At the end of the eighteenth century a new literature arose It was called, Romanticism, and it opposed most of the ideas held earlier in the century. Romanticism had its roots in a changed attitude toward mankind.The forerunners of the Romanticists argued that men are naturally good; society makes them bad. If the social world could be changed, all men might be happier. Many reforms were suggested: better treatment of people in prisons and almshouses; fewer death penalties for minor crimes; and an increase in charitable institutions. Romanticism was a powerful reaction against Neoclassicism in liberation of the imagination and rediscovery of nature. English romantic writers tended to turn their backs upon cities and centers of culture for their inspiration, and to seek subjects and settings for their poems in mountains and valleys, forests, meadows and brooks. Romanticism made much of freedom and imagination. Some ideas that came with the romantic movement are that humble life is best, and another was that people should live close to nature. Thus the Romantic movement was essentially anti-progress, if progress meant industrialization. Because of this concern for nature and the simple folk, authors began to take an interest in old legends, folk ballads, and rustic characters. Many writers started to give more play to their senses and to their imagination. Their pictures of nature became livelier and more realistic. They loved to describe rural scenes, graveyards, majestic mountains and roaring waterfalls. With this Romanticism grew, but it can not be accurately defined. It was a group of ideas, a web of beliefs. No one Romantic writer expressed all these ideas, but each believed enough of them to set him apart from earlier writers. The Romanticist was emotional and imaginative. He acted through inspiration and intuition, believed in democracy, humanity, and the possibility of achieving a better world. Some of the first great romantici...
