"
This paper, which had been set by R. Nielsen, is characteristic of the
purely speculative manner, indifferent to all study of history, in which
Aesthetics were at that time pursued in Copenhagen. It was, moreover,
worded with unpardonable carelessness; it was impossible to tell from it
what was to be understood by the correlation on which it was based, and
which was assumed to be a given conclusion. Even so speculative a
thinker as Frederik Paludan-Mueller called the question absolutely
meaningless. It looked as though its author had imagined Shakespeare's
dramas and Dante's epic were produced by a kind of artistic commingling
of pathetic with symbolic elements, and as though he wished to call
attention to the danger of reversing the correct proportions, for
instance, by the symbolic obtaining the preponderance in tragedy, or
pathos in the epopee, or to the danger of exaggerating these
proportions, until there was too much tragic pathos, or too much epic
symbolism. But a scientific definition of the expressions used was
altogether lacking, and I had to devote a whole chapter to the
examination of the meaning of the problem proposed to me.
The essay, for the writing of which I was allowed six weeks, was handed
in, 188 folio pages long, at the right time. By reason of the sheer
foolishness of the question, it was never published.
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