What is Romanticism? Characteristics of Romanticism literature

What is Romanticism?

Romanticism is an aspect of literature which is based very much upon imagination on the part of the poet. The poet's fantasies, his wishes, no matter how unrealistic they are, are reflected in his works. In romantic works, we are shown things, we don't ordinarily notice.

For example, we ordinarily don't notice the dewdrop on the grass blade. But the romantic poets reveal the beauty of this seemingly trivial aspect of nature. Romanticism represents no single tendency but rather the simultaneous pressure of many different often conflicting principles in a stage of European History that is not yet over.

The permanent heritage of romanticism is its emphasis on individuality, particularly subjective touchstone and self-expression. Romanticism has enlarged the compass of art to include areas, excluded by the rationalism of neo-classicism-the dualism of human nature, the death wish along with the affirmation of life which is represented by John Keats, S.T. Coleridge, the face of good and evil that is symbolised by William Blake.

The essential elements of romantic spirit are curiosity and These are certainly the integral factors of romanticism- the one intellectual and the other emotional. The classical poets had a closer correspondence with the actuality of life.

On the other hand, liberty, equality, fraternity impressed itself on the youthful imagination of William Wordsworth, Coleridge and other romantic poets. Romanticism, when it touches philosophy, favours, mysticism and idealism. In history, the awakened sensibility led to the study of the past, to the fond dallying with medievalist.

In fact, romanticism is not altogether opposed to reality. It is reality transfigured by new powers of vision and feeling. History, embraced by romanticism, gave birth to the historical novel. In the borderland where history and philosophy meet, we find the arising and idealistic concept of loss by Edmund Burke. The result of this was to make the philosopher more historical and history more philosophical.

Characteristics of Romanticism literature

1. Highly imagination

2. Love of nature

3. Love for freedom and liberty

4. Love for the past

5. Simplicity in expression

6. Spontaneity and subjectivity

7. Individualism and supernaturalism

8. Revolutionary zeal

9. Romanticism is mainly connected with love and beauty

10. The romantic age English literature began with the publication of Preface to Lyrical Ballads.

11. Lyric poetry dominates

12. Women fiction flourish

13. Criticism becomes and inseparable part of literature and life

14. Myth and symbolism get prominence

15. Romantic poetry reflects rebellion views against oppression, restraints and controls. It celebrate human rights and individualism

16. It emphasizes introspection, psychology, melancholy and sadness

17. The language of common men, bit the artificial ‘poetic diction’ of the previous age, becomes the choice of the time

18. It values common ‘ natural’ man and rejects artificial urban life as subject of poetry

19. Subjective poetry replaces the objective poetry of the neo classical era

20. Creative enthusiasm reached almost the level of Elizabethan creative force