''Visible is a symbol'': Nature as an animated creature pictured by Russian and German romantics

Abstract

The topicality of the research refers to the problem of national identity, national code, embodied among other spheres of spiritual life and in literature. Romantics' worldview was composed on the foundation of folklore, myth and literary tradition. The system of symbolic motifs of 'infancy' and 'pre-earth life', affinity of souls, joining in death and others became significant elements of the works in the Romanticism period. The study object is the collection of writings connected to natural-philosophic ideas of Nature as a living creature. The subject-matter of the research is national identity of Romanticism, manifested in the peculiarities of Nature perception. In the process of analysis, a comprehensive literary approach was used, combining historical-literary, historical-genetic, comparative-typological methods, which made it possible to establish the specifics of the embodiment of ideas about Nature by writers of Russia and Germany of the Romantic era. Presenting the natural-philosophic system of life conception, the writers relied on F. Schelling's philosophy. It is demonstrated that Russian romantics associate the origin of ideal female images with Heaven (angel-woman) and German romanticists – with the Earth (flower woman). Angel woman and flower woman help the characters to understand the essence of the existence. Natural symbols used in the works (sky, earth, flower atc.) and other symbolic images (melody, kiss, icon etc.) convey the specific mystic world understanding of the authors. Novelty of the research lies in the analysis of dominant images, that makes it possible to determine 'the independence of the face' of romantics in Russia and Germany, basing on the idea of a man dependent on Nature that existed in the developed national tradition. This approach makes it possible to specify the understanding of the particular characteristics of archetypic female images presented in ethnic-cultural sphere.