Romanticism
Romanticism,term that is associated with imagination and boundlessness, and in critical usage is contrasted with classicism, which is commonly associated with reason and restriction. A romantic attitude may be detected in literature of any period, but as a historical movement it arose in the 18th and 19th centuries in reaction to more rational literary, philosophic, artistic, religious, and economic standards. Since it gathered force gradually in its various manifestations, it does not lend itself to the limitations of a concise summary. The most profound and comprehensive ideal of romanticism is the vision of a greater personal freedom for the individual. Its origins may be traced to the economic rise of the middle class, struggling to free itself from feudal and monarchial restrictions; to the individualism of the Renaissance; to the Reformation, which was based on the belief in an immediate relationship between man and God; to scientific deism, which...
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