Webster's English Dictionary

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romanticism

ro.man.ti.cism \ro--'mant-*-.siz-*m, r*-\ \-s*st\ n 1: the quality or state 
   of being romantic  often cap  2a1: a literary, artistic, and philosophical 
   movement originating in the 18 th century, characterized chiefly by a 
   reaction against neoclassicism and an emphasis on the imagination and 
   emotions, and marked esp. in English literature by sensibility and the use 
   of autobiographical material, an exaltation of the primitive and the common 
   man, an appreciation of external nature, an interest in the remote, a 
   predilection for melancholy, and the use in poetry of older verse forms 
   2a2: an aspect of romanticism  2b: adherence to or practice of romantic 
   doctrine or assumptions  often cap  - ro.man.ti.cist n