The deformed, the threatening and the horrible; these are all words from the fascinating black romanticism movement that took place from 1828 to 1865. This movement embraced all of these irrational elements and made it the most popular subgenre in American literature. The lives of black romantics were colorful, impulsive and paradoxical. Unlike the Romantics, the Black Romantics base their stories on the wickedness of man and the repulsion of evil. The Dark Romantics believed that humans were equally capable of good or evil. While the romantics tried to ignore the wicked and immoral acts of man, the dark romantics decided to remind people of the evil deeds of man. Like the romantics and the transcendentalists; However, Black Romantics valued instinct and feeling over judgment and logic and saw symbols and signs in nature and everyday events. They also paid attention to the mysteries of life that cannot be explained by reasoning. Although they focused on the morbid and the gruesome, they were not cynical. Both Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne were associated with this movement and were both key figures in it. The definition of dark romanticism varies. It is used by different people in various situations. Some may describe it as an 18th century gothic novel, while others remember the word being used to describe pop music of the 60s and 70s. Consulting a dictionary to find the actual meaning of the word, it was a surprised not to find the term “Black Romanticism”. Yet the terms “dark” and “romantic” were there. The definitions made it possible to understand that the term dark romanticism is in fact a contradiction. The dictionary says dark romanticism can be a feeling... middle of paper ... They look to the future but at the same time are wary of the changes the future brings. They use imagery heavily and symbolism is the most striking element of their works. Work Cited 1. “Dark Romanticism.” Encyclopedia of the New World. February 25, 2009, 02:17 UTC. April 29, 2011, 6:142 p.m. “Black Romanticism – ArticleWorld.” Main page - ArticleWorld. Internet. April 29, 2011. .3 “Black romanticism: the ultimate contradiction.” http://library.thinkquest.org. Internet. April 23, 2011.4. Diner, Figun. The light and dark romantic characteristics of Irving, Hawthorne, and Poe. Rep. 10th ed. Flight. 3. The Journal of International Social Research. DOAJ – Directory of open access journals. Internet. April 29, 2011. .5.Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The scarlet letter. New York: Dover Publications, 1994. Print.