Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Wanderer-Above-the-Sea-of-Fog Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, a Romantic piece of artwork often associated with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

When one hears the word “romantic,” they most likely associate it with love. Specifically, when they think of a romantic piece of literature, they might think of stories about falling in love. However, this association was not always what the word meant regarding literature.

During the Romanticism movement of the 1800s, the word “romantic” being used to describe literature did not always mean the story would contain elements of love between two people. For example, although Jane Austen wrote during the Romantic era and her novels, such as Pride and Prejudice, famously contained stories surrounding love, the majority of her works are considered realism and are not typically categorized as romantic novels with respect to the Romanticism movement.

Instead, Romantic stories typically contain some, or all, of six specific elements: individualism, nature, emotions, humbleness, imagination, and the supernatural. Romantic literature of the 1800s focused on the beauty and power of the natural world, as well as the individual common person and their emotions and imagination. Romantic literature emerged as a response to multiple changes in the world at the time, such as the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

Romantic authors felt inspired to write against the logical and ordered arguments of the Enlightenment with stories that emphasized imagination and emotion. Similarly, in response to the impacts the Industrial Revolution had on nature and society, Romantic authors wrote stories that emphasized the power and importance that nature has, as well as the importance of the common individual.  During the Romantic era, Romanticism was prevalent in both novels and poetry.

Examples of Romantic novels include Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Romantic poems include works by John Keats, William Blake, and Lord Byron. After the Romantic period ended in the mid-nineteenth century, realism emerged, which often directly described and/or criticized current events of the time. During this time, “romantic literature” went from meaning pieces from the Romantic era to meaning stories that follow two people in love.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/art/Romanticism

https://libraryguides.mdc.edu/c.php?g=947953&p=6835332#:~:text=Mid%20to%20Late%2019th%20Century&text=This%20period%20saw%20the%20transition,%2C%20urbanization%2C%20and%20social%20upheavals

https://library.fiveable.me/key-terms/ap-euro/late-19th-century-literary-works