The Postsecular Romanticism – the Case of Shelley

The paper proposes to define the concept of postsecularity as some sort of interpretative tool to deal with historical phenomena related to the presence of religious ideas in modern literature. The subject of this postsecular hermeneutics is British Romanticism and in particular the work of Percy B. Shelley. It is the latter’s evolution from the attitude of materialistic atheism towards some appreciation of religious or spiritual dimension that the paper is focused on. This evolution leads Shelley – especially in Mont Blanc that I discuss here more closely – to a highly idiosyncratic and sceptical form of “negative theology.”

The Postsecular Romanticism – the Case of Shelley

The paper proposes to define the concept of postsecularity as some sort of interpretative tool to deal with historical phenomena related to the presence of religious ideas in modern literature. The subject of this postsecular hermeneutics is British Romanticism and in particular the work of Percy B. Shelley. It is the latter’s evolution from the attitude of materialistic atheism towards some appreciation of religious or spiritual dimension that the paper is focused on. This evolution leads Shelley – especially in Mont Blanc that I discuss here more closely – to a highly idiosyncratic and sceptical form of “negative theology.”