Philosophically, the Spirit of the Romantic Age Was All About Power of the Individual, Reflected Through Ideas of Self-Realisation and Nature

The belief that the foundations of society should be based on human reason and logic became widely challenged throughout the 18th century, giving rise to the Romantic era which introduced many thoughts and beliefs, including the power of Individualism, emphasising on nature and the self. During the period of Romanticism, emphasis moved to the importance of the individual's experience in the world and his or her own interpretation of that event, rather than how society demanded the individual interpret said experience. Writers of the time agreed that the inner self was more powerful than the external self, and that the individual owned the right to seize power over their own beings. This belief allowed individuals to confidently possess power over themselves, becoming their own masters, no longer enslaved by the whims of the society in which they lived.

The power of the individual can be dissected into ideas of self-realisation and nature, particularly the interaction between the two. Nature is a progressive presence throughout all Romantic literature, music and art; a character who speaks in a symbolic and personified language, engaging man in a dialogue with nature, itself. The poet or artist is seen as the translator through which nature and the common man communicate. The roots of this era, particularly the concepts of Individualism, are expressed in the works of writers Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Emily Brontë and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Samuel Coleridge is one of the most original and influential writers of the Romantic period. A lot of his poems were based around the Romantic element of the importance of individuality in nature and in humankind, in particular, the unique eccentricity of the poet.

Sitting in his neighbour's orchard in 1974, he wrote This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, reflecting his feelings and emotions as his friends and wife adventured the Quantock Hills without him. He used personification to humanise the nature surrounding him as he symbolically celebrates the innocent freedom found in the countryside in contrast to the imprisonment of the individual soul in the city, and the restriction on expression of individuality under society's pressures. His heart soon gladdens as if he was experiencing the same universal delight his friends are undoubtedly 'gazing' upon, shaking him out of depression and acknowledging the beauties of his own bower landscape, giving it its own identity. In the silence, only the bee is to be heard singing in the bean-flower paralleling that of the poet in his own enclosure. Coleridge recognises the brotherhood between the two and draws a philosophical conclusion that no individual creature is abandoned or unimportant in the universal scheme and that all creature and inanimate objects of nature are one in the divine unity of all things.

A similar theme of the value of each individual expression of the life-force and the unity of all things in nature is described in another Coleridge poem Frost at Midnight, which begins and ends with the personification of frost capturing the unity of humankind and nature. The use of personification here and in describing the 'owlet's cry' also depicts Coleridge's means in emphasising the philosophical belief that each individual aspect of nature takes part in the divine purpose for the universe. Towards the end of the poem the speaker is overwhelmed by the passion of love he has for his child captured in all positives such as 'thrill' and 'tender gladness'. He wishes for his child an education at the hand of nature itself where lessons 'who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself' are taught in free wanderings about the natural landscape, rather than in the cloisters of a city school, as he once endured. In the defined setting of an English countryside, Coleridge has explored the mystery and enchantment of nature its effect on the individual.

On the subject of the individual's longing for ideal beauty, Kubla Khan is a beautifully written and mysterious poem focussing on life and death and yearning for paradise. As in This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, there are implications of restrictions of individuality when Coleridge writes of Kubla Khan's walled heavenly city characterised by strong visual images. Patterns of light and dark are also found throughout this particular poem, demonstrating Coleridge's usual fascination of the universe's symbolism of its antitheses. The poem examines humankind's quest for paradise and the fragility of any attempt to create it on earth. It is a statement of the power of poetry and the ability of the inspired poet to be a person who has the power to know the unknowable.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner focuses on the individual's understanding of existence through great crime he commits and the experience of suffering which develops from it. After killing the Albatross, the mariner and his crew endure terrible hardships on their voyage, though in Part IV, the cursed mariner's heart responds to the beauty of the water snakes dressed in the moon's 'elfish lights'. He blesses them and was then able to pray. Showing great symbolism of reconciliation and the lift of punishment, the dead bird falls from the mariner's neck and into the sea. In a powerful and gothic narrative of bizarre events, Coleridge again makes a statement about the unity of all things in creation, and the impact nature and moments of self-realisation has upon the individual.

Romantic literature is characterised by several features. It emphasises the dream, or inner world of the individual, the individual self and the value of the individual's experience. Emily Brontë has been described as an Absolute Individual, as Tormented Genius, and as Free Spirit Communing with Nature and often uses Wuthering Heights to portray a biography of her life, personality and beliefs. Brontë uses both individualism and nature to communicate ideas of isolation, rebellion and freedom to her readers, using her characters as translators. The novel revolves around Catherine and Heathcliff who seek a love that is permanent and unchanging like rocks, contrasting Catherine's relationship with Edgar which she relates to the changing seasons. The love Catherine and Heathcliff have for one another is an attempt to break the boundaries of the self and the natural separateness of human beings. By binding one soul to another, unites two incomplete individuals, creating one whole and achieving a new sense of a complete and unified identity. Jungian readings interpret this relationship of the two souls combining as the archetype of the shadow and the individual, or the archetypes of the animus and the persona. The shadow is the uncontrollable dark side of human nature, consisting of feelings and desires