Romanticism, also called the Romantic movement or Romantic era, was an artistic and intellectual movement that began in Europe near the end of the 18th century. It aimed to highlight the importance of personal feelings, imagination, and the beauty of nature in society and culture. This movement arose as a response to the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
Romanticists disagreed with the social rules of their time and instead focused on a belief called individualism. They believed that emotions and gut feelings were important for understanding the world. They also thought that beauty is not just about appearance but about how it makes people feel strongly. Based on these ideas, Romanticists emphasized several important themes: respect for nature and the supernatural, seeing the past as a more noble time, interest in the strange and mysterious, and admiration for heroism and grandeur.
The Romantic movement had a strong interest in the Middle Ages, which they saw as a time of bravery, chivalry, and a closer connection between people and nature. This view contrasted with the values of their modern industrial society, which they believed focused too much on money and harmed the environment. Romanticists’ portrayal of the Middle Ages was often debated, as critics pointed out that their descriptions sometimes ignored the challenges of medieval life.
Most historians agree that Romanticism was most influential between 1800 and 1850. However, later periods called "Late Romantic" and "Neoromantic" are also discussed. These later phases resisted the abstract and experimental styles of modern art and music. They kept the Romantic idea of deep emotion in art and music while showing advanced skill in a mature style. By the time of World War I, changes in culture and art had caused Romanticism to fade into other movements. The last Romanticists who held these ideals died in the 1940s. Though respected, they were seen as outdated by that time.
Romanticism was a diverse movement with many different ideas that influenced Western society worldwide. The movement and its opposing views shaped each other over time. After it ended, Romantic ideas and art had a lasting impact on art, music, stories, philosophy, politics, and environmental thinking. However, the modern use of the word "romanticization" usually does not relate to the historical movement.
Overview
Romanticism was most popular in the Western world from about 1800 to 1850. The earliest Romantic ideas came from a German movement called Sturm und Drang, which means "Storm and Stress" in English. This movement disagreed with the Enlightenment belief that people could understand the world only through reason. Instead, it argued that feelings and intuition were important for understanding. A book called The Sorrows of Young Werther, written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1774, helped shape the Romantic movement. The French Revolution also influenced Romanticism, as many Europeans supported the revolution’s goals.
Romanticism began to decline in the mid-1800s because of several changes, including the rise of Realism and Naturalism, the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the shift from revolution to more conservative ideas in Europe, and growing awareness of how technology and city life affected workers. By World War I, Romanticism was no longer the dominant cultural force, as new movements replaced it.
Despite this, Romanticism left a lasting influence on Western culture. Many artworks, music, and books created after the Romantic era still reflect its ideas. The movement’s focus on nature helped inspire modern efforts to protect the environment. Many film scores from the Golden Age of Hollywood used the Romantic style of music, and this style is still used in movies today. Romantic ideas also shaped modern political theories, including those held by liberals and conservatives.
Romanticism focused on emotions, individuality, and the value of the past and nature. It preferred medieval times over classical ones and was partly a response to the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason. The movement was most visible in art, music, and literature, but it also affected history writing, education, chess, and social sciences.
Romanticism had a complex influence on politics, shaping ideas in conservatism, liberalism, radicalism, and nationalism. It valued the artist’s imagination over strict rules and saw strong emotions like awe and fear as important in art. Romantics admired folk traditions and ancient practices but also supported political change and personal freedom. Unlike the Enlightenment, which focused on reason and classical ideals, Romanticism looked back to a simpler, more natural past and criticized changes caused by industrialization. It celebrated individuals who made great contributions, such as artists, who were sometimes seen as leaders in society. One Romantic writer, Percy Bysshe Shelley, called poets “the unacknowledged legislators of the world” in his work Defence of Poetry.
Defining Romanticism
Romanticism valued the freedom of artists to truly express their feelings and ideas. Artists like the German painter Caspar David Friedrich believed that an artist's emotions should guide their style. Friedrich said, "the artist's feeling is his law." The poet William Wordsworth agreed, writing that poetry should begin with "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," which the poet later "recollect[s] in tranquility" to find a unique way to show these emotions.
Romantics believed that art driven by emotion could find the right way to express its meaning, as long as artists avoided outdated traditions and old examples. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others thought that talented artists naturally followed rules of imagination when they worked alone. These rules allowed many different styles, as many as there were artists creating personal works. Many Romantics believed that great art was made "ex nihilo," or "from nothing," without copying existing models. This idea is called "romantic originality." August Wilhelm Schlegel, a Romantic writer, said in his lectures that the most valuable part of human nature is its ability to be different and varied.
