Controversies
of this sort ultimately depend on institutional and organizational conditions, e.
Niklas Luhmann - Art of the Social System
, 1985).
112. This kind of complexity--a sign of age--and exaggeration of distinctions in the theory of taste is exemplified in Archibald Alison, Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste (Edinburgh-London, 1790; rpt. Hildesheim, 1968).
113. Derrida demonstrates a hierarchization of already hierarchical distinctions within this text in "Economimesis. " Perhaps this covert hierarchization failed to satisfy the striving of romantic reflection toward indeterminacy.
114. See the references in Chapter 4, n. 144, above.
115. See, e. g. , the "Proemio" in Varchi, Lezzione.
116. See a broad, historically oriented dissertation by Anke Wiegand, Die
Schonheit und das Bose (Munich, 1967); further Niels Werber, Literatur als Sys- tem: Zur Ausdifferenzierung literarischer Kommunikation (Opladen, 1992).
117. See Alexander Gotdieb Baumgarten, Aesthetica, vol. 1 (Frankfurt/Oder, 1750; rpt. Hildesheim, 1970). The links to the tradition are well marked in Baumgarten s introduction of the concept of aesthetics: "Aesthetica (theoria lib- eralium artium, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulchre cogitandi, ars analogia rationis) est scientia cognitionis sensitivae" (? 1). But precisely this grounding in tradition makes it difficult for contemporaries such as Kant to trust the name.
118. For the quality of such testimony, it might have been significant that in Greek cities, regionally far-reaching diplomatic contacts or sports contacts were concentrated in the hands of the nobility, even in places (such as Athens) where the nobility no longer applied for city offices.
119. See Plumpe, Asthetische Kommunikation der Moderne, further Gemot Bohme s critical review of this development, which refers aesthetics back to the original meaning of aisthesis, in Fiir eine bkologische Naturasthetik (Frankfurt, 1989); Bohme, "Atmosphere as a Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics,"
Thesis Eleven 36 (1993): 113-26.
120. Explicidy in Heydenreich, System derAsthetik (1790).
121. See Gotz Muller, "Jean Pauls Asthetik im Kontext der Fruhromantik und
des Deutschen Idealismus," in Walter Jaeschke and Helmut Holzhey, eds. ,
Fruher Idealismus und Fruhromantik: Der Streit um die Grundlagen derAsthetik (i79S~i8o$) (Hamburg, 1990), pp. 150-73.
122. For an exemplary study, see John Bender, Imagining the Penitentiary:
392
Notes to Pages 274-j6
Fiction and the Architecture ofMind in Eighteenth-Century England (Chicago, 1987).
123. See Hegel's Vorlesungen iiber die Asthetik I, in Werke, vol. 13 (Frankfort, 1970), p. 13-
124. See Bender, Imagining the Penitentiary, pp. 3jff.
125. See, e. g. , Johann Christoph Gottsched, Versuch einer Critischen Dicht- kunst vor die Deutschen (Leipzig, 1730).
126. In Lomazzo, Trattato dell'arte, and Idea del Tempio, one still finds intel- letto rather than gusto, and the same holds for Zuccaro, L'idea dei Pittori. There is no doubt that the words gusto and gustoso are used occasionally. In the eigh- teenth century, one will explicidy distinguish between taste and the intellect and assign these faculties to different systems: "Le Gout est dans les Arts ce que l'ln-
1
telligence est dans les Sciences," writes the Abbe Batteux (Les beaux arts riduits a
un mbneprincipe, p. 58). He continues in the vein of the inside/outside schema by stating that taste refers to ourselves, whereas intelligence refers to the object. 127. We find formulations of this sort in Lamindo Pritanio (= Lodovico An-
tonio Muratori), Riflessioni sopra il buon gusto Intorno le Scienze e le Arti (Venice, 1708). See further Muratori, Delia perfetta Poesia Italiana, pp. 57ff.
128. "Noi per buon gusto intendiamo il cognoscere ed il giudicare ci6 che sia difettoso, o imperfetto, o mediocre nelle Scienze o neU'Arti per guardarsen; e ci6 che sia il meglio, e il perfetto" (Muratori, Riflessioni sopra il buon gusto, p. 13).
129. See, explicidy, Jean Baptiste Morvan, Abbe" de Bellegarde, Reflexions sur le ridicule etsur les moyens de I'eviter, 4th ed. (Paris, 1699), pp. i6off.
130. See, e. g. , John Gilbert Cooper, Letters concerning Taste andEssays on Sim- ilar and Other Subjects, 3d ed. (London, 1757), pp. 6f. ; Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, Reflexions sur I'usage etsur I'abus de la philosophic dans les matieres de gout, quoted from CEuvres completes, vol. 4 (rpt. Geneva, 1967), pp. 326-33 (332), accepts this proposition only in ordinary cases ("pour l'ordinaire"), because many pleasant il-
lusions become transparent in retrospective analyses. But he nonetheless believes
that "les vraies beautis gagnent toujours a l'examen" (332), only that it is unclear
what those "vraies beautes" are and how one distinguishes retrospectively be-
tween a short-lived illusion and genuine beauty.
131. On the basis of an older tradition, d'Alembert, Reflexions, p. 327, distin- guishes between grandTor everybody and j? << for sensitive people. Similarly, De- nis Diderot, Traiti du beau, quoted from CEuvres, Pl&ade ed. (Paris, 1951), pp. 1105-42 (1134), distinguishes between homme sauvageznd homme police on the basis of distinct concepts of beauty. Apart from that, one finds that the compe- tent judgment of a selected public is again differentiated into the judgment of experts (who have interests and are able to deceive the public for a while, if not permanently) and public judgment. See Jean-Baptiste Dubos, Reflexions critiques sur lapoesie etsur lapeinture (rpt. Paris, 1733), vol. 2, pp. 32off. These distinctions
Notes to Pages 276-78
393
indicate the emphasis on an ultimately irrational expertise in artistic matters that is uncorrupted by interests.
