For romantics, the imagination, spontaneity, individual feelings, and nature were of greater value than reason, logic, planning, and cultivation. ... The transcendentalists, writers of this period, optimistically believed in human perfectibility. ... Transcendentalism influenced writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, who is responsible for the writing of NATURE and SELF-RELIANCE. ... Realistic novelists often relied on the emerging sciences of human and animal behavior-biology, psychology, and sociology-as well as on their own insights and observations. The most well-known writer of this tim...

• Word Count: 774
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The term capital punishment is derived from the Latin caput, meaning "head". It originally referred to death by decapitation, but now applies generally to state authorized executions. Crimes occur in every society around the world. Historically, criminals convicted of these crimes were dealt w...

• Word Count: 3217
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: Undergraduate