enlightenment vs romanticism essay

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

• Romanticism

Théodore Gericault

Evening: Landscape with an Aqueduct

Alfred Dedreux (1810–1860) as a Child

The Start of the Race of the Riderless Horses

Horace Vernet

Jean-Louis-André-Théodore Gericault (1791–1824)

Inundated Ruins of a Monastery

Karl Blechen

Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds

John Constable

Eugène Delacroix

Royal Tiger

Stormy Coast Scene after a Shipwreck

French Painter

Mother and Child by the Sea

Johan Christian Dahl

The Natchez

Wanderer in the Storm

Julius von Leypold

The Abduction of Rebecca

Jewish Woman of Algiers Seated on the Ground

Théodore Chassériau

The Virgin Adoring the Host

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Ovid among the Scythians

Kathryn Calley Galitz Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2004

Romanticism, first defined as an aesthetic in literary criticism around 1800, gained momentum as an artistic movement in France and Britain in the early decades of the nineteenth century and flourished until mid-century. With its emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a response to the disillusionment with the Enlightenment values of reason and order in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789. Though often posited in opposition to Neoclassicism , early Romanticism was shaped largely by artists trained in Jacques Louis David’s studio, including Baron Antoine Jean Gros, Anne Louis Girodet-Trioson, and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. This blurring of stylistic boundaries is best expressed in Ingres’ Apotheosis of Homer and Eugène Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus (both Museé du Louvre, Paris), which polarized the public at the Salon of 1827 in Paris. While Ingres’ work seemingly embodied the ordered classicism of David in contrast to the disorder and tumult of Delacroix, in fact both works draw from the Davidian tradition but each ultimately subverts that model, asserting the originality of the artist—a central notion of Romanticism.

In Romantic art, nature—with its uncontrollable power, unpredictability, and potential for cataclysmic extremes—offered an alternative to the ordered world of Enlightenment thought. The violent and terrifying images of nature conjured by Romantic artists recall the eighteenth-century aesthetic of the Sublime. As articulated by the British statesman Edmund Burke in a 1757 treatise and echoed by the French philosopher Denis Diderot a decade later, “all that stuns the soul, all that imprints a feeling of terror, leads to the sublime.” In French and British painting of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the recurrence of images of shipwrecks ( 2003.42.56 ) and other representations of man’s struggle against the awesome power of nature manifest this sensibility. Scenes of shipwrecks culminated in 1819 with Théodore Gericault’s strikingly original Raft of the Medusa (Louvre), based on a contemporary event. In its horrifying explicitness, emotional intensity, and conspicuous lack of a hero, The Raft of the Medusa became an icon of the emerging Romantic style. Similarly, J. M. W. Turner’s 1812 depiction of Hannibal and his army crossing the Alps (Tate, London), in which the general and his troops are dwarfed by the overwhelming scale of the landscape and engulfed in the swirling vortex of snow, embodies the Romantic sensibility in landscape painting. Gericault also explored the Romantic landscape in a series of views representing different times of day; in Evening: Landscape with an Aqueduct ( 1989.183 ), the dramatic sky, blasted tree, and classical ruins evoke a sense of melancholic reverie.

Another facet of the Romantic attitude toward nature emerges in the landscapes of John Constable , whose art expresses his response to his native English countryside. For his major paintings, Constable executed full-scale sketches, as in a view of Salisbury Cathedral ( 50.145.8 ); he wrote that a sketch represents “nothing but one state of mind—that which you were in at the time.” When his landscapes were exhibited in Paris at the Salon of 1824, critics and artists embraced his art as “nature itself.” Constable’s subjective, highly personal view of nature accords with the individuality that is a central tenet of Romanticism.

This interest in the individual and subjective—at odds with eighteenth-century rationalism—is mirrored in the Romantic approach to portraiture. Traditionally, records of individual likeness, portraits became vehicles for expressing a range of psychological and emotional states in the hands of Romantic painters. Gericault probed the extremes of mental illness in his portraits of psychiatric patients, as well as the darker side of childhood in his unconventional portrayals of children. In his portrait of Alfred Dedreux ( 41.17 ), a young boy of about five or six, the child appears intensely serious, more adult than childlike, while the dark clouds in the background convey an unsettling, ominous quality.

Such explorations of emotional states extended into the animal kingdom, marking the Romantic fascination with animals as both forces of nature and metaphors for human behavior. This curiosity is manifest in the sketches of wild animals done in the menageries of Paris and London in the 1820s by artists such as Delacroix, Antoine-Louis Barye, and Edwin Landseer. Gericault depicted horses of all breeds—from workhorses to racehorses—in his work. Lord Byron’s 1819 tale of Mazeppa tied to a wild horse captivated Romantic artists from Delacroix to Théodore Chassériau, who exploited the violence and passion inherent in the story. Similarly, Horace Vernet, who exhibited two scenes from Mazeppa in the Salon of 1827 (both Musée Calvet, Avignon), also painted the riderless horse race that marked the end of the Roman Carnival, which he witnessed during his 1820 visit to Rome. His oil sketch ( 87.15.47 ) captures the frenetic energy of the spectacle, just before the start of the race. Images of wild, unbridled animals evoked primal states that stirred the Romantic imagination.

Along with plumbing emotional and behavioral extremes, Romantic artists expanded the repertoire of subject matter, rejecting the didacticism of Neoclassical history painting in favor of imaginary and exotic subjects. Orientalism and the worlds of literature stimulated new dialogues with the past as well as the present. Ingres’ sinuous odalisques ( 38.65 ) reflect the contemporary fascination with the exoticism of the harem, albeit a purely imagined Orient, as he never traveled beyond Italy. In 1832, Delacroix journeyed to Morocco, and his trip to North Africa prompted other artists to follow. In 1846, Chassériau documented his visit to Algeria in notebooks filled with watercolors and drawings, which later served as models for paintings done in his Paris studio ( 64.188 ). Literature offered an alternative form of escapism. The novels of Sir Walter Scott, the poetry of Lord Byron, and the drama of Shakespeare transported art to other worlds and eras. Medieval England is the setting of Delacroix’s tumultuous Abduction of Rebecca ( 03.30 ), which illustrates an episode from Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe .

In its stylistic diversity and range of subjects, Romanticism defies simple categorization. As the poet and critic Charles Baudelaire wrote in 1846, “Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor in exact truth, but in a way of feeling.”

Galitz, Kathryn Calley. “Romanticism.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roma/hd_roma.htm (October 2004)

Further Reading

Brookner, Anita. Romanticism and Its Discontents . New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux; : , 2000.

Honour, Hugh. Romanticism . New York: Harper & Row, 1979.

Additional Essays by Kathryn Calley Galitz

• Galitz, Kathryn Calley. “ The Legacy of Jacques Louis David (1748–1825) .” (October 2004)
• Galitz, Kathryn Calley. “ Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) .” (May 2009)
• Galitz, Kathryn Calley. “ The French Academy in Rome .” (October 2003)

Related Essays

• John Constable (1776–1837)
• Poets, Lovers, and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints
• The Salon and the Royal Academy in the Nineteenth Century
• The Transformation of Landscape Painting in France
• Watercolor Painting in Britain, 1750–1850
• The Aesthetic of the Sketch in Nineteenth-Century France
• Auguste Rodin (1840–1917)
• The Countess da Castiglione
• Gustave Courbet (1819–1877)
• James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) as Etcher
• The Legacy of Jacques Louis David (1748–1825)
• Lithography in the Nineteenth Century
• The Nabis and Decorative Painting
• Nadar (1820–1910)
• Nineteenth-Century Classical Music
• Nineteenth-Century French Realism
• Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century Art
• Paolo Veronese (1528–1588)
• The Pre-Raphaelites
• Shakespeare and Art, 1709–1922
• Shakespeare Portrayed
• Sixteenth-Century Painting in Venice and the Veneto
• Thomas Eakins (1844–1916): Painting
• Women Artists in Nineteenth-Century France
• France, 1800–1900 A.D.
• Great Britain and Ireland, 1800–1900 A.D.
• 19th Century A.D.
• Architecture
• British Literature / Poetry
• Classical Ruins
• French Literature / Poetry
• Great Britain and Ireland
• History Painting
• Literature / Poetry
• Oil on Canvas
• Orientalism
• Preparatory Study

Artist or Maker

• Adamson, Robert
• Blake, William
• Blechen, Karl
• Chassériau, Théodore
• Constable, John
• Dahl, Johan Christian
• David, Jacques Louis
• Delacroix, Eugène
• Eakins, Thomas
• Friedrich, Caspar David
• Fuseli, Henry
• Gericault, Théodore
• Girodet-Trioson, Anne-Louis
• Gros, Antoine Jean
• Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique
• Købke, Christen
• Turner, Joseph Mallord William
• Vernet, Horace
• Von Carolsfeld, Julius Schnorr
• Von Leypold, Julius

Online Features

• 82nd & Fifth: “Motion Picture” by Asher Miller
• Connections: “Fatherhood” by Tim Healing

Enlightenment and Romanticism: Comparison Essay

Introduction, intellectual and philosophical origins, defining characteristics, the mind and reality, romanticism and enlightenment, god and religion.

Neoclassical and Romantic activities cover the epoch of 1750 to 1850. Neoclassicism demonstrates life to be additionally balanced than it was. The Romantics special an interest in scenery, picturesque, aggressive, inspirational. Unlike Neoclassicism, which locations for the arrange, reason, convention, society, cleverness, and resolute communication, Impracticality acceptable everyday society in the passageway of realizing not in stature close to introduction the not representative independent visions of continuance and consider on a moving and over-romantic side of humankind. In this association, the importance was on feeling, obsession, imagination, human being, and usual enunciation. Ensuing infractions from the freedom and democratic principles of the French uprising, the idealistic Movement had in ordinary only a rebellion alongside the system of classicism (Arthur Lovejoy, 2004, 229-53).

Neoclassicism was a creative and thinker movement, commencement in the mid-17th century in England, jointly progressive and usual in its object of contestants the imaginary and original activities of Augustus Caesar’s daylight hours and the traditional epoch in universal.

The historicist analysis’s of Romanticism, which mainly organized one thread of Romanticism next to one more, supplied an enlivening detachment sandwiched flanked by thought through us and a deceives them, an unbreachable opening stuck between at the moment and then, consequently produce minutes of approaching into the pastness of the history yet as well an additional description of the Enlightenment topic whose basis happens to objectified command, right away as in that Enlightenment account of “false notion,” the legend of Frankenstein. Jerome McGann’s Romantic viewpoint (1983) tartan this dialectic of Enlightenment with romanticizing countermovements, intended for which discrepancy Marc Redfield amongst numerous others has disapproved of him (Anne Mellor, 1993).

This pressure group could be distinguished as a “belief of the head.” On the different, Romanticism was a creative and scholarly group that spread crossways Europe in the not on time 18th and near the beginning 19th century. This association was a response in direct resistance to the Age of Motive in its sympathetic of human contentment and the earnings to attain it. This fictional rebellion could be differentiating as a “faith of the compassion.”

Little can be in use for decided in Romantic learned. The standard has been increasing because the 1990s, and come again? is familiar–the Big Six poets–has been variously reconfigured. “Romantic-era writing” more often than not designates the script in the fifty existences from 1780 to 1830, but the present is also the extended eighteenth century that included Romanticism inside non-Romantic literary-historical narratives, and a figure of periodizations lay maintain to an Idealistic century, 1750 to 1850, take possession of both the period of Johnson and the near the beginning, Victorian epoch. recognized something identified Romanticism, forever a dangerous venture is no a smaller amount dangerous but has not stopped up the building of manifold Romanticisms, from Anne Mellor’s feminine Romanticism to Jerome McGann’s verse of deep feeling. “Romanticism” is the interpretive intelligence we create of Romantic-era writing by means of diachronic and synchronic narratives. That there are manifold narratives does not cause to be the thought ineffective, but Romanticism has to be unspoken in the plural. In the wake up of the feminist and historicist takes to pieces of the older Romanticism, particularly Bloom’s “creative thinker corporation” and the Wordsworth-centered verse of consciousness and the natural world, one has to inquire whether one of the goals of the novel interpreters has been attaining: are we still interpretation Romanticism by the income of its possess buildings, or have we so distant detached ourselves from the suppositions of Romantic passages that we are in conclusion exterior of Romanticism? Do we want to be exterior of Romanticism? Is it probable to get the exterior of Romanticism? Are we, lastly, free of Romantic philosophy?

Neoclassical writers reproduce great poetry of the history since of the conviction that men had decided on convinced, fixed ways of script crossways the centuries. System for countrified verse, the send-up, and the marathon were deferentially going rafters. British Romantic writers on the entire still experiential convinced meetings in writing as a self-imposed regulation and spoken innovative thoughts somewhat than captivating uncontrolled, fundamental proceedings. Neoclassical writers were positive in the personal authority of motive to attain development in this “new day” or explanation. Human faculty was competent in creation sense and arranged out of the cosmos. Romantic writers were intensely and self-consciously paying attention to emotion and the mind’s eye. Writer’s strugglers to idolize the daring boundaries of feeling, the hopeful reader to trust their emotions, intuitions, and instincts over balanced thought. The mind’s eye was considered to be the majority precious of all person abilities. As Schubert affirmed: “Oh, imagination, thou highest gemstone of creation… Preserve us on or after that supposed Enlightenment, that unattractive frame without soft tissue or blood.” (Clifford Siskin, 1998)

The conviction that persons are rational animals, collected of a middle, the particular human natural world, is the focal point of convinced Neo _classical works. Many writers unspecified that humans might overcome human being peculiarities and find harmony; thus, they extrapolated that all citizens could narrate to the thoughts, feelings, and appearance of their inscription.

In romanticism, feelings material; touching human responses are genuine and are an essential fraction of our lives. Qualities of “realism,” the heavenly, or theologies may be reproduced in nature in Impracticality, and we can intelligence God or the gods from surface to surface our sensing of the natural world. While in Neo_classicism, there is an anxiety for the “natural world”–or the method belongings are (and should be). This narrates back to the disbelieve of modernism and intrinsic conservatism of Neoclassicism (Duke University Press, 2003, 203-4).

The creative rules of the elderly, for example, Pope describes as contains been “discovered, not plan” and are “Natural World methodized”; so too, “Nature and Homer” are “the similar” (Essay on Disapproval 88ff. 135). This conviction in “nature” implies confidence that there is an enduring, worldwide way belonging are (and should be), which obviously need fundamental following and moral promises. The center on natural emotion over conservative system led to importance on the self over the previous neoclassical stress on civilization. The person turns out to be the basis of wisdom and principles, displace the received set of systems and norms known by civilization. As a consequence, importance is placed on sympathetic the person’s slanted state, particularly as it relates to the exterior world. Because romantics see the person’s family member to the exterior world as the foundation of ethics and wisdom, the significance of nature turns out to be a major anxiety. Unlike urban surroundings that distort and hold back one’s intelligence of family member to the planet, natural locations leave the idealistic individual gratis to appreciate her or his possess as Keats describes it, with things occurrences or with the not-self. The personnel’s original family member with the object world located a premium on the sense of the mind’s eye, which is a highlight for two chief motives. Romantics also put huge amass in the lively and original role that we engage in leisure in relations with the earth, an earth which every one of us, because Wordsworth writes, generated and half-perceives (David Simpson, 1982).

By considering all the skin tones of both epochs above, we can approach keen on the termination that the leader stress on idealism was upon the liberty of the person, self look, sincerity, impulsiveness, and innovation. These main beliefs become the new principles in writing, replace the decorous simulation of traditional models favored by the 18th century Neo_classisicm, in which we contain the importance of linked consideration over linear or rational illustration and to the leaving behind of customary plot forms. So Romanticism was a response alongside cold intelligence (an intellect exposed from emotion) and neoclassical principles of cause and reason. Romanticists establish that the arranged, mechanical cosmos that the discipline thrived beneath was too thin-minded in terms of sentiment or the mind’s eye. I think we can find a lot of (never all) of idealistic fundamentals in a great deal of art and a great deal of the consideration we term idealistic. And I consider the obtainable list supplies us with an intelligence of the dissimilarities flanked by idealistic verse and neoclassical poems which head it (Routledge, Kegan, and Paul, 1987).

• Arthur Lovejoy, “On the Discrimination of Romanticisms,” PMLA 39 (1924): 229-53: Irving Massey, “Romanticism: Fact or Phrase?” Dalhousie Review 44 (1964): 396-412.
• Anne Mellor, Romanticism, and Gender (New York: Routledge, 1993); Jerome McGann The Poetics of Sensibility: A Revolution in Literary Style (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
• Clifford Siskin, The Work of Writing: Literature and Social Change in Britain, 1700-1830 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).
• David Simpson, Words worth and the Figurings of the Real (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1982): idem, Wordsworth’s Historical Imagination: The Poetry of Displacement (London: Routledge, Kegan, and Paul, 1987).
• Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, Literary Theory: An Anthology (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1998). Daniel T. O’Hara criticizes Rivkin and Ryan’s treatment of de Man in Empire Burlesque: The Fate of Critical Culture in Global America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 203-4.
• David B. Ruderman, Jewish Enlightenment in an English Key: Anglo-Jewry’s Construction of Modern Jewish Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
• Susan J. Wolfson, Formal Charges: The Shaping of Poetry in British Romanticism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 195-206.
• Jurgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Christian Lenhardt and Sherry Weber Nicholsen (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990), 1-20.
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, September 17). Enlightenment and Romanticism: Comparison. https://ivypanda.com/essays/enlightenment-and-romanticism-comparison/

"Enlightenment and Romanticism: Comparison." IvyPanda , 17 Sept. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/enlightenment-and-romanticism-comparison/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Enlightenment and Romanticism: Comparison'. 17 September.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Enlightenment and Romanticism: Comparison." September 17, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/enlightenment-and-romanticism-comparison/.

1. IvyPanda . "Enlightenment and Romanticism: Comparison." September 17, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/enlightenment-and-romanticism-comparison/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Enlightenment and Romanticism: Comparison." September 17, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/enlightenment-and-romanticism-comparison/.

• Romanticism in Modern Ecological Literature
• Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, and Rococo
• A Journey From Neoclassicism to Modernism
• Neoclassical and Romantic Paintings Compared
• Neoclassicism and Romanticism: Comparison
• Phillis Wheatley’s Neoclassicism
• Romanticizing Literature, Visual Arts and Music During Romanticism 1800-1850
• Nature in 18th Century and Romanticism Literatures
• Romanticism as an Ideological and Artistic Trend
• Neoclassicism in French Revolution
• Art and Literature Between the Two World Wars
• Impacts and Key Concepts of Impressionism
• Paris Exposition Internationale 1937
• The History of Incas' Art
• The Age of Romanticism and Its Factors

Home — Essay Samples — History — Romanticism — Enlightenment vs. Romanticism: Unveiling Similarities

Enlightenment Vs. Romanticism: Unveiling Similarities

• Categories: Enlightenment Romanticism

About this sample

Words: 622 |

Published: Mar 6, 2024

Words: 622 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Human emotions, individualism.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Heisenberg

Verified writer

• Expert in: Philosophy History

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 896 words

3 pages / 1160 words

3 pages / 1376 words

1 pages / 1849 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Romanticism

Ed Sheeran's hit song "Thinking Out Loud" has captured the hearts of millions around the world with its soulful lyrics and melodic tune. The song, released in 2014 as part of Sheeran's album "x," explores the theme of [...]

Walt Whitman, often considered the father of free verse poetry, is a highly influential figure in American literature. His work is deeply rooted in the Romantic tradition, and he is often celebrated for his celebration of [...]

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” is a prime example of the Romantic literary movement. Romanticism, which originated in Europe in the late 18th century, was a reaction against the rationalism and [...]

Romanticism was a cultural and artistic movement that emerged in the late 18th century and reached its peak in the 19th century. It was a reaction against the rationalism and scientific mindset of the Enlightenment and sought to [...]

A theme that is immediately apparent in Pushkin’s The Shot is “the noble man with a romanticized view of life”. This theme was common during the Romantic Era, the period in which Pushkin wrote, but is important for more than [...]

Wordsworth’s pastoral poem “Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey” eloquently expresses the poet’s feelings of ambivalence regarding maturation, nature, and modern society. The poem is formatted in a distinct approach [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• The Open University
• Guest user / Sign out
• Study with The Open University

My OpenLearn Profile

Personalise your OpenLearn profile, save your favourite content and get recognition for your learning

About this free course

Become an ou student, download this course, share this free course.

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

8 The forces of change: towards Romanticism

8.1 the forces of change: towards romanticism.

The relationship between the Enlightenment and the movement known as Romanticism, which dominated early nineteenth-century culture, is the subject of intense debate among scholars. There is no single correct way of defining this relationship, and one of the main challenges you will face in this course is in forming your own conclusions on the subject. It is possible, for example, to see the French Revolution as a cataclysmic event that tumbled the old order and ruptured faith in the Enlightenment and its reformist ambitions, thus stimulating the intense inwardness and doubt symptomatic of much Romantic thought. (This dimension of the Revolution is explored further below.) Equally, the growth in our period of a new class benefiting from the profits of industry and agrarian reform is often seen as a transforming influence in the wider culture. Freed from the conventional allegiances of the hereditary noble and genteel sections of society to the classical and the decorous, this emergent capitalist elite (‘new money’) expressed different priorities in art, literature and music as it attempted to assert its new status and identity. After the Revolution, these priorities included a new fear of the great mass of the population untouched by the Enlightenment, and a search for ways of controlling it. The reforms to factory conditions proposed by Robert Owen, for example, might be seen as a combination of enlightened humanitarianism and social control.

It can also be argued, however, that the seeds of Romanticism were sown by the Enlightenment itself. It was, after all, the Enlightenment that stimulated vigorous discussion and criticism of the status quo as part of an impulse towards the creation of a more modern culture. Certainly, the quest for rebellion and modernity intensified in the Romantic era. In the following section we'll be looking at some of the developments of the eighteenth century that are now often called ‘pre-Romantic’. It is unwise to apply hindsight in such a way as to suggest that certain cultural developments took place in anticipation of others. Most large-scale cultural changes involve a complex web of factors. Nevertheless, Romanticism can be seen to have had gradual as well as more sudden causes, some of which, particularly the growing status of emotion and more personal responses to the human and natural worlds, we outline briefly below. We will then examine other agents of change.

• Search Menu
• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Acquisition
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Media
• Music and Religion
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Ethics
• Business Strategy
• Business History
• Business and Technology
• Business and Government
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic History
• Economic Systems
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Public Policy
• Public Administration
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

• < Previous chapter
• Next chapter >

7 Romanticism

Scott Masson teaches English at Tyndale University College, Toronto.

• Published: 02 September 2009
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

‘Romanticism’ is notoriously difficult to define. Romantic writing characteristically strives to transcend all bounds, all definition. Romanticism's longing to overcome discord and fragmentation suggests that human redemption and eschatological fulfilment on earth lay within the power of the artist. The Romantic narrative is not simply one of Messianic fulfilment though, for its belief in the ‘natural’ benefit of organic creative processes to society indefinitely forestalls any such conclusion. In fact, in its basic tendency to reject order and harmony as a sign of unenlightened, ‘naïve’ thinking, Romanticism also opposed the authoritative and the orthodox. This article argues that this is the root of Romanticism: that man, the individual, is an infinite reservoir of possibilities; and if one can rearrange society by the destruction of the oppressive order, then these possibilities will have a chance and one gets Progress.

‘ Romanticism ’ is notoriously difficult to define, but not so much because of the ongoing scholarly debates about its period or its politics. It is because a resistance to definition to a certain extent defines it. This resistance is inherent in the ephemeral trajectory that Romanticism casts as its path. Romantic writing characteristically strives to transcend all bounds, all definition. As the German poet Novalis explained to his readers: ‘By investing the commonplace with a lofty significance, the ordinary with a mysterious aspect, the familiar with the prestige of the unfamiliar, the finite with the semblance of infinity, I thereby romanticise it’ (Furst 1980 : 3). One of his contemporaries and perhaps the principal Romantic theorist, Friedrich Schlegel, succinctly defined it as ‘a progressive universal poetry’ (ibid. 4). He explained it by contrast with foregoing types: ‘Other types of poetry are complete and can now be wholly analysed. Romantic poetry is still in the process of becoming; this indeed is its very essence, that it is eternally evolving, never completed…It alone is infinite, just as it alone is free, recognizing as its prime law that the poet's caprice brooks no law’ (ibid. 5) Shelley employed similar terms, though like Wordsworth he saw no break between the poetry of his own age and that of the past. For Shelley, all poetry tended to progressive universality: ‘All high poetry is infinite; it is the first acorn, which contains all oaks potentially’ (1965: vii. 131).

Another of its most important features appears in the midst of the contrast Friedrich's brother A. W. Schlegel made between the ‘fixed’ classical forms and themes of writing and the romantic. He connected the new class of poetry to an anthropological development, as if a new race of spiritual human being had evolved for whom the Romantic poet assumed a prophetic voice: ‘The whole play of vital motion hinges on harmony and contrast. Why should this phenomenon not also recur on a grander scale in the history of mankind? Perhaps in this notion the true key could be found to the ancient and modern history of poetry and the fine arts. Those who accepted this have invented for the particular spirit of modern art, in contrast to ancient or classical, the name “romantic”’ (Furst 1980 : 33). In this contrast Schlegel expressed the standard opinion of his contemporaries that the ancients, particularly the Greeks, had articulated a grand but essentially static vision of human nature. While the Romantics much admired the vision, they considered it impossible to revert back from their own sentimental age to its naïveté (the descriptions ‘naive’ and ‘sentimental’ were those of the influential poet, dramatist, and historian Friedrich Schiller). Nor was there reason for considering the Greeks' static views superior. On the contrary:

Among the Greeks human nature was self-sufficient; it was conscious of no defects, and strove for no other perfection than that which it could actually attain through its own powers. A higher wisdom teaches us that mankind, through a great transgression, forfeited the place to which it was originally destined, and that the whole aim of its earthly existence is to strive to regain its lost possession, which it can never achieve on its own…So the poetry of the ancients was the poetry of possession, ours is that of longing. (Furst 1980 : 33–4)

This narrative of loss has Christian overtones. Yet with its high claim to creativity, Romanticism's ‘longing’ to overcome discord and fragmentation suggests that human redemption and eschatological fulfilment on earth lay within the power of the artist. The Romantic narrative is not simply one of Messianic fulfilment though, for its belief in the ‘natural’ benefit of organic creative processes to society indefinitely forestalls any such conclusion. In fact, in its basic tendency to reject order and harmony as a sign of unenlightened, ‘naive’ thinking, Romanticism also opposed the authoritative and the orthodox, in form and content, in literature and theology. The reason lay in its alternative explanation for what Schlegel called humanity's ‘great transgression’. As T. E. Hulme ( 1924 : 117) explains, rather than adhering to the Christian doctrine of original sin, the Romantics were schooled by Rousseau that

man was by nature good, that it was only bad laws and customs that had suppressed him. Remove all these and the infinite possibilities of man would have a chance. This is what made them think that something positive could come out of disorder, this is what created all religious enthusiasm. Here is the root of romanticism: that man, the individual, is an infinite reservoir of possibilities; and if you can so rearrange society by the destruction of the oppressive order then these possibilities will have a chance and you will get Progress.

It will be necessary to explore these characteristics of Romanticism in greater detail to get a fuller picture.

Romanticism and the Enlightenment

The Romantic Movement emerged at different times in different countries during a period spanning roughly from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Although the exact period is debatable no one disputes the existence of the phenomenon. The marks of Romanticism can be found wherever the Enlightenment was embraced, and often most strongly where it was. The Enlightenment tends to be associated with eighteenth-century France, but we can see some of its characteristics in seventeenth-century England, and it certainly dominated the thinking of the American revolutionaries. In common, they viewed absolute monarchy as dangerous and evil and rejected orthodox Christianity. (See, on the Enlightenment, Ch. 6 , by Rhodri Lewis, above.)

In terms of religious belief, Enlightenment thinkers tended towards a heresy called deism. They maintained a functional idea of God as a first principle, a giver of ‘laws’ by which the universe was ordered and could thereby be understood. In pursuing the idea of natural revelation, they also rejected the church's claim that God had revealed himself to humanity in the Bible, seeing that traditional claim as a ‘naive’ if not vulgar expression of what could be more clearly ascertained through the use of reason. What was new about this was the postulate of autonomy attached to reason, or ‘pure reason’ as Immanuel Kant called it. In the concept of autonomy, literally the ‘law of the self’, reason made a radical departure from any and all ‘external’ forms of authority. It made its turn inward and to the infinite, as Hulme suggested, in the name of progress.

As was readily apparent in the appeal it made to the infinite, Romanticism represented a sort of continuation of Enlightenment ideology. Yet it often understood itself in more or less explicit opposition to it for one important reason. A thinker of the Enlightenment characteristically espoused a belief in progress through the use of science and reason, eschewing all traditional teaching, particularly that of the church, as ‘unexamined prejudices’. The Romantics, for whom Rousseau is probably the first representative, deplored such principled detachment. After all, some of the chief ills of social prejudice were isolation, exclusion, and alienation. While they hardly supported the church, they emphasized the importance of an ‘organic’ connection to the world, and thus tended to assert the continuing validity of what was old and, more importantly still, original, and that included the trappings of Christendom.

In this emphasis, it is important to note that the Romantics retained the Enlightenment's prejudice against prejudice; they simply regarded its practice of reason as the clearest manifestation of prejudiced thinking. It is for this reason that William Wordsworth in his Romantic manifesto Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800) was unwilling to engage in the ‘selfish and foolish hope of reasoning the reader into an approbation’ (Wordsworth and Coleridge 1963 : 236) of his poems. He preferred to ‘use a language arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings [which] is a more permanent and far more philosophical language than that which is frequently substituted for it by Poets, who think they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men’ (ibid 239–40). By connecting humanity with something ‘prior to critical judgment’ he intensified the Enlightenment's attack on prejudice, turning it against reason as well. This had a somewhat ironic consequence. By making out what he called the primal sympathies of our ‘nature’, i.e. the provenance of the heart, to be a higher court than reason, the provenance of the mind, he put them beyond rational criticism (or dispute), while also making feelings the judge of all things. They thereby became absolutely authoritative in a way that no monarch could ever have hoped to be. And since they brooked no external opposition, the priesthood of the believer replaced the priesthood of all believers.

Romanticism's Secular Theodicy

It was through feeling that the Romantics made the otherwise incongruous alliance between the infinite, their simulacrum of God, and the natural. This alliance functions in what the critic M. H. Abrams has aptly described as Romanticism's ‘secular theodicy’. The term theodicy was coined by the German philosopher G. W. Leibniz in 1710 for his argument justifying the goodness of God in the face of the reality of the suffering and evil in the world which appears to repudiate it. In Romantic writing, it appears in the play of natural origins within its common narrative of a fall from innocence, only to be recovered through the redemptive power of poetry.

While Romanticism thus largely departs from Leibniz's attempt to do this on behalf of the Christian faith—the great poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge being the notable exception, particularly in his later works—there is no doubt that the demonstration of a goodness to be recovered, or created, is a seminal ‘spiritual’ aspect of Romantic writing. It probably constitutes the main interest for anyone studying Romanticism and religion. This consonance makes Romanticism appear to be an ally to the Christian faith, and some have seized upon it as such, including most notably the liberal wing of the Anglican Church in the nineteenth century. For them, Wordsworth's insistence on humanity's innate ‘spiritual sense’ presented a bulwark against the increasingly prevalent mechanistic and deterministic views of human nature. In practice, however, Romantics followed their Enlightenment predecessors in denying the validity of the revelation of God in the Bible or the validity of the church's witness to him. The change lies in the fact that the Romantic identifies the active power behind both in the person of the poet.

The manner in which it does so will receive fuller exposition when we look at Romantic poetics, but the result is clear. Romanticism tends to posit an alternative ‘theological framework’ in place of the Christian narrative of creation, fall, exile, and redemption. ‘Origins’ play a crucial role throughout this narrative framework. The Romantic narrative suggests a quasi-Pelagian state of humanity's original goodness at the ‘dawn of consciousness’; it attributes the fall to the advent of society and, more specifically, to its use of reason sequestered from ‘life’, i.e. its departure from its naive origins (against which it casts the contemporary age's ‘sentimental’ condition as one of exile or alienation, which the poet most keenly feels); and it sees redemption (and progress) as coming in the form of originality , specifically through the reconciling power of the poetic imagination .

None of these narrative states are entirely coherent or consistent with logical explanation, because in its appeal to origins Romanticism steadfastly avoids the notions of causality or any agency that would allow it. The main reason for this aversion probably lies in one of the key theological beliefs that Romanticism inherits from deist thinkers, that the supernatural realm does not exist, or if it does, that it is in some way subordinated to the natural, or subsumed within it. We can see this, for example, with respect to the transition between the original state, essential goodness or harmony, and the second, a state of fallenness or discord. Such a metaphysical transition begs the question of how it transpired. If humanity really was originally good, which the Christian faith also affirms, how did it ever come to fall? The answer provided in Christian doctrine is through the act of a supernatural adversary, Satan. Since, however, the supernatural realm and the beings therein are held not to exist, the Romantics, like the deists before them, tend to reject this out of hand. Romanticism emends the deist account, however, by attributing supernatural power to the processes of the human imagination rather than to its notion of God as erstwhile original principle, now an ‘absentee landlord’.

The absence of God remains significant, though, as the divine space in which the imagination can work. We can also see this absence ‘inhabited’ in the Romantic narrative in the transition from the contemporary state of exile—expressed variously as a loss of innocence, an increasing sense of alienation or even, to use Blake's neutral term, ‘experience’—to what follows, redemption. Yet this too begs the question. If we come into the world of contemporary society as ‘fallen’ beings, how can we restore ourselves to original goodness? It would seem impossible, unless what we call ‘good’ is not wholly good and ‘evil’ not wholly evil. In other words, the Romantic account of the fall presupposes that good and evil have no radical or supernatural sense; indeed, that they are relative terms. What the Bible calls sin is reformulated as a defective or false form of knowledge. The result of this is what Thomas Carlyle termed Romanticism's ‘natural supernaturalism’. God becomes naturalized, and nature divinized.

Romanticism has been effectively embraced by much of the Western world as its spiritual mentor. Books on finding God through walks in the woods abound. It is not for this chapter to provide an extensive historical account of how this transpired, but merely to note that it has and to describe how it functions. Before commencing an exposition of the poetics of Romanticism, it would be useful to recount the manner in which it functions around a theodicy of origins.

