Main Page

New World Encyclopedia integrates facts with values. Written by certified experts.

Featured Article: Emotion

Sixteen faces expressing the human passions

Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. Emotions are often intertwined with the mood, temperament, personality, disposition, or creativity of the individual experiencing the emotion. Research on emotion currently involves many fields, including psychology, medicine, history, sociology, and computer science. This reflects the fact that emotions are not only complex in themselves but are also one aspect of the complexity of human nature.

Popular Article: Romanticism

Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich

Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that ran from the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth century. It stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror, and the awe experienced in confronting the sublimity of nature. Arising as a reaction against the excessive rationalism of the Enlightenment, Romanticism elevated folk art, language, and custom, as well as arguing for an epistemology based on usage and custom. The name "romantic" itself comes from the term "romance" which is a prose or poetic heroic narrative originating in the medieval.

Did you know?

Pueblos are among the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the US (source: Pueblo)

> more interesting facts