Glossary: Imagination - Essay Example

The themes mainly consisted of superhero characters, mostly chivalrous knights in shining armor, who accomplished great deeds by conquering dangerous dragons in their quest to rescue and eventually marry worthy damsels (Mundy, 2000, 87). In these tales, the heroes were bequeathed with superhuman characteristics and highly exaggerated selflessness and bravery. The tales served well to soothe the nerves of persons living during the times which were characterized by endless wars and savagery. Naturally literary creativity came up with something to help people maintain their sanity in the face of such adversity, hence the birth of romance as a genre (Mundy, 2000, 87).

Romance declined late into the 13th century as it slowly slipped out of fashion. This was partly because were becoming monotonous and lacked further creativity. People were therefore growing bored of the increasingly ridiculous and bloated plots that had almost completely lost touch with reality (Hearn, 1988, 113). Moreover, romance did have its critics around that time who helped it along on its way out. The most prominent of the critics was the Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes who criticized them in his widely acclaimed novel Don Quixote (Bloom, 2000, 141).

In the book, the lead character Don Quixote is obsessed with reading several novels about knights in shining armor and seriously believes them to be true. He tries to live like one of his favorite characters but ends up being severely beaten and is transported home by his peasant neighbor (Graf, 2007, 57). The book heavily satirized the once popular romantic tales portraying them as childish tales of fantasy that only a pathological individual like Quixote can take seriously. Ironically, though the book itself is still acknowledged even today as one of the best literary works ever written, the very tales it was criticizing also remain as the most renowned works of literature to have come out of that period (Graf, 2007, 61).

Meanwhile, attention had generally turned to more serious works of literature during what came to be known as the age of enlightenment (Gay, 1996, 26). During this period that falls mainly in the 18th century, there was a major philosophical shift in Europe when reason was seen as the only acceptable, legitimate and authoritative manner of presentation. Fantastic ideas like those found in the genre of romance were therefore unacceptable and irrelevant. Life was seen as made up of hard facts alone and nothing else (Gay, 1996, 26).

Among the top scholars who defined the term enlightenment are 1784 writer Immanuel Kant who defined enlightenment as the ultimate coming of age of mankind and the emancipation of the human mind from ignorance and error. It goes without saying that part of that ignorance and error he was referring to was romanticism (Yolton, 1992, 158). But romance did have its pundits among them novelist Charles Dickens. In Charles Dickens’ novel Hard Times enlightenment is aptly captured and satirized. In the 1854 book, Dickens shows that the pursuit of a purely rational society would inevitably lead to desolation and disillusionment in life.

In the book a puritanical schoolmaster insists that children have to be taught facts and nothing else. They end up as very miserable children and not any wiser than any other