Variations on the Theodicy of Origin

One of the salient features of Romanticism, certainly in comparison to foregoing conceptions of literature, is that it uses the predicate of originality as a term of highest praise, as it does for the one who is capable of attaining it, that is, the poetic genius. It is pre-eminently in the Romantic period that we note the return to the ancient pagan notion that the poet is divinely inspired, although it differs markedly in so far as the modern claim bears the salvific and eschatological weight of centuries of Christian thought. Milton, of course, made what appeared to be a similar claim for divine inspiration in Paradise Lost , and he was a model for the Romantic poets in this and other respects, but it should be noted that there is little of what we would now call originality in that poem. On the contrary, it may be the most conspicuously learned and allusive poem in the English language. Nor would Milton have wished for it to have been otherwise. Originality, traditionally speaking, was not something for which an artist strove. On the contrary, in any culture in which the notion of truth has narrative content, the idea of good art is contingent on its adherence to established conventions, whether in the form of allusion, form, style, setting, or whatever else conforms to it. Far from banishing the artist's creative powers, they form the backdrop of the familiar that allows us to recognize what is distinctive.

Romanticism in this sense is wholly different. As we have seen, it departs from the conventional and the orthodox indiscriminately, regarding the orthodox as merely another spurious convention, in this case of a religious variety. In and of itself, the result of Romanticism's departure from convention and orthodoxy is obscurity. Yet the potency of its eccentric and exotic references lies in what is implied by departing from these same conventions and norms: a renewal of the spirit that lies beyond them.

We can detect this in the form of theodicies of origin everywhere in Romantic writing: we find it in its setting, often in the Middle Ages or among primitive or native peoples, at any event before the onset of civilization; we find it in the arcane practices and mysterious characters it depicts, untainted by conventional or civilized behaviour; we find it in the allegedly more primitive mythological terms in which it chooses to express itself (rather than in the conventional poetic terms of critical orthodoxy), though it similarly elevates poetry above prose as a more spontaneous and sincere mode of expression; we find it in the way in which it elevates the court of private feeling, untutored by social constraints, above that of public debate or approbation; we see it in its heroes, who tend to be ostracized or misunderstood ‘original geniuses’ rather than exemplary models for others to follow; we see it in its poetic form, which tends to emphasize ‘organic’ process rather than ‘mechanical’ completion; and finally we see it in the way it sets the ‘natural’, for which is to be understood the good, in utter opposition to the artificial, civilized, or conventional.

It is in adherence to a theodicy of origins that we should understand the poet William Wordsworth's affinity for the simplicity of peasant life and the closeness to nature. Nor are such sentiments connecting the heart with nature isolated. His praise for the ‘primal sympathies’ of the heart finds its correlate in Keats's conviction of the ‘holiness of the heart's affections’ and in Percy Shelley's self-referential definition of love as ‘that powerful attraction…beyond ourselves, when we find within ourselves the chasm of an insufficient void, and seek to awaken in all things that are, a community with what we experience within ourselves’ (1965: vi. 201) It is first in the Romantic movement too that we detect a valorization of the previously undiscovered realm of intimacy, the ‘spiritual origin’ of outward social conventions; and it is there that we find a sanctification of human love that will actually even present itself in defiance of the community, not as an act of participation in it, let alone in its Christian sense as a human analogy of God's love for his Bride, the church.

Romanticism and Society

Romanticism's fascination with origins, in other words, is nothing like a sign that it sees the need to uphold the wisdom or legitimacy of tradition. On the contrary, it signifies the desire to escape to a place or a state assumed to be prior to any defined order, not a return to one of the past. Yet the diversity of these references to origins gives little clue to what provokes the shared rebellion against order. To understand what does, we must look to the thing against which the Romantics appeared united in their contempt: the evil presented by mass society. This is perhaps difficult to understand in a time in which it is commonplace to use ‘society’ as a generic description of all people within a given nation, who are assumed to be united by a common will. More confusingly still, it is also commonly used in the social sciences as a description for all peoples throughout the course of human history. We must rid ourselves of this generalization to understand the change here.

Prior to the eighteenth century, there really was no such thing as ‘society’ as a political entity. Historically one could speak of tribes and kingdoms and empires, of the polis and the res publica , but there was no term to describe a collective phenomenon to which a single will could be posited, as is now understood to be the case with our word ‘society’. When the word ‘society’ was used, it was to describe a group of individuals banded together for a common and usually nefarious purpose, as still used in ‘criminal society’. The lack of a term for a collective with political power and a united will owes itself in part to the fact that in terms of sharing political power the majority of mankind were irrelevant. The American and French Revolutions, of which more will be said in a moment, brought a great shift in this respect. Yet the Romantics were all at one point or another strongly supportive of the Revolution. In what sense then could they be said to be antisocial?

It is in the sense that they opposed the way in which mass society regarded its members to be impersonal or, more precisely, stripped them of the integrity of personhood, which was a legacy of Classical individualism and the Church Fathers' teaching on the concept of the person (as a result of their reflection on the Trinity). Although the degradation of this was arguably the substance of their objection, with the exception of the later work of Coleridge, it was certainly not its tenor. Their objection lay in the sense that the integrity of personhood was being crushed in the process of assuming, or forcing, the assent of the individual to the one will of society without any recourse. And it invariably transpired without any recourse, for no one could be said to represent society in a way that he could claim responsibility for its actions and be held thus accountable. The Christian faith became particularly odious in the light of this development because its allegiance to an unworldly king made it appear similarly unaccountable, and added the promise of eternal reward or punishment thereto. Perhaps this congruence may explain the sense that theological liberals had that it was necessary to play down the supernatural idea of heaven and hell to make the faith acceptable.

Considerable responsibility for the attack on personal integrity though must be attributed to the Enlightenment's concept of human autonomy. In his short treatise What is Enlightenment? (1784) Immanuel Kant ( 1959 ) famously defined the Enlightenment as ‘man's release from his self-incurred tutelage’, i.e. his emancipation from his historical reliance on authorities other than himself. No generation should be bound to the creeds or customs of a bygone era, he argued, for it was an offence against human nature whose true destiny lay in progress. The formula Kant prescribed for progress was indeed that of self-reliance. The love of self would invariably translate into the love of all, and vice versa: ‘Self-love thus pushed to social, to divine | Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessings thine’, chimed Alexander Pope ( 1964 : 162) in agreement.

What needs to be noted about this agenda, however, is that the progress implicit in this idea of autonomy, literally this ‘law of the self’, makes no appeal to others for its conduct. It is self-interpreting and self-regulating. This means that autonomy is not only radically opposed to the integrity of tradition, it means that unlike individuality, with which it is commonly confused, it has no inherent regard for the existence of others. In that sense, the progress it proposes invariably comes at the cost of radical isolation for the individual and the oblivious denigration of others. This became most apparent when a late form of Romanticism, social Darwinism, was embraced by the twentieth-century totalitarian state. In it, society's embrace of the life-processes of labour ‘thus pushed to social, to divine’ seemed to justify the sacrifice of the individual in the name of the progress of the ‘life’ of a ‘healthy’ society.

Kant's check on this was in his ‘ethical’ command: to treat others as if they were ends, not means to ends. Yet the command no longer had any bearing on what he had already declared integral: the autonomy of the self. Individuality, on the other hand, whether we see it in the creation account in Genesis, whereby human integrity is a function of human nature, male and female, being in imago Dei , or in its Classical conception at the heart of the politics of Greece and Rome, depends on the presence of others. Human plurality is the condition of human individuality, since being an individual is to have one's personal distinctiveness acknowledged by others. Although Romanticism tended to share the Enlightenment postulate of autonomy, we should understand the frequent Romantic portrait of a poet in lonely social isolation or even exile, as well as its characteristic rebellion against authority, as a reaction against the rapid and progressive degradation of personal integrity.

Thus for all the propaganda surrounding human equality around the time of the Revolution, what mass society really brought was uniformity. Yet it only did that by imposing its demand for conformity. Only after this had transpired, and it did so over the course of the nineteenth century, would it make any sense to study humanity in the way proposed by an emergent branch of learning, the behavioural sciences, i.e. as if humanity were merely a species of animal like any other. Wordsworth certainly sensed the indignity that was being done, complaining in his 1802 Preface to Lyrical Ballads that the sensibility in England was being corrupted by ‘the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies’. These are acting, he laments, ‘to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind’ and ‘reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor’ (Wordsworth and Coleridge 1963 : 243). Coleridge would only add to his friend's sentiments with his lifelong crusade against pantheism and the precursors to evolutionary materialism.

With society's demand for conformity of behaviour among its members and with its antagonism towards the traditional institutions of human order, from familial to ecclesiastical to political, which had legitimized and protected the individual person, it is easy to understand both Romanticism's sense of alienation and its need to defend personal integrity against the current ‘orthodoxy’, which Blake's poem ‘London’ described as contemporary society's ‘mind-forged manacles’. Romanticism's appeal for the need to ‘return to origins’ stems from a sense of being alienated from the world, and of being beset and invaded by the social order of the present age without defence against its ‘authority’.

Romanticism and History

The relationship of Romanticism to the French Revolution is a somewhat complex one. On the one hand, virtually every Romantic was sympathetic with the Revolution in France at one stage or another, and most regarded continued political allegiance to it to be essential to the cause. Shelley ( 1965 : i. 206) spoke for many of his contemporaries in condemning Wordsworth for having once ‘like to a rock-built refuge stood | Above the blind and battling multitude’ only later to desert ‘truth and liberty’. Yet since the Revolution did not eradicate the problems wrought for human liberty and human integrity by social conformity, and in fact in many respects seemed to exacerbate them, it was perhaps not cowardice or the apathy of age that prompted Coleridge and Wordsworth to rethink the project in more radical ‘theological’ terms at a distance from Jacobin politics. Romantic politics, if the apposition of the two words does not already imply an inherent contradiction, is by nature utopian and non-partisan.

For Romanticism provided no practical response to enlightened society's radical attack on the human person; it offered an imaginative one, rooted in what Wordsworth termed ‘feeling’. The intent in this emphasis was not to trivialize poetry or reject politics, although some greeted it in such terms at first; on the contrary, it marked nothing other than an unprecedented power being attributed to poetry as a political |/ theological act. To understand the power attributed to ‘feeling’, we will need to look to the quasi-theological tenor of Romantic poetics. What will become clear is that since Romanticism merely opposed the Age of Reason's prescription for the progressive emancipation of humanity from the vulgarity and immaturity of the past through the use of ‘reason’ with its contrary programme of insoluble connection to its roots through the use of ‘feeling’, it implicitly assumed the validity of its idea of progress without question. It simply adapted it to include and celebrate the mystery of these roots or origins at its very heart.

In this sense, Romanticism did not genuinely oppose the Enlightenment; it reformulated it into a secular theology of historical progress. This has often been observed from without, but it is presented as a manifesto of sorts at the time (in a document published only in 1917) known as The Oldest Systematic Programme of German Idealism (1796), ascribed variously to Hegel, Hölderlin, or Schelling. The programme asserts as a self-evident truth that ‘as the whole of metaphysics will in future come under morality —of which Kant only gave an example with his two practical postulates and exhausted nothing, this ethics will be nothing but a complete system of all ideas…The first Idea is naturally the notion of my self as an absolutely free being.’ This assertion is given its theological freight in what follows: ‘With the free self-conscious being, a whole world emerges at the same time—out of the nothing—the only true and thinkable creation from nothing ’ (Bowie 1990 : 265).

To effect this, however, the author asserts the necessity of the craft of the poet. Poetry must return to its original service: ‘at the end again (it) becomes what it was at the beginning— teacher of (History) Mankind ; for there is no philosophy, no history anymore, poetry alone will survive all the remaining arts and sciences’. To that end, he calls for ‘a new mythology’, one adapted to the age of reason: it ‘must be in the service of the Ideas, it must become a mythology of reason ’ or, as he clarifies, a ‘monotheism of reason of the heart’, a ‘polytheism of imagination and of art’. The path to the marriage of reason and imagination will be long and hard, but if the common man can only be made reasonable and the philosopher ‘mythological’, the result will be little less than apocalyptic: ‘enlightened and unenlightened must finally shake hands, mythology must become philosophical and the people reasonable, and philosophy must become mythological in order to make the philosophers sensuous. Then eternal unity will reign among us’ (ibid. 266–7).

This programme reveals the underlying subtext of Romanticism. Implicitly or explicitly, it is a means for completing the Enlightenment. For with its emphasis upon the interconnectedness of all things, it no longer upheld the idea of progress as an ideal, as the Enlightenment had, but as a historical narrative of continuous advance from society's murky origins, its fabled ‘dawn of consciousness’, towards the present. It is thus no accident that modern liberal historiography began in this era; nor is it that the modern nation-state's identity was established on ethnic lines in the Victorian period that followed. Nationalism along ethnic lines and the ‘right of self-determination’ signifies if nothing else the fact that Romanticism's mythology of origins had rapidly attained the mark of official legitimacy. The evolutionary theory that Charles Darwin presented in his The Origin of the Species , for all the scandal it provoked when it appeared in 1859, had a similar sense of inevitability about it in the light of Romanticism's belief both in the indivisible unity of all things and the idea of imperceptible progress through creation , seen most clearly in the poet's own imaginary activity. Darwin's evolutionary theory, as he himself acknowledged, was clearly anticipated not only by his grandfather Erasmus Darwin but by a host of cultural studies dating at least as far back as Maupertuis, Diderot, Lessing, and Herder.

In the narrative the human sciences provide about society as a body with one will, emerging from a primordial soup at the ‘dawn of consciousness’ and progressing over time from an age of myth to an age of reason, perhaps we can see a strange fulfilment of the prophecy Wordsworth made in his 1802 Preface to Lyrical Ballads : ‘if the time should ever come when what is now called Science, thus familiarized to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man’ (Wordsworth and Coleridge 1963 : 254). The myth of society and its progress is a result of this transfiguration, and it became the opium of the masses.

Romantic Poetics: Organicism

In terms of literature, we can see the mysterious power of origins wielding its influence perhaps most clearly in the term most strongly identified with Romanticism, namely in imaginative originality. The imagination has pride of place among all major Romantic writers. Its emphasis among them may in fact lie behind the notorious slipperiness of the term ‘Romanticism’. With the exception of Byron, who somewhat refreshingly satirized its self-congratulatory pretence—while nonetheless using its idea of rebellion against convention for his own sublime heroes—it is a poetic power capable of reconciling contraries, overcoming discord, and restoring a state of unity and goodness that had existed in the universe before it somehow lapsed into evil, alienation, and suffering. Once again, mystery surrounds the details of these, in large part because it receives mythopoetic terms appropriate to the feeling of the loss rather than discursive terms that would record a reason for it. In fact, the very idea of a definite account of origins or ends runs contrary to the spirit and methodology of Romanticism.

As already suggested, one reason for this was to avoid the ‘rational’ notions of agency or causality. But it also had a positive reason. In the place of the concept of personal agency, we find a new anthropological concept emerging in the Romantic period: that of the organism. Along with proposing a new understanding of human nature, it also accommodated Romanticism's revolutionary ‘theological’ notion of creativity: its supernatural naturalism. For inherent in the model of the organism are the attendant ideas of ceaseless process, growth, and connection to the world. Furthermore, the organic model suggests an imperceptible and mysterious origin at every point in which there is ‘living’ progress. Just as we observed this function within its historical narrative of original goodness, fall, and imaginative reconciliation, we can see allusions to mysterious origins at work in the form of Romantic poetry. The fragment as poetic form, the trope of Romantic irony, the elliptical narrative pattern, the characteristic appeal to silence and absence, even the use of the long dash—all these are symptoms of Romanticism's underlying organic poetics.

This model of artistry marks a significant departure from the traditional view of the artist as a maker, homo faber , acting in imago Dei , which gained repeated expression in the neoclassical age with its common description of the artist as a secondus Deus . The poet most strongly associated with organicism, is of course, Coleridge. Yet far too much has been made of this. As Thomas McFarland has convincingly demonstrated, Coleridge fought pantheism in all its forms throughout his life, and a thoroughgoing organicism is simply what he labelled pantheism, or ‘hylozoic atheism’. He insisted, on the contrary, that ‘even the philosophy of nature can remain philosophy only by rising above nature, and by abstracting from nature’ (Coleridge 2002 : 218), ‘and thus nature itself, as soon as we apply Reason to its contemplation, forces us back to a something higher than nature as that on which it depends’ (ibid. 140) For Coleridge it was the God of the Christian faith: ‘No Trinity, no God—is a matter of natural Religion as well as of Christianity, of profound Philosophy no less than of Faith’ (Coleridge 1959 : 283–4).

This insistence probably lay at the heart of the criticism Keats expressed towards Coleridge in a famous letter discussing what had made Shakespeare the great poet he was: his ‘negative capability’. Coleridge could never join Shakespeare in the ranks of the great poets, Keats mused, because unlike him he was ‘incapable of remaining content with half knowledge’. Yet with a great poet, he explained, ‘the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration’ (To George and Tom Keats, 21–7 Dec. 1817). Or, as he put it elsewhere: ‘The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law & precept, but by sensation and watchfulness—That which is creative must create itself’ (To J. A. Hessey, 8 Oct. 1818). Therein lay the key to Wordsworth's present greatness: he wrote after ‘the Chamber of Maiden thought’ had ‘gradually darkened’ and society had advanced to the present age, to the point where ‘we see not the ballance [ sic ] of good and evil’, yet he was able to make us ‘feel the “burden of the mystery”’, a fact which Keats attributed to the ‘general and gregarious march of intellect’ (To J. H. Reynolds, 3 May 1818).

Romantic Poetics: The Sublime

Behind these sentiments lay another influence. There was a genuine spiritual urgency related to perhaps the most important aesthetic category of the period, that of the sublime. Some explanation here is necessary. In the Enlightenment, the concept of the sublime underwent a process of redefinition. It was initially associated with powers that produced overwhelming sensations, from those of the original poetic genius—Milton and Shakepeare were the most commonly cited examples—to that in nature. The locus classicus for the sublime in nature was a mountain of sufficient grandeur to evoke the awful sense of a Divine maker. Sites such as the Alpine Mont Blanc, to which numerous Romantic poems were devoted, became places of pilgrimage for the many who were persuaded by deist ‘arguments from design’ to read nature as a book revealing divine intention.

Edmund Burke's Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) made a crucial step in discussions on the subject when he reformulated the idea of the sublime as a sensation related to an object into one of subjective affect. For Burke, the sublime was intimately connected with the relationship between individual and society. While he presented the beautiful as a function of something like an instinct towards sociability, which thus encouraged the procreation of the species, he connected the sublime with the instinct of self-preservation, evident in the face of the threat of annihilation. The feeling of the sublime was a fearful response to something of grandeur or power; once again, it had a social use: promoting the survival of the species. Tellingly, Burke even associated the two aesthetic categories with particular affective responses: beauty with a relaxation of the bodily functions, even to the point of indolence, and the painful sublime with a requirement of ‘exercise or labour’ to overcome it. This is not far off the psychologizing of the faith that soon followed, and we can even see the seeds for the sociologist Max Weber's famous thesis that the origins of capitalism lay in the Protestant work ethic. William Blake too might have had such theological-somatic arguments in mind when he asserted in one of his ‘Proverbs of Hell’ (1790) that ‘Damn braces. Bless relaxes.’

The advance Immanuel Kant made on the concept in his third critique, Critique of Judgement (1790), may be the most significant. It came by dissociating the sublime from human artifice as well as distancing it from Burke's suggestion that aesthetic perceptions were related to human social instincts. Indeed, Kant's discussion of the sublime is the key point in his argument for the ‘purposiveness without purpose’ in aesthetic objects. Unlike foregoing discussions, he associated the sublime with objects of nature alone, which made it easier for him to avoid the question that a poem would beg, namely in what relationship it stood to its Maker's intentions. For Kant, the feeling of sublimity in nature derives from the very fact that it is not the vehicle of any message. The ironic result of this rather dubious severance of object from intention, however, was not to limit the significance of the artist, it was to absolutize him in a way that has since proved irresolvably troublesome.

While it does mark his opposition to deist arguments, Kant's main purpose in relating the sublime to nature is to show how the sublime objectifies the otherwise hidden role of the judgement as a form-giving faculty. The fact that the sublime, by definition beyond our perception, fails to appear as an object of beauty demonstrates that we enjoy it not primarily because it suggests infinity, but because it lacks any   form . In other words, through its own lack of appearance the sublime provides the best evidence of the creative power of imagination. Thus Shelley concludes his 1817 poem ‘Mont Blanc’ with the question: ‘And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea | If to the human mind's imaginings | Silence and solitude were vacancy?’ (Shelley 1965 : i. 233).

Romantic Poetics: The Imagination

Here and elsewhere, Shelley assumes divine powers for the imagination, making it not only the true origin of human religion and culture but its only recourse for future renewal and redemption. Thus he adopts a ‘Satanic’ stance against ‘rationalist’ thought in his A Defence of Poetry (1822), reformulating Luther's definition of sin as a state of being ‘curved in upon ourselves’ to suggest that the external world is curved in upon us, a bond of necessity which only the freedom of poetry can break. ‘All things exist as they are perceived; at least in relation to the percipient. “The mind is its own place, and of itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” But poetry defeats the curse which binds us to be subjected to the accident of surrounding impressions…It creates anew the universe’ (Shelley 1965 : vii. 137).

William Blake, though influenced by Jacob Boehme's mysticism, Freemasonry, and millenarian thought rather than by Kantian philosophy, speaks in unison with the other Romantics when he too attributes this original sense to the imagination at the conclusion of the first series of his anti-deist tract ‘There is No Natural Religion’ (1788). As so often in the period, its ‘redemptive’ creative power is a means of overcoming the ‘death’ offered by a more ‘reasonable’ religion: ‘If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character, the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things. & stand still, unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again’ (Blake 1965 : 1) He expands upon this in the ‘Application’ of the second series, where he writes, ‘He who sees the Infinite in all things, sees God. He who sees the Ratio only, sees himself only. Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is’ (ibid. 2). Blake's God is the creative force behind all religions, as his prophetic ‘voice crying out in the wilderness’ exclaims in his ‘All Religions are One’ (1788): ‘As all men are alike (tho’ infinitely various), So all Religions &, as all similars, have one source. The true Man is the source, he being the Poetic Genius' (ibid. 3). Similarly, in his annotations to the Idealist philosopher George Berkeley's Siris , he writes: ‘Man is all Imagination God is Man & exists in us & we in him’ (ibid. 654).

The quintessential definition of the Romantic imagination, however, has long been held to belong to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In chapter 13 of his Biographia Literaria (1817) he writes:

The imagination …I consider either primary, or secondary. The primary imagination I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite i am . The secondary Imagination I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree , and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealise and to unify. It is essentially vital , even as all objects ( as objects) are essentially fixed and dead. (1983: 304)

The similarities this definition bears to the organicism of his contemporaries is evident.

Later in life, Coleridge was to regard his ‘metaphysical disquisition at the end of the first volume of the Biographia as ‘unformed and Immature’ with at best ‘fragments of the truth’ (1990 b : 293). He objected to it because it too closely approximated Schelling, whom he had come to regard as ‘the reviver of pantheist Atheism with Romish Pseudo-Catholicism for its mythological Drapery’ (1990 a : 5262). As already stated, it was an error he sought to correct in his later work. Yet the references to human agency in it, and of imaginary activity as a repetition in the finite mind of that of its Divine Maker is at odds with this organicism. It is also clear that he regarded God as a supernatural being in accordance with church teaching. But the clearest evidence is in the aim long expressed for his magnum opus : ‘The purpose of the whole’, he wrote, is ‘a philosophical Defence of the Articles of the Church’ (1959: 534).

Works Cited

Blake, William . 1965 . The Poetry and Prose of William Blake , i, ed. David V. Erdman . Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Google Scholar

Google Preview

Bowie, Andrew . 1990 . Aesthetics and Subjectivity: From Kant to Nietzsche . Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor . 1959 . Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge . iii. 1807–1814 , ed. Earl Leslie Griggs . Oxford: Clarendon.

——— 1983 . Biographia Literaria: or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions , ed. James Engell and W. Jackson Bate . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

——— 1990 a . Notebooks , iv. 1819–1826 , ed. Kathleen Coburn and Merton Christensen . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

——— 1990 b . Table Talk , ed. Carl Woodring . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

——— 2002 . Opus Maximum , ed. Thomas McFarland . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Furst, Lilian R . (ed.) 1980 . European Romanticism: Self‐Definition: An Anthology . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Hulme, T. E.   1924 . Speculations: Essays on Humanism and the Philosophy of Art . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Kant, Immanuel . 1959 . Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and What is Enlightenment? New York: Liberal Arts.

Pope, Alexander . 1964 . An Essay on Man , ed. Maynard Mack . London: Methuen, 1964.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe . 1965 . The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley , ed. Roger Ingpen and Walter E. Peck . 10 vols. New York: Gordian; London: Ernest Benn.

Wordsworth, William , and Coleridge, S. T . 1963 . Lyrical Ballads: Wordsworth and Coleridge , ed. R. L. Brett and A. R. Jones . London: Methuen.

Further Reading

Abrams, M. H . 1971 . Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature . New York: W. W. Norton.

Clark, Timothy . 1989 . Embodying Revolution: The Figure of the Poet in Shelley's Poetry . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Engell, James . 1981 . The Creative Imagination: Enlightenment to Romanticism . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Frank, Manfred . 1989 . Einführung in die frühromantische Aesthetik . Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Furst, Lilian R. (ed.) 1980 . European Romanticism: Self‐Definition: An Anthology . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Lacoue‐Labarthe, Philippe , and Nancy, Jean‐Luc . 1988 . The Literary Absolute: The Theory of Literature in German Romanticism . New York: SUNY.

Masson, Scott . 2004 . Romanticism, Hermeneutics and the Crisis of the Human Sciences . Aldershot: Ashgate.

McFarland, Thomas . 1969 . Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition . Oxford: Clarendon.

Porter, Roy . 2004 . Flesh in the Age of Reason: How the Enlightenment Transformed the Way We See Our Bodies and Souls . London: Penguin.

Prickett, Stephen . 1996 . The Origins of Narrative: The Romantic Appropriation of the Bible . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

——— 1976 . Romanticism and Religion: The Tradition of Coleridge and Wordsworth in the Victorian Church . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Simpson, David . 1979 . Irony and Authority in Romantic Poetry . Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield.

Weiskel, Thomas . 1976 . The Romantic Sublime: Studies in the Structure and Psychology of Transcendence . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

The Enlightenment and the Romantic Opposition

• First Online: 26 February 2019

Cite this chapter

• Nicholas Maxwell 2  

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Philosophy ((BRIEFSPHILOSOPH))

358 Accesses

The idea of learning from the solution to the first great problem of learning how to solve the second problem goes back to the 18th century Enlightenment—especially the French Enlightenment. One might even say that this was the fundamental idea of the French Enlightenment: to learn from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened world. The philosophes —Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet and the rest—did what they could to develop this idea, and put it into practice. Unfortunately, in developing the idea, they blundered. They thought the key step was to develop social science alongside natural science, and it was this defective version of the basic idea that was built into academia in the early 20th century with the creation of disciplines and departments of social science. The outcome is academia devoted in the first instance to knowledge. This basic Enlightenment idea—to create an enlightened world by means of science and reason—was opposed by Romanticism. Whereas the Enlightenment stressed the importance of science, knowledge, reason, method, objectivity, logic, evidence, Romanticism stressed the value of art, self-expression, personal feelings, experiences and intuitions, imagination, spontaneity, individuality, creativity, sympathetic understanding, inspiration, genius, vision. Academia today is a confused mixture of what we have inherited from these two sources: the traditional Enlightenment and Romanticism.

Download chapter PDF

2.1 The Basic Enlightenment Idea

The idea of learning from the solution to the first great problem of learning how to solve the second problem is an old one. It goes back at least to the Enlightenment of the 18th century. One could even say that this was the basic idea of the philosophes of the French Enlightenment—Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet et al.: to learn from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards world enlightenment. Footnote 1

The best of the philosophes did what they could to put this immensely important idea into practice, in their lives. They fought dictatorial power, authoritarianism, superstition, dogma, mere tradition, injustice and intolerance with weapons no more lethal than those of argument and wit. They gave their support to the virtues of tolerance, diversity of opinions, openness to doubt, readiness to learn from criticism and from experience. They even lamented the development of specialized science and knowledge dissociated from the central task of achieving enlightenment. Courageously and energetically they laboured to promote rationality in personal and social life. Footnote 2

Unfortunately, in developing the Enlightenment idea intellectually, in a little more detail, the philosophes made serious blunders. As a result, the Enlightenment programme (as we may call it) came to be developed in a seriously defective form, and it is this immensely influential, defective version of the programme, inherited from the 18th century, which may be called the traditional Enlightenment , that is built into 20th and 21st century institutions of academic inquiry. Our traditions and institutions of learning, when judged from the standpoint of helping us learn how to become more enlightened, are defective in a wholesale and structural way, and it is this which, in the long term, sabotages our efforts to create a more civilized world, and prevents us from avoiding the kind of horrors we have been exposed to during the 20th century—the first world war, the second world war, countless wars since, persistent third-world poverty, environmental degradation. The human disasters of our age are due in part to uncorrected philosophical disasters of the 18th century that have become a part of the intellectual and social fabric of our world. Footnote 3 We have failed so far to learn from the solution to the first great problem of learning how to solve the second problem, even though our current traditions and institutions of learning arose out of an attempt to do just that.

2.2 The Traditional Enlightenment

The philosophes of the 18th century assumed, understandably enough, that the proper way to implement the Enlightenment programme was to develop social science alongside natural science. Francis Bacon (one of the heroes of the Enlightenment) had already stressed just how vital it is to improve knowledge of the natural world in order to achieve social progress. Footnote 4 The philosophes generalized this, holding that it is just as vital to improve knowledge of the social world. If it is social progress that we seek, then it is perhaps above all the laws of social change that we need to know; improving knowledge of social phenomena may be even more important than improving knowledge of natural phenomena.

Thus the philosophes set about creating the social sciences: history, anthropology, political economy, psychology, sociology. The idea was to create social science so that it would be as similar as possible to natural science—apart of course from the one big difference that whereas natural science studies the natural world, social science would study the human world. To the philosophes it seemed vital to bring into existence the rational, scientific study of humanity, so that knowledge of ourselves might improve in the spectacular way in which scientific knowledge of Nature had improved. Improving social knowledge seemed the essential first step to improving social life. Footnote 5

The traditional Enlightenment idea, as I have formulated it above, is neatly encapsulated in the subtitle of Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature . The subtitle reads: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects . Footnote 6 One should note that Hume called the social sciences “the moral sciences”. Condillac, Hartley and others sought to create scientific psychology, treading in the footsteps of Locke, and seeking to apply the methods of Newton to the study of the mind. Montesquieu founded modern sociology with his immensely influential De l’espirit des lois (the spirit of the laws). Gibbon wrote his monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , and Hume his History of England . More to the point, perhaps, Voltaire, Turgot, d’Alembert and Rousseau created and developed “philosophical” history—history that recorded the triumphs of the human mind and spirit, not just the crimes of kings. Footnote 7 Rousseau made his important contribution to political science with his The Social Contract . Hume, again, published essays on political economy in his Political Discourses , and his friend, Adam Smith, made his fundamental contribution to the subject with his The Wealth of Nations . Diderot’s Encyclopedia , encompassing so much of what the Enlightenment stood for, included numerous articles on diverse social sciences. Condorcet, finally, sought to enhance the scientific status of social thought by making it mathematical as well as empirical. Footnote 8

The Enlightenment effort to broaden the scope of science in these ways, so that it included the study of the social world in addition to the natural world, had an immense impact. Throughout the 19th century the diverse social sciences were developed, often by non-academics, very much in accordance with the basic Enlightenment idea, by such diverse figures as: Saint-Simon, Comte, Marx, Durkheim, Mill, Weber, and many others. Footnote 9 Gradually, universities took notice of these developments until, by the mid twentieth century, all the diverse branches of the social sciences, the legacy of the Enlightenment, were built into the institutional structure of universities all over the world, as recognized academic disciplines. And today, the traditional Enlightenment conception of social science continuous to exercise a pervasive influence over academic thought and work.

But it is not just present day social science that has been shaped by the traditional Enlightenment. It is hardly too much to say that the whole nature of modern academic inquiry, its aims and methods, its intellectual and institutional structure, its role in society, has been shaped by the traditional Enlightenment. The traditional Enlightenment leads straight to a conception and kind of inquiry, which may be called knowledge - inquiry : modern academic inquiry, by and large, is the outcome of putting this conception of knowledge-inquiry into practice. Footnote 10

I must emphasize, however, that what I am calling “the traditional Enlightenment” and “knowledge-inquiry” are what emerged out of the 18th century; they might almost be called 20th century misconceptions about what the 18th century Enlightenment stood for. The 18th century philosophes of the Enlightenment did indeed seek to develop the social sciences alongside the natural sciences, in the way I have indicated. But they also actively campaigned for tolerance, justice and reason in social life. And their commitment to the development of social science was an integral part of their active concern to help create a more enlightened world. Values were integral to their conception of social science; the sharp division between social science on the one hand, and value judgements on the other which, as we shall see, is such an important feature of “knowledge-inquiry”, is a 19th or 20th century development.

Peter Gay sums up the matter like this. “The lust for improvement was never far from the philosophes’ consciousness. Facts and theories existed for the sake of values. Doubtless the philosophes found the world interesting for its own sake; their inquiries into comparative institutions or the history of religion are pervaded by the pure air of sheer curiosity. They delighted in the new, and found the steady enlargement of their world nothing less than exhilarating. But they could rest content with private pleasure as little as with scientific detachment; in this engagement with reform, they were different from many social scientists in our own day.” Footnote 11

But if beliefs and aspirations of 18th century philosophes differ substantially from those of most 20th century academics, nevertheless the philosophes did fail to articulate their basic idea properly (as we shall see when we come to “the new Enlightenment” in the next chapter). Once the philosophes had interpreted the basic Enlightenment idea as requiring that social science should be developed alongside natural science, and once the division between fact and value had been insisted on, as it is, for example, in Hume’s insistence that “ought” cannot be derived from “is”, Footnote 12 the subsequent emergence of what I am calling “the traditional Enlightenment” and “knowledge-inquiry” is all but inevitable.

With these qualifications understood, let us now consider the conception of inquiry that emerges from “the traditional Enlightenment”, namely “knowledge-inquiry”.

2.3 Knowledge-Inquiry

According to knowledge-inquiry, the basic social or humanitarian goal of academic inquiry is, ideally, to help promote human welfare, help humanity become civilized. But, in order to pursue this humanitarian goal rationally, it is essential that inquiry, in the first instance, pursues the entirely distinct intellectual goal of improving knowledge of factual truth. First, knowledge must be acquired; then it can be applied to help solve social problems.

