INTerAKcIJA LITerATUre
IN TeorIJe od romANTIKe
do moderNe
(S SKIcAmI NAdALJNJe INTerAKcIJe OB KONcU MIleNIjA)
Vanesa Matajc
Univerza v Ljubljani
UdK 82.0:1 UdK111.852
V obdobju od romantike do fn de siecla se zaradi samodojemanja subjekta in zavesti časa (zgodovinskosti/modernosti) čedalje bolj prepletata teorija in literatura. Članek to prikaže na primerih F. Schlegla (»Gespräch über die Poesie«), E. T. A. Hoffmanna, Baudelaira in Nietzscheja. Nietzschejev »konec metafzike«, ki je s subjektivacijo diskurza omogočil interakcijo teorije in literature, se prenese v relativistično metodološko načelo novega historizma.
Ključne besede: teorija in literatura, romantika, moderna, konec metafzike, novi historizem
Teza tega spisa je, da prav novoveška ideja modernosti motivira čedalje bolj uzaveščeno interakcijo literature in teorije od romantike do moderne. Kako? Srednjeveški pomen »modernosti« (novo, drugačno) je odprl dvom o vsem, kar se je zdelo nespremenljivo in večno, in s tem vsak predmet refeksije postavil v historično spremenljivost, kar je pogoj za hibridizacije. Novoveški mentalitetni (romantični) prehod iz »estetike stalnosti« v »estetiko prehodnosti in imanence« (Calinescu 3) motivira implicitna časovna razsežnost Descartesovega razumevanja subjekta kot cogito ergo sum. Heidegger ga razlaga takole: »Vsak ego cogito je cogito me cogitare; […] Vsako človeško pred-stavljanje je […] 'sámo'-predstavljanje.« Novoveški subjekt torej »postane sam po sebi postavljeni temelj in mera za vsako gotovost in resnico« (Evropski nihilizem 146, 127). Nanašanje jaza na jaz kot svoj lasten objekt se dogaja v času, kot časovna distanca med predsta-vljajočim in predstavljanim jazom, isto nanašanje pa je tudi izhodišče za subjektivacijo oziroma literarizacijo flozofskega/teoretskega diskurza.
Odločilno ga nadaljuje Kantova teza o sodbi okusa: »a sodba okusa sploh ne temelji na pojmih in ni v ničemer spoznavna sodba, pač pa je le
Primerjalna književnost (Ljubljana) 29. Posebna številka (2006)
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estetska sodba.« Njena paradoksalnost tiči v tem, da »je sicer le subjektivno veljavna, vendar pa se kljub temu obrača na vse subjekte, kot bi bilo to mogoče edino, če bi bila objektivna sodba, ki temelji na spoznavnih razlogih.« Kant iz tega sklepa: »Subjektivno načelo, se pravi nedoločno idejo nadčutnega v nas, je mogoče zgolj naznačiti« ( kritika razsodne moči 122– 123, 125-126, 180-181). Estetski doživljaj, ki je zaradi svoje iracionalnosti izrazljiv zgolj z naznačenjem (torej z retorično sugestijo), postane temelj subjektove samogotovosti in njegove estetske artikulacije v Fichtejevem Vedoslovju (1798): »Vedoslovje« kot znanost se namreč utemeljuje v načelu, ki ga ni mogoče dokazati, vendar pa Fichte meni: »Vse, kar je gotovo, je gotovo, ker je ta stavek gotov; in nič ni gotovo, če on ni gotov«. »Prvi stavek« za temelj določa subjekt vedoslovja: »Kogar je volja, ta naj kar raziskuje, kaj bi vedel, če njegov jaz ne bi bil jaz, tj. če ne bi eksistiral, in če ne bi mogel razlikovati nobenega ne-jaza od svojega jaza« (Izbrani spisi 63, 76). s tem se subjekt vzpostavlja v diferenci do svojih objektov, zajetih v sistemu vednosti; hkrati pa po principu vedoslovja sam vzpostavlja sistem vednosti in je torej s svojimi objekti postavljen tudi v razmerje identitete. V aktu avtotranscendence ali estetskega samodoživljaja to svojo dvojno strukturo presega s (subjektivno) totaliteto. Fichtejevska samogotovost se torej vzpostavlja hkrati v ciklično in linearno razumljenem času; kot subjektov samodoživljaj je trenutek »večne sedanjosti«, ki pa se mora stalno ponavljati v različicah in se torej razkrivati v linearno razumljenem času, da lahko subjekt nenehno potrjuje svojo subjektiviteto, svojo različnost do svojih vedno novih in drugačnih objektov. Svojo identiteto ohranja skozi svojo nenehno modernizacijo-diferenciacijo. Tako se sčasoma ne more več »zatrditi« v semantično enovalentni spoznavni pojem, ki bi imenoval nove, dognanju primernejše »temelje«, marveč »se lahko obrne [le še] h gibljivosti simbolnega« (Vattimo 31), tj. v estetsko-sugestivno artikulacijo estetskega doživljaja, ki jo Kant imenuje »naznačenje«, Fichte pa opiše kot identifkacijo forme in vsebine »prvega stavka«. Če naj bo slednji »neposredno in sam zaradi sebe gotov, to [… pomeni], da njegova vsebina določa njegovo formo, in obratno, da njegova forma določa njegovo vsebino« (Izbrani spisi 64).
Umberto Eco razloži opisano estetizacijo oziroma literarizacijo diskurza s semiotičnega vidika: pri znakovnih vrstah se v trenutku, ko je odkrit pomen označevalca, označevalec tako rekoč zavrže v korist pomenu. Pri romantično razumljenem simbolu pa dobi označevalec svoj polni pomen šele kot tak, skozi svojo fzično prezenco (Fichtejevo »formo«). To je posledica romantičnega identifciranja simbolične aktivnosti z estetsko funkcijo, v skladu s katero se sporočilo usmerja samo nase, tako da ni prevedljivo v drugačno znakovno »formo« (prim. Eco 209-212). Gadamer meni, da »v vsakem primeru počiva pomen symbolona na njegovi prezenci in repre-zentacijsko funkcijo dobi šele z navzočnostjo v svoji pokazanosti ali izre-čenosti.« Reprezentira pa ne »na podlagi konvencije in dogmatske fksa-cije« (Gadamer 71, 72), marveč skozi estetski doživljaj, torej subjektivno (čustveno-domišljijsko), zaradi česar je kljub svoji konkretnosti nenazoren in neskončno interpretabilen: med nivojema izraza in pomena se v sim-
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bolnem modusu vzpostavljajo vedno nova, še nekodirana možna razmerja (prim. Eco 212). Vdor simbolnega v znanstveni jezik, kar se zgodi preko osamosvajanja in čedalje večjega gospostva subjekta nad objekti realnosti, omogoča literarizacijo flozofskega/teoretskega diskurza, kakor tudi teore-tizacijo/esejizacijo literarnega diskurza. slednje je izrazito razvidno v literaturi od vključno romantike naprej. Romantika lahko z opisanimi sistemi mišljenja, ki poudarjajo vrednost subjektivnosti - od Kantovega estetskega izkustva do Fichtejevega sistema vedoslovja - velja za moderno obdobje v tem smislu, da s subjektivizacijo mišljenja prenaša poudarek na subjekt, na subjektovo samodojemanje in zaznavo časa.1 Zato velja za prvi moderni poseg v metafziko subjekta po Descartesu in s tem tudi za obdobje, ko se ustvari podlaga za modernizacijo novoveške metafzike (Matajc 38, 45).
