Knowra Romanticism Romanticism Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that emphasized imagination, emotion, nature, and historical particularity, often challenging Enlightenment ideals of universal reason and order.
Enlightenment : An intellectual movement that emphasized reason, scientific inquiry, and universal principles. Romanticism challenged its confidence in reason and universal rules.
Lyrical Ballads : A poetry collection by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798. Its preface and poems helped announce a new emphasis on ordinary life and feeling.
William Wordsworth : An English poet whose work and preface to Lyrical Ballads helped define early English Romantic poetry. He grounded poetic power in memory, ordinary speech, and encounters with nature.
Neoclassicism : An artistic movement that revived classical models, favoring formal order, restraint, and clarity. Its ideals of discipline and classical rules sharpen the contrast with Romantic expression.
Conservation movement : Efforts to protect natural environments and resources from destruction or depletion. Romantic reverence for wild landscapes helped strengthen arguments for protecting nature.
Sublime : An aesthetic experience of overwhelming power or vastness that exceeds ordinary comprehension. Romantic artists used overwhelming nature to evoke awe, fear, and transcendence.
Frankenstein : Mary Shelley's novel about Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who creates a living being. Its ambitious creator and isolated creature turn Romantic concerns into gothic fiction.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge : An English poet and critic whose works include “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Biographia Literaria. His supernatural poetry and account of imagination articulated central Romantic concerns.
Realism : A nineteenth-century artistic movement that depicted contemporary life and social conditions without idealization. Realism redirected attention from Romantic idealization toward observable social reality.
The artist as genius : The ideal of the artist as an unusually original creator whose work expresses distinctive inner vision. Romanticism helped establish this enduring model of artistic authorship.
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