Romanticism-Rip Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle is an excellent example of romanticism because of a few things.

Chiefly; the story glorifies the life of a simple man (Van Winkle himself) and makes him into something of a folk hero. Instead of the protagonist in the tale being someone like a knight or a great man, Rip is an idle minded simpleton. This displays the romantic ideal of making normal people into heroes instead of writing about people that must of us will be. This glorification was very popular at the time because of the oppression of the colonists by the seemingly rich and powerful English.

"The great error in Rip’s composition was an insuperable aversion to all
kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or
perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy
as a Tartar’s lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he
should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowlingpiece
on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and
swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild
pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest
toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn,
or building stone-fences; the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging
husbands would not do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to
anybody’s business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping
his farm in order, he found it impossible."

The tale also has a good deal of nature related imagery. The people who seem to bewitch Rip are described to be something akin to trolls who play nine pins and drink magical alcohol. They exemplify something of the natural state of the forest area.

"On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder presented
themselves. On a level spot in the centre was a company of odd-looking
personages playing at nine-pins. They were dressed in quaint outlandish
fashion; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their
belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with that
of the guide’s. Their visages, too, were peculiar; one had a large head,
broad face, and small piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to consist
entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off
with a little red cock’s tail. They all had beards, of various shapes and
colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout
old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a laced
doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red
stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group
reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of
Dominie Van Schaick, the village parson, and which had been brought
over from Holland at the time of the settlement."