Everything You Should Know About The Romantic Period

Romance as a genre has very little to do with Romanticism or, as it’s also known, the Romantic Period. This movement was about the exploration of intuition and feelings, an expose on the writer's thoughts that aimed to make the reader feel what they felt. It’s true that the nature of this era laid the groundwork for modern romance to grow as a genre, but the origins of this movement were based on the rejection of the Industrial Revolution, rules, and urbanization. In fact, here are all the main features of this period you should know:

• This movement originated in Europe during the late 18th-century and lasted throughout the 19th century. Its peak period was during the first half of the 19th-century.
• It was considered the counter-Enlightenment movement because it rejected the rationalism that came with the Industrial Revolution. Romanticism was about exploring the imagination without rules and being introspective so the writers would reject the social rules that would limit their creativity.
• Heavily inspired by the French Revolution and the ideology behind it, the Romantics favored the idea of writing about heroes whose lives would improve society.
• Romantics rejected the idea of urbanization and glorified the past as well as the return to nature. There was a desire to separate themselves from society and modern values, so many writers, and painters would find their inspiration on nature and simpler medieval times.
• This movement began to explore the supernatural and the power of human psychology thanks to how introspective romantics were. Edgar Allan Poe and Mary Shelley are two great examples of this, whose work explored dark emotions like horror and apprehension which weren’t explored that detailed in previous movements.
• Sensibility was a new sentiment featured in literature thanks to the Romantic Era. Children and women became protagonists of literature as emotions began to be explored.
• Some key names of the movement will probably sound familiar to you: John Keats, Edgar Allan Poe, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley.

It was the counterculture of the 19th century, Romanticism was about rejecting society and the norms that were being established. It was a movement about the vulnerability that explored humanity as a part of nature. We invite you to explore some of the work of these romantics in our online library www.playance.com.