The Beautiful Hesitation Fantastic Literature as the Fictional Expression of the Sublime

The Beautiful Hesitation

Fantastic Literature as the Fictional

Expression of the Sublime

Thesis Research Master Literary Studies Bardia Daneshvar

5995280

Supervisor: S.M.E. van Wesemael

Index:

 Introduction

 Todorov and the Theoretical Concept of the Fantastic as a Literary Genre  Jackson and the Importance of the Fantastic

 Marvelous, Mimetic and the Fantastic  Hesitation as the Source of the Fantastic  German Romantic Aesthetics

 Moritz and Kant

 Kant's Judgment of Taste  The Kantian Sublime  Morality and Aesthetics  Schiller's Sublime

 The Fantastic as the Sublime

 The Willows: Detailing the Fictional Sublime  Conclusion

Introduction

This research will argue that fantastic literature is an expression of the sublime in fiction as it is described by 18th century German aesthetics. Following this sublime characteristic of the Fantastic, which will be designated as the fantastic function, it becomes possible to understand the importance of the Fantastic as a way of expressing and communicating the sublime. By comparing the most important aspects of the aesthetic function with the theories of German aesthetics and its view on art, the conclusion can be made that the fantastic function (and the Fantastic as its primary medium) is the key principle of the fictional Sublime and the aesthetic experience.

The most important contributors to aesthetics as an academic field of today, are the philosophers and poets of 18th century Germany. German aesthetics claim for the importance of beauty as a crucial aspect of human morality, aesthetics was no longer a question of taste but one of reason, ethics, and even politics. Friedrich von Schiller is perhaps one of the most important philosophers and poets who argued that aesthetics, beauty, and art are necessities in the path of realizing human moral capabilities. In the analysis of the relation between aesthetics and morality, German aesthetics has constructed a specific definition of art and beauty that is

essential for the aesthetic experience, an experience that can lead to the realization of human moral capabilities.

Arnold Heumakers claims in his work: ‘De esthetische revolutie’ (The Aesthetic

Revolution) that the historical movement of German Romanticism, from 1770 until 1850, must

be viewed as an aesthetic revolution, a point of discontinuity comparable with Foucault's

episteme or Kuhn's paradigm, that resulted into a new set of categories and rules for how society

viewed art and literature, their function, their definition, and even the methodology of their creation. The aesthetic revolution is thus more than a historical movement or a genre. The categories that were created as a result of the aesthetic revolution influence and are constitutive for modern day art and artistic movements (Heumakers17). This does not mean that all modern art is the same, however most views (of artists and viewers) share certain important principles such as the idea that art is more than entertainment. Art has the possibility of criticizing aspects of society, artists must create more than clichés and art is more than the emulation of everyday life (Heumakers 18). These ideas that can be found in contemporary genres and movements, mostly share common principles that were described and fought for in the aesthetic philosophies of 18th century German Romanticism. Therefore, the definitions of art, beauty and morality that will be used in this research are those of the German aesthetic movement.

The corpus of this research will be the novels that are defined as fantastic literature by the structuralist Tzvetan Todorov, one of the most influential thinkers on the subject of fantastic literature. In his work The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, he describes the Fantastic as a literary genre. It means that all kinds of literature can possess the fantastic characteristic in a certain degree. If the fantastic characteristic is prominently enough present in a written work, Todorov calls it fantastic literature (Todorov 3). He explains the Fantastic as the space or duration of an uncertainty that arises within a fictional world that is similar to our own, but confronted with a supernatural event, which we cannot explain on the basis of the

conventions of said world. This we is according to Todorov both the main character and the reader. Later in this thesis it will become clear what the relationship is between the fictional world and the reader who recognizes this fictional world as similar to his own perception of reality. The moment we comes to a decision what this supernatural event is, the Fantastic ends and either the marvelous or the uncanny begins.

will be shown that the fantastic function, through hesitation, is in fact the experience of the sublime. Fantastic novels and stories will thus have a very close relation to the experience of the sublime and the process of realizing moral capabilities, making these novels the prime objective in understanding how literature and morality are entwined. The Fantastic highlights new aspects of the relation between beauty and morality .

Todorov and the Theoretical Concept of the Fantastic as a Literary Genre

The Fantastic by Todorov, is described as a literary genre that depends heavily on the reaction of the reader. The Fantastic is situated somewhere between the uncanny and the marvelous and exists as long as there is “a hesitation common to reader and character, who must decide whether or not what they perceive derives from “reality” as it exists in the common opinion” (Todorov 41). If in the end the reader decides the events of the text can be explained by the laws of reality (the reality the reader views as his own), then the text should be called uncanny. Whenever the reader decides that “new laws of nature must be entertained [...],we enter the genre of the

marvelous” (Todorov 41). In both cases the Fantastic will come to an end whenever the reader

has made up his mind. The decision of the reader depends on the explanation of the character regarding the strange event. According to Todorov, the Fantastic can only exist if there is a hesitation present within the text and within the reader on whether or not the events of the text are marvelous or uncanny.

The relation between the reality of the reader and of the text is crucial for Todorov’s definition of the Fantastic and problematic as it presupposes a relation between fiction and reality: two concepts that have problematic and dynamic meanings. This relation is analyzed further by the work of Rosemary Jackson and the philosophies of 18th century German aesthetics.

First, Todorov’s own approach to this problem will be described. According to him the relation between fiction and reality (as something outside of the text) must exist if a structuralist approach is followed. As Todorov explains, literature does not directly refer to anything outside the text. However “to deny literature any representative aspect for this reason is to identify the reference with the referent, the aptitude to denote objects with the objects themselves” (Todorov 59). According to the French Philosopher the concepts that are used in fiction, such as characters, action, atmosphere, all have a meaning and are used outside texts. If it is accepted that there is a relation between fiction and reality, even in a minimal degree, it becomes clear that fiction is the

only context in which the Fantastic can exist. For if a text is regarded as non-representative or only as semantic combinations, the hesitation between the uncanny and the marvelous will not occur. The importance of this hesitation is underlined by Todorov when he analyzes the

allegory1_{:“if what we read describes a supernatural event, yet we take the words not in the literal} meaning but in another sense which refers to nothing supernatural, there is no longer any space in which the Fantastic can exist” (Todorov 63-64). Therefore the Fantastic is defined as the hesitation between the uncanny and the marvelous within the relation between fiction and reality.

Todorov distinguishes the Fantastic from other literary genres in three ways: at first he defines the Fantastic as literature that can produce fear or horror with the reader. Second, this suspense serves the narration and “the presence of fantastic elements permits a particularly dense organization of the plot” (Todorov 92). Third, it has a tautological function, “the description and what is described are not of different nature”(Todorov 92). However, Todorov claims that these three aspects are not exclusive to the Fantastic, but it is only in this literary genre that the intensity of these aspects is at its maximum, meaning that the Fantastic produces the experience of limits. This description of the Fantastic is quite comparable to Rosemary Jackson’s definition of the Fantastic as literature that criticizes the limits of our conventions.

