of the old modes of conception, the former type of patriotism and political wisdom, and adheres thereby unquestionably to that opposition between the inward life of soul and the real environment outside it.
And the reason of this hesitancy is this that the bare conceptions of genuine ethical truth which it derives from its own inner world are unable to fully satisfy it; it consequently faces that which is exterior to this, to which it relates itself in a negative and hostile spirit with the object of changing it. This consciousness is, as already stated, on the one hand no doubt an inward and present content, which, self-determined and at the same time deliberately articulate, is concerned with a world that confronts it, to which this content is opposed, and which receives the task to depict this same reality in the semblance of the very traits of the corruption peculiar to that world, and which form such a contrast with its own ideas of goodness and truth. From another point of view this very contrast is cancelled by art itself. In other words, another type of art arises, in which the conflict of this opposition is not emphasized through the medium of mere thoughts, remaining thus in its disunion; but this reality in the very folly of its corruption is itself submitted to a mode of artistic presentation, which exposes it as self-destructive, and exposes it in such a way that it is precisely in and through this self-destructive process of what is of no weight that truth is enabled to assert itself upon this mirror as the secure and endurable power, and thereby all the force of a direct opposition to what is essentially true is removed from that side represented by folly and unreasonableness. This art is comedy, of the type Aristophanes dramatized for his fellow-citizens, connecting it closely with all that was essential in the world around him, and doing so with equanimity[204], in a mood of pure and hearty joviality.
3. SATIRE We may, however, observe that this resolution of art, despite its adequacy, tends to disappear to this extent, that the contradictory antithesis persists in the form of its _opposition_, and, consequently, instead of the poetic reconciliation a prosaic relation is imported, by means of which the classical type of art appears to be annulled, and the gods of plastic shape no less than the entire world of human beauty vanish with it. We have, then, now to look about us for a form of art, which is able to reclothe itself from the ruins of this overthrow in a loftier configuration and to extract the real significance which it implies. We discovered as the terminating point of symbolic art in the same way that the separation of pure form from its significance was emphasized in a variety of modes such as simile, fable, parable, riddle, and the like. Inasmuch as the severation above adverted to is causally responsible for the dissolution of that art-type, in a similar way the question arises what is the nature of the distinction between our present example of transition as contrasted with the previous one.
The distinction is as follows: (_a_) In the truly symbolic and comparative type of art the form and significance are from the very first, despite the affinity of their relationship, alien to one another; they are placed, however, in no mere negative, but rather in amicable relationship; for it is precisely the qualities and traits which are identical to or resemble each other on the two sides which assert themselves as the causal basis of their conjunction and comparison. Their persistent separation and hostility is consequently within the bounds of this union neither, relatively to the separated aspects, of a _hostile_ character, nor is a blending of the same, within essentially narrow limits, thereby removed from them.
The Ideal of classical art, on the contrary, proceeds from the perfect interfusion of significance and form, the ideal individuality of spirit and its external conformation; and when the composite aspects which have been brought together in such a consummated unity are disrupted, this disruption takes place simply because they are unable any longer to cohere one with the other, and are absolutely compelled to start forth from their peaceful state of harmony in disunion and hostility.
(_b_) Together with this way of looking at the relation in contrast to that of symbolic art we may add that the _content_ of both sides is altered, as they now stand in opposition. To put it thus we may say that, in the symbolic type of art, it is abstractions more or less, general thoughts, or at least definite phrases in the form of generalities peculiar to reflective thought, which, by means of the symbolic type of art, receive a sensuous embodiment replete with suggestion. In the form, however, which makes itself predominant in this transition to romantic art the content, it is true, is made up of a similar abstraction of general thoughts, opinions, and maxims of reflective reason, but in this case it is not these abstractions in themselves, but rather their presence in the _individual's_ mind and his self-subsistent identity which furnish the content for one side of the opposition. For the primary requirement of this mediating stage consists in this, that the spiritual which has attained the Ideal, shall stand forth in its entire independence. Already in classical art we found that spiritual individuality was of chief importance, albeit on the side of its realization it remained reconciled with a determinate existence as immediately presented. What is of importance now is to declare a mode of subjectivity which strives to acquire the mastery over the form that is no longer adequate to it, in a word, over external reality. In this way the world of Spirit becomes liberated as independent. It recovers itself from bondage to the sensuous material and manifests itself thereby through this return upon its own resources as the subject of a self-consciousness which only finds contentment in the secret wealth of its own domain. This subject, however, which repels externality from itself, is not in respect to its ideal aspect yet the truly concrete totality which encloses as content the Absolute under the mode of self-conscious spiritual life; rather it is, as still fettered by its opposition to reality, a purely abstract, finite, and unsatisfied form of subjectivity. In opposition to this we have confronting it an equally finite mode of reality, which on its part is also independent, but just for that very reason--forasmuch, that is, as the truth of Spirit has withdrawn from it into its own ideality and henceforward neither will nor can identity itself with it, appears as a reality void of all gods and an existence fallen into rottenness. In this manner and at this point art brings forward a Spirit that thinks, that is, to repeat our former analysis, the individual consciousness of our humanity, which, supporting itself on its own possession of the abstract knowledge and volition of goodness and virtue, confronts with hostility therewith the corruption of its present environment.