In order to be of human value, academic inquiry must obtain genuine, reliable factual knowledge, and not mere prejudice, propaganda or ideology. This means that the intellectual domain of inquiry, devoted to improving knowledge, must attend only to that which is relevant to the acquisition of knowledge: factual claims to knowledge, reports of observations and experiments, arguments and deductions involved in assessing claims to knowledge. Such things as feelings, desires, values, expressions of suffering or joy, and economic, political or religious considerations must all be ruthlessly excluded. They may, of course, be studied , by the relevant branch of social science, but they cannot be allowed to influence academic thought. In order to help alleviate human suffering and contribute to the quality of human life, academic inquiry must, paradoxically, ruthlessly exclude all consideration of suffering and value from the intellectual domain of inquiry (except in so far as these are objects of factual study within social science).

Even though knowledge-inquiry is ultimately concerned to help solve social problems of living, it does this by devoting itself primarily to solving purely intellectual problems of knowledge. Contributions to inquiry, intellectual progress, academic success and failure, are all to be judged in terms of success in solving problems of knowledge, in improving knowledge of truth.

At the centre of knowledge-inquiry there is a philosophy of natural science, which may be called standard empiricism . According to standard empiricism, the intellectual aim of natural science is to improve factual knowledge about natural phenomena, nothing being presupposed about the nature of the universe independently of evidence. The basic method of natural science is to accept and reject proposed laws and theories in an impartial way solely with respect to their empirical success and failure, no substantial thesis about the universe being accepted as a part of knowledge independently of empirical considerations . Considerations of simplicity, unity or explanatory power may influence acceptance and rejection of theories as well, but this must not commit science to assuming permanently that Nature herself is simple, unified or comprehensible. Footnote 13 Knowledge-inquiry arises as a generalization of this standard empiricist philosophy of natural science.

According to knowledge-inquiry, diverse disciplines can be ordered, roughly, with respect to how intellectually fundamental, and rigorous, they are. The most fundamental and rigorous discipline is logic; then comes mathematics; then theoretical physics; then phenomenological physics (dealing with actual phenomena in a theoretically non-fundamental way); then applications of physics to such subjects as astrophysics and geology. Then comes physical chemistry, and organic chemistry. Then comes biology: first, molecular biology, then physiology, anatomy, evolutionary theory, the study of animal behaviour. Then come the social sciences: anthropology, sociology, psychology, economics, political science, linguistics. Finally there come the humanities: history, the study of culture, literature and art, and philosophy. As one ascends this hierarchy, from the intellectually fundamental and rigorous to the non-fundamental and non-rigorous, a discipline may presuppose and use results of a more fundamental discipline, but not vice versa. Biology may presuppose chemistry, and chemistry may presuppose physics, but physics does not, and must not, presuppose biology.

Knowledge-inquiry, once built into the institutional structure of academic inquiry, operates as a system of censorship, determining decisively what can, and what cannot be permitted to enter the intellectual domain of inquiry—academic journals, textbooks, lectures and seminars. Within science, as specified by standard empiricism, only testable factual claims to knowledge are permitted to enter (in accordance with Popper’s criterion of demarcation Footnote 14 ). Non-testable factual claims to knowledge, metaphysical assertions, are excluded. Footnote 15 Within the formal sciences, mathematics, statistics and logic, even more severe principles of censorship operate; strictly speaking, only proven propositions may enter, although in practice mathematics tolerates discussion of hypotheses not proven but in principle amenable to proof or disproof. Elsewhere within academic inquiry, within the humanities for example, more relaxed standards of censorship may operate, according to knowledge-inquiry: contributions do not need to be provable or empirically testable. Nevertheless, throughout the intellectual domain of inquiry, science and non-science included, only factual claims to knowledge, and that which is rationally relevant to the assessment of such claims, can be permitted to pass the censor; expressions of human feelings, hopes, fears and desires, political programmes and ideals, ideologies, values, stories and works of art: all this must be ruthlessly excluded (except for being the objects of factual study).

Proponents of knowledge-inquiry invariably point to the disasters that befell Soviet biology and agriculture when, at the instigation of Lysenko under Stalin, these crucial censorship standards were violated, and political and ideological considerations were permitted to influence Soviet science. Knowledge degenerates into mere propaganda, and people suffer and die. Footnote 16

One important feature of knowledge-inquiry to note is that, in giving priority to the pursuit of knowledge, and in excluding expressions of feelings, desires and values from the intellectual domain of inquiry as a result, the activity of tackling problems of living is excluded from inquiry. Inquiry devotes itself to articulating more or less specialized, technical problems of knowledge, to proposing and critically assessing possible solutions to such problems—laws and theories, results of observation and experiment, diverse factual claims to knowledge. The intellectual tasks of articulating problems of living, of proposing and critically assessing possible solutions to such problems, cannot go on within the intellectual domain of knowledge-inquiry. Thus sociology, in the first instance at least, seeks to solve, not social problems, not problems experienced by people in life, but rather sociological problems, problems of knowledge and understanding about social phenomena. Political science does not have the task of solving political problems; its task, rather, is to solve problems of knowledge and understanding about political phenomena. Even economics does not take, as its intellectual goal, to solve real-life economic problems: it is rather, in the first instance, concerned to solve problems of knowledge and understanding about economic phenomena (which may then subsequently be used to help solve economic problems).

It is of course entirely permissible for knowledge-inquiry to gather factual knowledge about what people believe or claim to be problems of living, and to be acceptable solutions to such problems. Furthermore, it is permissible for knowledge-inquiry to provide conditional knowledge concerning problems of living and how they are to be solved: if such and such is regarded as a problem of living, and if such and such values or priorities are held, then such and such a policy, or line of action, constitutes an acceptable solution. If poverty is held to be a problem, and such and such range of actions are deemed to be acceptable, then the best option is such and such.

What knowledge-inquiry cannot do is formulate, evaluate and judge problems of living as such; it cannot evaluate rival proposed solutions—rival possible actions —from the standpoint of their value in resolving problems of living, problems of human suffering and deprivation. It cannot advocate or argue for policies intended to solve such problems. Above all, the intellectual domain of inquiry cannot be committed to the pursuit of any political or humanitarian programme, however humane and enlightened. Policies, political programmes, philosophies of life, values other than those associated with the search for truth: none of these has any place within the intellectual domain of inquiry. Footnote 17 At most, claims to factual knowledge about such things have a place (i.e. such and such policies are held by such and such governments or groups, or such and such policies, if implemented, have such and such consequences).

Values, feelings, desires, problems of living, policies, political programmes, philosophies of life, ideologies and ideals must all be rigorously and ruthlessly excluded from inquiry so that it may acquire authentic, objective factual knowledge—and thus, in the end, produce that which is of real value to humanity. If the floodgates were to be opened, and values, feelings, desires, problems of living, etc., were to be permitted to rush into the intellectual domain of inquiry, influencing academic thought, not only would objective factual knowledge be sabotaged; the human value of inquiry would be sabotaged as well.

It may well be a part of the ultimate humanitarian aim of knowledge-inquiry to contribute to helping humanity become more civilized. The way rational inquiry must do this, according to knowledge-inquiry, is, however, in the first instance, to acquire genuine, objective factual knowledge, stripped of all considerations concerning value. Once such knowledge has been acquired, it may then be used to help solve real-life problems of living, via technology, medicine, engineering, agriculture, and diverse fields of professional expertise.

This, then, is the conception of inquiry that emerges once the traditional Enlightenment idea is accepted that, in order to benefit humanity, inquiry must, in the first instance, acquire objective, reliable, factual knowledge. Once such knowledge has been acquired, it can then, in a secondary way, be applied to help solve social problems. Footnote 18

2.4 The Romantic Opposition

The basic Enlightenment idea—to learn how to create an enlightened world by means of science and reason—was opposed. It was opposed by Romanticism. The Enlightenment stressed the supreme importance of science, knowledge, reason, method, objectivity, logic, impersonal observation and experiment. Romanticism found all this restrictive, oppressive, impersonal. It seemed to deny too much of what is of value in life. Thus Romanticism—stemming from such figures as Rousseau, Blake, Wordsworth, Beethoven, Goethe and many others—stressed the supreme value of art, self-expression, personal feelings, experiences and intuitions, imagination, spontaneity, individuality, creativity, sympathetic understanding, inspiration, genius, vision. For the traditional Enlightenment, intellectual integrity had to do with acquiring knowledge: it meant that one should attend to logic, to evidence—emotions and desires, hopes, fears and values all being disregarded in the quest for Truth. By contrast, for Romanticism, intellectual integrity had to do with emotional and motivational honesty, rather than honesty concerning fact or objective truth. Whereas for the traditional Enlightenment, intellectual integrity demands the suppression (or ignoring) of emotion and desire, for Romanticism intellectual integrity demands, above all, the expression, the honest acknowledgement of emotion and desire. Standards of intellectual integrity are diametrically opposed. Footnote 19

As far as academic inquiry is concerned, Romanticism leads to anti-scientific conceptions of social inquiry and the humanities, to what Isaiah Berlin has called “the Counter-Enlightenment”. Footnote 20 What is important is the empathetic study of the imaginings of humanity—the dreams and fantasies, the religion, the arts and ideas, the hopes and fears, the values. Whereas Nature is unaffected by our ideas about it, we are affected by our ideas about ourselves: this alone ensures, so the figures of the Counter-Enlightenment argue, that the study of human culture and society cannot be like natural science.

The Counter-Enlightenment does not object to the idea that social inquiry and the humanities should have the basic intellectual aim of improving knowledge and understanding of our human world; it objects simply to the Enlightenment thesis that the kind of knowledge sought, and methods employed, ought to be as similar as possible to that of the natural sciences. It objects to the idea that scientific rationality ought to prevail in all areas of thought and life.

The Enlightenment has also been criticized by the Frankfurt school, by postmodernists and others. For a clearly written, sympathetic but critical discussion of such criticisms of the Enlightenment, from Horkheimer and Adorno, via Lyotard, Foucault, Habermas and Derrida to MacIntyre and Rorty, see Anthony Gascardi, Consequences of Enlightenment , 1999. Footnote 21

Academic inquiry today is by and large an uneasy, confused mixture of what we have inherited from the traditional Enlightenment—knowledge-inquiry—and from Romanticism, the Counter-Enlightenment and postmodernism. The natural and technological sciences, mathematics, so-called analytic philosophy, economics, physical anthropology, and parts of the other social sciences are primarily infused with traditional Enlightenment values and ideals; social anthropology, some social psychology, cultural and literary studies, so-called continental philosophy and other branches or traditions within the humanities are infused with counter-Enlightenment values and ideals. And in other areas of our cultural and social life today—in education, politics, medicine, psychotherapy, the arts, the green movement—the battle between the traditional Enlightenment and the Romantic opposition continues to be fought. Footnote 22 And the net result is that we have failed to learn properly from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards enlightenment. We do not today possess what we so urgently need: a kind of organized inquiry rationally devoted to the growth of wisdom.

During the course of the argument, various views will be introduced, some of which have already been indicated: Basic Enlightenment Idea, Traditional Enlightenment, Knowledge-Inquiry, Standard Empiricism, Romanticism, “New” Enlightenment, Aim-Oriented Empiricism, Aim-Oriented Rationality, Wisdom-Inquiry. I have given a summary of these views, and an indication of the way they are related to one another, in Table  2.1 . I suggest this table is referred to as the rest of the argument of this book unfolds.

The Enlightenment was so rich in ideas and enthusiasms that it does not do it justice to boil it all down to elaborations of any one single idea. Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau, between them, wrote plays and novels, composed music, wrote on education, art and acting and much else besides. But if one has to pick out just one idea that does the best justice to the diverse interests and writings of the philosophes , it is the one I have indicated: to learn from progress in natural philosophy how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened world.

The best overall account of the Enlightenment that I know of is still Gay’s ( 1973 ). But see also Israel’s ( 2013 ). Israel draws an important distinction between the “Radical” Enlightenment and more moderate versions of the creed.

As we shall see below, intellectual mistakes of the 18th century Enlightenment were intensified by subsequent 19th and 20th century developments. It is not the philosophes of the 18th century who are to be blamed for our present problems, but rather subsequent thinkers who intensified, rather than corrected, 18th century mistakes.

For the importance of Francis Bacon for the Enlightenment see: Gay ( 1973 ), pp. 11-12 and p. 322.

This is the theme of Gays’ great work The Enlightenment: An Interpretation , summed up in the title of volume 2: The Science of Freedom .

I am grateful to Andrew Belsey for pointing this out to me.

Some main contributions to “philosophical” history were Voltaire’s An Essay on Universal History the Manners and Spirit of Nations, d’Alembert’s Preliminary Discourse to Diderot’s Encyclopédie , Rousseau’s ( 1999 , 1966 ) and Condorcet’s Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind . For discussion of philosophical history see Gay’s The Enlightenment , vol. 2, pp. 368–396, and Hulliung ( 1994 ), ch. 2.

See Baker ( 1982 ).

The history of social science is a vast field of study. Here are a few introductory works, most with suggestions for further reading: Aron ( 1968 ), vol. 2, 1970, Farganis ( 1993 ), Hayek ( 1979 ), Heilbroner ( 1969 ), Giddens ( 1971 ) and Duncan ( 1978 ).

For a discussion of the extent to which the traditional Enlightenment and knowledge-inquiry dominate modern academic inquiry see: Maxwell ( 1984 ), ch. 6; 2nd ed., 2007, ch. 6, ( 2014 ), Ch. 4.

Gay ( 1973 ), p. 321.

Hume ( 1959 ).

Standard empiricism will receive more detailed consideration in the next chapter.

According to Popper, an idea, in order to be scientific, must be empirically falsifiable: see Popper ( 1959 ), Part I; see also ( 1963 ), ch. 1.

An important qualification needs to be added to this. Ideas of all sorts are permitted to influence scientific thinking in the context of discovery , during the process of research, when new knowledge is being sought: but this, according to standard empiricism, is a non-rational process in any case (see Popper’s Logic of Scientific Discovery , pp. 31–32). It is in the context of justification and publication, when the results of research are communicated and assessed, that all ideas other than testable factual claims to knowledge must be excluded.

See for example O’Hear ( 1989 ), p. 2, 8 and 214. For the very real disasters brought about by Stalin’s imposition of Lysenkoism, see Medvedev ( 1969 ).

In practice such things have a recognized role to play in think tanks, committed to one or other political or economic programme or philosophy, on the fringes of academic inquiry.

In Chap. 6 I will provide grounds for holding that knowledge-inquiry does indeed exercise a pervasive influence over current academic inquiry. For a recent exposition and defence of the traditional Enlightenment see Pinker ( 2018 ). For a criticism see Maxwell ( 2018 ).

The literature on Romanticism is vast. I cite here just two works: Praz ( 1960 ) and Honour ( 1981 ).

Berlin ( 1979 ), ch. 1.

For less sympathetic criticisms of postmodernists’ anti-rationalism see: Sokal and Bricmont ( 1998 ), Gross et al. ( 1996 ) and Koertge ( 1998 ), Pinker Enlightenment NOW , ch. 3. I must stress that the criticisms I have to make of the traditional Enlightenment differ dramatically from the criticisms of Romanticism, the Frankfurt school, and Postmodernism. What is wrong with the traditional Enlightenment is not too much reason, but not enough. As we shall see in the next chapter, the traditional Enlightenment made serious blunders, subsequently built into the intellectual/institutional structure of academic inquiry; what I seek to do is to rescue the Enlightenment from these blunders. Unlike other critics of the Enlightenment, I am a passionate enthusiast for the Enlightenment; my aim is to revive the Enlightenment by freeing it of its traditional defects. I also differ from Sokal, Bricmont, and contributors to the volumes edited by Gross and Koertge, in holding that current conceptions of scientific rationality are seriously flawed, stemming as they do from the blunders of the traditional Enlightenment. Romantics are right to criticize the traditional Enlightenment, but wrong to criticize it for giving too much emphasis to reason. What is wrong with the traditional Enlightenment is its irrationality , not its rationality. Critics of Romanticism (Sokal et al.) are right to criticize Romantics’ anti-rationalism, but wrong to defend or presuppose irrational conceptions of rationality, inherited from the rationality blunders of the traditional Enlightenment.

It is fought in contemporary terms; rarely is there an awareness of the historical roots of the conflict.

Aron R (1968) Main currents in sociological thought, vol 1 & 2. Penguin, Harmondsworth. 1970

Google Scholar  

Baker KM (1982) Condorcet: from natural philosophy to social mathematics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Berlin I (1979) Against the current. Hogarth Press, London

Duncan G (1978) Marx and Mill. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Farganis J (ed) (1993) Readings in social theory: the classic tradition to post-modernism. McGraw-Hill, New York

Gay P (1973) The enlightenment: an interpretation. Wildwood House, London

Giddens A (1971) Capitalism and modern social theory: an analysis of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Book   Google Scholar  

Gross P, Levitt N, Lewis M (eds) (1996) The flight from science and reason. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

Hayek FA (1979) The counter-revolution of science. LibertyPress, Indianapolis

Heilbroner R (1969) The worldly philosophers: the lives, times and ideas of the great economic thinkers. Allen Lane, London

Honour H (1981) Romanticism. Penguin, Harmondsworth

Hulliung M (1994) The autocritique of enlightenment. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass

Hume D (1959) A treatise of human nature. J.M. Dent, London. (first published 1738)

Israel J (2013) Democratic enlightenment. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Koertge N (ed) (1998) A house built on sand: exposing postmodernist myths about science. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Maxwell N (1984) From knowledge to wisdom: a revolution in the aims and methods of science. Blackwell, Oxford; 2nd extended ed., 2007, Pentire Press, London

Maxwell N (2014) How universities can help create a wiser world: the urgent need for an academic revolution. Imprint Academic, Exeter

Maxwell N (2018) We need progress in ideas about how to achieve progress. Metascience 27(2):347–350

Article   Google Scholar  

Medvedev ZA (1969) The rise and fall of T. P. Lysenko. Columbia University Press, New York

O’Hear A (1989) An introduction to the philosophy of science. Clarendon Press, Oxford

Pinker S (2018) Enlightenment now: the case for reason science humanism and progress. Allen Lane, London

Popper KR (1959) The logic of scientific discovery. Hutchinson, London

Popper KR (1963) Conjectures and refutations. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London

Praz M (1960) The romantic agony. Penguin, Harmondsworth

Rousseau J-J (1966) Essay on the origin of languages (Essai sur l’Origine des Langues). Ungar, New York. (first published 1781)

Rousseau J-J (1999) Discourse on the origin of inequality (Discours sur l’Origine et les Fondements de l’Inégalité parmi les Hommes). Oxford University Press, Oxford. (first published 1754)

Sokal A, Bricmont J (1998) Intellectual imposture s . Profile Books, London

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Science and Technology Studies, University College London, London, UK

Nicholas Maxwell

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicholas Maxwell .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Maxwell, N. (2019). The Enlightenment and the Romantic Opposition. In: Science and Enlightenment. SpringerBriefs in Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13420-4_2

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13420-4_2

Published : 26 February 2019

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-13419-8

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-13420-4

eBook Packages : Religion and Philosophy Philosophy and Religion (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Enlightenment vs. Romanticism

What's the difference.

Enlightenment and Romanticism were two significant intellectual and cultural movements that emerged in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, emphasized reason, logic, and scientific inquiry as the primary sources of knowledge and progress. It sought to challenge traditional authority and promote individual freedom, human rights, and the pursuit of happiness. On the other hand, Romanticism was a reaction against the rationality of the Enlightenment. It celebrated emotions, imagination, and intuition, valuing the individual's subjective experience and connection with nature. Romanticism emphasized the importance of art, literature, and music in expressing deep emotions and exploring the mysteries of the human soul. While the Enlightenment focused on reason and progress, Romanticism embraced the power of emotions and the beauty of the natural world.

Further Detail

Introduction.

The Enlightenment and Romanticism were two significant intellectual and cultural movements that emerged in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. While they shared some similarities, they also had distinct attributes that set them apart. This article aims to explore and compare the key characteristics of Enlightenment and Romanticism, shedding light on their philosophical, artistic, and social aspects.

Enlightenment

The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was a philosophical movement that emphasized reason, logic, and scientific inquiry as the primary sources of knowledge and progress. It emerged in the 17th century and reached its peak in the 18th century. Enlightenment thinkers believed in the power of human reason to understand and improve the world. They advocated for individual rights, religious tolerance, and the separation of church and state.

One of the central tenets of the Enlightenment was the belief in progress. Enlightenment thinkers believed that through the application of reason and scientific methods, society could advance and overcome ignorance, superstition, and tyranny. They championed the idea of a rational and ordered society governed by laws and principles derived from reason.

Enlightenment philosophy also emphasized the importance of education and the dissemination of knowledge. Thinkers such as John Locke and Voltaire argued for universal education to empower individuals and promote social progress. They believed that an educated and enlightened citizenry was essential for the functioning of a just and democratic society.

Furthermore, Enlightenment thinkers were critical of traditional authority and sought to challenge the prevailing social and political structures. They questioned the divine right of kings, aristocratic privileges, and the oppressive practices of the Church. Instead, they advocated for the principles of equality, liberty, and justice.

In terms of art and literature, the Enlightenment favored rationality, clarity, and objectivity. Neoclassicism, a dominant artistic style during this period, drew inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman art, emphasizing balance, symmetry, and order. Enlightenment literature often focused on moral and social issues, employing satire and reason to critique societal norms and institutions.

Romanticism

Romanticism emerged as a reaction against the rationality and scientific focus of the Enlightenment. It flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, celebrating emotion, imagination, and individuality. Romantic thinkers rejected the notion that reason alone could explain the complexities of human existence and sought to explore the mysteries of the human soul and the natural world.

Unlike the Enlightenment, Romanticism placed a strong emphasis on the individual and the subjective experience. Romantic thinkers believed that emotions and intuition were essential for understanding the world and connecting with the divine. They celebrated the power of imagination and the creative spirit, valuing artistic expression as a means to transcend the limitations of reason.

Nature held a central place in Romanticism, with its beauty and grandeur seen as a source of inspiration and spiritual renewal. Romantic artists and writers sought to capture the sublime and the awe-inspiring aspects of nature, often depicting untamed landscapes and dramatic scenes. They believed that nature could evoke powerful emotions and provide a refuge from the industrialization and urbanization of the time.

Romanticism also embraced the idea of the "romantic hero" – an individual who rebels against societal norms and follows their own path, often driven by passion and idealism. Romantic literature often explored themes of love, longing, and the pursuit of freedom. It celebrated the individual's quest for self-discovery and the exploration of the depths of human emotions.

In terms of artistic style, Romanticism rejected the strict rules and conventions of Neoclassicism. Instead, it embraced spontaneity, emotion, and imagination. Romantic painters, such as J.M.W. Turner and Caspar David Friedrich, used vibrant colors and dramatic brushstrokes to convey the intensity of their emotions and the sublime beauty of nature.

Comparing Enlightenment and Romanticism

While the Enlightenment and Romanticism differed in their core principles, they also shared some commonalities. Both movements emerged as reactions to the social, political, and cultural changes of their time. They sought to challenge established norms and explore new ways of understanding the world.

Both Enlightenment and Romanticism placed a strong emphasis on the individual, albeit in different ways. The Enlightenment focused on the rational and autonomous individual capable of reason and progress. Romanticism, on the other hand, celebrated the emotional and imaginative individual seeking spiritual and artistic fulfillment.

Furthermore, both movements had a profound impact on society and culture. The Enlightenment laid the groundwork for modern democratic principles, human rights, and the scientific method. It influenced the American and French Revolutions, shaping the political landscape of the time. Romanticism, on the other hand, revolutionized artistic expression and inspired a new wave of creativity in literature, music, and visual arts.

Despite these similarities, the differences between Enlightenment and Romanticism are significant. The Enlightenment focused on reason, logic, and scientific inquiry, while Romanticism celebrated emotion, imagination, and individuality. The Enlightenment sought to create a rational and ordered society, while Romanticism embraced the unpredictable and the sublime.

While the Enlightenment valued clarity and objectivity in art and literature, Romanticism embraced subjectivity and the exploration of the inner self. The Enlightenment aimed to improve society through reason and education, while Romanticism sought to inspire and elevate the individual through the power of art and nature.

In conclusion, the Enlightenment and Romanticism were two influential movements that shaped the intellectual, artistic, and social landscape of Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. While the Enlightenment emphasized reason, progress, and the power of the individual mind, Romanticism celebrated emotion, imagination, and the mysteries of the human soul. Both movements had a lasting impact on society, leaving behind a rich legacy of ideas, art, and cultural transformation.

Comparisons may contain inaccurate information about people, places, or facts. Please report any issues.

• Organizations
• Planning & Activities
• Product & Services
• Structure & Systems
• Career & Education
• Entertainment
• Fashion & Beauty
• Political Institutions
• SmartPhones
• Protocols & Formats
• Communication
• Web Applications
• Household Equipments
• Career and Certifications
• Diet & Fitness
• Mathematics & Statistics
• Processed Foods
• Vegetables & Fruits

Difference Between Enlightenment and Romanticism

• Categorized under History , Ideology , Words | Difference Between Enlightenment and Romanticism

Both enlightenment and romanticism were key players in reforming ideologies in contemporary history, specially in the 18 th century. These are two important periods which began in Europe and had produced notable individuals who contributed knowledge and works which are being currently studied and applied. However, enlightenment is focused on reason which grew in response to the middle ages while romanticism centers on emotions in opposition to the age of reason. The following discussions further delve into these distinctions.

What is Enlightenment?

Enlightenment, otherwise known as the Age of Reason or the Age of Enlightenment, was a very influential philosophical movement which started in Europe and later spread in North America.   This took place from the late 17 th to the18 th century (late 1600s to the end of the 1700s) which is dubbed as the “Century of Philosophy” since it was a time of increased interest and the desire to be “enlightened” on various fields specially epistemology, individual perspectives, and natural science.   This was in response to the “Dark Ages” or Middle Ages in which religion and superstitions were given primary power; hence, it was also called the “Age of Faith”.

Immanuel Kant and Voltaire are two prominent enlightenment writers who assertively criticized the Middle Ages’ irrational emphasis on religion. They argued that the ignorance regarding the sciences was detrimental to the society. Some sources cite Rene Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” (“Cogito, ergo sum”), a dictum which means that one exists when one is thinking, as the starting point of this intellectual period. Others consider Isaac Newton’s “Principia Mathematica”, books on the application of mathematics on science and laws on physics, as instrumental in sparking the movement.

What is Romanticism?

Romanticism, also referred to as the Romantic Era, was a movement that focused on subjectivity, inspiration, and human emotions as expressed in arts, literature, and music. This started during the late 18 th century (approximately 1770) in Europe in response to the rational views of the age of enlightenment. The romantic thinkers felt that reason was overemphasized and that they should put more focus on the attributes of being human such as aesthetic experience, irrational feelings, and free expression.

The works of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Byron were closely associated with this period especially in England. Victor Hugo, the author of the popular, Hunchback of Notre Dame, led the romanticism movement in France.   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a writer and statesman, was also one of the key influencers in Germany. Specifically, the remark of the German artist, Caspar David Friedrich, “the artist’s feeling is his law”, aptly illustrates the nature of the Romantic Era.

The main focus of enlightenment is discovering knowledge and emphasizing rational reasoning. It saw the individual as capable of something more and able to know more than what was previously thought of during the dark ages. As for romanticism, the highlight is the free expression of emotions and human subjectivity. It views the person as capable of irrational impulses and a believer of mythic symbols.

Enlightenment came from the Old English word, “inlihtan” which means “to illuminate”. As its name suggests, the age of enlightenment seeks to illuminate reasons which give rise to innovations in various social agents. Romanticism was based on the English “romantic” and the French “romantique” which pertained to adjectives used for beauty found in nature such as rainbows and sunsets. 

What it Contradicts

Enlightenment contradicts the dark middle ages which emphasized superstitions and religion while romanticism opposes enlightenment which focused on irrational feelings and their subjective expression.

The period which enlightenment covered was longer since it started from the late 17 th century until the 18 th century. On the other hand, romanticism began in the 18 th century, with its peak from 1800 to 1850.

Most Related Fields

Enlightenment is more closely related with concrete sciences such as physics and mathematics while romanticism is more associated with the arts and humanities like music, painting, and poetry.

Some of the Key Proponents

The key individuals during the enlightenment period include Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, John Locke, Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The proponents under romanticism include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William Woodsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Allan Ramsay, and Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand.

Relevant Statements

Enlightenment was inspired by dictums such as “I think therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum), and “Dare to know” (Sapere aude) while romanticism was expressed through statements like “the artist’s feeling is his law”.

Enlightenment vs Romanticism: Comparison Chart

• Both enlightenment and romanticism were key players in reforming ideologies in contemporary history.
• The proponents of enlightenment argued that ignorance regarding the sciences was detrimental to the society.
• The romantic thinkers felt that reason was overemphasized and that they should put more focus on the attributes of being human.
• Enlightenment is the age of reason while romanticism is focused on human emotion.
• Enlightenment (late 17 th to 18 th century) contradicted the dark ages while romanticism (late 18 th century) opposed enlightenment.
• Enlightenment is more associated with natural science while romanticism is more closely linked with arts and humanities.
• Some of the key persons under enlightenment are Descartes, Newton, Bacon, Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau while those under romanticism are Goethe, Woodsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Ramsay, and Chateaubriand.
• Enlightenment was inspired by the statements: “I think therefore I am” and “Dare to know” while romanticism was best illustrated with: “The artist’s feeling is his law”.
• Recent Posts
• Difference Between Hematoma and Melanoma - February 9, 2023
• Difference Between Bruising and Necrosis - February 8, 2023
• Difference Between Brain Hematoma and Brain Hemorrhage - February 8, 2023

Sharing is caring!

• Pinterest 93

Search DifferenceBetween.net :

• Difference Between Middle Ages and Dark Ages
• Difference Between Renaissance World View and Enlightenment World View
• Difference Between Romanticism and Transcendentalism
• Differences Between Neoclassicism and Romanticism
• Difference Between Middle Ages and Medieval Ages

Cite APA 7 Brown, g. (2019, June 3). Difference Between Enlightenment and Romanticism. Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects. http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/politics/ideology-politics/difference-between-enlightenment-and-romanticism/. MLA 8 Brown, gene. "Difference Between Enlightenment and Romanticism." Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects, 3 June, 2019, http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/politics/ideology-politics/difference-between-enlightenment-and-romanticism/.

Leave a Response

Name ( required )

Email ( required )

Please note: comment moderation is enabled and may delay your comment. There is no need to resubmit your comment.

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

References :

Advertisments, more in 'history'.

• Difference Between Tesla and Edison
• Difference Between Futurism and Fascism
• Difference Between Chernobyl and Hiroshima
• Difference Between Chernobyl and Fukushima
• Difference Between the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire

More in 'Ideology'

• Difference Between Colonialism and Imperialism
• Difference Between Collectivism and Individualism
• Difference Between Absolutism and Totalitarianism
• Difference Between Labor Day and Memorial Day
• Difference Between Whistleblower and Leaker

More in 'Words'

• Difference Between Center and Centre
• Difference Between Lodge and Resort
• Difference Between Authoritarian and Fascism
• Difference Between Advocate and Barrister
• Difference Between Advocacy and Lobbying

Top Difference Betweens

Get new comparisons in your inbox:, most emailed comparisons, editor's picks.

• Difference Between MAC and IP Address
• Difference Between Platinum and White Gold
• Difference Between Civil and Criminal Law
• Difference Between GRE and GMAT
• Difference Between Immigrants and Refugees
• Difference Between DNS and DHCP
• Difference Between Computer Engineering and Computer Science
• Difference Between Men and Women
• Difference Between Book value and Market value
• Difference Between Red and White wine
• Difference Between Depreciation and Amortization
• Difference Between Bank and Credit Union
• Difference Between White Eggs and Brown Eggs

Enlightenment vs Romanticism: Difference and Comparison

Many historical events have changed society to become a better place and contributed to humankind.

These events play an important role in the condition of the world we are living in today. Example of such important events is the enlightenment and romanticism.

Both of these events have contributed to the literature aspect of the world. They have contributed to science, physics, arts, poetry all aspects of literature.

They took place around the same time that is around the 17th and 18th centuries. And therefore, both of them can be very confusing.

Following are some of the important differences, along with other information that can be useful to distinguish between both of them.

Similar Reads

• Romanticism vs Transcendentalism: Difference and Comparison
• Renaissance World View vs Enlightenment World View: Difference and Comparison
• Enlightenment vs Great Awakening: Difference and Comparison
• Scientific Revolution vs Enlightenment: Difference and Comparison

Key Takeaways Enlightenment emphasized reason, science, and objective thinking as the path to societal improvement, while Romanticism focused on emotion, intuition, and individualism. Enlightenment thinkers championed progress and human perfectibility, whereas Romanticists celebrated nature and the inherent goodness of humans. The Enlightenment period gave rise to democratic principles and the scientific method, while Romanticism inspired artistic expression and a fascination with the supernatural.

Enlightenment vs Romanticism

The Enlightenment is the 18th-century movement focused on public thinking, Logic, and reasoning. It stresses the idea that with science and individualism society can be improved. Romanticism is more about feelings and emotions. It emphasizes the power of deep intuitions to understand the world.

Enlightenment is the phase or period related to the intelligent and intellectual development of the world. This period mainly focuses on irrational logic, reasons, and people’s thinking power.

Some key individuals related to this period are Newton, bacon, etc., who have contributed to the science and physics fields.

During this, the people believe that science and knowledge give power and understanding towards religion and tradition.

Romanticism is the phase or period related to the artistic and creative side of the world. During this, poetry, painting, music, and literature has been flourished the most.

It was started at the end of the 18th century and was at its peak from 1800 to 1850. Unlike the enlightenment, it was mainly focused on the emotions and feelings of the people.

They believed that by understanding humans’ different perspectives and emotions, they could achieve stability in society.

Comparison Table

What is enlightenment .

It is also called the age of reason. It initially started in Europe and then spread to North America. It took place from late 1600 to the end of 1700.

During this, the interest in science and reasoning increased to its peak. Following are some of the main ideas of this period:

• Deism: it means they believe in god due to reasons, not because of revelation. During this period, deism was followed by many where there was no single perception o god made based on superstitions.
• Liberalism: it believes in human rights and freedom. Under this, the complete freedom of expressing thoughts and ideas was given to the individuals. Liberalism became an important movement during this period, attracting western scholars.
• Republicanism: Under this, the government will be chosen by democratic rule. And individuals will have democracy to participate in general elections.
• Scientific Progress: during this period, scientific and physical progress was at its peak. Some of the important discoveries by famous scientists were made during this period only.

What is Romanticism?

It is also referred to as the Romantic Era. This period or movement was focused on inspiration, subjectivity, and human emotions. And all of these focuses were expressed in the form of art, music, and literature. 

It was initially started at the end of 1700 in response to the Age of Reason or Enlightenment in Europe.

Thinkers during this thought that importance on emotions, feelings, and thoughts should be given more than the importance given to reasoning and logical thinking.

They thought feelings were more important than being practical. 

During this period, music and art flourished most of the greatest artists in history belong to this period. All of them were used as a medium of expression of individuals’ thoughts and feelings.