Estetska artikulacija zaradi tega svojega izmikanja objektivističnim konvencijam spremeni teoretski diskurz, kar je razvidno iz fragmentov, ki jih je Friedrich Schlegel objavljal v časopisu Athenäum, ter iz eseja »gespräch über die Poesie«. Fragment je (pol)literarna forma, ki je osredinjena na trenutek izrekanja in že s svojo pojavnostjo zanika možnost v času obstojnega diskurzivnega sistema. Esejistična zvrst dialoga pa je izrazna struktura, ki ustreza fchtejevski dvojni strukturi romantičnega subjekta. Hkratnost identitete in diference, s katero se dialog vzpostavlja, schlegel opiše z besedami: »Zato gre človek, gotov, da bo vedno znova našel sam sebe, vedno znova iz sebe, da bi v globini tujega bistva iskal in našel dopolnilo svojega lastnega najglobljega bistva« (»Pogovor o poeziji« 145). s tega vidika sta schleglov polliterarni fragment in dialog simbolni strukturi. Njuna estetska forma je estetska vsebina romantične subjektivitete. Totaliteta, h kateri »neskončno napreduje« romantični subjekt in jo v svoji neskončni potencialnosti hkrati tudi nenehno uresničuje, pomeni tudi totaliteto artikulacije. Schlegel jo označi s pojmom mitologije, ki ima spoznavno funkcijo, a je hkrati »eno« s »poezijo«:
Kajti to je začetek vse poezije, da odpravi potek in zakone razumno mislečega razuma in nas znova prestavi v lepo zmedo fantazije, v izvirni kaos človeške narave, za katerega doslej še nisem našel lepšega simbola, kot je pisano vrvenje starih bogov. (F. schlegel, »Pogovor o poeziji« 160)2
Romantična kognitivnost je torej nujno estetska, hkrati pa to estetskost poveže z združevanjem linearnega in cikličnega (mitskega) koncepta časa. Oboje določa romantični subjekt, tega pa ideja, ki je »nenehna samopro-izvajajoča se menjava dveh prepirajočih se misli« (F. Schlegel, Spisi 29) - takšna ideja je torej statična v svoji dinamičnosti in torej z vidika časa paradoksna. S tem pa jenska romantična šola zavestno motivira teoretizacijo (esejiziranje) poetičnega diskurza in poetizacijo teoretskega diskurza.
Tej interakciji diskurzov se najbolj odpre (esejizirani, lirizirani) romantični roman, predvsem v opusu E. T. A. Hoffmanna. Hoffmannovo pripovedno dogajanje se ne more več racionalno zapreti v en sam smisel in objektivirajočo, »vsevedno« razlago, marveč avktorialni pripovedovalec zgolj še estetsko »obvladuje« nejasno naključje (Življenjski nazori mačka Murra), nejasno usodo (Hudičevi napoji, Peskar) ali nejasen iracionalni
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doživljaj (Hrestač). Ta estetsko artikulirana nejasnost vzvratno vpliva na (psihoanalitsko) teorijo. sigmund Freud ob Hoffmannovi pripovedi Peskar (der sandmann) razlaga pojem das Unheimliche kot to, kar je domače, a zaradi svoje nedoumljivosti tudi tuje, skrivnostno, nenavadno; za pojav tega »grozljivega« občutja je »potrebna negotovost sodbe, ali je […] neverjetnost [nenavadno uresničenje želje, občutje zle sile, občutje, da se mrtvi vračajo] nemara vendarle realno možna« (Freud 34). To negotovost vzbuja sama protislovna struktura romantičnega subjekta oziroma sposobnost za odtujitev lastnega jaza. Iz takšnega samodoživljanja nastajata možnosti obstoja dveh svetov, racionalno razložljivega in nerazložljivega (ki učinkuje kot višja sila). Obe možnosti ostajata v smislu Todorova3 fantastično odprti v spoznavno negotovost, ne da bi v teku časa ena zmagala nad drugo. Hoffmannov avktorialni epski subjekt lahko torej obvladuje pripovedno realnost (fantazijsko-emocionalne vsebine romantične subjektivitete) samo tako, da jo estetsko artikulira, tj. predstavi v vsej njeni paradoksalnosti, kar pomeni, da jo zajame v strukturi arabeske. Ta Friedrichu schleglu velja za »posredno mitologijo« (totaliteto flozofje in poezije), ker sta obe organizirani na isti način: struktura arabeske je eminentno simbolna, estetsko kognitivna struktura - »simetrija protislovij, ta čudovita večna menjava navdiha in ironije«, »izvirni kaos človeške narave« (»Pogovor« 160).
Krožna struktura orientalske arabeske sugerira neupodobljivo transcen-denco, ki se nujno upodablja v simbolni prezenci ornamentov. Ti so avtonomni in hkrati postavljeni v vsestranska razmerja. V krožni strukturi medsebojnih razmerij se arabeskni ornamenti predstavljajo kot čista sedanjost svoje hkratnosti ali skupne identitete celotne arabeske, obenem pa kot mnoštvo diferenc, ki se vzpostavljajo v medsebojnih razmerjih med ornamenti. Te diference, različnost razmerij, pa se razkrivajo druga za drugo, v teku časa. Gibanje estetske kognitivnosti, ki jo omogoča struktura arabeske, totalitetna vse-hkratnost in napredujoča zaporednost učinkov razmerij med njenimi ornamenti, je gibanje po krožnici. Ko Fichte opisuje samogotovost »prvega stavka«, se zaveda: »Tu je torej krog, iz katerega človeški duh nikoli ne more izstopiti« (Izbrani spisi 75). Hoffmannova literatura je s tem estetska artikulacija romantične flozofje/teorije estetskega subjekta par excellence, s čimer je vplivala na Charlesa Baudelaira, vendar s spremembo.