132. See William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, written with a view of fixing thefluctuating Ideas of Taste (London, 1773; Oxford, 1955).
133. According to Herder's formulation in his Ersten Kritischen Wdldchen, in Herders Samtliche Werke, ed. Bernhard Suphan, vol. 3 (Berlin, 1878), p. 7.
134. See, e. g. , Gonthier-Louis Fink, "Das Bild des Nachbarvolkes im Spiegel der deutschen und franzosischen Hochaufklarung (1750-1789)," in Giesen, ed. , Nationale und kulturelle Identitat, pp. 453-92; see further Bernhard Giesen and Kay Junge, "Vom Patriotismus zum Nationalismus: Zur Evolution der 'Deutschen Kulturnation,'" in ibid. , pp. 255-303. Apart from that, let us recall our remarks on the emergence of a new concept of "culture" (Chapter 3, section VII, and Chapter 6, section I, above).
135. Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, pp. 41". , 24.
136. Ibid. , esp. pp. 23ff. We find a similar critique from the perspective of an- other painter in Coypel, Discoursprononcez, pp. 3off.
137. According to Kant, the judgment of taste is "ein Urteil in Beziehung auf die Geselligkeit, sofern sie auf empirischen Regeln beruht" (Kritik der Urteils- kraft, ? 7). See also Kant's "Reflexionen zur Anthropologic" no. 743, from his posthumous writings {Akademie-Ausgabe, vol. 15. 1 [Berlin, 1923], p. 327), where Kant clearly distinguishes between sociability and objectivity.
138. See Peter Leberecht, Pt. 2, Chap. 4, quoted from Ludwig Tieck, Fruhe Erzdhlungen und Romane (Munich, n. d. ).
139. See Karl Wilhelm Solger, Vorlesungen iiber Asthetik, ed. Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Heyse (Leipzig, 1829; rpt. Darmstadt, 1973).
140. See Alfred Baeumler's classic monograph Das Irrationalitatsproblem in der Asthetik und Logik des 18. fahrhunderts bis zur Kritik der Urteilskraft (Darm- stadt, 1967).
141. See Baumgarten, Aesthetica. It has frequently been pointed out that the name "aesthetics," while it makes sense in view of this transitional period, is in truth inappropriate for a theory of art; however, once the terminology was in- troduced, it remained. See, e. g. , Friedrich Schlegel, Kritische Fragmente, no. 40, quoted from Werke, vol. 1, p. 170, or the beginning of Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Asthetik, quoted from Werke, vol. 13 (Frankfurt, 1970), p. 13.
142. In his introductory remarks to the Aesthetica, Baumgarten repeatedly in- sists on cognition--"Aesthetica (theoria liberalium artium, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulchre cogitandi, ars analogia rationis) est scientia cognitionis sensitivae" (? 1)--which creates the impression of an exclusion. What is to be excluded is the inquiry into the unity of the distinction that underlies all "aesthetic" obser- vations. What must be excluded is paradox.
143. Hans Freier, "Asthetik und Autonomic: Ein Beitrag zur idealistischen
394
Notes to Pages 2/8-80
Entfremdungskritik," in Bernd Lutz, ed. , Deutsches Biirgertwn und literarische Intelligenz ijp-1800 (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 32. 9-83 (339).
144. Karl Philipp Moritz, "Uber die bildende Nachahmung des Schonen,"
in Schriften zur Asthetik und Poetik, in Kritische Ausgabe (Tubingen, 1962), pp. 63-93 (78).
145. We take the precaution of pointing out that in this theoretical context, "Idea" no longer corresponds to the Platonic idea. The function of the concept within the current theoretical design is a different one. One seeks to recapture the old eidetic of nature in the medium of subjectivity.
146. See esp. letters no. 15, 26, and 27 in Friedrich Schiller, Uber die dsthetis- che Erziehung des Menscben in einer Reihe von Briefen, quoted from Friedrich Schiller, Sdmtliche Werke, vol. 5, 4th ed. (Munich, 1967), pp. 614XF. , 65jfF.
147. Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago, 1987), p. 116.
148. Freier, "Asthetik und Autonomic" p. 330, distinguishes between the au- tonomy of art, of the artwork, and of the aesthetic, which roughly corresponds to the distinction between the art system, operative programs, and system reflec- tion that we employed above.
149. See Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, p. 464.
150. On the shift from "imitation" to "autonomy" in Kant, see also Werber, Literatur aIs System, pp. 391? . Before Kant, the word autonomy had an exclusively political, or, starting in the Middle Ages, a juridical meaning. Kant displaces the concept onto the subject. This is why Schelling and Schiller can apply the con- cept of autonomy to art, not systematically at first, but with reference to the ge- nius who generates his autonomy and his creativity out of his own nature. Our own use of "autonomy" is not in accordance with the semantics of that time.
151. Jean Paul takes every measure to resist philosophy: for example, parody, or even a return to the principle of imitation (see, e. g. , Clavis Fichtiana seu Leibgeberianaand VorschulederAsthetik).
152. See August Wilhelm Schlegel, Die Kunstlehre, Pt. 1 of the lectures on lit- erature and art, quoted from Kritische Schriften und Briefe, vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1963). P- 9-
153. The problem poses itself in all functional systems, and it often remains debatable--e. g. , for the pedagogical value of pedagogical theory or with refer- ence to the status of legal dogma or legal theory as a (self-acknowledged) source of positive law.