Unlike the enlightenment, no scientific progress was made during this movement, but progress in humanities and arts has indeed happened. 

People respected each other feelings, despite their differences; this movement is also somehow linked to the French revolution as well. 

Main Differences Between Enlightenment and Romanticism

• Both of these events have led to some major changes in the world and are known to be historical events. Both were focused on different aspects mainly. Enlightenment mainly focused on rational reasoning and discovering knowledge, whereas romanticism was mainly focused on expressing emotions freely and human subjectivity.
• Both of them took place around the same time. But if the comparison is made on the basis of time, enlightenment covered the late 17th century and middle of the 18th century, while romanticism covered the late 18th century. This means enlightenment took place before the romanticism that took place later.
• They were related to different things. Enlightenment is more associated with subjects such as science and mathematics, which is the intelligent or intellectual side of the people, whereas romanticism was associated with humanities, such as music, painting, and poetry, which is the creative side of the people.
• Both of them are expressed using different statements. While expressing enlightenment statements, such as “Dare to know” or “I think therefore I am” by Sapere Aude and Cogito, ergo sum, respectively, while expressing romanticism is expressed by using statements such as, “The artist’s feeling is his law.”
• Both of the events include different etymologies. In enlightenment old English: enlighten means illuminate, while in romanticism, it is new English: romantic and French (beauties that are found in nature).
• Both of them also contradict different perspectives. Enlightenment contradicts superstitions and religions, while romanticism is the opposite of it and contradicts more subjective expressions and irrational feelings.

• https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=908856
• https://muse.jhu.edu/article/236315/summary
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/403286
• https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781405165396.ch4
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10509585.2011.564447

Last Updated : 13 July, 2023

I’ve put so much effort writing this blog post to provide value to you. It’ll be very helpful for me, if you consider sharing it on social media or with your friends/family. SHARING IS ♥️

Emma Smith holds an MA degree in English from Irvine Valley College. She has been a Journalist since 2002, writing articles on the English language, Sports, and Law. Read more about me on her bio page .

Share this post!

18 thoughts on “enlightenment vs romanticism: difference and comparison”.

I find the information in this article insightful, it’s very well organized and easy to understand.

The detailed explanation of the main differences between the enlightenment and romanticism is valuable in understanding the impact of these movements on society.

The article presents the comparison in a clear and concise manner, making it easy to comprehend.

Absolutely, the impact of these movements is significant and the article does a great job at highlighting that.

The article’s representation of the fundamental differences between enlightenment and romanticism is both informative and thought-provoking.

I appreciate the thoroughness of this article and how it provides insights into two significant historical movements.

The content is intellectually stimulating and fosters a deeper understanding of these historical periods.

This article makes an in-depth comparison between enlightenment and romanticism that leaves no room for doubt about the differences between the two.

The article successfully outlines the distinctions between enlightenment and romanticism, offering a wealth of information in an engaging manner.

Absolutely. The content is engaging and does justice to the complexities of these two important historical movements.

This article provides a comprehensive and insightful analysis of the key differences between the enlightenment and romanticism, prompting a deeper appreciation for their contributions to human culture and thought.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s incredibly well-written and thought-provoking, encouraging further exploration of these historical periods.

The article does a good job at explaining the main differences between the enlightenment and romanticism. It stresses how both are important historical movements that have improved human society in different ways.

I completely agree. It’s interesting to see the stark contrast between the two movements and how they contributed to the world as we see it today.

Yes, I also found the article informative and thought-provoking.

The article does a great job at pointing out the key takeaways from both the enlightenment and romanticism. This makes it very easy to distinguish between the two movements.

I couldn’t agree more. The clarity and organization of the content are commendable.

I found the comparison table particularly helpful in understanding the differences between enlightenment and romanticism.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Want to save this article for later? Click the heart in the bottom right corner to save to your own articles box!

• Show Spoilers
• Night Vision
• Sticky Header
• Highlight Links

Follow TV Tropes

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RomanticismVersusEnlightenment

Romanticism Versus Enlightenment

Edit locked.

"One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can." — William Wordsworth , for team Romanticism

"Let the truth of love be lighted; let the love of truth shine clear Sensibility, armed with sense and liberty With the heart and mind united in a single perfect sphere" — Rush , arguing that the conflict is a False Dichotomy and that both are necessary, "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres "

Some Eighteenth century people believed that reason and science are good and therefore things would just go on improving forever. This optimism characterized a period that came to be known as the Age of Enlightenment . At the end of this period, mass movements in America and France, and the Industrial Revolution in England, changed the world forever, making people realize that society in the 19th Century was the first that could conceive itself to be radically different from the past. This led to a sense of disillusionment and alienation began to spread, and the Romanticist movement rose up as a backlash. Romanticists believed that the advances made by The Enlightenment were creating an oppressive and conformist society — and that science and rationality could never hope to truly understand the world and the human personality and that the modern world's progress came at the price of cherished values from the distant past which was slowly dying out. A similar movement occurred later, in the wake of the World Wars, which left people strongly disillusioned with the promises of modern progress after seeing to what ends the fruits of human civilization had just been turned. Although the Enlightenment and Romanticist movements are long gone, the general ideas behind each — the dialectic, if you will — survives to this present day.

Romantic and Enlightened themes are very common in fiction. For example, Enlightenment-flavored science fiction might portray the future as a world of progress, friendship , brotherhood and Crystal Spires and Togas , with barbaric forces threatening the new utopia (e.g. Star Trek ). Romanticist-themed science fiction might portray the future as an unpleasant Crapsack World , with high technology but low social quality, full of depression, dehumanization and alienation (e.g. everything Cyberpunk ) with the happy souls being those who escaped to the countryside , if possible (like in We and Brave New World ).

A similar dichotomy exists in how Romantic and Enlightened traditions view rural and urban life and environments. Romantic works tend to depict cities as crowded, oppressive, and soulless places, where spirituality, hope and joy are smothered under the constant rat race of progress, rampat corruption, and the soulless clinicality of science. By contrast, rural life is lovely, spiritual, and unburdened by artificial complications, and joy and understanding can best be found in the pastoral life or the glens of an ancient forest. In the age of exploration, tropical islands in particular became something of an emblem of this concept, with the idealized concept of an isolated, lush landscape of flowers and creatures found nowhere else becoming seen as something of a modern-day Eden. Enlightened media, by contrast, leans towards idealizing city life as a hub of convenience and progress, where easy access to hubs of information and study — or, in modern works, the internet — fosters learning and understanding. The rural landscape, by contrast, is seen as a land of unnecessary toil and unpleasant privations, and home mostly to backwards and supersitious hicks.

Real life, of course, is usually just a touch more complex than these dichotomies.

Note that 'enlightened' ,used in such context, is sometimes a loaded word, often used to indicate a higher or better state or level of understanding. In this context the 'enlightened' approach isn't intrinsically better, just as it isn't intrinsically worse — it's a different way of approaching a concept that utilizes different methods and produces different results. Romanticism and Enlightenment are also tied to the Dionysian (wild, visceral, ornate) and Apollonian (restrained, cerebral, classicist) ideals of aesthetics in the arts. Compare the Apollonian/Enlightenment style of Neo-Classicism with the Dionysian/Romantic neo-Gothic revival, or, say, the Apollonian/Enlightenment style of Stanley Kubrick with the Dionysian/Romantic style of Steven Spielberg .

Bear in mind that contemporary invocations of the Enlightenment and Romanticist theme does not quite conform to the original Enlightenment and Romanticist movements. The works of Rousseau, Voltaire, Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Wordsworth, Byron, Keats and Shelley have greater instances of continuity, Unbuilt Trope and nuance than the modern perception of that era. The general perception is that writers and artists gravitate towards Romanticism, while scientists and businessmen favor the Enlightenment. Politicians (in most places) favor the Enlightenment while appealing to Romantic sentiments of nationalism, traditions (real and invented) and culture. Seeing as Most Writers Are Writers , Romanticism is generally overrepresented in media, with the exception of Science Fiction writers (and even there most well-known classics usually have a Romanticist message).

Compare to: Brains Versus Brawn , Character Alignment , Clarke's Law for Girls' Toys , Mother Nature, Father Science , Elves Versus Dwarves , Emotions vs. Stoicism , Harmony Versus Discipline , Magic Versus Science , Nature Versus Nurture , Scientist vs. Soldier , Soldier vs. Warrior , Technician Versus Performer , "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate .

    open/close all folders 

Tropes usually associated with Enlightenment :

• A Lighter Shade of Black or the Anti-Villain : Enlightenment villains will usually be misguided in their goals or have their ways be a product of society. Villains are not inherently evil in Enlightenment works.
• Ancient Grome : Resulting in more sandpapering off of its traits than usual. It was during this period, however, that philosopher Giambattista Vico argued against glorifying Ancient Greece and Rome , pointing out they were diverse and complex societies, whose values were totally alien to medieval man, let alone early modern man.
• Androids Are People, Too : Based on the general idea that "The whole is the sum of its parts"; human intelligence, like all other aspects of existence, can (eventually) be artificially replicated.
• Appeal to Novelty : The newness of an idea or belief adds to its currency, on the basis that knowledge accumulates progressively over time, and therefore current ideas are drawn from more accurate and detailed knowledge. Works claiming or implying this to be true are more common amongst the idealistic, Continental strains of the Enlightenment tradition. If the fallacy is exposed, it's more in line with Romaticism.
• Art Deco : Mostly of its progressive, Euclidean and futuristic appearance.
• Belief Makes You Stupid : Enlightenment supporters are more likely to view religious belief as being irrational and leading people to fanaticism or ignorance, though exceptions can exist.
• Black-and-White Insanity : Enlightenment stories will almost never feature a clear battle of good and evil, viewing such a stance on conflict as childish. If Rousseau Was Right , then the villain ought to have numerous redeemable traits. If Hobbes Was Right , then the heroes themselves will have some moral ambiguity as well to preserve order and progress.
• Beleaguered Bureaucrat : Bureaucracy isn't actively corrupt or malicious, simply overworked.
• Benevolent A.I. : An AI who is friendly rather than hostile to organics, showing yet another way how science and technology can improve everyone's lives.
• Clones Are People, Too : To avert Clone Angst , The Enlightenment believes that clones deserve the same respect as other sentient life forms.
• Creating Life Is Awesome : A good portion of the Enlightenment approves of creating artificial life for the benefit of currently existing life, as long as artificial life is treated well. note  However, other Enlightenment-based individuals oppose creating sentient life out of negative utilitarian/anti-suffering logic.
• Crystal Spires and Togas : Societies with this aesthetic are usually high-tech utopias, with the togas alluding to the Classical society that the Enlightenment saw as its role model.
• Doing In the Wizard : Every event has a cause that can be explained by the interaction of fundamental laws of the universe, even if it seems "magical" because we don't know what all those laws or interactions are.
• The Dung Ages : The belief that the Middle Ages is dysfunctional compared to modern day.
• Enlightened Antagonist : Technology, scientific progress and transhumanism are good, so someone who professes unity with God and the Universe and the abandonment of earthly desires would naturally be an antagonist (in this trope, "Enlightened" is actually understood in the Romantic and spiritual sense, and is the exact opposite of "Enlightenment" in the 17th-18th century sense).
• Enlightened Self-Interest : Doing good things for others can be good for your own agenda.
• Evil Luddite : In Enlightenment works a technophobic character is more likely to be insane, a terrorist and using technology to further their cause .
• Evil Reactionary : Reactionaries in enlightenment works tend to be trying to bring back a past Utopia that never existed in the first place through any means possible.
• The Federation : The Enlightenment has been known to advocate democracy as a preferred form of government.
• The Future Will Be Better : A general faith in the idea of progress, specifically that the next generation will be better and wiser than the last often figures into or permeates many Enlightenment philosophies. Some even posit an end of history, where the ultimate social, political, scientific system, etc. will have been reached.
• For Happiness : Jeremy Bentham, regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism, lived during the Age of Enlightenment. Even today, utilitarianism is often seen as one of the most "logical" ethical systems out there.
• For Science! : Greater knowledge of the universe and its workings allows us to better understand our place in it — and to carve out a new place if our current spot isn't comfortable.
• Good Republic, Evil Empire : The Enlightenment can be justly criticized for overly romanticizing this trope, in all opposition to actual history.
• Great Detective : This archetype is deeply rooted in the Enlightenment by relying on logic, reason, and rationality to shine a light onto evil deeds and dark passions. A classical (Holmsean) detective is a Science Hero who works tirelessly for the betterment of the society by bringing its stray elements to public justice.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality : If the story is Enlightenment-themed and has a War at its center, expect horrible people and saintly ones on both sides. Bad things done in the name of good intentions, and good things achieved for mercenary motives.
• Hard on Soft Science : How it appears in science-fiction. Ironically, as Stephen Hawking pointed out in A Brief History of Time , during the actual Enlightenment, philosophers and scientists exchanged notes all the time, and indeed it was during this period that "natural philosophy" was phased out in favor of Science with a Capital S, while parts of Philosophy evolved into social sciences like economics, sociology and psychology.
• Hanlon's Razor : Among some strains of thought, most of the ills that plague humanity and cause conflicts come about through simple ignorance, not premeditated malice. Thus, promoting a breadth and depth of knowledge through a better education actually makes us better people.
• Hero of Another Story : As important as The Hero is, if he has come far it is because he is merely standing "on the shoulders of giants".
• Heroic Bystander : The difference between a "hero" and a "bystander" is more one of circumstance than ability. Anyone has the potential to become great, not just a privileged few. After all, it was a bunch of anonymous people who stormed the Bastille.
• Hobbes Was Right : Predominantly among the British schools of Enlightenment thought, historically.
• Ignored Expert : If Cassandra Truth appears in an Enlightenment-leaning work, the character who speaks it will have plenty of knowledge and training to back it up.
• Immigrant Patriotism : The period that birthed nationalism was also a golden period for cosmopolitanism with philosophers travelling across Europe and America and sharing ideas.
• Living Forever Is Awesome : While this is not a universal belief among Enlightenment-leaning authors, they are likely to regard immortality as yet another achievement of science, and therefore welcome it. This branch is also vital for the Transhumanist philosophy, desiring the right for all to live as long as they like without the burden of aging, and everyone is allowed the right of euthanasia.
• Lovecraft Lite : To counter the Romanticist Cosmic Horror Story , the Enlightnment proposes that such seemingly undefeatable horrors can truly be conquered through knowledge, science, and technology.
• Medieval Morons : Resulting from (or in) ignorance of the fact that the medieval period was actually a time of great social upheavals and mechanical innovation.
• Morality Kitchen Sink : Not always, but a frequent feature of post-WWII-Enlightenment-styled works of sufficient scale is that the world is sufficiently complex, and people have sufficiently varied motivations, that any Black And White classification is going to be flawed—you either are going to have shades of grey, or areas where Black and White overlap.
• Nature Is Not Nice : The Enlightenment idea that the outside world is indifferent, or even very dangerous to humans.
• The Needs of the Many : Utilitarian works may sometimes emphasize the majority needs outweigh the needs of the minority. Some may emphasize that if sacrifices need to be made, it will be on the minority.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions : Since religion is commonly seen as an irrational system of beliefs, Enlightenment utopias often discard it as a relic of old pre-scientific societies.
• The Paragon : Protagonists in Enlightenment stories will usually be this.
• Patrick Stewart Speech
• Post-Cyberpunk : Enlightenment's answer to the Romanticist Cyberpunk .
• Pro-Human Transhuman : Transhumans do not to have to be enemies of unmodified humans.
• Reasonable Authority Figure : The legitimacy of an authority figure in an Enlightenment work depends on their competence and on how adequately they respond to their challenges.
• Reluctant Mad Scientist : The pursuit of knowledge is in itself morally neutral; what other people choose to do with that knowledge is their responsibility.
• Rousseau Was Right : Predominantly among the Continental schools of Enlightenment thought, historically. note  Though it's worth noting that Jean-Jacques Rousseau is also something of a Proto- Romanticist , and thus this trope can show up in Romanticist leaning works (e.g. Neon Genesis Evangelion )
• Science Hero : Science is seen as a force of good by the Enlightenment, while ignorance was seen by many Enlightenment thinkers as the root of all evil.
• Science Is Good : Science as a whole is portrayed in a positive light. The only real bad from science is simply the abuse of it for selfish gain, but the good that science brings should never be overlooked, especially if responsible use of it benefits all of society.
• Screw Destiny : The Enlightenment puts no stock in prophecies, preferring instead to let science and reason to guide them.
• Shining City : Civilization, science and technology are good —therefore, an ideal society would look like this.
• Solar Punk : Science and technology can give people all the comforts of an advanced civilization and also save nature.
• The Spock : A character who relies on logic in all decisions would be portrayed in Enlightenment-leaning works as an ideal to aspire to.
• Strawman Emotional : The more anvilicious Enlightened works may feature such characters.
• Transhuman : Or more specifically, optimistic portrayals of it
• The Unchosen One : The power to change the reality lies not in the hands of a few chosen, but in the hands of every ordinary person.
• White-and-Grey Morality : Since Rousseau Was Right , the enlightened heroes are motivated by a desire to bring as much good as possible , and the villains that they encounter are humanized in some way, along with having logical reasons for their antagonistic upbringing. The heroes believe that the villains can be redeemed , especially if said villains are well-meaning but misguided , and the heroes can teach the redeemed villains how to contribute to good without hurting others.
• A World Half Full : No matter how bad the world gets in an Enlightenment story, there will always be hope for improvement.

Tropes usually associated with Romanticism :

• Agent Scully : A strawman portrayal of a skeptical and scientifically-minded character.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot : Creating an AI is on the Scale of Scientific Sins according to Romanticism, therefore, A.I.s in general are very likely to be evil.
• Anti-Intellectualism : Even though romantics can be considered intellectual philosophers.
• Arcadia : In contrast with the Enlightenment Shining City utopias, a Romanticist utopia usually looks like a Garden of Eden untouched by civilization.
• Appeal to Nature : Works claiming or implying it to be true generally fall on the side of Romanticism. If the fallacy is exposed instead, it is more in line with Enlightenment.
• Appeal to Tradition : There is nothing new under the sun, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, etc. More common in the conservative strains of the Romantic tradition.
• Art Nouveau : Due to being flowy and nature-themed.
• Barbarian Hero : Such a hero is likely to be portrayed to possess some kind of "primeval wisdom" that the more civilized characters have lost.
• Black-and-White Morality : Since a lot of adventure and fantasy literature tends toward romanticism, they will usually have a clear set of well-defined heroes and villains by default. This is especially true in books targeted towards children, which usually have a romanticist slant.
• Book Dumb : A character relying on their intuition rather than formal training is very much in line with Romanticist thinking.
• Byronic Hero : THE Romantic Trope. A strongly individualistic figure who is driven by passion, misunderstood by society, and rebellious against conventions.
• Chivalric Romance : Differs from actual medieval chivalry and romances, in that it's more idealistic and nostalgic than its inspirations.
• The Chosen One : Truly heroic feats can only be accomplished by one who is "destined" to do so.
• Clone Angst : Cloning is on the Scale of Scientific Sins , so it is bound to have some bad consequences in a Romanticist work.
• Cosmic Horror Story : A grimdark backlash against humanity's trust in eternal improvement.
• Creating Life Is Bad : One of the deeds on the Scale of Scientific Sins . Frankenstein , one of Romanticism's classic works, has this trope as its central premise. note  However, other Romanticists feel that procreation is a virtue to be celebrated, because to them, life is a gift.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul : Modifying oneself is on the Scale of Scientific Sins , as Romanticism sees any interference in one's biology as evil and dangerous.
• Cyberpunk : Another grimdark backlash, this time against the techno-utopianism of the 40's and 50's.
• Doing in the Scientist : Scientific explanations are undermined or found wanting, possibly to emphasise that there are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know , or that in fully comprehending reality, there are limits to what we can rationally explain.
• Downer Ending and Sudden Downer Ending : A story has a very cynical ending, a common trait for the romanticist storyline.
• Founder of the Kingdom : Looking over the founder of a country as a larger than life figure.
• Gaia's Lament : The Enlightenment belief that Nature Is Not Nice may tempt the villains to destroy the environment, and the Earth suffers the consequences.
• Gaia's Vengeance : Earth (and its biosphere) is often a sentient entity in Romanticist works, and any attempt to interfere in it will hurt it. Therefore, as soon as Earth is hurt badly enough, it will fight back , with disastrous consequences for civilization.
• Ghibli Hills : Beautiful, peaceful scenery features heavily in Romanticist works.
• Good Old Ways : Romanticism has been known to idealize the past, especially pre-industrial societies.
• Gothic Horror : The Gothic genre as a whole belongs here even though the genre's heyday actually coincided with the tail end of the Enlightenment. This is because, much like the Romantic movement itself, Gothic literature—with its themes of irrationality, supernaturalism, fear of the unknown, and a fascination with the feudal past—was in many ways a backlash against the prevailing Enlightenment values of the day. note  Though some Gothic writers also incorporated a fair amount of Enlightenment rationality into their books as well; Ann Radcliffe 's supernatural phenomena always turn out to have grounded explanations, and Edgar Allan Poe is credited with creating the ultra-rational genre of Detective Literature alongside his more fantastical writings. The Gothic and the Romantic movements often overlapped, with writers likes Mary Shelley and Lord Byron happpily dabbling in both, and overall the Gothic genre has always been firmly on the Romantic side of the scale.
• History Repeats : Far from universal, but a general rejection of the Enlightenment idea of progress made some Counter-Enlightenment philosophers adopt a cyclical theory of history, positing that each generation thinks itself smarter than the one came before them, and wiser than those that come after, but are in fact not that different from one another except perhaps in appearance and living quality.
• Hollywood Atheist : Some flavors of this trope appear in Romantic works, with atheists portrayed as having lost something essential, being nihilists, arrogant and even villainous if they embrace supposedly more "rational" ideologies that cause great harm.
• Humanity Is Insane : And they are proud of it.
• Humans Need Aliens : Similar to Cosmic Horror Story (as noted above), it is a Romanticist backlash against the Enlightenment's belief in Humanity Is Superior , where humanity is instead powerless and insignificant and has to rely on out-of-planet beings to get by, ones that are fundamentally above mere humans.
• Immortality Immorality : Achieving immortality is on the Scale of Scientific Sins .
• Industrialized Evil : It is common of Romanticist works to portray machines as cold, callous, and creepy, so using them as a tool for evil is fitting.
• In Harmony with Nature : Romanticism is known to idealize nature, and it is a common sentiment in Romanticist works that the best path is through, well, living in harmony with nature, rather than trying to expand and develop civilization.
• Intellectually Supported Tyranny : Intellectuals are not inherently good, and can sometimes back oppressive regimes.
• Knight in Shining Armor : The ideal hero in Romantic works, especially those set in the Middle Ages.
• Ludd Was Right : Romanticism is distrustful of the social changes that come with technological progress, which is exactly what the Luddite movement was about.
• Mad Oracle : in Romanticist works Cassandra Truth is more likely to come through supernatural means and be voiced by a nameless Cloudcuckoolander rather than an Ignored Expert .
• Mad Scientist : A direct consequence of The Spark of Genius (often mixed with Science Is Bad ), scientists are very commonly portrayed as not entirely sane (if not outright evil) in Romanticist works.
• The McCoy : The most ethical decisions are based on emotion rather than logic.
• Measuring the Marigolds : Stereotyping scientists' insistence on order and rationality as inhibiting creativity and destroying our appreciation of the world around us for what it is.
• The Middle Ages : Resulting in more sandpapering off of its traits than usual.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate : As mentioned in Mad Scientist , an evil maverick scientist is a common Romantic archetype.
• Nature Hero : If wild nature untouched by civilization represents the ideal state of life, it makes sense that the best heroes would champion this ideal.
• Nature Lover : See Nature Hero .
• Nature Spirit : Romantic works tend to glorify Paganism.
• Noble Savage : See Barbarian Hero .
• Older Is Better : Romanticism was known to idealize the past, and treats the very possibility of progress with skepticism.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat : Bureaucracy is usually portrayed as inherently bad, stifling and even oppressing people.
• The Power of Love : If one's love is strong enough, it can drive one to accomplish feats that are literally impossible otherwise.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child : Romantic works will often portray things like this as a criticism of Enlightenment utilitarianism.
• Robot War : Since A.I. Is a Crapshoot , creating an AI is asking for war.
• Scale of Scientific Sins : Portraying some branches of science and technology as inherently evil. This runs counter to the Enlightenment's idea of knowledge being inherently good.
• Science Is Bad : While individual Romanticists' attitudes towards science may vary from simple caution to outright rejection, Romanticism in general is characterized by a very skeptical attitude towards scientific progress and the change it brings, or rather the utopian idea of science the Enlightenment possessed.
• Science Is Wrong : Romanticism saw science and logic as inferior to emotion, and therefore science alone would come to wrong conclusions.
• Skeptic No Longer : An Enlightened scientific skeptic is often shown as being in the wrong and admitting the error of their ways (e.g. regarding ghosts, God etc.) in Romanticist works.
• The Spark of Genius : Romanticism often portrays all creative activity as something defying all rational explanation - and science is no exception (when scientists are not portrayed as Straw Vulcans ).
• Straw Vulcan : The more anvilicious Romanticist works may feature such characters, portraying characters that are supposed to be epitomes of logic as shallow caricatures, who ironically are not very logical.
• Supernatural Elite : Romanticist utopias are often led by supernatural characters, ones that are fundamentally above mere mortals.
• Techno Dystopia : A dystopia caused by the introduction of new technology is fundamentally contrary to the Enlightenment's idea of technology in and of itself being a force of good.
• Technophobia : In a world where technology cannot be fully trusted, it's better to stay with the Good Old Ways . A milder version of Ludd Was Right .
• Theory Tunnelvision : A character adheres to their theories, rejecting conflicting facts that are even truthful. That character is expected to be emotionally broken , or worse , if they are in a situation where maintaining their filter is impossible.
• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know : Again, stating that it is best to stay away from some knowledge runs counter to the Enlightenment's ideals.
• Three Chords and the Truth : That one does not need a thorough formal education to produce good music - or that "good" equals "raw" and "unpolished" - is a very Romanticist argument.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian : Romanticists are usually Naturalists who portray Enlightened Utilitarians as willing to go to extremes for the sake of Utopia.
• Transhuman Treachery : Transhumanism is on the Scale of Scientific Sins , and creating a transhuman (much like creating an AI or any other form of artificial life) is likely to result in them being evil.
• True Art Is Incomprehensible (and how science destroys our interest in it)
• Who Wants to Live Forever? : As noted in Immortality Immorality , achieving immortality (just like transhumanism as a whole) is on the Scale of Scientific Sins , so immortality in Romanticist works, if achievable, will carry a number of unpleasant consequences.
• The World Is Not Ready : Science must not progress too quickly, otherwise disaster will follow.
• World of Ham : A setting in which everyone is highly emotional.
• Ye Goode Olde Days : A past era is often lionized and portrayed as better by Romanticists (if not ideal in comparison to modern society).
• You Can't Fight Fate : Romantics believe heavily in prophecies, saying that they will occur no matter what.

Tropes shared between them, but handled in different ways:

