The Blithedale Romance
by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Blithedale Romance: Style 1 key example

Chapter 3: A Knot of Dreamers
Explanation and Analysis:

The style of The Blithedale Romance exemplifies 19th-century Dark Romantic literature in several ways. First, Romantic literature is known for its interest in the human psyche, and Dark Romanticism often delves into the darker side of humanity. Here is an example from Chapter 3 that illustrates the narrator's fascination with his own mind:

And, true enough, there was a look of gloom, as the twilight fell silently and sadly out of the sky, its gray or sable flakes intermingling themselves with the fast descending snow. The storm, in its evening aspect, was decidedly dreary. It seemed to have arisen for our especial behoof; a symbol of the cold, desolate, distrustful phantoms that invariably haunt the mind, on the eve of adventurous enterprises, to warn us back within the boundaries of ordinary life.