Release date is 2026-04-07

Richard Illner, Alpo Tiilikka and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images made available by The Austrian National Library)

Empfindungen aus meinem Leben by Amand Berghofer is a collection of lyrical and philosophical reflections—interweaving poems and prose meditations—written in the late 18th century. In the sentimental, nature-centered vein, it explores the inner life of a reflective narrator who turns from urban vanity to the healing presence of nature, the claims of love and virtue, and the consolations of faith, with a persistent attention to melancholy, mortality, and the hope of immortality.

The book opens with a preface defending true poetry as the dignity of humankind, then follows a first-person retreat from the city to a secluded, sacred landscape where the speaker seeks reconciliation with fate. Alternating pieces trace tender melancholy, self-exhortation, and rapturous communion with nature while denouncing courtly pride and celebrating rural simplicity, compassion, and moderate pleasure (wine, song, humane feeling). The narrator yearns for an ideal beloved, includes a translated lay of willing love-suffering, and wrestles to align passion with virtue. Midway the mood deepens into meditations on the sources of dejection, memories of innocent youth, and a long graveyard scene confronting death and the limits of worldly glory. Nocturnal and “midnight” hymns elevate thought toward divine grandeur and the soul’s eternity; the soul addresses its sleeping body, preparing for both a new day and the beyond. The work closes by locating true rest not in this life but beyond the grave, sealed with a serene self-epitaph. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Wien: Joseph Kurzböcken, 1774