Romanticism and the Enlightenment

The Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776, was one of the greatest highlights of the period in Western civilization known as the Enlightenment.  The Enlightenment celebrated the human mind, individual liberty, tolerance in thought as opposed to religious or political authoritarianism, and the virtually unlimited possibilities of human progress.

A superficial observer might imagine, based on the false assumption that reason and emotion are incompatible, that the Enlightenment and the Romantic movement that followed it represented opposite tendencies.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Just as a fully rational individual is inevitably stirred by passion, it was the Enlightenment that naturally led the great flourishing of Romantic art, literature, and music.  Romanticism is centered in the unshackled expression of human values and aspirations.  As such it presupposes the human being’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.