1. Romanticism

2. A movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in revolt against the Neoclassicism of the previous centuries.

3. Whereas during much of the 17th and 18th centuries learned allusions, complexity and grandiosity were prized, the new romantic taste favored simplicity and naturalness, and these were thought to flow most clearly and abundantly from the "spontaneous" outpourings of the untutored common people.

4. The Key Writers The men are known as “The Big Six.”

5. William Blake

6. William Wordsworth

7. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

8. Lord Byron

9. John Keats

10. Percy Shelley

11. Mary Shelley

12. Elements of Romanticism

13. Emotion The romantic, especially the gothic, writers evoked all manner of irrational scenes designed to horrify and amaze. Romantic writers generally also prized the more tender sentiments of affection, sorrow, and romantic longing.

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18. Exoticism Another important aspect of Romanticism is the exotic. Just as Romantics responded to the longing of people for a distant past, so they provided images of distant places. Generally anywhere south of the country where one was resided was considered more relaxed, more colorful, and more sensual.

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22. Supernatural Fairies, witches, angels--all the fantastic creatures of the Medieval popular imagination came flooding back.

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27. Medieval The Romantics celebrated for the first time since the Renaissance the wilder aspects of the creativity of Western Europeans from the 12th through the 14th centuries: stained glass in soaring cathedrals, tales of Robin Hood and his merry men, and-- above all--the old tales of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table

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31. Religion One of the most complex developments during this period is the transformation of religion into a subject for artistic treatment far removed from traditional religious art. As time passed, sophisticated writers and artists were less and less likely to be conventionally pious, but during the Romantic era many of them were drawn to religious imagery in the same way they were drawn to Arthurian or other ancient traditions in which they no longer believed.

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35. Individualism A tendency to exalt the individual and his needs and emphasis on the need for a freer and more personal expression

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39. Nature An increasing interest in nature and in the natural, primitive, and uncivilized way of life The Romantics, just as they cultivated sensitivity to emotion generally, especially cultivated sensitivity to nature.

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44. Imagination An increasing importance attached to natural genius and the power of the imagination.

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48. Other Characteristics  Fascination with the past  Freedom from rules  Solitary life rather than life in society  Beliefs that imagination is superior to reason  Devotion to beauty