Francesco Campana

Cet article explore la notion hégélienne d’« arts imparfaits » (comme le jardinage ou la danse) qu’il considère comme étant à la marge du système conventionnel des arts, ne leur reconnaissant pas pleinement le statut d’arts. L’objectif est d’examiner les caractéristiques qui spécifient ces arts et les raisons de leur « exclusion » du système artistique établi. L’hypothèse avancée est que les traits que Hegel attribue à ces formes d’expression artistique, ainsi que leur « excentricité » par rapport aux œuvres d’art canoniques, ont des éléments communs avec certaines formes d’art contemporaines, qui ont remis en question le système artistique traditionnel de manière radicale (land art, art in situ, performance art, etc.). Après avoir abordé la question générale du système des arts, en décrivant sa dimension philosophique et la position de Hegel à son égard, l’article se concentre sur les soi-disant arts imparfaits, et rend compte de l’« exclusion » de ces arts de la catégorie des arts proprement dits en explicitant la logique structurante du système des arts. Il examine ensuite deux exemples notables, à savoir le jardinage et la danse, en identifiant des éléments communs qui justifient à la fois leur « excentricité » et leur « exclusion » du système. Il explicite ensuite les raisons de l’imperfection de ces arts, que sont l’excès de nature et leur aspect indéterminé et hybride. Il esquisse en conclusion des pistes pour penser une interaction entre la perspective hégélienne et notre contexte artistique contemporain.

In this chapter, I tackle the thesis of the end of art as far as it is directed to literature. I present the thesis of the end of literature as a theoretical discourse within the more general tradition of the end of art. At the same time, I stress how the discourse on the end of literature has also had autonomous and peculiar developments. I start from the examination of the origins of the discourse on the end of literature with Hegel and other positions contemporary to him. I then inquire into the developments and features of the very tradition of the end of literature, showing the points of contact and the differences with that of the end of the art. Finally, I consider one of the peculiar developments of the discourse on the end of literature, namely the discourse on the end of the novel, conceived as a version of the end of literature that is proper to modernity.

In this chapter, I apply and test the theoretical acquisitions of the previous chapters to today’s concrete literary production. The chapter also aims to provide a possible critical understanding of contemporary literature. I introduce the subject with some considerations on how a philosophy of literature cannot avoid dealing with the concreteness of its object of study. On the one hand, I identify in postmodern literature a kind of literature that tends towards philosophisation, i.e. a deconstructive reflection on its own configuration. On the other hand, I consider the nonfiction novel as an example of literature that tends towards ordinariness. Both kinds of literature represent polarities between which there is an infinite multiplicity of intermediate cases, which I consider at the end. Through these modalities, that is to say philosophisation and ordinariness, literature always knows how to renew itself in order to remain itself and thus resists its own end.

In order to understand the peculiarity of literature and enable the later exploration of a possible ‘end of literature’ tradition, in this chapter I tackle the divide between literature and the other arts. The chapter is structured in two parts: the former is theoretical, and the latter is historical. In the first part, I investigate the difference between literature and the other arts, taking into consideration first of all our common view on the matter and then, with a more technical approach, analysing the relationships between objects and artworks, artworks and texts, texts and literature. In the second part, I give a historical overview of the divide between literature and the other arts, and I examine the different phases and configurations that have emerged from it.

According to Arthur C. Danto, contemporary art has experienced an epochal shift, which he calls, following Hegel, the ‘end of art’. Art has abandoned what was previously its distinctive feature, namely its sensitive and emotive characteristics, and has become increasingly more reflective. Danto argues for this view by taking into account the figurative arts, but he also claims that his theory is true ‘transgenerically’, i.e. for art in general. The core idea of the book is that Danto’s thesis applies quite well to all the forms of art except one, namely literature: literature has so far resisted such a turn. In the first section, I discuss Danto’s position and the ‘transgenerical’ concern of his thesis. From out of this discussion, in section two I introduce the hypothesis of the resistance of literature towards its own end. Finally, I present the theses and structure of the book.

In my conclusion, I recap the previous chapters and return to the starting problem of the book. I restate the specificity of the thesis of the end of literature, which is based in great part on the theoretical and historical distinction between literature and the other arts. I claim that an analysis of contemporary literature on the basis of the proposed interpretation of the end of literature can confirm the initial assumption and may also lay the groundwork for a more radical hypothesis, i.e. that literature has and always had an ‘end’ in itself as a constitutive part of it. Literature, because of its verbal medium, has always been something beyond art as a sensitive and emotional dimension. Literature after literature finds only literature as a specific art that has had its own end within itself from the very beginning.

Relying on the context provided in Chapters 10.1007/978-3-030-31395-1_2 and 10.1007/978-3-030-31395-1_3, I come back to Hegel and consider the meanings of the thesis of the end of literature with specific reference to his work. I address the multiplicity of interpretations of Hegel’s thesis on the end of art and deal with the role of literature in his thought. I then isolate two possible interpretations of the thesis that have been put forth so far: that of ‘philosophisation’ and that of the ‘ordinariness’ of literature. The former is based on the systematic structure of the Hegelian thought, where art is the first form of the absolute spirit, followed by religion and philosophy. The latter, more philologically faithful to the texts, refers to the fact that art in modernity has become ‘a thing of the past’. Finally, I discuss the Hegelian theory of the novel as the modern epic.

Cet article explore la notion hégélienne d’« arts imparfaits » (comme le jardinage ou la danse) qu’il considère comme étant à la marge du système conventionnel des arts, ne leur reconnaissant pas pleinement le statut d’arts. L’objectif est d’examiner les caractéristiques qui spécifient ces arts et les raisons de leur « exclusion » du système artistique établi. L’hypothèse avancée est que les traits que Hegel attribue à ces formes d’expression artistique, ainsi que leur « excentricité » par rapport aux œuvres d’art canoniques, ont des éléments communs avec certaines formes d’art contemporaines, qui ont remis en question le système artistique traditionnel de manière radicale (land art, art in situ, performance art, etc.). Après avoir abordé la question générale du système des arts, en décrivant sa dimension philosophique et la position de Hegel à son égard, l’article se concentre sur les soi-disant arts imparfaits, et rend compte de l’« exclusion » de ces arts de la catégorie des arts proprement dits en explicitant la logique structurante du système des arts. Il examine ensuite deux exemples notables, à savoir le jardinage et la danse, en identifiant des éléments communs qui justifient à la fois leur « excentricité » et leur « exclusion » du système. Il explicite ensuite les raisons de l’imperfection de ces arts, que sont l’excès de nature et leur aspect indéterminé et hybride. Il esquisse en conclusion des pistes pour penser une interaction entre la perspective hégélienne et notre contexte artistique contemporain.

This paper addresses the way Hegel determines the difference between poetry (i.e., literature) and history. Hegel’s position is particularly significant for understanding both the basic features of the two fields and the implications that their relationship generates, even in contemporary debates. Starting from a comparison with Aristotle’s fundamental position, I will show how the Hegelian proposal, while initially appearing akin to that of the Greek philosopher, actually differs profoundly from it. This divergence has to do with their different conceptions of the relationship between the two disciplines and philosophy. Unlike Aristotle, for Hegel history is more philosophical than poetry, because, to be genuinely history, it must itself become philosophy. At the same time, if poetry becomes philosophy, it loses its specificity and ceases to be art. To reach this determination, I will show that the key factors concern how the individual practice of the two disciplines is conceived and, more importantly, the different ways they relate to universality.