Final answer:
Romantic writers prioritized imagination over reason and emotion over fact, focusing on the individual's emotions and the natural world in their works.
Step-by-step explanation:
Romantic writers elevated the imagination over reason and emotion over fact. This literary movement, known as Romanticism, placed a high value on the individual's emotional experience and the beauty of the natural world, often in a reaction against Enlightenment rationalism and the industrialization of society. Romantic literature focused on the inward actions and feelings, which were considered more authentic than the outward actions esteemed by society at the time.
Literary themes of the period emphasized the beauty of nature, love and longing for natural and simple life, with an appreciation for suffering as a romantic ideal. These themes are reflected in the works of Goethe, Friedrich von Schiller, and Sir Walter Scott, who incorporated chivalry, bravery, and the intense emotions of man toward nature and other people. Romanticism praised the imaginative individual, who was seen as being able to perceive beyond the mundane, to merge the organic with the imaginative, creating a powerful form of expression that defied societal norms.