ABSTRACT
The roots of the Romantic movement lie in the eighteenth century in a series of interlocking trends of cumulative effect: the decline of the Neo-classical system led to the questionings of the Enlightenment, which in turn was conducive to the infiltration of the new notions current in the latter half of the century. The period that equated 'romantic' with 'chimerical' and 'ridiculous' was that of Neo-classicism, which was at its height in the seventeenth century, notably in France. Since the revival of Classical standards in the Renaissance, the main concern had been the establishment, elaboration and spread of a view of literature inherited from Greek and Roman antiquity. The pace and extent of the advance during the Enlightenment was directly related to the strength of the Neo-classical conventions. Thus it was slowest in France, the land of Descartes, where the long-established traditions were so deeply entrenched as to persist far into the eighteenth century.
