Czy radość może być w literaturze równie filozoficzna co melancholia? Garść wstępnych myśli

Abstract

Can joy be as philosophical in literature as melancholy? The article is devoted to this question. In discussing the issue, the author focuses in particular on the 18th century and Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. The publication of this novel and its reception can be considered as a turning point in the history of so-called high literature, which from then on will generally favor melancholy as the central existential human experience, and as the most philosophical one.