Vigny Archives - Tradition Restored

March 4, 2020

The Present Outlook (Part 2)

(Pictured: Goethe.) I am happy to present the second post of the final chapter of Rousseau and Romanticism, “The Present Outlook,” in which Irving Babbitt concludes that, “[m]an realizes [the] immensity of his being...

Poetry and the Romantic Tradition / Rousseau

November 29, 2019

Romantic Melancholy (Part 3)

(Pictured: Barbey d’Aurevilly.) I am happy to present the third post of Chapter IX of Rousseau and Romanticism, “Romantic Melancholy,” in which Irving Babbitt asks, “does one become happy by being nostalgic and hyperaesthetic,...