2020 Spring Semester - 'World Literature: 18-19th Century Literature'
ABSTRACT - not yet finished
The primary objective of this paper is to propose a model upon which a feminist critique of Schlegel’s works could be unfolded, deriving from the fundamental thoughts that constitute Schlegel’s metaphysics presented in his Jena lectures, fragments, and literary works such as Lucinde.
In Feminizing Philosophy, Lisa Roetzel rightfully claims how Schlegel’s attempts to reorganize traditional philosophy around women and femininity nonetheless ended up conforming to the conventional definition of men and women as center and periphery, subject and object, which was the very dichotomy that Schlegel himself strived to go against. To this argument Dalia Nassar, in The Romantic Absolute, responds by bringing up the question “concerning the difference between the passive feminine and the active masculine” and adding that “[at] first sight, Lucinde seems to be structured in accordance with a basic polarity or opposition between feminine and masculine.” (Nassar, 151) However, her two answers given against Roetzel’s assertion more or less fail to fully address the issue of debate. Especially the first answer of how Schlegel attempts to blur the dichotomy, how he constantly cultivates “intermittent confusion” between “the female and male roles in the novel” (Nassar, 152), fails to take into consideration the fundamental way in which Schlegel, while trying to preclude a static, biased definition of two sexes, ends up presuming passivity as feminine attributes. In other words, no answer is given on Schlegel’s presupposition where he identified passivity as a feminine property, on which Schlegel unfolds his assertion of bringing forward a radical confusion to the dichotomy.
Thus, this gives rise to a new way of accounting for the issue that could still remain compatible with the fundamental construct of Schlegel’s metaphysical set of ideas. This paper hence aims to provide a model which could (1) address flaws in Roetzel’s assertions, and an argument that could overcome the logical gap within Nassar’s account on the issue. This paper first focuses on deriving from Schlegel’s epistemology two separate mechanisms employed to understand the relationship between what Schlegel postulates as form and matter (Materie). Then, this paper moves on to identify how such epistemological model could be utilized to refute parts of Roetzel’s argument, and finally, how Schlegel’s such characterization of femininity should be viewed from a newer perspective.
From Schlegel’s account of the way in which reality and truth arise through a synthesis between form and matter (Materie), it is possible to derive the existence of two different mechanisms that could account for the relationship between form and matter – representative and allegorical mechanisms. Representative mechanism understands form as a representation, a direct embodiment of matter; on the other hand, allegorical mechanism characterizes form as an allegory, a symbolic, indirect expression of matter. In Jena Vorlesungen, Schlegel elaborates that matter itself is not perceivable to human consciousness but “[o]nly form enters empirical consciousness” (Schulte-Sasse, 168), as unlike form, matter, which Schlegel inherited from Spinozan philosophy, is an eternal, infinite entity. Thus, it is only through allegories, indirect expressions in a format of empirical forms that matter is rendered accessible to consciousness. In one of his lectures, while characterizing individuals as the expression of form, he states that “[i]f we want to explain the transition from one [infinite substance] to the other [individual], we cannot do otherwise than insert another concept between the two, namely the concept of image [Bildes] or presentation [Darstellung], allegory [Allegorie]. So the individual is an image [Bild] of one infinite substance” (Schlegel, Philosophische Vorlesungen, 39). Also, approaching the last parts of his lecture he repeats that “[t]he basic concepts of empirical research call for the right force: to analogize [analogiren]. It is a certain kind of genius. And the incomplete knowledge of the whole is depicted [dargestellt] by this central link (genius) as if it were completed.” (Schlegel, Philosophische Vorlesungen, 101) Schlegel further goes on to stress allegory as a crucial concept during an explanation on how form and matter is brought together to manifest reality. The perpetual aesthetic activity to symbolize matter, to create infinite numbers of form to more or less thoroughly manifest the matter, is realized through what Schlegel describes as a combinatorial spirit (combinatorische Geist), and he characterizes the combinatorial spirit as a “creative genius” (Schulte-Sasse, 170), the capability to apprehend the allegorical relationship between the finite form and the infinite matter. After pointing out that “[t]he truth of the similarity [between the finite and the infinite] is the analogy”, Schlegel characterizes combinatorial spirit as “[t]he power to perceive such similarities” (Schlegel, Philosophische Vorlesungen, 102). It is also characterized as “an agency (…) for creating symbols” in which “allegorical activity of forming finite representations of the whole” takes place (Schulte-Sasse, 170). Thus, it becomes clear that allegory comes to play a crucial role in generating countless forms through which matter, the infinite, the unrepresentable manifests itself, and that the combinational spirit from which true knowledge is derived, ultimately bases itself on the aesthetic activity to make analogies, to make poetic relationships between the two independent spheres of matter and form.