That aspect of this opposition which remains unresolved, and in which the ideal and external modes of its antithesis persist in their disruption, constitutes the element of prose in the mutual relation of the two sides. A noble mind or a virtuous soul to whom the realization of self-conscious life is denied in a world of vice and folly, turns away from the existence which thus confronts him with passionate indignation, or more subtle wit and more frosty bitterness, and either is wroth with or scorns a world which gives the lie direct to his abstract notions of virtue and truth.
The type of art which accepts this sudden outburst of opposition between a subjectivity still finite in its mode and a degenerate world outside it as its matter is the _Satire_, the ordinary theories as to which have little to commend them, for the simple reason that they break down precisely where we look for their assistance. Satire has nothing to do with epic poetry, and it has just as little affinity with lyric. In the Satire it is not the life of the emotional nature which is expressed; rather the general conception of goodness and what is essentially needful, which it no doubt blends with the particular aspect of soul-life[205], appears as the virtuousness of this or that individual; but this does not suffer itself to be enjoyed in the open and unhampered beauty of imaginative conception or let that enjoyment issue freely. Rather with discontent it retains the existing discord between the writer's own state of mind and its abstract principles and the empirical reality which mocks them. To this extent satire is neither a genuine creation of the poet nor a real work of art.
For these reasons the point of view of the satirical poem can never be reached satisfactorily through those other types of poetry just mentioned; it must be apprehended in a more general way as the example of this very transitional form we referred to from the classic Ideal.
(_c_) Inasmuch, then, as it is, relatively to its ideal content, the prosaic resolution of the Ideal, which asserts itself mainly in satire, we do not find that Greece, which is pre-eminently the native land of Beauty, is the place where we must look for it. Satirical poems of the nature above described are the characteristic possession of Rome. The spirit of the Roman world is the sovereignty of the abstract Ideal, the law that is dead, the shipwreck of beauty and of the joyousness of civic life, the suppression of the family in the sense that it is the immediate and most natural form of morality, and generally the sacrifice of individuality, which surrenders itself wholly to the State, and in obedience to the abstract law is satisfied with the frost-like sense of political worth and critical satisfaction which it supplies. The principle of this civic virtue, the cold-blooded harshness of which subjects to its pleasure all alien peoples, while the formal rectitude of the personal life is elaborated to the furthest point of consistency on equally rigid lines, is wholly inconsonant with genuine art. We find, therefore, even in Rome no art that is at once conspicuous in its beauty, freedom, and greatness. It is from the Greeks that the Romans borrowed all that they mastered whether in sculpture or painting, epic, lyric, or dramatic poetry. It is a remarkable fact that all that we can point to as the native product of Latin art is comic farces, whereas the more cultivated types of comedy, not excluding those of Plautus and Terence, are borrowed from Greece, and are rather an affair of imitation than independent production.
Even Ennius first exhausted the sources of Greek poetry before he made mythology prosaic. That type of art is alone native to the Latin genius, which was essentially itself prosaic, the didactic poem, for example, more particularly when it contains an ethical content, and endows its general reflections with the purely exterior adornment of metre, images, similes, and a rhetorically beautiful diction. But above all other forms thus excepted we place the satire. Here we find it is the mood of virtuous exasperation over the surrounding world which strives to air itself in what is, in some measure, hollow declamations.