Rosemary Jackson and the Importance of the Fantastic

While Todorov strictly sticks with a structuralist approach of the fantastic genre, explicitly rejects any interpretation of literary works, and excludes the explicit relation between the Fantastic and specific social contexts, Rosemary Jackson adopts to a broader approach of the Fantastic. In the introduction of her book: Fantasy: the Literature of Subversion, she stresses the fact that fantastic literature is always in relation with its social context. As any other genre of literature, the fantastic work cannot be interpreted isolated from the historical, social or political world in which it is produced or consumed. This relation between the Fantastic and the social context according to Jackson is the cause of a certain tension between the social borders and their fantastic texts (Jackson 12). Fantastic literature is in a constant mode of conflict with social constraints, making it "a literature of desire, which seeks that which is experienced as absence and loss" (Jackson 12).

This conflict is present in literature as a whole, yet there are certain characteristics of the fantastic genre that make fantastic literature unique. It is important to describe these

1allegory defined by Todorov as: “the existence of at least two meanings for the same word [...]

characteristics before one can correctly define the Fantastic and its relation with the moral space. The first characteristic is that the Fantastic can express this desire in two ways. It can show desire in terms of representation, utterance or description. It can also "expel" desire, when this desire is a disturbing element which threatens cultural order and continuity" (Jackson 13). As Jackson points out by expressing desire in these two ways, the Fantastic can expose which is absent in everyday cultural context. Therefore, the Fantastic has the possibility to reach and to describe the areas that have been made inaccessible by the cultural norm.

This possibility is determined by the second characteristic of the Fantastic, namely the relation between the world of the Fantastic and the 'real' world. To understand the relation between fantastic texts and their culture (both the culture in which they are produced and the culture they are consumed in), it is necessary to make a distinction between the world that is within the text, the world the story portrays, and the world of the reader, i.e. the cultural context. The Fantastic is, as Jackson says: "not transcendental. It has to do with inverting elements of this world, recombining its constitutive features in new relations to produce something [...] new, different" (Jackson 17). Jackson suggests that more than in most other genres the Fantastic portrays a world that is very similar to our own. This claim, which will prove to be crucial for her definition of the Fantastic, seems to be problematic. The problem that arises from this claim originates from the fact modern Literary Sciences views the relation between reality and

narrative..Jackson doesn't claim that the narrative of a fantastic text is similar to or representative of the world the reader lives in, and she doesn't want to make a claim on reality itself; she merely states that the fictional world of fantastic literature constitutes of a certain feeling or experience within the reader. This feeling consists of a similarity between the fictional world and the 'real' world.

This experience is not the product of a literary analysis, but of the process of reading. In this way the Fantastic differs from, for example, Fairy Tales. When reading a fairytale the reader accepts the strangeness of the fictional world through the suspension of disbelief. The Fantastic offers a fictional world for which the suspension of disbelief is not needed, making the

strangeness that happens in the story not only strange for the reader but also strange for the fictional world itself. For example, the strange creature in Maupassant's Horla could constitute a feeling of strangeness in the reader, but also represents the unknown and the strange to the main character, and the world of the story. This means that, as Jackson claims, the fantastic world is

neither "entirely real, nor entirely unreal, but is located somewhere indeterminately between the two" (Jackson 25).

The relation between the Fantastic and the real can be described as vulnerable dependant. The Fantastic is not real but it cannot escape the real, it can’t exist without the real and

simultaneously it also cannot exist without the marvelous (Jackson 26). Therefore, the Fantastic must be defined as: a place in between the marvelous and the uncanny; an unknown position. This definition is quite clear in Maupassant's three versions of Horla. The creature that bothers the main character represents the strangeness in a world that doesn't require the reader's

suspension of disbelief, because the world itself contains no strangeness. The creature itself is no part of that world. The main character in this story suspects that an unknown creature is present in his home. His initial suspicion originates from a feeling: he feels that something is watching him. He is convinced of this creature's presence after he notices that while he is asleep,

something is drinking his glass of water. The entire story, the main character is trying to figure out whether the creature is real or a part of his imagination. In the second version of Horla, he presents his case to his doctor and in the third part the doctor presents his case to his colleagues. The doctor cannot come up with an explanation that fits either the supernatural or the natural.

The text never gives a clear explanation to the reader on whether the creature is something from another world or just a fantasy. Even the arguments that the main character utters in favor of the existence of the creature could be viewed as mad imagination. The main character claims that the creature is real, but beyond our senses. The creature is beyond the limits of how we perceive the world. Therefore the creature remains unknown, not only for the reader, but also to the fictional world of the text. This strangeness forces the reader to reconsider the possibility of a dimension beyond our perception. This spatial domain of the Fantastic will become crucial in the analysis of the relation between the Fantastic and the Sublime.

Marvelous, Mimetic and the Fantastic

To fully understand the spatial domain of the Fantastic, it is important to begin with the definition of two concepts that form the limits of this spatial domain: the Marvelous and the Mimetic. Both of these literary genres have certain characteristics that make up the definition of the Fantastic. The marvelous genre encompasses fairytales, magic, and other marvelous

narratives. An impersonal and authoritative narrator defines the narration of marvelous literature. This narrator is all knowing and unchallenged in its description of the story, which is limited to

the events that happen in the tale. Through this unchallenged narrator the suspension of disbelief is made possible in a way that the magical worlds of fairytales can be accepted by the reader, who simultaneously possesses a different world view than the one portrayed in the text. According to Jackson the all knowing narrator in marvelous literature is crucial to the

establishment of the magical 'unreal' world of the text, if this ‘unreal’ world is to be accepted by the reader (Jackson 36). Therefore, it is necessary for the narrator to establish the relation between the text and the reader. In this relation, there is a minimal participation of the reader. This means, that the reader must accept the unreal as the real by declining every urge to make a comparison between his own worldview and the one portrayed by the text. The only form of comparison that is allowed is the allegory. The connection between the fictional world and the reader's worldview can only be metaphorical. This has major consequences in the way that marvelous stories can criticize social conventions. Because the connection between the

marvelous and the 'real' is metaphorical, a symbolic critique on conventions is the only possible form of critique. The structure of the marvelous critique is based on the denouncement of

actions, which are mostly viewed as immoral by the already existing cultural conventions. This is done by directly situating the immoral action against the desired moral action. The marvelous critique is thus positioned within and according to existing cultural conventions. For example, the folklore Three Little Pigs can be viewed as a critique of laziness. Two of the three pigs were too lazy to construct the home, that could protect them from the wolf. Only the pig that worked hard and made a brick house represents metaphorically the desirable attitude the cultural conventions demand.

The mimetic are narratives, which claim to imitate an external reality that tries to "claim the equivalence between the represented fictional world and the real world outside the text" (Jackson 36). Examples of the mimetic are realist 19th century novels like Vanity Fair. Even though the portrayed world in the mimetic differs greatly from that of the marvelous, its tools for critique are also limited. The mimetic is limited by using only aspects that are considered 'real' in its narrative (in regard to the world outside the text) to critique the social conventions. However, what is considered real is constructed by the same conventions, thus making it impossible to critique these conventions as a whole.

