Similarities Between Washington Irving And Edgar Allan Poe

In Edgar Allan Poe's lifetime and today, critics think that there are striking similarities between what Poe lived and what he wrote. His melancholy, often-depressing stories are thought to reflect his feelings. There is truth to this, although his entire life was not miserable. In fact, in some of his poems, the good characters are modeled after him. Edgar Allan Poe's writing was affected by many things in his life, including his turbulent childhood, his poverty, and his many tragic losses.

American Romanticism illustrates the first truly American literary movement that began alongside the beginning of a new nation. American Romanticism appeared in response to the rationalists, such as Ben Franklin, which the American Romantics believed to be too single-minded and expressive. American Romanticism focused on the beauty of nature, imagination, feelings and expressions, higher truths in life that had to be discovered, and individualism. Consequently, this literary movement turned away from the corruption of cities and the rationalist mindset of the world and focused on nature and imagination. Washington Irving, in his stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”, displays characteristics of American Romanticism and

In every time period there is always a writers that dominates a certain genre. These individuals are masters in their fields and can evoke the deepest feeling in their readers. There are many of these writers in every generation for every genre. In the field of horror two writers should spring to everyone's mind. Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King. Both writers have made their marks in literature for exploring the darker sides of imagination producing writings that can leave readers shaken from freight. Although both authors are from different time periods they have similarities in writing that shows their skills.

The Romantic Era began in Germany during the 19th century and greatly influenced literature, art, and music as a reaction to rationalism. Romanticism valued feeling and intuition as oppose to the early Enlightenment ideas of reason in the 18th century. Most importantly, Romantics viewed life as they would like it to be and believed that imagination and emotion were more important than rational thought. Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, and behavioral traits in which all humans tend to share amongst one another. This is portrayed in several different works of literature in the 1800s including Eldorado, Minister’s Black Veil and The Devil and Tom Walker. The authors of these stories and poems both convey different characteristics of human

Imagine a candle-lit dinner on a starry night in Paris, the Eiffel Tower just in view with dazzling lights shining into the night. This image is probably what you think of when you hear the word “romantic,” correct. However, this image is a stumbling block when people think of the “Romanticism Period” in literature. Where “romantic” means having a lovely time with the person you love the most, “Romanticism” is a piece of literature written with key themes in mind. Those themes tend to be a strong emotion, imagery or worship of nature, and individuality and subjectivity. The peak of inspiration for these pieces was in the years 1800-1850, and there are famous poems that are well loved today from this period. Many of the poets that you enjoy reading and know are, in actuality, Romanticism writers, and instill the themes above in our minds.

Washington Irving is an American writer in the era of Romanticism who mainly focused on dark romantics. One of his popular works, The Devil and Tom Walker, written in 1824, is a short story based on the legend of Tom Walker , the main character, who exchanged their soul to the devil for Pirate Kidd’s treasure. Irving depicts the main character as a miserly and greedy person who cares for nothing more, but himself, the tone of the story is dark and gloomy, which portrays the daunting and bone-chilling imagery of the story.

Two renowned writers during that literary period was Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe. Washington Irving was born April 3, 1783, in New York City, New York. He was a romanticist author, essayist, historian, editor, and diplomat of the early 19th century. Irving was best known for the father of American literature and being the first American to make a living only from writing such as biographical works and short stories like “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. These novels are both an Americanized version of German folk tales and are widely popular in both England and the United States. Having been greatly influenced by European authors, Irving has his own style of writing. In his narrative writing, Irving mostly wrote

Romanticism Era literature significantly differs from colonial period. Being two centuries apart, these time periods differ in ideas and beliefs, which affect the poets and authors of that time, as well as their writing style. Edgar Allen Poe, a well-known poet and author of the19th century, is a great example of romanticism. His works are unique in every way, but at the same time they fit the "standard" writing of Romantic period. His stories and poems are full of fantasy, creativity, mystery and unreal events. Edgar Allen Poe is a complete opposite of Colonial author Anne Bradstreet, whose works are also recognized exemplary. Yet, Anne Bradstreet has absolutely different perspective on writing and life. Her poems are more sentimental, touching and realistic than that of Poe's.

The Romanticism era let writers express their thoughts about various ideas through their words. While some focused on nature or the imagination, others wrote about their own opinions on different subject matter. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Henry David Thoreau both depicted their individual thoughts in their works. To convey specific truths about life, Longfellow and Thoreau use their own views in their writings to reveal the truths.

As the world progressed into what would then be the modern era, there were many political, economic, and literary movements. Movies such movements was the birth of the romanticism literary genre. The romanticism genre would go on to shaped with them way many modern literary John Rose would develop. Some movie authors who would improve the evolution of the literary world include Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Heavily influenced by the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution, American Romanticism was a genre of its own, unique to even the most progressive literature of the time period.

Irving, Poe, and Hawthorne were arguably some of the most popular writers of the 19th century (Dincer 223; Lauter 2505). All three of them are known for their short essays and their advocacy to make writing a full-fledged and legitimate profession. Their writings show that they were hugely influenced by the Romantic Movement (romanticism); ‘a movement in art, literature, music, philosophy, politics and culture towards focusing on the individual, the subjective, and the spontaneous’ (Dincer 218). Romanticist writing “encouraged contemplation and self-awareness, direct contact with nature, and a focus on and an exploration of inner feelings” (Dincer 223). Yet, they had distinct writing style, focus, and theme. While Irving was more of a light romantic writer, a writing style characterized by optimism, Poe and Hawthorne are widely considered dark romantic Authors whose writings were characterized by pessimism that sees the world as full of dark, evil, suffering, horror, and mystery. While Irving’s writing focused more on satire and humor, Poe & Hawthorne’s writing was more about evil, crime, sin, and mystery. Moreover, Irving seem to be nostalgic aristocrat with huge ‘interest in the landscape, folklore, and the past’ (2506), whereas Poe and Hawthorne had a contrary view of the past (Liptak).

The Romantic era writers, Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe, had many similarities but even more differences, in both writing theme and style. This is very evident in their works, “Rip Van Winkle”, by Irving, and “The Fall of the House of Usher”, by Poe.

Romantic literature was a shift from religion and focused more on feelings and individuality. People focused more on their lives rather than society as a whole and literature opened up to many possibilities. Society was secular “and the grave is not its goal; dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul” (Longfellow,3). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow inspired people to think more about themselves rather than dreaming of the experience of the afterlife. Literature was solely focused on religion before this time period while Romantic literature explored themes like love, beauty, and nature. Fiction was explored within this literary period and the people explored the impossible with their outlandish poetry.

The beginning of the nineteenth century was also the start of a legendary movement in literature, known as Romanticism. Authors during this period created their own worlds by using their imaginations. Individuals no longer saw themselves a measure of everything around them, but rather as one more component of the great source of life and creativity: nature. The Romantics placed emphasis on emotions such as apprehension, terror, and awe as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, as well as the feelings that accompany confronting the sublimity and beauty of nature, especially. Supernatural elements are not present in all Romantic literature; however, the supernatural approach was an important and arguably crucial strategy for Romanticism to achieve its purposes.

The period of Romanticism, occurring between the years 1800 and 1860, left a significant impact on not only the literature of that time, but the literature of today as well. Prior to romantic writings, the world focused on society and logic. Romanticism allowed people to start valuing individualism and to appeal to emotional responses. This new way of thinking brought new literary styles, themes, and genres that were never explored before and are still found today. The literature of Romanticism allowed people to escape the harshness of reality and enter a different world.