We can only call this essentially prosaic type of art poetical in so far as it brings before the vision the corrupted nature of real life in such a way that this corruption practically falls to pieces as the result of its own folly. Just as Horace, who as a lyric poet entirely identified himself by study with the artistic type and manner of Greece, in his epistles and satires--where we have his originality more emphasized--traces for us a living picture of the morals of his age, by depicting follies which are self-destructive by virtue of the stupidity, that carries them into effect. Nevertheless, even this example only presents us with a kind of merriment that for all its keen and educated sense can barely be classed as poetry, the object in the main being to make ridicule out of that which is bad. Among others, on the contrary, we find that the abstract conception of rectitude and virtue is deliberately contrasted with vice; and in this case it is exasperation, anger, hate, and scorn, which in some measure expatiate in formal eloquence over virtue and wisdom, and in part give full rein to the indignation of a soul of more nobility against the dissolution and servility of the times, or hold up before the vices of the day the mirror of the old morality, the former liberty, the virtues of a state of the world which has passed away, without any genuine hope and belief in their recovery; or rather one which has nothing to oppose to the tottering gait, the dilemmas, the need and danger of an ignominious present, save a stoical equanimity and the unshakable conscience of a virtuous soul. Roman history and philosophy not unfrequently receive something of the same tone from a mood of this kind. Sallust must needs express himself strongly against the corruptions of morals, being himself very considerably affected by them. Livy, despite his rhetorical elegance, seeks for comfort and satisfaction in his picture of the good old days. Above all we have Tacitus, who, with a severe melancholy as grand in its scope as it was profound, without the baldness of declamation, indignantly exposes in the clearest relief the evils of his time. Among the satirists Persius is remarkable for his acerbity, with a bitter edge more keen than that of Juvenal. Later on we find bringing up the rear the Greek Syrian Lucian giving free vent to his witticisms and pleasantry against all things, whether heroes, philosophers, or gods; and with exceptional prominence passing in review the ancient gods of Greece on the score of their humanity and individuality. However, only too often he goes no further in his tittle-tattle than the mere external aspect of these godlike figures and their actions, and is for that reason wearisome to modern readers.
For, on the one hand, so far as our convictions are concerned, we have already disposed of all that he would destroy, and on the other we are aware that, despite all his jests and mockery, these characteristic traits of Greek divinities, when contemplated under the aspect of beauty, still retain their eternal significance.
Nowadays satirical poems are not likely to prove a success. Cotta and Goethe have proposed competitions in this form of composition, but no poems of note are forthcoming. Certain fixed principles are bound up with it, with which the present age is not in harmony; a wisdom which is devoid of content, a virtue which adheres with inflexible obstinacy to its own resources and nothing beyond, may very possibly contrast itself with the actual world, but is quite unable to bring about the truly poetical resolution of what is false and repugnant, and effect the genuine reconciliation in the truth.
In one word, Art is unable to persist in this breach between the abstract conceptions of the inward life and the objective world around, without proving itself false to its own principle. The subjective realm of the soul must be conceived as that which is itself an essentially infinite and independent existence, which, albeit it is unable to suffer the finite reality to subsist as Truth itself, nevertheless does not merely assert itself negatively toward the same in a bare contradiction, but proceeds all the while on the path of reconciliation, and for the first time, in its opposition to the ideal individualities of the classical art-form, declares this very activity, being in fact the presentment of the absolute mode of self-conscious life.
[Footnote 197: Lit. "the essentially-and-for-itself-necessary."]
[Footnote 198: Hölderlin, and of course Goethe no less than Schiller, would be included. With our moderns such as Swinburne the admission is less obvious than the qualification.]
[Footnote 199: _Die Aufklärung._ That is, the end of the eighteenth century; usually translated as illumination or enlightenment.]
[Footnote 200: _Verstand_, the faculty of science and common sense.]
[Footnote 201: /$ What! doth this same stillness tell me sadly All I know of Him who voiced creation?
Dark as e'en the veil that hides Him from me Is my heart's salute of resignation.
$/ ] [Footnote 202: /$ Since the gods were then more human Men were more in image godlike.
$/ ] [Footnote 203: /$ Wrested from the flood of Time's abysses Saved they float above high Pindus now; All that was immortal life within them Lives in song, all other life must go.
$/ ] [Footnote 204: _Zornlos_ lit., without anger.]
[Footnote 205: I think this is the meaning of the words _mit subjectiver Besonderheit_, but the interpretation "with other material peculiar to the writer" is not impossible.]
SUBSECTION III THE ROMANTIC TYPE OF ART INTRODUCTION OF THE ROMANTIC GENERALLY The type of romantic art receives its definition, as we have hitherto throughout the present inquiry seen was always the case, from the ideal notion of the content, which it is the function of art to declare.
We must consequently in the first place attempt to elucidate the distinctive principle of the new content, a content which now, in its significance as the absolute content of truth, opens up to our minds a new vision of the world no less than a novel configuration of art.