The Fantastic uses elements of both the marvelous and the mimetic, but is not limited in its critique, as it can also critique the social conventions as a whole. The Fantastic constructs a

world according to the same cultural conventions as the mimetic, a world that does not yet seem unfamiliar to the world of the reader. However the Fantastic introduces strangeness, something unfamiliar to the existing social conventions. The Fantastic confronts the strangeness of the marvelous with the realness of the mimetic, deliberately confusing the narrator, the main character, and the process of interpretation. It is not sure whether the strangeness is actually marvelous or if the realness of the fictional world corresponds to existing social conventions. Where as the marvelous and the mimetic possess the possibility of a critique based on certainty, the Fantastic is defined by doubt and questioning the entire construct of social conventions.

This confusion, also, according to Jackson, occurs within the reader, during the process of interpretation. The hesitation forces the reader into the territory of the marvelous, set in the narrative structure of the real (Jackson 37). The basic cause of hesitation within the process of interpretation, is the hesitation that is displayed by the narrator. "The narrator is no clearer than the protagonist about what is going on, nor about interpretation; the status of what is being seen and is recorded as being 'real' is constantly in question” (Jackson 37). This disruption of the narrative is, according to Jackson, what constitutes the Fantastic as a mode. The problem that arises lies within the usage of the real: how can we constitute a definition of the Fantastic if it relies on the concept of the real, a concept that is ever changing and can never be a fixed point of reference? The answer to this problem cannot be found within the definition of the real, but in the disruption of the real and its relation of conflict with the strangeness.

The disruption depends on whether or not the reader accepts the fictional world of the Fantastic as real. If this fictional world shows enough similarities with the worldview of the reader, the introduced strangeness will cause the disruption. This means that the disruption depends on cultural conditions and the expectations of the reader. However, the Fantastic genre is unique in this respective. For example: imagine if Hansel and Gretel encountered an unknown life form while walking in the forest. This unknown life form could be categorized as strange and radically different from the expectations of the reader who has indeed, through the suspension of disbelief, in some way accepted the marvelous world of the fairytale. The conflict that arises between the unknown and the marvelous world of Hansel and Gretel is different from the conflict between the creature and the mimetic world of the Horla. The difference lies within the relation between the world of the text and that of the reader. The conflict of the Fantastic not only relies on the disruption of the reader's expectations, but also on the graduation of the

reader's acceptance of the fictional world as his own. The conflict between the fairytale and the strangeness has no impact on the conventions of the reader's world, if the story does not provide enough similarities between its world and that of the reader. This means that both the fictional world and the world of the reader must share certain conventions that will become the object of critique within the conflict between the strange and the real. This similarity however is not necessary limited by the exact historic context of the reader. It is possible to recognize certain conventions, which are not applicable in modern society, but have had great influence on the structure and shaping of it. In the process of recognition of shared conventions, the conventions of the past can also cause the reader's acceptance of the fantastic world as real.

According to Jackson an important function of the Fantastic is the process of seeking out and clashing with social borders and showing the absent spaces within the culture. This process however is not radical, as Jackson claims; it needs a certain reaction from the reader to actualize the possibility of showing the impossible. The reader must be "disturbed by their dislocated narrative form" (Jackson 28). The possibility of becoming polysemic thus relies on a certain effect or disruption within the reading experience. Therefore, this entire process differs accordingly regarding the cultural and political context of the reader.

Jackson makes an important difference between non-secular and secular societies. The interpretation of the strangeness within a fantastic text is defined by how each society views reality. In non-secular societies reality is often explained in a dualist way: besides the earthly reality, there is a second meta-human and transcendental reality. Strangeness that doesn't fit within the earthly reality, must then be part of a religious, utopian or faery reality. The otherness is thus explained as some part of a marvelous reality different from the one people live in. In secular societies the otherness is located within the only reality that is viewed as possible, namely the earthly reality of humans. These societies explain the otherness as "projection of merely human fears and desires transforming the world through subjective perception", making the strangeness not marvelous but uncanny (Jackson 28-29).

According to Jackson true fantastic literature has been produced in the 19th century. A time where our interpretation of the world was in the process of moving from the marvelous to the uncanny, situating the Fantastic between these two and defining it as a moment in time when the strangeness was unknown. In this time neither the supernatural nor the natural would suffice as an explanation of the strangeness. The fantastic literature of the 19th century has constituted

certain negative terms (e.g. the unreal, the nameless, the formless, etc.), could describe the fantastic literature.

Hesitation as the Source of the Fantastic

The strangeness that is introduced to the fictional world in fantastic texts does not only function as a thematic characteristic of the genre, but also constitutes to a certain attitude within the reader, an attitude of, as Jackson calls it, anxiety. This anxiety is the same feeling of hesitation that Todorov claims as the most important definition of the Fantastic. The fantastic text limits and minimizes the possibility of a marvelous or uncanny interpretation of the strangeness. This results in the hesitation, which makes it difficult for the reader to explain the strangeness through either scientific or supernatural means. As Jackson claims, this hesitation "is not merely a thematic feature but is incorporated into the structure of the work to become its defining

element" (Jackson 32). The source of this hesitation is the ambiguity of the fantastic text, as it is positioned between reality and the supernatural world. The Fantastic exists as long as the reader nor the character in the text haven’t yet chosen either of these worlds.

In Maupassant’s Horla the main character, who has started to see an unknown creature in his home, is hesitant on whether or not he has become mad or whether there exists a supernatural creature, beyond understanding. The story depicts a clear movement from an uncanny

explanation of the creature to the marvelous by the main character. At the end the character is sure that the unknown creature really exists, thus removing itself according to Todorov from the realm of the Fantastic to the realm of the marvelous. Therefore Todorov positions “the

combinating point of the fantastic in [...] the first appearance” of the creature (Todorov 88). The hesitation of the main character is at its prime when he for the first time is confronted with the creature and has not yet made up his mind about whether it’s uncanny or marvelous.

While Todorov puts emphasis on the belief of the main character and the reader, it is important to note that it is possible to shift the combination points(the uncanny and the

marvelous) of the Fantastic in the Horla to the ending. As the main character ends his writings in the conclusion that the creature does exist, his doctor evaluates his case in Maupassant’s story and thus causing a new doubt and hesitation within the reader as he states his hesitation on whether or not the main character is mad. This new source of hesitation, while not originating from the main character, can be regarded as a new combination point of the Fantastic.

doctor is not the main character of Horla, he shares the same semantic position of the main character, since they both are narrators who designate themselves as ‘I’. As the narrator, the doctor (and the main character), has a certain authority that makes him more trustable. Simultaneously it is clear that a narrator can lie. This ambiguity can function as a source of hesitation within the reader and thus maximizes the fantastic space.