Controversies of this sort ultimately depend on institutional and organizational conditions, e. g. , on the role of pedagogy in the education of teachers or on the openness of the legal system to a "law of judical precedence" that is justified by current legal opinion because it cannot be justified innova- tively as a kind of legislation. From theology, one expects a positive, committed relationship to belief, even though the effects of theology do not always corre-
Notes to Pages 281-84
395
spond to this assumption. From the theory of science, one expects a more non- scientific (nonhypothetical, dogmatic) self-relation, and so forth.
154. "1st das Reale aulSer uns: so sind wir ewig geschieden davon; ist es in uns: so sind wirs selber" (Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, p. 445).
155. This is how Earl R. Wasserman, The Subtler Language: Critical Readings ofNeoclassic and Romantic Poems (Baltimore, 1959), interprets the changing de- mands that are placed on the language of lyric poetry from Dryden to Shelley.
156. The question of what reality is in itself is still a matter of dispute. See, e. g. , N. Katherine Hayles, "Constrained Constructivism: Locating Scientific In- quiry in the Theater of Representation," in George Levine, ed. , Realism and Rep- resentation: Essays on the Problem of Realism in Relation to Science, Literature, and
Culture (Madison, Wis. , 1993), pp. 27-43.
157. This notion, which implies a distance from all variants of postmodern
constructivism, can be demonstrated by a somewhat extensive quotation: "Der Idealismus in jeder Form mu8 auf die eine oder die andre Art aus sich herausge- hen, um in sich zuriickkehren zu konnen und zu bleiben, was er ist. Deswegen mufi und wird sich aus seinem SchoS ein neuer, ebenso grenzenloser Realismus erheben" (Friedrich Schlegel, Gesprdch iiber die Poesie, pp. i6iff. ).
158. As we know from Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World (Cam- bridge, Mass. , 1968).
159. In the sense of Spencer Brown's "law of crossing" {Laws of Form [1969; rpt. New York, 1979], p. 2): "The value of the crossing made again [that is, back across the same boundary, N. L. ] is not the value of the crossing. " The move- ment back and forth asserts the distinction only on condition that it remains the same.
160. On the history of this distinction as a frame of narrative, see Davis, Fac- tual Fictions.
161. Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, p. 88.
162. Ibid. , p. 87.
163. A similar strategy underlies E. T. A. Hoffmann's Elixiere des Teufels--
elements of the story do not really come from the Devil, but the narration gains plausibility by making the reader believe they do.
164. Walter Schulz adopts this guiding metaphor to present die historical sit- uation of the philosophy of art in his Metaphysik des Schwebens: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Asthetik (Pfullingen, 1985).
165. This is the point of Peter Fuchs's interpretation of romanticism in Mod- erne Kommunikation: Zur Theorie des operativen Displacements (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 79fF.
166. See also Ludwig Tieck, William Lovell, quoted from Fruhe Erzdhlungen und Romane (Munich, n. d. ), p. 603: "Es ist ein Fluch der auf der Sprache des Menschen liegt, da6 keiner den anderen verstehen kann. "
396 Notes to Pages 284-85
167. Friedrich Schlegel, Lucinde, in Werke, vol. 2, p. 74.
168. The reflection on writing is foregrounded when not only the author writes and the reader reads but the protagonists in the novel write as well, or when the protagonist, as in Tieck's William LovelL, is accessible only through written testimony (letters). The author can then exploit and ironize, at both lev- els, the typical accessories of the horror novel, while withholding from the reader which one of the protagonist's heterogeneous written testimonies constitutes the true "meaning of the story. " In thefinalanalysis, the "miraculous" and the "sub- lime" appear trivial in that they can be explained biographically. Uncertainty ex- plodes every dimension of a possible hermeneutic search for a deeper meaning. As textual content, writing affirms what one is supposed to think of the fact that even the author is only a writer--a typical effect of a reentry that throws the ob- server into an "unresolvable indeterminacy" (Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm, p. 57) and makes him realize that nothing else is intended.
169. See, e. g. , Friedrich Schlegel, "Uber die Philosophic" quoted from Werke, n
vol. 2, pp. 101-29 ( 8)-
170. "Die Schrift hat fur mich ich weifi nicht welchen geheimen Zauber,
vielleicht durch die Dammerung von Ewigkeit, welche sie umschwebt," writes Schlegel (ibid. , p. 104). As an author, Schlegel imagines that life is writing--to paraphrase it in somewhat metaphysical terms. For another example, see the text, discovered by Jochen Horisch, of the romantic naturalist Johann Wilhelm Rit-
ter: "Die erste und zwar absolute Gleichzeitigkeit (von Wort und Schrift) lag
darin, dafi das Sprachorgan selbst schreibt, um zu sprechen. Nur der Buchstabe spricht, oder besser: Wort und Schrift sind gleich an ihrem Ursprung eines, und keines ohne das andere moglich" (Ritter, Fragmente aw dem Nachlaft eines jun-
gen Physikers--Ein Taschenbuchfur Freunde der Natur, Zweites Bandchen [Hei- delberg, 1810], p. 229, quoted from Jochen Horisch, "Das Sein der Zeichen und
die Zeichen des Seins: Marginalien zu Derrida's Ontosemiologie," in Jacques Derrida, Die Stimme und das Phdnomen: Ein Essay uber das Problem des Zeichens in der Philosophie Husserls [Frankfurt, 1979], p. 14). On romanticism as a culture
of writing, see also Walter J. Ong, Interfaces ofthe Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Ithaca, N. Y. , 1977), pp. 272ff; and Peter Fuchs, Moderne Kommunikation, vol. 1, pp. 97ff.
