(1) French Revolution

The French masses got sick of Louis XVI and his wife Marie-Antoinette living the high life in Versailles…so they cut of their heads. The French Revolution was the start of a whole new revolution in politics and society. Don't think the Romantics weren't influenced by all this jazz.

(2) Industrial Revolution

The rise of the machines! No, not the Terminator. (Although, to be fair, we weren't alive then, so maybe he was around…) When mechanized manufacturing processes transformed work and production, factories started popping up everywhere and people left the country for the city to work in them. Note to self: there's less nature in the city.

(3) Nature

Trees, rivers, birds, bees…the Romantics lapped it up. These guys were crunchies before crunchies came along. According to the Romantics, we simply could not be happy or whole without a connection to nature. Lots of people like to refer to the Romantics' nature as Nature with a capital N because it was more than just the grass and the oceans—it was the whole concept.

(4) Heroism

Do we really need to explain this one? The Romantics were really into characters who exemplified bravery, courage, and other hero-like qualities. They wrote about and cherished characters who went against the grain, who were larger than life, whose actions were bold and spectacular. Think Don Juan, Frankenstein's monster, or Prometheus, all of whom were heroes (or, in some cases, anti-heroes) that the Romantics made famous.

(5) Emotion

We can't help the way we feel, and the Romantics would say that we shouldn't try to. Let's just let ourselves be washed over by emotions. That's what being human is all about, isn't it? And if we're super clever, we'll write poems about our feelings. That's what the Romantics did, anyway.

(6) Rebellion

The Romantics didn't like conventions. They rebelled against literary conventions, they rebelled against political conventions, and they rebelled against social conventions. They believed that we should first and foremost be true to ourselves, which means not going along with the herd.

(7) Ruins and Relics of the Ancient Past

The Romantics really dug dug-up stuff: vases from ancient Greece, old statues, and ruined buildings. They used all this junk—er, treasure—as a way to reflect on time, and the passing of time.

(8) Sense and Sensuality

Sounds, sights, smells, and textures are a hallmark of Romantic literature. These writers believed that if we just sit there (preferably under a tree) and look around, listen, and sniff the air, we'll learn a lot. Our body is a learning instrument that's just as important as our mind or "intellect." Why let it go to waste?

(9) Sublime

This one's tricky and most folks can't quite agree on what it means, but generally, we experience the sublime when we're out in nature and we're totally overwhelmed by it. Think of the feeling you might get when you saw Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, or Mount Everest for the first (or thousandth) time. This is nature at it's biggest and baddest, and when we see it, we feel a whole mess of very powerful emotions including both terror and joy.

(10) Experimentation with Poetic Form

The Romantics weren't just innovative in terms of content; they also loved to play with style. They broke with the literary conventions that they'd inherited from their predecessors, and in turn, changed the way that poetry was written. We told you these dudes (and dudettes) were rebels.