• All-Loving Hero : Both Romantic and Enlightened works on the idealistic end of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism have heroes with this belief. The difference is in how their beliefs are handled. The Romantic may assert that human nature of love must triumph over " totalitarian " rationality of utilitarianism, while the Enlightened hero embraces rationalism and utilitarianism and proves his or her love and compassion for other beings through them.
• The Anti-Nihilist : These are found on both sides. Enlightenment existentialists like Randall Munroe tend to take a For Happiness approach, focusing on the needs and wants of humanity in the absence of a higher morality. Romantic existentialists (most famously Friedrich Nietzsche and Soren Keirkegaard) reject rationalism as just as meaningless as anything else, and tend to suggest embracing a personal Blue-and-Orange Morality .
• Black-and-Gray Morality : Cynical Romantic works against the foundations of society will usually portray this set of morality, showing that Humans Are Flawed or Humans Are the Real Monsters . Expect any form of remote goodness to come from a decidedly heroic and above-society entity. In more cynical Enlightenment works, heroes will be shown as flawed beings who are not above the laws of their society (or if they are, it's not a good thing).
• Blood Knight : Generally approved of by Romantics, due to their associations with bravery, honourable combat, glory, individual prowess and a Dying Moment of Awesome . By contrast, the Blood Knight is generally rejected by the Enlightenment due to a lack of discipline and respect for law and order, and encouraging a War Is Glorious attitude they view dangerous.
• The Enlightenment invented nationalism, because the nation, in theory , was opposed to the kingdom and The Church , and it was a consensual secular identity around which one can build The Republic , which until this period was contained only in city-states but now governed over areas bigger than Kingdoms and with more central authority than any King before. This led to the idea of creating national institutions and cultural centers (museums, science institutions, art galleries, monuments) built to celebrate the nation, but it must be emphasized that the nation as defined by the early Enlightenment thinkers was about involvement in the community—meaning that outsiders could join the nation if they pitched in and got involved. Team Enlightenment blames romantic sentimentality towards folklore and Rose-Tinted Narrative for having corrupted nationalism from its radical origins.
• The Romantics who later came around to nationalism, were obsessed with folklore emphasized cultural heritage as the definition of national identity, and essentially invented the culture wars about which values and which individuals are the true representatives of the nation.
• Creating Life Is Awesome : Enlightenment works are theoretically okay with this, skeptical in practise, whereas Romantics argue against playing God. The very first science-fiction, Frankenstein tackled this very concept, and it was a romantic work. It must be noted that Enlightenment-inspired revolutions, especially the French and the Russian one, had the idea of creating "a new man" which they meant to be a citizen with values and references entirely different from the past, but which in the eyes of critics amounted to be similar to treating man as tabula rasa with new values inserted like a program given to a robot. Mary Shelley's book argued that in taking the role of God, man is likely to repeat the same mistakes to his creations and the consequences it creates.
• Curiosity Is a Crapshoot : Romanticists believe that Curiosity Killed the Cast , or at least make us Go Mad from the Revelation and turn us into nihilists. The Enlightened do recognize that curiosity does have its flaws, but overall it can be used for further learning and self-improvement .
• Basically, Enlightenment hates democracy because it puts truth to a popular vote rather than using reason, while Romanticism hates democracy because it becomes a bureaucratic mess where leaders care more about winning elections than ruling.
• It should be noted that what is considered Democracy as we live it today (where everyone can vote, no discrimination to minorities, no slavery and exploitation of other people) is quite different from what many Enlightened and Romantic writers thought vis-a-vis democracy (Enlightenment thinkers were content with limited suffrage, while Voltaire would probably insist that a secular France remain anti-semitic) with the exception of Rousseau, Diderot, Condorcet and a few others.
• Romanticists love deconstructing Enlightenment dreams into Dystopias themselves. In Romanticist dystopian fiction (cf, Ayn Rand ) a Dystopia will usually be portrayed as an Enlightenment society that runs on Intellectually Supported Tyranny where He Who Fights Monsters becomes the same dystopia that it was trying to solve (see also: Reign of Terror , Big Brother Is Watching , Crapsaccharine World , Full-Circle Revolution , and so on). Romanticists are also more likely to point out that "it is not too much ignorance, but too much conformity , that causes Dystopia".
• Enlightenment advocates will usually believe that "widespread ignorance causes Dystopia" (sometimes bringing up the era that they called the " Dark Ages ") and squabble about how education will save us all from it . They also point out that for all that romanticists trump up non-conformity, their glorification of "a lost Golden Age " rather than building something new, is conforming to the past, which was in most cases a Dystopia for a greater portion of the population who were kept ignorant, oppressed and stiffled. While Enlightenment will confess to a Full-Circle Revolution and other failures, they will also try and invoke What the Romans Have Done for Us .
• The solutions to dealing with such scenarios differ. Enlightenment advocates believe that such times can be overcome and ultimately improve for the better . Romantics, on other other hand, believe that they're immutable and will only worsen , or at best ones that have to be burned to the ground before they can regrow.
• Emotions vs. Stoicism : The Enlightenement saw themselves continuing the Greek, specifically the Socratic tradition of using logic and critical thinking to discover truth and question the foundations of the society they were in, rejecting emotion as an impediment to seeking truth. The Romanticists saw themselves either questioning the value of the truth found by Enlightenment, or looking for alternative sources in emotion or intuition. Schopenhauer, despite following on from the very Enlightenment Kant, argued how humans were motivated by a desire to live and procreate, rejecting the Enlightenment notion that humans actually desired the truth, while Nietzsche, despite criticizing Romanticism, noted how many seemingly rational philosophers like Plato, Socrates and Spinoza were influenced by their own psychology in determining what they considered to be "true", and emphasised that human beings were really constituted by many motives that are rarely interested in what is objectively true, arguing that what we considered reason was ultimately illusory.
• invoked The smartest person in the room would not face opposition in any story if authority or the people saw their ideas as reasonable. An Enlightened figure, either a critic of government, a scientist, a reformer, will be seen as an extremist until Vindicated by History . Henrik Ibsen 's An Enemy of the People plays it straight, Bertolt Brecht 's Galileo is a parody.
• Extreme solutions are more glamorous than mundane solutions and Romantic works often favor situations and settings where characters believably move into extreme phases of behavior, act disproportionately but in the end are praised by everyone as visionaries who were bold, decisive and had the gut instinct. And of course, because the person can only act in an extreme measure, there is No Place for Me There after the world is saved.
• Fantastic Racism : Even though enlightenment works address the issue of racism a lot more than romantic ones, there have been some romantic works that address this as well. Enlightenment works would often argue that maintaining the societal status quo is the cause of racism, as maintaining society's traditional values leads to a society that will not accept races or cultures of different kinds. Enlightenment works often argue that it is necessary for society to change for a greater good in order to maintain a racially diverse and tolerant society. Romantic works will argue that racism is caused by the enlightenment's side need of sacrificing the few for the sake of majority and argue that races considered as "inferior" are often sacrificed. Romantic works argue that man's natural ability to love will always triumph over man's tendency for hatred and prejudice.
• Fictional United Nations : It can be portrayed as either useful or useless in much the same way as Democracy Is Bad . The Romanticist sees the Fictional United Nations as hamstrung by the realities of international politics where powerful nations will still run riot over weak ones (see the League of Nations ). The Enlightened depict the job as tricky but not impossible, with the participants more inclined towards Enlightened Self-Interest and willing to work together for the greater good.
• The Enlightenment invented realism; works by Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding and Jane Austen created an appetite in the public for the novel of contemporary life. There were also genres such as the philosophical parable and satire ( Jonathan Swift , Voltaire ) and the Gothic horror and romance by Walpole and Ann Radcliffe. Before Romanticism, the idea was to use classical and Biblical myth ( Paradise Lost and most of Shakespeare's plays) as source material for plots, characters and themes. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 's Werther and Wilhelm Meister became bestsellers of its day and put across the idea of youth as protagonists, Tragic Hero and the bildungsroman as genres.
• The Romantics like William Wordsworth tackled everyday life and nature as themes and subjects for poetry. Coleridge used poetry to represent fevered stages of psychological stress: guilt/despair/lust and romance. Lord Byron's poetry created the new character archetype of the Byronic Hero which inspired Stendhal and Alexander Pushkin . Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein (subtitled the modern Prometheus ) to show that it was entirely different from the older myths. Walter Scott and Alexandre Dumas created the new genre of Historical Fiction , while the Gothic Romance genre, already parodied by Jane Austen, got revived towards the horror genre and even infused in realistic stories like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights .
• Godwin's Law : Both sides have arguments that the Nazis belonged to the opposing side. Romanticists point to their racial pseudoscience and use of modern industry to organize mass killings, the Enlightened point to their reactionary blood and soil ideology and mythology of race. Social Darwinism is mentioned below.
• The Government : The Enlightenment values states and nations as ways of ordering society and curbing our more dangerous natural instincts; Romantics skeptically argue that nations and states are inevitably self-serving and corrupt at the expense of the people they claim to serve, and unnecessarily coddle and leash humans to a degrading degree.
• Green Aesop : Both sides are fond of these, though the Romantic version gets a lot more play in media. The Romantic Green Aesop is that humanity must live in peace and harmony with the natural world , often adding " or she'll kill us all ." The Enlightenment version agrees that humanity must help the environment, but argues for scientific and technological solutions to environmental issues, often amounting to deliberate re-engineering of the global ecosystem. In other words, they believe that humanity can win against Gaia's Vengeance while averting Gaia's Lament through science.
• The (mostly British) Enlightenment acknowledges wholeheartedly that humans (especially the working classes and colonized barbarians) are incredibly selfish, materialistic, pleasure-obsessed, aggressive, impulsive, short-sighted, miserable, and otherwise...bastard-y animals (just see Hobbes Was Right ), and this selfishness is biologically and neurologically immutable (e.g. pain, fight-or-flight, fear, hunger, sex, and such). The classical British Enlightenment (and its American progeny, as well as some of its Continental friends like Lafayette and de Tocqueville) therefore emphasized building political, social, and economic institutions whereby these impulses could be channeled and moderated to serve the public interest. In this theory, private ambition is made to serve the public interest through elections (because the path to power is therefore to protect the rights and serve the interests of ordinary people), and private greed is made to enrich the nation as a whole through free-market capitalism (because in a free-market capitalist society, the best way to get rich is to make or do something everyone else finds useful, or at least entertaining or interesting). To later and more cynical Singularitarian Transhumanists, the only method that will abolish this selfish gene is through evolution into The Singularity where pain is nonexistent (e.g. Assimilations ).
• The Romantic school argued that humans were capable of being monstrous but this might not be such a bad thing . After all, civilization is hypocritical and deluded about how noble it is, and ignorant and blind of the harm it unleashes in the name of "progress" (for the very few). Self-proclaimed goody two shoes are boring , usually prudish and lousy in bed , and actually not really all that good once you get down to it. People who are monstrous or bad at least admit it . This was the theme of Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein and it was partly as a result of this trope that Villain Protagonist and Byronic Hero as in Wuthering Heights ' Heathcliff came to be prominent and influential. It also underpinned Friedrich Nietzsche 's criticism of conventional morality and a restricted view of human nature as "good" and "evil".
• Humans Are Special : The Enlightenment argued that humans are rational and that it was possible for human reason to build a better society and a more equal society. The Romantic would argue that humans are special because Humans Are Flawed and our flaws and weaknesses make us individuals, unique and give us the strength to stand against the conformity of both conventional and utopian groups. This largely stems from the the (mostly French) Continental schools of Enlightenment which, unlike British Empiricism, argued on Cartesian ideas of "first principles" i.e. starting from scratch and building something new from ground up, rather than fixing and refining what worked in the past. note  i.e. A World Half Full and Rousseau Was Right — that is, humankind is a blank slate which is mostly influenced by its environment, and thus not inherently "selfish" or "selfless" inasmuch as simply interested in self-preservation and seeking comfort. This is why they advocate utilitarianism and democracy. This ultimately derives from distinct historical experiences. England could count on the wisdom of experiences because they had diverse experiences such as the Barons War (that gave them the Magna Carta), a Hundred Years War, a religious reformation, and an English Civil War led by aristocrats, that provided them strong institutions. France had no such experiences of diverse governments to count on and so they, and other revolutionary nations, had to start from scratch and first principles and build new institutions on brand new ideals
• Inherent in the System : The Enlightened response is to say "And so, we should make a better system" (or, for the more optimistic, "...make the worst aspects of the current system better"), and then start squabbling about what "better" means . The Romantic response is more variable, but very often tends to be "And so, we should destroy the system."
• Just Think of the Potential! : The Enlightenment usually prefers the optimistic version of this trope, with the potential benefits of a new technology outweighing the dangers. Romanticism does the opposite, and the character uttering this line will be almost universally regarded as either foolish (unaware of the dangers) or outright evil (not caring about the damage the new invention would cause).
• The Enlightenment is A Lighter Shade of Grey version of this trope: the anti-hero will usually be a cynic, but will ultimately strive to do the right thing for the good of all because rationally, it is the right thing to do.
• The Romanticist is a more... well, romantic version of the trope. Their convictions usually will sound like this: "The world is harsh and cruel, and I've accepted it, and the "rational" thing to do may be to give up, but dangit I'm fighting anyway!"
• Liberty Over Prosperity : Enlightenment tries its best to combine the two. Romanticists say the Enlightenment basically went He Who Fights Monsters and is slowly sacrificing Liberty for Prosperity (see the bit about Crapsack World below).
• Living Is More than Surviving : It is not enough to survive using practical skills; there are other things that we should live for as well. However, the while Enlightenment is about improving our lives with science and technology, Romanticism values living in harmony with nature and human connections.
• Where the likes of Goethe would treat this alienation as tragic or the beginning of the path to knowledge (as in Werther and Wilhelm Meister), Romantics glorified the state of being an outsider and rejected by society , and some, namely Fyodor Dostoevsky , saw the ability of some individuals to refuse assimilation in a perfect society (as in Notes from Underground ) as a heroic endeavor. Basically, both groups agree that Humans Are Flawed , but Enlightenment is about acknowledging and getting over it and being a better person, while Romanticism is about rejecting social conventions in favor of personal authenticity (cf, Byronic Hero ).
• Much later Jean-Paul Sartre created Existentialism which took an enlightened approach to reclaim the romantic yearning for "authenticity". He claimed that life and society was essentially meaningless and that it was up to human beings to give meaning to their existence and take responsibility for that self-defined ideal, and that "Bad faith" was all around us which means there's no one definition of authenticity that anyone can follow, rather they must follow their reason and their conscience.
• Nature Is Not a Toy : Whereas the Enlightenment would agree with this trope in the vein of Nature Is Not Nice , the Romantics would point out that this trope is true in the sense that abusing nature is not nice .
• Order vs. Chaos : An Enlightenment would favor order for society while a Romanticist would adore the chaos of nature. Sigmund Freud , who saw himself in the Enlightened tradition, argued that Humans Are Flawed and since actions are driven by unconscious decisions, attempts at order (at home or in society) will fail, but by being honest with oneself, self-critical and being more tolerant of human weakness it would be possible to contain and prevent chaos. Surrealists however, inspired by Freud, saw the unconscious and human flaws as an inherently good thing, since without it life would be boring.
• Perfection Is Impossible : Both sides tend to argue this (and accuse the other of seeking the impossible perfection), but with different alternatives. Enlightenment prefers to use laws and philosophy to make society better than it was before , confident their descendants will repeat the Reconstruction . Romanticism rejects this assumption, and often states that even attempting to make society better will make things worse.
• Postmodernism : Both the Postmodern and Romantic movements basically emerged as a backlash against modernity and the Enlightenment. However, Postmodernism registers about equal skepticism towards both Romanticism and the Enlightenment, questioning the reality of Romantic concepts like authenticity, naturalness, and truth, while also questioning the usefulness of Enlightened concepts like progress, value, and objectivity. Postmodernism is thus viewed unfavorably by both groups, while it in turn views each as interesting and useful when taken with a grain of salt, hence the famous Postmodern infatuation with Irony . For an example of how this works, consider the important proto-postmodern text Dialectic of Enlightenment , which critiqued modernism and Enlightenment as being nothing other than an extended, totalitarian form of the same (Romantic) primitive world-mythology that grips all people - "[M]yth is already enlightenment; and enlightenment reverts to mythology."
• Punk Punk : In general, anything with "-punk" in its name has a strong tendency towards Romanticism, due to the genre's cynicism about human advancement, preference for older and more visible machines, and strongly antiauthoritarian tendencies. However, this isn't a hard-and-fast rule, and many "-punk" works actually lean towards Enlightenment in their embrace of the possibilities of their setting's unique technology. For example, Steampunk works tend to have an idealistic and nostalgic view of the steam-powered technology of the 19th-century while ignoring the oppression that occurred during this time period. Post-Cyberpunk , being a reaction against the extreme Romanticism of the Cyberpunk genre, is another obvious example.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni : Romanticism tends to be the Red Oni, Enlightenment tends to be the Blue Oni.
• This occasionally leads to some Fandom Rivalry between the two, particularly SF readers (and writers, most notably including David Brin ) who perceive fantasy as inherently reactionary. Seen historically, the first work of Science Fiction , Frankenstein , was very much a romantic work . Mary Shelley's work had tropes like Noble Savage , the Byronic Hero (she was living in a house with the original—who, incidentally, had knocked up her stepsister—when she wrote Frankenstein , and her husband fit the trope too) and angst over man becoming God in creating life, and scientific endeavor as an exercise in hubris. Likewise, a work that heavily influence fantasy fiction, Lewis Carroll 's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , was very much about math, word puzzles, and Logic Bomb , while William Morris' Medieval European Fantasy romances used a Constructed World to put in social criticisms.
• As Alan Moore argued in Dodgem Logic Science Fiction in the 19th to early 20th Century was essentially skeptical and ironic in its treatment of progress and the likes of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne argued that new technology could be used for abuses and saw the development of technology less as evidence of man's rational progress and more as an arms race for powerful nations . It was only in the early 20th Century , and largely in American fiction, that the idea of science fiction as Enlightenment rather than Romantic flourished.
• Romanticists warn about the Enlightened's descent into amoral Evilutionary Biologists obsessed with Evolutionary Levels ( Nazi comparisons galore). On the other hand, the Enlightened denounce Romanticists (more specifically, the Luddites) as savages glorifying the dog-eat-dog the-weak-get-killed-off brutal Crapsack World of the past ( The Dung Ages comparisons galore).
• Team Enlightenment points out that Romanticist glorification of The Hero , their fetish for "great men" and "the natural man" who rises from Rags to Riches and then remodels the world is essentially a romantic dressing up of this concept, noting that it argues that such exceptional people (mostly Napoléon Bonaparte fanboys) deserve to conquer and rule others because they have a higher understanding than the lowly mortals who should be content to remain subjects.
• Society Is to Blame : The Enlightened response is to say "And so, we should change society," and then start squabbling about how to do it . Conversely, Romantics are more likely to see social problems as stemming from inherent human nature, and can only be managed at best rather than abolished.
• Soldier vs. Warrior : The Soldier mindset is more in-line with the Enlightenment crowd, while Warriors are more subscriptive to Romanticism.
• Sliding Scale Of Free Will Versus Fate : Generally speaking, Enlightenment argues in favor of Screw Destiny , with its focus on progression, idealism and science, while Romanticism favors Because Destiny Says So , with its focus on mythology, and philosophers like Schopenhauer emphasizing how humans are driven by non-rational motives that make any long term improvement at best temporary, and at worst an illusion. However, there's a lot of variation, with some Enlightenement philosophers such as d'Holbach and some scientists arguing that free will is an illusion, and many Romanticists like Byron glorifying political or individual rebellions, and philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard giving incredible weight to the subject of individual responsibility.
• Enlightenment figures from the European continent, particularly (for some reason) Germany, really were idealistic and optimistic (take Immanuel Kant and Leibniz as examples). Other Continental Enlightenment types (like Voltaire —no, not that one ) were willing to admit that most Humans Are Bastards , but trusted in the virtue of some people to keep things improving.
• Rousseau, who was the one figure both Enlightenment and Romantic writers claimed for their own, was idealistic about social progress and believed it was entirely achievable with a positive vision of society, as opposed to a negative one like Hobbes. He also believed it was realistic, citing the influence of Niccolò Machiavelli (whose reputation Rousseau played a role in reviving).
• Romanticism was largely idealistic about individuals but cynical about institutions and governments, while Enlightened were idealistic about institutions, laws, government and ideologies but cynical about individuals working outside or entirely escaping the influence of these systems.
• Still Fighting the Civil War : Enlightened see refusing to admit that your side lost as pointless, whereas Romantics see continuing in a long-over fight as glorious .
• Straw Nihilist : Romanticists see the Enlightenment as converting humanity into a race of nihilists, thus in Romanticist works such nihilists are usually portrayed as Enlightened people who failed to find an objective proof for a "meaning in life" (for a contemporary version of this, see Cyberpunk , with high technology but existential angst ). The Enlightened tend to see nihilists as Romantics who have abandoned rationalism but failed to find anything to replace it with ( Friedrich Nietzsche while critical of Enlightened rationalism in general, agreed with this view). Existentialists , incidentally, are found on both sides.
• War Is Glorious : More common among the Romantics, who view war as a way of testing a people's strength and proving the worth of an individual warrior. At the very least, passions run high in war, and conflicts are intense and bloody, both of which make for good stories. However, even the Enlightenment may find War Is Glorious , especially in regards to highly advanced societies defending civilization from the Always Chaotic Evil horde, and may find something beautiful in the order and disciplined involved in the military, and a common enemy giving a single purpose for people to unite behind.
• More common among the Enlightenment figures, but war involves the tragic deaths of the noble, the splitting of families by death or divided loyalties, and Worthy Opponents who could have been friends killing each other simply for being on opposite sides - all causes for misery for Romantics. In Enlightenment stories, the emphasis is on What a Senseless Waste of Human Life and resources, due to war exacting a high cost on a nation's wealth and the civilian population.
• Romantic works often portray war as becoming hell specifically when the sides take advantage of modern industry and weapons.
• Wild Child : The Enlightened side sees feral children as having suffered horribly for missing out on rationalism and civilization. Romantics celebrate the feral child as a form of Noble Savage . Notably, the Enlightened approach is used for dealing with feral children in Real Life , but almost all fictional depictions are based on the Romanticist angle.
• Shinji, who used to be in the extreme Romantic end of the spectrum, develops an Existentialist philosophy in The End Of Evangelion . In the end he appreciates his depressing individual life in the Present despite his full knowledge that it's a Crapsack World and individuality is painful, culminating in him deciding to reject Instrumentality, a False Utopia made of the extreme combination of both Enlightenment (as a utopian Singularity) and Romanticism (as mankind reverted to primordial soup and forcefully assimilated back into the Mother of All Mankind).
• Your mileage may vary slightly on that last point- for all its idealism, a key theme is that of the very transhumanist (transhumanoidist?), and warlike, Zentraedi being won over by good old-fashioned human concepts like love. So it does in a way play with Romanticism a bit.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann , for all its seemingly Romantic emphasis on emotional intensity, falls hard on the side of Enlightenment. The ethos of the series having a very strong belief in the idea of progress and the ultimate perfectibility of the human (and beastman?) condition. The heroes may have "kicked logic to the kerb", but only with the aim of creating their own logic that works for them against all attempts by the anti-spirals to make them regress back to the level of barbarism; vehemently rejecting the idea that you can't evolve and progress without destroying yourselves. After the end credits, humanity - in league with several other species - is shown to have created a near-utopian society and on its way to show the universe itself who's boss.
• The Gundam franchise flip-flops back and forth on the scale. In the Universal Century, the proto-transhumanist "anti-Earth" (What "anti-Earth" means varies with perspectives) ideology of Zeon Zum Deikun is highly Enlightened (supporting humanity moving away from Earth and evolving into Newtypes), but various series portray this as a bad thing, a good thing, or a good ideology corrupted by assholes . Incidentally, the Axis Zeon movement is highly Romanticist, as their leader Haman Khan believes that Humans Are Bastards and is (theoretically) fighting to restore the fallen Zabi family , but this faction is portrayed entirely negatively. Put another way, in the Universal Century, ideology is mainly an excuse for people to kill each other , and neither Enlightenment nor Romanticism comes off particularly well.
• Mobile Suit Gundam 00 , after a considerable course of trials by the evil in humanity, is ultimately Enlightened, showing that humankind have a potential to reach a true understanding of one another and extend it to even extra-terrestrials, thus casting aside their difference and reaching true peace.
• You could say, to go off of an example under mythology, that Lelouch is Athena attempting to be a Byronic Hero , and Suzaku is Poseidon attempting to be an Enlightenment knight. This might seem to have Unfortunate Implications , from the fact that they are literally fighting for each others' homelands, against their own, but that falls apart in that none of the other Britannian or Japanese characters are clear-cut one or the other way, either.
• In Princess Mononoke , the forest gods and animals are Romanticist, and the humans living in Iron Town are Enlightened (especially in their industrial ambitions and egalitarian treatment of downtrodden types like lepers and ex-prostitutes). In the end, peace is achieved on Romanticist terms, with the surviving villagers deciding to work in harmony with the forest. The Romantic figures are destroyed entirely, and while Iron Town may be destroyed, it will be rebuilt better than before since its residents better understand their relationship to the natural world. The ending is more a dialectical "synthesis" and Reconstruction , where the Enlightenment side accepts the Romantic "dystopia" critique and moves forward with a better understanding. That ending is actually very pro-Enlightenment, as a core value of the Enlightenment is rejecting dogmatism in favor of better ideas when one has more knowledge - which can include swallowing elements of the Romantic critique. In other words, an Enlightenment figure can evaluate a Romantic Deconstruction , say, "You're right!", and find a repair while still remaining entirely an Enlightenment figure.
• Legend of the Galactic Heroes is based on a conflict between the Romanticist-based Galactic Empire and the more Enlightenment-based Free Planets' Alliance . Neither of these are treated as a particularly ideal society.
• Origin: Spirits of the Past : The Forest and Ragna, though which side is which is complicated. On the one hand, there's the whole nature vs. science thing; on the other, Ragna and especially Shunack are obsessed with the past while the Forest is a genetically engineered Hive Mind of plants (possibly a biotech Posthuman) that brought down the old order.
• One Piece is this, though it's more idealism vs. cynicism . One of the strongest themes running through the show is the power of dreams, and the ability to do anything if you want it hard enough, opposed by characters (especially Bellamy, in the Jaya sub-arc) who don't believe in the power of dreams or True Companions .
• Witch Hunter Robin presents a Romantic notion of witchcraft with neo-Victorian costumes.
• The Magical Girl genre generally tends toward Romanticism.
• This trope is a major theme in the series. On the Enlightened side, we have the cold, ruthless Totalitarian Utilitarian scientific Incubators who will do anything to harvest energy and reverse entropy. On the other side we have hard Romantics such as Sayaka who follows the Honor Before Reason Knight in Shining Armor morality, and who is utterly disgusted by the very thought of becoming anything other than human . Homura is more balanced, with her Anti-Hero -ism that is just as ruthless as Kyubey's as she will do anything for the sake of protecting her beloved Madoka , but at the same time she often serves as the ( ignored ) voice of reason for the other magical girls, and at one point says that she is "on the side of those who think rationally". Madoka provides a decision buffer in the Present between the two conflicting philosophies; she is disgusted upon both of them for their antiheroic extremism and manipulations, but also at the same time appreciates their intentions, knowing that Incubators try to prevent Heat Death and liberated mankind from the Stone Age , while Homura is doing her best to protect Madoka.
• The ending of the original series could be described as "Romanticism respecting the Enlightenment". Madoka reorders the universe with The Power of Love , transforming from a girl who hates herself to... a happy girl who essentially kills herself and disembodies her spirit in order to create a new system where all magical girls are saved while the Energy system is not compromised. Madoka lets the Incubators exist to prevent entropy and give humanity civilization, while eliminating the worst and unnecessary waste products of the Puella Magi system (witches). She simultaneously assists Kyubey in his goal of preventing the heat death of the universe, and gives up her old self to help fix the world. If Madoka straight-up wished that Kyubey didn't exist and accepted her life as "naked and living in caves" while the universe dies from entropy, the series would be fully Romanticist .
• Rebellion , on the other hand, sides firmly with Romanticism. Kyubey gets much less screen time in this movie than in the series, and his role is much more clearly villainous as he tries to restore the old witch system with no regard for the humans' fate and generally acts like a Straw Vulcan , with his failure to understand human motives reaching utterly ridiculous levels. He also concedes to Homura that human emotions are something that he will never either comprehend or control, while Homura intentionally creates a Lotus-Eater Machine on her own terms just to be able to see Madoka in her human form again . This time Homura is not "on the side of those who think rationally", as the motive behind her transformation into Akuma Homura is irrational to the core, which is fully acknowledged by Homura herself.
• Black Lagoon is strongly romanticist from the art style and shot composition to character motivations to the heavy Rule of Cool in action scenes. Balalaika's rationalist ideology and fighting style, Enlightenment, make her that much more intimidating as a result.
• The Patlabor franchise in general remains on the Enlightened end of the spectrum and relatively idealistic - even in the worst of times.
• Shakugan no Shana season 3 boils down to this: The Crimson Denizens led by the cold and ruthless Enlightened Yuji Sakai , with a belief that Utopia Justifies the Means , who tries to create a world where the Crimson Denizens no longer have to consume humans to survive, versus Shana's and the Flame Hazes' equally ruthless Romanticist Anti-Heroism who will do anything for the sake of protecting the Humans from being devoured by the Crimson Denizens. The Flame Hazes, eventually realizing that their current methods aren't working, give in and submit a rule the outright prevents the Crimson Denizens from consuming humans in any way, whom Yuji accepts. Judging how he succeeds in the end, this would make the series an Enlightened work.
• Elfen Lied is heavily Romanticist. Japan is just a tool of manipulation by the Kakuzawas, who are Romanticist due to their motivations being based on folk bloodlines and history. The Kakuzawas try to wipe out and replace the human race with the genetically engineered Diclonius via spreading a virus that will result in its infectees siring Silpelit Diclonius. Even the Diclonius are Romanticist, as they rely solely on their emotions and instincts (although most of the reason is due to the emotional and social abuse they experience, which results in their biological survival instinct fusing with their psychosis, which insists that humans must be eradicated or they will eradicate Diclonii) , plus the fact that civilizing them is near-impossible due to their lethal Psychic Powers , combined with the awakening of their powers occurring at a childhood age, where they cannot understand between right and wrong, effectively making them Noble Savages at best and Always Chaotic Evil at worst (with the exception being Nana). Interestingly enough, it's Lucy who ultimately goes on the side of Enlightenment as she rejects the Kakuzawas' plans to supplant humanity with the Diclonius and even calls them out over their foolish ambitions being based on legends that ultimately were never true in the first place and saying that they are no more than just humans with atavism .
• A Certain Magical Index has this as one of the central themes of the series and takes it to near-literal levels , with the Magic Side being Romanticism and the Science Side being Enlightenment. It reaches its pinnacle during World War III, and ultimately the Science Side wins, making the series more towards Enlightenment .
• Death Note is generally Romanticist in character, with Villain Protagonist Light Yagami being a Visionary Villain who wants to make the world a better place by force, which appears on the surface to be a sign of evil Enlightenment. And by the end (especially in the anime), several characters (and the authors) simply point out that he's only doing what he does to satisfy his own ego and madness; he's actually a Romantic figure, and his support for the Enlightenment is just self-delusion. His main adversaries, meanwhile, are non-ideological and are essentially fighting him because that's what they do; while they disagree with Light, that's not really why they're fighting him. As a final note, it's worth noting that the actual Enlightenment voices in the show (Chief Yagami and courageous news reporter Koki Tanakabara ) both come across extremely well in their support of the lawful actions of the police force and the constitutional government of Japan.
• Sailor Moon is extremely Romantic, albeit a very idealistic and optimistic version. The heroines are reincarnated heroines from the lost Silver Millenium, led by a princess , they fight for and with The Power of Love , and their destiny is to create a beautiful new Crystal Tokyo in the future under a new Queen Serenity. The latter in particular has proven ripe fodder for many a Deconstruction Fic or plain old Dark Fic .
• Psycho-Pass is complicated. The society built around the Sibyl System is an Enlightened Totalitarian Utilitarian state where people are imprisoned or killed based on their likelihood of committing crimes rather than on anything that they do, but the system generally seems to work pretty well (except where it doesn't), to the point where people are more likely to die from too little stress in their lives than from criminal activity. By contrast, the Romanticist villain Makeshima wants to bring down this system and release humans to follow their natures; he and all of his minions, however, are Serial Killers , and he in particular is a complete sociopath. Neither side is good , but Akane, the protagonist, turns out to be very strongly Enlightened indeed. In the ending, she decides that she'll work with the Sibyl System, but someday humans will come up with a better solution and pull the plug on it .
• Black Bullet leans heavily towards the enlightenment side. One of the main themes is that humanity lives in a Crapsack World where Gastrea destroyed most of humanity and cursed children live with constant discrimination and racism. The protagonist wish to destroy the Gastrea and want to reform society to create a better life for both humanity and cursed children. In particular, Seitenshi serves as a Martin Luther King Jr. type figure who wants to implement civil rights for the cursed children and wishes to reunite humanity and cursed children in society to defeat the Gastrea. The protagonist, Rentaro Satomi, also share the same goals with Seitenshi, as he's a utilitarian who does not want to see anyone suffering and want to bring happiness to the cursed children's lives that they never had. Interestingly enough, Rentaro's partner and cursed child Initiator, Enju Aihara, falls into both sides of the spectrum note  Enju also shares the same goals with Rentaro and Seitenshi and wanted to use her abilities to defeat the Gastrea, but she has strong beliefs of love and forgiveness and that hope that one day, her love and compassion for everyone will hope that humanity will accept her kind.
• The Lyrical Nanoha series overall is not even subtle about being on Team Enlightenment. The Administrative Bureau and the Mid-Childan society in general are a futuristic utopia based on cooperation and reason, while the Belkan civilization (whole dangerous legacy the Mid-Childans still have to deal with) had been firmly rooted in romanticized chivalry and warfare. The title character takes to the Mid-Childan culture immediately, while her opponents throughout the seasons are either driven (mad) by passion or blinded by their notion of honor and generally try to go it alone. She usually manages to pull at least some of them over to her side by the end of the respective season, and thus far only Force has introduced what appears to be an Enlightenment-style Visionary Villain (although he hadn't received much characterization before the series was put on ice).
• Stellvia of the Universe lives so far off the Enlightenment edge of the scale, you can't even see the Romanticism end from where it stands. The series is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, but the devastation was a natural catastrophe, not anything created by civilization — on the contrary, science and technology, powered by the remnants of humanity banding together, had carried the latter out of stone age back into space era in mere two centuries after the catastrophe, and now, the technological progress of united mankind is their best hope of surviving another impending (natural) apocalypse. The sole prominent Romantic element is the character of Ayaka Machida, who rejects the ideals of Enlightenment in her pursuit of personal passions and flaws, and ends up hurting a lot of people before her actions catch up with her and nearly end up ruining her as well. In the end, she is redeemed by overcoming her lone wolf nature and embracing cooperation and others' company.
• The Red Ribbon Army employs various forms of weapons and other technology (e.g. Battle Jackets ) to achieve their goal of getting the Dragon Balls to fulfill Commander Red's goal, which they believe to be world domination, but actually he just wants to be a few inches taller . Everyone the Red Ribbon Army throws at Goku is defeated with ease and are only able to inflict a defeat on him when they hire the mercenary Tao Pai Pai, an assassin who also has extensive martial arts expertise. Also amusing to note that one of the creations of the Red Ribbon Army, Android 8 (who has a resemblance to the creature from Frankenstein (see literature below)), developed his own free will and decided against serving his creators and instead to protect people and nature from the RRA.
• King Piccolo, as a Contrasting Sequel Antagonist , is far more Romanticist in outlook. In addition to restoring his youth via the Dragon Balls, he simply seeks to rule the world as a king with no other sort of ideological agenda (e.g. seeking to create a utopia, claiming the supremacy of one ethnic group over another, etc.). He also claims to be a demon (though later revealed to be of an alien race known as Namekians) and proudly wears his disinterest in modernity on his sleeve. He was the greatest threat that Goku and co. fought against when he first appeared because he had extensive martial arts skills and training in addition to his immense power instead of relying on technology. His son, Piccolo, by contrast eventually reveals himself as a good example of Romanticism ( Rousseau Was Right ) after training and caring for his ex-opponents' son that brings about a Heel–Face Turn .
• The Frieza Force is highly set into Enlightenment based on their use of various forms of high technology, such as scouters, healing pods, and spacecraft (in the case of the latter, those were far more advanced than anything that Earth had at the time of Raditz's introduction). While Frieza and his underlings tend to be smug when comparing themselves against the Z-fighters and Vegeta because of high opinion of their superior technology, this ends up leading to their defeat. Numerous times, the villains end up losing because they miscalculate the ability of their opponents by their power levels alone, not accounting for skill or tactics, or the fact that the characters learn to recognize this and trick their opponents by hiding their power. The few exceptions in the Frieza Force are Vegeta and his squadmates (Nappa and Raditz), who are Romanticist (Being motivated by the pride of their race and also among the few henchmen of the Frieza Force who are after their own goals instead of being obedient cogs in the machine of Frieza's Empire). Fittingly, Vegeta also survives to become a decent person as part of a long running Heel–Face Turn .
• Androids 17 and 18 are irreverent joy seekers who couldn't care less about what authority figures (Dr. Gero included as he found out the hard way ) expect of them (and arguably during this time could be considered Byronic heroes of sorts). Android 16, like Android 8 mentioned earlier, initially follows his programming, but manages to gain an appreciation of nature and thus decides to fight against Cell to prevent him from destroying the Earth and all the people and animals that inhabit it. Though in later sagas, 17 and 18 grow out of their states of delinquency, with the former becoming a wild life ranger who protects endangered animals from poachers and the latter becoming a wife and mother.
• Some of the Majin Buu saga's antagonists are more romanticist-derived in their mindsets, thus making this another Romantic vs Romantic conflict. While Babidi and his minions have no particular philosophy, the titular Majin Buu of this story arc displays certain romanticist ideals. The first form that is shown, Fat Buu (sometimes called Innocent Buu), is like a young child that has not been raised to know right and wrong and thus is oblivious to how others are hurt in his path of destruction (of which he continues even after killing Babidi). Mr. Satan ( AKA Hercule ) manages to get him to promise to never kill again after befriending him . However, when gunmen attempt to kill Mr. Satan, Buu expels his wrathful and selfish nature into a new being , Evil Buu (of who can be considered an example of Dark Romanticism in a sense), who then absorbs the former becoming Super Buu. This Buu is someone who is fully well aware of good and evil and takes sadistic pleasure, in killing, torturing, and, in the case of some of his victims, eating whoever comes in his way. However, when Super Buu and Fat Buu are defused, Buu then turns into a being of pure animalistic instinct known as Kid Buu, who is not acting under any sort of civilized notion of morality at all.
• Zamasu and Goku Black are solid examples of the worst kinds of outlook of some Enlightenment thinkers . Upon seeing both the barbaric nature of some mortals , despite the gods granting sapience to them choose not to live that way , as well as how powerful some mortals have become, Zamasu decides that all mortals most be destroyed in order to make a "peaceful" universe where only the gods would reside free of chaos and mortal evil . While other antagonists have committed destructive acts of villainy, The Zamases are portrayed as particularly monstrous, based on Zamasu and Goku Black's warped view of justice that ticks off even the usually kind and forgiving Goku.
• The various teams that compete in the Tournament of Power during the Universe Survival Saga run the gamut between these philosophies. While the teams from Universes 4, 9, and 10 do not represent any particular ideology, the teams of Universes 2, 6, and 7 are mostly Romantic (with some individual exceptions) while those from Universes 3 and 11 are Enlightenment. Most of Universe 2's fighters are devoted to Love and Beauty (per their Magical Girl parody with especial mention to the Maiden Squadron), while those of their counterpart universes 6 and 7 embody various aspects of instinct and rugged individualism. The fighters of Universe 3 consist of various cyborgs, robots, and a Mad Scientist . The Pride Troopers of the Universe 11 are superheroes who hold strict views of Justice and are apathetic to emotional appeals, especially from lawbreakers, and thus only regard fighting and victory as a means to an end rather than any sort of test of skill and strength and certainly not any sort of sport to be enjoyed . Though Universes 3 and 11 were among the last three in the fight, they still fail to defeat Universe 7's fighters, given that they had a balance of both rugged individualism, swift improvisation, and trust between each other in order to outlast everyone else and win the battle royale.
• The Broly story arc, as shown in Dragon Ball Super: Broly , displays some other Romantic ideals. Broly has been raised on a deserted planet, only accompanied by his father Paragus. As a result, he is a socially awkward Noble Savage who doesn't act based on the motives of other civilized members of the Frieza Force (e.g. greed, hubris, hatred towards particular groups of people). By contrast, Frieza and Paragus are acting out of their respective grudges against the heroes and thus manipulate Broly into being a weapon to serve that end. Notably, Goku even says about Broly that he isn't a bad guy and wishes he wouldn't be working with the two aforementioned villains. However, Frieza does exploit the Saiyans' emotion-derived power by shooting Paragus in the chest and then claiming to Broly that a stray blast killed his father in order to trigger Broly's transformation into a Super Saiyan. When Broly and his companions are visited by Goku after the battle on earth, the former shows no sort of ill will while Goku offers capsules with some amenities to them and extends a hand of friendship.
• In Dragon Ball GT , the Shadow Dragons to some extent represent a Romantic mindset. They are created as a result of the overuse of the Dragon Balls, of which Bulma's creation of the Dragon Radar contributed to this by making them easier to find and use, and thus unleash a sort of Gaia's Vengeance on the human race for their collective misuse of this supernatural resource.
• The only time where Cabanel rebelled against the Movement's conventions was during his formative years. When he painted The Fallen Angel as a student, his technique was not yet the absolute perfection the Academy demanded and his imprinting of emotions was deemed more appropriate for Romanticism than for Academicism.
• The Authority : Strongly Pro-Enlightenment. This is typically expressed in that they tend to have a strong degree of cynicism along the lines of British tradition, but it is born of their disappointment towards society failing to meet their Ideals. Team Romanticism is usually represented by Marvel Comics ersatzes who get thoroughly beaten .
• Captain America is Captain Patriotic in the Enlightenment tradition, he defends values and ideals and embodies them as best as he can in a rapidly changing world and commands leadership by consent and consensus rather than simply being the most powerful and charismatic of them all.
• The Vigilante heroes of Spider-Man , The Punisher and Daredevil are as a rule more romantic than Marvel's Team Heroes. Within them, Spider-Man is more Enlightened than the latter two, since he sees superhero careers as responsibilities and a daily struggle to balance both to the best of his abilities, while the latter two see crime-fighting as a personal crusade, rooted in trauma and personal demons.
• While X-Men have an Enlightened crusade of equal rights and social justice, their appeal as outsiders who are different from society attract many Romantic types. Wolverine is perhaps the most romantic figure in the Marvelverse, with his Dark and Troubled Past , Heathcliff-like looks and charm and Byronic Hero Lone Wolf nature. Magneto is likewise a Tragic Villain in the Romantic mould.
• In the Fantastic Four , the conflict between Reed Richards and Doctor Doom. Both are brilliant scientists but the latter is a Mad Scientist dictator who combines magic with sorcery and promotes Intellectually Supported Tyranny (Romantic) while Reed Richards represents the Enlightenment.
• Superman's enemies are generally motivated by rational (if evil) goals such as Take Over the World / Take Over the City /despotism and representative of some form of tyranny which Superman wants to oppose. Batman's enemies however are largely Insane Equals Violent who commit crimes for no rational reasons and render any attempt to reason or reform them a complete joke, with that most romantic of tropes, Bedlam House becoming a Cardboard Prison .
• Likewise, Batman is largely a loner who broods in a castle with only a loyal retainer as his near-equal (in other words not quite equal), fitting the Byronic Hero archetype well what his messy self-destructive love life and passive-aggressive arm's-length dynamic with his sidekicks, whereas Superman is extroverted in both his superhero and civilian identities, usually engages in long-term relationships and friendships and is loyal to his roots and community.
• Of course Superman is bestowed with the Superpower Lottery from birth and is a Romantic figure of optimism and progress, while Batman despite being a billionaire (and essentially as advantaged as Superman in the eyes of the ordinary man) is a Badass Normal who mastered all known physical and scientific skills and stands out across all comics as the only major hero without superpowers or Powered Armor , or other gimmicks (Enlightenment). Likewise, Batman is a detective, someone who uses reason to pursue the truth.
• Broadly the difference between Alan Moore 's Watchmen and Frank Miller 's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns . Watchmen is on the Enlightenment side, exploring superheroes Warts and All but ultimately criticizing What Measure Is a Non-Super? and Deconstructing the idea of superheroes as power fantasies. Miller is Romantic, believing that even in a modern post-apocalyptic Reaganite America, Batman can have a great deal of appeal as an anti-Establishment myth and figure despite the changing sociopolitical landscape.
• Olivier Rameau: The land of Reverose is at the extreme end of the romantic side - to the point that incursions by elements of the Enlightenment side are often treated as existential threats.
• Aquaman and Sub-Mariner are an Alternate Company Equivalent to one another and occupy opposite sides of the Romanticism vs Enlightenment spectrum. Aquaman is Enlightenment and was originally conceived as a human adapted to underwater life via scientific means, and while his origins have changed since, he more often than not showcases the beauty and wonder of the sea and its inhabitants, with Atlanteans being humans adapted to living undersea in Crystal Spires and Togas . Namor, by contrast, was a Half-Human Hybrid and a Villain Protagonist at the start, his Atlanteans were merpeople hostile to outsiders, and he represents the lurking terror and unknown quantity of the sea, functioning as Romantic. This also extends to their personalities, especially early on, with Aquaman being written as a curious bookworm and trickster who did things for the sake of it, while Namor was a hot-tempered Byronic Hero who did things out of duty or because he'd been crossed.
• The Conversion Bureau can go both ways. In one way, it's the High Fantasy -oriented ponies with their sing-song idealism , magic and value-based society that may seem like the Romanticist faction opposing the advanced, yet environmentally decrepit and immoral 20 Minutes into the Future Enlightened humanity, but the variation comes at a second glance when the humans try to defend their own idealistic, though conservative and debatably outdated values against the progressive but terribly pragmatic process of ponification .
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is a huge advocate of Enlightenment. The protagonist, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, is a rationalist who grew up with enlightenment ideals. The writer, Eliezer Yudkowsky , is the founder of Less Wrong , a blog dedicated to rational thinking. Within the fanfic, Dumbledore represents the Romanticism, while Harry represents Enlightenment. Harry drifts away from the modern form of Enlightenment to the classic one over time; his goals stay the same, but his methods change from free thinking and experiment to revelation and epiphany.
• Scar's Samsara is heavily focused on this philosophical conflict, just like the above. Here, Scar is the one who's trying to bring enlightenment ideals into the Pridelands, while Mufasa and the established order try to resist him. Most rational stories feature this to some extent.
• The Last Ringbearer has the democratic, technology-using and highly-enlightened human civilisation of Mordor vs. the backwards, arrogant, racist elves who want to enslave/exterminate humanity and stop all technological progress forever. You'll never guess which side of the dynamic the writer is on .
• The conflict between The Emperor (Enlightenment) and the citizens of Equestria (Romanticism) in the Legends of Equestria continuity is clearly one of these. The Emperor favors a completely technology-driven society, built on the principles of mechanization and a rigid social structure. The inherent ideals of the ponies instead favor a more communal and friendly society.
• In Nosflutteratu , Pinkie Pie helps Twilight resolve her dilemma by tricking her into thinking with her heart, not her head.