Baudelairov lirski/esejistični subjekt namreč eksplicitno artikulira tran-scendentnost časa. S krepitvijo zavesti o človeški/naravni minljivosti se je okrepila tudi transcendentna vrednost protipola, »večne« lepote (forme). S tem pa je tudi romantično das Unheimliche dobilo eksplicitnejši protipol: celoten doživljaj »numinoznega« (tj. po Rudolfu Ottu moderni doživljaj presežne realnosti) namreč ni samo »grozljiv«, ampak tudi fascinanten (mysterium tremendum et fascinans). Numinozno ni racionalno dojemljivo, tako da se izraža v semantično polivalentnih literarnih strukturah in te ohranjajo najvišjo spoznavno vrednost, toliko bolj, ker kot estetska forma same ustvarjajo oziroma priklicujejo transcendenco Lepote. Njen sočasno fascinanten in grozljiv učinek (prim. Mihelj 67) pa se morda krepi tudi zato, ker razkriva svojo relativno transcendentnost. Baudelairovski estetski
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doživljaj namreč za razliko od romantičnega opredeljuje v schleglovskem smislu »čutno« čustvo: »vzburljivost za to in ono«, »strast, ki nabrekne in znova uplahne« (»Pogovor« 160). Moderna lepota se realizira skozi minljivi estetski, ekscesni doživljaj, zato je njena transcendentnost le še relativna - je le »toliko idealna, kolikor je bežeča« (»si ideal si fugitive«). Ekscesni estetski doživljaj je trenutek večne sedanjosti, izstop iz zavesti ireverzi-bilnega časa, Baudelairovo racionalno refeksijo lepote pa vodi ravno ta zavest časa (»La Beauté«). Gre za 'idejo estetske modernosti', ki implicira značilnost avantgardnega in jo začne polno uresničevati Baudelairova umetnostna refeksija.4 Zaradi te svoje dvojne strukture Baudelaire v svoji esejistiki imenuje modernega človeka homo duplex. Baudelairovo dojemanje subjekta paradoksalno združuje stalno tenzijo progresivne časovne fnalnosti (razpada, smrti v linearnem času organske stvarnosti) in duhovno lepoto čutno-čustvenega zanosa čiste sedanjosti, ki se ciklično vrača, s tolikšno doslednostjo, da gre očitno za prepoznavo paradoksa (relativno) absolutnega subjekta. To pa je tudi značilnost propada metafzičnih sistemov oziroma Nietzschejevega mišljenja; občutje modernosti, ko se »napredek [tudi če v smrt] čedalje bolj vzpostavlja kot vrednota sama na sebi. Paradoks tiči v tem, da je napredek napredek samo, ko vodi do novega stanja, od koder je mogoč nov napredek in nič drugega« (Vattimo 58-63). Nov napredek pa v smrti oziroma dojemanju linearnega časa ni mogoč, saj pomeni destrukcijo stabilnosti, nemožnost hkratne absolutnosti in fnalnosti subjektivitete. Doživljaji fascinantno-tesnobne minljivosti se kopičijo kot zmeraj prehodne postaje. Baudelaire jih v liriki artikulira tako, da eksplicitno kažejo čezse na transcendenco časa/večnosti, in sicer prek alegorične strukture, kar je nov retorični poskus spajanja teoretske in literarne dikcije. »alegorija pripada izvirno sferi govorjenja, logosa, je torej retorična oziroma hermenevtična fgura,« meni Gadamer (71); »namesto tega, kar se zares misli, je rečeno nekaj drugega, otipljivejšega, vendar tako, da to drugo kljub temu omogoča razumeti tisto prvo […]. Alegorični postopek razlage in simbolični postopek spoznavanja imata isti temelj nujnosti: božjega ni mogoče spoznati drugače, kot izhajajoč iz čutnega.« Vendar »alegorija pravzaprav ne predpostavlja metafzične prasorodnosti, kot si jo lasti simbol, temveč le sopripadnost na podlagi konvencionalne in dogmatske fksacije« (Gadamer 72).
alegorija ne more izražati romantične predstave o totaliteti. Zaradi svojega retoričnega statusa po de Manu »nakazuje razpor med načinom, kako se svet pojavlja v resničnosti, in načinom, kako se pojavlja v jeziku« (Slepota in uvid 188). Nakazuje torej diferenco med snovjo in njeno estetsko artikulacijo, s tem pa postane ustrezna izrazna struktura za poroman-tični subjekt, ki prepoznava svojo razcepljenost v času, alegorični znak se mora nanašati na sebi predhoden znak:
Pomen, ki ga vzpostavlja alegorični znak, je potemtakem samo v ponavljanju […] nekega zgodnejšega znaka, s katerim ne more nikoli sovpasti, saj je bistvo tega zgodnejšega znaka čista predhodnost […]. Medtem ko simbol postavlja možnost istovetnosti oziroma poistovetenja, alegorija predvsem označuje distanco v razmerju do lastnega izvora. (de Man, Slepota in uvid 204)
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Tako simbolna kot alegorična struktura sta torej »način zapolnjevanja distance med sedanjostjo in preteklostjo, komentar, interpretacija, podvojitev« (Kernev Štrajn 98-99). Tako romantični subjekt kot moderni ba-udelairovski homo duplex se vzpostavljata v odnosu do časa, ki ga vodi novoveška ideja modernosti, vendar fchtejevski jaz poudarja identiteto jaza z nejazom in posledično zagovarja simbolno artikulacijo estetskega doživljaja, moderni homo duplex pa z alegorično artikulacijo poudarja njuno diferenco z alegorično-strukturno primerjavo (»comme«) dveh ločenih ravni, estetske artikulacije in njene snovi, večnosti in minljivosti. Vendar gre v obeh primerih za estetsko kognitivnost in s tem za estetsko artikulacijo človekovega razmerja do časa.
Najdoslednejšo izpeljavo paradoksalne samogotovosti romantičnega subjekta in z njo interakcije literarnega in flozofskega/teoretskega diskur-za uteleša Nietzschejeva emfatična refeksija zloma metafzičnih sistemov in paradoksa ideje modernosti. »Nietzsche dožene, da zgodovini ni moč pobegniti, zato je na koncu primoran združiti dve nezdružljivi prvini, zgodovino in modernost […] v paradoks, ki ga ni mogoče rešiti« (de Man, Slepota 150). relativnost vzpostavlja struktura Nietzschejeve artikulacije: sopostavljeni fragmenti, katerih smisel se izključuje, tako da se pojma volja do moči in nadčlovek ne moreta zatrditi v enem samem pomenu - nista več temelja sistema. Heidegger ugotavlja:
Nietzschejeva metafzika [… ] ima kot resnica o bivajočem v celoti voljo do moči za svoj 'objekt'. [… ] Volja do moči pa je kot temeljna narava bivajoče-ga v celoti obenem določitev bistva človeka. Kot taka določitev je volja do moči temelj metafzike, je [torej tudi] njen subiectum. (Heidegger 85-86)
Nietzschejev človek je torej subjekt in hkrati objekt volje do moči in s tem brezkončno izničuje to diferenco (in z njo identiteto). Po Urbančiču je »nadčlovek« (Übermensch), ki »biva kot prehod čez človeka in tako sam je ta prehod čez. Tako da tisto, kar zdaj biva - sebe - dviga čezse navzgor, se presega in s tem […] kot prejšnji propada, saj ono 'obliko' prejšnjega sebe sedaj izgublja - ta prehaja, premineva« (Urbančič 402). Premineva pa z vidika modernosti, ki po Nietzscheju v ponavljajoči se novosti vselej implicira tudi svoje predhodno, a brez prepoznavnega temelja.stem napoveduje lacanovsko drsenje označevalcev mimo označenca, ki (v teku časa) vzpostavlja retorični proces, v katerem se zgreši bistvo subjekta oziroma jezika,5 ne da bi se mogel slednji zatrditi v svoje bistvo in sistem. Nietzschejeva estetska artikulacija, ki se ne more zatrditi v diskurzivni pojmovni sistem, je polliterarna forma esejističnega fragmenta. Vrh doseže v delu Tako je govoril Zaratustra, ki z nizanjem odprtih zgodb in z vložnimi lirskimi pesmimi ni več samo interakcija, marveč že čista sinkretičnost flozofskega in literarnega diskurza: je nedoločljiv hibridni žanr modernosti.
