A defense of the Romantic longing against Hegel’s critique

Abstract

This paper questions Hegel’s critique to the central place that Romantic authors Friedrich Schlegel andNovalis gave to the dimension of affection in their philosophical thinking, as well as to the way theylink philosophy and poetry. The summit of this affective and poetical tendency of the Romantics is theso-called Sehnsucht – the infinite longing or aspiration – which Hegel criticizes in a very truculentmanner. The interest of this debate is not limited to the studies on the famous controversy Hegelversus Romanticism; in a broader sense, it presents a singular case of a certain dissent on the way howphilosophy takes a stand on the matter of affection and poetry. In Hegel’s case, this stand is one thatposes a strong hierarchy in which reason and the conceptual activity of thinking are superior to thedimension of feelings, and this hierarchy also unfolds as a superiority of the philosophical over thepoetical – while the Romantics endeavoured, precisely, to unravel such hierarchy. This paper defendsthe importance and deepness of the affective dimension promoted by the Romantics, whilst alsoattempts to deconstruct some of the main assumptions of Hegel’s critique.