Aesthetic Experience and Verbal Art

Aesthetic Experience and Verbal Art

It is a common assumption that there is an art which can be defined as literary or verbal. Yet, this definition relies mainly on linguistic criteria. Can literary art also be accounted for philosophically? In this paper I intend to offer such an account. Starting from the Hegelian conception of language and of the aesthetic experience, I shall argue that literary, and more specifically poetic, discourse can be defined as the verbal completion of an aesthetic experience, and that this distinctive feature marks off literary discourse from other types of discourse such as scientific and philosophical discourse.

In Hegel's view language is concomitant with self-conscious-ness. (1) The birth of language is to be situated in the transition in the growth of the subject's identity from the conscious moment to the self-conscious moment. To a conscious subject, reality offers itself as an object (Gegenstand) and the world reflects the categorizing activity of the intellect (understanding, Verstand). In the self-conscious subject the world is internalized with the effect that it becomes a presentation (Vorstellung, pictorial concept) of the subject's conceptualization of the world. This presentation is realized in verbal signs. Indeed, the dyadic structure of the sign (signifier/signified) exhibits a minimal degree of materiality together with a maximal degree of signification (meaning). The material aspect of the sign is completely subordinated to the meaning it conveys. To Hegel therefore the verbal sign is a kind of 'objective correlative' to the internalized conceptualization of the world accomplished by the self-conscious subject. In and through language the self-conscious subject expresses its internalized and thus highly subjective perception of the world in an objective verbal presentation.

In the transition (Aufhebung, sublation) from consciousness to self-consciousness, i.e. from understanding (Verstand) to insight (Vernunft, reason), there is a momentary equilibrium in which the world yields its opaque materiality and the mind (Vernunft, reason) has not yet fully internalized the object. The empirical world discloses itself in the light of the mind and the latter conforms itself to the former. This sensuous appearance or semblance of meaning (das sinnliche Scheinen der Idee) is the very core of the aesthetic consciousness or experience. In the aesthetic experience the subject does as yet not intend to understand (i.e. the function of the intellect (Verstand)) nor does it want to conceptualize the empirical reality (i.e. the function of reason). In other words: in the aesthetic contemplation there is a momentary harmony between the subjective and the objective aspect of comprehension, between sensuous and rational perception, between rationalization and insight.