ROMANTICISM, a movement in feel ing and thought that has transformed the literature and art of most nations, has been defined by Theodore Watts as "the renascence of the spirit of wonder in poetry and art." It was a revolt against pseudo-classicism; a return from the monotonous commonplace of every day life to the quaint and unfamiliar world of old romance; a craving for the novel, original, and adventurous; an em phasizing of the interesting, the pictur esque, the "romantic," at the expense, if need be, of correctness and elegance and the current canons of "good taste." Deep humor, strong pathos, profound pity are among its notes. Romanticism is not necessarily limited to any one period; there are romantic elements in Homer, JEschylus, Sophocles. The poetry of Dante is eminently romantic when con trasted with ancient classical poetry as a whole. There are certain epochs that are specially romantic, and certain writ ers in those epochs more romantic than their fellows. The 18th century was notoriously classic in ideal, or pseudo classic—conventional, pedantic, academ ic; and the revolt against spiritual ennui which followed is the romantic move ment par excellence. In England, the
fountain-head of the movement which cul minated in the beginning of the 19th century, it may be traced from the Percy Ballads and Chatterton, from Cowper and Blake and Burns, to Scott and By ron, Wordsworth and Coleridge, Keats and Rossetti. In Germany there were tendencies in that direction in Lessing, in Schiller, in Goethe, as well as in the philosophy of Schelling, and the "Sturm and Drang" period was largely romantic in its temper; but it was Novalis who was the prophet of "romanticism," and among the other representatives of the school were the Schlegels, Tieck, Kleist, Fouque, and Hoffmann. In France be ginnings are found in Rousseau, in Cha teaubriand, and others; but the great chief of French romanticism is Victor Hugo. Other French romantics are La martine, Dumas, Gautier, George Sand, Flaubert, and Milrger. In music Weber has been called the "creator of romantic opera." Berlioz is regarded as the type of French romanticism in music.