soul. Through this, Hawthorne gives Chillingworth the capability to perform evil. Driven by self-serving and evil desires, Roger embodies the Dark Romantics' view of a corrupted man. Hawthorne does not stop at the Scarlet Letter. "The Minister's Black Veil" also serves as a vessel to deliver his dark message to the masses. In this instance, man's shadow is represented by a piece of black crepe, the stigma that Revered Hooper wears: "'If it be a sign of mourning,' replied Mr. Hooper, 'I, perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil'" (Elements, 304). Having known how ineffective it would be to hide the great sin he has committed, Mr. Hooper chooses to don the black veil to show his shadow to the world. Poe and Melville also frame man's animus onto their literary walls; Poe complements the confused Roderick with the insane Madeline, and Melville's quill points to his obsessive Ahab and the immortal Moby- Dick. However, with the Dark Romantic's view in mind, which characters or elements are truly shadows remains a mystery.

What was also mysterious and awesome to the Dark Romantic was the idea of the supernatural. This, of course, gave way to the notion that one is better governed by intuition than reason or logic. Hawthorne gives this gift to Reverend Dimmesdale, who confirms his notions of Chillingworth's duality through Hester: "'I might have known it,' murmured he. 'I did know it! Was not the secret told me, in the natural recoil of my heart, at the first sight of him, and as often as I have seen him since" (Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter 190)? Poe uses the idea of human intuition in his short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher." Roderick Usher, though in an unlikely condition to employ his intuition, does so on the night of Madeline's rising. Through the fictional book of the Mad Trist, Poe parallels two worlds; as the fictional shield of brass falls to Ethelred's feet with a "terrible ringing sound," a "hollow, metallic, and clangorous…reverberation" is heard throughout the House of Usher (qtd. in Elements, 277). With Madeline's announcement of her approach, Roderick begins to snap: "'Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!'-here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul-'Madman!! I tell you that she now stands without the door!'" (Elements, 278)

And Roderick's intuition cannot serve him better, for as he utters his last syllable, Madeline appears between the two wooden panels that once served as a door. Roderick's divine foresight compels him to tremble with fear and horror; however, not for long; the twins are dead within an hour. In "Bartleby the Scrivener," Melville introduces the psychological bearing of euthanasia through the narrator. On his way to Trinity Church, the narrator acquires a strange curiosity toward the life of his hired scrivener, Bartleby. Upon seeing Bartleby's "quarters," the narrator cannot help but feel pity. But when Bartleby does not leave the office, despite many gentle requests and demands, the narrator resorts to the idea of forbidden mercy.

"I was now in such a state of nervous resentment that I thought it but prudent to check myself, at present, from further demonstrations… I remembered the tragedy of the unfortunate Adams and the still more unfortunate Cold in the solitary office of the latter… But when this old Adam of resentment rose in me and tempted me concerning Bartleby, I grappled him and threw him…Men have committed murder for jealousy's sake, and anger's sake, and hatred's sake, and selfishness' sake, and spiritual pride's sake; but no man that ever I heard of, ever committed a diabolical murder for sweet charity's sake." (18)

The narrator does not submit to his rashness, and leaves Bartleby. His intuition in the matter; however, prevails. He knows how wrong it would be to cross the line of human pity. With that established, the Dark Romantics had little else of the supernatural to defend.

What became a motif in Puritan literature floated its way back into the Dark Romantic's mind. The idea that disasters and events have spiritual significance were part of the Dark Romantic Doctrine. Just as Anne Bradstreet derived some significance from the burning of her home, the Dark Romantics found importance in natural and unnatural disasters. The narrator in "The Fall of the House of Usher" mutters a few lines concerning the import of Roderick's condition and the tragedy that follows. Roderick places great moment on the "death" of Madeline: "And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten…At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound" (Elements, 274). But the Dark Romantic character most motivated by disaster is Melville's Captain Ahab. The disaster that galvanizes him to revenge is, of course, the loss of his leg: "And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby-Dick had reaped away Ahab's leg…Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, no only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations" (Elements, 325). Thus, the Dark Romantics belief in spiritual significance in disasters is clearly established.

The Dark Romantics stressed the existence of sin, pain, and Satan, as well as the importance of human intuition over reason and logic. The belief in the supernatural and the acknowledgement of spiritual significance in disasters stemmed from these principles. The Dark Romantics believed that these elements of the mind motivated humans in the worst ways. What the Dark Romantics found in the human heart was darkness and the only things that sufficed as explanations for man's moral hell were that which was mystical and melancholy-a House of Usher, a scarlet letter, a white whale, a minister perpetually hidden behind a dark veil, and an idle scrivener. Would humans be pure and free from sin? As Poe would put it, "And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor/Shall be lifted-nevermore" (Elements, 286)!

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel "The Minister's Black Veil" Elements of Literature Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1997, 299-307.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel The Scarlet Letter Perma-Bound Classics, 1850.

Melville, Herman Moby-Dick Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 313-327.

Melville, Herman "Bartleby the Scrivener"

Poe, Edgar Allan "The Fall of the House of Usher" Elements of Literature Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1997, 263-279.

Poe, Edgar Allan "The Raven" Elements of Literature Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1997,
282-286.

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