Romanticism \Ro*man"ti*cism\, n. [CF. It. romanticismo, F.
   romantisme, romanticisme.]
   A fondness for romantic characteristics or peculiarities;
   specifically, in modern literature, an aiming at romantic
   effects; -- applied to the productions of a school of writers
   who sought to revive certain medi?val forms and methods in
   opposition to the so-called classical style.
   [1913 Webster]

         He [Lessing] may be said to have begun the revolt from
         pseudo-classicism in poetry, and to have been thus
         unconsciously the founder of romanticism. --Lowell.
   [1913 Webster]

	

	romanticism
    n 1: impractical romantic ideals and attitudes
    2: a movement in literature and art during the late 18th and
       early 19th centuries that celebrated nature rather than
       civilization; "Romanticism valued imagination and emotion
       over rationality" [syn: Romanticism, Romantic Movement]
       [ant: classicalism, classicism]
    3: an exciting and mysterious quality (as of a heroic time or
       adventure) [syn: romanticism, romance]

	

	64 Moby Thesaurus words for "romanticism":
   affection, affectionateness, amativeness, amorousness, autism,
   autistic thinking, bathos, bleeding heart, cloyingness,
   demonstrativeness, dereism, dereistic thinking, dreamery, ecstasy,
   enchantment, flight of fancy, goatishness, goo, hearts-and-flowers,
   horniness, ideal, idealism, ideality, idealization,
   imaginative exercise, impracticality, lovelornness, lovesickness,
   maudlinness, mawkishness, mush, mushiness, namby-pamby,
   namby-pambyism, namby-pambyness, nostalgia, nostomania,
   oversentimentalism, oversentimentality, play of fancy, quixotism,
   quixotry, rapture, romance, sentiment, sentimentalism,
   sentimentality, sexiness, slop, sloppiness, slush, soap opera,
   sob story, susceptibility, sweetness and light, tearjerker,
   unpracticalness, unrealism, unreality, utopianism, visionariness,
   wish fulfillment, wish-fulfillment fantasy, wishful thinking