THE REFLECTIONS OF INFINITY AND ETERNITY IN THE POETICS OF LEOPARDI AND PERCY SHELLEY IN THE LIGHT OF ROMANTICISM

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: İstanbul Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Edebiyat Fakültesi Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2024

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Öğrenci: SELİN GÜL MUTLUCAN

Danışman: Lucıa Barbara Dell Abate Çelebi

Özet:

This thesis posits that the themes of infinity and eternity play a pivotal role in comprehending Romanticism in its entirety. Infinity as spatial, and eternity as temporal transcendence become the characteristic tropes of Romanticism, portrayed as the remote, the primitive, nostalgia, homelessness, the consecrated nature, and the exaltation of the individual and the imagination. These impressions underline not only an escape from the spatially and temporally limited reality but also a rejection against it. The study situates these impressions within the philosophical, poetical, historical, religious, and social contexts of Romanticism. Additionally, it investigates how infinity and eternity were normalized in the light of religious and scientific developments that occurred during the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Despite their shared basis in boundlessness and acting together in creating such Romantic notions, infinity is also extensively discussed in the discourse of the sublime and of Romanticism, while eternity is mostly excluded and manifested as a sense of timelessness.

To substantiate the aforementioned arguments, this thesis examines and compares Shelley's Alastor and Leopardi's L'Infinito for their congruences and divergences in addressing these two concepts and finds traces of these romantic impressions.

Key Words: infinity, eternity, romanticism, Shelley, Leopardi