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Poets discovered new beauties in them and praised their religious and chivalric spirit. The new tendency was romanticism.

After the rationalism of the latter part of the eighteenth century, romanticism came as a reaction. In France, Chateaubriand was the leading representative of the new tendency, which restored the sanctity and veneration of sentiment. In England it was Walter Scott who threw open the iron-bound gates of the mediæval castles to his admiring readers. Authors began to drop their abstract ideas about man in general, and to lean towards the strongly national features of the Middle Ages. Alexander Kisfaludy went with the stream. His historical tales From the past of Hungary are chiefly tales of chivalry. Their psychology is imperfect, but they are told with much vivacity and charm. Kisfaludy spent many years of his life near the "Hungarian Sea" as Lake Balaton was then called. Many of the volcanic hills in that district are crowned with the ruins of fortresses, such as those of Csobáncz, Somló, and Tátika. The sight of them proved a great inspiration to Kisfaludy. But it was not altogether their religious or chivalric spirit that attracted him to the Middle Ages; it was rather the fact that it was the time of Hungary's political independence. He was guided by his patriotic sentiments.

The life of Kisfaludy, judged by ordinary human standards, was a very fortunate one. He came of a respected well-to-do, and influential family. Nevertheless, there occurred in his life conflicts in which he was beaten. He was a valiant soldier, but it unfortunately happened that his army had to contend twice with the genius of perhaps the greatest of military leaders, Napoleon. No wonder then that Kisfaludy's troops lost the day.