Romanticism, in a sense, was a reaction against the rigid classicism, rationalism and deism of the eighteenth century. Strongest in its application between 1800 and 1850, the Romantic movement differed from country to country and from romanticist to romanticist. Because it emphasized change, it was an atmosphere in which events occurred and came to influence not only how humans thought and expressed them, but also how they lived socially and politically (Abrams, M.H. Pg. 13 ). “Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental” (Thompson, EP Pg. 108-109). Among the characteristic attitudes of Romanticism were the following: a thorough appreciation of the beauties of nature; a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect; a turning in on oneself and an in-depth examination of the human personality, its states of mind and mental potential; a concern with the genius, the hero and the exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions and internal struggles; a new vision of the artist as an extremely individual creator, whose creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures; an obsessive interest in popular culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era; and a passion for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the strange, the monstrous, the sick and even the satanic. (Barzun, Jaques. Pg 157-159) Romanticism was preceded by several related developments starting in the mid-18th century which can be called pre-romanticism. Among these trends was a new appreciation of medieval romanticism, from which the Romantic Movement takes its name. (Abrams,MH Pg. 261) Romance was a tale or ballad of chivalric adventure whose emphasis on individual heroism and the exotic and mysterious was in clear contrast to the elegant formality and artificiality of widespread forms of classical literature, such as French neoclassical. tragedy. This new interest in the relatively unsophisticated but exciting literary expressions of the past was to be a keynote in Romanticism. (Frenz, Horst and Stallknecht, Newton P. pag. 70-73) Romanticism in English literature began in 1790 with the publication of the lyrical ballads written by Williamworth and...... middle of paper......nse de Lamartine, Alfred de Musset, Stendhal, Prosper Mérimée, Alexandre Dumas (Dumas Père) and Théophile Gautier in France. Alessandro Manzoni and Giacomo Leopardi in Italy; Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov in Russia; José de Espronceda and Ángel de Saavedra in Spain; Adam Mickiewicz in Poland; and nearly every important writer of pre-Civil War America. (Frenz, Horst and Stallknecht, Newton P.) Romanticism destroyed the clear simplicity and unity of thought that characterized the eighteenth century. There was no longer a philosophy that expressed all the goals and ideals of Western civilization. Romanticism provided a more complex, but truer, vision of the real world. Bibliography Abrams, MH Natural Supernaturalism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1971. Barzun, Jaques. Classic romantic and modern. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1943. Frenz, Horst & Stallknecht, Newton P. Comparative Literature. London: Feffer & Simons, Inc, 1971Thompson, EP The Romantics: England in a Revolutionary Age. New York: The New Press, 1997. Walling, William, Kroeber, Karl. Images of romance: verbal and visual. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.