171. E. g. , by August Wilhelm Schlegel.
172. PauldeMan,BlindnessandInsight:EssaysintheRhetoricofContemporary Criticism (1979; 2d ed. Minneapolis, 1983), p. 196. Even before romanticism, however, one occasionally finds the notion that nature is experienced in an ob- servation trained in art. See, e. g. , Denis Diderot's "Essai sur la Peinture," quoted
from CEuvres, Pleiade ed. (Paris, 1951), pp. 1143-1200 (1156): "II semble que nous considerions la nature comme le resultat de l'art. " Decisive here is the shift of the nature/art distinction toward action and experience. This shift avoids the colli- sion between God as creator and the attist as the producer of a single work.
Notes to Pages 285-87
397
173. Especially in early romanticism. See Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-
Luc Nancy, L'absolu UtteWaire: Theorie de la Littirature du romantisme allemand (Paris, 1978), Introduction.
174. In "Uber Goethes 'Meister,'" Friedrich Schlegel writes of "criticism as a high form of poetry": "dafi sie iiber die Grenzen des sichtbaren Werkes mit Ver- mutungen und Behauptungen hinausgeht. Das mufi alle Kritik, weil jedes vor- treffliche Werk, von welcher Art es auch sei, mehr weifi als es sagt, und mehr will als es weifi," quoted from Schlegel, Werke, vol. 1, p. 154.
175. In contrast to the current discussion in legal theory provoked by Ronald Dworkin. What the romantics called "criticism" becomes now, with the same in- tention, "constructive interpretation," which is supposed to generate the best possible version of the text. See Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire (Cambridge, Mass. , 1986), pp. jif. and throughout; on the same topic, see further David Couzens Hoy, "Dworkin's Constructive Optimism v. Deconstructive Legal Ni- hilism," Law and Philosophy 6 (1987): 321-56. In this way, one arrives despite all scruples at the notion that there must be a single correct decision in current law.
176. "Monotheismus der Vernunft und des Herzens, Polytheismus der Ein- bildungskraft und der Kunst, dies ist's was wir bedurfen," states the "Alteste Sys- temprogramm des deutschen Idealismus" (quoted from Hegel, Werke, vol. 1 [Frankfurt, 1971], pp. 234-36).
177. See August Wilhelm Schlegel, Die Kunstlehre, pp. 23ff. (29).
178. This is the topic of Walter Benjamin's dissertation, Der Begriffder Kun- stkritik in der deutschen Romantik (Frankfurt, 1973). However, Benjamin inter- prets the relationship between medium and form (pp. 82f. ) as a continuum, as a transition or intensification rather than as a difference. To be sure, Benjamin cites Friedrich Schlegel s formulation of the "boundaries of the visible work" (pp. 81, 84), beyond which resides the idea of art, but he does not elaborate Schlegel's terminology on his own (p. 52, n. 141).
179. Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, ? 27: "und das Begrenzte ist erhaben, nicht das Begrenzende" (108).
180. E. g. ,inSolger,VorlesungeniiberAsthetik,pp. 125,i99f. SeealsoJeanPaul, Vorschule der Asthetik, ? 48, pp. i48ff, where he argues that one must study the
semblance of seriousness in order to get at the seriousness of appearance. Hence the incompatibility of irony and the comic.
181. See Hans J. Haferkorn, "Zur Enstehung der biirgerlich-literarischen In- telligenz und des Schriftstellers in Deutschland zwischen 1750 und 1800," in
Bernd Lutz, ed. , Literaturwissenscha. fi und Sozialwissenschaften 3: Deutsches Biirg- ertum undLiterarischeIntelligenz 1750-1800 (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 113-275; Giesen and Junge, "Vom Patriotismus zum Nationalismus. "
182. August Wlhelm Schlegel suggests that and how one can dispense with the Idea: "Das Schone ist eine symbolische Darstellung des Unendlichen" (Die Kunstlehre, p. 81).
398 Notes to Pages 287-pi
183. The theme of a change of identity, e. g. , in the sexual relationship between brother and sister, was common before romanticism, and it becomes evident that this is a literary topic that presupposes writing. For evidence from the Italian Re- naissance, see Graziella Pagliano, "Sociologia e letteratura, owero storie di fratelli e sorelle," Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia 35 (1994): 151-62.
184. See, e. g. , Hoffmann, Ritter Gluck, quoted from E. T. A. Hoffmann,
Musikalische Novellen und Schriften, ed. Richard Miinnich (Weimar, 1961), pp.
35-55-
185. Friedrich Schlegel, "Uber Lessing," quoted from Werke, vol. 1, pp. 103-35
(123).
186. Novalis, Fragmente II, no. 2167, quoted from Werke/Briefe Dokurnente,
ed. Ewald Wasmuth, vol. 3 (Heidelberg, 1957) (numbers follow this edition). 187. A formulation pertaining to postmodern architecture can already be ap- plied to romanticism: "Whereas a mythology was given to die artist in the past by tradition and by patron, in the postmodern world it is chosen and invented" (Charles Jencks, "Postmodern vs. Late-Modern," in Ingeborg Hoesterey, ed. ,
Zeitgeist in Babel: The Postmodernist Controversy [Bloomington, Ind. , 1991], pp. 4-21 [9]).
188. On the misrecognition of the functional differentiation of the social sys-
tem, which is already widely established, see Klaus Disselbeck, Geschmack und
Kunst: Eine systemtheoretische Untersuchung zu Schillers Briefen "Uber die asthetis- che Erziehung des Menschen" (Opladen, 1987).