According to Isaiah Berlin, Romanticism showed a new, energetic spirit that wanted to break free from old forms. It focused on changing emotions, a desire for freedom and movement, and a search for deep, meaningful goals. Romantic artists also believed strongly in the power of nature. They were skeptical of cities and social rules. They criticized artists from the Restoration and Enlightenment eras for focusing too much on society and not enough on the connection between people and nature. Romantics thought being close to nature helped people, especially those who left society to experience the natural world alone.
Romantic literature often used a personal, unique voice. Critic M. H. Abrams noted that many Romantic poems made readers feel like they were seeing the poet's own experiences. This style influenced other art forms, like how critics talk about individual styles in painting, fashion, and music, and even the auteur movement in modern films.
The word "Roman" in languages like French and German has a complex history. By the 18th century, it was used to mean "novel," a type of story. This came from the term "Romance languages," which referred to common languages compared to Latin. Many novels were "chivalric romances," stories about bravery and honor.
The term "romantic poetry" was first used by August Wilhelm Schlegel and his brother Friedrich Schlegel in the 1790s. They contrasted it with "classic" works, not by time but by spirit. Friedrich Schlegel wrote in 1800 that he found "romantic" ideas in older works, like those of Shakespeare and Cervantes. The term spread in France through Germaine de Staël’s writings in 1813. In England, Wordsworth used the phrase "romantic harp" in 1815, but by 1820, Byron still found the term confusing in Germany.
Romanticism became widely known by the 1820s. In 1824, the Académie française tried to stop it but failed. The Romantic period varied by country and art form. In literature, it is often seen as lasting from 1770 to 1848. In England, some say it lasted from 1789 to 1830. In music, Romanticism lasted longer, ending around 1910, with some works even as late as 1946–1948. Most scholars agree it ended by 1850.
The early Romantic period was shaped by war, including the French Revolution (1789–1799) and the Napoleonic Wars (until 1815). These events influenced Romantic ideas. French Romantics born between 1795 and 1805 were shaped by these times. Historian Jacques Barzun said Romantic artists came in three generations: the first in the 1790s and 1800s, the second in the 1820s, and the third later in the 19th century.
Scholars have debated what Romanticism means for over a century. It is generally seen as part of the Counter-Enlightenment, reacting against the Enlightenment’s focus on reason. Its connection to the French Revolution is important but varies by region. Most Romantics supported progress, but some had conservative views. Nationalism was often linked to Romanticism.
In philosophy, Isaiah Berlin said Romanticism changed Western traditions by challenging ideas of reason and objective truth. This shift led to nationalism, fascism, and totalitarianism, with recovery only after World War II. Berlin noted that Romantics focused on "authenticity and sincerity" in ethics, politics, and art.
Literature
Romanticism in literature often focused on themes such as the past, the importance of emotions in women and children, the loneliness of artists, and the value of nature. Many Romantic writers, like Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Maturin, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, wrote about the supernatural, the unknown, and human feelings. Romantic writers usually avoided satire, a view that still influences today’s ideas. The Romantic movement in literature came after the Enlightenment and before Realism.
In English poetry, Romanticism began in the mid-1700s with figures like Joseph Warton, headmaster at Winchester College, and his brother Thomas Warton, a professor at Oxford University. Joseph believed that imagination and creativity were the most important traits of a poet. The Scottish poet James Macpherson helped start Romanticism with his famous poems, Ossian, which inspired writers like Goethe and Walter Scott. Thomas Chatterton is often seen as the first Romantic poet in English. However, both Chatterton and Macpherson created works that were not truly ancient but instead their own. The Gothic novel, starting with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), also influenced Romanticism by focusing on horror, danger, and unusual settings. Laurence Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy introduced a playful, emotional style to English literature.
In Germany, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) inspired young people across Europe to admire its sensitive and emotional main character. At the time, Germany was divided into many small states, and Goethe’s work helped unite people through a shared sense of national pride. Philosophers like Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling influenced Romanticism, making Jena a center for early German Romanticism. Important writers included Ludwig Tieck, Novalis, Heinrich von Kleist, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Heinrich Heine. Later, Heidelberg became a hub for German Romanticism, where writers like Clemens Brentano, Achim von Arnim, and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff gathered to share ideas.
