In "On the Discrimination of Romanticisms," Arthur O. Lovejoy attempts to challenge his readers' preconceptions about the meaning of Romanticism.

Lovejoy's main argument is that Romanticism is a much more complicated phenomenon than we tend to think. In most people's minds, it is synonymous with late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century English poets such as Blake, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Byron.

All too often, we devise a lengthy list of what we think are the core tenets of Romanticism—nature worship, individualism, a heightened awareness of the sublime—and then see how they are manifested in these poets' work.

But Lovejoy challenges this neat conception, arguing forcefully that Romanticism is such a complex, multifaceted phenomenon that it's impossible to advance a clear-cut definition of this groundbreaking movement.

That being the case, we can no longer reasonably talk of Romanticism, but rather Romanticisms, which will attempt to do full justice to the wide range of thoughts, ideas, concepts, and modes of literary practices traditionally subsumed beneath the general rubric of Romanticism.