Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Romanticism

Romanticism , noun

[CF. Italian romanticismo, French romantisme, romanticisme.]

A fondness for romantic characteristics or peculiarities; specifically, in modern literature, an aiming at romantic effects; -- applied to the productions of a school of writers who sought to revive certain medieval forms and methods in opposition to the so-called classical style.
He [Lessing] may be said to have begun the revolt from pseudo-classicism in poetry, and to have been thus unconsciously the founder of romanticism. — Lowell