The motives of death and night in works by Ed. Young and Novalis

Abstract

The article touches upon brief research of the issue of death in the German romanticism and British Pre-Romantic poetry in “The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality” (1742-1745) by Edward Young and “The Hymns to the Night” (1799) by Novalis. The issues to be explored are the following: highlighting a new attitude to Death in Romantic works; finding out similarities and differences in Edward Young's and Novalis's works; demonstrating new directions and ideas which European poetry of the second half of th® 19th century depicts from sentimentalism to romanticism (“nocturnal poetry”).