German Romanticism (1790s-1850) was at the center of a worldwide renewal movement that affected national literatures from central Europe to North and Latin America and profoundly altered the worldview and even the lifestyle of the people. Among leading intellectuals in various disciplines who received lasting impulses from Romanticism are Karl Marx (Das kommunistische Manifest, 1848, with Friedrich Engels); Richard Wagner (1813-83); the lawyer Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779-1861); and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). It is hardly feasible to present an all-encompassing definition of Romanticism in all its different manifestations at diverse times and places, be they regional, national, or international. Many definitions and explanatio

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Published 17 December 2003

Citation: Hoffmeister, Gerhart. "German Romanticism". The Literary Encyclopedia. 17 December 2003.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1353, accessed 20 November 2009.]