• Coppola's The Godfather is Romantic, painting the Gangster family as modern day Renaissance Princes and their crime business in a benign light. The Corleone family is shown as a loving family despite their criminal enterprise. The Don has a code of Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters and he wants good kids . Michael Corleone asserts to Kay, the Audience Surrogate , that fundamentally gangsters are no different from politicians, businessmen or any other man who is responsible for other people. The Corleone crime enterprise is used as a dark metaphor for The American Dream and the overall contradiction of immigrant families assimilating, symbolized by Michael's desire for the family to get into legitimate businesses, which elevates him into a Tragic Villain and Byronic Hero .
• Scorsese's vision is Enlightenment. He sees gangsters in Mean Streets , GoodFellas and Casino as hoodlums with Delusions of Eloquence , poor street kids who fall into the criminal life because of poor homes, Abusive Parents and lack of opportunity. The Mob bosses seem Affably Evil and Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters but that's just for show, in the end, everyone is Only in It for the Money and for the sake of it they will kill their friends, rat on each other, destroy themselves. The most violent street hoodlums will be the first to be disposed and often in the messiest of ways to Make an Example of Them , while the ones with cleaner hands, walk away with absolutely nothing to show for themselves, at the end of it all.
• For the most part, the franchise is a thoroughly romanticist work: while nominally a science-fiction story, it is heavily inspired by high fantasy, with its Wagner-flavored music and the focus on larger-than-life heroes that are far above the common man thanks to an innate superpower (Force sensitivity). This is no more sharply contrasted than in the lush, vibrant Scenery Porn of the Old Republic and the cold, utilitarian appearance of The Empire .
• However, the franchise is also one of the most well-known examples of Good Republic, Evil Empire (an Enlightenment trope), and when it comes to the Jedi and the Sith, the roles are reversed: the Republic/Rebellion-aligned Jedi preach stoicism and rationality (Enlightenment), while the Empire-aligned Sith preach letting one's emotions, especially anger, run wild (Romanticism).
• In the Star Wars Legends continuity, Luke decides that Both Sides Have a Point , and seeks to unite both Enlightenment reason and Romantic emotion into the New Jedi Order, most notably by lifting the old Order's ban on romantic love.
• It's unsurprising that Star Wars straddles the divide so thoroughly, given that it's based on a Japanese story ( The Hidden Fortress ) and Chinese philosophy ( Taoism , which strives for balance, not one side over another), thus distancing it (somewhat) from the European heritage this page is focused on.
• Jurassic Park . The owner was a believer in Enlightenment reason with the cloned dinos, while the Romantic heroes sensibly pointed out the various problems in his park. This is purely an invention of the films; in the books the owner had no apparent philosophical stance at all and the Enlightened heroes sensibly pointed out the various problems in his park.
• Fight Club is Romanticist, as befits anything based on the heavily Nietzschean -influenced work of Chuck Palahniuk . Palahniuk's novels often uses a Crapsack World to show the flaws of Team Enlightenment, have some Team Romantic protagonists show up and reject it, then break the protagonists into bits by the end of the novel. This certainly happened to the narrator of Fight Club , everyone in Haunted (2005) , and the protagonists of Choke and Invisible Monsters . In both the film and book of Fight Club , the narrator ultimately rejects Tyler Durden's hyper-romantic goals, though the denouement is radically different in the film and movie.
• Demolition Man has Dr. Raymond Cocteau on the side of Team Enlightenment, as a totalitarian technocrat creating the city of San Angeles as overly sanitized, rational, morally upright, detached from base passions, and politically correct. On the other hand, La Résistance leader Edgar Friendly, as well as both protagonist John Spartan and antagonist Simon Phoenix, are all Team Romanticism, opposing Cocteau's totalitarian technocracy as a fight for freedom (Friendly), on Classical Liberal principle (Spartan), or out of sheer disgust (Phoenix).
• I, Robot has Romanticist elements. The hero bemoans the replacement of the cottage industry by robotic industry, and muses that he might be the "last sane person" on earth. The robot apocalypse is written to be the result of logic. The goal, ending humanity's wars and self-destruction, is noble, yet the only reason given for the particular choice of solution (totalitarian uprising) to that problem is the word "logic".
• The Bridge on the River Kwai features this clash, although it is thoroughly subverted: Colonel Nicholson of Team Enlightenment believes so passionately in law and order that he ends up turning to Honor Before Reason , and collaborating with his Japanese captors in order to stay in command of his men. The wild, defiant Warden , representing Romanticism, ultimately behaves more rationally. At least compared to the Colonel. But the other contrast in the movie is between Nicholson and Shears. In this contrast, Shears represents the Enlightenment as he pursues his goals of survival and defeating the enemy by whatever rational means are effective. Nicholson, on the other hand, is the Romantic who puts the concept of honor ahead of those other goals.
• Sherlock Holmes (2009) has Sherlock being largely pro-Enlightenment, in favor of reason, logic, and democratic government, and the movie's villain, Lord Blackwood, being largely pro-Romanticism, in favor of mysticism, monarchism, and a return to older ways of doing things. Seeing that Holmes is a hero protagonist, it seems obvious to say that the movie is pro-Enlightenment. However, Holmes is a freewheeling Bohemian who enjoys the arts alongside his other pursuits, while Blackwood is a fraud who wants to impose a new order of his making over the people of Britain. The actual answer is more complex than it at first seems.
• True Grit is a movie about the End of the West, and Mattie firmly takes the side of Enlightenment. Rooster Cogburn is very Romanticist, as are most of the Ned Pepper gang, and La Boeuf is somewhere in the middle, trying to be Enlightenment but with a few Romanticist hang-ups.
• Equilibrium is a clearly Romanticist work, as it is about an evil futuristic society where emotion is outlawed, and the extreme Enlightenment idea of suppressing all emotion through technology is definitely shown as wrong. However, the ending, while portrayed positively, never exactly comes clear on whether restoring human emotion is a good thing.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl has an odd case of this (let's ignore the fact that the setting is actually when Enlightenment was just getting into its stride and Romanticism hadn't been born yet — the series is famous for its Anachronism Stew in more obvious ways). The very Romantic Elizabeth and Will struggle against the Enlightenment mentality of her father and presumed future husband, and... actually comes out the winner. The implication of the whole story is that Enlightenment is sensible, but wrong, and Romanticism is silly, but happens to be right (a Sparrowvian sentiment if ever there was one...).
• Johnny Mnemonic is romanticist even for cyberpunk. Electronics are giving people neurological disorders and a pharmaceutical megacorp is withholding the cure, which the LoTeks want to steal and distribute. And then there's Johnny's own goal of having his wetware removed so he can regain his childhood memories.
• Interstellar : the teaser trailer presents a rather Romanticist view of space travel - "because our destiny lies above us."
• An element of Into the Storm (2009) . For example, it is the gist of the Halifax VS Churchill debate. Halifax (pro-enlightenment) is proposing a pragmatic way out for the British Empire to remain, while Churchill (pro-romanticism) is priorizing honor and duty instead of survival.
• The American Civil War , as seen by Gone with the Wind , is all about this conflict. The movie is on the side of the Confederacy, which it associates with Romanticism, and title cards glory in comparing the quasi-feudal Old South to an idealized view of medieval Europe (in full Purple Prose , of course). As Gone with the Wind would have it, the Civil War was all about the Enlightened North bringing modern, industrialized destruction to the fragile Romanticist South with its Good Old Ways . The ironic tragedy of it all, from the perspective of the film, is that it was precisely because of their outdated Romanticist view of war that the Confederate soldiers rushed off to fight an Enlightened enemy whom they could not have possibly defeated.
• Monsters and fear can be conquered with technology, knowledge, and guts. When a literal Physical God comes back and threatens Armageddon, it gets its ass handed to it by four guys with tools they made themselves and knowledge they gathered for themselves. There's no attempt to use magic against Gozer; it is defeated by science and reason. The subtext here is almost inescapable.
• Furthermore, the technology involved doesn't require you to be special to wield it. The boys aren't the chosen saviors of mankind ; they're three scientists and the hired help who figured out something through study, developed a technology, and used it to solve the problem. Once they come up with the central technology, a normal guy like Winston can use it and even develop himself (in the Expanded Universe ) to become an expert and invaluable teammate.
• The premise itself is very much Team Enlightenment. Gozer isn't beaten with mysticism or magic. Knowledge, courage, and technology will suffice. Gozer represents the romantic view, with its ancient past, the terror dogs, the symbolism pulled from myth, and its mystic plot to return via an over-convoluted fertility rite.
• The busters themselves only passingly reference religion, with Ray saying of God only he's "Never met him." Winston alone professes faith, but he confronts Gozer with technology, not religion or magic.
• The Real Ghostbusters expanded on the idea that enlightened ideas of reason and knowledge beat back our fears. Egon is the primary brains behind the technology. Why did he do it? Because he was menaced by the Bogeyman as a kid, motivating him to apply his intellect and reason to understand and best the things that scared him.
• Zig-Zagging Trope in Brotherhood of the Wolf . The titular Brotherhood are Catholic aristocrats using the Beast of Gévaudan as a way of putting the fear of God back into the French populace and increasing the power of the Church over the King. The Hero , Grégoire de Fronsac, is a naturalist fighting for Enlightenment principles, and is able to deduce the real nature of the Beast early on. However his sidekick Mani is a legitimate Magical Native American whose healing powers turn out to be real , and the Brotherhood ends up being brought down by the Vatican itself. The Bookends also shows an older Marquis d'Apcher about to be guillotined by a mob during the Reign of Terror brought about by those same Enlightenment ideas. He accepts his fate with fatalism as a casualty of the death of the old world that The Conspiracy tried to preserve.
• Gattaca 's soulless eugenicist dystopia represents the Enlightenment run amok, but the plucky hero manages to succeed where "science" says he should fail due to his inferior genes. The tagline, "There Is No Gene for the Human Spirit", sums up the Romanticist message.
• Pacific Rim wears its Team Enlightenment badge proudly on its sleeve. The very first opening lines could serve as the team anthem, in fact: "There are things you can't fight, acts of God. You see a hurricane coming, you have to get out of the way. But when you're in a Jaeger , suddenly, you can fight the hurricane. You can win ."
• In the Polish book and movie series Przygody Pana Kleksa (Eng. The Adventures of Mr. Inkblot) this is the conflict between Mr. Inkblot and the Grand Electronic, the former is essentially a cross between Dumbledore and Mary Poppins while the latter wants to turn the entire universe into a Mechanistic Alien Culture .
• Nightfall (1988) : Aton represents Enlightenment through his optimism and scientific devotion, while Sor represents Romanticism through his doomsaying and religious devotion. The film itself pulls firmly towards Romanticism by having Sor be unquestioned in his authority while Aton's supporters undermine him by insisting science is fiction and betraying him to Sor. It also shows Aton's over-indulging in lust/love through his obsession over "that woman".
• The Sun Is Also a Star : This roughly describes Daniel and Natasha's views. He believes in fate and just going with your feelings. She believes you should analyze things and go by what science shows to be true. Despite this, they both find each other attractive, and seem to learn from each other.
• At first, the premise is fairly Enlightenment. The villain, Rafael Montero, is a Spanish colonial governor and aristocrat, wedded to the old ways and firmly believing in his right to rule the peasants, who's chased out of office by the Mexican War of Independence. The hero, Diego De La Vega, opposes him, fights for the people he oppresses, and seems supportive of said revolution - at any rate, he expects that it'll allow him to hang up his cape, since there'll be no more need of Zorro once the Spanish are gone. However;
• The villain actually takes to the new system fairly well. On his way out, he gifts the Crown's lands to the local gentry, ensuring the survival and dominance of his social class into the new order. Upon his return, he hatches a plan to buy California from the Mexican government that very nearly succeeds. Whether as a Crown governor in New Spain, or a budding robber-baron in Mexico, he generally finds ways to manipulate the system for his own ends.
• The movie pretty much confirms his cynical view that nothing changes ("the Spanish oppressed you, the Mexicans ignored you, the dons seem content merely to cheat and lie to you"). The California we see in the 1840s is as class-ridden as ever, the few soldiers we see are corrupt or incompetent, and the Mexican government seems to have no presence there. All in line with the Romanticist skepticism of progress.
• Finally, while Diego's concern for the peasantry, opposition to aristocratic oppression, and sympathy for the revolution can all be viewed as Enlightenment values, the way he expresses that is purely Romantic - as an outlaw, an individualist, and a folk hero, single-handedly doing what's right to defy the corrupt system.
• The sequel follows the same example. Once again, it's set against a major historical change (this time the admission of California to the Union as a free state) which teases the possibility that Zorro might be able to retire and leave things in the hands of a newer and more just government. Once again, that hope is proven wrong and Zorro needs to pick up his cape again to stop a new threat to California. Notably, when the representatives of the new system (the Pinkertons) show up, it's a disappointment - they're on the side of the "good guys," but still villainous and ultimately ineffective, requiring Zorro the Romantic outlaw hero to clean up after them.
• Clara : Clara is spiritual, carefree and sees meaning in the universe's patterns, a positive Romantic view. Isaac is a strict materialist, uptight and insists such patterns are random, as a negative Enlightened view.
• Love at First Bite has this as its central conflict. It is first represented by the Count (Romanticism) being kicked out by the government (Enlightenment). Thereafter Enlghtenment is represented by Van Helsing. This being a movie that sides with Romanticism, the Enlightenment side is presented as dry, dull, and passionless.
• My Dinner with Andre : If the film can be said to have a Central Theme , it is this. Andre is Romantic, talking about a taking part in a series of experimental theatre projects that facilliated a spiritual awakening in him. Wally is Enlightened, prefering a more calm, comfortable life bolstered by science (especially electric blankets). Neither is presented as being right, but the last moments of the film suggest Wally has taken Andre's words to heart.
• The Last Samurai : Combined with Soldier Versus Warrior . Katsumoto and his followers fight for a traditionalist and spiritual worldview as an Elite Army of Samurai against materialist, Repressive, but Efficient Westernisers (personified by the wealthy merchant Omura) who use armies of conscripts with rifles and artillery. All of Katsumoto's followers besides Algren die in the final battle but they are successful in proving that classic Japanese values must be respected. Which was probably their goal all along.
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is about classicism (enlightenment) vs romanticism.
• Andrew Miller's Pure is set just before the French Revolution, before the days of Romanticism, but deals with basically this conflict. Should we sweep away the past and look rationally towards a better future, or is history too much a part of us, societally and emotionally?
• On one level, These Words Are True and Faithful can be read as an allegory of enlightenment versus romanticism. Team Enlightenment includes Sam (major character) and Rob, Nathan, Tracy, and Jack (secondary characters), while Team Romanticism includes Ernie (major character) and Cassilda, Danny, Saul, and the pastor (secondary characters). Debbie is initially a fence-sitter but eventually joins Team Enlightenment. The last chapter hints at a reconciliation of the two.
• In one Guy de Maupassant short story, a young woman and her grandmother represent respectively, the Romanticist mindset of her generation, and the Ancien Régime Enlightenment. They clash their views about love and marriage, with the granddaughter stating that one can love only once, marriage is sacred and cheating spouses should be harshly punished. The grandmother (a noble lady from before the revolution) argues that love is sacred, marriage is just a social convention, love can and should be looked for outside marriage and that is natural to have multiple loves during one's lifetime. She then admonished her granddaughter that holding such dogmatic views would make her an unhappy woman.
• Lord of the Rings is often read as a pro-Romanticist parable on the evils of industrialization. Which is what it is...except when it's not. J.R.R.T. was a much more subtle and sophisticated thinker than that, and his view was that both 'Reformers' (liberals, social planners, industrialists, Progress, Enlightenment) and 'Embalmers' (reactionaries, clinging to the past for its own sake, close-minded, Romantics) were flip sides of the same bad thing, and both tendencies could be and were used by Melkor (the master of Evil) and his servant Sauron in their plots. The creation of the Rings of Power, for example, combined a Romantic desire to preserve the past and stop change with an Enlightenment faith in the power of Reason and Science and Logic to make the progression of time stop. Sauron played the Elves like a piano using both tropes, and thus brought about the creation of the Rings. Likewise, there was good in both the Enlightenment and Romanticism, and this too was shown to be true among those characters in the story who remained at least partly uncorrupted and loyal to God.
• Rudyard Kipling is an example of both the good and bad sides of Enlightenment— he genuinely thought Western imperialism was helping the non-Western "savages" , but tended to express that in a way we now perceive as condescending at best and racist at worst. He also had a romantic side to him as was expressed in his aesthetic appreciation of fishermen, soldiers, railwaymen, and all the various cultures in India. Really he was fascinated by anyone who lived differently from him.
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is distinctly Romanticist— it treats society (in the form of the Combine) as a corrupting force, suppressing and perverting emotion, and using technology to achieve its nefarious ends.
• He tended to be suspicious of Enlightenment and more Romanticist in taste. Which is interesting as Lewis had a personality closer to The Spock than The McCoy . Though in The Four Loves Lewis once snarked that no one could really learn good and evil from "a vernal wood" unless they had an idea of it before hand and that someone could draw a lesson Wordsworth would not approve of as creatures in vernal woods spend a lot of time eating each other.
• Lewis is on record, though, as saying, with regard to human relations (as contrasted to relations with other classes of being, such as beasts or God), he is a democrat because Humans Are Bastards and no individual or clique can be trusted with too much authority over their fellows. However, democracy has its own corruptions, notably "Demonic Democracy," described by Screwtape in "Screwtape Proposes a Toast," as social pressure that demands no one be excellent, since this would violate "equality."
• Screwtape, a senior devil, continually advises Wormwood to rely on deception, jargon, and emotion to keep his human from acting morally and ethically. He wants the human thinking about "That was a phase," "This makes me happy," or "That idea is courageous," rather than the more banal questions, "Is this true?" or "Is this just?" Awakening the "patient's" reason would be a terrible idea according to Screwtape, as many of the decisions of the Hell-ward road have no rational justification at all. That's as enlightenment as it can get.
• In his little-read The Pilgrim's Regress , Lewis had two allegorical characters named "Mr. Enlightenment." They were father and son, both negative figures. The father was a cocksure "village atheist" who dismissed philosophy, religion, and romanticism without looking into them, assuming we've Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions . The son was a pathological Freudian who claimed every disagreement with his position was a self-serving rationalization. "Pilgrim's Regress" is subtitled as a "defense of romanticism" (among other things). Later editions include a long postscript in which Lewis, a literature professor by trade, dissects about a dozen different meanings of "romanticism" and discusses each one.
• In Out of the Silent Planet , the villain is an Enlightenment-style evil scientist who invents a spaceship so we can invade Mars, kill off the innocent Martians, and take it as a home for humanity's descendants. The Martian races themselves are clearly a harmonious mix of Romanticism (hrossa, pfiffltriggi as artists) and Enlightenment (seroni, pfiffltriggi as technologists).
• In Perelandra , the same villain has flipped to the Romantic side, obsessed with a universal life-force that is "beyond good and evil" and getting all Byronic/Neitzschean/Wagnerian, trying to convince the heroine that rebellion against God is a good idea.
• In That Hideous Strength , the new set of villains work for an Enlightenment dystopia that will eliminate organic life and reduce humans to disembodied brains.
• In short, Lewis was less attached to either way of thought than to the idea that both should be used to serve good ends rather than bad ones.
• Dune is a peculiar take on this, viewing a society that is decidedly Romanticist from a lens that could be either Romantic or Enlightened depending on how one chooses to see Frank Herbert . On one hand, Herbert deconstructs the Robot War in the series' Backstory (the Butlerian Jihad), treating its effects realistically, but he doesn't seem to criticize the (Romanticist) premise of the trope. On the other hand, although he used—nay, made and codified —the (Romanticist) Feudal Future trope (which he presents as the logical conclusion of the changes wrought by a realistic Robot War ), he does not present the Imperium as a particularly nice place to live for most people (regardless of whether a Corrino or Atreides is on the Golden Lion Throne), and is said to have commented that ( Kevin J. Anderson 's so-called prequels notwithstanding) the series is supposed to end with the establishment of a real democracy (in other words, Good Republic, Evil Empire =Enlightened). On the whole, Herbert tended to warn against the excesses of science, but on the other hand, he never rejected it as a force for good; being that his fundamental philosophy was "environmentalism," which seeks to protect nature (Romanticism) from the excesses of industry (Enlightenment) but often uses rationalistic justifications (Enlightenment) and the tools of science (Enlightenment) to do so. The only character in his oeuvre who might be seen as an Author Avatar is Liet-Kynes (and his father Pardot), who are decidedly Enlightened in outlook (their dream is to terraform Arrakis from a desert planet into a verdant, more ordinary planet, with oceans and plants and everything). Herbert's wiser characters in Dune recognize that the Universe is too big, complex, mutable, and powerful for Englightenment logic to ever entirely encompass: in that it's Romantic. Yet science and logic and politics and reason are not bad , as long as those using them remember that they have limits that they cannot escape, and they can never entirely escape the tendency of the Universe to surprise them (in that sense, he's rather like arch-Enlightenment guy Carl Sagan ).
• The Baroque Cycle portrays some Enlightenment figures as almost latter-day superheroes.
• The Dresden Files mixes the two. At first it appears to lean heavily towards Romanticism, with Dresden being an archetypal Byronic Hero with inherent superhuman powers, a kne-jerk reaction to authority and a Knight Errant mentality, making several disparaging comments towards modern science and technology. It's even built into the setting. Magic can easily disrupt modern technology. However, as the books go on, they lean not pro-Enlightenment, with Dresden's fight being against frequently monarchic and old-fashioned supernatural enemies that see humans as potential food or slaves and seek to dominate them feudal style (albeit from the shadows). He also demonstrates an increased appreciation for the capacities of mortal tech, especially in combat, noting that most supernaturals don't appreciate just how powerful and dangerous humanity has become - Though he notes with satisfaction that even the biggest and baddest supernatural bad guys don't act openly because they're scared of the humans they deride. He even stops once or twice to wax lyrical about things like satnavs and planes, about how cool they really are. Hell, he even develops a better relationship with authority.
• Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time can have multiple interpretations but no matter how you cut it, comes off on the side of Romanticism.
• H. P. Lovecraft , pioneer of the extremely cynical, Romanticist and Gothic Horror -laden Cosmic Horror Story genre, did like modern astronomy, and took a stance that's closer to Enlightenment (not the idealistic kind, but more similar to the British tradition that tended towards the Humans Are Bastards perspective). He also had an oddly Romantic view of the Enlightenment itself, often styling himself as an Victorian gentleman of leisure. This is in contrast to fellow Weird Tales contributor Robert E. Howard , who was certainly a die-hard Romantic who believed civilization was an aberration; obviously, this discussion came up often in their correspondence.
• On the whole the series subverts a lot of fantasy and chivalric tropes by presenting a very cool Enlightenment view on feudal traditions, militarism, government and ideology, by emphasizing a heavy sense of Realpolitik . However at the same time, Martin does empathize and identify with those who do believe or are inspired by romantic tropes (such as Brienne, Davos, Dunk, Arya Stark, Samwell, Jon Snow and Sansa) who come to value and hold on to these ideals in the face of violence and extremism, because in a world without ideals, it's up to people to define and embody them to give it any meaning .
• In a romantic work, the magical faction would be right with the non-magical Measuring the Marigolds type shown to be wrong; in an enlightenment work, it would be the reverse. In the books, magic always comes at a price, is likened to Cosmic Horror and the people who practise magic (such as Melisdanre and Moqorro) have Blue-and-Orange Morality and despite having genuine powers are shown to have limited understanding over their own magic. The non-magical scholarly folks are shown to be lackeys of the ruling classes, Too Clever by Half , tend to belittle and marginalize the genuinely curious and knowledgable. Then there's Qyburn, an Ex-Maester who brings a scientific spirit of inquiry to the study of magic and becomes a competent doctor and a Necromancer who harvests the dead and the living, showing that mixing the tropes might not work. Ultimately both the magical and non-magical folks have a very limited understanding of the world and forces beyond their control.
• The contenders for the Iron Throne invoke a lot of romantic justifications for their cause. Balon Greyjoy (and later Euron), as well as Robb Stark Appeal to Tradition , reviving dead titles, and past glory, rather than remain in the unified 7 Kingdoms. Daenerys Targaryen believes that the throne belongs to her by right of blood since her father's throne was usurped, and whose tyranny she is generally in denial about. Renly Baratheon believes that since everyone likes him, and since he commands a large force he should be King, law of succession be damned. Stannis Baratheon is Team Enlightenment, in that he seeks to restore rule of law, order and reform Westeros, wants the Throne because of his legal claim and duty. He also agrees with his Hand that, "A King protects his people, or he is no true King at all."
• Shadows of the Apt has the magical and highly traditional Inapt races (Romantic) and the forward-minded, technologically-oriented Apt races (Enlightenment).
• The Uplift series is an unusual example, essentially every alien race in the series is more technologically advanced than Earthclan, but they are utterly stagnant due to all their technology coming from the Library handed down from their ancestral species . Whereas humans prefer to use as much technology that they developed themselves as possible and have often used their interest in scientific advancement to their advantage.
• In The Postman the Holnists represent romanticism with their campaign of conquest aimed at making themselves the feudal lords of post-apocalyptic America, while Gordon's reformed United States and Cyclops represent enlightenment. This was something of a Take That! directed towards After the End books which seemed to romanticize the fall of civilization, with Brin noting pointedly how bad a life like that would be, and everything we'd miss.
• Also a central theme of Brin's most recent novel, Existence . The new aristocracy consider the enlightenment a failed experiment and seek to return humanity to a form of feudalism (after all 99% of human societies couldn't be wrong, could they?) and the often allied Renunciators want to restrict technological progress. Meanwhile others attempt to create artificial sapience or revive the neanderthals. The Artifact exacerbates the argument, especially when it turns out that the emissaries' species are all extinct, the Renunciators insist that technology must have killed them while the elites jockey for opportunities to upload themselves into the Artifact copies (and for their troubles get tricked into becoming part of a solar system spanning telescope)
• Chuck Palahniuk's novels, mentioned under Film, usually feature a strong criticism of the Enlightenment with their Crapsack World settings. The protagonists then wind up to be strongly Romantic individuals who are terribly messed up, often as a result of their Romanticist views. For example, Fight Club may be taken as a testosterone-fueled criticism of modern life, but the protagonist winds up rejecting everything his Sensei for Scoundrels hoped to do, shoots himself in the face to try to undo his plans to shake modern society, and winds up committed to an asylum. Haunted (2005) is a set of short stories critical of the world of Enlightenment interlaced with the Romantic-heavy physical and moral breakdown of the jerkasses who wrote them. diary features a protagonist whose Romanticism essentially makes her powerless while the Enlightenment world around her wrecks her life and Romantic forces push her towards a supernatural disaster her Enlightenment intellect can't save her from and haven't been able to save her from for two previous cycles of reincarnation. Phew.
• William Morris , with his utter disdain for 19th century industrialism and visions of rural idylls based on simple craftsmen making beautiful things, falls firmly into the Romantic camp. News from Nowhere was explicitly written as a Romantic response to Edward Bellamy's pro-Enlightenment Looking Backward , which Morris found stiflingly industrial, favoring a more "back to nature" agrarian communist utopia .
• Brave New World : The technocratic Totalitarian Utilitarian Free-Love Future World State is a dystopian deconstruction of the Enlightenment utilitarian post-scarcity utopia; everyone's basic biological pleasures are provided for by the advanced technology, but this scientific society also ends up encouraging neglect for creativity and individuality (e.g. the family is entirely destroyed, with natural reproduction outlawed and "mother" or "father" considered dirty words , no one is interested in True Art Is Incomprehensible , and Romeo and Juliet is comedy), while use of genetic engineering for happy but disturbing ends forms one of the bases for society (e.g. humans now all have perfect health but also a Hive Caste System , one end being the retarded but perfectly contented slaves, and the other being the intelligent alphas who needed said slaves to look down upon). On the other hand, the Savage is Romanticist, appreciating his life of pain and superstition, and considers the World State to be amoral and unnatural. Still, the life on the native reservations is no picnic, and his mother (who grew up in the World State) has been miserable living there.
• "Holmgang": the villain, a humanist, is part of a movement to break down the order of society, increase the amount of variety in human institutions, and end the decadent society because mankind can be safe and sane for only so long. He reveals that in fact, he's part that will forcibly push mankind into this breakdown, and an eruption of violence.
• "Goat Song": Harper goes to destroy the society constructed by SUM, urging people to give up the bracelets that contains a promised earthly resurrection, spreading myths and legends, and trusting in things can not be found in science. He's the hero. Yes, this is the opposite of "Holmgang".
• Technic History : As fitting for a Space Opera this series tends to lean toward the romantic, with it's adventuring, colorful cultures, politics both on an imperial and tribal scale and it's tragic clashes of honorable characters. Yet it also has an enlightenment side, such as a search for knowledge and a respect for science, and a balanced appraisal of both the benefits of commerce and it's costs on those who can't compete.
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was written for the Romantic movement, and its central protagonist creates life to prove that he can, without asking whether he should . The book's answer, of course, is that he most certainly shouldn't . Or, at the very least, if he wanted to create life, he should have taken responsibility for the creation and nurtured it rather than abandoned it.
• Jules Verne 's posthumously-published Paris in the Twentieth Century runs on this trope. It's basically a somewhat dark satire on industrial modernism, where technological marvels abound and war has been rendered meaningless by the horrors of mechanized warfare and the pragmatic concerns of international trade, but there is little soul; commerce, scientific progress and the like are lauded, the arts have decayed into Lowest Common Denominator trash, humanities are ignored, and there is little room for any other such Romantic notions. This makes the protagonist, one of a small dwindling band of closet romantics, unable to cope in his own era, and he ends up wandering the streets, impoverished and in despair, and eventually dying.
• Vorkosigan Saga has the weird quality of being Enlightened in its sympathies-being about reform bringing in technology, the rights of the unfortunate-while being Romantic in it's decoration-having medieval splendor, savage warlords, and so on.
• Lone Wolf is exceptionally Romanticist in character. Technology is nearly always used by the bad guys, including steam-powered and polluting ironclad vessels, and clean and pristine environments weaken the Darklords of Helgedad, the villains for the first 12 books. Later, Lone Wolf travels to a world under the control of the Big Bad , where advanced Magitek weapons are brought to use against him. Yet Lone Wolf only uses a very few examples of Magitek himself, never even so much as picking up a musket, and if the Kai win, Magnamund will remain in Medieval Stasis forever. This is presented as a good thing.
• Oryx and Crake , despite the title, revolves around the friendship between Jimmy (later Snowman) and Glenn/Crake. Jimmy represents Romanticism, attending an arts school when arts and humanities are out of favor and collecting forgotten words from books he can't bear to destroy. Crake represents Enlightenment, designing as he is a new humanoid race meant to function without religious leanings or romantic love (although Crake himself isn't immune to the latter.) Margaret Atwood's sympathies clearly lie with Romanticism, especially since Crake releases a supervirus to kill every human being on the planet .
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is basically Mark Twain's deconstruction of the popular romanticization of what he obviously regarded as the Dung Ages through the eyes of a solidly Enlightenment protagonist. Note that while Twain definitely opposes Romanticism—he partly blamed the fandom of Sir Walter Scott's Romantic works for the American Civil War, leading to a lifelong hatred for Romantic ideals—he wouldn't quite fit in with Enlightenment thinking, as he was far more cynical about human nature then most Enlightenment figures.
• The last (and highly-forgotten) voyage in Gulliver's Travels was made as a satire of the Enlightenment in Jonathon Swift's time, with the Houyhnhnms representing the ideal human society the Enlightenment craved but could never achieve, and everything wrong with such a place.
• Sanderson often comes off in favor of Enlightenment in his works, as they usually take place during an age of progress and innovation. The Romanticism angle is still given a fair shot, however, and more than once in his books problems have been caused by people insisting on studying things when the older, traditional way was working fine. In several books there are characters who miss the old ways (like candles versus electric lights or fireplaces versus heating magitek) but understand that things can't stay the same forever.
• " Sixth of the Dusk ": It comes out on the Enlightenment side, but in a balanced way. Progress is repeatedly seen as inevitable and developing technology is having a positive impact whether Dusk sees it or not. And the audience is certainly likely to sympathize with the scientist deuteroganist. But on the other hand, the traditional ways of Dusk's people are ultimately shown to have value and in the end it's the insight from them that provides critical insight for the future.
• The " The Southern Reach Trilogy ", true to both its Lovecraftian and eco-fantasy inspirations, comes down strongly on the Romanticist end of the spectrum. The unknown is a source of horror and danger rather than discovery and possibility; the "pristine" nature of Area X compares favorably with the toxic pollution and social decay of the modern world; the narrative focus is on the characters' emotions and subjective perceptions; science and logical reasoning are of little to no use; and ultimately there are few answers as to what has been going on the whole time .
• Harry Harrison 's Alternate History Wank Stars and Stripes Forever features a war between the United States and the British Empire. The Americans are utterly heroic and possess superior technology, representative democracy, a civilized and by-the-book warfare doctrine, and Enlightened 21st Century views on race and gender. Opposing them, you have the inhumanly stupid, evil and stereotypical British who shun technological advancement, live under a repressive and backwards medieval-style absolute monarchy, practice Rape, Pillage, and Burn to an extent that would make the Mongols proud, and are deeply racist and sexist. No points for correctly guessing which side Harrison's on.
• In Victoria , the Northern Confederation faces various enemies, but their ultimate adversary is the Republic of Azania. In their war, the sides essentially personify this tension: whereas the Confederation is a right-wing libertarian, openly reactionary state of rugged frontiersmen that aims to reproduce America under the Articles of Confederation, complete with traditional values and a horror for bureaucracy, oppressive technologies, and even big business, Azania is a technocratic-totalitarian Lady Land that uses science, technology, eugenics, and state planning to abolish violent, unequal nature and seeks to create an artificial, all-female utopia. So, this one gender-flips the usual stereotypes, but otherwise plays totally straight.
• Though the the series is set at least a century before either of these schools of thought were formally codified, this dynamic plays out frequently in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall books. Thomas Cromwell, with his extensive travels, practical experience as a banker and merchant (among many other occupations), appreciation for new trends in theology, politics, and economics, and generally pragmatic outlook, represents the Enlightened thinking that resulted from the Renaissance. King Henry and most of his court, meanwhile, are still stuck in the Romantic Middle Ages, believing themselves to be the noble knights of a medieval poem rather than outdated figures at risk of becoming obsolete. The divide between these two perspectives is probably best illustrated when a courtier threatens Cromwell with soldiers; Cromwell successfully one-ups the man by threatening him with creditors.
• Isaac Asimov 's " Trends ": In this story, these two opposing philosophies are presented as religion and science. During the First World War, people became more unconventional and technology-minded. In the fifty years since then, the "pendulum" swung back, and society has become religious traditionalists again. Otis Eldridge, a charismatic religious leader , represents Romanticism while John Harman, who has sunk his personal fortune into the rocketry project and scientific progress, represents Enlightenment.
• Sherlock Holmes is an interesting case, in that, while he is the Trope Codifier for the Great Detective , and seemingly on the Enlightenment side, he does from time to time show Romantic leanings. In "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty", he waxes philisophic about a moss rose being evidence not only of God, but firm proof that God Is Good . In "The Solitary Cyclist", he says he almost mistook the client for a typist, until he noticed a radiance about her that made him realize that she was a pianist. In "The Blue Carbuncle", he allows the Thief of the eponymous object to leave , citing, among other things, the season (Christmas) as a reason for mercy. And while he chides Watson for embellishing and dramatizing the cases, he himself will admit to a flair for theatrics when involved in cases, and when he tries to write an account of one of his cases himself, concedes that the dramatic elements are necessary to make the work engaging to an audience.
• In Sharpe's Rifles , the brothers Tomas and Blas Vivar - the former a pro-French sympathizer, the latter a nationalist aligned with Britain - embody the Enlightenment and Romanticism sides of this trope. Sharpe himself doesn't really see himself as either, though he's fighting alongside the Romanticist brother. Tomas Vivar : Bonaparte brings the light of reason. There are two Spains, Lieutenant. My brother's Spain is a monastery: silence and superstition. My Spain is a court: science and scholarship. If you were Spanish, which would you choose, Lieutenant? Richard Sharpe : I am neither monk nor prince. So I would choose a tavern.
• Sharpe's Devil , on the other hand, has the two aligned differently and shows that Romanticism isn't restricted to people with conservative/monarchist beliefs. Set in the Spanish American Wars of Independence , the book introduces Lord Thomas Cochrane (a naval captain leading the Chilean fleet in its war against the Spaniards) as a loud voice for Team Romanticism - he relishes freedom from all authority, the glory of war, and his general world of Wooden Ships and Iron Men , has a bad relationship with the politicians leading his side, and hates the idea that his revolution will ultimately add up to nothing but creating a "government of lawyers" (which he regards as the scourge of mankind). It's finally revealed that he had made his own plans to break Napoléon Bonaparte out of his Saint Helena prison and offer him a chance to lead Chile and rebuild his empire in the Americas. Sharpe, who's just spent twenty years of his life fighting the wars Napoleon started to dominate Europe, is horrified by this, preferring his quiet life in Normandy to the world of adventure - and death and bloodshed - that Cochrane and Napoleon find meaningful. Cochrane and his Chilean masters thus represent two different faces of the revolutionary movements sweeping Europe and the Americas - one emotional and militaristic (Romanticism), the other rationalistic and legalistic (Enlightenment).
• The Phantom of the Opera has a very Romanticist bent, with its titular tragic Byronic Hero denied so much because of his deformity and an open Romanticist, but looking it with an Enlightened perspective and you see... an abusive, exploitative, murderous Stalker with a Crush who is actually the Villain Protagonist . He also gets redeemed at the end, although it comes as a serious emotional shock to him.
• Very Enlightened, particularly with the Vulcans. Who were, in turn, occasionally proven wrong by more romantic types. Which conveys, if clumsily, the idea that both are right in the right place and wrong in the wrong and the problem is deciding which is which.
• Klingons and Romulans in some interpretations (as edgy-but-not-necessarily-evil Proud Warrior Race s rather than Always Chaotic Evil races) are more Romantic whereas Vulcans are more Enlightenment, yet they have some surprising Romantic traits like mysticism and dark tribal traditions as was shown in the episode Amok Time (this was even more so in the past, when they came close to destroying themselves, taking a more Enlightened philosophy in response). The humans may actually be the best examples of Enlightenment in the Trek verse.
• It's been argued that the Borg embody both capitalism (Romanticism) and communism (Enlightenment). The Borg dispel any notion of individuality, to the point that all Borg drones are mere cogs in the greater machine totally lacking in any free-will , while the Collective also sees anything and anyone as a mere resource to be consumed, no matter the consequences.
• If Michael Eddington is anything to go by, the Maquis breakaway from the Federation has elements of Romanticism in conflict with the prevailing Enlightenment ideology of the Federation. Though their initial grievance was the handover of their colonies to the Cardassians, they also value the rugged frontier lifestyle above the utopian society of the Federation. Eddington: Why is the Federation so obsessed with the Maquis? We've never harmed you. And yet we're constantly arrested and charged with terrorism. Starships chase us through the Badlands and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed. Why? Because we've left the Federation, and that's the one thing you can't accept. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation.
• For individual characters, Spock represents Enlightenment with his logical approach and McCoy represents romanticism with his Hot-Blooded , emotional, sentimental nature.
• Gene Roddenberry's posthumously produced series Andromeda has the heroes trying to rebuild a democratic interstellar Commonwealth while fighting Social Darwinist Nietzsche Wannabes , environmental extremists, and other enemies who are harder to place. In one episode the captain convinces a newly crowned feudal monarch to abdicate in favor of a democracy.
• The X-Files : Mulder is on the Romantic side (being willing to forget Ockham razor in many circumstances) and Scully is on the Enlightened one (always searching for a scientific explanation). However, they swap roles when it comes to religion, since Mulder is agnostic while Scully is a staunch Catholic.
• Firefly is a deconstruction of this entire trope, with Enlightenment being the major driving force of the 'verse, but Romanticism being an ever-present part of the less developed worlds, like the ones the main characters find themselves on. The episode "Safe", though, seems to be a slap at Romanticism. One of Simon's insults to the crowd that wanted to Burn the Witch! was "ignorance". Simon himself, being a doctor who went to the best Alliance-sanctioned schools, leans hard toward Enlightenment. His (eventual) love interest Kaylee leans very Romantic, which complicates their relationship. The Film of the Series ultimately lands on the Romantic side, as the Enlightenment-minded Alliance attempts to create peace by deliberately destroying the human emotional spectrum, and succeeds in killing 90% of the population of the planet Miranda, condemning the rest to a Fate Worse than Death as the first Reavers .
• Most of the Doctor's chronic enemies are Enlightenment thinkers — the Daleks and the Cybermen had a sort of "Utopian" goal of destroying everything not Dalek or Cyber, the Sontarans are imperialists who have used technology to overcome their biological limitations and the Time Lords are corrupt politicians who put so much faith in history's inevitable development that they never help anyone or change.
• Yet the Doctor isn't purely a creature of Romanticism either, usually being positioned as following elements of both viewpoints while the villains of the week always overprofessed one or the other. Individual incarnations of the Doctor sometimes tend more towards one or the other; for example, the Tenth Doctor being quite an Enlightenment-centric believer in the power of science and reason, and the Eleventh having more of a Romantic streak with a propensity to make it up as he goes along rather than make logical detailed plans for action. The Third Doctor is probably the most Enlightenment, criticising Linx in "The Time Warrior" for giving humanity technology it hasn't progressed enough for yet and fighting a conspiracy of reactionaries trying to return the world to a "golden age" in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs", but even his philosophy involves a certain amount of pop-Buddhism; then he's succeeded by the Fourth Doctor, a Doctor aesthetically inspired by Romantic poets and a spreader of individuality and chaos, who nevertheless makes a point of schooling Leela in the logic and reason her society was not yet developed enough to know about.
• Romantic enemies tend to show up as one-shot enemies and were especially common in the more science-positive '60s and '70s. A few notable examples are Mehendri Solon from "The Brain of Morbius", a Mad Scientist , Mad Artist and fascist in a strongly Byronic mold whose attempts to build a body for a Time Lord dictator are arranged around sentimental, aesthetic motives; the Mandragora Helix in "The Masque of Mandragora", which was targeting Earth around the beginning of the Renaissance with the goal of preventing the Enlightenment from happening and keeping Earth in a perpetual dark age of ancient superstition; and any number of villains from the William Hartnell "pure historicals" who would call the Doctor's science witchcraft or attempt to sacrifice his companions to the gods. note  Although, on that last point, it should be observed that the villains in the Hartnell historical "The Reign of Terror" are the most literally Enlightenment villains the Doctor ever faces, being that they're French Revolutionaries.
• "The Face of Evil" is about Xoanon, an all-powerful A.I. driven insane by having the Doctor's personality implanted into it, attempting to resolve its crisis by socially engineering a culture based on each half of its personality and having them fight to the death. The "computer" race is the Enlightenment Tesh, who have high technology, view the expression of emotions as taboo, hide their women, wear identical clothes and use psychic powers to manipulate each other. The "Doctor" race is the Romantic Sevateem, who have low technology, wear skins and follow ancient superstitions but value emotional self-knowledge and freedom, and have equal gender roles. When the Doctor himself enters, he's able to teach the Sevateem warrior Leela some principles of scientific rationalism, before having a long talk with Xoanon about its feelings.
• What is interesting to note about the various incarnations about the Doctor is that the various incarnations alternate between Enlightenment and Romanticism, with the odd-numbered Doctors being Pro-Enlightenment and the even-numbered Doctors being Pro-Romanticist.
• Romantic in spirit, with high pitched Melodrama , fantastic scale, prophesies, fate, and Good Old Ways . Moreover Delenn who was one of the most central characters was The McCoy and she didn't really have The Spock to balance her (Franklin was the closest thing to a Spock and he didn't interact with Delenn much).
• On the other hand, B5 also presents a struggle for a better, more rational future, and emphasizes the importance both of backward-looking rootedness (in the Minbari) and of forward-looking independence (in the humans). In the other words, a happy marriage of Romanticism and Enlightenment, embodied in the similarly happy marriage of John Sheridan and Delenn.
• From a Doylist perspective, J. Michael Straczynski is an emphatic liberal, a deep-seated believer in science, and a thoughtful atheist (i.e. all Enlightenment) who nevertheless clearly has deep respect for thoughtful conservatives/traditionalists and people of faith even as he criticizes the excesses of religion. In other words, Enlightenment respecting Romanticism and giving it its due-and given that much of B5 is at least partly an Author Tract , this comes the closest to expressing the show's overall tone.
• NUMB3RS might be a poster boy show for Enlightenment but Larry Flinhardt is a romantic and often has friendly tension with Charlie about this.
• Lost has this as a central conflict with Jack representing the Enlightenment and Locke ( ironically, given his namesake was a pillar of the Enlightenment ) representing Romanticism. Ultimately Romanticism wins, as Locke turns out to have been right about everything, as Jack admits.
• Vigilance believes in a glorious past, even giving themselves names of figures from the American Revolution. They believe that privacy has been stolen from them by the government, though the privacy rights they believe in were never really constitutional rights, they were merely the result of the practical difficulties of collecting information in the pre-digital age. When they put the government on trial, Collier says the defendants were only entitled to the rights given in the original constitution, clearly forgetting that as a black man, he would have had no rights whatsoever under the system he was espousing.
• Decima, and Grier in particular, believe that nation states are obsolete and humanity should be united under the rule of a Benevolent A.I. . Grier has lost faith in humanity to the point that when presented with the possibility that an AI would destroy humanity, he still thinks it would be preferable to the slow path to destruction humanity has already put itself on.
• The Presenters tend to be a mixture. Jeremy is quite strongly Romantic but has some Enlightenment moments, the ever-practical James is strongly Enlightenment (but is himself not immune to Romantic harkens), and Richard is perhaps the most firmly Romantic of all.
• This feeling also applies to the automotive industry as a whole. Even James is saddened whenever a company releases a new model that sacrifices fun or speed for things like eco-friendliness and safety features. Given the choice in any "old versus new" comparison review, they will happily take nostalgia and purity of the driving experience over improved technology and practicality.
• Stereotypically, nations build cars in different ways. Italians make soulful works of art that would win everytime if the show was a beauty contest, but reliability and build quality are secondary considerations. American and Australian cars are built by rough blue-collar types and they make up in sheer speed and wild styling what they lack in fancy technology or sophistication. German and Japanese cars are built in laboratories by precision engineers and bristling with high-tech gadgets, but their obsession with practicality means anything that doesn't serve a purpose besides aesthetics comes off and they simply do not have the spark other makers have. British cars that are high mark note  Aston Martin and Jaguar, not British Leyland are also build by artisans but build quality is a top priority, so depending on your interpretation they could be firmly in the middle, or both extremes at once .
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. : Variant. It turns out that HYDRA is split into two major factions: The descendants of the original ancient cult that worships the Inhuman Hive and wants to bring it back from exile , and Red Skull's splinter group. While both factions work together on a regular basis, the religious HYDRA derides Red Skull's faction as cowards and faithless for refusing to participate in their sacrifices, while the Red Skull faction sees the cult as fools for trusting in an ancient religion instead of science and reason. Both sides are still equally evil.
• On the Enlightenment side, he's the ultimate Science Hero , to the point that he not only refuses to carry a gun but genuinely never needs one: between his scientific knowledge (not just in theory but as it applies to everyday items) and his ability to think on his feet, he can jury-rig an escape from just about any situation imaginable. He's also a firm rationalist, to a degree that borders on Flat Earth Atheism (since the show would often leave the door open to supernatural explanations that Mac himself refused to accept).
• On the Romanticism side, he's a freethinker who embraces both the rugged individualism of his small town background and the bohemian lifestyle of the big city he lives in. He's notably suspicious of authority, bureaucracy, and government: he's served in Vietnam, but doesn't remember it very fondly, and while he's an intelligence officer in season 1, he quickly moves on to a private organization with a lot less red tape and whose values are compatible with his own.
• Even when benevolent deities like the Salish or the Asgard appear, it's made clear that they, too, are aliens rather than gods, and SG-1 will often either encourage them to tell their followers the truth, or explain it to their followers themselves.
• This reaches its peak in the last two seasons, during which the villains are the Ori, a race of ascended beings on a different plane of existence who seem nearly omniscient and omnipotent and could very well be argued to be, in fact, literal gods by the standards of many religions. The main characters, however, maintain that their powers do not make them gods, simply beings with greater knowledge and resources than themselves, as well as arguing that even if the Ori do have the power of gods, the way they use it makes them unworthy of worship. It should also be noted that even the Ori draw power from the worship of their followers, which isn't far from the Enlightenment trope that human beings create their own gods.
