An exploration of Dark Romanticism in Poe’s Gothic Fiction: a journey into the conscious and subconscious mind

Abstract

Through this dissertation I aim to get to the bottom of the perverse and self-destructive nature of the conscious and subconscious mind. This notion finds precedence in the works of Dark Romantics, such as notable American author – Edgar Allan Poe – whose short stories are fraught with themes of the deranged mind and the tortured soul. The tenets of Dark Romanticism have found a permanent placing in the Gothic Fiction sub-genre. Through the incorporation of the ideals of Dark Romanticism, Edgar Allan Poe popularized the sub-genre of Gothic Fiction. This dissertation will begin by an in-depth understanding of the ideals of Dark Romanticism, after which it will follow the manner in which they are depicted in the fascinatingly disturbing short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. With the aid of the primary texts and correlating them to secondary resources, I aim to uncover Poe’s preoccupation with the ill at ease nature of the fragile human psyche, and show that through the discovery of the perverse and destructive compulsions he uncovers the sublime.