Before we can understand how fantastic characteristics of literature function as a form of the sublime expressed in the work of art through hesitation, it is necessary to explain the sublime and its position in the 18th century German Romantic Aesthetics.

German Romantic Aesthetics

One of the central themes in Kant’s and Schiller’s philosophies is the position of aesthetics between sensory perception and Truth (the ultimate philosophical concept).It functions as a bridge between perception and virtue (virtue being the force behind reasonable actions).The interaction between sensory perception and the aesthetic experience, leading to Truth and Virtue is influenced by pre-Romantic philosophies (Leibniz, Wolff, Baumgarten). In order to

understand Schiller's conclusions on the aesthetic education of mankind, it is necessary to start with the relation between beauty and sensory perceptions.

One of the most important philosophers who has influenced the Romantic view on sensory perception is Godfried Wilhelm Leibniz. In his paper: Meditations on Knowledge, Truth,

and Ideas (1684),Leibniz explains knowledge as either clear and distinct or clear and confused.

Knowledge about an object is clear when it allows one to distinguish that object from other objects. Clear distinct knowledge allows a person also to specify the characteristics that distinguishes the object from other objects. Through confused knowledge however the latter is impossible. This is the general framework in which aesthetic perception and knowledge will be positioned. Leibniz starts explaining the basic structure of the relation between sensory

perception and pleasure as the defining concepts of aesthetics, by claiming that sensory

perception is clear and confused knowledge. In this way Leibniz emphasizes on the importance of the kind of knowing grounded in confused ideas. In his article The Beginnings of “Aesthetics”

and the Leibnizian Concept of Sensation Jeffrey Barnouw writes that Leibniz introduced

confused knowledge to a world dominated, until then, by “the clear and distinct representations that were fundamental to the Cartesian conception of necessary knowledge” (Mattick 52).

pleasure as a sensory perception of perfection, a perfection that is objective, meaning a perfection positioned within the object itself and not, for example, in the eye of the beholder. Leibniz uses perfection as a characteristic some objects possess, while others don’t. This way we can feel pleasure whenever we are confronted with the perfection of another human being, an object, i.e., a characteristic of what we do not possess ourselves. Here Leibniz suggests that the experience of pleasure and perfection can be intercommunication between others and ourselves. Later on Kant would suggest the same in his discussion of the difference between taste and beauty.

A next important suggestion that Leibniz makes, is the connection between pleasure and self improvement. Through pleasure we can make ourselves better; a philosophy that would form the basic structure of Moritz and Schiller. By claiming the importance of confused knowledge and the possibility of communicating perfection, Leibniz focuses on “experience and judgment of a sort which eluded formulation not only in rules but in language all together and which dealt above all with the nuances – and thus the substance – of social interaction” (Mattick 53).

According to Jeffrey Barnouw, Leibniz’ conception of sensation must be understood as the basis for desires and character and can thus be viewed as a crucial predecessor to Schiller’s concept of aesthetic knowledge (Mattick 82).

Being influenced by Leibniz' ideas about pleasure as confused knowledge, Christian Wolff and his work on perfection have had a great influence on the Romantic idea that beauty is a form of knowledge of Truth. Before Wolff came to this conclusion, he established the concept of perfection, defining it as: the harmony of many objects being parts of a whole, the Universe God created. Perfection also means, according to Wolff, that these different parts work towards a common goal. His example given was of a clock. A clock is made out of many parts with one goal, showing time. If all parts are in harmony, their common goal is a reflection of the Universe: Harmony and order as characteristics of Divine Truth. Truth for Wolff is not a play or interaction between a subject and an object, but an existing characteristic within a single object. Wolff adopts Leibniz' theory on knowledge and agrees with the view that sensory perceptions are clear but confused forms of knowledge. However, Wolff distinguishes different degrees of clarity and categorizes conceptual knowledge from sensory perception, stating that conceptual knowledge is the more accurate source. Philosophy is a more precise source of knowledge than art, since art, beauty, and aesthetics are forms of sensory perception and inferior to conceptual knowledge.

Later on Romanticists have always agreed on Wolff's connection between beauty and Truth, while disagreeing with his limitations on sensory perceptions and aesthetics. Wolff was of great importance to the Romantic Movement towards the notion that beauty is a sensory path towards truth and even morality, a relation that is fundamentally different from that between reason and truth, as we will see later on with Schiller and Moritz.

Wolff's view on beauty posts a challenge for the philosophers and thinkers that came after him. His definition and categorization of beauty and sensory perception was mainly based on cognition, forcing the debate on beauty to be defined by the conflict between cognition and emotion. One of the most important philosophers who explained the importance of emotion in the experience of beauty was Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. He was one of the first

philosophers to use the term Aesthetics, the science of perception. Baumgarten believed our imagination is not an inferior part of our mind in the interpretation of sensory perceptions. According to him our imaginary representations are parallel to reason and logical analyses. Since our emotions influence our imagination heavily, we must regard our emotions as important sources of pleasure. This emphasis on our imagination and emotions is not the only way in which Baumgarten departed from Wolff. Baumgarten’s definition of pleasure must necessarily account for both our mental powers, i.e. cognition and imagination. As both imagination and cognition are faculties of the mind that cause the mental representations of sensory perceptions, pleasure must be the product of a harmonious coexistence and interaction amongst both faculties, the so-called free play. This idea of a free play will later on influence both Kant and Schiller, though in different ways.

The introduction of the free play resulted in a new definition of beauty. Baumgarten departed from Wolff's view that beauty is the sensitive cognition of perfection and that beauty is a form of pleasure coming from the perfection in the content of an object. According to

Baumgarten the form of an object can also be the source of pleasure through our imagination while the content of an object could give us pleasure through our cognitive powers. For

Baumgarten beauty was not limited to cognition and the content, but also to our imagination and the form of the object. After opening up the possibilities of how we can experience pleasure through art, he also stresses the fact that morality can be a source of pleasure, because morality can move us emotionally. Morality can only be a source of pleasure if our mental powers are in a free play, implicating that our imagination is somehow connected with the moral claims in an

object of art. Therefore, only the morality, which is somehow represented, critiqued or perceived in the work of art itself, can produce pleasure, not any external morality (such as the moral claims of the artist). It is important to note that Baumgarten did not link morality and pleasure exclusively in art. An object of art can induce pleasure without any reference to morality. With this claim Baumgarten introduces a new possibility of a relation between morality and aesthetics in the debate on beauty.

Moritz and Kant

It is important to discuss the philosopher Karl Philipp Moritz and his influence on both Schiller and Kant. Moritz' most important work on aesthetics and the moral implications connected with the aesthetic experience is his collection of essays: Attempt at a Unification of all the Fine Arts

and Sciences under the Concept of that which is complete in itself. As the title suggests, the most

important characteristics of art is its independence of any form of external purpose. An aesthetic object has according to Moritz internal purpose, meaning it is complete in itself. This internal purpose is the source of the pleasure one feels in the interaction between an object of art and the viewing subject. This is very similar to Kant's definition of beauty as a form of purposiveness2 without a purpose. Although, this similarity must be seen as a critique and not as a succession.

