British Romantic poets reacted against which intellectual movement?

The British Romantic poets emerged as a response to the intellectual climate of their time, particularly reacting against the principles of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment emphasized reason, logic, and empirical evidence, often prioritizing rational thought over emotional or imaginative experiences. In contrast, Romanticism celebrated individual emotion, nature, imagination, and the sublime, positioning feelings and personal experience as significant sources of knowledge and understanding.

Romantic poets like William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and John Keats sought to express deep emotional truths, highlighting the importance of nature and the human spirit. They critiqued the Enlightenment's focus on rationality, arguing that it overlooked the richness of human experience and the mysteries of life that cannot be understood through reason alone. This rejection of strict rationalism helped to shape the Romantic movement, which is characterized by its exploration of personal and emotional themes.

The other movements listed, such as existentialism and postmodernism, developed later in history and do not directly relate to the Romantic poets’ reaction against Enlightenment thought.