On the Lyrical Presentation of History: Hegel and the Modern Poem

Abstract

The article recasts the pre-history of philosophy as it is understood by G. W. F. Hegel, so as to examine what a “Lyrical Presentation of History” might have been. The essay argues that Hegel’s treatment of history at the end of his Lectures on Aesthetics suffers from an inattention to the specific philosophical content of modern lyrical poetry, which can be located in his claim that lyrical poetry is primarily concerned with the subject. In contrast, the author argues that Hegel’s account ought to have led him to hold that lyrical poetry is primarily concerned with subjective, alienated worlds, which he calls “counterworlds”. The essay ends with a brief treatment of three poems by Paul Celan to show how this shift in the meaning of lyrical poetry would have led Hegel to give greater weight to lyrical poetry in his theory of history.