The dawn of the Romantic era saw a break with the structural limits of neoclassicism. Instead, emotionality, love of freedom and imagination prevailed in literature and art. One of the first works from this period was The Nightmare, an oil painting by Henry Fuseli. In this work, Füssli depicts a woman slumped asleep on her bed, haunted by an incubus and a ghostly horse with glowing eyes. The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe, dates rather from the end of the Romantic era. This narrative poem recounts a scene in which a raven visits a grieving and distraught lover, who serves as narrator. Both of these works display dramatic presentation, symbolism, and a great sense of emotional power to create a frightening scene. Poe and Fuseli each infuse their works with dramatic energy. In The Nightmare, Fuseli uses expressive coloring, contrasting with the woman's dark shadows and flowing, bright white clothing. It also creates a dynamic scene thanks to an asymmetrical structure and diagonal lines. The incubus placed on the woman's stomach is off-center and its shadow on the deep red curtain serves as the center of perspective for the work. The woman's body twists dramatically and her arm hangs limply from the bed. Poe, in The Raven, creates a similar feeling of dynamic drama. He employs consonance, writing "the silken, sad, uncertain rustle of each purple curtain", and the repeated sounds mirror the dull thud of the curtains. This consonance creates a strange atmosphere which disturbs the narrator. Through internal rhyme and polysyndeton, Poe creates a sense of action that intensifies and rises. For example, he writes, "but the silence was unbroken and the darkness left no sign/And the only work there... in the middle of a sheet... a single word: 'never again.' his emotionally powerful descriptions of the scene end with this single word. It rings and lingers like a death bell, capturing the narrator's despair and ending each paragraph with another pang. Poe and Fuseli demonstrate in their works the common emotional force. in the romantic period. Fuseli's Nightmare and Poe's The Raven both feature horrific scenes in the middle of the night. Through their different mediums, they both use dramatic energy and symbolism, and they both emotionally engage the reader or viewer. the idyllic and orderly neoclassical style, and show the new passion of expression of the romantic era. Works CitedPoe, Edgar Allen "The Raven", 2014. Web. 2014. .