Compare/contrast Poe`s depiction of the natural world (including animals) with that of Melville

Nature in the Works of Poe and Melville

The two nineteenth century American , Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville , are both representatives of the literary trend commonly known as dark romanticism , which appeared under the influence of transcendentalism . The transcendentalists proposed a world-view that contrasted with the empiricism of the previous centuries and emphasized the inherency of the divine into the natural world . Nature was no longer seen as a dead , strictly material reality but as a manifestation of the spiritual being . Poe and Melville maintained the transcendental view of nature

to a certain extent , but veered from the optimistic course that the Emersonian philosophers had adopted . Poe 's and Melville 's views of nature are often compared by the critics because of their similarity . As the transcendentalists , they saw the physical reality through a Neoplatonist lens : the ideal and the divine are apparent in the basic forms and manifestations of nature , from the landscapes and sites to the wild creatures . However , in both Poe 's and Melville 's works nature appears many times as a dark , monstrous and irrational force , a view which does not agree with the positive and idealist one expressed by the transcendentalists . There are , nevertheless , significant differences between Poe 's and Melville 's perspective on nature . For Poe , there is no other reality than the reality of the mind . The natural world was formed , according to him , through the diffusion of the primordial concentrated , divine substance . Although nature is a destructive force most of the time , the connection between the human intellect and the physical reality is very tight . Melville 's view of nature coincides with Poe 's insomuch as he too represents it as a widespread manifestation of the divine and the irrational . However , for the author of Moby Dick man is somehow set apart from nature and he is compelled to wage a constant war with it . Therefore , although the two authors see nature primarily as a reflection of the transcendental world , Poe stresses the perfect concordance of man and nature (even if the result of this concordance is a negative one , while Melville depicts man 's struggle with nature , as an irrational and divine force

In Poe 's works , the instances in which nature is found to be in strange concordance with the workings of the human intellect are very numerous Both in his prose and in his poetry , the outward , physical nature appears as coextensive with the mental reality . His short-story entitled The Domain of Arnheim , for example , depicts the mad but beautiful project of a well-to-do gentleman named Ellison , who chooses to satisfy his artistic pleasure by constructing an intricate and perfect natural garden which follows the aesthetic rules of a work of art . The purpose of such a construction is obvious : Poe emphasizes thus the absolute superiority of the human mind over the physical world . Man can thus compete with the divine creator of the world , since he is able to produce art not only in its artificial...