Embodied Reconciliation

Abstract

Abstract Hegel’s analysis of poetry’s genres begins with epic poetry, which is the action-based articulation of a nation’s dawning self-awareness. Lyric poetry, by contrast, allows poets to express their deepest subjectivity and interpret the world through their own experience. Drama brings action back into art, allowing actors themselves to emerge as artists and correcting for the vanishing subjectivity in painting and music. Drama also incorporates the two other poetic genres, as well as the other arts. Because it achieves these syntheses, it is, according to Hegel, the highest art. Hegel gives special consideration to tragedy and comedy, assessing both in their ancient and modern forms. His conclusion is that although both subgenres are more difficult to achieve in the modern world, successful examples are possible, ensuring that poetry will continue. With these poetic subgenres, the individual arts reach their conceptual end.