What does the Cure have to do with 19^th century Romanticism? More than you might think, actually!

Romanticism was originally an artistic movement that emphasized subjective emotion, irrationality, individualism and the supernatural. It encompassed a number of different artistic forms, including Gothic novels, Neo-Gothic architecture, and the poetry of Lord Byron, John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley's wife, Mary Shelley, created Frankenstein at the same social gathering where Lord Byron's friend Pollidori used Byron as the inspiration for a fictional vampire. In doing so, he created the literary type of the seductive, aristocratic vampire we now associate with characters such as the vampire Lestat.

The modern Gothic subculture is in many ways a new manifestation of the Romanticist aesthetic, incorporating much of its imagery and symbolism. Consider this verse by Shelley, from his poem “To Night”:

“Death will come when thou art dead,

	Soon, too soon—
Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, belovèd Night—
Swift be thine approaching flight,
	Come soon, soon!”

Not all Cure fans would describe them as a Goth band, strictly speaking. However, the influence of Romanticism's Gothic aesthetic is still a major part of the Cure's appeal. Atara Stein, a literature professor at California State University, Fullerton, had this to say:
“many rock performers seem reincarnations of the Romantic poets: Jim Morrison of the Doors (Blake mixed with some Byronic flamboyance), Robert Smith of the Cure (mostly Shelley also with some Byronic flamboyance)...”
Robert Smith's lyrics may not make use of Shelley's archaic “thou” and “thee,” but the spirit of Shelley's Romanticist poetry lives on in the music of the Cure.