Key themes in German Romanticism included travel, nature (like the German Forest), and Germanic myths. Later works, such as E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman (1817) and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff’s The Marble Statue (1819), had darker, Gothic elements. Romanticism placed great value on childhood innocence, imagination, and folk traditions, especially in Germany. Brentano and von Arnim collected and published Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1806–1808), a book of folk tales. The Brothers Grimm published their first collection of fairy tales in 1812, based on stories they gathered from people. Unlike Hans Christian Andersen’s later stories, the Grimms’ tales were mostly drawn from real folk traditions. Jacob Grimm also wrote an academic book on Germanic mythology in 1835. Another Romantic style included the emotional language and violent scenes in Friedrich Schiller’s play The Robbers (1781).
In English literature, important Romantic writers included William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Blake. Later, John Clare and novelists like Walter Scott and Mary Shelley also contributed. The publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798, which included poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge, is often seen as the start of the Romantic movement. Most of the poems in Lyrical Ballads were by Wordsworth, focusing on the lives of poor people in the Lake District or his love for nature, which he expanded in his long poem The Prelude. Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner showed the Gothic side of Romanticism, with strange and exotic settings.
At the time, the Lake Poets were seen as outsiders, but critics like William Hazlitt supported them. In contrast, Lord Byron and Walter Scott became famous for their dramatic, exotic stories. Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812) and Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) and Marmion (1808) were widely read. Both writers drew on Scotland’s history, linking Romanticism with Scottish culture. Byron’s stories, like The Giaour (1813), were inspired by his travels in the Ottoman Empire and mixed Gothic themes with Eastern settings. Scott’s Waverley (1814) started a new genre of historical novels, set during the 1745 Jacobite uprising.
Unlike in Germany, English Romanticism had little connection to national pride. Many Romantics supported the French Revolution’s ideals, but its failure and Napoleon’s rise shocked them. Though Scott celebrated Scottish history, he was a loyal supporter of the British Union. Some Romantics lived abroad, and a famous meeting in 1816 on Lake Geneva led to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Polidori’s The Vampyre. Poets like Robert Burns in Scotland and Thomas Moore in Ireland reflected their countries’ folk traditions in their work.
Today, Romantic writers like Walter Scott are studied by scholars, but his novels are often experienced through operas composed by musicians.
Architecture
Romantic architecture began in the late 18th century as a response to the strict designs of Neoclassical architecture. It became most popular in the mid-19th century and remained common until the end of the 19th century. This style aimed to create emotional feelings, such as respect for the past or a longing for a simple, rural life. It was often inspired by the architecture of the Middle Ages, especially Gothic styles, and was influenced by romantic literature, including the historical novels of Victor Hugo and Walter Scott. Sometimes, Romantic architecture combined elements from different historical periods and regions, a practice known as eclecticism.
Gothic Revival architecture was a common type of Romantic style, especially in the construction of churches, cathedrals, and university buildings. A famous example is the completion of Cologne Cathedral in Germany by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Construction began in 1248 but stopped in 1473. Original plans for the cathedral’s front were found in 1840, and work resumed. Schinkel tried to follow the original design but used modern techniques, such as an iron frame for the roof. The cathedral was completed in 1880.
In Britain, examples include the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, a Romantic version of traditional Indian architecture designed by John Nash between 1815 and 1823, and the Houses of Parliament in London, built in a Gothic Revival style by Charles Barry from 1840 to 1876.
In France, an early example of Romantic architecture is the Hameau de la Reine, a small rustic village built at the Palace of Versailles for Queen Marie Antoinette between 1783 and 1785 by Richard Mique, with help from the Romantic painter Hubert Robert. The village had twelve buildings, ten of which remain today, and was modeled after villages in Normandy. It was designed for the Queen and her friends to play pretend as peasants and included a farmhouse, mill, tower, and other structures.
In the 19th century, French Romantic architecture was influenced by two writers: Victor Hugo, whose novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame increased interest in the Middle Ages, and Prosper Mérimée, who wrote Romantic stories and was the first head of France’s Historic Monuments commission. Mérimée worked with architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc to restore or rebuild many French cathedrals and monuments damaged after the French Revolution. Their projects included the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, the city of Carcassonne, and the medieval Château de Pierrefonds.
