Romanticism in literature

 
3. 
CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM
: 
Romantic literature is marked by six basic characteristics: giving importance to nature, 
focusing on the individual and spirituality, a celebration of loneliness and melancholy, 
emphasizing the common man, idealization of women, personification, and the pathetic 
fallacy. 
3.1. CELEBRATION OF NATURE:
 
Romantic writers found nature to be a teacher and a source of infinite beauty. One of the 
most famous works of John Keats- ‘To Autumn’ (1820) where he has emphasized 
Romanticism… 
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? 
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,– 
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
Among the river sallows, borne aloft 
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 
Keats, in the above stanza, has personified the season and followed its progression from the 
arrival of summer, through the harvest season and finally till autumn’s end as winter takes its 
place. 
3.2. FOCUS ON THE INDIVIDUAL AND SPIRITUALITY:
 
Above all the Romantic writers used to turn inward by valuing the individual experience. 
This in turn led to heighten the sense of spirituality in Romantic work and the addition of 
occult and supernatural elements. 

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© 2022 IJCRT | Volume 10, Issue 5 May 2022 | ISSN: 2320-2882
 
IJCRT2205067 
International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (IJCRT) 
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The work of Edgar Allan Poe is a bright example of this aspect of the movement; the Raven 
tells the story of a man who mourns for his dead love (idealizing woman in the Romantic 
tradition) when it seemed sentient Raven arrived and tormented him, which could be 
interpreted literally or manifested his mental instability.