ABSTRACT

Friedrich Schlegel's poetology, like early German Romantic philosophy and aesthetics in general, participates in the claims which are linked with the highest possible position of art in the idealistic systems elaborated by Schiller, Schelling, Hegel and Solger. The romantic 'Sehnsucht nach dem Unendlichen' is often misunderstood. It is based on the paradoxical notion — inspired by Kant's theory of 'regulative ideas' — that the completion of all knowledge and being in the absolute must necessarily be sought for, while at the same time it cannot be made present within the space of the finite mind: 'Erkennen bedeutet schon ein bedingtes' Wissen. Friedrich Schlegel is concerns how to set nature and poetry in a specific relation. His basic intuition is therefore 'enthusiastic', in a sentimental, pantheistic sense, emphasizing the unity, wholeness and ontological harmony of the universe within the plurality and diversity of nature.