Classic and Romantic Literature

The term "classic" has, ever since the second century, been applied to writers of the highest rank, from the Latin word classicus, originally applied to Roman citizens of the first rank as divided by Servius Tullius.

The classes were called classicus primus, classicus secundus, tertius, etc.: after a while classicus alone implied the class, meaning the first class.

Since the great productions of writers and artists of antiquity have continued to be looked upon as models of perfection, the term "Classics" has come to designate the best writers of ancient Greece and Rome; while "Classical" means much the same as ancient.

The "Romantic School" was a term first assumed in Germany, about the beginning of the present century, by a number of young poets and critics who wished to indicate that they sought the essence of art and poetry in the wonderful and fantastic,--elements which characterized the romance literature of the Middle Ages.

Some twenty or thirty years later a similar school arose in France, and had a long struggle with the older Classic School; but, with the exceptions of Lamartine and Victor Hugo, they rushed into such literary and moral excesses, that it is now stamped rather as a revolutionary than as a reformatory school.