Romanticism is a movement in literature and the arts which happened in the early nineteenth century that stressed on freedom from rules of form and personal emotions. Supernatural is one of the key characteristics of romanticism. The short stories “Devil and the Tom Walker” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” written by Washington Irving are good examples of romanticism as the stories are about supernatural stuff.
In the first short story “Devil and the Tom Walker”, romanticism is evident when Tom Walker describes the image of the great black man who was standing directly opposite to him on the stump of the tree in the treacherous forest.
He was exceedingly surprised, having neither seen nor heard any one approach, and he was still more perplexed on observing, as well as the gathering gloom would permit, that …show more content…
It is true, he was dressed in a rude, half
Indian garb, and had a red belt or sash swathed round his body, but his face was neither black nor copper colour, but swarthy and dingy and begrimed with soot, as if he had been accustomed to toil among fires and forges. He had a shock of coarse black hair, that stood out from his head in all directions; and bore an axe on his shoulder. (Irving 151)
This passage is good example of romanticism because the description given by Tom Walker about the great black man cannot be explained with any scientific accounts and the description sounds more like a devil.
In the second short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, romanticism can be seen when the author talks about the supernatural stuff in the Sleepy Hollow.
A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick
Hudson. (Irving
In the first short story “Devil and the Tom Walker”, romanticism is evident when Tom Walker describes the image of the great black man who was standing directly opposite to him on the stump of the tree in the treacherous forest.
He was exceedingly surprised, having neither seen nor heard any one approach, and he was still more perplexed on observing, as well as the gathering gloom would permit, that …show more content…
It is true, he was dressed in a rude, half
Indian garb, and had a red belt or sash swathed round his body, but his face was neither black nor copper colour, but swarthy and dingy and begrimed with soot, as if he had been accustomed to toil among fires and forges. He had a shock of coarse black hair, that stood out from his head in all directions; and bore an axe on his shoulder. (Irving 151)
This passage is good example of romanticism because the description given by Tom Walker about the great black man cannot be explained with any scientific accounts and the description sounds more like a devil.
In the second short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, romanticism can be seen when the author talks about the supernatural stuff in the Sleepy Hollow.
A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick
Hudson. (Irving