Another talented chip off the German Expressionist block, F. W. Murnau had a penchant for horror. With "Nosferatu" (1922) he brought the first of countless Count Dracula stories to cinematic light. Murnau made his Dracula as hideous, doomed, and gloomy as later incarnations are suave, elegant, and ta

Classic hollywood, Dark, Death, Elegant, Erotic, German expressionist film, Grotesque, Primal

Considered one of the most important Modernist writers, William Faulkner is known for his searing excavations into the core of the pain, pride, and prejudices of the antebellum South. His novels explore many subjects in many voices. His narrators range from children to murderers, the insane, and the

Contemplative, Dark, Enigmatic, Religious, Southern gothic, Surreal, Visceral

American poet Anne Sexton could tell a story that would elicit tears. And yet, her words hold the ring of truth as well as the hollow toll of misery and despair. Just when the sense of her lines seems unbearable, the poetry of them hooks into the reader's veins and persists there. Sexton, a Confessio

Anxiety, Confessional poetry, Dark, Death, Feminine, Melancholy, Moody, Visceral, Women's literature

Johnny Cash is "The Man in Black." A patriarch of country music, Cash has played with and influenced some of the greatest figures in contemporary music. Cash has a voice that can bend steel. Deep, resonant, and manly, when combined with his songs' marching bass lines, the Cash voice evokes a sense of

Dark, Gritty, Intimate, Masculine, Pathos