Then, how would the representative mechanism be evaluated from Schlegel’s viewpoint? The relationship between form and matter characterized by the representative mechanism contradicts Schlegel’s thoughts in two ways.
First, through characterizing form as directly representing matter, the representative mechanism radically distorts the allegorical relationship between form and matter. If form is to be regarded as a direct representation of matter instead of as an essentially independent, separate entity with which the corresponding matter is only connected through an indirect allegory, matter, which cannot be grasped by its own, would be rendered accessible through form. This, in turn, brings about the situation in which matter is not only grasped but defined through form. This leads us to the second logical conflict with Schlegel’s thoughts, that the representative mechanism fails to take into consideration the fundamental properties of matter as opposed to form. Defining matter through form renders matter finite; in other words, the moment form starts to delimit, determine its matter, matter no longer holds its distinguishable properties as ideal, eternal, infinite but instead is radically transformed, if not degraded, into an empirical, finite, static entity just like its form. This ultimately leads to a dangerous yet a common misunderstanding which Schlegel already warned against in his lecture, that “[w]hat we consider matter, is actually form.” (Schlegel, Philosophische Vorlesungen, 38) If people are not aware of the idea that matter is in fact not form, what actually is form would be regarded as matter, fundamentally undermining the essence of matter.
The contrast between the two mechanisms – the representative and the allegorical mechanism – could be understood to be thoroughly manifested in Schlegel’s thoughts on the concepts of dictionary and encyclopedia. Schlegel himself was extremely attentive in presenting and explaining new concepts in his own lectures as his epistemological thoughts are supposed to elude static definitions. In one of his lectures, he accounts for the intention of deliberately using the word character instead of definition, that “[c]haracter is something other than a definition. Definition specifies the genus, and the differentiam specificam [specific difference]. But in philosophy we neither want nor are we able to do this since the differentia specifica would be infinite”, and that “[i]f we set ourselves the task of determining the character of philosophy, this does not mean determining it exactly, for this would be defining; rather, only inasmuch as it is possible for our purpose [of explaining philosophy]” (Schlegel, Philosophische Vorlesungen, 4). Thus, in this context, a dictionary that delimits the infinite matter into a finite entity just like its empirical counterpart and fixates it into several lines of definition, could be understood as a product of representative mechanism. It is also through this allegory of definition and dictionaries that the genuine intention behind Schlegel’s constant reference of his works to the concept of encyclopedia becomes clear. For most early German Romanticists – let alone Schlegel himself – aesthetic means was the only way one could possibly point towards the infinite. Schlegel, for example, foregrounded systematicity as the structural core of his literary works, where system of fragments, despite remaining as independent parts and as finite forms individually, nonetheless harmonize with each other to ultimately manifest the infinite nature of matter. In this context, encyclopedia was the concept that was able to thoroughly symbolize such pursuit for the infinite, as Schlegel pointed out that “the central concept of the encyclopedia” is to “show the organic unity in the diversity of the arts and sciences” (Schlegel, Philosophische Vorlesungen, 104), and that “in the next generation, the novel will enter in the place of the encyclopedia” (Nassar, 128). In other words, it is through this concept of encyclopedia that Schlegel attempted to generate countless forms in order to present the character of the matter and fully manifest its totality, entirety, infiniteness.
Having explained the two mechanisms and their relation with Schlegel’s thoughts, we should now turn to the discourse of how these mechanisms could be employed as a base for a new model of feminist critique, especially regarding the concept of passivity. From the previous two mechanisms, what kind of explanation could be provided for the relationship between “passivity” as a form and passivity as a matter?
