Sujeto, creación y naturaleza: el concepto de genio en la Crítica del discernimiento de Kant y en la Obra Filosófica de Novalis

Abstract

Many authors, taking as read the decisive importance for early Romantic writers of the Kantian concept of genius as developed in the Critique of Judgement, tend to regard the development of the idea of genius in Novalis as a derivative of this Kantian concept. In his Philosophical Writings, however, Novalis claims that his conception of genius is actually the specific result of a renewed polemical engagement with the Critique of Pure Reason. As for the developments presented by Kant in his third critique, Novalis does not mention them in his letters and writings, or indeed make any reference whatever to this text.In the absence of evidence for a direct reading by Novalis, therefore, this paper will attempt to analyse some of the commonalities between the two authors, associating them not with a direct influence of the philosopher on the poet, but with the influence on both of a set of texts forming part of the so-called Platonic revival of the eighteenth century (Beiser, 2003). Thus, the paper will offer an analysis of the doctrine of genius in both authors, not by deriving one from the other but by highlighting the points they have in common and associating them with conceptions from Platonism that could be the basis for these similarities.