• Finally, the powers demonstrated by the beings worshiped on the show are never described in divine or supernatural terms. All of them exist either as a result of technology, or, in the case of godlike beings like the Ancients and the Ori, evolution. Daniel Jackson : Just because I don't know how the trick is done doesn't make it magic.
• An interesting example of Romanticism harmonizing with the Enlightenment: Ludwig van Beethoven 's Ninth Symphony, especially its final movement (the famous "Ode to Joy"). The music is by Beethoven, who defined Romanticism in music, and the Ninth Symphony is very much a Romantic work. However, the sentiments Beethoven expresses are firmly Enlightened, and indeed the text of the "Ode to Joy" is a barely-reworked version of a poem by Schiller, one of the few indisputably Enlightenment poets, with the theme of universal brotherhood and peace and people coming together in joy.
• "Father and Son" portrays both the Enlightenment, with the rational, restrained father, and Romanticism, with the passionate son who feels restricted by his father. Since the son seems to be a more sympathetic figure, the song is decidedly Romantic.
• "Where Do the Children Play?" is strongly Romantic too, as it laments the destruction of nature that comes with "development."
• On the other hand, "Peace Train" is definitely Enlightenment, with its focus on progress and a good future.
• The Beatles sang songs about friendship, life, love and desire, and often sang it from the persona of good-natured Nice Guy and pivoted on an image of idealized love.
• The Stones sang songs about how hard, painful and nasty relationships could actually be, sung from the persona of womanizers, sleazebags, and Fetishized Abusers .
• Metal can run the gamut from the extremes of both ends of the spectrum, however. Death Metal , Melodic Death Metal , Black Metal , and Power Metal tend to be at the extreme Romantic end of the spectrum, while some other styles like Progressive Metal can often fall at the extreme Enlightenment end of the spectrum.
• Even by the standards of metal, Rammstein are remarkably far over on the Romantic side of the spectrum — as one might perhaps expect of a German metal band that draws heavily from German literature when writing its songs. Most notably, they have recorded two songs that are rewrites of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : "Rosenrot" (of "Heidenröslein") and "Dalai Lama" (of "Der Erlkönig" ).'
• For music listening, vinyl fans tend to lean toward the Romanticism side, with claims that vinyl records sound "warmer" than digital music, as well as citing large album artwork along with the "ritual" of putting on an LP and flipping it over. CDs and other digital files are very much on the Enlightenment side, with their lack of surface noise, distortion, and playback degradation as well as greater portability, but proponents of vinyl claim that digital audio sounds "cold."
• Rush : "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres", from the album Hemispheres , is about this conflict nearly tearing the Greco-Roman pantheon apart. The song argues that both are necessary for a healthy society; a purely emotional society will descend into hedonism and do dumb things like not storing food for the winter , but a purely logical society lacks social glue and is doomed to stagnate. The resolution of the story happens when the explorer from "Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage" appears out of nowhere, the eponymous Unrealistic Black Hole having ripped his soul out of his body, and advocates the coexistence of both, with Apollo and Dionysus tasking him to maintain this balance as Cygnus .
• In addition to Apollo and Dionysus cited above, a famous rivalry that perfectly encapsulates this debate in Classical Mythology is Athena versus Poseidon. Poseidon is the older god, ruler of the sea and storms, famous for being moody and passionate. Athena, however, is the goddess of strategy , wisdom, justice and peaceful arts, who is perfectly at home in the cosmopolitan city of Athens. Also a pretty nice inversion of Mother Nature, Father Science .
• The Arthurian Legends , while predating both movements by centuries, can be considered Proto-Enlightenment in that they involve efforts by Arthur and his Round Table to create a more perfect society, Camelot, in a time of Chaos and Darkness that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire. This is especially applicable to the early Chronicles (e.g. Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britainniae) as a way of showing what authors believed to be model societies in the face of ravages of Barbarians and other afflictions in the Post-Roman era. Ironically the Arthurian Legends have also been an inspiration for the Romanticist movement, of which it derives its name from the Medieval Romances, and also brought about a revival in interest in the Arthurian Mythos starting in the Nineteenth Century. Though that is arguably due to the fact that the Romances did not have to address the same issues as earlier authors.
• The Forever War between the Sword Worlders and the Darrians is a war of hats of Romanticism versus Enlightenment, as the Sword Worlders are a Proud Warrior Race and the Darrians are For Science! . Each thinks the other barely sane . The Third Imperium is more enlightened in its ideology on the whole, it is feudal on the interstellar level but only because it is too large to expect anyone to climb to the top in one lifetime, individual planets are largely left to themselves and can have any local government from democracy to dictatorship.
• Aslan, though, are more Romanticist than the Imperium, having much more in common with the Sword Worlders save that their social structures have barely progressed beyond tribal levels.
• In the Interstellar Wars, the Terrans are mostly Enlightenment, being For Science! and thinking Good Republic, Evil Empire . They do have some romantic traits like glory seeking and Space Cossacks . Vilani are harder to place; they are closer to strains of thought that existed long before either romanticism or enlightenment, resembling Confucianism in some ways.
• The Hivers are quite firmly enlightenment, having a society that can be best described as "anarchic socialism" and being not only highly technologically advanced but also quite willing to share it with less fortunate races.
• The Zhodani don't fit neatly into either position; they have an Orwellian police state that's apparently a fairly nice place to live, if you have psionic abilities or don't mind having your mind read by the authorities.
• The Reformation Coalition following the fall of the Third Imperium has two major voting blocks, Centrists advocate a more centralized government along the lines of the feudal technocracies that govern most of their worlds, while Federalists prefer it more decentralized and democratic.
• Emotions are what also feed the chaos gods. As a mater of fact, it was the excess indigence and pleasures of the Eldar that gave birth to a chaos god and led to their fall.
• The only "enlightened" might be the Tau, who are idealists that believe in spreading the enlightened ideals of the greater good across the galaxy. The Tau are also the only major race that will consider diplomacy.
• All in all, while the excess of Romanticism is NECESSARY for the survival of the galaxy (enlightenment won't help much in this setting), 40K can be looked at as a Take That! towards the ideal, showing the Crapsack World that can result in a universe not based upon progress and reason.
• Civilization might serve the Ancient Conspiracy of the vampiric elders, but the advancement of science and technology are frequently presented as the first and final hope for overcoming the oppression of these old monsters that cannot change or adapt. The Sabbat are only effective at their stated goal of opposing the ancients when they leverage their flexibility and capacity to think in new ways.
• The Werewolves have fared miserably in their war against the Wyrm largely due to hidebound traditions and old grudges (the /newest/ of which are still centuries old). Meanwhile, the Wyrm only started lashing out once it had been driven mad by the Weaver... who bound it up in hopes of creating a world where nothing ever changes .
• The Technocratic Paradigm has provided humanity with wonders that had previously been accessible only to the Awakened few and is also the single greatest source of strength for the spiritual barriers that hold back the worst of the game universe's Cosmic Horror Story and allow mankind to live in a "mere" Crapsack World . Plus, they support an army of Space Marines whose main objective is the defense of Earth against all manner of supernatural evil and who (depending on the source) are more or less friendly towards traditionalist Mages. Of course, this comes at the cost of the mass murder of everyone who doesn't fully follow the Technocratic Paradigm...
• If the winter of the changelings were to find its way to a new spring, The Fair Folk they would then become would be a blight on mankind.
• The Fallen only exist because a faction of angels led by the Morningstar wanted to reach out and free humanity from ignorance despite God insisting that they let Eden remain exactly as it was (and subsequently being a spiteful dick about it).
• One theme in Mage: 20th Anniversary Edition is that both the Traditions and Technocracy missed a trick when it came to the increasing empowerment of ordinary mortals in the 21st century, which is a highly Enlightened idea.
• In Vampire: The Requiem the Invictus and Lancea Sanctum are Romanticist while the Carthians and Ordo Dracul are Enlightenment. The Invictus and Carthians are particularly opposed, being vampiric aristocrats and revolutionaries who seek to try out virtually every other form of government. Curiously in Invictus-run cities the Carthians tend to be the least amoral vampires, while Carthian-run cities tend to run downhill at record speeds.
• In the Time of Tumult, the Gold and Bronze factions are divided about the return of the Solars. The Gold Faction wants to restore the Solars to power so that their peerless genius and innovation can make for a better world. The Bronze Faction opposes the Solars' return, trying to keep Creation as it was for the whole of the Second Age: safe from the wild, dangerous extremes of Solar overlords.
• The Realm and Lookshy is largely about this. Lookshy held to the old, lingering ways of the Shogunate while the Scarlet Empress forged a new path for the Realm out of the Shogunate's ruins, challenging even the Sidereals with her audacity.
• Though this conflict can be approached from the opposite direction: Mnemon believes that her right to rule comes in part from being the oldest Dynast currently extant and, all things considered, hasn't changed much about her House's incredibly rigid social structure for centuries. Roseblack, on the other hand, has shown somewhat of a populist streak and is supported by an Army of Thieves and Whores .
• Even the returning Solars sometimes divide along this line, between those that simply wish to return things to the way they were in the First Age and those who wish to forge an entirely new world of their own design.
• The old Planescape Dungeons & Dragons setting had the Blood War, a genocidal conflict between two different races of demonic beings. One side supported tyranny, order, infernal justice, conformity, and iron discipline. The other were Axe-Crazy maniacs who believed individuality was so important that letting hordes of their own die trying to prove individual worth was better than forcing them to actually act like their more disciplined enemies. Given one side would remake the cosmos into the fantasy version of Dante's Inferno, and the other into Milton's Hell, neither is right. Then, on top of that, there are philosophic "guilds" players can join which grants them power and access, provided they believe as the group does. These groups range from the far-Enlightenment Fraternity of Order to the completely Romantic Society of Sensation. Not only is no one portrayed as right, but even allegiances frequently transcend the conflict. The Athar are Deists in the Jefferson/Locke vein, and their greatest allies are the thoroughly Romantic Believers of the Source - who worry about past lives and ascension.
• BattleTech has the Inner Sphere, feuding nobles houses who have been in a state of Space Age Stasis for nearly four centuries ever since they nuked each other back to the 20th century. And invading them the Clans, genetically engineered Social Darwinists who have actually made improvements on their tech, even though their Warrior caste act like Bronze Age savages.
• Magic: The Gathering has this dichotomy between the colors of mana. Generally (though not uniformly), red and green are romanticist with a focus on emotions, freedom, instincts, tradition and so forth, while white and blue are enlightened with a focus on order, law, curiosity, intelligence and so on. Black uses traits of both sides to further its own goals.
• Mutant Chronicles : This is a convenient way to boil down the conflict between the Brotherhood and Cybertronic . The Brotherhood is Romantic, espousing spirituality and Psychic Powers as the path to a united humanity and step forward as a species. Cybertronic is Enlightenment, and equally interested in seeing humanity unite and advance, but as Enlightenment advocate creating a mass-collective consciousness through use of Brain Uploading instead.
• Castle Falkenstein : The heroes are cartoonishly Romantic, consisting of "mad dreamer" kings, swashbuckling adventurers, craftspeople of transcendent skill and magicians straight out of a Disney movie. The villains are industrialists, criminal masterminds, mad scientists and military leaders. The heroes' stated goal is to either slow or halt the progress of the Industrial Revolution. Yep, the game swings a mean "Romanticism good, Enlightenment bad"-anvil.
• Aeschylus 's The Oresteia explores the fall of the House of Atreus from an Enlightened perspective, focusing on the inevitability of fate, and the laws of family and Cycle of Revenge , the finale explores the theme of forgiveness and redemption, and when Orestes takes refuge at the Agora and appeals to Athena against the implacable Furies, depicts a transition from the harsh judgment of the Gods to the rational working of Laws.
• Sophocles is generally Romantic, emphasizing the cruel workings of fate as in Oedipus Rex , emphasizing that the pursuit of knowledge can be destructive. His Antigone likewise is a tragedy of a young woman choosing the laws of family and blood over that of the state and custom.
• Euripides is generally Pro-Enlightenment with some Romantic streaks. His plays focus on the horrors of warfare, the suffering of women and generally portray Gods and deities in a manner that makes them human and accessible.
• Aristophanes is a Romantic satirist criticizing the pursuit of knowledge, parodying democratic assemblies and generally suggesting that Democracy Is Bad .
• The English Enlightenment-era theaters in England and the Continent emphasized the perfection of the language, and would recut and restage his works to better reflect Aristotle's Rules of Drama. Later Enlightenment writers such as Samuel Johnson in England and German Idealists however regarded Shakespeare as a true original for his violation of the unities. The Enlightenment critics generally, but not exclusively, favoured the history plays, the tragedies but neglected and/or rejected the "problem plays" such as The Tempest which didn't fit in as either comic or tragic.
• The Romantics heightened the aspects of passion, horror, and raging emotion to be found in the plays and latched on to those "problem plays". They also regarded Hamlet as Shakespeare's masterpiece, a judgment that has generally held up and admired Othello , King Lear (which before them was generally seen as a controversial play).
• The Henriad has been especially susceptible to this. The prevailing interpretations before the 20th Century was that it was a Coming of Age Hero's Journey (avant-la-lettre) of a dissolute Prince who tags alongside a Corrupt Knight Falstaff who gradually comes to fulfill his Kingly father's ambitions and eventually becomes a great Warrior King (Romantic). Orson Welles ' Chimes at Midnight sees Falstaff as a Lovable Coward who represents the End of an Age (Merrie England of Rogues, Taverns and Minions of the Moon) while seeing Prince Hal as a machiavellian Manipulative Bastard who uses Falstaff and gradually becomes a warmongering tyrant. (Enlightened)
• A good example is to compare the highly problematic anti-semitic masterpieces of The Merchant of Venice and The Jew of Malta . The former play presents a Jewish stereotype who has sympathetic motivations and voices them in eloquent speeches but ultimately remains the villain to be sidelined by the pious Christian heroine (Portia) who appeals to the mercy and the spirit of the law rather than its harsh letter. The latter play presents a Jewish stereotype as Villain Protagonist in an Evil Versus Evil situation where every other authority (Christian and Muslim) are amoral backstabbers who use "religion as a childish toy" and who eloquently argues that all his evil actions come out because Society Is to Blame and nobody can claim any idea to be inherently merciful.
• Shakespeare's history plays and tragedies ( Richard III , Macbeth ) tend to be highly individualistic character pieces with some amount of moral commentary about Order Versus Chaos and usually ends with the Rightful King Returns (Romantic). Marlowe's Edward II on the other hand is a Hyperlink Story with many characters that shows feudalism to be inherently chaotic, filled with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder , good characters dying unheroically in piteous circumstances, villains dying nobly, and the rightful boy king (Edward III) left cold, alone and Lonely at the Top while lamenting his loss of innocence.(Enlightened)
• Doctor Faustus likewise is a much darker and colder look at the occult and the supernatural than Shakespeare's The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream . Marlowe realistically shows what a thinking person would react to the existence and arrival of the supernatural, the loss of faith and finally even hints at a Cosmic Horror Story that Hell could simply be the world we live in.
• Henrik Ibsen was Enlightened, emphasizing social criticisms, problems with traditional roles of women and family and difficulties faced by reformers in works like Hedda Gabbler and An Enemy of the People . August Strindberg however was Romantic, dealing with dreams, difficult and painful relationships and self-destructive individuals.
• Bertolt Brecht was Enlightenment in form: critical of narrative, story and advocating Viewers Are Geniuses and refusing to allow audiences to identify with his characters superficially. His Galileo is fascinating for the fact that it is critical of traditional ideas of a science's responsibility to society while at the same time mocking romantic attitudes of Holding Out for a Hero .
• Overall, it portrays an Enlightenment-based future, with benign technological advances and an orderly galactic government, though the Citadel government also imposes restrictions on genetic modification and AI research. The outlook of your crew varies— they include Romanticists like the Whitman-spouting Ashley and Enlightened like Mordin Solus who justifies aiding in the Krogan sterility plague with utilitarian logic. Paragon Shep's egalitarian views and support for the Citadel hint at an Enlightened streak. Renegade Shepard meanwhile represents the more pro human and pragmatic Knight in Sour Armor and Totalitarian Utilitarian aspects of of Enlightenment.
• The main trilogy's storyline also presents a conflict between Romanticism and Enlightenment. The central conflict of the story is a Robot War , and the first game generally plays the Romanticist A.I. Is a Crapshoot trope straight, though there are some hints that the organics' bigotry may be partly to blame for the conflict with some of the synthetics, like the geth and the rogue AI on the Citadel . This gets subverted in the next two games, and many conversations touch on the themes of organic and synthetic evolution, and that the two may not be mutually exclusive. The Synthesis ending of the third game takes that idea to its logical conclusion, and as such may be considered the ultimate Enlightened ending .
• Halo : Oddly enough. In particular, this whole spectrum of thought is speculated on and brought out in Halo 3 's hidden Terminals. These Terminals tell the story of the struggle between the Flood and the Forerunners, with the Flood presenting its invasion as necessary for life's eventual evolution as a ultimate species and as a stage in evolution for the universe as a whole eventually. On the other side, the Forerunners keep the stand that they are guardians for the genetic diversity in the galaxy and should impend any step in evolution if necessary to keep that diversity, even if flawed and eventually self-destructive at times.
• Fallout: New Vegas features Caesar's Legion as the Romantics, and NCR and Mr. House as the Enlightenment. You, as the WILD/CARD possible fourth endgame victor, can go either way as fitting your Wildcard nature.
• The New Order Last Days Of Europe : The real nature of the political divide in the Russian warlord state of Tomsk, as opposed to the usual "left vs. right" angle - as the four salons are more or less politically syncretic. The Decembrists (who focus on preserving Russia's natural environment and cultural history) and the Humanists (who emphasize protecting the human rights and civil freedoms of the people) are Romanticists; the Modernists (who want to turn Russia into a technocracy by advancing education and scientific progress) and the Bastillards (who appeal to Hobbesian stable government, protective militarism and anti-extremism) are very much the Enlightenment of the equation. Tomsk itself, a nation of scientists and intellectuals that styles itself on 17th Century democratic ideals, is the Enlightenment to fellow Siberian unifier Kemerovo , an unusual feudal monarchy that blends the best bits of Soviet socialism with Muscovite aesthetics .
• Touhou Project is weird about this. The youkai that make up the vast majority of the cast literally depend on romanticism to survive, needing to be believed in and gaining power from the natural order being observed, but were originally created using Sufficiently Analyzed Magic by an advanced civilization of moon people . And there's a general trend of an ordered society forming, and one of the major factions is working to increase the technological level of the area. The fairies should be on the side of Romanticism, yet more often than not use their abilities to play pranks and freeze frogs than do anything to preserve the nature they rely on to exist.
• Planescape: Torment includes a conversation between a demon (chaotic evil) and a devil (lawful evil) about which is the right way to spread evil. The parallel to this trope is conspicuous, with the demon giving the romanticist argument that evil is worthless if it stripped of passion, and the devil making the enlightened argument that evil is just a mob's rioting if it is not ordered.
• R-Type , in spite of being a simple shoot 'em up genre, bears a hint of Romanticism, which the Bydo embed themselves in, against the Enlightened background of advanced technologies the R-Fighters represent.
• Pokémon Black and White has Opelucid City as well as their exclusive location based on either, depending on the version; Black has Black City with Opelucid City being high-tech (Enlightenment), while White version has White Forest with Opelucid City being eco-friendly (Romanticism). And meanwhile, in Black you can obtain Reshiram, symbolizing the older brother who sided with truth (Enlightenment), while in White you can obtain Zekrom, symbolizing the younger brother who sided with ideals (Romanticism). The sequel game though, complicates things with Kyurem, a living husk who represents a form of emptiness. It's revealed that there was once one dragon, but would split into Reshiram and Zekrom, with the remnants falling to the earth to become Kyurem.
• Pathologic has The Bachelor (Enlightenment) and The Haruspex (Romanticism) against each other to save the Polyhedron or the town at the end.
• Morrowind has the highly ritualistic and devoud Chimer versus the scientific and atheistic Dwemer , thousands of years before the game is set. The Dwemer are certainly aware of the existence of the Daedra the Chimer worship, but are steadfast in their belief that the Daedra are not gods; so much so that Vivec facetiously commented that the Dwemer instead worshiped "their Gods of Reason and Logic." Not that this did the Dwemer any good; screwing with the base fabric of the Universe caused them all to disappear... somewhere. Not a single person in existence knows what happened to them, and if anyone does, they're not telling.
• Likewise, Skyrim has the Stormcloaks (Romantic) and the forces of the Tamrielic Empire (Enlightenment). Team Stormcloak is a band of nationalistic barbarian brother warriors led by a controversial Byronic Hero Warrior Prince , fighting to liberate their homeland and regain their honour. Team Imperial is the occupying military force of a civilized, well-intentioned, and cosmopolitan empire led by a general who acts as a Reasonable Authority Figure most of the time but also sometimes shows the side of a sneering imperialist who believes in the superiority of his empire and that the local people would descend into barbarism and anarchy without its laws and guidance .
• In Guilty Gear , Enlightenment ideas and technological science are basically deemed illegal and labelled "Black Technology" by the United Nations since it harms the environment, which is ripe with religious fundamentalism, fascism and xenophobia. This comes across as extremely ironic as magic and the Gear Project were designed for human evolution, only for them to backfire horribly when they began to be used for human greed, resulting in the Crusades, which in turn resulted in humanity regressing into a Dark Ages-like society. The only "enlightened" might be Zepp, who were originally a Totalitarian Utilitarian government before being overthrown and taken over by Gabriel and subsequently reformed into a more democratic nation.
• Shin Megami Tensei is a series known for playing with and deconstructing any and every dichotomy with its Law and Chaos factions , so it comes as no surprise that this too enters the mix. Unusually, however, both Law and Chaos manifest different negative sides of each. Law, with its sleek architecture , robot angels and liberal use of Magitek seems very Enlightened, but ultimately promotes very Romantic ideals of Feudalism and Monarchy. Chaos, on the flip-side, is full of Social Darwinists who parrot twisted versions of Enlightened ideals, but ultimately crave the old world ruled by Blood Knights and see any kind of organized government or hierarchy as bad and repressive . The Neutral Path, of course, often shows that there is still value in each - namely, mankind will stagnate if it doesn't keep moving forward, but The Power of Love and Friendship are what make life worth living. However, other examples of Neutrality are non-ideological; they aren't so much about promoting any kind of humanist philosophy as they are about taking down both sides before their fighting can wreck humanity any further.
• In Fallout 4 , the primary conflict is between the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel (Romanticism) and the Institute (Enlightenment). The Institute are a group of Mad Scientists who want to wipe out all traces of the pre-war America and build a brand new society even greater and more advanced than pre-War America, and even replace humans with the Synths . The Brotherhood thinks that pre-War society should be held in reverence, even basing themselves on the feudal societies of medieval Europe, and they think the Synths are abominations and want only to see them all destroyed ( though this view extends to Ghouls and Super Mutants as well ). You can, of course, Take a Third Option . The Minutemen and Railroad are both mostly Romantic and Enlightened, respectively, with different takes on the same idea, with the Minutemen being an orderly Big Good bringing back classic American ideals of liberty and self-reliance while dressing as Revolutionary War-era rebels, while the Railroad are Rebellious Rebels fighting for Synth freedom and changing wasteland society so Synths can be seen as fellow humans with equal rights.
• In Final Fantasy III , the conflict of Light versus Darkness is played this way. You play as the Heroes of Light who must fight the destructive force of Darkness, represented in game by the Romantic Xande cursing the world due to his anger at being forced to live amongst humans. However, centuries ago, the Heroes of Darkness had been forced to fight the destructive force of Light, when the Enlightened Ancients developed technology so powerful that it threatened to destroy the world. At the end of the game, you even get to team up with the four Heroes of Darkness, who are good and brave people who help you take down the Power of the Void .
• Lord's Believers' ideology basis is Protestant Christianity with an ambiguous degree of fundamentalism . They are highly skeptical of science as a method of understanding reality , turning instead to traditions . And, of course, they are extreme conservatives who will never accept AI or other such perversions as the norm .
• Gaia's Stepdaughters are environmentalists who seek an understanding with the nature of Chiron , accepting it as the only correct source of wisdom . If someone dares to challenge the Planet and threaten its biosphere, they will be more than happy to become an incarnation of its revenge . With no apparent disregard for progress and technology, Stepdaughters' ideal society is something like Arcadia .
• Spartan Federation consists mainly of darwinist-leaning survivalists who believe that humanity must completely turn into a race of warriors in order to survive in this new world . Also, as the name suggests, they are inspired by Ancient Sparta, taking its society as a model for creating a strictly hierarchical and militarized state that will not compromise on the training of its exemplarily disciplined army .
• UN Peacekeepers are the most neutral in this regard. Their uncompromising commitment to the UN Charter signifies their readiness to remain faithful to the ideals of humanity (in their understanding) to the very end. Therefore, they are the greatest adherents of democracy in the game . Due to the pluralism of opinions and an orientation solely to the UN Charter, Peacekeepers have almost no prejudices (unlike other factions) about economic issues, social values, or vision of the future, so they can be more romantic in one game and more enlightened in another.
• Morgan Industries is a faction of all those who believe that capitalism is ideal or simply the most natural economic system. Everything has a price , and a prosperous society must inexorably grow and expand at the expense of both other factions and even the Planet itself. The latter is particularly unhappy with the Morganites due to their consumerist philosophy and love of free market economics, but in general the Morganites are not too interested in moral dilemmas, being in fact more materialistic than anyone else .
• Human Hive reflects the ideas of the Enlightenment in a slightly more utilitarian way. From the perspective of Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang , the benefit of each individual is measured by their ability to help the entire collective . Even after their death . Most of the Hive's bases are underground, and in general, the Hive is more likely to try to subjugate nature than to try to find a common language with it, since the environment of Chiron is perceived as the same opponent as other human factions. Not too unreasonably, however .
• University of Planet's main beliefs are that Science Is Good , Technocracy is the best form of government, while religious fundamentalism is a dead end from moral and social points of view . They are more than willing to take some risky experiments and see the enemies of progress as the main threat . Moreover, they are ready to find answers to any question, often sacrificing the ethico-emotional aspect , if necessary.
• In Civilization: Beyond Earth , the Purity affinity qualifies as strongly Romantic with its reverence for the past and message of retaining the classic human identity, while the Supremacy affinity is strongly Enlightenment in flavour with its message of technological progress and redefining the concept of humanity via cybernetic Transhumanism . Harmony, with its message of living in tune with the alien environment and altering human physiology towards this end, either qualifies as neither or both depending on your interpretation. Rising Tide 's hybrid ideologies are a lesser Romantic (Purity/Supremacy, which employs machines expressly to serve humanity while ideologically keeping the distinction clear), extremely Enlightenment (the aggressively-transhumanist Harmony/Supremacy, taking out all the brakes in transhumanism), and Purity/Harmony, which doesn't cleanly fit anywhere (being both extensively transhuman and ideologically human).
• According to Word of God , the contrast between Solid Snake and Raiden, as well as Solid Snake and Big Boss, is this in Metal Gear . Snake, an artificial creation of the Atomic age, is pure Enlightenment, which allows him to make actions based on seeing the bigger picture and doing what he has to do, but also cuts him off from his emotions. Both Big Boss and Raiden emerged from what was natural and, while effective heroes, struggle desperately with the depth of their own emotions and their own dark sides; but they can only aspire to the higher philosophy of Snake.
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption describes a Great Offscreen War between two factions on the planet Bryyo: the Primals who followed the Old Ways and magic vs. the Science Lords who had a more progressive and technological bent. It didn't end well; the environment was devastated, the Science Lords were wiped out, and the Primals have reverted to basically animals. However, one of the Primals and one of the Science Lords did manage to work together to set in motion a plan to restore the environment through Magitek .
• Edelgard primarily stands for the Enlightenment ideals, pushing for dismantlement of Crest-powered nobility order, de-emphasizing the role of organized religion and establishment of a more egalitarian society, greater inclusion of commoners and judging others by their own skills and merits rather than anything. Personality-wise, she displays a cool, calculated, dignified air with her personal feelings hidden . Sadly, the ways she uses to bring her dream to reality include a lot of bloodshed and disorder , and she will even overcome the attachments to her friends to achieve the ends ; consequently, in routes other than her own she will have to be killed to stop the war. On the other hand, in her own route Edelgard has a more expressed Byronic Heroine personality, which is associated with Romanticism, and develops stronger emotional connections to her teammates.
• Dimitri, in turn, represents Romanticism for the most part, as he fights partly to preserve the current social order and religion of the land , expresses very strict views on what is right and what is wrong, and believes in his personal morals and concepts of chivalry and honor to guide him in battle . He aspires to be the ruler of a Good Kingdom and a Knight in Shining Armor , but he hides a darker , more violent streak underneath that armor. The inability to contain the darker aspects of his personality is what gets him killed in routes other than his own. Meanwhile, on his route, Dimitri is eventually brought to a more reasonable state and sets out to reform the kingdom and its order upon his victory, and the route also reveals that he is actually rather skeptical about the religion, even if he still believes it to be somewhat necessary.
• In the end, the game shows that: (1) both Romanticism and Enlightenment, if taken to extremes, can mean a lot of trouble, and (2) neither of them can survive without the other.
• Horizon Zero Dawn : Oddly enough, in this game's backstory it's the scientist who's portrayed as being on the side of Romanticism, while the businessman is on the side of Enlightenment. Ted Faro believed in Enlightened Self-Interest , saw machines in practical terms, and ran his company in a manner he saw as the most profitable, starting in environmental revitalization when fighting Global Warming was a priority before creating Weapons of Mass Destruction . Elisabet Sobeck, meanwhile, fosters and values ethics and humanity far more, has a much greater respect for life, and quit her job at Faro's company to start her own out of moral principle when he started developing killer robots for military use. This is best illustrated when Faro demanded that Sobeck install a fail-safe into GAIA, a feature that Sobeck fought against. Faro saw an all-powerful machine capable of feeling emotions that's been put in charge of the most important task in human history as a threat that could go horribly wrong at any moment, while Elisabet thought GAIA being capable of feeling empathy was the most important part of her programming and the thing that would keep her dedicated to her mission, comparing a failsafe to pointing a gun at a newborn. Given that Faro is portrayed as the person most singularly responsible for everything that went wrong in the backstory, to the point that "Fuck Ted Faro" is a meme within the Horizon fandom, the game makes no secret where exactly it lies.
• xkcd is Enlightened. As the Existentialist says, "The future's pretty cool!"
• Gunnerkrigg Court . The Court is Enlightened; Gillitie Woods is Romantic.
• Girl Genius is a strange hybrid. It's about science fiction and solving problems with machinery, which is sort of Enlightenment... but it's "adventure, romance, and mad science! , with tones of gothic, Frankenstein, and Lovecraftian mythos... but all the Sparks have a strong manic streak, so they're happy and cheerful amid the doom, destruction, and tentacled horrors. It's just that kind of a story.
• Season 1's antagonists are the modern, technology-using Equalists and there leader is Amon .
• Season 2's antagonist is the far more Romanticist and spiritual Unalaq, attempting to open the gates between the spirit and physical worlds.
• Season 3's antagonist is Zaheer , who, while an Enlightened Antagonist , is actually Romanticist, an anarchist attempting bring back the era of true freedom before governments.
• Season 4's antagonist is Kuvira the Great Uniter . This one's more complicated; while Kuvira's position is largely Enlightened in her rejection of an obsolete monarchy in favor of a modern Empire, the series makes it clear that she's almost completely correct in her worldview, and her evil comes from the means she uses to take and keep power .
• Avatar: The Last Airbender has Romantic heroes (led by a messiah from the past, no less), while the Fire Nation used to represent the Enlightenment, but that has long since devolved into mere propaganda. Eventually, Zuko learns to spread the Enlightenment ideals of the old Fire Nation peacefully, instead of through conquest.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) is Romantic with the villain's industrialized city and roboticised minions while the heroes live in the forest and are led by royalty.
• Foreshadowed by the opening, where Rarity makes a puppet stand and it's completely unusable by the very puppeteer it's made for. The following events are a series of that very formula one-upping itself.
• The Romantic movement produced a lot of good poets. Like, a lot of them: John Keats , Lord Byron , Samuel Taylor Coleridge , Percy Bysshe Shelley , Alfred, Lord Tennyson , William Wordsworth , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . note  Oh the irony - "The Classic I call the healthy and the Romantic the sick" - Goethe to Eckermann, 1829. Oh irony squared - as an example for classic he choses the Nibelungs , which is about as romantic as one could get.
• On the other side of the coin, the Anglo-American and early French Enlightenments (in contrast to the German and late French Enlightenments) tended towards the Humans Are Bastards perspective, which led to a fair number of good satirists , such as Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin .
• The Enlightenment also produced a few poets, the most notable of whom were Germans : Friedrich von Schiller is more or less entirely Enlightenment, while Goethe's work has shades of both.
• Søren Kierkegaard , considered the first existentialist philosopher, was overwhelmingly Romanticist in outlook, going so far as to openly scorn Enlightenment philosophy, which is ironic because 20th Century existentialist philosophy e.g. Jean-Paul Sartre was largely Enlightened.
• Friedrich Nietzsche is known, among other things, for defining this conflict; his terms were "Dionysian" for Romanticism and "Apollonian" for Enlightenment. He was highly critical of both sides, but his writings (as well as misreadings of them) remain a major influence on Romanticism.
• The late 18th century saw two major Enlightenment-inspired revolutions, The American Revolution and The French Revolution , both resulting in experimental republics showcasing Enlightenment ideas on governance.
• Despite being a communist nation, the USSR actually had extensively Romantic undertones, albeit underlined in the rhetoric of communism. Given the dominance of Romanticism in Russian culture around the rise of communism and not having undergone the same level of Enlightenment-based reforms as Western Europe (a very prominent example is how Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861 when having done so several decades if not centuries prior in the west though a large part of that was serfdom being introduced much later in Eastern Europe than Western Europe.)
• In a similar sense, the Spanish Civil War between the Nationalists (conservatives/monarchists/fascists) and the Republicans (liberals/anarchists/communists/socialists) could be considered a conflict of Romanticism versus Enlightenment.
• Libertarian capitalism and classical liberalism is rooted in Skeptical Enlightenment ideals since it asserts that all humans are good at heart , and so sudden changes are too much too fast, and its better for a more moderate system that encourages education and meritocracy. note  That being said, libertarians are against most forms of order, including using central government to enforce civil rights, even when those moments are driven by gradual reforms and legal petitions and protests, i.e the same gradualist change they encouraged yet oppose when the moment finally arrives for the changes to take effect. Social democrats, social liberals and moderate socialists generally wish to bring about a more egalitarian society which to its critics tends to anti-individualism. They are usually secular and scientific (natural and social sciences) take part in protests and believe in a strong central government that regulates the economy, and promotes progressive reforms as and when necessary (Enlightenment). Conservatives might be known for their yearning of the past and strong religious views (Romanticism), but this is coupled with their support for free markets and strong militaries (Enlightenment). European conservatives tend to be more explicitly Romantic, especially when they advocate the restoration of monarchy and aristocracy, or in modern times the sustenance of a strong bureaucratic and technocratic elite (Enlightenment Values for Romantic Ends).
• Fascists have been known for their anti-intellectual rhetoric and support for traditional values (Romanticism), but also support loyalty to the state and discipline (Enlightenment) which is fair since modern fascism began as an attempt to co-opt the features and forms of socialist organizations of the past and present, including loyal partisan identity, strong ideological coherence and efficient organization. Conservative parties were not as effectively organized and ideologically coherent in the past.
• Anarchism as a whole, to paraphrase the founder of anarcho-syndicalism Rudolf Rocker, can be thought of as a synthesis of an Enlightenment philosophy (classical liberalism) with a Romantic philosophy (socialism), incorporating the belief in progress and individual liberty from the former, and the support for social egalitarianism and cooperation from the latter. Hence the alternative name for anarchism-libertarian socialism. Though different strands of anarchism lean more towards one or the other. For example, individualist anarchists, post-left anarchists, and anarcho-primitivists are Romantics who tend to dislike the ideals of the Enlightenment and think that on the whole it's made the world worse and not better. On the other hand, social anarchists, anarcho-communists, and social ecologists see their ideas as originating in Enlightenment humanism and dismiss Romantic influences on the left-libertarian movement as mere "lifestyle anarchists", more interested in personal rebellion than effective social change.
• The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street can be thought of as Romantic movements. In terms of actual ideologies, the Tea Party is more romantic, with its strong love of the past and traditional values. While Occupy Wall Street has been likened to the Hippie movements of the 1960's, its criticisms of capitalist accumulation, tax breaks, unemployment are far more specific towards economic inequality than the vague invocations of "free love", as noted by Noam Chomsky. Both are critical of states, but each have opposing attitudes towards capitalism.
• Winston Churchill was closer to being a Romantic while Roosevelt was more Enlightenment.
• In current United States party politics, Republicans (Romanticism) versus Democrats (Enlightenment): The Republicans, now calling themselves the Grand Old Party, stand for the traditional values that defined the United States of the past. They exalt ideals like States' rights, Family Values, Religion, and the belief that with Hard Work and ambition you will succeed and achieve the American Dream. On the other side, the Democrats, now defining themselves "Liberals," are cosmopolitan and globalist-minded in their policy-making based on Scientific discoveries (e.g. Climate Change and the campaign for Alternative Energy), Gender and racial Equality, and the proposal of a Welfare State where an advanced economy should be capable of providing for the basic needs of all its citizens. The ideological contrast is further emphasized in the slogans of the contemporary presidents of each faction (Barack Obama's "Hope And Change" implicating greater progress for the future, versus Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" giving prime emphasis on America's almighty and more virtuous past). However, this is just a tendency; there are plenty of strands of conservative thought that appeal to reason and cite scientific studies, just as liberal or leftist thought has sometimes favored emotive arguments (these tend to emphasise compassion and empathy, contrasting with the conservative emphasis on duty and honor).
• The traditional-architecture form of this is one of the more fascinating examples, in part because of its political overtones: do you ever wonder why the US Capitol and White House or the French Palais Bourbon (seat of the National Assembly), look like Greek and Roman temples while the British Houses of Parliament and Canadian Parliament Hill look like medieval cathedrals? Because in the first half of the 19th century, the Neoclassical style was associated with Enlightenment republicanism, while the Gothic Revival style was, being Romanticist, associated with monarchism. Indeed, Neoclassical designs were seriously considered for both Westminster and Ottawa, but then dismissed on the grounds that they were too republican. (Everybody quietly ignored the fact that the seat of the actual monarch, Buckingham Palace, is emphatically Neoclassical.) On the other hand, both Parliament Hill and Westminster, while Gothic in style, have balanced, Neoclassical-style floor plans and other elements of Neoclassical design (e.g. an emphasis on symmetry). To facilitate this, they purposely used as inspiration the austere and relatively geometric "Perpendicular Gothic" architecture, a sober, post-Plague late medieval style characterized by lots of right angles and relatively little ornate stonework tracery (which also had the advantage to 19th-century Brits of being a distinctively English style not found on the Continent). You'll further notice that the Commons chamber and meeting rooms on the north side at Westminster are more or less reflected across the Central Lobby on the Lords side to the south, with only a few things fiddled with to accommodate the slightly different duties of the Commons and the Lords (for one thing, the Lords has to host the State Opening of Parliament, meaning that an assortment of rooms are necessary for the procession of the monarch) and to accommodate the inclusion of Westminster Hall (which had survived the 1834 fire and had been part of the palace since the reign of William II ; they weren't about to knock it down). The symmetrical construction rather annoyed Romantic/Gothic true believers. For instance, Augustus W. N. Pugin, the devoted Romanticist Gothic architect brought in to assist the more classicist Charles Barry in the Westminster project (particularly respecting the decorations), famously despaired of the structure, "All Grecian, sir; Tudor details on a classic body." Had he lived long enough, Pugin would have been even more annoyed with/depressed by Centre Block in Ottawa, which is almost completely symmetrical, with the Senate chambers on the east side of Confederation Hall being a mirror image of the Commons chambers on the west side. However, both Westminster and Centre Block arguably present, in architectural form, the character of liberal-democratic constitutional monarchy: a "crowned republic," with traditional, Romantic trappings to bring grandeur, majesty, and magic to an emphatically modern, efficient, and rational Enlightened form.
• The most common stereotype of the environmental movement consists of liberal Romanticist hippies fighting against industrial titans. However, the movement is actually strongly divided between Romantic and Enlightened wings over issues like nuclear power and genetic engineering (supported by Enlightened and opposed by Romantic environmentalists). The opposition is even more complicated; the messages usually take Enlightened forms (such as questioning the science behind climate change), but in America in particular, anti-environmentalism often consciously draws upon conservative elements (Romanticism) for its support.
• The debate on abortion could be viewed this way, with pro-life advocates appealing to Romanticism and pro-choice advocates appealing to Enlightenment.
• In practical terms, Freudian psychology was individualistic (Romantic), articulating that every person was messed up in a specific way that there was no one single method to cure trauma, and that a cure might not even be desirable since those neuroses actually shaped some of our positive attributes , but also deterministic (Enlightenment): shaped by family, society and other environmental factors, and the ultimate goal is self-understanding and dealing with your past and present and accepting that we are less rational than we believe ourselves to be. Marxists (enlightened advocates) were critical of Freud for his emphasis on the individual self's innate non-conformity and they saw Freud as essentially Romantic note  Freud was largely pessimistic about civilization and progress, believing that man was inherently self-destructive that any advances that come would invariably be twisted for disastrous ends, but at the same time, better understanding of our selves could make us more forgiving, compassionate and understanding of each other's flaws .
• Psychiatry with its reliance on pills and more visible scientific grounding, and overall positivism note  i.e. cures can lead to improvements and control of our flaws rather in Freud's case understanding and dealing with them runs on a kind of utopian Enlightenment, i.e. the idea that our problems can be solved permanently. Neuroscience led by Erich Kandel on the other hand uses modern scientific study and greater access to brain studies, to essentially reframe many of Freud's ideas about the unconscious in scientific terms, since technology had caught up to test Freud's ideas.
• Carl Jung , who disagreed with Freud for leaving out the more spiritual and mystical archetypes in human psychology, was more Romantic, which is the main reason Freud criticized him. Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces about comparative mythical traditions is naturally more Romantic given its subject and its Jungian inspirations.
• Of Jung's own modern disciples, there is Jordan Peterson, a psychologist who analyzes narrative archetypes and interprets them from a Jungian perspective (Enlightenment) vs. Jonathan Pageau, an Orthodox icon-carver who interprets the symbolic meaning of images and archetypes (Romantic).
• Analytic Philosophy (Enlightenment) and Continental Philosophy (Romanticism) at least in the eyes of Bertrand Russell . Continental philosophers on the other hand see themselves very much in the spirit of Enlightenment, and their emphasis on argument from first principles and constant engagement with society lead them to form the social sciences.
• The '60s had a mixture of both. The " hippie " counterculture, with its wild, passionate lifestyle, its rejection of society and materialism in favor of more bohemian ways, and its glorification of nature, was decidedly Romanticist. Meanwhile, the civil rights movement occurred at the same time, and that movement leaned toward the Enlightenment, with its focus on equality and progress. Many people were involved in both the counterculture and the civil rights movement, proving that Enlightenment and Romanticism can coexist peacefully, at least until the counterculture fell out for its Double Standard on women's rights, tended to cults led by Charles Manson and Jim Jones, and generally fractured over inevitable disillusionment rather than long-term commitments .
• One of the more common justifications of European colonialism is that the imperial powers were spreading the benefits of the European science and technology (the Enlightenment) while at the same time seeking to explore and preserve the traditional cultures of the colonized (Romanticism) while degrading the real people who lived there at the same time by abusing their use of the media to the rest of the world. This hollow justification when measured against the reality of what happened on the ground (brutal destruction of local businesses with no compensation, eroding their market base to create support for their goods) tended to be submerged thanks to the Adventure Archaeologist derived from a Romanticist longing for adventure in distant lands, finding artifacts from locales and bringing it to the mother nation of these powers. This romanticizing of exploitation was gradually exposed in post-colonial writings by Edward Said, who worked in the tradition of the Enlightenment to criticize Orientalism , a predominant trope in Romanticist painting and literature.
• Currency: Some Romanticists claim that gold is a historically sound form of currency while many Enlightened see it as Worthless Yellow Rocks , preferring a fiat currency. Some Romanticists oppose all currency in general as dehumanizingly bureaucratic , elitist, and the root of all evil . They may instead prefer a group where necessities had to be shared for mutual survival, a la "barter" or "primitive communism". Some Enlightened people oppose fiat currency and the Federal Reserve system in general, seeing it as nothing more than paper printed and falsely loaned away to unsuspecting people, causing inflation and making the people think they have to repay debt when there is nothing to repay. Some Enlightened people prefer communism, others opt for energy-based currency because they believe that Equivalent Exchange cannot suffer inflation. Still other Enlightened people think that things such as class and currency are nothing more than necessary evils brought on by scarcity and hunger, that can be disposed off once technology and robotics become advanced enough to eliminate the need for labor (this was a point championed by Karl Marx himself; today, this highly Enlightened position is somewhat tongue-in-cheekly called "fully-automated luxury communism"—including if not especially by its proponents).
• You would think that software developers would tilt completely toward Enlightenment, but this thing also crops up there with the free and open source movements on the Romantic side and proprietary developers on the Enlightened. Open source developers generally avoid things like detailed software designs, documentation (when they can get away with it) and testing. Proprietary developers produce a lot of useful software as well, but their development processes tend to be very bureaucratic and their programs very large.
• During Tsarist Russia era, Saint-Petersburg stood for the Enlightenment, built by European architects as a pinnacle of Peter The Great's modernization efforts, dubbed "The window to Europe". Moscow was the Romanticism, a stronghold of old Muscovite culture, traditionalism and Orthodox Christian spirituality.
• In The New Russia , Moscow is a gleaming and shiny modern city full of shallow and stupid but rich people , a Mecca for Russian businessmen, politicians and celebrities. Saint-Petersburg is a gothic and decadent City Noir , populated (according to Russian stereotypes) by tortured artists , gangsters, drug addicts, and wannabe-intellectual hipsters. (Oh, and liberals and Jews. note  Technically correct on both points; the city's politics are relatively hostile to the government, and the proportion of Jews in Pitr is about .8%, as opposed to about .5% in Moscow. )
• Some kind of this also existed in the society of the Russian Empire, starting from about the middle of the 19th century, due to uncertainty about the future path of Russia's development. Slavophiles insisted on the uniqueness of both the culture and traditions of Russia itself and its historical path, condemning the reforms of Peter the Great and considering monarchy (autocratic tsarism) a natural form of government for a country like Russia. Another philosophical trend, Westernizers, on the contrary, believed that Russia was significantly lagging behind Western Europe and should have caught up as quickly as possible through reforms, both socio-cultural and political-economic, and transformation into either a constitutional monarchy or a parliamentary democratic republic. However, both of them understood the need for technological modernization (especially after the Crimean War) and the abolition of serfdom. Also, both trends opposed any revolutionary transformations and had a somewhat negative attitude towards the policy of the Russian Empire itself, since the tsarist regime had features of both worldviews, not ultimately inclining towards either of them.
• Isaac Newton was actually, besides being an enlightenment philosopher, a forerunner to that. He imagined a new society ruled by a cleric/scientist hybrid caste, who rediscovered the old past technologies and sciences like alchemy. (Basically a cross between a theocracy and a technocracy.) Every temple should become like a university, and should perform scientific research.
• John F. Kennedy's Rice University Moon Effort oozes Enlightenment. Seriously, you could make an enlightenment motto out of the iconic lines: "We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too." The sheer pomp and circumstance, idealism, and unwavering courage gives it the Enlightenment stamp of approval.

