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Romanticism: A Literary Movement

The Romantic movement began in the 1830s with the return of exiled liberals. The Romantic era sought to change the world, but when desires went unfulfilled, feelings of frustration and pessimism arose, leading to a search for escape.

This cultural, artistic, and literary movement started in Germany and spread throughout Europe and America in the nineteenth century. It is characterized by a desire for innovation, the defense of freedom, and the exaltation of feelings.

Key Features of Romanticism

Thematic Features

1. Freedom: Exaltation of freedom and a taste for characters that symbolize that freedom, such as pirates, the condemned, and devils.
2. Feelings: Love that defies social conventions to reach the beloved.
3. Landscape:

Defining Romanticism: Core Principles

Romanticism was a cultural movement that opposed the principles of the Enlightenment. It emphasized emotion, individualism, and the glorification of the past and nature.

Key Features of Romanticism

• Rejection of reason; imagination is emphasized.
• Preference for nature, often reflecting the mood of the artist.
• Idealistic vision, driving the romantic individual's constant search for freedom.
• Search for exotic and distant lands as a means to evade an unpleasant reality.
• Interest in the traditional and recovery of legends.
• Emphasis on the irrational and the mysterious.

Major Themes in Romantic Literature

• Love (often desperate and impossible).
• The ruins.
• The yearning for freedom.
• Nature, also reflecting the feelings of the