Romanticism's Characteristics

 Romanticism can be defined by several important traits such as:
- Awestruck at the beauty of nature
- Saddended/repelled by factories, cities, and general urban sprawl
- Warned against the arrogance of trying to rationalize or "possess" nature
- Novel always portray the "epic loner," a misunderstood outcast as the protaganist
- Emphasized intuition, emotion, and imagination
- Strong believers in the supernatural
- Fondness for medieval (pre-Renaissance) times (think knights and their ladies)

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The Imaginative Authors of the Whimsical Age  

+Mary Shelly (1797-1857)- Frankenstein
+Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)- Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Waverley, and Guy Mannering
+William Wordsworth (17770-1850)- A slumber did my Spirit Seal, By the Sea
+Thomas Paine (1737-1809)- Common Sense, The Crisis, The Rights of Man
+Mary Robinson (1758-1800)- The Pickering Masters
+Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)- The Nightingale, The Eolian Harp

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Page Citations

Characteristics painting:
Constable, John. The Haywain. 1821. http://www.youreinsanehoney.com/modernart/constable.html
Authors painting:
Rothwell, RIchard. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. 1840.
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait.php?search=ap&npgno=1235&eDate=&lDate=