Romantic aesthetics

The dynamic processes of visualization and coming to appearance lay at the core of the Romantic aesthetic debates. One of these key aesthetic debates centred on the status of the symbol. On the one hand, authors such as Goethe, Schelling, Hegel, Coleridge, Novalis and later CARLYLE, despite their many differences, all described the aesthetic in response to Kant as connected to the production of symbols that present the infinite in The dynamic processes of visualization and coming to appearance lay at the core of the Romantic aesthetic debates. One of these key aesthetic debates centred on the status of the symbol. On the one hand, authors such as Goethe, Schelling, Hegel, Coleridge, Novalis and later CARLYLE, despite their many differences, all described the aesthetic in response to Kant as connected to the production of symbols that present the infinite in

Such aesthetics of production were the foundation for the conception of the fragment as a projected totality in Early German Romanticism. Friedrich Schlegel, his brother A.W.Schlegel, Novalis, Schleiermacher and Tieck published several collections each containing hundreds of ‘fragments’ in journals like the Athenaeum (1798–1800, eds. F.Schlegel and A.W.Schlegel). It has been argued by critics such as Philippe Lacoue- Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy that these fragments exemplify the essence of modern literature and perhaps modernity in general through their call for completion. Rather then being conceived of as incomplete parts of a previously existing whole, these fragments project a whole that is yet to come. More than a mere construction plan, the fragment reflects upon itself in such a way that this reflection opens up a space beyond that which is stated in the fragment itself, thus enlarging it beyond its contours. Simultaneously with the genre of the fragment, the discipline of hermeneutics developed rapidly (Schleiermacher). Hermeneutical thought sought to understand a text by means of executing the text’s own movements and reflections, thus adding to the complexity of the text, rather than reducing it to a single meaning. This hermeneutical approach resulted in incomprehensibility, which is the modus operandi of the fragment and the fragmented self, as they do not represent a whole but rather present and enact it.

For Schlegel and Novalis, the self is such a fragment. The self strives to complete itself through self-observation, reflecting upon itself from a higher level. The self is a perpetual work-in-progress. However, these self-reflections produce an image of the self that is still incomplete, as it lacks a depiction of the self’s ability to observe itself. Thus, each self-observation has the very act of the observation as its blind spot, opening up a infinite process of reflection, including reflections on reflections, and observations of observations.

The era of Jena Romanticism ended abruptly with the death of Novalis (1801) and Friedrich Schlegel’s conversion to Catholicism (1808). Nevertheless, notions of infinite reflection continued to haunt many thinkers of the age, including Kierkegaard and Hegel. Hegel especially vehemently rejected Schlegel’s thoughts in his intro duction to Lectures on Aesthetics (Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik, 1823, 1826, 1828–9). Still, it has been

Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century thought 558

Entries A-Z 559

argued that Hegel’s condemnation of Schlegel is less an indication of the differences between the two men than of their structural proximity. Indeed, Schlegel’s infinite reflection poses a threat for Hegel’s teleology, in which a negation of the negation would bring the endlessness of reflection to a halt.

Romantic aesthetics