Yet, even among Transcendentalists, there were disagreements over the basic tenants of the movement and whether Transcendentalism was a form of spiritual thinking, philosophy, or a religion. Furthermore, the diversification of America due to immigration complicated attempts at concretely defining the “American Voice.” Even if Transcendentalists praised what they viewed as the divinity of the wilderness, a large degree of ambiguity remained rooted within this wilderness of the self. For a different sect of Romantic authors, the Dark Romantics, this ambiguity generated anxiety and horror as opposed to spirituality and reverence.
“The road grew wilder and drearier, and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward, with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil.”
Of all Romantic authors, few expand upon Puritanical characterizations of the wilderness quite like Nathaniel Hawthorne. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, as a descendant of New England’s founders, Hawthorne’s connection to the Puritans transcended bloodlines to cross into the realm of the psychological. His works frequently explored concepts of human sin and agonies over the basic goodness of humankind. Whereas Transcendentalists viewed the wilderness as indicative of the wisdom and goodness of human nature, Dark Romantics like Hawthorne viewed the wilderness as an emblem of the darkness in human hearts. As he wrote in the short story, “Young Goodman Brown,” humans were “still rushing onward, with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil” (Hawthorne, 801).
Interactive exhibit, Hawthorne, provided by The Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum
Yet, even if Hawthorne’s works heavily featured Puritanical philosophy, he was still a quintessentially Romantic author. Instead of viewing the wilderness as a source of literal evil, like Cotton Mather, Hawthorne instead looked to the wilderness with the same metaphorical understanding as the Transcendentalists.
The natural world was at once a physical place and an external representation of the internal state. In “Young Goodman Brown,” Hawthorne wrote:
“the wind tolled like a distant church-bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveler, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors”
Much like with the Transcendentalists, nature and human nature are posited as being so intrinsically interconnected that they are almost interchangeable. In “Young Goodman Brown,” the hellish forest is both separate from and a part of the main character’s moral decay into sin. One of Hawthorne’s other short stories, “The Black Veil,” features a similar use of the external world as the main character’s ambiguous mental state is broadcasted through a simple black veil. Indeed, the classical Dark Romantic narrative features a morally or mentally anguished character who wanders through a dark wilderness, as can be seen across not only Hawthorne’s stories, but those of Herman Melville and Edgar Allan Poe as well.
As Romantic authors turned their attentions inward, exploring concepts of self, authors like Hawthorne wrote their counterarguments to the positive interpretation of human nature and the wilderness presented by the Transcendentalists. Although Dark Romantics were not an organized group, as the Transcendentalists were, their writings permeated the Romantic era, rounding out the explorations of self occurring across all genres.