Okay, so it took me a few minutes to remember what it was that I wanted to write about since at the moment I can't think of any particularly good books I've finished lately. But anyway, no, this is not a review. This is actually going to be about something I personally find fascinating as a movement in history.
The reason I find it so fascinating is that it applies to me (indirectly). I am a romantic. Now, those of you who don't know much about history would probably think 'okay...so you like romance?' and yes, that is part of it, but for those of you reading this I'm thinking more of the Romantic Movement as a whole, not just the romance aspect of it.
The Romantic Movement was a response to the Enlightenment which revolved around reason and intellectual thought only. Feelings weren't involved in the process of thought during the Enlightenment. Those kinds of ideals transferred into art and writing (the second part I’m not sure about) of that the Enlightenment period as well. The Romantic Movement, however, revolved around the human emotions and was more a social movement than a political movement, although it did have some political aspects to it.
The Romantic Movement affected literature, art and music mostly, although it did reach into things like plays too. In regards to literature, it started the Gothic Romance which targeted heavy emotions like fear and romance. Books written in this period are books like Jane Eyre, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Frankenstein which are now considered great classics. It also affected plays play writes like Shakespeare in things like A Midsummer Night's Dream since it also focused on things like faeries and other fantasy creatures (like witches). In that regard, the Grimm Brothers also took in interest in old faerie tales and complied them into story books.
It also affected art. Art began to take form in romantic ideals by focusing in on nature. Nature was another thing that romantics took an interest in. Before the Romantic Movement, nature was considered dangerous but during the Romantic Movement, people grew to love nature, even though the Romantic Movement didn't go very long or far.
The third thing that was affected was music. Music became more individual instead of trying to please others. Famous composer of the Romantic Movement were Beethoven, Johannes Brahms and Schubert.
The Romantic Movement was dated back to the 1850's but in some regards, the father of romanticism was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He was an Enlightenment thinker but he also gave regards to human emotion and to nature. Those thoughts set him apart from the other Enlightenment thinkers and put him closer to the romantics of the future who agreed with his ideals.
The Romantic Movement ideals were ideals that were strongly associated with the French Revolution which also took place at the same time as the Romantic Movement. However, romantics didn’t approve of the methods used after to control the people like extreme terror.
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