In the _first_ stage of our inquiry, the entrance chamber of art, the impulse of imagination consisted in the struggle from Nature to spiritual expression. In this strain Spirit never reached beyond what was still only an effort to find, an effort which, in so far as it was not yet able to supply a genuine content for art, could only maintain its position as an external embodiment of the significant aspects of Nature, or those abstractions of the ideal inwardness of substance which were destitute of a subjective character in the strict sense, and in which this type of art found its real centre. The _reverse_ of this point of view we discovered in classical art. Here it is spirituality--albeit it is only by virtue of the abrogation of the significances of Nature that it is enabled to struggle forth in its independent self-identity--which is the basis and principle of the content, with the natural phenomenon in the bodily or sensuous material for its external form. This embodiment, however, did not, as was the case in the first stage, remain superficial, indefinite, and unsuffused by its content; but the perfection of art attained its culminating point by precisely this means, namely, that Spirit completely transpierced its exterior appearance, idealized the shell of Nature in this union of beauty, and drew round itself a reality adequate to its own nature as mind under the mode of substantive individuality. By this means classical art was a presentation of the Ideal which completely satisfied its notion, the consummation of the realm of beauty. More beautiful art than this can neither exist now nor hereafter.
But for all that we may have an art that is more lofty in its aim than this lovely revelation of Spirit in its immediate sensuous form, if at the same time one that is created by the mind as adequate to its own nature. For this coalition, which perfects itself in the medium of what is external, and thereby makes sensible reality its adequate and determinate existence, necessarily runs counter to the true notion of Spirit, and drives it forth from its reconciliation in the bodily shape upon its own essential substance to seek further reconciliation in that alone. The simple and unriven totality of the Ideal is dissolved, and breaks up into one of twofold aspect, namely, that of the essentially subjective life and its exterior semblance, in order to enable mind, by means of this severation, to win the profounder reconciliation in its own most proper element. In one word, Spirit, which has for its principle the mode of entire self-sufficiency, the union of its notion with its reality--is only able to discover an existence that wholly corresponds to such a principle in its own spiritual world of emotion, soul, that is to say, in the inward life where it feels at home. The human spirit becomes aware that it must possess its Other, its _existence_, as Spirit, which it appropriates as its own and what it verily is, and by doing so at length enjoys its own infinity and freedom.
1. This elevation of Spirit to its _own substance_, through which it attains its objectivity--which it would otherwise be obliged to seek for in the external environment of its existence within its own self and in this union with itself both feels and knows itself--is what constitutes the fundamental principle of romantic art. With this truth we may join as a corollary thereto that for this concluding stage the beauty of the classic Ideal, or in other words beauty in its most uniquely consonant form and its most conformable content, is no longer regarded as ultimate. For in arriving at the point of romantic art, Spirit[206] becomes aware that its truth is not fully attained by a self-absorption in the material of sense. On the contrary, it only comes fully to the knowledge of that truth by withdrawing itself out of that medium into the inward being of its own substance, whereby it deliberately affirms the inadequacy of external reality as a mode of its existence. It is owing to this that when this new content is set the essential task of making itself an object of beauty, the beauty, in the meaning of the terms under which we have met with it before, only persists as a subordinate mode, and the new conception of it becomes the _spiritual_ beauty of what is its own ideality made fully explicit, in other words, the subjectivity of Spirit essentially infinite in its mode.
In order, however, that mind may attain the infinity which belongs to it it must transcend at the same time purely formal and _finite_ personality and rise into the measure of the _Absolute._ That is to say, Spirit must declare itself as fulfilled with that which is out and out substantive, and in doing so proclaim itself as a self-knowing and self-willing subject. Conversely, therefore, what is substantive and true is no longer to be apprehended as a mere "beyond" relatively to our humanity, and the anthropomorphism of the Greek view of things can be struck out; and in the place of this we have humanity as very and real subjectivity affirmed as the principle, and by virtue of this change, as we have already seen, anthropomorphism for the first time reflects a truth of complete and final validity.
2. We have now in a general way to develop the range of subject-matter, no less than its form, from the earliest phases in the evolution of this principle, whose configuration, as it thus changes, is conditioned by the new content of romantic art.
