Miriling wrote:

The "Romantic Era" of chess is well described in the German reference book

Grosses Schach Lexikon (compiled by Klaus Lindoerfer), which states:

"romantische Schachepoche - eine Stilrichtung vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur
ersten Haelfte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis etwa 1860.

Only a pity he doesn't address the question of 'when'. Who was it that
first called it the 'romatic era'? They hardly used the term themselves
-- and so would not have any idea of the Kings Gambit as being particularly
romantic. I suspect the hyper-modernists coined the phrase to indicate a
type of play they *didn't* follow. (Or perhaps Lasker ... ? Steinitz
talked about 'old school' and 'modern school' but he would hardly see the
old school in a romantic light ...)

--
Anders Thulin http://www.algonet.se/~ath