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Content: Emphasis was placed on the exoticism of these places, often through the use of endlessly repeated stereotypes of the presumed decadence and strangeness of Africans and Arabs or the supposedly relaxed, colorful, and sensual living of southern Europeans. But the Romantic age was also a period in which Europeans traveled more than ever to examine at first hand the far-off lands of which they had read. Several of the major Romantic poets traveled extensively throughout Continental Europe and lived abroad for extended periods. The Importance of Individualism
The Romantic period was also the period of the industrial revolution, which created a new and very wealthy class of businessmen and entrepreneurs that was much larger than the ancient aristocracies of Europe. This new class tended to see themselves as struggling against aristocratic codes of behavior—and tax codes. The result was to find satisfaction not in being a member of a class but in the struggle to make one’s own fortune. Artists, and particularly authors, also became increasingly entrepreneurial at this time, making their fortunes from the creative productions that expressed their unique individual vision and talents. People came to regard conformist social pressures and traditional canons of behavior as adversarial forces that the individual must conquer in order to discover and express his/her true nature. Finding and expressing oneself came to be regarded as the purpose of a meaningful life—as opposed to the traditional value placed upon submission to the will of God and his appointed kings on earth. In the literary arts, Romantic heroes differed from traditional literary heroes in that they tended to challenge rather than champion the social and moral values of their time.