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Nationalism : Romanticism And Outcomes Of The French Revolution

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The nineteenth century was heavily influenced by the outcomes of the French Revolution. Romanticism being one of the outcomes of the revolution helped construct and reorganize four of the main political movements of the nineteenth century. Romanticism is defined as, “reaction against Classicism and the Enlightenment (doesn’t think in terms of rationality, balance, or order, does think in terms of the individual having both agency and spiritual weight).” Romanticism heavily influenced nationalism and contributed some aspects to socialism in the reconstruction of Europe’s social framework. Romanticism played a substantial role in nationalism in that it focused on the people, their culture and not on what was dictated by the Congress of Vienna. Nationalism is defined by Dr. Menninger as, “new way of thinking about identity of countries and individuals.” Correlating with romanticism in that it believed in the rights of the individual, and nationalism defined the whole country as one identity. As shown, “The desire to express that uniqueness in independence and national sovereignty was linked to the Romantic emphasis on personal expression.” Nationalism peered back in time and extracted the culture of one’s ancestors and placed them in the nineteenth century. For example, “Each separate nation, he [Johann Gottfried von Herder] argued, had its own distinct personality, its Volksgeist, or “folk spirit,” and its own pattern of growth.” Which became the whole basis for

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