The representative mechanism would attempt to comprehend the matter of passivity through the definition of the form – in this case, the terminology – “passivity”. Thus, the reality, the truth of passivity that arises from the synthesis between the infinite – although in this case the infinite would no longer stand as infinite – and the consciousness would most likely be fixed to a single line of definition written in the dictionaries: “acceptance of what happens, without active response or resistance” (“Passivity”). On the other hand, the allegorical mechanism would perceive the form “passivity” as in an allegorical relationship with the matter passivity, which thus would render “passivity” capable of “point[ing] at or suggest[ing] (andeuten)” “an unknowable and unpresentable absolute” (Nassar, 83), of acting as an indirect manifestation of the infinite entirety of passivity. Thus, it becomes plausible to assume based on the allegorical mechanism where matter remains as an independent entity, that the infinite matter of passivity holds within itself both contradicting qualities of being passive and active, as it is through such contradictory tension that the infiniteness of passivity could finally be appreciated to the fullest extent. In this light, if the concept of activity were to be compared with passivity, passivity, with its infinite matter, should be equally passive and active as activity, or at the very least, passivity should be equally possible to become passive and active as activity. This explains why Schlegel’s depiction of the concept of passivity in his encyclopedic works such as Lucinde had to cover a vast range of values – from “pure vegetation”, “consciously and intentionally do[ing] nothing”, “idleness [Müßiggang]” to “thinking and imagining”, “remember[ing] one’s whole ego and contemplate[ing] the world and life” (Schlegel, Lucinde and Fragments, 64-66), “the highest form of activity” (Dalia, 149-150) – to the extent that the words seem to fall into countless self-contradictions within themselves. Although the contradiction is addressed and resolved in the novel as close accounts are given on how each of these concepts should be understood – for example, Schlegel makes a clear distinction between the active properties of passivity and “unremitting aspiration and progress without rest and purpose”, between perpetual self-development, self-reflection and the harsh labor of “haste and strain” that fetters Prometheus and precludes him from being his full self, being “his own god” (Schlegel, Lucinde and Fragments, 67) – it is through these tensions that Schlegel attempted to fully incorporate and embody the dynamic, infinite nature of matter through his encyclopedic novels, as opposed to a dictionary which violently attempts to shatter the entirety of matter and frame it into a representative relationship with its form.
On a side note, it is not only the concept of passivity and the contradiction to which it pertains that could be comprehended through this allegorical mechanism; it also facilitates the understanding of Schlegel’s concept of incomprehensibility. Take for example in On Incomprehensibility when Schlegel seems to debase the common way of people understanding the concept of incomprehensibility through etymologies – which ultimately could be associated with the representative mechanism which attempts to grasp the infinite matter through assigning to it a finite, static definition derived from etymologies of the form – by pointing out that “[c]ommon sense which is so fond of navigating by the compass of etymologies – so long as they are very close by – probably did not have a difficult time in arriving at the conclusion that the basis of the incomprehensible is to be found in incomprehension”, but soon moves on to deliberately confuse the reader by implicitly acknowledging the existence of both the “incomprehension of the uncomprehending” and the “incomprehension of the comprehending” (Schlegel, Lucinde and Fragments, 298). The seemingly paradoxical remark nonetheless could be comprehended if the allegorical mechanism is implemented; both the matter of comprehending and uncomprehending are equally capable, possible of being incomprehensible, and it is in this light that the assertion stands valid.
Having explained how the concept of passivity is to be understood, we now turn to the question of how the allegorical mechanism could clear up the feminist discourse on Schlegel’s works. In order to give an answer to this question, it is essential to understand how parts of Roetzel’s arguments are to be disproved through our model.
In Introductory Essay: Feminizing Philosophy, Roetzel provides a criticism against Schlegel’s philosophy and literary works that they “slip back into a projection of the position of woman as muse”, and hold “the more significant problem of using the feminine as a means for the oppression of women.” (Schulte-Sasse, 371) Roetzel’s argument throughout her essay oscillates between two notions – on one hand that Schlegel’s works ultimately ended up reinforcing the traditional structure of gender dualism, and on the other hand that Schlegel’s depiction of women as passive beings, as muse ended up reinforcing the oppression against women. If this thought is to be seen from the representative mechanism, the two notions seem to be more or less mutually compatible or coherent, if not totally equal, assertions. However, through the allegorical mechanism, one could reach a conclusion that while the former notion abides by Schlegel’s understanding of form and matter, the latter argument is unfolded on the level of representative mechanism and hence cannot stand as a valid criticism for Schlegel’s works.
In the latter assertion, Roetzel wrongly implements the representative mechanism while grasping the concept of passivity. As clarified previously, from the allegorical mechanism, passivity is equally possible to be passive and active as much as activity. This interpretation further implies the notion that passivity and activity are both equally capable of being oppressed, as both concepts are capable of being characterized in society as passive to an equal extent. Take for example Prometheus in Lucinde, who is presented to symbolize activity as opposed to passive Hercules who “labored too, (…) but the goal of his career was really always a sublime leisure, and for that reason he became one of the Olympians.” (Schlegel, Lucinde and Fragments, 68) From Prometheus’s “active” actions one is capable of equally deducing passivity, as he is said to be forced “to work himself, whether he wants to or not” and to “never be free of his chains”, as he is depicted as a mechanical figure who perpetually repeats tedious labor of creating human without idleness, without rest for self-contemplation. Schlegel further reinforces this confusion of dichotomy by pointing out that unlike human beings created by Hercules who “every one of them had his own peculiar manner, a striking originality”, humans made by Prometheus “immediately became indistinguishable from the others; they were all so much alike” (Schlegel, Lucinde and Fragments, 67). As these texts in Lucinde show us, what Schlegel thought of genuine passivity and activity was in fact much more than single lines of written-down definitions in dictionaries; that is, Lucinde was his attempt to embody the perpetual confusion of two seemingly contradicting concepts. Thus, in order for the criticism for Schlegel’s philosophical and literary works – namely, criticizing the association of femininity to passivity as reinforcing the oppression of women – to stand valid, it should equally be pointed out that the association of masculinity to activity also equally reinforced the oppression against men of Schlegel’s age. In other words, exclusively attributing the oppression against women to the association of femininity with passivity cannot stand as a coherent argument, as it ultimately fails to take into consideration the infinite nature of matter.