189. See, e. g. , Ludwig Tieck's novella Das ZauberschloJ? (ifyo).
190. Foranoverview,seeDavidRoberts,ArtandEnlightenment:AestheticThe- ory after Adorno (Lincoln, Nebr. , 1991).
112. This kind of complexity--a sign of age--and exaggeration of distinctions in the theory of taste is exemplified in Archibald Alison, Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste (Edinburgh-London, 1790; rpt. Hildesheim, 1968).
113. Derrida demonstrates a hierarchization of already hierarchical distinctions within this text in "Economimesis. " Perhaps this covert hierarchization failed to satisfy the striving of romantic reflection toward indeterminacy.
114. See the references in Chapter 4, n. 144, above.
115. See, e. g. , the "Proemio" in Varchi, Lezzione.
116. See a broad, historically oriented dissertation by Anke Wiegand, Die
Schonheit und das Bose (Munich, 1967); further Niels Werber, Literatur als Sys- tem: Zur Ausdifferenzierung literarischer Kommunikation (Opladen, 1992).
117. See Alexander Gotdieb Baumgarten, Aesthetica, vol. 1 (Frankfurt/Oder, 1750; rpt. Hildesheim, 1970). The links to the tradition are well marked in Baumgarten s introduction of the concept of aesthetics: "Aesthetica (theoria lib- eralium artium, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulchre cogitandi, ars analogia rationis) est scientia cognitionis sensitivae" (? 1). But precisely this grounding in tradition makes it difficult for contemporaries such as Kant to trust the name.
118. For the quality of such testimony, it might have been significant that in Greek cities, regionally far-reaching diplomatic contacts or sports contacts were concentrated in the hands of the nobility, even in places (such as Athens) where the nobility no longer applied for city offices.
119. See Plumpe, Asthetische Kommunikation der Moderne, further Gemot Bohme s critical review of this development, which refers aesthetics back to the original meaning of aisthesis, in Fiir eine bkologische Naturasthetik (Frankfurt, 1989); Bohme, "Atmosphere as a Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics,"
Thesis Eleven 36 (1993): 113-26.
120. Explicidy in Heydenreich, System derAsthetik (1790).
121. See Gotz Muller, "Jean Pauls Asthetik im Kontext der Fruhromantik und
des Deutschen Idealismus," in Walter Jaeschke and Helmut Holzhey, eds. ,
Fruher Idealismus und Fruhromantik: Der Streit um die Grundlagen derAsthetik (i79S~i8o$) (Hamburg, 1990), pp. 150-73.
122. For an exemplary study, see John Bender, Imagining the Penitentiary:
392
Notes to Pages 274-j6
Fiction and the Architecture ofMind in Eighteenth-Century England (Chicago, 1987).
123. See Hegel's Vorlesungen iiber die Asthetik I, in Werke, vol. 13 (Frankfort, 1970), p. 13-
124. See Bender, Imagining the Penitentiary, pp. 3jff.
125. See, e. g. , Johann Christoph Gottsched, Versuch einer Critischen Dicht- kunst vor die Deutschen (Leipzig, 1730).
126. In Lomazzo, Trattato dell'arte, and Idea del Tempio, one still finds intel- letto rather than gusto, and the same holds for Zuccaro, L'idea dei Pittori. There is no doubt that the words gusto and gustoso are used occasionally. In the eigh- teenth century, one will explicidy distinguish between taste and the intellect and assign these faculties to different systems: "Le Gout est dans les Arts ce que l'ln-
1
telligence est dans les Sciences," writes the Abbe Batteux (Les beaux arts riduits a
un mbneprincipe, p. 58). He continues in the vein of the inside/outside schema by stating that taste refers to ourselves, whereas intelligence refers to the object. 127. We find formulations of this sort in Lamindo Pritanio (= Lodovico An-
tonio Muratori), Riflessioni sopra il buon gusto Intorno le Scienze e le Arti (Venice, 1708). See further Muratori, Delia perfetta Poesia Italiana, pp. 57ff.
128. "Noi per buon gusto intendiamo il cognoscere ed il giudicare ci6 che sia difettoso, o imperfetto, o mediocre nelle Scienze o neU'Arti per guardarsen; e ci6 che sia il meglio, e il perfetto" (Muratori, Riflessioni sopra il buon gusto, p. 13).
129. See, explicidy, Jean Baptiste Morvan, Abbe" de Bellegarde, Reflexions sur le ridicule etsur les moyens de I'eviter, 4th ed. (Paris, 1699), pp. i6off.
130. See, e. g. , John Gilbert Cooper, Letters concerning Taste andEssays on Sim- ilar and Other Subjects, 3d ed. (London, 1757), pp. 6f. ; Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, Reflexions sur I'usage etsur I'abus de la philosophic dans les matieres de gout, quoted from CEuvres completes, vol. 4 (rpt. Geneva, 1967), pp. 326-33 (332), accepts this proposition only in ordinary cases ("pour l'ordinaire"), because many pleasant il-
lusions become transparent in retrospective analyses. But he nonetheless believes
that "les vraies beautis gagnent toujours a l'examen" (332), only that it is unclear
what those "vraies beautes" are and how one distinguishes retrospectively be-
tween a short-lived illusion and genuine beauty.
131. On the basis of an older tradition, d'Alembert, Reflexions, p. 327, distin- guishes between grandTor everybody and j? << for sensitive people. Similarly, De- nis Diderot, Traiti du beau, quoted from CEuvres, Pl&ade ed. (Paris, 1951), pp. 1105-42 (1134), distinguishes between homme sauvageznd homme police on the basis of distinct concepts of beauty. Apart from that, one finds that the compe- tent judgment of a selected public is again differentiated into the judgment of experts (who have interests and are able to deceive the public for a while, if not permanently) and public judgment. See Jean-Baptiste Dubos, Reflexions critiques sur lapoesie etsur lapeinture (rpt. Paris, 1733), vol. 2, pp. 32off. These distinctions
Notes to Pages 276-78
393
indicate the emphasis on an ultimately irrational expertise in artistic matters that is uncorrupted by interests.
