Main Themes

The main themes in this story are Romanticism and Realism

I found two definitions

The fist one describes Romanticism like this:

Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental.

Romanticism was marked by emphasis on originality and individuality, personal emotional expression, and freedom and experimentation of form.

Webster defines Romanticism as:

Consisting of or resembling a romance

Having no basis in fact : IMAGINARY

Impractical in conception or plan : VISIONARY

a: marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized b: often capitalized of, relating to, or having the characteristic of Romanticism c: of or relating to music of the 19^th century characterized by an emphasis on subjective emotional qualities and freedom or form; d: also of relating to a composer of this music

a: having an inclination for romance: responsive to the appeal of what is idealized, heroic, or adventurous

Realism is:

Realism rejects imaginative idealization in favour of a close observation of outward appearances

Realism usually stemmed either form artists` desire to present more honest, searching, and unidealized views of everyday life or from their attempts to use art as a vehicle for social and political criticism

Realism`s emphasis on detachment, objectivity, and accurate observation, its lucid but restrained criticism of social environment and mores, and the humane understanding that underlay its moral judgments

Realism from Webster:

Concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary

a: a doctrine that universals exist outside the mind; specifically: the conception that an abstract term names an independent and unitary reality b: the conception that objects of sense perception or cognition exist idependently of the mind - compare NOMINALISM

fidelity in art and literature to nature or real life and to accurate representation without idealization

I enjoyed reading this book. It was pretty easy to understand and there were a lot of poems which I liked very much. I would also recommend everybody to read this book just for fun.