Romanticism in Young Goodman Brown Essay - 851 Words

Romanticism and Young Goodman Brown Romanticism was a literary movement that occurred in the late eighteenth century to the mid nineteenth century which shifted the focus of literature from puritan works, to works which revolved around imagination, the beauty of nature, the individual, and the value of emotion over intellect. The ideas of the movement were quite revolutionary as earlier literature was inhibited by the need to focus on society and the rational world it effected. Romanticism allowed writers to be more creative with there stories and to explore an irrational world which before, would have been at the very least frowned upon if not outright rejected. The short story, Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne is an†¦show more content†¦A strong example of a rash conclusion occurs when Goodman Brown beholds a pink ribbon caught on the branch of a tree. Because his wife wears pink ribbons, this confirms to him that his wife was in the forest and he responds by de claring, ‘My Faith is gone! cried he, after one stupefied moment. ‘There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given. (pg. 6). He doesnt try and push down his intuition by considering the possibility that other women wore pink ribbons or another such explanation. A pink ribbon constitutes Faith in the woods, which means she was with the devil, which means there is no good left in the world. Whether he is correct in his assumption or not is unknown, but his emotional reactions to situations makes him a romantic figure. Nature plays a large role in the romantic work as well. In fact, almost the entire story of Young Goodman Brown takes place inside the forest in the dead of night. The forest in this work is extremely important because of the romantics belief that mysticism and the supernatural are wanton to occur in such areas, even thriving. This makes Goodman Browns journey into the forest all the more frightening also, as the supernatural could be anywhere at any time in such a place. Nature doesnt just represent the mystical in romanticism however. 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This was the Romanticism Period. An incredible number of miraculous masterpieces were contrived during this period of enlightenment, including Nathaniel Hawthorne’s dramatically thematic and ambiguous short story, â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†, as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s intriguingly influential and uplifting essay, â€Å"Self-Reliance†. Hawthorne’s writing aspires to implicate theories