The true principle of the romantic content is absolute inwardness[207], and the form which corresponds to it, the subjectivity of mind, meaning by this the comprehension of its self-subsistence and freedom. This intrinsically infinite principle and explicitly enunciated universal is the absolute negation of all particularity[208]; it is simple unity at home with itself, which consumes all that is separable, all processes of Nature and its succession of birth, passing away, and reappearance, all the limitations of spiritual existence, and dissolves all particular gods in its pure and infinite self-identity. In this Pantheon all gods are dethroned; the flame of the subjective essence has destroyed them; instead of the plastic polytheism art recognizes now _one_ God only, _one_ Spirit, _one_ absolute self-subsistence, which as the absolute knowledge and volition of itself remains in free union with it, and no longer falls to pieces in the particular characters and functions we have reviewed above, whose single unit of cohesion was the force of an obscure Necessity. Absolute subjectivity, however, in its purity would escape from art altogether, and only be present in the apprehension of Thought, unless it could enter into external existence in order that it might be a subjectivity which was _actual_ if also conformable to its notion, and further could recollect itself in its own province from out of this reality. And, what is more, this moment of reality is pertinent to the Absolute, because the Absolute, as infinite negativity, contains this self-relation--as simple unity of knowledge at home with itself, and therewith as _immediacy_--for the final consummation of its activity. On account also of this its immediate existence, which is rooted in the Absolute itself, the Absolute declares itself not as the one jealous God, who merely annuls the aspect of Nature and finite human existence, without revealing itself verily therein under the mode of actual divine subjectivity; rather the very Absolute unfolds itself, and takes to itself an aspect, relatively to which it is also within the grasp and presentation of art.
The determinate existence of God, however, is not the natural and sensuous in its simplicity, but the sensuous as brought home to that which is not sensuous, in other words to the subjectivity of mind which, instead of losing the certainty of its own presence as the Absolute, in its external envisagement, for the first time, and by no other means than this its reality, is made aware of its actual presence as such. God in His Truth is consequently no mere Ideal begotten of the imagination, but He declares Himself in the heart of finite condition and the external mode of contingent existence, and is, moreover, made known to Himself therein as divine subjective life, which maintains itself there as essentially infinite and creating this infinity for itself. Inasmuch, then, as the actual subject[209] is the manifestation of God, Art for the first time secures the superior right to apply the human figure and its mode of externality generally as a means to express the Absolute, although the new function of art can only consist in making the external form not a means whereby the ideality of man's inward condition is absorbed in exterior bodily shape, but rather conversely to make the consciousness of the Divine mind visible in the subject of consciousness. The distinguishable phases, which combine to make up the totality of this apprehension of the world-condition as, that is to say, the concrete totality of truth, are consequently made manifest to mankind from this point onwards under such a mode that it is neither the Natural in its simplicity, such as sun, heavens, stars, and so forth, nor the Greek conclave of the gods of beauty, nor the heroes and practical exploits in the field of the family cultus and political life--it is neither one nor any of these which supplies us with either content or form. Rather it is the actual and isolated individual subject who receives in the inward[210] substance of his living experience this infinite worth, for it is in him alone that the eternal characters of absolute Truth--which is made actual only as Spirit--expand out of their fulness within, and are concentrated to the point of determinate existence.
If we contrast this definition of romantic art with that which was proposed to the classical--that is to say, as Greek sculpture completed the latter under the mode most conformable to it--it is obvious that the plastic figure of the god does not express the motion and activity of Spirit, in so far as the same has retired from its actual bodily shape, and has penetrated to the inner shrine of independent self-identity. That which is mutable and contingent in the empirical aspect of individuality is no doubt removed from those lofty, godlike figures: what, however, fails them is the actualization of the subjective condition in its self-subsistent being as shown in self-knowledge and self-volition. This defect makes itself felt on the exterior side in the notable fact that the direct expression of soul in its simplicity, the light of the eye, is absent from the sculptured figure. The most exalted works of beautiful sculpture are sightless.
The inward life does not look forth from them as self-conscious inwardness such as this concentration of Spirit to the point of light made visible in the human eye offers us. This light of the soul falls outside of them, and is the possession of the beholder alone: he is unable to look through these figures as soul direct to soul, and eye to eye. The God of romantic art, however, is made known with sight, that is, self-knowing, subjective on the side of soul, and that soul or divine intimacy disclosing itself to soul. For the infinite negativity, the withdrawal of the spiritual into itself, cancels its discharge in the bodily frame. This subjectivity is the light of Spirit, which reveals itself in its own domain, in the place which was previously obscure, whereas the natural light can only give light on the face of an object, is in fact this _terrain_ and object, upon which it appears, and which it is aware of as itself[211]. Inasmuch as, however, this absolute intimacy of the soul expresses itself at the same time as the mode of human envisagement in its actual existing shape, and our humanity is bound up with the entire natural world, we shall find that there is no less a wide field of variety in the contents of the subjective world of mind than there is in that external appearance, to which Spirit is related as to its own dwelling-place.
