But something new really did enter the way of thinking about peoples toward the end of the eighteenth century in much of Europe. In reaction against the rationalism and restraint of the Enlightenment, Romanticism produced a great upwelling of new feelings and ideas, especially in the expanding middle classes. Among the many marks of the movement were a miscellany of attitudes: a new enthusiasm for the emotions, an appreciation of nature in the face of the encroachments of industry, a passion for the democratic spirit of the French Revolution, and a paradoxical celebration both of folk
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