{{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'' by William D. Washington, 1864, romanticizes 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 or attractive than it is in reality.{{Sfn|Ndour|Foulkes|2025|p=2297}}{{Sfn|Kenasri|Sadasri|2021|p=203}} Common subjects of romanticization in popular culture include nature,<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,{{Sfn|Duncan|1996|p=190}} 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,{{Sfn|Ndour|Foulkes|2025|p=1}} war,{{Sfn|Finger|2022|p=27}} and history. Historical romance is a genre of historical fiction which involves such romanticization to amplify the experience of love,{{Sfn|Fresno-Calleja|Teo|2024|p=1}} and according to Anita Desai, 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 |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Romanticization is often associated with 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''.<ref>{{Cite OED|term=romanticize|id=1201889346|access-date=6 February 2026}}</ref> According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', the English word ''romanticize'' dates to an 1818 letter by English poet 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 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 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 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. |isbn=978-1-4094-4286-8 |language=en}}</ref> The tradition of Bronze Age poetry which emerged in ancient Greece, the 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'', medieval romances, Shakespeare's plays, and the emergence of war memoirs in the 19th century,{{Sfn|Finger|2022|pp=27-30}} but according to literary historians Paul Fussell and Yuval Noah Harari, this romanticization in literature slowly ended following the devastating impact of the First and Second World Wars.{{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 |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