Romanticism/ The Devil & Tom Walker

Romanticism focused on imagination, the power of nature, and less than genius people. An improbable adventure was usually the plot of these stories. All of these romanticism stories had dark overtones. Stories like Sleepy Hollow and Tom Walker and the Devil depicted unreal events and crazy adventures all overpowered by nature, and unfortunate events. As wiki wisely stated,"Romanticism emphasized intuition, imagination, and feeling, to a point that has led to some Romantic thinkers being accused of irrationalism."
In the devil and Tom Walker, Washington Irving was painstakingly descriptive of the nature setting around the characters. "The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made it dark at noonday, and a retreat for all the owls." descriptions like this radiate an incredible dark presence. The act of speaking with the devil himself is highly unlikely, this shows the imagination aspect of romanticism. There is also a bit of a moral to this story. After the devil does Tom the favor of "removing" his termagant wife, the devil instructs Tom on how to become a wealthy broker. Of course Tom becomes a greedy man (although he always was.) But now Tom has the bankroll to do horrifically. After some time, The devil decided that Tom had had enough money and fame, so the devil scooped him off and rode into the night.
Although I found these stories incredibly boring, I respect the idea of fantasy fiction. In the time period that romanticism came about, Life was dirty and sickly. It's nice to get away from the everyday horrid life. And it is easy to do so with fiction.