Romanticism was a movement of art and literature with origins in Europe during the eighteenth century and became popular in Latin America at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Romanticism is separated from the formality and the order of the artistic movements of the past and embraces the lack of order. It became a very vital genre in Latin America to define and understand the identity latin america through literature. The major theme of the genre was like to explain and understand the movement toward a new national identity. One of the great works of this literary movement is Maria de Jorge Isaacs. Maria encompasses many archetypal literary movement of Romanticism. This work is very important for Latin American romanticism for four main reasons: the nature of the sentimental novel, the portrait of Maria and Angel Home, romantic love and representation of American space.
The novel is classified as a sentimental novel, which was a large part of romanticism. The main theme in the play is love between Mary and Efrain. The literary work focuses on death, pain and great gods. There is great importance of love, and this leads the work. In the typical sentimental novel, something present an obstacle to love and lovers are separated, which is what happens in the plot. Maria and Efrain can see all of these issues in Mary. Mary, one of the main characters, has great faith.
The 'angel home' is a very vital literary simbol in the works of Romanticism. During this time, there was a obsessision the idea of 'woman' and 'femininity'. The concept of angel home addresses facets of womanhood and what it entails. 'Angel of household' s an ideal of feminine behavior within the home and in society. It refers to the role of women in society and in the family. This idea promoted and justified the isolation of women to the private sphere to preserve the natural purity and spiritual superiority. Isaacs portrays this idealized figure through his loyalty to Maria Efrain and modesty.