Dark Romanticism is a literary and cultural genre that combines darkness and cynicism with romanticism and emotional drama. It is associated with writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe, as well as with gothic aesthetics and supernatural elements. It is popular in modern English-speaking societies and is often used in marketing and social media.
Dark Romanticism is a term with various meanings, but one of the most popular is a literary genre that has a darkly emotional edge, similar to what has been called the “transcendentalist” literary movement. Other definitions refer to other arts, such as music, the visual arts, and the performing arts. It can also be a general ethos related to a person’s individual style and outlook on life. In all of these, the idea of “darkness”, itself, linked to cynicism, pessimism or an obsession with the gothic nature, is juxtaposed with the idea of romanticism, which implies not only the passion of love, but almost any aspiration deeply emotional or dramatic.
As a literary genre, dark romance tends to be involved with the idea of darkness in the human soul, the concept of original sin, or a certain dark view of society in general. In American mainstream studies, writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Emily Dickinson represent this genre. Others might describe Edgar Allen Poe and other writers of that time as part of it. In more modern literature, the genres of noir fiction and hard-boiled detective fiction, embodied by writers such as Elmore Leonard, could also be described as grimly romantic.
In terms of a general cultural phenomenon, this term is often associated with what people refer to as “goths” in many English-speaking societies. In general, this genre type combines traditional love objects, such as visual forms of hearts, cute costumes and cupids, with distinct gothic elements, such as the color black, familiar animals such as cats and bats, or other “dark” figures common to the Western symbolism, and can also include aspects of the supernatural, such as vampires or witchcraft.
All of the above tends to manifest itself in the arts in the context of dark romanticism, for example in the covers of musical compositions, in cartoons or graphic novels, or in self-made props for performance art. The individual definitions of this term may vary, as well as its personal expressions in the articles Overall, the visual appeal of this kind of idea makes it quite common in modern English-speaking societies like America and England. Many traditional consumer goods manufacturers have even adopted these kinds of aesthetic schemes to reach a growing consumer audience, mainly younger shoppers. In general, a dark romantic look lends itself well as a “cool” way to advertise or promote a wide variety of products, and as such, it gets its fair share of play in the marketing and social media world.
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