Romanticism, Nature, and History

Abstract

The romantic movement has meant a deep change in Western culture. Sensibility, unconscious, the creative force of genius as well as a rebellion against political and cultural institutions were praised in a much higher level than they had been before. Throughout this article the author, an intellectual historian, analyses the romantic conceptions about Nature and Time. The belief of human power over the natural world has melted down and then a new relation between people and their around environment has come up. In romantic age, as a matter of fact, the environment in Europe suffered a lot of impacts due to Industrial Revolution. Time as well undergoes a remarkable change in its perception: from a physical element it turns into a psychological element so a new concept appears: Nostalgia, i.e, the loss of a perfect age once lived in a distant past, which has to be recovered in a near future. This changes the historical writing, which leaves behind the history of the nations and takes up the history of the peoples.