Shows that German idealist and romantic theories of literature and aesthetic judgment are closer to the heart of metaphysics and ethics than previously thought. This title explores the contributions of Schelling, Holderlin, and others to the aesthetics of tragedy, and charts the fate of the speculative philosophy in terms of the tragic.

ContentsAcknowledgmentsKey to Works CitedIntroduction1. The Oldest Program toward a System in German Idealism The Philological Dispute Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus: Text and Translation Commentary The Tragic Absolute?2. Three Ends of the Absolute Absolute Inhibition: Schelling Absolute Separation: Hölderlin Absolute Density: Novalis A Note on Absolute and Relative Death3. At the Stroke of One A Peripheral Reading of Schelling's Treatise on Human Freedom Excursus on Sehnsucht: Languor, the Languid, and Languishment The Peripheral Reading (continued) An Indifferent Reading of Schelling's Treatise on Human Freedom4. God's Trauma The Earliest Notes toward Schelling's The Ages of the World The Genealogy of Time, and the Golden Age Trauma, Repression, and the Absolute Past An Excursion to Samothrace5. God's Footstool From the 1811 Draft of Die Weltalter, with Variants from the 1810Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen and the 18271828 System der Weltalter From the Sketches toward the Second Proposed Volume ofDie Weltalter, "The Present" The Olympian Zeus of Pausanias's Guide to Greece The Forlorn Foot of Divinity6. Brazen Wheels Freedom to Burn: Schelling's Tenth Letter Absolute Mythology: The 18021803 Philosophy of Art The Klang of Music, the Fine Arts, and Tragedy Ironclad Necessity7. Voices of Empedocles "Dame Philosophy Is a Tyrant" Essence or Accidents? Nefas or Destiny? Formal Aspects of the Three Drafts of Hölderlin's Mourning-Play Rhea's Disappearance and the Rise of the Doppelgänger8. Hölderlin's "Translations" of Sophocles The Labors of Translation The Reviews Absolute Intensity and the Task of the Translator Translating "Theatrality"9. A Small Number of Houses in the Tragic Universe At the Center of Aristotle's Thought: The Poetics Divine Betrayal: Hölderlin's "Notes on Oedipus" In the Figure of Death: Hölderlin's "Notes on Antigone" 10. Hölderlin's Tragic Heroines Three Commentaries: Kommerell, Reinhardt, Loraux Jocasta's Shadow, Antigone's "Ath, Niobe's Tears, Danaë's Gold Return to Jocasta11. Antigone's Clout Lacan on the Essence of Tragedy Lacan on the Tragic Dimension of Psychoanalytic Experience Antigone between Two Deaths, Two Births12. Nietzschean Reminiscences Not a Single New Goddess? "Against the Oncoming Night" Kavqarsi~ and "Ekstasi~ in Absolute Music, Absolute Rhythm The Tragic AbsoluteAppendix: Plot Summaries of The Death of EmpedoclesBibliographyIndex