# Romanticization

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{{Short description|Unrealistically positive depiction}}{{Redirect|Romanticize|the album|Romanticize (album)}}
{{Distinguish|Romanization}}
[[File:'The Burial of Latane' by William Dickinson Washington, oil on canvas.jpg|thumb|''[The Burial of Latané](/source/The_Burial_of_Latan%C3%A9)'' by [William D. Washington](/source/William_D._Washington), 1864, romanticizes [slavery in the United States](/source/slavery_in_the_United_States) by portraying enslaved African Americans as loyal subjects.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Stephens |first=Rachel |date=Spring 2020 |title=“Whatever is un-Virginian is Wrong!”: The Loyal Slave Trope in Civil War Richmond and the Origins of the Lost Cause |url=https://journalpanorama.org/article/little-of-artistic-merit/whatever-is-un-virginian-is-wrong/ |journal=Panorama |issue=6.1}}</ref>]]
'''Romanticization''' is the act of treating a subject as more [desirable](/source/Desire) or attractive than it is in [reality](/source/reality).{{Sfn|Ndour|Foulkes|2025|p=2297}}{{Sfn|Kenasri|Sadasri|2021|p=203}} Common subjects of romanticization in [popular culture](/source/popular_culture) include [nature](/source/Natural_environment),<ref>{{Cite book |last=Seddon |first=George |url=https://books.google.be/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ZIAR6EvER2AC |title=Landprints: Reflections on Place and Landscape |date=1998-09-28 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-65999-4 |page=8 |language=en}}</ref> [crime](/source/crime),{{Sfn|Duncan|1996|p=190}} [abuse](/source/abuse),<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Béres |first=Laura |date=May 1999 |title=Beauty and the beast: The romanticization of abuse in popular culture |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/136754949900200203 |journal=European Journal of Cultural Studies |language=en |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=191–207 |doi=10.1177/136754949900200203 |issn=1367-5494}}</ref> [mental illness](/source/mental_illness),{{Sfn|Ndour|Foulkes|2025|p=1}} [war](/source/war),{{Sfn|Finger|2022|p=27}} and [history](/source/history). [Historical romance](/source/Historical_romance) is a genre of [historical fiction](/source/historical_fiction) which involves such romanticization to amplify the experience of love,{{Sfn|Fresno-Calleja|Teo|2024|p=1}} and according to [Anita Desai](/source/Anita_Desai), [myth](/source/myth) itself is a romanticization of history.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1999-06-19 |title=A passage from India |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/1999/jun/19/books.guardianreview11 |access-date=2026-02-05 |work=[The Guardian](/source/The_Guardian) |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Romanticization is often associated with [nostalgia](/source/nostalgia), the concept of longing for the past, although the two terms are not synonymous.{{Sfn|Mason|2024|p=526}} While nostalgia is known for its tendency to romanticize,{{Sfn|Feldbrügge|2011|p=56}} it can also arise from genuine memory.{{Sfn|Feldbrügge|2011|pp=7-8}}

== Etymology ==
''Romanticize'' derives from the word ''[romantic](/source/Romance)''.<ref>{{Cite OED|term=romanticize|id=1201889346|access-date=6 February 2026}}</ref> According to the ''[Oxford English Dictionary](/source/Oxford_English_Dictionary)'', the English word ''romanticize'' dates to an 1818 letter by English poet [Samuel Taylor Coleridge](/source/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge), thus the historian Carl Thompson considers him to have coined the word.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=Carl |url=https://books.google.be/books?id=jw5REAAAQBAJ |title=The Suffering Traveller and the Romantic Imagination |date=2007-05-31 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-153192-7 |page=4 |language=en}}</ref> The German translation of the word, {{Lang|de|romantisieren}}, was previously coined in the 1797–98 writings of the poet [Novalis](/source/Novalis) in a series of terms related to his new definition of the {{Lang|de|romantisch}}. Novalis wrote that:{{Sfn|Décultot|2014|pp=908-909}}
<blockquote>By conferring on secret things an elevated meaning, on the everyday a mysterious prestige, on the known the dignity of the unknown, on the finite the appearance of the infinite, I romanticize them.</blockquote>
A leading member of the [Romantic movement](/source/Romantic_movement) in Germany, Novalis sought to imbue the concept of the romantic with a deeper significance by highlighting untruth or strangeness as its defining characteristic.{{Sfn|Eichner|1972|p=124}}

== Violence ==
The romanticization of violence has persisted across [periods of human history](/source/Periods_of_history) and unto the present day, despite living alongside a desire to eradicate it.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Terry-Fritsch |first=Allie |chapter=Proof in Pierced Flesh: Caravaggio's Doubting Thomas and the Beholder of Wounds in Early Modern Italy |page=1 |editor-last=Terry-Fritsch |editor-first=Allie |url=https://books.google.be/books?id=zHp6rDhYwfMC |title=Beholding Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Europe |editor2-last=Labbie |editor2-first=Erin Felicia |date=2012 |publisher=[Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.](/source/Ashgate_Publishing%2C_Ltd.) |isbn=978-1-4094-4286-8 |language=en}}</ref> The tradition of [Bronze Age](/source/Bronze_Age) poetry which emerged in [ancient Greece](/source/ancient_Greece), the [ancient Near East](/source/ancient_Near_East), and beyond evidently display such romanticization.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Meagher |first=Robert E. |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Meaning_of_Helen/vBDfKCyC2LMC |title=The Meaning of Helen: In Search of an Ancient Icon |date=2002 |publisher=Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers |isbn=978-0-86516-510-6 |language=en |p=42}}</ref>

