It must be pointed out that romanticism is a thoroughly controversial term and to define it is as hopeless a task as ever. F.L. Lucas enumerated almost about 11,396 definitions of romanticism in "The Decline and Fall of the Romantic Ideal." Some of the more authentic definitions are being presented here for the convenience of readers. Walter Peter defined it as an addition of the strangeness to the beauty. Herford took it as the extraordinary development of imaginative sensibility.
Romantic Movement was not only an English phenomenon but also a European. many was perhaps the first country which came under its influence and thus a marked change in its philosophical thought was witnessed. In the beginning of nineteenth century, England started receiving its direct influence. Romanticism means different things in different countries and places. A critics thus recommended the use of "romanticisms" instead of "romanticism" due to the variety of its features. Whatever be the interpretation of the term Romanticism, t is crystal clear that it was essentially of the nature of a reaction. In England the romantic movement implies the reaction against the school of Dryden, Pope, and Johnson. All the poets of this movement indisputably reacted against the set conventions and rules of poetry formulated and traditionalised over the decades by the poets of the neo-classical school. It was at the same time also a revolt against social authority. Schlegal for the first time defined the romanticism as the "liberalism in literature."
William J. Long has rightly remarked: "The romantic movement was marked, and is always marked, by a strong reaction and protest against the bondage of rule and custom which in science and theology as well as literature, generally tend to fetter tge free human spirit." The neo classical poets glorified the nature and reason but the romantics believed in a kind of transcendentalism, intuition or mysticism. They term poetry as the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge. Philosophy and reason were represented by them as clipping the wings of love and they turned more towards anti-intellectualism.
The romantic movement was a revolt not only against the concept of poetry held by the neo-classical poets, it was also a revolt against the traditional poetic measures and diction.Commenting on this nature of romantic movement, Legouis observes: "To express their fervent passion they sought a more supple and more lyrical form than that of Pope, a language less dulled by convention, metres unlike the prevailing couplet. They announce the poetic association of the words, and drew upon unusual images and varied verse forms for which they found models in the Renaissance and the old English poetry." Some of these verse forms were the personal inventions of the new poets. They sounded the death-knell of the heroic couplet which had reigned supreme upwards of a century.