Nietzschejev »odprt sistem« se kot metoda uveljavi šele v novem histo-rizmu, zlasti v dveh njegovih načelih. Tako kot se Nietzsche pri dojemanju časa (modernost/zgodovina) in (spoznavajočega) subjekta (nadčlovek kot subjekt/objekt volje do moči) ne more izogniti metafziki, se novi histori-zem zaveda, »da sleherno dejanje razkrinkanja, kritike in nasprotovanja
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uporablja prav orodje, ki ga obsoja, in tvega, da postane plen dejavnosti, ki jih razgalja« in »da je obtok literarnih in neliterarnih tekstov neločljiv« (Veeser xi). Po tem načelu se torej dokončno istovetno obravnava hkratnost teorije in literature: to je simptom konca modernosti, metafzike časa in subjekta, ki se ne more več razločiti na spoznavajoči in spoznavani subjekt.
OPOMBE
1 Občutje časa kot nosilni občutek v epiki se prvič pojavi v Lessingovem spisu Laokoon, v delih znotraj predromantičnega sentimentalističnega toka pa pri Sternu in Fieldingu, ki napovedujejo romantično občutenje subjekta/modernosti. Prim. wilpert 858.
2 Brat august uveljavlja zavest zgodovinskosti ob vpeljavi srednjeveške mitologije, ki po njegovem mnenju nastane ob junaških epih in viteških romanih (prim. a. w. schlegel 102–143).
3 « dans le fantastique, l’événement étrange ou surnaturel était perçu sur le fond de ce qui est jugé normal et naturel » (Todorov 181).
4 Gautier v članku « Plastique et civilisation – Du beau antique et du beau moderne » (1948) opisuje estetiko grdega (Calinescu 45, 46): grdost modernega industrijskega in urbanega življenja se preoblikuje v umetniško lepost. Tako si prisvoji romantično, Hoffmannovo (s stališča absolutno estetskega subjekta) subjektiviranje objektivne stvarnosti s postopkom groteskizacije.
5 »Gotovo je ravno razlika med izjavljanjem in izjavo tista, ki povzroči, da se nam ta mislim vselej lahko izmuzne.[…] Temu cogito daje njegovo gotovost to, da se postavi na svoje mesto na ravni izjavljanja. […] do razlike v statusu subjekta, ki nastopi z razsežnostjo, odkrito s freudovskim nezavednim, pride zaradi želje, ki jo je treba umestiti na raven tega cogito. Želja prežema in razvnema sleherno izjavljanje, o njej govori sleherno izjavljanje« (Lacan 130).
LITEraTUra
Baudelaire, Charles. Oeuvres completes. Ur. Y. g. le dantec – C. Pichois. Paris:
gallimard, 1961. Calinescu, Matei. Five Faces of Modernity. durham: duke University Press.,
1987. de Man, Paul. Allegories of Reading. New Haven – London: Yale University Press,
1979. – – –. Slepota in uvid. Prev. J. Kernev Štrajn. Ljubljana: LUd Literatura, 1997. Eco, Umberto. Semiotik und Philosophie der Sprache. Prev. C. Trabant rommel
– J. Trabant. München: wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1985. Fichte, Johann Gotlieb. »O pojmu vedoslovja ali tako imenovani flozofji.« Prev.
d. debenjak. Izbrani spisi. Ljubljana: slovenska matica, 1984. Freud, sigmund. Das Unheimliche. Prevedla d. debenjak. Ljubljana: analecta,
1994. gadamer, Hans georg. Resnica in metoda. Prevedel T. Virk. Ljubljana: LUd
Literatura, 2001.
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Heidegger, Martin. Evropski nihilizem. Prevedel I. Urbančič. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva
založba, 1971. Inwood, Michael. A Hegel Dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. Johnson, Barbara, ur. Freedom and Interpretation. New York: Basic Books, 1993. Kant, Immanuel. kritika razsodne moči. Prev. R. Riha. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC,
1999. Kernev Štrajn, Jelka. »Problem razmerja med simbolom in alegorijo znotraj na-rativne razsežnosti krsta pri Savici«. Romantična pesnitev. Ur. M. Juvan.
Ljubljana: FF , 2002. (Obdobja 19) 95–105. Kos, Matevž. Poskusi z Nietzschejem. Ljubljana: slovenska matica, 2000. Kristeva, Julia. »The speaking subject is Not Innocent«. Freedom and Interpretation.
Ur. B. Johnson. New York: Basic Books, 1993. 147–174. Lacan, Jacques. Štirje temeljni koncepti psihoanalize. Prev. R. Močnik, Z. Skušek,
S. Žižek. Ljubljana: Analecta, 1996. Matajc, Vanesa. Duhovnozgodovinska podlaga modernosti v slovenski književnosti
1898-1941. doktorska disertacija (Univerza v Ljubljani). Mentor L. Kralj.
Ljubljana, 2002. Mihelj, Sabina. »Izrekanje numinoznega pri utemeljiteljih simbolistične lirike.«
Primerjalna književnost 23.2 (2000): 59–84. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Gesammelte Werke. Ur. K. schlechta. München, 1954. – – –. Volja do moči. Prevedel J. Moder. Ljubljana: slovenska matica, 1991. Otto, rudolf. Sveto: o iracionalnem v ideji božjega in njegovem razmerju do
racionalnega. Prev. T. Virk. Ljubljana: Nova revija, 1993. schlegel, august wilhelm. »geschichte der romantischen Literatur.« kritische
Schriften und Briefe. Zv. I V. Ur. E. Lohner. stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag,
1965. schlegel, Friedrich. »Pogovor o poeziji.« Spisi o literaturi. Prev. T. Virk. Ljubljana:
LUd Literatura, 1998. Todorov, Tzvetan. Introduction a la littérature fantastique. Paris: Editions du seuil,
1970. Urbančič, Ivan. »Spremna beseda«. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Tako je govoril Zaratustra.
Ljubljana: slovenska matica, 1999. 377–454. Vattimo, gianni. konec moderne. Prev. s. Kutoš. Ljubljana: LUd Literatura,
1997. Veeser, Harold aram, ur. New Historicism. London in New York: routledge,
1989. wilpert, gero von. Sachwörterbuch der Literatur. stuttgart: Kröner Verlag, 1969.
