Notes sur le ciel bleu par temps de confinement

Abstract

Referring to Senancour’s Oberman, Hölderlin’s Hyperion and Carl David Friedrich’s painting Wanderer above the Mists, this paper attempts to figure out the romantic approach to sky and clouds as cultural, artistic, and philosophical symbols. Considered as an unlimited space, the sky is an endless matter of meditation regarding human finitude. In several European countries, the recent experience of lockdown has revived this meditation in new terms: notable changes in the sky’s appearance suggest that our environment cannot only be regarded as our property, of which we are the guardians; it requests a poetic attention that helps us face the limitless world.

Keywords:

• Romanticism
• lockdown
• sky and clouds
• poetry

Notes

1 Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, Kunsthalle, Hambourg.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christian Doumet

Christian Doumet is Professor of twentieth-century French literature and poetry at Sorbonne-Université. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Connecticut (Storrs), Cornell University (NY) and Brown University. He has published poems as well as essays on poetry and music. Recent publications include: Faut-il comprendre la poésie ? (Klincksieck), Japon vu de dos (Fata Morgana), L’Évanouissement du témoin (Arléa). He is the editor of Victor Segalen’s Œuvres in Bibliothèque de la Pléiade.