The 20 most famous and recognized authors of Romanticism

This cultural and literary movement was one of the most prolific in recent history.

Romanticism has been an artistic current that has brought countless authors and artistic works to humanity. and artistic works to humanity.

This movement, which developed mainly in Europe and America, has laid the foundations for understanding the concept of the current nation, besides being, in a way, behind subcultures such as emo or gothic.

There are hundreds of romantic authors, of all types and nationalities, so it is almost impossible to make a compilation of all of them, however, with this article, in addition to understanding the main characteristics of the movement, we will see its most prominent characters.

• You may be interested in reading: "The 35 best Poems of Romanticism (by great authors)".

Romanticism: main characteristics

Romanticism is a cultural movement that appeared for the first time at the end of the XVIII century, trying to break with the preceding current, neoclassicism. The Romantic movement defended the idea of fantasy, as well as the expression of one's deepest feelings and fleeing from the excess of neoclassical rationalism.

Romanticism has laid the foundations of today's national movements, defending the idea of the homeland as something alive, both from a more cultural perspective and in the political sense of the term.

Among the most outstanding characteristics of the movement is the defense of liberalism, as well as the beauty of incompleteness, something that can be seen in the extensive literary corpus of the authors of the time, in which there is no lack of incomplete novels. They fought against the traditional, seen as a mere copy of another copy of what was once an original idea. What was original and out of the ordinary was welcomed with open arms by the romantic authors.

Each author, whether painter, writer or even journalist, expressed himself in completely personal terms, trying to express his own vision of the world. In addition, the romantic work was a call for freedom and escape from the society in which its author had been forced to live. The romantic is associated with melancholy and the exaltation of one's own culture or homeland, as well as the mystery and the omnipresence of natural landscapes..

Outstanding authors

Romanticism has been written and painted by both men and women, although as has always happened with women, they have not been given the due prominence they deserve.

1. Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is one of the best known poets, novelists and playwrights of French romanticism. In addition to his literary work, he was also an active politician.

As a multifaceted person that he was, his works touched multiple genres, however, among his most notable works is 'Les Misérables' of 1862.

Others that cannot be ignored are the plays 'Lucrèce Borgia', 'Marie Tudor', the novel 'Notre-Dame de Paris' and poetry such as 'Odes et ballades', 'L'art d'être grand-père' and 'Les quatre vents de l'esprit'.

2. José de Espronceda

José de Espronceda y Delgado (1808-1842), born in Almendralejo, Badajoz, is one of the best known and most representative Spanish poets of romanticism in his country.

Although he wrote novels such as 'Sancho Saldaña', his poetic works such as 'El estudiante de Salamanca', 'La canción del pirata' and, although unfinished, 'El diablo mundo' and 'El pelayo' are much better known. He also served as a politician for the Spanish progressive party, participating in the Paris revolutions of 1930.

3. Mary Shelley

Mary ShelleyMary Wollstonecraft Godwin, whose real name was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, (1791-1851) is the first woman on this list, but not the last. She was well known in various fields thanks to her contributions in philosophy, theater and essays. Born in London, she is considered one of the first female science fiction authors in history.

Among her best known works are 'Frankenstein' (an iconic work of Romanticism that is part of the popular culture of half the world), 'Mathilda', 'Falkner', 'The fortunes of Perkin Warbeck' and 'Valperga'.

4. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870) whose real name was Gustavo Adolfo Claudio Domínguez Bastida, was a Spanish poet and writer who, although well-known while he was alive, was not really popular until after his death.

Among his best known works are several stories such as 'La cruz del diablo', 'la promesa', 'Creed en Dios' and 'Los ojos verdes', but undoubtedly, it is his poetry in 'Rimas y Leyendas' that has made him widely known within the current of romanticism.

This work is a collection of stories that together make up one of the greatest works of literature in Spanish.

5. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Goethe (1749-1832) is one of the most recognized people within romanticism, being a reference not only in his native Germany, but also in the rest of the Western world.

He was not only a playwright, novelist and poet, which is no small feat, but also devoted himself to the world of science.

Goethe's work is so significant that today it continues to have a global impact, especially because the institution that is responsible for the dissemination of German culture, the Goethe Institute, takes his name.

Among his most outstanding works are 'Die Leiden des jungen Werther', 'Wilhelm Meister' and, the best known, 'Faust'.

Among his scientific work is his theory on color, in addition to having studied the development of organs in plants and their morphology.

6. Lord Byron

George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) was not only a poet recognized in his time, but also became a true celebrity thanks to his great attractiveness and his eccentric, acid and polemic personality.

Due to his peculiarities, there are those who have defended the idea that the English poet suffered from bipolar disorder.

He published many works, among the most outstanding are his great unfinished work 'Don Juan', as well as 'Hours of Idleness', 'The Bride of Abydos' and 'The Corsair'.

As a curiosity, Lord Byron was in possession of several animals throughout his life, including monkeys, a hawk, an eagle, a fox and even a bear.

7. William Blake

William Blake (1757-1827) was little known during his lifetime, although this poet and painter achieved fame after his death.

It is likely that this was due to the fact that his work was considered more typical of the Enlightenment than of Romanticism, although today it is classified within the second artistic current.

Among his works we can find 'All religions are one', more of an enlightened tendency, and 'Poetical sketches', 'An island in the Moon', 'The French Revolution' and 'The Four Zoas' moving further away from the Enlightenment.

8. Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) is, together with her sisters Emily Jane and Anne, one of the members of the well-known Brontë family, with outstanding artists among them. Charlotte and Emily, however, are the most notable of this lineage of poets.

Charlotte's best known work is the novel 'Jane Eyre', although she wrote others such as 'Villette' and 'The Professor', which were inspired by her love for the headmaster of the school where she studied.

9. Emily Brontë

Emily Jane Brontë (1818-1848) is, like her sister Charlotte, well known, especially for being the author of 'Wuthering Heights', a novel characterized by passion and violence, with a marked sexual character.

In fact, Emily Brontë had a writing style so shocking for the Victorian society of the time that many were those who believed that her main work had been written by a man.

This caused the work to be seen as immoral and obscene, despite the fact that with the passing of time it would become a classic of English literature that no high school in the United Kingdom fails to be part of the school curriculum.

10. Alexandre Dumas

The life of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, has gone more unnoticed than not his name, known worldwide for being the author of 'Les Trois Mousquetaires' and 'Le Comte de Monte-Cristo'.

What is perhaps not so well known are his origins, being the son of a French general in the then colony of Santo Domingo who, in turn, was the son of a French nobleman and a black slave.

Alexandre Dumas is thus considered not only a great writer, but also someone who, at a time when slavery and Biological racism were still in force, showed that people of African or mixed race could create great artistic works.

11. François-René de Chateaubriand

François-RenéFrançois-René de Chateaubriand, vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) is considered one of the founders of French romanticism.

Among his most outstanding works are 'Essai sur les Révolutions', 'Atala', 'René', 'Les Martyrs' and 'Mémoirs d'Outre-Tombe'.

12. Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900) is one of the most prolific Irish writers in the English language. He not only wrote novels, but also poetry and plays.

His work is not merely romantic in the more 'standard' sense, so to speak, of the term. He used this movement as if it were a pillar and was molding it at will to create new sub-branches within it.

Of his personal life the most remarkable is his homosexuality, more than controversial in the Irish society of the time, characterized by a strong Catholic morality.

Among his best known works are 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and 'The Importance of being Earnest'. His last publications, 'De profundis' and 'The Ballad of Reading' were written from prison.

13. Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775-1817), is one of the referential authors of English romanticism, it is essential to read her works in the Saxon country, such as 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Sense and Sensibility', 'Mansfield Park', 'Love and Friendship' and 'Emma'.

14. Edgar Allan Poe

Born as Edgar Poe (1809-1849) is perhaps the best known romantic writer born in the United States. He was also a poet, literary critic and journalist.

His writings are characterized for being short stories, of gothic tendency, besides being abundant among his work the tales of terror and being one of the main referents in terms of the genre of fear.

The Black Cat', 'The Cask of Amontillado', 'The Pit and the Pendulum' or 'Hop-Frog' are some of his best known stories, and among his poetry we cannot ignore 'The Bells', 'Ulalume' and, perhaps his best known work, 'The Raven'.

15. Lewis Carroll

His real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) and, besides being a writer, he was a mathematician, Anglican deacon and photographer.

He is known worldwide for being the author of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and its sequel 'Through the Looking-glass', children's novels that have become classics, as well as being adapted several times to the world of cinema.

In his novels he makes some nods to the world of mathematics, besides being marked by paradox and nonsense.

16. Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) is the author of up to 15 novels, as well as several short stories and essays critical of the state of English society in which he lived.

His works such as 'Oliver Twist', 'Nicholas Nickleby', 'David Copperfield' and 'Great Expectations' are quite famous.

17. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Although he lived in a time before romanticism, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a Genevan philosopher and writer, as well as a musical composer, botanist and naturalist.

He described the society of his time and sought to improve it through the use of his thought, writing such notable works as 'Du contrat social' and 'Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes'.

He also wrote novels, such as 'Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse', and also texts on pedagogy, such as 'Émile, ou De l'éducation'.

18. William Wordsworth

As the great English poet he was, William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

Among his works we can find The Solitary Reaper, The Prelude, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, The Tables Turned and many more.

19. Rosalia de Castro

María Rosalía Rita de Castro (1837-1885) was a Galician poet, very important and outstanding in Spanish literature.

She wrote both in Spanish and in her native language, Galician, being a symbol of Galician culture her work 'Cantares galegos', whose publication date, May 17, 1863, has become the 'Día das letras galegas', celebration of literature in Galician.

His work is characterized by the appreciation of his native land, showing nostalgia or 'morriña' (homesickness). Moreover, the fact that part of his work is written in Galician is a declaration of principles, attachment and defense of his culture. Other outstanding works are, in Spanish, the poetic 'La flor', 'A mi madre' and 'En las orillas del Sar', while in Galician 'Follas novas' is remarkable. In prose we can highlight 'Contos da miña terra'.

20. Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American poet, whose poetry is characterized by having a special sensitivity, as well as wrapping itself in mystery and addressing various themes in a very profound way.

Bibliographical references:

• Consello da Cultura Galega and Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (1986). Actas do Congreso internacional de estudios sobre Rosalía de Castro e o seu tempo. Servicio de publicacións da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.
• Franklin, R. W. (1999). The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
• McCalman, I. (2009). An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Online at Oxford Reference Online
• Reynolds, N. (2010). Building Romanticism: Literature and Architecture in Nineteenth-century Britain. University of Michigan Press.
• Wilde, O. (2009). "The art of conversation". Spain.