American literature would not be the same without Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Dark Romanticism, and the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Because of their input American literature has become what it is today. In the late eighteenth century, writers were beginning to turn away from reason and straight facts as a means of discovering truth.

With the birth of Romanticism in the United States came the birth of new ideals. Romanticism brought the idea that intuition, imagination, and emotion were worth more than any scientific or reasonable thought. The ideal that the truth was found in beauty and especially in nature. By definition, Romanticism is "a revolt against Rationalism that affected literature and the other arts, beginning in the late eighteenth century and remaining strong throughout most of the nineteenth century."("Elements of Literature," Page 1179) Romanticism had done just this. The Romantics captured the essence of nature in their...