This literature review will critically analyze a range of topics and perspectives from literary critics that will be relevant to the study of Romanticism. Due to the scope of research on Romantic literature as a discipline, the main focus of this article will focus primarily on defining the two aspects of Romantic literature. These two aspects are called romantic and sublime nature; the article will examine the main purpose of these definitions by literary scholars. The review will also compare and contrast the different methodologies used by critics in defining 'Nature' and the 'Sublime'. When and if appropriate the review may make brief references to some canonical romantic texts. Furthermore, the reason why the contribution will focus specifically on these two aspects is because it has been generally recognized by literary scholars that nature and the sublime are both synonymous. However, there are various debates among scholars about the definition and thus illustrate the inconsistencies of the two terms. Therefore, this essay will make little contributions regarding the definition of the term. Nature and the sublime are two important features in eighteenth-century Romantic literature and it is this relationship that has attracted considerable attention in literary criticism (Hagman, 124). Aidan Day (1985) and Nicola Trott (1999) have aptly documented that the serenity of nature and the spiritual awe of the sublime are an aesthetically appealing feature in Romantic literature. Despite this consensus, their interpretation of what constitutes the sublime differs but not significantly. Although Day takes an epistemological approach in defining the sublime "as a… medium of paper… I, it is a study of how other literary scholars view the sublime. However, Trott and Day's text posits a consistent definition of the sublime, there are some limitations in their work, for example their work does not offer how the term might have changed or evolved over the past decade Velde (2010) found that the correct use of language must be employed in romantic literature for capture a transcendental experience for the reader. Velde's point is valid because the Romantic poets made an extreme claim. It is therefore necessary to look at the sublime relationship with "Nature" and how literary scholars defined this term in recent years. The emphasis on nature is another significant notion for Romantic literature because literary scholars see nature as an integral concept when researching Romanticism as a discipline.
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