Emotion in Romanticism
Boy were the Romantics a sentimental lot. A flower could move them to tears. An old Greek urn could set them brooding for hours. These writers were flat out obsessed with feelings. In fact, one of the most famous definitions of poetry is the one that William Wordsworth, the father of British Romanticism, gave us. He said that poetry is the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility" (source).
The Romantics' obsession with emotions has to do with what they were reacting against. Remember that Romanticism followed on the heels of the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement of the 17th and early 18th century that emphasized reason above emotion, rationality above irrationality. The Romantics didn't agree with the Enlightenment point of view (duh). Of course our feelings count, they said. Of course we can't always behave in a rational way. To be human is to be emotional and irrational and moody, for crying out loud. We're not robots, are we?
Chew on This
Let's be joyful, people! Here's William Wordsworth reflecting on the "deep power of joy" in a quotation from his poem "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798."
How much do these Romantics like being happy? A lot. Check out Samuel Taylor Coleridge describing feeling delighted in "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison."