Romanticism was a literary movement that swept through virtually
every country of Europe, the United States, and Latin America
that lasted from about 1750 to 1870. However, the Romantic Movement
did not reach France until the1820's. Romanticism's essential
spirit was one of revolt against an established order of things-against
precise rules, laws, dogmas, and formulas that characterized
Classicism in general and late18th-century Neoclassicism in particular.
It praised imagination over reason, emotions over logic, and
intuition over science-making way for a vast body of literature
of great sensibility and passion. In their choice of heroes,
also, the romantic writers replaced the static universal types
of classical 18th-century literature with more complex, idiosyncratic
characters. They became preoccupied with the genius, the hero,
and the exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions
and inner struggles and there was an emphasis on the examination
of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities.