Quelques aspects de l'américanisme romantique

A number of writers and thinkers of the Romantic period in France – Hugo, Quinet, Duguet, Barrault – envisaged America as the land of the future where a great religious transformation might take place. The aim of this article is to relate these aspirations to the philosophy of history of the period and to the mood of religious unease that characterizes Romantic thought. America is considered in relation to the East-West movement of history and appears as the land where a new harmony may be created between man and nature. (In French) (CC)