Abstract
It is a common theme in Postmodernism that a “text” or a “discourse” creates its own object, that, as Derrida says, “there is no outside of the text” or that “everything is interpretation”. Usually, Postmodernist thinkers call upon German Romanticism, especially in the person of Friedrich Schlegel, upon his role in the delineation of our modern concept of literature and also his influence on philosophy and literary criticism. In using the concept of allegory, as opposed to symbol, and in applying these concepts to the theory of literature, it is widely accepted that Schlegel brings to its end a conception of literature based on the mimesis, i.e. on the transitivity of signs referring to the external world. Schlegel is credited with the claim, by and large, that literature is no longer or not only allegorical, but essentially “symbolic”: literature has no transitivity and refers only to itself. That means that, the concept of “literature” signifies a production - and no longer a condition of scholars or a quality of educated people - it also means its own theory, i.e. that literature has reflection upon itself. Literature presents itself in producing its own theory. One can quote Fragment 115 of the Lyceum, a year before the foundation of the Athenäeum review by the Schlegels, which enunciates the program of this review: “All art must becom science and all science must become art; poetry and philosophy must be united”.1
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Notes
Friedrich Schlegel, Kritische Ausgabe, Bd. II, “Charakteristiken und Kritiken I” (1796–1801), ed. Hans Eichner (München, Paderborn, Wien: F. Schönig Verlag; Zürich: Thomas Verlag, 1967). I will use the abbreviation KA for Kritische Ausgabe, followed by the volume and the page or the number of the fragment. The translations are my own.
“On fait entendre l’infini murmure, l’amoncellement des paroles déjà dites”, in Michel Foucault, “Langage et littérature”, lecture given in Brussels, manuscript.
I leave aside the question of the meaning of “Roman” in Schlegel, linked as it is with “romantisch”, “romanisch”, and the narrative form of the novel. Cf. the introduction by Hans Eichner to Kritische Ausgabe, II.
“Philosophische Vorlesungen insbesondere über Philosophie der Sprache und des Wortes”, in Kritische Ausgabe X, ed. E. Behler (München, Paderborn, Wien: F. Schönig Verlag. Zürich: Thomas Verlag, 1969.) The translations are my own.
“Von der Schönheit in der Dichtkunst”, in Neue philosophische Schriften, ed. Josef Köner (Frankfurt a. M., 1935), pp. 363–387.
M. Heidegger, “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes”, in Holzwege (1935–1946), Gesamtausgabe, Band 5 (Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 1977). “The Origin of the Work of Art”, in Poetry,Language and Thought, trans. A. Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), hereafter “GA,” followed by the volume. The pages are given in parenthesis, first, the German text, then, the English translation. In my quotes I slightly modify the translation. This lecture was given for the first time in Frankfurt a. M. in 1936. Now we know that there were two other versions; the first was only a draft (1935) and is now available in the review Heidegger Studies, in a transcription by Hermann Heidegger; the second version is a lecture given in Freiburg in 1935. The text of this lecture was recently published by E. Martineau with a French translation. We cannot take into account here the deep rewriting and change of perspective between the two first versions and the last one of 1936, with which we are here essentially concerned.
Martin Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein”, ed. S. Ziegler, GA, Bd. 39 (Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 1980), p. 218. My own translation.
Martin Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein”, ed. S. Ziegler, GA, Bd. 39 (Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 1980), p. 219. My own translation.
Martin Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein”, ed. S. Ziegler, GA, Bd. 39 (Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 1980), p. 256.
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Vandevelde, P. (1994). The Possibility of a Phenomenology of the Text: From and Against Postmodernism. In: Kronegger, M., Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Allegory Old and New. Analecta Husserliana, vol 42. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1946-7_20
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