aw, how romantic!

While reading about the Philosophes and imagining them in their plush Salons discussing rationality and matters of philosophy, I found myself becoming very envious. However, I also found myself fondly imagining a life in the Shelley household or on the horizon line of a Turner painting, concentrating on the emotional aspects, rather than the rational, of human nature. I romanticize, no pun intended, both the 18th and 19th centuries in this way, which makes me question how the Classicists and the Romantics could disregard the others' ideas of human nature so easily. I believe that there needs to be a balance between the rational and the emotional because humans are both. Goethe was possibly so brilliant because he was able to capture both of these aspects of life. Romanticism was key in that it reminded humans that irrationality could be more satisfactory that rationality, lending way for some of the most creative works to come into existence. It also liberated women and men from long-held stereotypes that suggested women to be more emotional and men more rational because, by this time, the world had witnessed members of both genders being both. Both the Enlightenment and Romanticism are critical when considering the human condition, and just because one is favored at one moment, does not mean that the other cannot be favored at another moment.