A Nietzschean Reading of Romanticism: Aesthetics of Loss (Case Study of the Novel Life is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera)

Document Type : Original Article

10.48308/kj.2024.233782.1205

Abstract

This paper is a critique of Romanticism as aesthetics of Loss. As a case study, this
paper addresses Life is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera. Nietzsche says that an abundant
life is a major cause of the tragic pain (strong pessimism), but a sense of Loss results
in Romantic aesthetics (week pessimism). A Romantic poet has been chosen as a
prophet who has access to a transcendent truth: a truth going far beyond ordinary
limits; he is a person who is immature because he used to live in ideal place (womb).
The Lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel is an epic of
immaturity. The lyric poetry is an ideal form for self-expression, a poetry that prays
emotions per se. Actions have been replaced by enthusiasm. In practice this means
that poetry retreated into the soul. The current study has already described the crisis of Romanticism as an excess of subjective interiority. A poet goes so far as to say Reality is reduced to the aesthetic object. An action is the conditioned domain, but passion aims at the unconditioned. Poetry is always separate from the reality. These inward explorations do not coincide with the external world. This article focuses on a young poet, Jaromil, who aimed at the unconditioned, yet his last attempt ended in failure, falling under the spell of metaphors. 

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References

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History

  • Receive Date: 15 November 2023
  • Revise Date: 03 January 2024
  • Accept Date: 17 February 2024

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