132. See William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, written with a view of fixing thefluctuating Ideas of Taste (London, 1773; Oxford, 1955).
133. According to Herder's formulation in his Ersten Kritischen Wdldchen, in Herders Samtliche Werke, ed. Bernhard Suphan, vol. 3 (Berlin, 1878), p. 7.
134. See, e. g. , Gonthier-Louis Fink, "Das Bild des Nachbarvolkes im Spiegel der deutschen und franzosischen Hochaufklarung (1750-1789)," in Giesen, ed. , Nationale und kulturelle Identitat, pp. 453-92; see further Bernhard Giesen and Kay Junge, "Vom Patriotismus zum Nationalismus: Zur Evolution der 'Deutschen Kulturnation,'" in ibid. , pp. 255-303. Apart from that, let us recall our remarks on the emergence of a new concept of "culture" (Chapter 3, section VII, and Chapter 6, section I, above).
135. Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, pp. 41". , 24.
136. Ibid. , esp. pp. 23ff. We find a similar critique from the perspective of an- other painter in Coypel, Discoursprononcez, pp. 3off.
137. According to Kant, the judgment of taste is "ein Urteil in Beziehung auf die Geselligkeit, sofern sie auf empirischen Regeln beruht" (Kritik der Urteils- kraft, ? 7). See also Kant's "Reflexionen zur Anthropologic" no. 743, from his posthumous writings {Akademie-Ausgabe, vol. 15. 1 [Berlin, 1923], p. 327), where Kant clearly distinguishes between sociability and objectivity.
138. See Peter Leberecht, Pt. 2, Chap. 4, quoted from Ludwig Tieck, Fruhe Erzdhlungen und Romane (Munich, n. d. ).
139. See Karl Wilhelm Solger, Vorlesungen iiber Asthetik, ed. Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Heyse (Leipzig, 1829; rpt. Darmstadt, 1973).
140. See Alfred Baeumler's classic monograph Das Irrationalitatsproblem in der Asthetik und Logik des 18. fahrhunderts bis zur Kritik der Urteilskraft (Darm- stadt, 1967).
141. See Baumgarten, Aesthetica. It has frequently been pointed out that the name "aesthetics," while it makes sense in view of this transitional period, is in truth inappropriate for a theory of art; however, once the terminology was in- troduced, it remained. See, e. g. , Friedrich Schlegel, Kritische Fragmente, no. 40, quoted from Werke, vol. 1, p. 170, or the beginning of Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Asthetik, quoted from Werke, vol. 13 (Frankfurt, 1970), p. 13.
142. In his introductory remarks to the Aesthetica, Baumgarten repeatedly in- sists on cognition--"Aesthetica (theoria liberalium artium, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulchre cogitandi, ars analogia rationis) est scientia cognitionis sensitivae" (? 1)--which creates the impression of an exclusion. What is to be excluded is the inquiry into the unity of the distinction that underlies all "aesthetic" obser- vations. What must be excluded is paradox.
143. Hans Freier, "Asthetik und Autonomic: Ein Beitrag zur idealistischen
394
Notes to Pages 2/8-80
Entfremdungskritik," in Bernd Lutz, ed. , Deutsches Biirgertwn und literarische Intelligenz ijp-1800 (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 32. 9-83 (339).
144. Karl Philipp Moritz, "Uber die bildende Nachahmung des Schonen,"
in Schriften zur Asthetik und Poetik, in Kritische Ausgabe (Tubingen, 1962), pp. 63-93 (78).
145. We take the precaution of pointing out that in this theoretical context, "Idea" no longer corresponds to the Platonic idea. The function of the concept within the current theoretical design is a different one. One seeks to recapture the old eidetic of nature in the medium of subjectivity.
146. See esp. letters no. 15, 26, and 27 in Friedrich Schiller, Uber die dsthetis- che Erziehung des Menscben in einer Reihe von Briefen, quoted from Friedrich Schiller, Sdmtliche Werke, vol. 5, 4th ed. (Munich, 1967), pp. 614XF. , 65jfF.
147. Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago, 1987), p. 116.
148. Freier, "Asthetik und Autonomic" p. 330, distinguishes between the au- tonomy of art, of the artwork, and of the aesthetic, which roughly corresponds to the distinction between the art system, operative programs, and system reflec- tion that we employed above.
149. See Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, p. 464.
150. On the shift from "imitation" to "autonomy" in Kant, see also Werber, Literatur aIs System, pp. 391? . Before Kant, the word autonomy had an exclusively political, or, starting in the Middle Ages, a juridical meaning. Kant displaces the concept onto the subject. This is why Schelling and Schiller can apply the con- cept of autonomy to art, not systematically at first, but with reference to the ge- nius who generates his autonomy and his creativity out of his own nature. Our own use of "autonomy" is not in accordance with the semantics of that time.
151. Jean Paul takes every measure to resist philosophy: for example, parody, or even a return to the principle of imitation (see, e. g. , Clavis Fichtiana seu Leibgeberianaand VorschulederAsthetik).
152. See August Wilhelm Schlegel, Die Kunstlehre, Pt. 1 of the lectures on lit- erature and art, quoted from Kritische Schriften und Briefe, vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1963). P- 9-
153. The problem poses itself in all functional systems, and it often remains debatable--e. g. , for the pedagogical value of pedagogical theory or with refer- ence to the status of legal dogma or legal theory as a (self-acknowledged) source of positive law.
