Definition: Romanticism was a literary and artistic movement that included an emphasis on esthetic and emotional in the individual versus the rational and intellectual. It was the individual quest for love, pity, mercy, individualism, selfishness, inner life, subjective life. Emotions are a better guide to life than the intellect. The powerful effect of things was more important than if it was "true".
"The search for the for the emotionally and psychologically stimulating encouraged a taste for the miraculous, the supernatural, the weird, and the grotesque ..." (Russell, Mephistopheles, 173)
"Romanticism scarcely merits being classified as an intellectual movement, as its theological credentials are scant. It was an expression of rebellion -- by writers and artists against both traditional Christian morality and science. It was riddled with contradictions, among which was its penchant for the symbols, the mystery, the overblown language of good and evil that was part of Christianity." (Stanford, The Devil, 205)
"Romantic ideas of the Devil had little impact upon the concept of the Devil. Today one takes either the traditional view or the Enlightenment view, but rarely the Romantic view." (Russell, Mephistopheles, 176)
"Mainstream philosophical and ethical thought in the period touched radical evil seldom and the Devil almost never." (Russell, Mephistopheles, 222)