Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“The contemplation of noble ruins produces a melancholy that exalts the mind.”
- Date
- 1796
Meaning of “The contemplation of noble ruins produces a melancholy…”
Ruins become a prompt for reflective melancholy: visible traces of the past enlarge thought by placing present concerns against time, mortality, and historical change.
Where does it come from?
Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Letter VII; represented Cassell & Company 1889 text in Project Gutenberg #3529. “The contemplation of noble ruins produces a melancholy that exalts the mind” occurs during Wollstonecraft’s visit to a church recess containing long-preserved bodies and her reflections on death, ruins, historical change and mortality. It remains Romantic-era reflective prose rather than a modern psychological finding about melancholy.
