# Romanticism: Medievalism V.S. Chivalric Romance



## ethanjamesescano (Aug 29, 2012)

We all know the term "Romanticism" was coined after the chivalric romances.
Romanticists became Medievalists because they hated industrialism because it's an attack to the nature, being nationalistic,etc..(name more characteristics, I probably forgot some)
The question is, why was Romanticism derived from chivalric romances? why not just medievalism? what are the factors that made chivalric romances seems more influencial on Romanticism than just medievalism?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

We all know? I had no idea - thought it was 'coined' to describe the popular philosophy of the late 18th/early 19th Centuries.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

ethanjamesescano said:


> It seems that chivalric romances has more influence on Romanticism than just medievalism.


Then surely it makes sense that romanticism is called "romanticism" and not "mediaevalism."


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## ethanjamesescano (Aug 29, 2012)

Hilltroll72 said:


> We all know? I had no idea - thought it was 'coined' to describe the popular philosophy of the late 18th/early 19th Centuries.


I'm not saying that it was coined during the middle ages, I was saying that the term romantic is derived from the medieval genre chivalric romance.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

ethanjamesescano said:


> what are the factors that made chivalric romances seems more influencial on Romanticism than just medievalism?


it's less general for one. And I think it might go back to Werther (the novel), although I might be wrong (just spculating) - ideal love came back into fashion as society in general got more conservative as opposed to the looser morals of the mid to late 18th century.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Chivalric romances were one of the main sources for knowledge of the medieval period in the 19th century. It was only in the 20th century when archeology and other historical methods illuminated what was mostly the 'dark ages'. 19th century medievalism was therefore rather limited and while the stories of people like King Arthur might be set in the early medieval period most of them were written down in the late medieval.

Romanticism, more than most, was a term use to describe a whole host of competing ideas. Friedrich Schlegel the populariser of the term romanticism used it to describe the new poetry of the time which was only loosely connected to the medieval. He was distinguishing the new poetry from the previous era's neo-classicism and its classical era model which he regarded as rigid and artificial. This was despite saying practically the opposite in an essay 5 years earlier where he called classical poetry the finest ever.

Schlegel's calling the new poetry romantic caught on and soon everything was regarded as an aspect of romanticism; lots of different ideas with an interest in the medieval being only really a part of it. A vague understanding of the medieval period also helped as the image of noble knights and fair maidens suited them better than the much more often brutal reality.


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