The Romantic style continued into the second half of the 19th century. The Palais Garnier, a Paris opera house designed by Charles Garnier, was a mix of many artistic styles and highly Romantic in design. Another example is the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur in Paris, designed by Paul Abadie. He used ideas from Byzantine architecture for the building’s long domes, and construction took place from 1875 to 1914.
Visual arts
Romanticism first appeared in the visual arts through landscape painting. As early as the 1760s, British artists began creating paintings of wild landscapes, storms, and Gothic architecture. One famous painting from this time is The Bard by Thomas Jones, which features Wales as its setting. Caspar David Friedrich and J. M. W. Turner were born in 1774 and 1775, respectively. Both became major figures in German and English landscape painting, pushing Romanticism to its extremes. However, their artistic styles were shaped by Romantic ideas already present in art. John Constable, born in 1776, stayed closer to traditional English landscapes but used large paintings to highlight the importance of rural life, challenging the idea that landscape painting was less valuable than other types of art. Turner painted large landscapes and seascapes. Some of his works showed modern scenes with people, while others included small figures, making them resemble history paintings in the style of artists like Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa. Friedrich often placed single figures or symbols like crosses in vast landscapes, showing the fleeting nature of human life and the idea of death.
Other artists, such as William Blake, Samuel Palmer, and Philipp Otto Runge, created works that focused on emotional and almost mystical themes, often moving away from classical art styles. These artists had little influence during their lifetimes but were rediscovered in the 20th century. Johan Christian Dahl, Norway’s leading painter, was inspired by Friedrich. A group of German artists called the Nazarenes, active from 1810, focused on medieval-style history paintings with religious and national themes.
Romanticism in French art developed later because Neoclassicism was strongly supported by art academies. However, during the Napoleonic era, Romantic history paintings became popular, often promoting the new government. One early example was Girodet’s Ossian Receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes, painted for Napoleon’s Château de Malmaison. Girodet’s teacher, David, was surprised by his student’s work, saying, “Either Girodet is mad or I no longer know anything of the art of painting.” A new generation of French artists developed personal Romantic styles, focusing on history paintings with political messages. Théodore Géricault gained fame with The Charging Chasseur in 1812, but his most famous work, The Raft of the Medusa (1818–19), was a powerful critique of the government.
Eugène Delacroix made his name with paintings like The Barque of Dante (1822), The Massacre at Chios (1824), and Death of Sardanapalus (1827). The Massacre at Chios depicted events from the Greek War of Independence, completed the year Lord Byron died there. Delacroix also painted scenes from Byron’s plays and Shakespeare’s works. He spent time in North Africa, painting scenes of Arab warriors. His painting Liberty Leading the People (1830) is one of the most famous examples of French Romantic art. These works often reflected real events and focused on history painting, which means painting scenes with groups of people. This style, which began in the Italian Renaissance, became central to Romantic art.
Francisco Goya was described as a painter who balanced thought and observation in his work. While his connection to Romanticism is debated, he was influenced by Enlightenment ideas and showed both classical realism and Romantic expression. His use of bold brushstrokes and thick paint, called impasto, reflected Romantic techniques.
Sculpture was less affected by Romanticism, partly because marble, the most prestigious material, was not well-suited for dramatic movements. Leading sculptors like Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen remained Neoclassicists. Romantic sculpture was rare in Germany but found in France, with artists like François Rude and Auguste Préault. Préault’s Slaughter (1834), a shocking depiction of war, caused controversy and led to his exclusion from art exhibitions for 20 years. In Italy, Lorenzo Bartolini was a key Romantic sculptor.
In France, paintings of idealized medieval and Renaissance themes were called the Troubadour style. Artists like Delacroix, Ingres, and Richard Parkes Bonington worked in this style, which included small, intimate scenes and dramatic moments. This style lasted until the mid-1800s.
Another Romantic trend was large, dramatic history paintings showing disasters, natural events, or divine punishment. John Martin, an English artist, painted scenes of biblical disasters with tiny figures dwarfed by huge storms and earthquakes. Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus used large figures and drew from earlier artists like Poussin and Rubens, adding emotional intensity.
In other parts of Europe, artists adopted Romantic styles, including in Russia.
