If we're being honest, Romanticism is probably one of the worst things to happen to the western world. Its like, the prime reason why we end up getting disappointed in life. Romanticism started out as a kind of reaction to what we now call the Age Of Enlightenment, where people were more focused on rationality and science over emotion and superstition. Romantics beieved that the human spirit was the only thing that one needed in order to be happy in life. They believed that nature was humankind's true home. They believed that children are goodness in its pure form, and a whole bunch of other things that make you feel good, but are essentially impractical. The stuff the believed in made its way into the arts, especially in literature and theater. This is where we get the whole Romance genre. It was romantics who came up with the idea of a soul mate, and that if two people trul love each other, shit will just work out.They are also the ones that portrayed people who were homeless or poor as victims of a cruel world, and the insane, yet oddly attractive girl as someone who is infinitely wise

You might ask what this means for us today. Well, I'll tell you. None of this has gone away. People are still out here looking for soul mates when, realistically, there's no such thing. Think about it. Most of the people you've had long relationships with were people you would have never seen yourself dating at first. We still make unfortunate conditions seem noble, like the starving artist trope (which I despise). And as a speices we still rely too much on emotion and don't think rationally enough. We're still to immature as a species. Give it a few thousand more years.