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THe INTerAcTIoN BeTweeN
LITerATUre ANd THeory
From romANTIcISm
TO THe FIN De SIEcle
wITH SKeTcHeS oF coNTINUed INTerAcTIoN AT THe eNd oF THe mILLeNNIUm
Vanesa Matajc
University of Ljubljana
UdK 82.0:1 UdK111.852
In the period between Romanticism and the fn de siecle, as a result of the self-conception of the subject and the consciousness of time (historical vs. modern), theory and literature became much more interwoven. This interweaving is shown in the article on the basis of examples from Friedrich Schlegel (“Gespräch über die Poesie”) and E. T. A. Hoffmann, as well as through examples from Charles Baudelaire and Friedrich Nietzsche’s “end of metaphysics,” which, with the subjectifcation of discourse, enabled interaction between theory and literature, and led to the relativistic methodological principles of New Historicism.
Keywords: theory and literature, romanticism, fn de siecle, end of metaphysics, New Historicism
The thesis of this article is that the increasingly conscious interaction between literature and theory from Romanticism to the fn de siecle was motivated by the modern idea of modernity. The process developed along the following lines.
The medieval meaning of the “modern” (i.e., “new” or “different”) raised doubts about everything that had seemed unchangeable and eternal. Thus every object of refection came to be seen as prone to historical changes, which is a prerequisite for hybridization. The modern (romantic) shift in mentality from an “esthetics of permanence” to an “esthetics of transi-toriness and immanence” (Calinescu 3) is motivated by the temporal dimension implied in descartes’ perception of the subject, 1 in his sentence “cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”). according to Heidegger’s interpretation, “every ego cogito, ‘I think’, is cogito me cogitare, ‘I think myself thinking’…. Every human act of representing is … a representation of oneself” (Heidegger 135).2 The modern subject thus “himself becomes the basis and measure of all certainty and truth” (Heidegger 118).3 The
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Ego’s reference to the Ego as its object occurs in time, as a temporal distance between the representing and represented Ego, and forms the starting-point for the subjectivization or “literarization” of philosophical and theoretical discourse.
Crucial to its subsequent development is Kant’s thesis about the judgment of taste: “The judgment of taste has no concept as its determining ground and is in no way a cognitive judgment, but an esthetic one.”4 The paradox of this judgment lies in the fact that “despite its merely subjective validity, it addresses itself to every subject, as would be possible only if it were an objective judgment grounded on cognitive reasons.”5 From this, Kant concludes: “The subjective principle - that is, the vague idea of the supersensible residing in us - can be merely indicated” (Kant 375, 379, 446).6 The esthetic experience - which, due to its irrationality, can only be expressed through indication; that is, rhetorical suggestion - becomes the basis of the subject’s self-certainty, as well as of his esthetic articulation in Fichte’s Über den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre (1798). The “science of knowledge” as a science is grounded on a principle that is impossible to prove, but, according to Fichte, “all that is certain is such because this sentence is certain; and, conversely, nothing is certain if this sentence is not” (21).7 In this "first sentence," the basis is identifed with the subject of the science of knowledge: “anyone that has a mind to it is free to investigate what he would know if his Ego were not an Ego; that is, if it did not exist, or if he could not distinguish any non-Ego from his own Ego” (Fichte 40).8 Thus the subject establishes himself as different from his objects, which are encompassed in the system of knowledge. However, by the principle stated above, he also establishes the system of knowledge himself, and is thus in a way identical with his objects. In the act of self-transcendence or esthetic self-experience, he transcends this double structure, reaching a (subjective) totality. The Fichtean self-certainty thus establishes itself in both the cyclic and the linear concepts of time. as the subject’s self-experience, it is a moment of “eternal present.” However, if the subject is to again and again reaffrm his subjectivity, his difference from his ever-changing objects, this moment has to repeat itself in countless variants and thus reveal itself in the linear concept of time. It preserves its identity through constant modernization - that is, differentiation. as a result, it can no longer “settle” into a se-mantically monovalent cognitive concept and name a new “basis,” one that would be more appropriate to its fndings. It can only "take us ... toward the mobility of the symbolic” (Vattimo 28); that is, to an esthetic and suggestive articulation of the esthetic experience. This articulation is labeled by Kant as "indication," whereas Fichte describes it as an identifcation of the form and content of the "first sentence": if the latter is to be "certain directly and in itself, this [… means] that its form is determined by its content, and vice versa: that its content is determined by its form” (Fichte 22).9
Umberto Eco explains this esthetization or “literarization” of discourse semiotically: in the domain of sign types, the signifer is practically discarded in favor of its meaning as soon as the latter is revealed. In the romantic conception of the symbol, in contrast, the signifer only acquires its full
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meaning as such; that is, through its physical presence (what Fichte calls the "form"). This is a result of the Romantic identifcation of symbolic activity with esthetic function: the message is directed at itself, so that it defes translation into any other sign “form” (cf Eco 209-212). gadamer maintains that “in every case the meaning of the symbolon depends on its physical presence and acquires its representative function only through the fact of its being shown or spoken.” However, it does not represent on the basis of “convention and dogmatic agreement” (gadamer 65, 67), but through the esthetic experience; that is, subjectively (emotionally and imaginatively). For all its concreteness, it is thus not evident but infnitely interpretable: in the symbolic mode, one fnds ever new and hitherto uncoded possible relations establishing themselves between the levels of expression and meaning (cf. Eco 212). The incursion of the symbolic into scientifc language that occurs through the self-assertion and the far greater power of the subject over objective reality enable both the literarization of philosophical and theoretical discourse and the theorization and essayization of literary discourse. This latter phenomenon has been markedly expressed in literature since the dawn of romanticism. romanticism - with its descriptive systems of thinking that emphasize the value of subjectivity, from Kant’s esthetic experience to Fichte’s system of the science of knowledge - can be regarded as belonging to the modern period in the sense that, with the subjectifcation of thinking, it places an emphasis on the subject, on the subject’s self-conception and on the subject’s reception of time.10 It thus counts as the frst modern incursion into the metaphysics of the subject from descartes onwards, and with this it is also the period in which the basis for the modernization of new age metaphysics was created (Matajc 38, 45).
