Romantics emphasized the individual’s emotional and aesthetic reaction to the world. Romanticism evolved into a complex, artistic, literary, intellectual, “nonconformist” movement that partly revolted against aristocratic social and political norms (Emerson, 535). Romantic values legitimized the individual as a critical authority who permits freedom from classical notions of form and is encouraged “to believe [one’s] own thought” (Emerson, 533). Emerson advocates that individualism manipulates the enrichment of our own lives by influencing the way we live, slightly in opposition, I believe in a harmonious balance between individualism and conformity.
Emerson, a Romantic writer, stressed individualism, which is observed when confronting the sublimity of untamed, “independent, irresponsible,” “genuine” “opinions” (Emerson 534). Emerson emphasizes that individualism has picturesque “unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted” qualities which elevate individualism to a position as the supreme faculty of the mind (Emerson, 534). The “independent” individual, “unaffected” by external views, is described by Emerson as “great” (Emerson 534, 538). By describing individualism as a pure and unfiltered entity Emerson suggests that the capacity of individuals belongs to a “sacred” power of “consciousness” and the “integrity of our own mind” (Emerson, 535). This capability of individuals leads Emerson to arrive at the idea that “no law can be sacred” “but that of [one’s own] nature” and “the only right is what is after [one’s] constitution” (Emerson, 535). Thus, Emerson acknowledges that a visionary individual should “carry [themselves]” by practicing their own unique, unfiltered, creative ideas (Emerson 535).
These ideas of individualism contradict distinctly with the traditional arguments for the supremacy of consistency, “the other terror that scares us from self-trust” (Emerson 537). By questioning the true motives of consistency or...