"THE GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY" BY F.R. DE CHATEAUBRIAND - THE FIRST MANIFESTO OF FRENCH ROMANTICISM

Abstract

The treatise by Chateaubriand «The Genius of Christianity,» in which one can trace the formation of artistic and aesthetic principles of Romanticism, is for the first time analyzed in detail in the national literary criticism in the following article. This study helps to clarify the national specificity of early French Romanticism. «The Genius of Christianity» reveals in the author not such a great supporter of religious doctrine, but an original artist-thinker, who opens new possibilities of visual art, the new language of literature. In the field study there are views of the writer on wonderful and mysterious, on the mystical experience that is shown in symbols. Statements about the dual nature of a man, tragically fallen apart from God, unanswered questions about the meaning of life, that will determine the internal conflict of the romantic protagonists, are also in focus of attention in the paper.