In eluding objectivist conventions, esthetic articulation accordingly brings about a change in the theoretical discourse. This is evident from the fragments published by Friedrich schlegel in the journal Athenäum, as well as from his essay “gespräch über die Poesie” (dialogue on Poetry, 1799). The fragment is a (semi)literary form centered on the moment of utterance, so that its very nature denies the possibility of an enduring discursive system. The essayist genre of the dialogue, on the other hand, is a structure of expression well suited to the Fichtean double structure of the romantic subject. Its characteristic simultaneity of identity and difference is described by Schlegel as follows: "Certain of fnding himself again, man keeps going out of himself, so that he might seek and fnd, in the depths of an extraneous being, a complement to his own innermost being” (schlegel 280).11 Viewed from this aspect, schlegel’s semiliterary fragments (“gespräch über die Poesie” is written in the form of a dialogue, a conversation among literary fgures, while the text as a whole assumes the form of a semiliterary essay) are symbolic structures: their esthetic form is the esthetic content of romantic subjectivity. The totality towards which the Romantic subject "makes infnite progress," and that he realizes again and again in his infnite potentiality also represents a totality of articulation: schlegel describes this with the concept of mythology,12 which has a cognitive function but is at the same time “one” with “poetry”:
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For this is the beginning of all poetry, to lift [aufheben] the progression and laws of all rationally thinking reason and to place us anew into the beautiful confusion of imagination, into the original chaos of human nature, for which I know as of yet no more beautiful symbol than the confusing throng of the old gods. (schlegel 305)13
romantic cognitiveness is thus necessarily an esthetic one, and at the same time this estheticity connects through bringing together the linear and cyclical (mythic) concept of time. The romantic subject determines both, and the subject is determined by the idea - that is, the “constant self-generating exchange of two opposing thoughts” (stets sich selbst erzeugende Wechsel zwei streitenden Gedanken) - and it is thus static in its dynamicity and paradoxical from the viewpoint of time (schlegel 38). with this notion, the Jena romantic school14 consciously motivates the theorization (essayi-zation) of poetic discourse and the poetization of theoretical discourse.
The form that opens most readily to this interaction of discourses is the (essayized, lyricized) romantic novel, particularly as written by E. T. a. Hoffmann. Hoffmann’s narrative action can no longer close itself rationally into a single sense and an objectifying, “omniscient” explanation. Instead, all that is left to the “authorial” narrator is a mere esthetic “control” over unclear chance events (Die Lebensansichten des katers Murr, 1820), unclear fate (Die Elixiere des Teufels, 1816; Der Sandmann, 1819), or unclear irrational experience (Nusscracker und Mausekönig, 1819). This esthetically articulated ambiguity in its turn exerts an infuence on theory, namely on psychoanalysis: sigmund Freud uses Hoffmann’s tale Der Sandmann to explain the concept of das Unheimliche (the uncanny) as something familiar yet at the same time strange, mysterious, and unusual in its unfathomability. according to Freud, the arousal of this “uncanny” feeling “requires an intellectual uncertainty whether … the improbability [i.e., the extraordinary fulfllment of a wish, the sense of an evil power, the sense that the dead return] may not be possible after all” (Freud 272).15 This uncertainty is evoked by the contradictory structure of the romantic subject, by the ability to alienate one’s own Ego. such self-experience gives rise to the possibility that there may be two worlds existing side by side, one that admits a rational explanation and one that does not (i.e., one that functions as a higher power). Both possibilities remain fantastically open (in Todorov’s sense of the “fantastic”), maintaining a cognitive uncertainty without one emerging the stronger in the course of time. Hoffmann’s authorial epic subject can thus control the narrative reality (the imaginative and emotional contents of romantic subjectivity) only by giving it an esthetic articulation; that is, by presenting it in all its paradox, in the structure of the arabesque. The arabesque is perceived by schlegel as an “indirect mythology” (a totality of philosophy and poetry) because it reveals the same organization: the structure of the arabesque is an eminently symbolic, esthetically cognitive one - a “symmetry of contradictions, this wonderfully perennial alternation of enthusiasm and irony,” “the original chaos of human nature” (schlegel 305).16
The circular structure of the Oriental arabesque suggests a transcendence that defes pictorial representation and can only be conveyed through
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the symbolic presence of ornaments. Each ornament is autonomous, yet at the same time placed in a relationship with all others. In the circular structure of mutual relationships, the arabesque ornaments thus convey a double impression. On the one hand, they appear as the pure present moment of their simultaneity, of the identity of the arabesque as a whole. On the other hand, they appear as a multitude of differences that are established in the mutual relationships and revealed, one after the other, in the course of time. The structure of the arabesque - the simultaneous effect of the totality and the progressive, consecutive effects of these relationships - makes possible an esthetic cognitiveness whose movement is a circular one. describing the self-certainty of the "first sentence," Fichte was aware of this: "Here, then, is a circle that the human mind can never leave” (39).17 Hoffmann’s literature is therefore an esthetic articulation of the romantic philosophy and theory of the esthetic subject par excellence.
As such it infuenced Charles Baudelaire, but with a certain modifcation: the subject in Baudelaire’s lyric poetry and essays explicitly articulates the transcendence of time. The growing awareness of human and natural transience also heightened the transcendent value of its opposite, “eternal” beauty (i.e., form). with this process, the romantic das Unheimliche likewise acquired a more explicit opposite - the entire experience of “the numinous” (the modern experience of transcendent reality, according to rudolf Otto) is not merely “terrifying,” but fascinating as well (mysterium tremendum et fascinans). The numinous cannot be rationally apprehended; therefore it fnds expression in literary structures that are semantically polyvalent. These preserve the highest cognitive value - all the more so because, being esthetic forms, they create or evoke the transcendence of Beauty themselves. On the other hand, the simultaneously fascinating and terrifying effect of Beauty (cf Mihelj 67) is perhaps also heightened because Beauty reveals its relative transcendence.
