Dark Romantics, Women's Fiction, and Psychological Literature

The Dark Romantics Movement

For the Dark Romantics, reality is often impenetrable and cannot be fully known. They held a pessimistic worldview where:

• Nature possesses sinister, violent overtones.
• Humans cannot be fundamentally improved.

Figures like Thorne and Melville often evolved towards alienation and detachment from society. Their works are realistic, offering a broad picture of society, and they analyze the present rather than focusing on the past.

Herman Melville's Style and Contributions

Herman Melville utilized rhythmic-poetic prose, often employing dramatic monologues. For him, the systematic and the complete were inherently false. Elements, characters, most of his settings, and situations are intensely developed and elaborated upon, even when they might seem unimportant to the narrative as a whole.

Melville's diverse literary output included:

• Short Stories (e.g., “The Town-Ho Story”, and highly composed stories like “Bartleby, the Scrivener”).
• Sermons (e.g., Chapter 9: “The Sermon”).
• Semi-scientific Essays (e.g., Chapter 32: “Cetology”).
• Oral traditions, among others.

Characteristics of Women's Fiction

Women’s Fiction is often formulaic, frequently functioning as a type of female Bildungsroman (novel of education). The protagonists are typically orphans or young women who struggle to make their way in the world. They are characterized as delicate yet strong, sensitive, resourceful, considerate, and altruistic.

The typical plot revolves around reconstructing a lost family or establishing a new family environment (involving a husband and children).

Didactic Style and Social Instruction

The style is strongly didactic, aiming to teach women how to behave in society and achieve civic virtue. These lessons include how to:

• Be assertive, independent, and ethical.
• Choose a good husband.
• Run a good household.
• Be a good friend and a model of civic virtue.

Women often wrote this fiction either to express themselves or to make a living. Notable examples include Susan Warner’s “The Wide, Wide World”, E.O. Smith’s “The Western Captive”, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”.

The New Woman: 1890–1900

The turn of the century (1890–1900) marked a period of increased freedom and opportunity for women, though this progress was often accompanied by a significant backlash. Opportunities for education and employment expanded significantly.

Women became more visible in the public sphere than ever before, driven by factors such as:

• The Managerial Revolution (1890s).
• The rise of labor unions (featuring figures like anarchist leader Emma Goldman).
• The growing suffrage movement.

Characteristics of the Economically Independent Woman

This era saw the birth of a new female archetype—the economically independent woman—who:

• Was interested in sports.
• Acted unconventionally.
• Disregarded social and sexual taboos.

The Psychological Novel and Internal Experience

The Psychological Novel emerged as the other side of Realism, focusing intensely on internal experience and perception. It is a label created after the fact, often serving as a response to the perceived degradation of external, public life.

The psychological tendency represents a key line of development in literary mimesis—an “inward turning” where literature moves deeper inside the characters’ minds.

Foundational Texts

Key landmarks influencing the development of the Psychological Novel include:

• William James’ “Principles of Psychology”.
• Sigmund Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams”.