Paper Title: Return to Romanticism in Cozy Literature : A Cross-Cultural Study of Western and Asian Responses to Comfort Reading
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Abstract:
This paper examines the parallels between Romanticism and the contemporary phenomenon of cozy literature, arguing that the later constitutes a twenty-first-century revival of romantic values in response to modern anxieties. Romanticism, emerging in the late eighteenth century as a counterforce to industrialization and rationalist thought, privileged emotion, imagination and communion with nature as sources of spiritual restoration and human authenticity. Through the works of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Shelley, the romantic movement emphasized nostalgia for innocence, the restorative power of the natural world and the significance of community and inner life. Cozy literature, though formally distinct, mirrors these priorities in its preference for small, enclosed worlds such as village tea shops, libraries and seaside cafés; its reliance on gentle mysteries and healing narratives; and its nostalgic evocation of simpler, slower-paced times. This paper demonstrates that, much like the romantic poets sought solace against the alienation of industrial modernity, cozy writers provide readers with refuge from digital fatigue, political instability and cultural fragmentation. By situating cozy fiction as a romantic inheritance adapted to contemporary contexts, this study highlights its enduring cultural function: to soothe, restore and reimagine human connection in times of crisis.
Keywords:Romanticism, Cozy Literature, Healing Narratives, Cultural Revival
DOI Link – https://doi.org/10.63431/AIJITR/3.II.2026.36-40
Review By – Dr. Amit Adhikari and Dr. Chandan Adhikari