Similarities Between Hawthorne And Edgar Allan Poe

The Oxford Dictionary defines romanticism as a movement in the arts and literature which originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual. Two authors who emerged during this period of time were Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who, like most authors in this time period, were realizing the beauty and darkness of both human nature and natural scenery .Poe and Hawthorne’s works were primarily based on the topic of the human conscience and moral compass. In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall Of The House of Usher and The Raven and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil and Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment their dark, twisted nature is prominent. Well-known for his inventive stories,
Though they both wrote pieces of gothic literature, Poe writes more about death and decay while Hawthorne focuses more on sin and guilt. Poe’s writings, such as The Raven and The Fall of the House of Usher were mostly surrounded by this central theme of death, The Raven is more so considering the raven itself is a symbol of death. An example of Poe’s theme of death is expressed in “The Fall of the House of Usher” as he says, “It was the work of the rushing gust---but then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold---then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated” (430, lines 579-586). In Poe’s writing, he surrounds the story around the death of someone close him like how The Raven was surrounded by the death of the narrator’s love, Lenore. Hawthorne, on the other hand, focuses his writings on the theme of guilt and sin. Hawthorne’s theme is widely expressed in Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment as well as The Black Minister’s Veil as he expresses to his readers that he believed that all people are sinful. In Hawthorne’s Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment, he expresses his theme of sin when he says, "Before you drink, my respectable old friends, it would be well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidance, in passing a second time through the perils of youth. Think what a sin and shame it would be, if, with your peculiar advantages, you