Music
The term "Romanticism" in music refers to a time period roughly from 1800 to 1850, or sometimes until around 1900. Musical Romanticism was mainly a German tradition. A respected French reference book describes it entirely as "the role of music in the aesthetics of German romanticism." Another French encyclopedia says the German musical style was deeply influenced by Romanticism, and notes that in France, the only major figure of Romanticism in music was Hector Berlioz. In Italy, the most important name associated with musical Romanticism was Giuseppe Verdi, who was compared to a famous French writer, Victor Hugo, for his skill in creating dramatic effects. A French writer named Henri Lefebvre also said that German Romanticism was more closely connected to music than French Romanticism, so German music best showed the central Romantic idea of harmony. However, the popularity of German Romantic music inspired many musicians from other countries, such as Poland, Hungary, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Scandinavia, who often focused more on the non-musical qualities of German Romantic music than its actual musical value.
In the 19th century, Romantic musicians gained fame by performing for middle-class audiences, rather than relying on wealthy patrons as earlier musicians had. This led to the rise of virtuoso performers, such as Paganini and Liszt, who traveled widely to perform as soloists. At the same time, conductors became important figures, as their skill was needed to interpret the increasingly complex music of the time.
Although the term "Romanticism" in music is now linked to the period from 1800 to 1850 or 1900, the use of the word "romantic" to describe music began earlier. In 1789, a French writer named André Grétry used the term in his writings, showing that the idea of Romanticism in music was not limited to German traditions. Grétry acknowledged the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a key figure in the Romantic movement. In 1810, a German writer named E. T. A. Hoffmann called Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven "the three masters of instrumental music" who shared a "romantic spirit." Hoffmann believed their music showed deep emotional expression and individuality. He described Haydn’s music as peaceful and childlike, Mozart’s as deeply spiritual and emotional, and Beethoven’s as powerful and overwhelming. This focus on emotion helped music gain importance compared to other art forms like literature and visual art, which were seen as more limited by rules and logic. Writers such as Wackenroder, Tieck, Schelling, and Wagner later argued that music was the best art form for expressing ideas about the universe, the spirit world, and the infinite.
The connection between musical and literary Romanticism lasted until the middle of the 19th century. At that time, Richard Wagner criticized the music of Meyerbeer and Berlioz as "neoromantic," comparing it to an oyster that was easily digested and gave the opera a fresh appearance.
By the late 19th century, the study of music history, called musicology, began to define musical periods more scientifically. A key figure in this effort was Guido Adler, who saw Beethoven and Franz Schubert as transitional composers between the Classical and Romantic periods. Adler believed Romanticism fully developed after Beethoven, with composers like Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Berlioz, and Liszt representing the Romantic era. From Adler’s perspective, later composers such as those in the New German School and nationalist musicians were not considered Romantics but "moderns" or "realists," similar to how these terms were used in painting and literature. This view remained common until the early 20th century.
By the 1920s, changes in musical styles during the early 1900s led historians to see the turn of the century as a major break from the past. This caused some scholars, like Alfred Einstein, to extend the Romantic era into the first decade of the 20th century. References such as The Oxford Companion to Music and Grout’s History of Western Music continued to use this definition, though it was not universally accepted. For example, a German musicologist named Friedrich Blume, who edited a major music reference work, believed that the Classical and Romantic periods together formed a single era beginning in the 18th century and continuing into the 20th, including developments like expressionism and neoclassicism. This view is also found in modern reference works such as the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and the updated edition of Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.
Outside the arts
The Romantic movement influenced many areas of intellectual life, and Romanticism had a strong connection with science, especially between 1800 and 1840. Many scientists were inspired by ideas from Naturphilosophie, a philosophy developed by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. These scientists did not reject scientific methods but believed that nature was a unified and connected whole. Sir Humphry Davy, an English scientist and Romantic thinker, stated that understanding nature required "admiration, love, and worship," and that only those who respected nature could truly gain knowledge. Romanticism also focused on self-awareness, emphasizing the emotional bond between humans and nature rather than the idea that humans could control nature through intellect.
Romanticism had a major influence on how history was written. In England, Thomas Carlyle, a famous writer and historian, promoted the idea of "hero-worship," praising strong leaders like Oliver Cromwell, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon without much criticism. Romantic nationalism led to biased historical writing in the 19th century, as each nation created its own version of history. This often replaced the critical approach of earlier historians with stories that clearly separated heroes and villains. Nationalist ideas of the time stressed racial unity and the ancient origins of people, exaggerating the connection between past and present. This led to the rise of national mysticism. In the 20th century, historians worked to correct the romantic myths created during the 19th century.
To protect religion from scientific reductionism, 19th-century German theologians developed a modernist view of Christianity, led by Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl. They followed the Romantic idea that religion is rooted in personal feelings and spiritual experiences rather than strict rules or doctrines.
