In America, the movement known as romanticism took two forms: Bright Romanticism, or Transcendentalism, and Dark Romanticism. Ho
w is Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, from which you read an excerpt, a good example of a Bright Romantic work? How is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “The Birthmark” a good example of Dark Romanticism? Refer to specific details from the works as you respond.
Henry David Thoreau's Walden is an example of a Bright Romantic work because it shows the value of self-reliance and simplicity. His learning during his isolation is evident in this excerpt "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." "The Birthmark" of Nathaniel Hawthorne is work of Dark Romanticism since it contains themes such as foolishness of striving for perfection and science versus nature. The madness of Alymer is shown in this passage "With her whole spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and deepest conception. Longer than one moment she well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever ascending, requiring something that was beyond the scope of the instant before."
