What is Romanticism?

What is Romanticism?

1. Was an artistic and intellectual movement in Europe during the late 18th to the mid-19th centuries that redefined the ways in the West thought about themselves and their world.

2. Romanticism was broadly construed as a break from the Enlightenment, the dominant intellectual anf philosophical movement in Europe during the 18 th century, which established reason as the foundation of all knowledge.

3. As is well known, the Enlightement, which is also called the "Age of Reason",advocated reason to be the means in understanding the world and in improving human life.

4. On the one hand, the Enlightenment thinkers viewed the natural world as beautiful, benign, and orderly.

5. On the other hand, Enlightenment thinkers, such as Inmanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, celebrated reason as the key to liberation from all forms of domination, from ignorance and inmaturity down to proverty, inequality and social injustice.

6. Romanticism was a very diverse current because it emphasized subjectivity and emotions.