What are the salient features of Romanticism?

Romanticism was a literary and intellectual movement that lasted from the late eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century. Classic examples of Romantic novels are Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Though academics consider Romanticism difficult to define—the movement developed differently in European countries than it did in the US—there are a few key features we can talk about.

The first is important: Romanticism was reactionary. The movement was, at least in...

Romanticism was a literary and intellectual movement that lasted from the late eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century. Classic examples of Romantic novels are Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Though academics consider Romanticism difficult to define—the movement developed differently in European countries than it did in the US—there are a few key features we can talk about.

The first is important: Romanticism was reactionary. The movement was, at least in part, a response to the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. Rather than focusing on science, logic, or reason, as was the zeitgeist on both sides of the Atlantic, Romantic writers were nostalgic, looking to a simpler past for inspiration. Much as we, as contemporary readers, may look back to the pre-internet era with some sentimentality (remember when we looked things up in an actual encyclopedia instead of Googling everything?), Romantic writers fondly remembered a pre-industrial era.

Which brings us to our second point. Romantic writers expressed emotion and imagination, engaging with aesthetics and the beauty of the natural world. In the poetry and novels of the era, emotion was more important than reason or science. It stands to reason that Romantic writers also rejected some of the structure or rules that had previously governed both novels and poetry, experimenting with freer styles.

All of this could be summarized with a third point: Romanticism is about the individual and his or her thoughts and experiences, not the trends or tendencies of a larger society.