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Arts & Communication Sublime and education in Schiller

natural element from afar to witnessing human suffering the Schillerian sublime coincides with the tragic. 24,25 . Since
displaying itself directly before the spectator. In this case, its inception, Schiller’s reworking of Kantian esthetics
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the imagination must simply reflect the suffering within of the sublime intertwines with his project of writing a
the subject to produce a state of affective engagement. The theory of tragedy, which Schiller had been planning to
highest forms of Schillerian sublime, remarks Hinnant, can carry out since before his contact with Kant’s texts (1791),
thus be distinguished by the imaginative power to affect prompted by the university course he taught in Jena in
the sensibility of the subject through fear (Furcht) and 1790, for which he set out to write a never-completed essay
compassion (Mitleid). The involvement of affects in the entitled Theory of Tragedy (Theorie des Trauerspiels). As
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sublime dynamics, however, does not represent ipso facto the a result, in Schiller’s conception of the sublime, some of
transition from the Kantian to the Schillerian standpoint; the psychological categories of the 18th-century esthetics
if only as an exception, Kant admits the participation of on tragedy – primarily that of compassion (Mitleid), taken
enthusiasm in the experience of the sublime, as an affect up from Mendelssohn and Lessing 27,28 – merge with Kant’s
sui generis mediated by the idea of good. The shift from transcendental esthetics. This unique blend takes shape
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2
Kant to Schiller rather consists in the function that the precisely in Schiller’s pathetically sublime, which can thus
latter attributes to the affective moment. Whereas in Kant be defined as its artistic or tragic form. In On the Pathetic
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the affect holds a merely external and conclusive position (Über das Pathetische), the shift from the esthetics of the
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in the esthetic phenomenon, as an accidental product of sublime to the theory of tragedy fosters Schiller’s original
the moral reaction, in Schiller, the affection converts into reformulation of the Kantian esthetic phenomenon. 3
a necessary condition for the dialectical transition from
the sensible and cognitive dimension to the intelligible and 3. The role of imagination in On the Pathetic
practical dimension: the “supersensible resistance” asserts In this 1793 essay, Schiller transforms Kant’s notion of
itself exclusively by taking control of, or more generally, by imagination (Einbildungskraft) from a transcendental
contrasting the affection. 22 structure of knowledge into a faculty of mediation between
In this regard, Schiller’s reformulation of Kantian the sensible and the rational spheres. This process of
esthetics seems to further distance the sublime from the metamorphosis, as highlighted by Ophälders and Feger, 31,32
esthetic category of beauty. In Kant, beauty and the sublime will assign to the faculty of imagination a political and
already differ in the relationship of harmony or opposition anthropological significance in the following years,
that reason and imagination establish within the subject. As underlying the concept of esthetic education in both the
far as the theory of beauty is concerned, Schiller’s esthetics Aesthetic Education and Concerning the Sublime (Über das
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reflects and develops the Kantian interpretation of the Erhabene). In On the Pathetic, the faculty of imagination
harmonic relationship between the faculties of the mind transfers the subject from the dimension of reality, in
during the esthetic experience of beauty. In the Aesthetic which he affectively suffers the tragic event represented
Education, indeed, the harmonic form in which the on stage, to the ideal dimension, where the hero’s suffering
intelligible manifests itself in the esthetic world – the “living converts into an object of esthetic contemplation. Within
form” (lebende Gestalt) – induces an equal harmonization this imaginative space – foreshadowing the space of
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within the subject. In the writings on the sublime, on the esthetic illusion of the Aesthetic Education, in which the
contrary, Schiller’s introduction of affects establishes a new real world transforms into the “world of appearance”
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and more profound difference between beauty and the (Welt des Scheins) – the subject stops regarding the tragic
sublime, concerning the active involvement of sensibility contradiction between the hero and his destiny in favor of
in the esthetic experience. Nonetheless, integrating affects the sublimity of an ideal reconciliation, although confined
into the sublime dynamics is part of Schiller’s broader 2 For the relationship between Schiller’s theory of the sublime
transformation of the Kantian sublime, extending the and his dramatic works, see P. Barone (2004), Schiller
sublime domain from the natural world to the artistic und die Tradition des Erhabenen. Berlin: Schmidt Verlag,
dimension of tragedy. I indeed agree with Petrus and Pinna p.164–337.
in pointing out that, as far as its pathetic form is concerned, 3 The text Über das Pathetische first appeared in September
1793 in the magazine “Neue Thalia” (third and fourth
1 The official English translation of Schiller’s theoretical issues) as the second part of the essay On the Sublime (Vom
works employs the term “pathetic” to translate the original Erhabenen). The first section, discussed in the previous
German pathetisch; W. Hinderer, D.O. Dahlstrom (eds) paragraph, was later set aside by Schiller in 1801 when
(1993), Friedrich Schiller. Essays. New York: Continuum. In collecting some of his aesthetic writings in a volume titled
this context, the word means “having a capacity to move one Kleinere prosaische Schriften von Schiller. This editorial
to compassionate pity,” “marked by sorrow or melancholy” choice has generally led to considering On the Pathetic as an
(Merriam-Webster). independent essay.

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2024) 3 doi: 10.36922/ac.2942