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Romanticism

Romanticism It was a reaction against the Enlightenment and yet akin in that
they both assumed life was designed for human happiness. However the
Enlightenment placed reason at the center of human acheivement.
Romanticismm distrusted the human intellect and placed its value on the
emotions and intuitive
qualities. The natural and spontaneous was deemed
good. The highest truths would be derived from the instantaneous of the
individual. It gloried in the unlimited potential of the individual.
There was an overall feeling of optimism and belief of a utopia.
Romanticism reinforced the emotionalism of the period and its philosophies
influenced the Transcendental movement.

Romanticism began in the early 19th century and radically changed the
way people perceived themselves and the state of nature around them. Unlike
Classicism, which stood for order and established the foundation for
architecture, literature, painting and music, Romanticism allowed people to
get away from the constricted, rational views of life and concentrate on an
emotional and sentimental side of humanity. This not only influenced
political doctrines and ideology, but was also a sharp contrast from ideas
and harmony featured during the Enlightenment. The Romantic era grew
alongside the Enlightenment, but concentrated on human diversity and
looking at life in a new way. It was the combination of modern Science and
Classicism that gave birth to Romanticism and introduced a new outlook on
life that embraced emotion before rationality.

. Romanticism began to show the people
that the Enlightenment had overstayed its welcome by leading the people to
a future that offered a vision of mankind as being part of a group rather
than an individual. G. W. F. Hegel, a German philosopher, rejected the
rational philosophy of the 18th century because he believed in "Idealism".
This involved looking at life in terms of the importance of ideas, not
thought the narrow tunnel of...