Rip Van Wrinkle (Romananticim)

The difference between Romanticism and Rationalism is that Rationalists used logic to explain everyday life. Romanticists however, used the imagination and fantasy to explain how everyday life should be. In the story of Rip Van Wrinkle, he is showing how a simple man can go on an adventure and learn just as much as a king or noble. Romanticists used nature as an escape from the torn cities and upsetting life. In Rip Van Wrinkle, most of the story is based in a small country village where there is nothing but nature. It shows more of a simple life. Like when Rip would go into the mountains to escape from his problems at home, he would hunt or fish to keep his sanity.” In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill Mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and re-echoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland.” This is evidence that the mountains were an escape and a sort of tranquility for Rip. Imagination is also a big part in this story. If you were completely logical, you probably wouldn’t understand this story. For example, when he discovers the elves, in the life of logic, elves don’t exist. Or when he sleeps for twenty years, technically that is impossible, who could sleep for that long with no water or food and survive. This proves that without imagination, the world would be lost and life wouldn’t matter anymore because there would be no goals and no dreams.