Hmmm

Here’s something I came across today:

‘Emotionally it expressed an extreme assertion of the self and the value of individual experience (the "egotistical sublime"), together with the sense of the infinite and the transcendental. Socially, it championed progressive causes, though when these were concentrated it often produced a bitter, gloomy, and despairing outlook.’

Not an attempt at defining science fiction, but a quote from the entry in The Oxford Companion to English Literature on the Romantic Movement. But the congruity seems pretty close to me.