Romanticism was artistic movement that ran from the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth century. It gave off strong emotions as a source of experience and it emphasized emotions such as anxiety and horror. It elevated folk art, language, and custom. Romanticism was a reaction against the excessive rationalism of the Enlightenment. It drew some characteristics from the French Revolution's rejection of aristocratic social and political views. It was also influenced by the theory of evolution and uniformitarianism, which argued that "the past is the key to the present.” Some Romantics looked back to the simplicity of the Middle Ages because the elements of art and narrative were perceived to be from the medieval period. The medieval