In contrast to the romantic concept, the Baudelairian esthetic experience is defned by a "sensuous" feeling in Schlegel’s sense of the word; that is, as “an ability to be excited by something,” “a passion that swells and abates again” (Reizbarkeit für dieses und jenes; Leidenschaft, die schwillt und wieder sinket; schlegel 304) Because modern beauty is realized through a transient, excessive esthetic experience, its transcendence is only a relative one - "as ideal as it is feeting" (si idéal si fugitive).18 The excessive esthetic experience is a moment of eternal present, an exit from the awareness of irreversible time. However, on the other hand, it is precisely the awareness of time that informs Baudelaire’s rational refection on beauty (La Beauté). The “idea of the esthetics of modernity” implies characteristics of the avant-garde and is completely realized in Baudelaire’s artistic refection (Matajc 18, Calinescu 41).19 due to this double structure, Baudelaire labels modern man as homo duplex in his essays: Baudelaire’s conception of the subject paradoxically brings together the constant tension between progressive temporal fnality (decline, decay, and death in linear time of an organic reality) and spiritual beauty of a sensory-emotional pure present-ness, which returns cyclically with such logicality that it is clearly a matter
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of a recognizable paradox of the (relatively) absolute subject.20 This is also a characteristic of the collapse of metaphysical systems and Nietzsche’s thinking: the feeling of modernity, in which progress, even in death, is all the more established as a value of its own; the paradox lies in the fact that an advancement is only an advancement when it leads to a new situation, one from which only a new advancement is possible (Vattimo 58-63). The new advancement in death and the comprehension of linear time is not possible because it means the destruction of stability, the impossibility of the simultaneous absoluteness and fnality of subjectivity. Experiences of a fascinating yet anxiety-inducing transience accumulate like never-ending transit stops (Une Charogne). In Baudelaire’s lyric poetry, they are made to point explicitly beyond themselves to a transcendence of time and eternity; that is, they are articulated through an allegorical structure, which is a new rhetorical attempt to link theoretical and literary diction. allegory is characterized by gadamer:
allegory originally belonged to the sphere of talk, of the logos, and is therefore a rhetorical or hermeneutical fgure. Instead of what is actually meant, something else, more tangible is said, but in such a way as to suggest the other … The allegorical procedure of interpretation and the symbolical procedure of knowledge have the same justifcation: it is not possible to know the divine in any other way than by starting from the world of the senses. Nevertheless, allegory does not assume an original metaphysical relationship, such as a symbol claims but, rather, a connection created by convention and dogmatic agreement. (gadamer 65-67)
allegory is incapable of expressing the romantic notion of totality; due to its rhetorical status, “it suggests a disjunction between the way in which the world appears in reality and the way it appears in language” (de Man, Blindness 191). In other words, it points to the difference between subject matter and its esthetic articulation. This makes it an appropriate structure of expression for the post-romantic subject, who recognizes his division in time - the allegorical sign must refer to a sign anterior to itself:
The meaning constituted by the allegorical sign can then consist only in the repetition … of a previous sign with which it can never coincide, since it is of the essence of this previous sign to be pure anteriority … whereas the symbol postulates the possibility of an identity or identifcation, allegory designates primarily a distance in relation to its own origin. (de Man, Blindness 207)
Both the symbolic and allegorical structures are thus "a way of flling out the distance between the past and present - a commentary, interpretation, doubling” (Kernev Štrajn 98-99). For Nietzsche, “language is rhetoric, because it desires to convey only a doxa (opinion), not an episteme (knowledge)” (Nietzsche 107). To de Man “it seems as if Nietzsche had turned away from the problems of language to questions of the self and to the assertion of a philosophy rooted in the unmediated sense of existential pathos” (Allegories 106). Both the romantic subject and the modern
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Baudelairian homo duplex establish themselves in their relation to time, a relation informed by the modern-period idea of modernity. They do diverge on one point. The Fichtean Ego stresses the identity of the Ego with the non-Ego, consequently advocating a symbolic articulation of the esthetic experience; the modern homo duplex, by contrast, stresses their difference, employing an allegorical articulation for the purpose. Through the allegorical structure, he compares (comme) two separate levels, the levels of esthetic articulation and of its subject-matter, of eternity and transience. still, both approaches are concerned with esthetic cognitiveness and thus the esthetic articulation of man’s relation to time.
The paradoxical self-certainty of the romantic subject, and with it the interaction between literary and philosophical and theoretical discourse, is developed most consistently in Nietzsche’s emphatic refection on the collapse of metaphysical systems and on the paradox of the idea of modernity: "Nietzsche fnds it impossible to escape from history, and he fnally has to bring the two incompatibles, history and modernity … together in a paradox that cannot be resolved” (de Man, Blindness 150).
relativity is established through the structure of Nietzsche’s articulation: through a juxtaposition of fragments whose meanings are mutually exclusive.21 due to this technique, the concepts of the “will to power” and “superman” cannot be reduced to single meanings - they are no longer the foundations of a system. In this respect, Heidegger wrote about Nietzsche:
as a truth about entities as a whole, Nietzsche’s metaphysics has the will to power as its “object” … However, since the will to power represents the fundamental nature of entities as a whole, it also determines the essence of man. as this determining factor, the will to power is the foundation of metaphysics, [therefore also] its subiectum. (Heidegger 78)22
Nietzsche’s man is thus both the subject and object of the will to power, eternally annihilating this difference and, with it, his identity. He is a “superman” (Übermensch), who “exists as a transition beyond man and is thus himself this transition. He raises what is now in existence - himself - beyond himself, transcends himself. as his former self, he is always in the process of disintegration because he is losing the ‘form’ of that self - the form is changing, passing" (Urbančič 402).
It is passing from the viewpoint of modernity, whose recurring newness, according to Nietzsche, always implies what has preceded it, but without a recognizable foundation. Thus it presages Lacan’s rhetorical process23 in which the essence of subject or language is missed: gliding of signifers past the signifed, a process that does establish the subject (in the course of time) but prevents him from settling into an essence or system.24 Nietzsche’s esthetic articulation, which is likewise incapable of settling into a discursive conceptual system, is the semi-literary form of the essayist fragment. This form reaches its peak in his Also Sprach Zarathusthra. a string of open-ended stories, interspersed with lyric poems, this work is no longer mere interaction, but a pure syncretism of philosophical and literary discourse: an indefnable hybrid genre of modernity. Nietzsche’s "open system" was
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put into force as a method only with New Historicism and, specifcally, two of its principles: just as Nietzsche in the comprehension of time (i.e., history and modernity) and the (recognizing) subject (the superman as the subject and object of the will to power) fnds himself requiring metaphysics, so, too, are the new historicists aware “that every act of unmasking, critique and opposition uses the tools it condemns and risks falling prey to the practice it exposes” and “that literary and non-literary texts circulate inseparably" (Veeser xi). With this principle there is fnally an identical handling of texts that are theoretical and literary at the same time: a symptom of the end of modernity, of the metaphysics of time, and the subject that can no longer differentiate between the recognizing and the recognized subject.
Translated by Nada grošelj and Jason Blake
NOTEs
1 The term subject is used here in its (one of its possible) philosophical senses; namely, in the sense of a recognizing subject as being different from the recognized object. The expression stems from the 16th century and is derived from the Latin word subjectum, the past participle of subicere ’to throw under’, meaning the theme of the sentence (cf. Inwood 280).
