The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 445 pages of information about The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times.

The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 445 pages of information about The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times.

In subjectivity and dreaminess both Chateaubriand and Lamartine were like the German romanticists, but their fundamental note was theism, not pantheism.  The storm of the French Revolution, which made radical changes in religion, as in all other things, was followed by a reaction.  Christianity acquired new power and inwardness, and Nature was unceasingly praised as the mirror of the divine idea of creation.

In his Genie du Christianisme, Chateaubriand said: 

    The true God, in entering into His Works, has given his immensity
    to Nature... there is an instinct in man, which puts him in
    communication with the scenes of Nature.

Lamartine was a sentimental dreamer of dreams, a thinker of lofty thoughts which lost themselves in the inexpressible.  His Meditations shew his ardent though sad worship of Nature; his love of evening, moonlight, and starlight.  For instance, L’Isolement

  Ici gronde le fleuve aux vagues ecumantes,
  Il serpente et s’enfonce en un lointain obscur: 
  La le lac immobile etend ses eaux dormantes
  Oo l’etoile du soir se leve dans l’azur. 
  An sommet de ces monts couronnes de bois sombres,
  Le crepuscule encore jette un dernier rayon;
  Et le char vaporeux de la reine des ombres
  Monte et blanchit deja les bords de l’horizon.

Le Soir

  Le soir ramene le silence.... 
  Venus se leve a l’horizon;
  A mes pieds l’etoile amoureuse
  De sa lueur mysterieuse
  Blanchit les tapis de gazon. 
  De ce hetre au feuillage sombre
  J’entends frissonner les rameaux;
  On dirait autour des tombeaux
  Qu’on entend voltiger une ombre,
  Tout-a-coup, detache des cieux,
  Un rayon de l’astre nocturne,
  Glissant sur mon front taciturne,
  Vient mollement toucher mes yeux. 
  Doux reflet d’un globe de flamme
  Charmant rayon, que me veux-tu? 
  Viens-tu dans mon sein abattu
  Porter la lumiere a mon ame? 
  Descends-tu pour me reveler
  Des mondes le divin mystere,
  Ces secrets caches dans la sphere
  Ou le jour va te rappeler?

In the thought of happy past hours, he questions the lake: 

  Un soir, t’en souvient-il, nous voguions en silence;
  On n’entendait au loin, sur l’onde et sous les cieux,
  Que le bruit des rameurs qui frappaient en cadence
  Tes flots harmonieux. 
  O lac! rochers muets! grottes! foret obscure! 
  Vous que le temps epargne ou qu’il peut rajeunir
  Gardez de cette nuit, gardez, belle nature,
  Au moins le souvenir!... 
  Que le vent qui gemit, le roseau qui soupire
  Que les parfums legers de ton air embaume,
  Que tout ce qu’on entend, l’on voit, ou l’on respire,
  Tout dise:  ’ils out aimes!

La Priere has: 

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The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.