Romanticism

The main idea of romanticism consists of a deeply rooted feeling of subjectivity, grandeur and everything in nature. It became a stark contrast to the romantic notion of medieval times where adventure and romance flourished. I chose two writers and two poems that best personify romanticism during two different times within the period. The first poem, "Ode to a Grecian Urn" was written by John Keates, a man who came to prominence in the late 19th century. My next selection "Lines Written in Early Spring," by William Wordsworth patterns the exaltation of nature.

Habib brings up a good point that Romanticism responded to the elitist nature of the enlightenment period. To illustrate the scope and reach that romanticism had, every major belief or movement developed during the 1830s and 40s was spawned from romanticism. Habib states that it was during this time that the "major upheavals such as the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, along with the growth of nationalism, impelled the bourgeois classes toward political, economic, cultural, and ideological hegemony."