Romanticism in America Romanticism is a movement in literature and art between 19th century and 18th century during the revolt against the previous century’s Neoclassicism. There are various characteristics of romanticism literature ranging from its emphasis on individualism and subjectivity; freedom from stipulated rules; spontaneity; beliefs that imagination is a devotion to beauty and superior to reason; life in solitary rather than society life; the fascination with history, especially with the mysticism and myths of the middle ages; and worship and love of nature. Initially, the literature of romanticism referred to the romances characteristics, whose profligacy carried pejorative connotation in some way. The term however came to assign another type of exotic landscape in the 18th century that evoked the melancholy pleasant feelings. Throughout the early 19th century, romanticism remained an intellectual and artistic movement that is characterized by individual focus on the freedom from political restraints and social conventions, on the nature and human imagination in a typically idealized form.