Then, on what reason does the former assertion – that Schlegel’s depiction of women as passive beings, as muse ended up reinforcing the oppression against women – stand? There is still a room for criticism upon Schlegel’s literary works that it endorsed traditional biases during the process of structuring the allegory between the form of “passivity” and the matter of passivity; in other words, Schlegel’s very choice to employ the idea of femininity to make an allegory of the matter of the moral ideal, to embody the matter of passivity in a form of feminine image is something that leaves room for feminist criticism. Nonetheless, this notion cannot altogether prove that Schlegel himself subscribed to the traditional dualistic thoughts, because as clarified before, allegory presumes similarity that is capable enough to justify the allegorical relationship between form and matter, or in Schlegel’s words, allegory presupposes the capability to draw analogy (analogiren), the power to perceive similarities, the combinatorial mind. In turn, for such similarities to be recognized by contemporary readers, allegories are required to presume and ultimately abide by socially predominant thought systems, common sense upon which social consensus could be drawn. That is, similarity and the intellectual ability to conceive such similarities are extremely susceptible to social backgrounds – for example, concepts that are regarded as similar might no longer be so if temporal, physical backgrounds surrounding the concepts alter – and hence allegories cannot be expected to fully elude sexually biased thoughts strongly embedded in the social atmosphere during Schlegel’s age. Thus, although Schlegel’s choice in his literary works to make such allegory might reflect what kind of ideology was predominant in his contemporary society, it cannot be a proof of whether Schlegel himself agreed or disagreed to this very notion – which from his other writings, we can easily find evidence that he had identified himself against such thoughts, that in fact his objective behind his works more or less pertained to bringing about a constant confusion and challenging static, dichotomic conventions of his contemporary society, as Schlegel wrote in Theory of Femininity that “[t]he object is masculine, the subject feminine” and that “both [man and woman] are equally beautiful; both are equally deserving of praise.” (Schulte-Sasse, 397-398)
Thus, it would be possible to conclude that the allegorical mechanism that operates on countless empirical forms generated in order to allegorically present, indirectly manifest the infiniteness of matter to its fullest extent, hints us the possibility to unravel all contradictions, dismiss the dualistic way of thinking that dominated human thoughts since the Enlightenment era, and ultimately brings us to the synthetic spirit of wit which Schlegel constantly foregrounded in his philosophical and literary works. He writes in one of his fragments that “[t]he arabesques of wit are the highest” and “only in the former [arabesques of wit] does the indication of the combinatorial occur in interminable cases”, and that “[c]ompact combinations that are not logical but found to be synthetic (…) constitute the material of wit without is form.” (Duncan, “Schlegel on Wit”) Hence, it was the conventional dichotomy of characterizing men and women as active and passive, respectively, that Schlegel constantly strived to dissolve through implying the notion that all concepts hold within themselves the infiniteness of matters, and that eventually all concepts would be capable to be merged and brought into synthesis through the spirit of wit.
Works Cited
Duncan, Smith. “Schlegel on Wit.” BOMB magazine, https://bombmagazine.org/articles/schlegel-on-wit/. Accessed 12 May 2020.
Nassar, Dalia. Romantic Absolute: Being and Knowing in Early German Romantic Philosophy, 1795-1804. University of Chicago Press, 2014.
“Passivity.” Oxford University Press, 2010. New Oxford American Dictionary.
Schlegel, Friedrich. Philosophische Vorlesungen, Teil 1, 1800-1807. Edited with an introduction by Jean-Jacques Anstett.
Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe, Bd. 12, Paderborn: Schöningh, 1964.
---. Friedrich Schlegel’s Lucinde and the Fragments. Translated with an introduction by Peter Firchow. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971.
Schulte-Sasse, Jochen. Theory as Practice: A Critical Anthology of Early German Romantic Writings. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.