authors such as Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Shelley, and John William Polidori, who are frequently linked to Gothic fiction, are also sometimes referred to as Dark Romantics. Dark Romanticism is characterized by stories of personal torment, social outcasts, and usually offers commentary on whether the nature of man will save or destroy him. Some authors of English and Irish horror fiction, such as Bram Stoker and Daphne du Maurier, follow in this lineage. American The American form of this sensibility centered on the writers Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville. As opposed to the perfectionist beliefs of Transcendentalism, these darker contemporaries emphasized human fallibility and proneness to sin and self-destruction, as well as the difficulties inherent in attempts at social reform. France The 19th century fantastique literature after 1830 was dominated by the influence of E. T. A. Hoffmann, and then by that of Edgar Allan Poe. French authors such as Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud echoed the dark themes found in the German and English literature. Baudelaire was one of the first French writers to admire Edgar Allan Poe, but this admiration or even adulation of Poe became widespread in French literary circles in the late 19th century. See also References Further reading Galens, David, ed. (2002) Literary Movements for Students Vol. 1. Levin, Harry. The Power of Blackness (1958) Praz, Mario. The Romantic Agony (1933) Mullane, Janet and Robert T. Wilson, eds. (1989) Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism Vols. 1, 16, 24. External links Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism Journal The Gothic as an Aspect of American Romanticism Romanticism Horror fiction 19th-century books Edgar Allan Poe Abraham Lincoln 18th century 19th century American literature Literary genres Fantasy Satanism Romanticist Science