Final answer:
For the Romantics, imagination was a critical force that included reason, and together they fostered creative genius in the arts. It was fundamental to Romanticism's valuing of profound emotional experiences in art, and therefore, the best answer is A. included reason.
Step-by-step explanation:
For the Romantics, imagination was not merely a complement to reason, but a powerful force in its own right. According to Romantic thinking, imagination includes reason but goes beyond it to embrace emotion, intuition, and a sense of wonder towards nature and human experiences. The Romantics saw imagination as essential to artistic expression, allowing individuals to transcend reality and connect with sublime and ineffable truths.
Francisco Goya, a notable figure related to Romanticism, captured the essence of this view when he suggested that imagination, when abandoned by reason, could produce impossible monsters, yet when united with reason, imagination could be the mother of the arts and the source of their wonders. This suggests that the Romantic view of imagination is not the direct opposite of reason, but that reason and imagination are complementary, with the former guiding the latter to produce works of true creative genius. Therefore, the Romantic view is that imagination and reason together foster the artistic spirit.
Ultimately, Romanticism championed the individual imagination as a critical authority which permitted freedom from classical notions of form in art. Romantic art celebrated the profound emotional experiences and the unexpected intensification of emotions that come from this freedom.