ABSTRACT
The idea is often associated with the German Romantic Friedrich von Schlegel, who made it a criterion for distinguishing between the aesthetic values of antiquity and modernity. In his most important piece on the matter, Über das Studium der griechischen Poesie, Schlegel places emphasis on the subjective reflectivity present in modern aesthetic productions, making the claim that self-reflectiveness was a distinctive feature of modernity.2 In the Danish context, “the interesting” was made topical by playwright and philosopher Johan Ludvig Heiberg. For Heiberg, “the interesting” is a category of modern literary art tied to character development. In his review of Danish poet and playwright Adam Oehlenschläger’s play Dina, for example, Heiberg writes that ancient tragedy does not recognize
constellations of reflective subjective consciousness that are portrayed in the figures of modern literature and other forms of fine art that were absent in the aesthetics of antiquity, which was less subjectively attuned.
