Romantic Literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Romantic Literature - Essay Example The evolution of the style of romantic literature was borne out of the need of many writers to express their inner thoughts in a way that is characterized by freedom, imagination, as well as creativity, without the impediment of following normal human logic. As a result, many romantic works such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto bear situations that are not realistic, even during the time that these works were published. While these two works are entirely different, one is a poem while the other is a novel, what ties these two together is the creation of suspense as far as the main characters of the stories or narratives are concerned. The succession of events may not be as clear as logic to predict, thus adding a sense of uncertainty to what could possibly happen to the protagonists, the antagonists, or both. In the course of this analysis, these two important works from the Romanticist era of litera ture would be used to illustrate how the combination of the use of imaginary settings as well as adding a feeling of uncertainty in behalf of the characters not only appeal to the senses of the readers but also draw them into their lives and shoes, as well as being able to see the triumphs, the losses, and other emotions of the cast as real emotions that are valid in their given situations. Real Emotions in Surreal Situations In comparing the first chapter of The Castle of Otranto to the summary of the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, it can be seen that the settings of the narratives are surreal or even imaginary. However, the characters are portrayed as ordinary people, without any superpowers or whatnot. This puts real people in unreal or surreal situations. In the case of the Ancient Mariner and the rest of the crew of the ship, they felt real terror when they saw the ghost ship with Death and Night-mare Life-in-Death: Are those her ribs through which the Sun Did peer, as t hrough a grate? And is that Woman all her crew Is that a Death? And are there two? Is Death that woman’s mate? (Coleridge 11). The writer vividly described the people or apparitions aboard the appearing ship in order to help the reader visualize the passengers of the ghost ship. A few lines after the description of the passengers of the ghost ship came the terror that the mariner and his shipmates felt after Death and Night-mare Life-in-Death decided which souls they would take as their own, We listened and looked sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup My life-blood seemed to sip! (Coleridge 11). To put it bluntly, the mariner felt as if his blood has totally drained away after hearing that the souls of all passengers of their marooned ship would be taken away. It can be likened to how a person would feel when facing immediate danger or seeing it approach, where time seems to stand still and it would feel like there is no other choice but to die. The same feeling of terro r is also depicted in the character Isabella when she was being pursued by Prince Manfred in the first chapter of The Castle of Otranto: â€Å"Words cannot paint the horror of the Princess’