The significance of kierkegaard's interpretation of Don Giovanni in relation to Hegel's philosophy of art

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Notes

¹The author would like to thank the University of Ottawa for the award of a post-doctoral fellowship, during which this article was written.

²Kierkegaard may also have been influenced by the aesthetic theory of the Danish Hegelian Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791–1860). Cf. Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard's Relations to Hegel Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 210ff. Heiberg's version of the form-content distinction appears to differ significantly from Hegel's version of it, however. Hegel identifies form with the sensory material used to express the content. Heiberg, by contrast, identifies it with the idea of the artist, in accordance with which he shapes the material, while he identifies the content with matter, that is, the raw sensuous material that is to be shaped in accordance with the idea of the artist. Stewart also suggests that Kierkegaard might have been influenced by the Zusatz to §133 of Hegel's Encyclopaedia, in which Hegel claims that the identity of content and form is the mark of a genuine work of art. Cf. Kierkegaard's Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, 213.

³Cf. Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: Part I, translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987) 50 and 53. For an attempt to explain what lies behind this claim see Stewart, Kierkegaard's Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, 216ff.

⁴Cf. Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Ästhetik oder Philosophie der Kunst: Die Nachschriften und Zeugnisse zu Hegels Berliner Vorlesungen’, Hegel-Studien 26 (1991) 92ff. In relation to the present topic, the account given of music in Hotho's edition of Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of art serves as a good example of the editorial inventions that he made; for Gethmann-Siefert suggests that some of the ideas from Hotho's own Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst found their way into the sections on music in his edition of the lectures. Cf. Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Das “moderne” Gesamtkunstwerk: Die Oper’, in Phänomen versus System: zum Verhältnis von philosophischer Systematik und Kunsturteil in Hegels Berliner Vorlesungen über Ästhetik oder Philosophie der Kunst, edited by Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert (Bonn: Bouvier, 1992) 197ff. For an account of Hegel's views on music, and his personal experience of it, see Alain Patrick Olivier, Hegel et la Musique: De l'expérience esthétique à la spéculation philosophique (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2003).

⁵To date, the following transcripts of the lectures have been published: G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über Ästhetik Berlin 1820/21. Eine Nachschrift, edited by H. Schneider (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995); G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, edited by Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2003); G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophie der Kunst oder Ästhetik nach Hegel. Im Sommer 1826 Mitschrift Friedrich Carl Hermann Victor von Kehler, edited by Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert and Bernadette Collenberg-Plotnikov in collaboration with Francesca Ianneli and Karsten Berr (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2004); G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophie der Kunst. Vorlesung von 1826, edited by Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, Jeong-Im Kwon and Karsten Berr (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005).

⁷ Hegel in Berichten seiner Zeitgenossen, edited by Günter Nicolin (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1970), No. 460.

⁶Cf. Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Das “moderne” Gesamtkunstwerk: Die Oper’, 170ff.

⁸Cf. Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Hegels These vom Ende der Kunst und der Klassizismus der Ästhetik’, Hegel-Studien 19 (1984) 212.

⁹Cf. Willi Oelmüller ‘Hegels Satz vom Ende der Kunst und das Problem der Philosophie der Kunst nach Hegel’, Philosophisches Jahrbuch 73 (1965). According to Oelmüller, for Hegel art in the modern world has the task of bringing to consciousness, by the appropriate means, the concrete formations (Bildungen) of humanity and the historical wealth of its inner and outer world, and it thus continues to express something that only it can express. For another attempt to show that art remains for Hegel an enduring human need in the modern world, even though it can no longer fulfil its highest vocation, see Stephen Houlgate, ‘Hegel and the “End” of Art’, The Owl of Minerva, 29(1) (1997), No. 1.

¹⁰Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 47.

¹¹Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830) Erster Teil: Die Wissenschaft der Logik, in Werke Theorie-Werkausgabe, edited by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970) Vol. 8, §213. Encyclopaedia Logic, translated by T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting and H. S. Harris (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991).

¹²Cf. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 48.

¹³Cf. Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften Erster Teil§163.

¹⁴Cf. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 44.

¹⁵G. W. F. Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes, in Werke vol. 3, pp 82ff. Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) 58ff.

¹⁶Cf. Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes, 84ff./Phenomenology of Spirit, 60ff.

¹⁷Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830) Dritter Teil: Die Philosophie des Geistes, Werke 10, §418. Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, translated by William Wallace and A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).

¹⁸Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften Dritter Teil§418 Zusatz.

¹⁹Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften Dritter Teil§449 Zusatz.

²¹Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 79.

²⁰Cf. Hegel, Philosophie der Kunst (1826) 56.

²²Cf. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 32.

²³Cf. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 32.

²⁴Cf. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 179.

²⁵Cf. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 34. and 36. Also see Houlgate, ‘Hegel and the “End” of Art’, 3ff.

²⁶Cf. Kierkegaard, Either/Or: Part I, 47ff.

²⁷Kierkegaard, Either/Or: Part I, 52ff.

²⁸Cf. Kierkegaard, Either/Or: Part I, 57.

²⁹Kierkegaard, Either/Or: Part I, 56ff., 64 and 70ff.

³⁰Cf. Kierkegaard, Either/Or: Part I, 92.

³¹Cf. Kierkegaard, Either/Or: Part I, 74ff.

³²Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 4.

³³Cf. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 160. Philosophie der Kunst oder Ästhetik, 208ff. The passage to which Hegel is referring can be found in Herodotus I, translated by A. D. Godley (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Heinemann, 1981), Book II 53.

³⁴The same point is made by Stephen Houlgate. Cf. ‘Hegel and the “End” of Art’, 3.

³⁵Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Phänomen versus System’ in Phänomen versus System, 17.

³⁶Cf. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 183.

³⁷Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Hegels These vom Ende der Kunst und der Klassizismus der Ästhetik’, 232.

³⁸Cf. Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Das “moderne” Gesamtkunstwerk: Die Oper’, 208.

³⁹Cf. Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Das “moderne” Gesamtkunstwerk: Die Oper’, 213ff. For an account of Hegel's understanding of the opera as a Gesamtkunstwerk, and what distinguishes it from the modern drama, see Olivier, Hegel et la Musique, 201ff.

⁴⁰Cf. Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Das “moderne” Gesamtkunstwerk: Die Oper’, 215.

⁴¹Cf. Olivier, Hegel et la Musique, 209ff.

⁴²Cf. Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Das “moderne” Gesamtkunstwerk: Die Oper’, 216.

⁴³Cf. Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Das “moderne” Gesamtkunstwerk: Die Oper’, 217ff.

⁴⁴Cf. Gethmann-Siefert, ‘Das “moderne” Gesamtkunstwerk: Die Oper’, 218f.

⁴⁵Cf. Kierkegaard, Either/Or: Part I, 61.

⁴⁶Kierkegaard, Either/Or: Part I, 87ff.

⁴⁷Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion 3: Die Vollendete Religion, ed. Walter Jaeschke (Hamburg: Meiner, 1995) 106. Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion Volume III: The Consummate Religion, edited by Peter C. Hodgson (Berkeley, Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1985). The English translation contains the pagination of the German edition.

⁴⁸Cf. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, 292.