ROMANTICISM
If one term can be used to describe the forces that have shaped the modern
world, it is Romanticism. Romanticism had a dynamic impact on art, literature,
science, religion, economics, politics, and the individual's understanding of self.
There is no single commonly accepted definition of Romanticism, but it has some
features upon which there is general agreement. First of all, it was a rejection of the
Enlightenment and its emphasis upon human reason. The Enlightenment thinkers
asserted that the world of nature is rationally ordered and that human reason,
therefore, can analyze, understand, and use it. On the basis of this understanding, a
rational society can be constructed. These were ideas that were almost totally
opposed by Romantics. Romanticism did not appear suddenly. If a date were to be
chosen, however, 1774 would be a useful one. It was the year of the publication of
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's
Sorrows of Werther, a novel about a young man
who is so disappointed in love that he kills himself. This fictional suicide brought on
many real ones as the novel's vogue swept across Europe.
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