Habermas, Romanticism, and Literary Theory

Abstract

Although the role Romanticism plays in Habermas's thought would seem to be minor because of his work's strong Enlightenment emphasis, Habermas has inspired important work in Romantic studies, mostly on the public sphere. Recent work in the Romantic public sphere, which has been extensive and innovative, has stressed the sphere's heterogeneity, but this work has also ignored Habermas's most recent ideas on the public sphere and failed to understand the role the public sphere plays in Habermas's overall theory of society. Owing to the peculiar timing of English translations of Habermas's work, his reception in the Anglophonic world has produced some unusual emphases and even some misperceptions. Although he has played an adversarial role in theoretical discussions of the Enlightenment and postmodernism, Habermas's writing has set in motion the use of new concepts in literary theory – philosophy as placeholder, communicative action, the conflict between lifeworld and system, rhetoric of intersubjectivity – that have only recently been opened up for discussion by several Romanticists and literary theorists. Habermas's thought has some surprisingly close “elective affinities” with Romanticism, something that becomes more evident as we perceive the Romantic aspects of Kant.