Like “Romanticism” itself, Romantic Hellenism is a cultural and literary phenomenon whose existence is widely in evidence yet which remains elusive, problematic and difficult to define with inclusive rigor. Like Romanticism, it has often been simplified and misrepresented; contrary to general belief, it achieved expression in forms that were diverse, paradoxical, sometimes self-contradictory, and often controversially or adversarially related to received modes and ideas. Like Romanticism, it never achieved articulation as a coherent philosophy; it never generated a school of practitioners who might have advertised themselves as Romantic Hellenists; it was never consciously or programmatically identified by those who seem to have pursued or embodied it most creatively. Again like Romanticism, it is a retrospective label that yokes together for historical convenience a wide range of manifestations and examples centered in and around what we now call the Romantic period but with roots that go far back into the eighteenth century.