English Romanticism: peculiarities and main traits​

​​In a nutshell

Romanticism was a cultural movement that originated in England and Germany in the 18th century. It was related to the expression of feelings and sensations through poetry, art, music, literature, drama, and philosophy. Shelley, Goethe, Keats, Byron, and Wordsworth are some of the influences of the Romanticism movement.

The Romantic Age

One of the definitions of the word Romantic according to the Cambridge dictionary is 'related to love or close loving relationship', however, the word Romantic was embraced in the 18th century to express everything related to human emotions and the beauty of nature. That being said, the word Romantic was used as a symbol of any kind of feeling such as fear, happiness, sadness, sorrow, love, hate, delight, regret, and horror, among others.

The basic concept of the Romantic Age was the apparition of certain attitudes and ideas about the 18th-century Enlightenment, Romantics searched for deeper appeals and meaning diverse from the ideals of the Enlightenment and the society that had produced them.

Both Romanticism and the term Romantic highlighted the subjective, the individual, the irrational, the spontaneous, the visionary, the imaginative, the emotional, and the transcendental. Other elements that distinguished Romantics were the deep connection with nature, the importance of emotions over the intellect, the abstract of humanity, and the acceptance of solitude. 

Romantics gave great importance to introspection. They exalted the examination of human personality and the significance of the individual. As a result, the figure of a hero appeared which represented the individual focused on his passions and inner struggles opposite to the values and standards imposed by society. 

This movement had a significant interest in folk culture, they also praised the exotic, the mysterious, the weird, the dangerous, the disastrous, the monstrous, the diseased, the occult, and even the satanic. This can be noticed in novels such as Frankenstein (M. Shelley), The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (S.T. Coleridge), and The Devil and Tom Walker (W. Irving). 

English Romanticism

English Romanticism takes place from the French Revolution until the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837. It was not a consolidated movement, however, certain features differenced it from the age of the Enlightenment. 

The Enlightenment searched for objectivity and reason. On the other hand, Romanticism gave more importance to human nature such as emotion, imagination, introspection, and nature.

Excluding the poet, William Blake, English literature had two wonderful generations of poets: William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the first, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron in the second. These writers never organized a movement, however, they shared the same feeling that they were giving a voice to all social, intellectual, and political changes of the period.