As with every literary movement, the Romantic period came
about as a renouncement against the Age of Reason.
The Age
of Reason was filled with texts which told readers how to think, what to believe in, and
how to live their lives. One famous work of this period was Paine's "Common Sense". One
can tell from the title that Paine was letting people know that the ideas shared ion the
text should be ones that everyone agreed with based upon the fact that the ideologies
were common sense. The text was meant to spread the acceptance of republicanism,
denounce Britain, and gain support for the Continental Army which would allow for a
break from the Crown.
Romantics were not happy being told
what to think. Instead, the characteristics common to Romanticism were ones which
encouraged intuition and feeling, the importance of imagination, and the impact of
natural elements.
Two of the Romantic poets, Dickinson and
Whitman, created poems which highlighted the importance of nature while emphasizing the
impact of imagination and intuition.
Dickinson's poem
"Because I could not stop for Death" explicitly shows her regard for the abstract having
a strong hold over her imagination. Death, personified in the poem, accompanies the
speaker on a carriage ride through the countryside. An author from the Age of reason
would frown upon this given it was too imaginative.
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