If ever there were a more flagrant misuse of a word in the history of scholarly than using Romanticism to describe this period of American Literature, then I know not or want to know of it. There were several literary pieces of this time, some of the most prevalent are: "The Devil and Tom Walker" written by Washington Irving, "The Fall of the House of Usher" written by Edgar Allen Poe, and "The Minister's Black Veil" written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. These literary artifacts all contain traits in common with Romanic writing; thus these pieces of literature must be examples of writing from the Romantic period.

The romantic movement of the early 19th century departed from classicism and emphasized sensibility, the free expression of feelings, nature, and the exotic. The literary pieces from the romantic period contain characteristics such as, a fascination with the supernatural, shown in "The Devil...