2 author’s translation. german original: »Jedes ego cogito ist cogito me cogitare … Jedes menschliche Vor-stellen ist nach einer leicht missdeutbaren redeweise ein sich-vorstellen.«
3 The original: »… wird zu dem von ihm selbst gesetzten grund und Mass für alle gewissheit und wahrheit.«
4 author’s translation. german original: »… das geschmacksurteil aber gründet sich gar nicht auf Begriff, und ist überall nicht Erkenntnis, sondern nur ein ästhetisches Urteil.«
5 »… ob es gleich bloß subjective gültigkeit hat, es dennoch alle subjekte so in anspruch nimmt, als es nur immer geschehen könnte, wenn es ein objektives Urteil wäre.«
6 »das subjektive Prinzip, nämlich die unbestimmte Idee des Übersinnlichen in uns, kann nur … angezeigt … werden.«
7 author’s translation. german original: »alles was gewiß ist, ist gewiß, weil er [i.e., der erster satz] gewiß ist; und es ist nichts gewiß, wenn er nicht gewiß ist.«
8 »wer Lust dazu hat, mag immer untersuchen, was er wissen würde, wenn sein Ich nicht Ich wäre, d. i., wenn er nicht existierte, und kein Nicht-Ich von seinem Ich unterscheiden könnte.«
9 »… soll unmittelbar und durch sich selbst gewiß sein, und das kann nicht anders heißen, als daß der gehalt desselben seine Form, und umgekehrt die Form desselben seinen gehalt bestimme.«
10 The perception of time as a major sensation in an epic frst appears in Lessing’s Laokoon as well as in works within the pre-romantic sentimental movement, in sterne and Fielding, who forecast the romantic perception of the subject and of modernity. Cf. von wilpert (858).
11 author’s translation. german original: »darum geht der Mensch, sicher sich selbst immer wieder zu fnden, immer von neuem aus sich heraus, um die Ergänzung seines innersten Wesens in der Tiefe eines fremden zu suchen und zu fnden.«
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12 »die Philosophie gelangte in wenigen kühnen schritten dahin, sich selbst und den geist des Menschen zu verstehen, in dessen Tiefe sie den Urquell der Phantasie und das Ideal der schönheit entdecken und so die Poesie deutlich anerkennen mußte, deren wesen und dasein sie bisher auch nicht geahndet hatte … aber die höchste schönheit, ja die höchste Ordnung ist denn doch nur die des Chaos, nämlich eines solchen, welches nur auf die Berührung der Liebe wartet, um sich zu einer harmonischen welt zu entfalten, eines solchen wie es auch die alte Mythologie und Poesie war. denn Mythologie und Poesie, beide sind eins und unzertrennlich… die Mythologie ist ein solches Kunstwerk der Natur. In ihrem gewebe ist das Höchste wirklich gebildet; alles ist Beziehung und Verwandlung, angebildet und umgebildet, und dieses anbilden und Umbilden eben ihr eigentümliches Verfahren, ihr inneres Leben« (schlegel 295, 301-02, 305).
13 »denn das ist der anfang aller Poesie, den gang und die gesetze der vernünftig denkenden Vernunft aufzuheben und uns wieder in die schöne Verwirrung der Phantasie, in das ursprüngliche Chaos der menschlicher Natur zu versetzen, für das ich kein schöneres symbol bis jetzt kenne, als das bunte gewimmel der alten götter.«
14 The early romantic movement congregated around the journal Athenäum (1798-1800) and included the literary theorists and historians august wilhelm and Friedrich schlegel (the latter was also a writer), the poet and writer Friedrich von Hardenberg Novalis, the writer and translator Ludwig Tieck, and the philosophers Johann gottlieb Fichte, schelling, and schleiermacher.
15 author’s translation. german original: »… ist der Urteilsstreit erforderlich, ob das überwundene Unglaubwürdige nicht doch real möglich ist.«
16 »symmetrie von wiedersprüchen, dieser wunderbare ewige wechsel von Enthusiasmus und Ironie,« »das ursprüngliche Chaos der menschlichen Natur.«
17 »also ist hier ein Zirkel, aus dem der menschliche geist nie herausgehen kann.«
18 More specifcally: "Modernity is the transitory, the fugitive … the half of art, of which the other half is the eternal and the immutable” (Baudelaire 296; translated by Calinescu 48).
19 In the 1848 article « Plastique et Civilisation - du beau antique et du Beau Moderne » gautier describes the esthetics of the ugly (Calinescu 45, 46): the ugliness of modern industry and urban life is transformed into artistic beauty. Thus, there is an appropriating of the romantic, Hoffmannesque (from the viewpoint of the absolute esthetic subject) subjectivizing of objective reality by means of the grotesque.
20 “Baudelaire’s modernité, both as defned theoretically and as applied to the works of Constantin guys (The Painter of Modern Life; 1863), embodies the paradoxes of a time awareness so strikingly new and so rich and refned, that it can be judged a qualitative turning point in the history of modernity as an idea” (Calinescu 49).
21 For example: “man is above the beasts and below them” (Nietzsche 559). The will to power is “man’s will as a subject that is primarily the subject of the will to power and simultaneously - and for that very reason - a self-exceeding subject” (Kos 49). as a superman he lives as a surpassing of man and such that he is that very surpassing (Urbančič 402).
22 »die Metaphysik Nietzsches ist einmal jene, die als wahrheit über das seiende im Ganzen den Willen zum Macht zu ihrem 'Objekt' hat… Als diese liegt er der menschlichen Prägung der wahrheit über das seiende im ganzen, d.h. der Metaphysik, zum grunde, ist ihr subiectum.«
23 « reportons sur ce schéma le je pense cartésien. assurément la distinction de l’énonciation a l’énoncé est ce qui en fait le glissement toujours possible, et si
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l’on peut dire le point d’achoppement éventuel …. disons que c’est de prendre sa place au niveau de l’énonciation qui donne sa certitude au cogito ... La différence du statut que donne au sujet la dimension découverte de l’inconscient freudien tient au désir, qui est a situer au niveau du cogito. Tout ce qui anime, ce dont parle toute énonciation, c’est du désir » (Lacan 157).
24 "This modality of signifcance we call semiotic, in order to convey …, the distinctive mark, the trace, the index, the premonitory sign, the proof, the incised mark, the imprint, in short, a distinctiveness. This distinctiveness is capable of an uncertain and indeterminate articulation, as with children it does not yet refer, and in psychotic discourse it no longer refers to a signifed object for a thetic consciousness… The term semiotic makes it suffciently clear that it is a modality avowedly heterogeneous to meaning, but always aspiring to, negating, or exceeding meaning… when we turn to a signifying practice - that is, to a socially communicable discourse such as poetic language - this semiotic heterogeneity remains, of course, inseparable from the symbolic function of signifcance. Symbolic is here understood in opposition to semiotic as referring to the inevitability of meaning, sign, and signifed object for the transcendal ego. Language as a social practice always presupposes these two modalities, and the ways in which they combine constitute different types of discourse or signifying practices. For example, scientifc discourse, which aspires to the status of a metalanguage, tends to minimize the semiotic element” (Kristeva 156).
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