Video Example(s):

Danielle and Orlov talk about the fate and legacy of Laika: with Danielle thinking of Laika as a hero who pioneered spaceflight for Humanity due to her sacrifice, while Orlov saw her as a scared dog that wanted only to return home and died scared and completely alone in space.

Sobeck vs. Faro

Alternative Title(s): Romanticism Vs Enlightenment

• Ludd Was Right
• Steampunk Index
• Rule of Cool
• Rogue Drone
• Individuality Index
• Self-Imposed Exile
• Romanticism
• Meta-Concepts
• RPG Mechanics 'Verse
• Red Oni, Blue Oni
• Harmony Versus Discipline
• Science Is Bad
• Real Women Have Curves
• Regency England
• Sexy Soaked Shirt
• Real Women Don't Wear Dresses
• False Dichotomy
• Second Place Is for Losers
• River of Insanity
• ImageSource/Arts
• Royals Who Actually Do Something
• Index of Gothic Horror Tropes
• Royalty and Nobility Tropes
• Robot Roll Call
• Speculative Fiction Tropes
• Sci-Fi Horror
• Order Versus Chaos
• Philosophy Tropes
• Shades of Conflict
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand
• Versus Title
• Scientist vs. Soldier
• The Roaring '20s
• Serial Killer
• Cyclic Trope
• Sex Is Cool
• Rogue Juror
• ImageSource/Paintings
• Rouge Angles of Satin
• Powers as Programs
• QuoteSource/Webcomics
• Self-Referential Humor
• William Wordsworth
• QuoteSource/Creators
• QuoteSource/Music

Important Links

• Action Adventure
• Commercials
• Crime & Punishment
• Professional Wrestling
• Speculative Fiction
• Sports Story
• Animation (Western)
• Music And Sound Effects
• Print Media
• Sequential Art
• Tabletop Games
• Applied Phlebotinum
• Characterization
• Characters As Device
• Narrative Devices
• British Telly
• The Contributors
• Creator Speak
• Derivative Works
• Laws And Formulas
• Show Business
• Split Personality
• Truth And Lies
• Truth In Television
• Fate And Prophecy
• Edit Reasons
• Isolated Pages
• Images List
• Recent Videos
• Crowner Activity
• Un-typed Pages
• Recent Page Type Changes
• Trope Entry
• Character Sheet
• Playing With
• Creating New Redirects
• Cross Wicking
• Tips for Editing
• Text Formatting Rules
• Handling Spoilers
• Administrivia
• Trope Repair Shop
• Image Pickin'

Advertisement:

How well does it match the trope?

Example of:

Media sources:

11,241--> Report