The reality of absolute subjectivity, as above described, in the mode of its visible manifestation, possesses the following modes of content and appearance.
(_a_) Our first point of departure we must deduce from the Absolute itself, which as very and actual mind endows itself with determinate existence, is self-knowing in its thought and activity. Here we find the human form so represented that it is known immediately as the wholly self-possessed Divine. Man does not appear as man in his solely human character, in the constraint of his passions, finite aims, and achievements, or as merely conscious of God, but rather as the self-knowing one and only universal God Himself, in whose life and sufferings, birth, death, and resurrection He reveals openly also to finite consciousness, what Spirit, what the Eternal and Infinite in their veritable truth are[212]. Romantic art presents this content in the history of Christ, his mother, and his disciples, with all the rest of those in whom the Holy Spirit and the perfected Divine is manifested. For in so far as God, who is above all the essential Universal, exists in the manifestation of human existence, this reality is not, in the Divine figure of Christ, limited to isolate and immediate existence, but unfolds itself throughout the entire range of that humanity, in which the Spirit of God is made present, and in this actuality continues in unity with itself. The diffusion of this self-contemplation, this essential self-possession of mind[213], is peace, in other words the reconciled state of Spirit with its own dominion in the mode of its objective presence--a divine world, a kingdom of God, in which the Divine, which has for its substantive notion from the first reconciliation with itself, consummates this result in such a condition, and thereby secures its freedom.
(_b_) However much, we must fain add, this identification asserts itself as grounded in the essence of the Absolute itself, as spiritual freedom and infinity it is no reconciliation which immediately is visible from the first in either the real worlds of Nature or Spirit; on the contrary, it is only accomplished as the elevation of Spirit from the finitude of its immediate existence to its truth. As a corollary of this it follows that Spirit, in order to secure its totality and freedom, must effect an act of self-severation, and set up on the one side itself as the finitude of Nature and Spirit to its opposed self on the other as that which is essentially infinite.
Conversely with this act of disruption the necessity is conjoined that from out of this retirement from its unity--within the bounds of which the finite and purely natural, the immediacy of existence, the "natural" heart in the sense of the negative, evil and bad, one and all are defined--a way is at last found by virtue of the subjugation of all that has no substantive worth within the kingdom of truth and consolation. In this wise the reconcilement of Spirit can only be conceived as an activity, a movement of the same, can only be presented as a process, in whose course arise both strain and conflict, and the appearance and reappearance, as an essential feature of it, of pain, death, the mournful sense of non-reality, the agony of the soul and its bodily tenement. For just as God in the first instance disparts finite reality from Himself, so, too, finite man, who starts on his journey outside the divine kingdom, receives the task to exalt himself to God, to let loose from him the finite, to do away with the nothing-worth, and by means of this decease of his immediate reality to become that which God in His manifestation as man accomplished as very truth in the actual world. The infinite pain of this sacrifice of the most personal subjectivity, sufferings, and death, which for the most part were excluded from the representation of classical art, or rather only are presented there as natural suffering, receive their adequate treatment necessarily for the first time in romantic art.
It is, for example, impossible to affirm that among the Greeks death was ever conceived in its full and essential significance. Neither that which was purely natural, nor the immediacy of Spirit in its union with the bodily presence, was held by the Greeks as something in itself essentially negative. Death was consequently to them purely an abstract passing over, unaccompanied by horror or fearsomeness, a cessation without further immeasurable consequences for the deceased.
If, however, conscious life in its spiritual self-possession is of infinite worth then the negation, which death enfolds, is a negation of this exaltation and worth, and it is consequently fearful, a death of the soul, which is in the position of finding itself thereby as itself now this negative in explicit appearance, excluded for evermore from happiness, absolutely unhappy, delivered over to eternal damnation[214]. Greek individuality, on the contrary, does not, regarded as spiritual self-consciousness, attach this worth to itself; it is able, consequently, to surround death with more cheerful images.
Man only fears the loss of that which is of great worth to him[215].
Life possesses, however, only this infinite worth for mind if the subject thereof, as spiritual and self-conscious, is reality in its absolute unity, and is compelled with an apprehension, in this way justified, to image itself as doomed to negation by death. From another point of view, however, death also fails to secure from classical art the _positive_ significance which it receives from romantic art.