romanticism

[ roh-man-tuh-siz-uhm ]
See synonyms for romanticism on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. romantic spirit or tendency.

  2. (usually initial capital letter) the Romantic style or movement in literature and art, or adherence to its principles (contrasted with classicism).

Origin of romanticism

1
First recorded in 1795–1805; romantic + -ism

Other words from romanticism

  • an·ti·ro·man·ti·cism, noun
  • hy·per·ro·man·ti·cism, noun
  • non·ro·man·ti·cism, noun
  • post-Ro·man·ti·cism, adjective
  • pre·ro·man·ti·cism, noun
  • pro·ro·man·ti·cism, noun
  • su·per·ro·man·ti·cism, noun

Words Nearby romanticism

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use romanticism in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for romanticism

romanticism

/ (rəʊˈmæntɪˌsɪzəm) /


noun
  1. (often capital) the theory, practice, and style of the romantic art, music, and literature of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, usually opposed to classicism

  2. romantic attitudes, ideals, or qualities

Derived forms of romanticism

  • romanticist, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for romanticism (1 of 4)

romanticism

A movement in literature and the fine arts, beginning in the early nineteenth century, that stressed personal emotion, free play of the imagination, and freedom from rules of form. Among the leaders of romanticism in world literature were Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Victor Hugo, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Friedrich von Schiller. (See also under “Literature in English, Conventions of Written English, and Fine Arts.”)

romanticism

A movement in literature and the fine arts, beginning in the early nineteenth century, that stressed personal emotion, free play of the imagination, and freedom from rules of form. Among the leaders of romanticism in English literature were William Blake, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth.

romanticism

A movement that shaped all the arts in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Romanticism generally stressed the essential goodness of human beings (see Jean-Jacques Rousseau), celebrated nature rather than civilization, and valued emotion and imagination over reason. (Compare classicism.)

romanticism

A movement in literature, music, and painting in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Romanticism has often been called a rebellion against an overemphasis on reason in the arts. It stressed the essential goodness of human beings (see Jean-Jacques Rousseau), celebrated nature rather than civilization, and valued emotion and imagination over reason. Some major figures of romanticism in the fine arts are the composers Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, and Johannes Brahms, and the painter Joseph Turner.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.