The Locus Amoenus: On the Literary Evolution of the Relationship between the Human Being and Nature

Abstract

In this article I want to draw attention to an elemental passion that seems to have undergone substantial change over a long time in the history of our Western tradition. As you know very well, we have pursued the subject of elemental passions under the leadership of Professor Tymieniecka for many years; and, I feel, in defining its scope, as if we were at this time descending downward from the Paradiso of Dante’s Divine Comedy toward the Inferno, we find an increasing measure of cultural shift that has moved from an initial and exclusive concept of serene happiness toward the dark dungeons of depression. Clearly, light is defined on its elemental level by virtue of the existence of darkness and vice versa. But as soon as we are investigating the subject before us, for example, from a perspective of historical development, the apparently assumed balance between light and darkness is upset and strenuous efforts must be exerted to set the balance right again. These rectifying efforts are based necessarily on a value system that must be shared by those who live as a human community under these values representing the ideal that captures the elemental passion.