Between irony and dialectis

Kierkegaard in the blindspot of romanticism

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate Kierkegaard's ambiguous relationship with the Romantic tradition in his book The Concept of Irony. We argue that, on the one hand, Kierkegaard remained faithful to the Hegelian critique of romantic irony, since he understood it as a hypostasis of subjectivity and uncontrolled fantasy, and therefore incapable of reflecting on its historical roots. To this end, we focus on Kierkegaard’s criticism of Friedrich Schlegel's novel Lucinde, which, in his view, clearly embodied this poetic disregard for rules. On the other hand, however, we aim to show that Kierkegaard also had great affinity with the tradition he so thoroughly criticized: whether in his style, through the use of fragmentary forms of writing, or in his project of bringing philosophy and life closer together, which lied at the core of the romantic critique of abstract concepts.