The Comic Dissolution of Art

It is perhaps unfortunate that well-meaning disciples of Hegel decided to publish the transcriptions of his lectures on fine art, the Aesthetics. That he did not publish these lectures himself may indicate in what light he thought of them. Intended as performance, they are nothing if not a comedy which might be called The Dissolution of Art. Of the publication of plays Hegel had this to say: Indeed, in my opinion, no play should really be printed but should remain, more or less as the case was in antiquity, in manuscript for the theatre's repertory and get only an insignificant circulation.' He might well have said the same for his lectures. That he makes use of certain dramatic and especially comic techniques reinforces the implied connection between his discussion of comedy in the Aesthetics and the comedy which is the Aesthetics

Aesthetics · Art · Comics · Epistemology · Hegelianism · Literature · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel · Philosophy · Philosophy and Historical Thought