Romantic chess was a style that focused on quick, tactical moves and aesthetic beauty rather than long-term strategy. This era began around the 18th century and reached its peak in the 1830s with players like Joseph MacDonnell and Pierre LaBourdonnais. In the 1840s, Howard Staunton dominated, and other notable players included Adolf Anderssen, Daniel Harrwitz, Henry Bird, Louis Paulsen, and Paul Morphy. The "Immortal Game," played in 1851 by Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky, is a famous example of Romantic chess. Anderssen sacrificed multiple pieces to win, ultimately checkmating his opponent with just three minor pieces. The Romantic era in chess ended in 1873 at the Vienna Tournament, where Wilhelm Steinitz introduced positional play and the closed game, shifting the focus of chess strategy.
Romantic nationalism
One of the most important ideas from the Romanticism movement was the belief in national pride, which became a major theme in Romantic art and political thinking. From the start of the movement, which focused on developing national languages and traditions, to later events that changed the map of Europe and encouraged people to seek independence, national pride was a key part of Romanticism. In the 19th century, references to the Middle Ages helped express national ideas. Popular and epic poems were especially important in this effort. This is seen in Germany and Ireland, where people looked for old Germanic or Celtic language roots that existed before the influence of Latin from the Roman Empire.
Early Romantic ideas about national pride were strongly influenced by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the thinker Johann Gottfried von Herder. In 1784, Herder argued that a people’s geography shaped their economy, customs, and society.
The meaning of national pride changed greatly after the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon. At first, the ideas of French nationalism and republicanism inspired other countries. People believed that a sense of unity and self-determination helped France win battles. However, as France became Napoleon’s empire, Napoleon no longer inspired national pride but became the target of resistance. In Prussia, spiritual renewal was promoted as a way to fight against Napoleon, as argued by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a student of Kant. The German word Volkstum, meaning nationality, was created during this time as part of the resistance to Napoleon’s rule. Fichte explained the connection between language and national identity in his 1806 speech to the German people:
People who share a language are connected by many invisible bonds created by nature before any human effort begins. They understand each other and can communicate more clearly over time. They belong together and are naturally one group. Only when each people develops and forms itself according to its unique qualities, and when individuals grow in ways that match both their people’s traits and their own, does the true expression of divinity appear.
This view of national pride inspired the collection of folklore by people like the Brothers Grimm. They revived old stories as national treasures and created new stories that seemed ancient, such as the Kalevala from Finland or Ossian from Scotland. The belief that fairy tales, unless influenced by outside sources, remained unchanged for thousands of years fit with Romantic ideas that such stories showed a people’s original nature. For example, the Brothers Grimm rejected some tales they collected because they were similar to stories by Charles Perrault, which they thought were not truly German. However, they kept the story of Sleeping Beauty because they believed its roots in the Norse tale of Brynhildr made it authentically German. Vuk Karadžić helped preserve Serbian culture by collecting folk songs, tales, and proverbs from peasants, including the first dictionary of spoken Serbian. Similar efforts were made by Alexander Afanasyev in Russia, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in Norway, and Joseph Jacobs in England.
Romanticism helped many Central European groups, such as the Poles, gain a stronger sense of national identity, especially after Poland lost its independence when Russia crushed a rebellion under Nicholas I. Romantic poets and painters revived old myths, traditions, and customs to highlight their unique cultures and create the stories that shaped Romantic nationalism. Patriotism, revolution, and fighting for independence became common themes in art from this time. One of the most famous Romantic poets in this region was Adam Mickiewicz, who believed Poland was destined to suffer, like Jesus, to save the world. Poland’s image as a “Christ among nations” or a martyr for Europe came from its history of being a Christian nation and suffering under invasions. During times of foreign control, the Catholic Church protected Poland’s language and culture. The partitions of Poland were seen as a sacrifice to protect Western civilization. Mickiewicz wrote the patriotic play Dziady, which criticized the Russians and portrayed Poland as the “Christ of Nations.” He also wrote, “It is not you who should learn civilization from others, but you who should teach it to them.” In works like Books of the Polish Nation and Polish Pilgrimage, Mickiewicz described Poland as a messiah and savior of humanity. Dziady has many interpretations, including its moral lessons, individualistic themes, and patriotic vision. Some scholars, like Zdzisław Kępiński, focus on Slavic pagan and mystical elements in the play, as well as symbols from secret societies like the Freemasons.