=== War ===
The history of the romanticization of war in fiction can be traced through the ''[Iliad](/source/Iliad)'', [medieval romances](/source/medieval_romances), [Shakespeare's plays](/source/Shakespeare's_plays), and the emergence of war [memoirs](/source/memoirs) in the 19th century,{{Sfn|Finger|2022|pp=27-30}} but according to [literary historians](/source/Literary_historian) [Paul Fussell](/source/Paul_Fussell) and [Yuval Noah Harari](/source/Yuval_Noah_Harari), this romanticization in literature slowly ended following the devastating impact of the [First](/source/World_War_I) and [Second World Wars](/source/World_War_II).{{Sfn|Halat|2014|pp=6-7}} The romanticized view of war is still prevalent in cultural and political discourse, where war is often seen as a worthwhile mean to the end of a constructive legacy{{Sfn|Toros|Dunleavy|Gazeley|Guirakhoo|2018|pp=20, 26}} and romanticized narratives of war can help governments to recruit citizens to fight as soldiers.{{Sfn|Halat|2014|p=291}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}
=== Bibliography ===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{Cite encyclopedia |title=Romantic |last=Décultot |first=Elisabeth |author-link=Élisabeth Décultot |pages=907-910 |editor-last=Cassin |editor-first=Barbara |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dictionary_of_Untranslatables/UXP5AQAAQBAJ |encyclopedia=Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon |editor2-last=Apter |editor2-first=Emily |editor3-last=Lezra |editor3-first=Jacques |editor4-last=Wood |editor4-first=Michael |date=2014-02-09 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-4991-8 |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Duncan |first=Martha Grace |title=Romantic Outlaws, Beloved Prisons: The Unconscious Meanings of Crime and Punishment |year=1996 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=978-0-8147-2110-0 |location=New York}}
* {{Cite book |last=Eichner |first=Hans |editor-last=Eichner |chapter=Germany / Romantisch – Romantik – Romantiker |pages=98-156 |editor-first=Hans |url=http://archive.org/details/romanticitscogna0000eich |title="Romantic" and its cognates; the European history of a word |year=1972 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |via=[Internet Archive](/source/Internet_Archive) |isbn=978-0-8020-5243-8}}
* {{Cite thesis |last=Feldbrügge |first=Astrid |title=Nostalgia, Home and Be-longing in Contemporary Postapartheid Fiction by Zakes Mda and Ivan Vladislavić |year=2011 |degree=PhD |url=https://epub.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/361/ |publisher=University of Bayreuth |place=Bayreuth |language=de}}
* {{Cite thesis |last=Finger |first=Nathan Gregory |title=The First World War in British theatre |date=March 28, 2022 |degree=PhD |publisher=Macquarie University |url=https://figshare.mq.edu.au/articles/thesis/The_First_World_War_in_British_theatre/19436591?file=34534280 |doi=10.25949/19436591}}
* {{Cite book |last=Fresno-Calleja |first=Paloma |chapter=Introduction |date=2024-12-04 |title=Travel and Colonialism in 21st Century Romantic Historical Fiction |pages=1–25 |chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003495840/chapters/10.4324/9781003495840-1 |access-date=2026-02-05 |edition=1 |place=New York |publisher=Routledge |language=en |doi=10.4324/9781003495840-1 |isbn=978-1-003-49584-0 |last2=Teo |first2=Hsu-Ming}}
* {{Cite thesis |last=Halat |first=Rebecca |date=June 2014 |title=Un homme, un vrai: martial and alternative masculinities in French War literature and film |degree=PhD |publisher=University of Minnesota Twin Cities |url=https://hdl.handle.net/11299/164886 |language=en-US}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Kenasri |first=Priscila Asoka |last2=Sadasri |first2=Lidwina Mutia |date=2021-10-27 |title=Romanticized Abusive Behavior by Media Narrative Analysis on Portrayal of Intimate Partner Violence Romanticism in Korean Drama |url=https://jurnal.ugm.ac.id/jurnal-humaniora/article/view/68104 |journal=Humaniora |language=en |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=202–211 |doi=10.22146/jh.68104 |issn=2302-9269}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Mason |first=Sarah |date=October 2024 |title=Community nostalgia and transgenerational trauma: reconciling dichotomies from women’s oral history of West Belfast, 1975–1995 * |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09670882.2024.2407043 |journal=Irish Studies Review |language=en |volume=32 |issue=4 |pages=523–539 |doi=10.1080/09670882.2024.2407043 |issn=0967-0882}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Ndour |first=Awa |last2=Foulkes |first2=Lucy |author2-link=Lucy Foulkes |date=2025-08-01 |title=The romanticisation of mental health problems in adolescents and its implications: a narrative review |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-025-02701-0 |journal=European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry |language=en |volume=34 |issue=8 |pages=2297–2326 |doi=10.1007/s00787-025-02701-0 |issn=1435-165X |pmc=12396996 |pmid=40220194}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Toros |first=Harmonie |last2=Dunleavy |first2=Daniel |last3=Gazeley |first3=Joe |last4=Guirakhoo |first4=Alex |last5=Merian |first5=Lucie |last6=Omran |first6=Yasmeen |date=2018-08-01 |title=“Where is War? We are War.” Teaching and Learning the Human Experience of War in the Classroom |url=https://academic.oup.com/isp/article/19/3/199/4911474 |journal=International Studies Perspectives |language=en |volume=19 |issue=3 |pages=199–217 |doi=10.1093/isp/ekx012 |issn=1528-3577}}
{{Refend}}

== External links ==
{{Wiktionary|romanticize|romanticization}}

Category:Nostalgia
Category:Imagination

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Romanticization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticization) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticization?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.