From the age of heroes to the prose of everyday life: Hegel on the differences between the original and the modern epic

Abstract

I offer an interpretation of Hegel's account of the essential differences between the original (i.e. Homeric) epic and the modern epic (i.e. the novel) which supports two claims that have been made on the basis of the available student transcripts of Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of art: (1) Hegel never asserted that art had come to an end in the sense of its having no further significance or interest in the modern world; and (2) Hegel was keen to understand art as a cultural and historical phenomenon, with the result that he came to limit the significance of art in the modern world on account of its no longer being able to perform the same historical function that it performed in the ancient world. While I seek to illustrate these two points through my interpretation of Hegel's account of the original epic and his remarks on the modern epic, I also argue that, given certain other aspects of his thought, Hegel could have accorded the modern epic a greater potential than he does; moreover, I argue that this suggests a greater continuity between the original epic and its modern day counterpart than Hegel himself appears to allow.