Romanticism in America - Essay Example

Henry David Thoreau argues against the existence of the democratic state or for that matter, any form of the state. Articulated in his essay “Resistance to Civil Government”, his concern for the maintenance of the freedom of mankind is an idea that the Romantics held very dear. He asserted the uselessness of governments and maintains that man would be better off in a free state, another of the greatest concerns of the Romantics. Man in his free state in communion with nature and fellow human beings was the ideal state to exist in, according to the Romantics.

The essay came as a part of his resistance to American imperialism, similar to British Romanticism that was to a great extent the result of the French Revolution. The law as a force that causes people to become corrupt also is an idea that is very Romantic since it emphasizes the essential innocence of man (Thoreau, 830).  The effects of the society and the elements of a society upon the constitution of a man are also seen in “Bartleby, the Scrivener”, written by Herman Melville.

Bartleby is initially an industrious person. Later on, however, the effects of society and its institutions push him into depression and he is unable to move out of the rut that he falls into. In a supernatural manner that was characteristic of the Romantic Movement, the narrator who is Bartleby’s employer also falls into the same pit of inaction which is invoked again and again by the refrain, "I would prefer not to" (Melville, 1097).  The romantic elements of the plot include an enquiry into an individual’s mind and the workings of it.

Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “The Raven”, too is a work that has deep resonances of Romanticism. The poem is the story of a student who laments the loss of his lover, Lenore. The raven visits the student and is almost invested with human characteristics. Such a humanization of animal characters is a characteristic of Romantic literature and signifies man’s communion when the vestments of civilization are stripped from him. The student is on a slow path to madness and this is one of the most interesting aspects of the poem.

It again is an exploration of the human psyche and its hidden desires and beliefs, pushed into the background through a process of repression. This was a common concern in Romantic literatur