The difference between Kant and Moritz on the definition of the purposiveness of beauty marks the breaking point of an important characteristic of beauty in the history of German Romantic aesthetics. Moritz follows the tradition, and especially that of Wolff, in defining the purpose3 _{of beauty as one that is internal. This definition is a logical consequence of a certain} worldview that is also influenced by Wolff. The internal purpose of a work of art is a reference to or an indication of the cosmos and its perfection. According to Moritz the cosmos as a whole must be complete in itself, in a sense that it cannot have an external purpose, for there is nothing outside the cosmos. As Leibniz and Wolff stated prior to him, Moritz sees pleasure as the

sensory perception of perfection. Aesthetic pleasure is the sensory perception of the perfection of the cosmos. Aesthetic pleasure is the reference to the ultimate perfection. Works of art are the micro-cosmoses, which are indicative to the macro-cosmos. Kant however views the

purposiveness of beauty as purposiveness without purpose. When beauty is experienced. purposiveness is experienced without a reference to whatever form of purpose. This does not

2 Kant deliberately uses the word purposiveness instead of purpose, as the word purposiveness doesn't refer to the world ansich.

mean that the purpose of beauty is internal, because, according to Kant, purposiveness with an internal purpose is not beauty but perfection (Kant §15). If the purpose is external then the experience is not one of beauty but of utility. So, according to Kant, the purposiveness of beauty is neither internal (perfection) or external (utility). Therefore it is for example impossible to make a pure aesthetic judgment on another individual, because a human being has internal purpose and will always be a reference to perfection. It can be concluded that Kant makes a drastic contrast between Beauty, Good (utility), and Perfection. Kant's critique on Moritz will play an important role later on in this master thesis in Schiller's analysis of the aesthetic education.

The definition of beauty as a form of purposiveness with an internal purpose can be viewed as the first step in the process of describing a very specific relation between the aesthetic experience and morality. Schiller uses Moritz' work to analyze this relation. But before this can be analyzed it is important to understand how Schiller continues his work on the purpose of art and his conclusions on the aesthetic experience. Similar to Kant, Moritz also makes a contrast between beautiful and utility. His use of the concept of perfection is different however. According to Moritz, the useful (utility) must be viewed as a way to gain perfection that is situated outside of the useful object itself. In that case the useful object is only a means to an end. For example, if a book is used to gain knowledge on a subject, that book is a tool that guides the reader on the road towards perfection. The book itself is empty in the sense that it has no purpose in itself, for the reader is the purpose. The book therefore is an useful object that is not complete in itself. Such objects do not belong in the realm of beauty. Moritz explains in his work:

Ästhetische Schriften, that while experiencing beauty: "roll the end from myself back into the

object itself: I consider it as something that is complete not in me but rather in itself", meaning that the pleasure that we feel during the aesthetic experience is on the account of the object itself. This pleasure differs greatly from useful pleasure. It does not satisfy the needs but the beautiful makes a claim on us. It demands recognition by us, it cannot exist without us recognizing it as beautiful. This means that our attitude towards the beautiful is one of care, we care about the object of art.

This unique interaction between an individual and the beautiful is the basis of Moritz' definition of the aesthetic experience as the possibility of ultimate Freedom. He starts by claiming that our care for the beautiful is voluntary and resembles an attitude of subordination.

We allow the beautiful to take control and become sovereign. In this process we are drawn from ourselves, sacrificing our individuality for a moment and the limits of our existence. This thought leads to the claim that:

The beautiful in the work of art is not for me pure and unmixed until I completely think away its special relation to me and consider it as something that has been brought forth entirely for its own sake, so that it could be something complete in itself (Moritz, Ästhetische Schriften, 545)

This possibility of ultimate freedom for which we must abandon our individuality, pleasures, and ties with the beautiful itself, is unique to the aesthetic experience. This unique characteristic seems to be a paradox. How can this experience give us pleasure while simultaneously

distancing us from our own pleasures? To answer this question we must review Moritz' position within the German aesthetics. Like Wolff and Baumgarten, Moritz defines the perception of beauty as the sensory perception of perfection. As it is claimed before, the perfection in a work of art is in fact the perfection of the whole cosmos, specifically an indication of that perfection. While through sensory perception we are invited by beauty, we are simultaneously introduced to the perfection of the cosmos that can only be perceived through the aesthetic experience, i.e. through the beautiful. This perfection cannot be sensed through thought. Thus, sensory

perception is the first invitation towards a process in which we lose our limiting bonds so we can eventually experience a small sense of the perfection of the cosmos, only through the aesthetic experience.

What Moritz claims is that beauty cannot be understood through thought and the essence of beauty cannot be described through concepts. Both Kant and Moritz come to the conclusion that beauty cannot be described by determinate concepts. Moritz comes to this conclusion because of the way he defines beauty as a indication of the perfection of the cosmos, while Kant's conclusion is based on his subjective view on aesthetic pleasure in a state of free play. We can conclude that Moritz' free play consist of the relation between the beautiful object and the perfection of the cosmos, while Kant's free play means a balance between cognition and imagination.

Through Kant's notion of free play, the fundamental difference between Moritz and Kant becomes clear. While Moritz' internal purpose is a characteristic of beauty that is situated within the object and is a reference to the perfection of the cosmos, Kant's purposiveness without a

purpose is not a reference or an existing characteristic, but rather a state of our mental powers. Kant's free play is the balance between cognition and imagination without a representation or meaning of truth.

Kant's Judgment of Taste

Kant takes up a very unique position in the history of German aestheticism. On one hand he can be positioned within the aesthetic tradition, because he analyzes aesthetics with the same

concepts we have seen with the other philosophers, such as Wolff, Baumgarten, Shaftesburry, and Moritz. On the other hand, his definitions of these concepts differ from those of others. While most approaches towards key concepts like pleasure, beauty, utility, and perfection are relatively consequent throughout the German aesthetic tradition, Kant's philosophical premises are based upon his epistemology and ethics. Kant can be seen as a very important critique on the tradition, while simultaneously influencing many that came after him in that tradition, such as Schiller. Kant's theory can give us a new perspective on the relation between beauty and morality without breaking with the aesthetic tradition. Schiller can be partially seen as the combination of both Kantian and pre-Kantian theories on aesthetics.

In the Critique of Judgment Kant defines beauty as an experience of a specific kind of pleasure. He categorizes different sources of pleasure: the Good, risen from Utility and judged by Reason, i.e. morality; the Pleasant, risen from a characteristic of the object, perceived through the senses, i.e. sensory pleasure; Taste, risen from the free play of mental powers within the subject, i.e. aesthetic pleasure. The Good and the Pleasant are both consequences of

characteristics within the object, they are objective pleasures. Taste however, is subjective in nature (Kant §4). The Good and the Pleasant refer according to Kant to the faculty of desire, while the judgment of Taste is inherently contemplative, meaning that the pleasure we

experience when we see a beautiful object is completely indifferent towards the existence of that object, making the source of the pleasure our own mental representation.

