The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 4 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik — John Shaqi
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 4 (of 4): Hegel's AesthetikHegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 4 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Aesthetics
(_αα_) In the _first_ place, the vital presence we have already
referred to as peculiar to every part separately must be maintained.
If we direct our attention, however, to that which in fact justifies
the introduction of any detail whatever into the composition, we
find the point of departure to be _one_ fundamental idea which the
same as a whole is undertaken to manifest or interpret. Consequently
everything defined and particular must announce that as the source of
its own specific appearance. In other words, the content of a poetical
work must not be itself intrinsically abstract, but concrete, one
that by reason of its own wealth conducts us to a rich unravelment of
its varied aspects. And when this variety, even assuming that in its
realization it falls to every appearance into plain contradictions,
yet is as a matter of fact rooted in the essentially unified content
we have adverted to, in that case we may affirm that by necessity
the content itself, in a form agreeable to its notion and being,
comprises what is fundamentally an exclusive and harmonious totality
of particular characteristics, which it possesses as its own, and in
the continuous expatiation of which what it is in its real significance
is in truth rendered explicit. It is only _these_ several parts, which
originally belong to the content, and which consequently should be
carried into the composition under the mode of actual and essentially
sound and vital existence. In this respect, therefore, despite all
appearance the display of particular characteristics present of
opposition to others, they are throughout combined in a union of
mysterious accord, rooted in its own nature.
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