The romanticism was a literary, musical and artistic movement developed throughout all Europe, especially

in Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy, during the 18th century. At the beginning of the century the
term “romantic” had the meaning of “extravagant or unreal”, but with the philosopher and poet Rousseau
the word was associated with a new vision of nature and with the importance of introspection in men’s life.
The romanticism developed throughout the countries in different times and ways. In Germany the
movement started with the “sturm and Drang”, and the germans concerned alla their attection on the
philosophical aspect of romanticism, that was associated with the concept of nationalism. Germans
associated the word romantic with the meaning of “magic, obscure”, in contrast with the ideas of
classicism. In France the political aspect of the movement was central, influenced by the french revolution,
and in Italy it comes lately, with exponents such as Ugo Foscolo, Leopardi and Manzoni.

The Romanticism developed during the 18th century, a period characterized by a lot of social and political
upheavel ( Industrial revolution, french revolution , napoleonic wars and american revolution). This
dynamic period influenced the enthusiasm of poets, who started to have a new sensibility for individualism
and interiority. The poets took their inspiration from the past, in particular from the Lyrical Ballads . They
discovered the national folklore and the principal tradition of their birth place. Edmund Burke , in his most
famous work, express the difference between two concept there were central in this period: Sublime and
beautiful. He considered beutiful something that is associate with such features as smallness, cuteness,
softeness ( “the flower” is an example of beautiful). He considered sublime something that is magnificent
but that makes a feeling of fear in the observer ( the “volcano’s eruption” is an example of sublime,
something that is magnificent, big, beutiful, but that his dangerous and makes fear in the observer).

Talking about the literary aspect of romanticism, it had is manifest in the work of William Wordsworth
“Lyrical Ballas”, and it was characterized by two generation of poets. The common themes throughout the
english ramantic literature were : Nature, individual feeling and emotion, childhood and escapism. The
power of emotion was exalted over reason and intellect, discovering “ the truth of imagination” rather than
scientific truth. The poets had the desire to escape from an unsatisfying present, characterized by the
ugliness of the growing industrialisation ( machines, factories, pollution… The industrial revolution was the
consequences of the necessary to face the demand of food caused by the increase of demographic rate.
This social and economic event granted the economic progress , that started with the agricultural
revolution, because, thanks to the new machines in the factories, the production was faster, easier and
bigger than tha family system production. After the enclosures, The poor farmer left the countries and
move to the towns to found a new job. They were employed in factories, but their conditions were terrible.
They were underpaid, especially women and children, that were depreved of their infancy and education
because they were exploited for their small size. They lived in “mushroom towns” a sourc of agglomeration
of houses where the prophylaxis was inesistent and the hygienic conditions were terrible. The pollution is
another important bad consequences of industrial revolution, beacuse ruined the enviroment with the
industrial fumes and waste ) that ruined the beautiful and simplicity of nature. They, with power of the
immagination ( a source of poetic inspiration) created new world ( sometimes “supernatural worlds” )
where there was central the nature that stopped being the backdrop for man’s life, but was presented as
an emotional reality where the elements of it represented the men’s feeling. Some poets considered the
nature as the representation of God who is immanent. The nature were also considered as a “mother”.

Romantics belived in the natural goodness of men which was eroded by civilitation and urban life. The
noble savage and the children became the models to rediscover the innocence lost with urban life, beacuse
their emotion were pure and soar to higher levels to undertanding. The children, with his innocence and
purity ,wasn’t contaminated by urban life and he looks at the world with eyes full of wonder (Adult lost this
capcity). For the creation of “ the noble savage” , r.omantics took inspiration from the national folklore and
from the past.