Kant's definition of the judgment of Taste as a subjective judgment is not new. However, Kant is one of the first philosophers who defines this judgment as subjective and universal. The judgment of Taste is not a singular expression but is communicable with others (in an ideal situation). The judgment of taste of an object can be shared by others in regards to the same object. However, there is according to Kant no law that determines one's judgment of beauty. This means that the source of aesthetic pleasure cannot be a determinate concept. Consequently

that which makes the judgment of taste universal is not a shared determinate concept, but the free play of our mental powers, something we all possess. However, it is possible to categorize the object of beauty with determinate concepts, but the pleasure that we experience in the judgment of taste comes from a unity that we cannot explain by any determinate concept, making the pleasure unexpected and thus more intense (Kant §6).

Kant's theory of the free play reveals two premises of beauty. First, Kant claims that the experience of the pure judgment of taste can only be caused by the form of an object and not its content. Second, the judgment of taste is universal because the workings of our cognitive

faculties are the same in all individuals. These two premises and the indifference of the judgment of taste lead Kant to separate perfection from beauty. A pure judgment of taste, leading to what Kant calls free beauty, occurs when our judgment is completely indifferent. This free beauty cannot be perfection for perfection demands a perfect content. The object of free beauty cannot be an aspect of interest of a pure judgment of taste, while in experiencing perfection

characteristics of the object and our interest in them define its perfection. Another human being cannot therefore be the object of a pure judgment of taste. We always have an idea of how a human being should be and our judgment of another individual is always concerned with his or her existence. The judgment of another individual is thus not a judgment of taste but one of perfection (Kant §16). This is not the first time Kant expresses his emphasis on the interest in existence between two human being. In his philosophy Kant claims that human beings should not be viewed only as means to an end. The interest in the existence in another human being must be present in all our judgments of others and is a necessity in the Kant's moral law.

After establishing his definition of beauty and the importance of a free play of our mental faculties, Kant can now turn his attention towards art and its position and importance in the process of aesthetic experience. Kant's definition of art is quite straightforward: art is an

intentional product of human beings that is produced through certain skills and talents. However,

fine arts have a special function, which is the promotion of the free play. This means that

something unintentional like the free play must be the goal of something intentionally produced to reach that goal. Hitherto, the promotion of free play in an object of art must appear to be unintentional. Fine arts are unique in the sense that they possess representational content while establishing free play, something that seemed only possible through form. This representation however is a representation of the imaginative in the context of the faculty of imagination. A

work of fine art must thus provide enough space for imaginary freedom and cannot grasp us with strong conceptual representations like didactic claims. These imaginative aspects, that are present in a work of fine art, cannot be understood through determinate concepts or the faculty of understanding. This conclusion on the incompatibility of beauty and understanding, that Kant shares with Moritz, will proof to be very influential for Schiller.

The Kantian Sublime

Kant defines two forms of the sublime: mathematical and dynamical. When we experience either of these forms of the sublime, we experience a feeling of both pain and pleasure. First we

experience pain due to experiencing the limits of our imagination. Second we experience

pleasure because we understand that these limits of our imagination are experienced through the power of our reason, a power that is within ourselves. The mathematical sublime is experienced when we are confronted with something that is too big for us to understand in a single image, thus forcing us to define it as infinite. This confrontation brings us pain, yet consequently we experience pleasure in knowing that we are capable of creating a concept such as the infinite (Kant §26). Through this process we experience our own capability of reason. The mathematical sublime thus concerns itself with the relation between our faculty of imagination and theoretical reason. This form of sublime operates in the realm of epistemology.

The dynamical sublime is the experience between us and extremely powerful and threatening objects, such as for example tornados, volcanoes, etc (not limited to natural

phenomena). We perceive these objects as physical threats, causing the feeling of pain, but again we feel pleasure in reducing this threat to something trivial and "to regard its power as not the sort of dominion over ourselves and our authority to which we would have to bow if it came down to our highest principles and their affirmation or abandonment" (Kant §28). The experience of the dynamical sublime can be regarded as a certain balance between our imagination and practical reason, connecting this form of the sublime with morality.

Morality and Aesthetics

Kant

Kant's theory on aesthetics and the judgment of taste can be seen as the bridge between his epistemology and his ethics. The problem that rose after the Critique of Practical Reason was how it is possible that we are free to choose and abide according to the moral law (in the noumenal world) while Kant held a deterministic view on the phenomenal world. How can we

connect our intellectual understanding of the conditions of the moral law and the sensory representations of these conditions? To understand the function of aesthetics as the bridge, it is important to review Kant's ethical conditions. There are four terms of the moral law we must accept before we can abide the categorical imperative. First, we must understand the moral law. Second, we must believe ourselves to be free to choose the moral law as our main principle. Third, we must believe that it is possible to exercise the conditions of the moral law, i.e. that the moral implications are compatible with natural laws. Fourth, our moral actions, including our choice to follow the moral law, must be motivated properly, meaning that reason alone can be the motivation for all moral actions.

Kant links morality with aesthetics in different ways. These links can collectively be seen as the context or space in which the four conditions of the moral law can be met.

The first link is very direct. According to Kant an object of beauty can communicate moral ideas to us without losing their status as an object of aesthetics. This means that the moral ideas within objects of beauty are not caused by determinate concepts, but through the aesthetic experience. Therefore they differ from for example an advocacy that operates through reason and the faculty of understanding. These unique moral ideas are called aesthetic ideas (Kant § 51).

The second link is the dynamical sublime. This form of the sublime is the prime example of the existence of our moral power. It shows that even when we are faced with threats towards our morality, we are capable of reducing the threat and upholding our principles. The affirmation of our moral power is done through the sublime experience, and thus through the aesthetic experience.

The third link is the definition of the experience of beauty as an experience of freedom. According to Kant, the free play of our mental powers, which is the condition of the judgment of taste, is in fact the experience of the freedom of imagination in a state of harmony with

understanding. This free play is the cause of the judgment of taste being independent of determinate concepts, making the aesthetic experience that one of independence and freedom. While the aesthetic experience, because of the free play, is also independent of moral concepts, the aesthetic experience can however symbolize moral freedom.

The fourth link is according to Kant the fact that beauty can cause cognitive pleasure. It is in the interest of practical reason and the faculty of understanding that nature itself is compatible with our pleasures, because if this is the case, it is easier for us to believe that moral law (or the

principles of practical reason) are compatible with natural laws. The existence of natural beauty and the pleasure it causes is the prime example of this compatibility.

The fifth link is Kant's claim that aesthetics and the experience of beauty can cause moral behavior. A beautiful object can prepare us to act according to the moral law. The unique thing about this relation is that through the aesthetic we can accept the moral law without any other interest.

