Poetry and Nature in German in the 18th Century: "Die Alpen", "Der Frühling "and "Idyllen"

Abstract

This article focuses on the state wherein German poetry was in the 18th century, which went through a stage of low appreciation with respect to the drama and the novel. The German Anacreontic poetry was rather an imitation from French models, as it was witnessed by Friederich von Hagedorn (1708- 1754), who enjoyed a reputation by imitating the French poets of ‘poésies légères’ o ‘fugitives’. Their sudden turn to descriptive poetry in close connection to Nature would be drawn from James Thomson, who in 1726 had published the first of his four well known Seasons: Winter. In Germany, not unlike the rest of Europe, this work enjoyed quite a broad spreading, being imitated by three authors who contributed much to the widespread of descriptive poetry of Nature: Albrecht von Haller (Die Alpen), Ewald Christian von Kleist (Der Frühling), and Solomon Gessner (Idyllen). In his work, Thomson presented a new vision of Nature which would be later on enhanced by the theories of the Geneva-born Rousseau. They both succeeded in imposing their views of Nature in all Europe, which greatly reinforced the surge of human introspection in the description of God’s creation.