Beyond Aesthetic Theory: Consolations of Art and Poetry in Romantic Criticism

Year 2022, Issue: 2, 29 - 45, 28.04.2022

Azade Seyhan

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15882550

Abstract

“Beyond Aesthetic Theory: Consolations of Art and Poetry in Romantic Criticism” aims to illustrate how German Romantic critics confronted the political, philosophical, and moral challenges at the dawn of modernity and the enduring relevance of their responses for our times. The concept of time and the problem of its representation beyond metaphysical systems was a major preoccupation of both Romanticism and modernity. During the turbulent political and moral crises in the wake of the French Revolution, the early German Romantics (Frühromantiker) Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, and Friedrich Schleiermacher, who collaborated on the short-lived journal, Athenäum (1798-1800), the major theoretical organ of German Romanticism, presented one of the earliest skeptical responses to the possibility of a first principle of philosophy. Human mortality generates the experience of being in time, of its passage, of loss and grief that cannot be cast in philosophical terms and do not belong to representation, thus precluding their reflection at the level of form. Ultimately, the burden of representing the unrepresentable, a burden that in Friedrich Schlegel’s view, emerges from the imperfections of philosophy, falls on art. At the very limit of representational certainties, art and poetry intimate the unsayable and negotiate the irreducible spaces between concept and representation. The Athenäum represents a novel mode of critical communication in employing the fragment as a philosophical form that extends into the work of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Walter Benjamin. It has also paved the way to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics and to poststructuralism by way of Nietzsche.

Keywords

German romanticism , aesthetic theory , modernity , romantic poetry , time in literature

Estetik Teorinin Ötesinde: Romantik Eleştiride Sanat ve Şiirin Tesellisi

Abstract

“Estetik Teorinin Ötesinde: Romantik Eleştiride Sanat ve Şiirin Tesellisi” Alman romantik eleştirmenlerinin modernitenin şafağında politik, felsefi ve ahlâki zorluklarla nasıl yüzleştiklerini ve yanıtlarının zamanımızla kalıcı ilişkisini göstermeyi amaçlıyor. Zaman kavramını ve temsilini metafizik sistemlerin ötesinde somutlaştırmak hem romantizmin hem de modernitenin başlıca uğraşlarındandı. Fransız Devrimi'nin ardından yaşanan çalkantılı siyasi ve ahlâki krizler sırasında Alman romantizminin en önemli teorik organı olan kısa ömürlü Athenäum (1798-1800) dergisi etrafında toplanan erken dönem Alman eleştirmenleri Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis ve Friedrich Schleiermacher felsefenin kapsayıcı ilkelerine ilk defa şüpheyle bakan bir ekolü oluşturdular. İnsanın faniliği felsefi terimlerle ifade edilemeyen ve temsile ait olmayan zaman içinde olma, zamanın geçişi, kayıp ve keder gibi deneyimler üretir ve bu deneyimler biçim düzeyinde yansımazlar. Dolayısıyla felsefi sistemlerin temsil edilemeyeni temsil edememesinin yükü, Schlegel’e göre felsefenin yetersizliğinden kaynaklanır ve bu yükün sorumluluğu şiire ve sanata düşer. Temsil yeteneğinin sınırında devreye giren sanat ve şiir, dile gelmeyeni ima eder ve kavram ve temsil arasındaki mesafeyi kapamaya yönelirler. Athenäum eleştirmenlerinin fragmanı felsefi bir biçim ve yeni bir iletişim organı olarak geliştirmelerinin etkileri Nietzsche, Heidegger ve Walter Benjamin’in yazılarında izlerini sürdürür ve Hans-Georg Gadamer’in hermenötiğine ve de Nietzsche aracılığıyla postyapısalcılığa yol açar.

Keywords

Alman romantizmi , estetik teori , modernite , romantik şiir , edebiyatta zaman

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