Aspects of Romanticism (ca. 1780-1870)

1. Shifts in intellectual and cultural emphasis:

   from:	to:
   reason	emotion and imagination
   developed	primitive
   universal	particular
   humanity	nations
   community	individual

2. Feelings as the judge of truth. Intuition and instinct become acceptable if not dominant models for uncovering reality.
3. The theory and practice of revolution: purging of the old, corrupt society to make way for the new and innocent; stress on liberty and freedom from restraint; individuals will do what is right if freed from authority
4. The rise of the commercial class and the Industrial Revolution
5. History as a primal force of Necessity or World Soul
6. The self as the final arbitrator of what is real and right. The sacredness of the individual.
7. The artist or poet moves from having genius to being a genius, from being a maker, one who imitates nature, to a creator, one who brings forth new truth from the self’s expression
8. Imagination of offers a realm of reality that science cannot offer. Aesthetic standards become "organic"
9. Nature becomes the organic world, which is unified by the spirit of the World Soul.
10. At first society is regarded as simply corrupt, but later romanticism takes on a new belief in social action as the expression of truth in history.