[verlichting, romantiek] - Hiëronymus van Alphen - Gedigten en overdenkingen - 1777

[Enlightenment, Romanticism] - Hiëronymus van Alphen - Poems and reflections - Utrecht, Jan van Terveen, 1777 - 112 pages - 21 x 14 cm

Condition: good
Bound in original leather binding with gold decoration. All edges gilt. Marbled boards, good text block, and neat pages. Notes on front and rear endpapers. Complete.

Hiëronymus van Alphen was a Dutch poet, jurist, and later Treasurer-General of the Republic.
Poems and reflections originated from a very personal reason: the death of his wife in 1775.
The work opens with a lament, in which he expresses his feelings at her grave, followed by odes and poems about death, resurrection, and Christian comfort.

The book marks a turning point in Dutch literature.
It is seen as a breakthrough of pre-romanticism because Van Alphen expressed his personal emotions and religious reflections directly and unpretentiously.
It shows how 18th-century literature evolved from moralizing and rational poetry to more emotional and personal expressions.