The sixth link is the link between aesthetics and politics. Kant is of the opinion that the cultivation of common standers of taste within a civilization can lead to a more politically stable society. The act of creating a common standard of taste can be a desirable exercise in

communicating common principles and thus a learning ground for political ideals.

The first link fulfills the first condition, the second and third links fulfill the second condition, the fourth link fulfills the third condition, and the fifth and sixth links fulfill the fourth and final condition of the moral law.

Schiller

Schiller's aesthetics can be seen as a follow-up of and simultaneously a critique on Kant. In Schiller's Kallias letters (written in 1793), the German philosopher and poet claims that Kant's subjective notion of the free play is incomplete and must be complimented with a notion of an objective free play. According to Schiller the causes and reasons of an aesthetic judgment must also be situated in certain characteristics that are within the object itself. Kant's argument is that the appearance of these so-called objective characteristics are in fact representations of how the subject responds to the object, which would make the free play utterly subjective. This suggests that Kant's philosophical premise is more likely compatible with the idea that aesthetics and morality are undoubtedly linked with each other, as Kant describes the appearance of objective characteristics as actually being the way the subject responds or behaves. However, the reason for Schiller's argument of the objective notion of free play is his definition of art and beauty as the appearance of true Freedom, a claim that will eventually link morality and aesthetics. This freedom is according to Schiller situated within the form of beauty, i.e. in art. Therefore, the object of art or the form of beauty must be self-determined, or as Schiller writes "a form is beautiful [...] if it demands no explanation, or if it explains itself without a concept" (Schiller,

Kallias, or on Beauty). This idea of art as a form that is utterly self-determined can be traced

argument about aesthetics and morality.

Following Schiller's philosophical premises on art, the German philosopher defines two kinds of art: the naive and the sentimental. In these definitions Schiller makes a claim on nature. He describes naive art as a direct response to nature, defining nature as something that follows its own immovable laws. Nature is described as independent and self-determined, a notion that is derived from his definition of art as a self-determined form. Sentimental art is the representation of the feeling we experience when we realize that we have been separated from nature and thus from the self-determining characteristics that we once knew. This feeling of sentiment is not only projected towards a past in which we were part of the whole nature, but also a desire for a future in which we once again are reunited with the wholeness. This sentimental form of art is

according to Schiller a characteristic of modern society, in which we have lost our connection with the wholeness and desire a reunion. Accomplishment of this reunion will be the main topic of his idea of the Aesthetic Education.

In his works On Grace and Dignity and On the Aesthetic Education of Man Schiller explains two necessities for achieving the demands of morality. On Grace and Dignity expresses the necessity of the cultivation of our feelings, while On the Aesthetic Education of Man claims that the cultivation of aesthetic experience is necessary for the demands of morality. The former can be seen as a constitutive claim, while the latter is a causal claim. It is Schiller's causal claim that makes the bold argument that humanity can achieve true freedom only through the means of beauty. Aesthetic education is according to Schiller the solution for the problem of fragmentation and the loss of the unity and wholeness, characteristics that have been lost in modern society. This means that the cultivation of taste (i.e. aesthetic education) is in fact a political solution. The problem of said modern society is the necessary fragmentation of the social order that arises from the extremely complex structure of the state (On the Aesthetic Education of Man, 6th letter). Through the aesthetic education we can reach unity and consequently Freedom. This freedom is defined by Schiller as primarily political freedom, largely defined by the relation between the state and its citizens. This relationship must be characterized by the minimalistic behavior of the state, meaning that the state should intervene as little as possible when it comes to the freedom of its citizens. However, the state has the function of creating and upholding the protective frameworks in which citizens can develop and cultivate themselves. The state is thus not the end but always the means to accomplish the cultivation of its people.

Schiller does not claim that in our quest for unity we should give up on the individual. The aesthetic education must lead to a balance between the universal and the particular. Through beauty we must regain our unity with each other and with nature without giving up the

advantages of the fragmented society, advantages such as modern medicine and the freedom to realize advance technology that can be seen as a consequence of individualism. The universal and the particular are not the only contrasts that require a certain balance, another important contrast is form and sense. Schiller claims that humans possess two kinds of drives, namely the form drive and the sensuous drive, that tend to push the individual to different directions. If we want to achieve unity there needs to be a balance between the two drives, comparative to the free play as a balance between imagination and cognition (On the Aesthetic Education of Man, 12th letter). These two drives represent the contrasts within human nature. The sensuous drive is according to Schiller that which makes us sensuous and physical beings. The sensuous drive makes us living creatures. The form drive represents the desires and interests of the individual and is the cause of the drive to transcend above our sensuous and physical life and reach truth and morality. The sensuous drive allows humans to be integrated in nature, as nature is perceived by them through their sensory perceptions. The form drive allows them to transcend nature mentally.

These two drives are opposites, but are both necessary for the other's existence. To fully realize your potential as an individual, it is important to cultivate both drives while

simultaneously protecting them from each other, as the two drives tend to dominate one another. This task falls according to Schiller on culture, a task that is politicized by Schiller. If the two drives are not in balance, the results can be devastating. When a society is dominated by the sensuous drive, it will be in a state of lawlessness and chaos, while if we allow the form drive to be unchallenged we will descend into barbarism. Schiller uses Montesquieu's principle of the balance of power to claim that a third drive, called the play drive is necessary to keep the other two in balance (Heumakers 201).

It is important to note that the perfect balance is presented by Schiller as an idea of being

human, i.e.as something that always will be a point in the future. The perfect balance between

the drives is not something to be actually achieved, but something that will always remain a point to strive towards. To Schiller the balance between the two drives is equal to political and moral freedom. This means that achieving freedom is done through the sensuous and the form

drives, making the achievement of freedom the realization of both physical and moral freedom. Beauty, defined by Schiller as freedom in the appearance, is thus situated within the object of the play drive. Here we see the result of Schiller's notion of an objective free play of our mental powers. This object is a combination of the objects of the sensuous and form drive, i.e. life and

expression, making it the living expression. To Schiller freedom, beauty, and living expression

mean the same thing in different stages of our mental faculties. The cultivation of beauty and freedom (practiced through the aesthetic experience) is what Schiller calls the play.To play is to actualize your potential as a human being, meaning that being-human is an activity that is parallel to the aesthetic experience. Beauty and being are thus directly linked with each other (Heumakers 201).

The question that arises from Schiller's theory of the play drive is: what is the difference between the freedom in the moral state (through the form drive) and the freedom in the aesthetic state (through the play drive)? Schiller's answer to this question is very similar to Moritz'

description of the possibility to achieve ultimate freedom in the aesthetic experience. The difference between the moral state and the aesthetic state is that in the aesthetic state we are not bound to the moral law and we have the freedom to determine our own morality through our own will. In the aesthetic state is the individual nothing (Schiller, Uber Burgers Gedichten, 973-974). Through this claim Schiller's aesthetic education becomes more clear. Beauty doesn't transform us in better human beings, neither intellectually nor morally. The aesthetic experience grants us the possibility for self-determination (as we have seen with Moritz). So while the form drive instructs us in the ways of the moral law, gives us the opportunity to start over and determine ourselves. Schiller describes the nothingness of the aesthetic state as 'humanity as a whole', meaning the possibility for everything without exclusion (Schiller brief 22). This means that freedom is the necessary condition for beauty. The experience of beauty is in fact the experience of the expression of freedom within the object. Without freedom there can be no beauty.