Controversies of this sort ultimately depend on institutional and organizational conditions, e. g. , on the role of pedagogy in the education of teachers or on the openness of the legal system to a "law of judical precedence" that is justified by current legal opinion because it cannot be justified innova- tively as a kind of legislation. From theology, one expects a positive, committed relationship to belief, even though the effects of theology do not always corre-
Notes to Pages 281-84
395
spond to this assumption. From the theory of science, one expects a more non- scientific (nonhypothetical, dogmatic) self-relation, and so forth.
154. "1st das Reale aulSer uns: so sind wir ewig geschieden davon; ist es in uns: so sind wirs selber" (Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, p. 445).
155. This is how Earl R. Wasserman, The Subtler Language: Critical Readings ofNeoclassic and Romantic Poems (Baltimore, 1959), interprets the changing de- mands that are placed on the language of lyric poetry from Dryden to Shelley.
156. The question of what reality is in itself is still a matter of dispute. See, e. g. , N. Katherine Hayles, "Constrained Constructivism: Locating Scientific In- quiry in the Theater of Representation," in George Levine, ed. , Realism and Rep- resentation: Essays on the Problem of Realism in Relation to Science, Literature, and
Culture (Madison, Wis. , 1993), pp. 27-43.
157. This notion, which implies a distance from all variants of postmodern
constructivism, can be demonstrated by a somewhat extensive quotation: "Der Idealismus in jeder Form mu8 auf die eine oder die andre Art aus sich herausge- hen, um in sich zuriickkehren zu konnen und zu bleiben, was er ist. Deswegen mufi und wird sich aus seinem SchoS ein neuer, ebenso grenzenloser Realismus erheben" (Friedrich Schlegel, Gesprdch iiber die Poesie, pp. i6iff. ).
158. As we know from Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World (Cam- bridge, Mass. , 1968).
159. In the sense of Spencer Brown's "law of crossing" {Laws of Form [1969; rpt. New York, 1979], p. 2): "The value of the crossing made again [that is, back across the same boundary, N. L. ] is not the value of the crossing. " The move- ment back and forth asserts the distinction only on condition that it remains the same.
160. On the history of this distinction as a frame of narrative, see Davis, Fac- tual Fictions.
161. Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, p. 88.
162. Ibid. , p. 87.
163. A similar strategy underlies E. T. A. Hoffmann's Elixiere des Teufels--
elements of the story do not really come from the Devil, but the narration gains plausibility by making the reader believe they do.
164. Walter Schulz adopts this guiding metaphor to present die historical sit- uation of the philosophy of art in his Metaphysik des Schwebens: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Asthetik (Pfullingen, 1985).
165. This is the point of Peter Fuchs's interpretation of romanticism in Mod- erne Kommunikation: Zur Theorie des operativen Displacements (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 79fF.
166. See also Ludwig Tieck, William Lovell, quoted from Fruhe Erzdhlungen und Romane (Munich, n. d. ), p. 603: "Es ist ein Fluch der auf der Sprache des Menschen liegt, da6 keiner den anderen verstehen kann. "
396 Notes to Pages 284-85
167. Friedrich Schlegel, Lucinde, in Werke, vol. 2, p. 74.
168. The reflection on writing is foregrounded when not only the author writes and the reader reads but the protagonists in the novel write as well, or when the protagonist, as in Tieck's William LovelL, is accessible only through written testimony (letters). The author can then exploit and ironize, at both lev- els, the typical accessories of the horror novel, while withholding from the reader which one of the protagonist's heterogeneous written testimonies constitutes the true "meaning of the story. " In thefinalanalysis, the "miraculous" and the "sub- lime" appear trivial in that they can be explained biographically. Uncertainty ex- plodes every dimension of a possible hermeneutic search for a deeper meaning. As textual content, writing affirms what one is supposed to think of the fact that even the author is only a writer--a typical effect of a reentry that throws the ob- server into an "unresolvable indeterminacy" (Spencer Brown, Laws ofForm, p. 57) and makes him realize that nothing else is intended.
169. See, e. g. , Friedrich Schlegel, "Uber die Philosophic" quoted from Werke, n
vol. 2, pp. 101-29 ( 8)-
170. "Die Schrift hat fur mich ich weifi nicht welchen geheimen Zauber,
vielleicht durch die Dammerung von Ewigkeit, welche sie umschwebt," writes Schlegel (ibid. , p. 104). As an author, Schlegel imagines that life is writing--to paraphrase it in somewhat metaphysical terms. For another example, see the text, discovered by Jochen Horisch, of the romantic naturalist Johann Wilhelm Rit-
ter: "Die erste und zwar absolute Gleichzeitigkeit (von Wort und Schrift) lag
darin, dafi das Sprachorgan selbst schreibt, um zu sprechen. Nur der Buchstabe spricht, oder besser: Wort und Schrift sind gleich an ihrem Ursprung eines, und keines ohne das andere moglich" (Ritter, Fragmente aw dem Nachlaft eines jun-
gen Physikers--Ein Taschenbuchfur Freunde der Natur, Zweites Bandchen [Hei- delberg, 1810], p. 229, quoted from Jochen Horisch, "Das Sein der Zeichen und
die Zeichen des Seins: Marginalien zu Derrida's Ontosemiologie," in Jacques Derrida, Die Stimme und das Phdnomen: Ein Essay uber das Problem des Zeichens in der Philosophie Husserls [Frankfurt, 1979], p. 14). On romanticism as a culture
of writing, see also Walter J. Ong, Interfaces ofthe Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Ithaca, N. Y. , 1977), pp. 272ff; and Peter Fuchs, Moderne Kommunikation, vol. 1, pp. 97ff.
