Aesthetic imperative: On aestheticisation of historical discourse in German modernism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33910/2687-1262-2019-1-1-78-89Keywords:
aesthetical imperative, aesthetical myth, German modernism, poetical and historical discourse, aestheticisationAbstract
One of the main tendencies of German modernism is the aestheticisation of the cultural discourse and the creation of the aesthetical myth of German modernism. The aesthetical myth is interpreted as an integral complexity of concepts, topics, texts, ideas, terms, philosophical theories, motives, etc., within which cultural discourse could be integrated as an aesthetical issue. Creativity is understood as the essence of human nature and is subject to the law of aesthetic imperative — the transformation of the chaos of life into art forms.
Aesthetisation of the historical discourse is one of the main aspects of the aesthetical myth. This article considers the issue of interrelation between poetical and historical discourse. The evolution of the German historiography in the 19th and 20th centuries is analysed as a dialectical duality of two heuristic trends. According to the first trend, history is interpreted as a strict and objective science with the methodology adopted by natural sciences (“scientisation”). The other trend expresses the intention of historiography to merge with literature according to F. Schlegel’s principle of the “progressive Universalpoesie”. Another sign of convergence between literature and history is the evolution of historical literary genres: the historical novel and the historical short story appeared in German literature after the Great French Revolution under the influence of novels by W. Scott. The problem of balance between fact and fiction in historical literature as well as the problem of objectivity in the text belonging to historical genre of literature are regarded in connection with the ideas of J.W. Goethe, F. Schiller, F. Nietzsche, J. Burckhardt, H. White and others.
The author concludes that neither extreme (history as pure science or pure poetry) is acceptable. A strictly scientific history can exist only against the background of a poetically perceived and assimilated reality, as a kind of a “minus device”, i.e. as an opportunity to talk about the abundance of life in the language of scientific concepts. But a poetic story which disregards the facts of life and ignores the historical truth can turn into a fantastic vulgarity. In their coexistence they balance each other and can bring benefit to the works of great historians and great poets.
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