Consequently, to experience the aesthetic pleasure is to allow the objects of beauty to be free. This means that beauty functions as a catalyst in the unity between feeling and thought, and form and matter. Beauty unifies the two opposites not by influencing them but by abolishing them. This results into a state of freedom in which humanity can define the two opposites as one and the same. Art has thus the capability of imposing its freedom on human beings by first

destroying the things that negate the unity. Freedom is thus defined as the possibility to start over.

Schiller's Sublime

The sublime is a form of beauty that is closely related to what Schiller calls energizing beauty. In The Horn Schiller describes two forms of beauty, namely the 'schmelzende' and 'energizing' beauty. The former can be used as a way to control the savagery of the mob, while the latter can function as a way of opposing the laziness of the elite (Heumakers 196). The sublime is for Schiller the last line of defense in humanities' struggle in realizing their aesthetic and moral potentials, a process that is jeopardized by the dualism of body and mind. The human mind is the source of our freedom, yet this freedom is limited by our physical constraints, death being the ultimate frontier and limit of our freedom. This means that freedom is powerless to transcend our physical limits if it were not for what Schiller calls the idealistic approach to nature. Schiller defines two ways humans approach the natural limits of our freedom. The realistic approach is when humanity tries to dominate nature through technical violence, indeed making death the final frontier and the ultimate destroyer of freedom. Yet, humanity possesses the power to approach nature in a idealistic way, meaning that individuals can fight their physical limitations through conceptualization. Just as Kant claims, humanity can use their mind to go beyond the natural sensory limitations of their bodies (Heumakers 212).

The problem is that humans are mostly not aware of this power. The sublime is the perfect way to make humanity aware of its potential. The sublime confronts humanity with the limitations of its imagination and understanding while simultaneously reminding the rational individual of his dignity, i.e. the possibility to be a moral being. The sublime experience does not occur automatically and must be cultivated. Human beings tend to disregard the sublime and only see beauty in the aesthetic experience, because through beauty we can leave our chaotic state of nature and achieve sophistication. Yet, chaos is as much part of nature as is order,

making beauty sometimes not enough for us to understand the chaotic. The sublime can confront us with the chaos of nature without losing our morality or moral capability. Therefore, it is according to Schiller necessary to be in a relatively advanced state of culture if we want to experience the sublime. The presence of both chaos and order is not only a characteristic of nature, but also of humanity. When we stop trying to harmonize the chaotic, we can understand through the sublime that chaos itself is a crucial part of the self-determination and independence

of nature. According to Schiller, the partially chaotic self-determination of freedom is worth more than order without freedom in which autonomy is sacrificed for conformism.

The Fantastic as the Sublime

To explain the Fantastic as an expression of the sublime it is necessary to answer three questions, or rather problems, that generally occur when comparing philosophical concepts with literary characteristics. Through the process of answering these problems it will become clear how the sublime of 18th century German aesthetics (especially that of Schiller) manifests itself within fantastic literature.

First Problem: Reality and Fiction

As stated before, Todorov’s definition of the Fantastic relies on a certain relation between fiction and reality. Fiction can be defined (relatively unproblematic) as the happenings, events and the story of the text. Yet a text is more than just semantic relations and combinations, a text has a certain kind of meaning to the reader and sometimes to an entire culture. For example holy texts are regarded by their followers as more than mere semantics. According Todorov an important characteristic of the Fantastic “consists in identifying it with certain reactions of the reader: not the reader implicit in the text but the actual person holding the book in his hand” (Todorov 34). Todorov agrees with H.P. Lovecraft and his claim that the Fantastic is not only situated within the text but also in the “reader’s individual experience” (Todorov 34). For Todorov this is enough to connect a text to reality, meaning the reality that is perceived by the reader outside the text. Simultaneously Todorov claims that there is no point of reference for fiction external to the text, i.e. the relation between fiction and reality is situated within the subject. It is the reader that connects the meaning of a text to his depiction of reality. It is crucial to understand that this relation between the Fantastic and the reader’s experience isn’t a question of truth. While reading a text the reader doesn't wonder whether or not the events in the narrative structure of the text are true external to the words themselves. The question of truth is according to Todorov without meaning, “for literary language is a conventional language [...] Truth is a relation between words and the things that the words designates; now, in literature, these “things” do not exist” (Todorov 82). The relation between the Fantastic and the reality of the reader is thus not based on truth, but on importance. While the reader doesn't question the truthfulness of what he reads, he can sense or decide a certain importance that a text can have for his perception of reality. Todorov does not

expand the relation between fiction and reality any further, but to understand the sublime expression of the Fantastic it is important to acknowledge a new narrative level that is situated between the basic narrative of the text and the reality of the reader. Before this new level can be explained it is necessary to further analyze the relation between the Fantastic and the experience of the reader.

The concept of reality is more problematic in this context, because it is impossible to sufficiently derive a universal definition from the infinite subjective accounts of reality. Yet this problem must be addressed in a satisfying way as it is necessary in order to understand the Fantastic as an experience of the sublime. As the aforementioned problem is also present in the 18th century aesthetic discussions on the functions and effects of art in society, it is logical to turn to the 18th century philosophers for a possible solution. Specifically the reaction and critique of Friedrich Heimlich Jacobi on the Romantic aesthetic project can be regarded as a debate on the relation between art and the subject. In his letter An Fichte Jacobi criticizes Fichte’s thinking, claiming that Fichte wrongly assumed that human beings can understand the world through their own means (Heumakers 325). This error was caused according to Jacobi by the method of Fichte’s thinking. According to Fichte (and also Schiller and Moritz) the

construction of the aesthetic identity had to be done through the voluntary abandonment and destruction of the individual wanting and desires. This destruction should lead according to Schiller and Moritz to nothingness, after which the construction of the aesthetic identity can be realized. According to Jacobi this is an illusion, as an object cannot be understood independently from reality. Both subject and object gain meaning through their position in reality as a whole (Heumakers 325-326).

The problem according to Jacobi is that this reality as a whole doesn't present itself to the human mind, for human reason can only perceive the world of representations or, to use the Kantian term, the world of the phenomenons. Jacobi claims that through God we can approach reality as a whole. He criticizes Fichte’s theory of not-knowing by offering the alternative of the theory of God: either we believe in God or we turn Him into a shadow by claiming that we ourselves are the creators (Heumakers 326).

The contrast between the philosophical consequences of Jacobi’s thinking and that of the 18th century German aesthetics, can provide us with the aesthetic answer to the dilemma of the relation between reality and fiction. Simultaneously it is important to acknowledge the historical