171. E. g. , by August Wilhelm Schlegel.
172. PauldeMan,BlindnessandInsight:EssaysintheRhetoricofContemporary Criticism (1979; 2d ed. Minneapolis, 1983), p. 196. Even before romanticism, however, one occasionally finds the notion that nature is experienced in an ob- servation trained in art. See, e. g. , Denis Diderot's "Essai sur la Peinture," quoted
from CEuvres, Pleiade ed. (Paris, 1951), pp. 1143-1200 (1156): "II semble que nous considerions la nature comme le resultat de l'art. " Decisive here is the shift of the nature/art distinction toward action and experience. This shift avoids the colli- sion between God as creator and the attist as the producer of a single work.
Notes to Pages 285-87
397
173. Especially in early romanticism. See Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-
Luc Nancy, L'absolu UtteWaire: Theorie de la Littirature du romantisme allemand (Paris, 1978), Introduction.
174. In "Uber Goethes 'Meister,'" Friedrich Schlegel writes of "criticism as a high form of poetry": "dafi sie iiber die Grenzen des sichtbaren Werkes mit Ver- mutungen und Behauptungen hinausgeht. Das mufi alle Kritik, weil jedes vor- treffliche Werk, von welcher Art es auch sei, mehr weifi als es sagt, und mehr will als es weifi," quoted from Schlegel, Werke, vol. 1, p. 154.
175. In contrast to the current discussion in legal theory provoked by Ronald Dworkin. What the romantics called "criticism" becomes now, with the same in- tention, "constructive interpretation," which is supposed to generate the best possible version of the text. See Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire (Cambridge, Mass. , 1986), pp. jif. and throughout; on the same topic, see further David Couzens Hoy, "Dworkin's Constructive Optimism v. Deconstructive Legal Ni- hilism," Law and Philosophy 6 (1987): 321-56. In this way, one arrives despite all scruples at the notion that there must be a single correct decision in current law.
176. "Monotheismus der Vernunft und des Herzens, Polytheismus der Ein- bildungskraft und der Kunst, dies ist's was wir bedurfen," states the "Alteste Sys- temprogramm des deutschen Idealismus" (quoted from Hegel, Werke, vol. 1 [Frankfurt, 1971], pp. 234-36).
177. See August Wilhelm Schlegel, Die Kunstlehre, pp. 23ff. (29).
178. This is the topic of Walter Benjamin's dissertation, Der Begriffder Kun- stkritik in der deutschen Romantik (Frankfurt, 1973). However, Benjamin inter- prets the relationship between medium and form (pp. 82f. ) as a continuum, as a transition or intensification rather than as a difference. To be sure, Benjamin cites Friedrich Schlegel s formulation of the "boundaries of the visible work" (pp. 81, 84), beyond which resides the idea of art, but he does not elaborate Schlegel's terminology on his own (p. 52, n. 141).
179. Jean Paul, Vorschule der Asthetik, ? 27: "und das Begrenzte ist erhaben, nicht das Begrenzende" (108).
180. E. g. ,inSolger,VorlesungeniiberAsthetik,pp. 125,i99f. SeealsoJeanPaul, Vorschule der Asthetik, ? 48, pp. i48ff, where he argues that one must study the
semblance of seriousness in order to get at the seriousness of appearance. Hence the incompatibility of irony and the comic.
181. See Hans J. Haferkorn, "Zur Enstehung der biirgerlich-literarischen In- telligenz und des Schriftstellers in Deutschland zwischen 1750 und 1800," in
Bernd Lutz, ed. , Literaturwissenscha. fi und Sozialwissenschaften 3: Deutsches Biirg- ertum undLiterarischeIntelligenz 1750-1800 (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 113-275; Giesen and Junge, "Vom Patriotismus zum Nationalismus. "
182. August Wlhelm Schlegel suggests that and how one can dispense with the Idea: "Das Schone ist eine symbolische Darstellung des Unendlichen" (Die Kunstlehre, p. 81).
398 Notes to Pages 287-pi
183. The theme of a change of identity, e. g. , in the sexual relationship between brother and sister, was common before romanticism, and it becomes evident that this is a literary topic that presupposes writing. For evidence from the Italian Re- naissance, see Graziella Pagliano, "Sociologia e letteratura, owero storie di fratelli e sorelle," Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia 35 (1994): 151-62.
184. See, e. g. , Hoffmann, Ritter Gluck, quoted from E. T. A. Hoffmann,
Musikalische Novellen und Schriften, ed. Richard Miinnich (Weimar, 1961), pp.
35-55-
185. Friedrich Schlegel, "Uber Lessing," quoted from Werke, vol. 1, pp. 103-35
(123).
186. Novalis, Fragmente II, no. 2167, quoted from Werke/Briefe Dokurnente,
ed. Ewald Wasmuth, vol. 3 (Heidelberg, 1957) (numbers follow this edition). 187. A formulation pertaining to postmodern architecture can already be ap- plied to romanticism: "Whereas a mythology was given to die artist in the past by tradition and by patron, in the postmodern world it is chosen and invented" (Charles Jencks, "Postmodern vs. Late-Modern," in Ingeborg Hoesterey, ed. ,
Zeitgeist in Babel: The Postmodernist Controversy [Bloomington, Ind. , 1991], pp. 4-21 [9]).
188. On the misrecognition of the functional differentiation of the social sys-
tem, which is already widely established, see Klaus Disselbeck, Geschmack und
Kunst: Eine systemtheoretische Untersuchung zu Schillers Briefen "Uber die asthetis- che Erziehung des Menschen" (Opladen, 1987).
189. See, e. g. , Ludwig Tieck's novella Das ZauberschloJ? (ifyo).
190. Foranoverview,seeDavidRoberts,ArtandEnlightenment:AestheticThe- ory after Adorno (Lincoln, Nebr. , 1991).
