Ironic Approach to the Absolute

An Ironic Approach to the Absolute: Schlegel’s Poetic Mysticism brings Friedrich Schlegel’s ironic fragments in dialogue with the Dao De Jing and John Ashbery’s Flow Chart to argue that poetic texts offer an intuition of the whole because they resist the reader’s desire to comprehend them fully. Karolin Mirzakhan argues that although Schlegel’s ironic fragments proclaim their incompleteness in both their form and their content, they are the primary means for facilitating an intuition of the Absolute. Focusing on the techniques by which texts remain open, empty, or ungraspable, Mirzakhan’s analysis uncovers the methods that authors use to cultivate the agility of mind necessary for their readers to intuit the Absolute. Mirzakhan develops the term “poetic mysticism” to describe the experience of the Absolute made possible by particular textual moments,examining the Dao De Jing and Flow Chart to provide an original account of the striving to know the Absolute that is non-linear, non-totalizing, and attuned to non-presence. This conversation with ancient and contemporary poetic texts enacts the romantic imperative to join philosophy with poetry and advances a clearer communication of the notion of the Absolute that emerges from Schlegel’s romantic philosophy.

In her agile, lucid and brilliant book, Karolin Mirzakhan primarily identifies the ironic character of Friedrich Schlegel's romantic fragments as path to this Absolute. Perhaps it is precisely because of its ironic vocation that this clever book leaves open some of the questions it raises, inviting the reader to always be "alive and critical" towards Symphilosophy or sympoetry., "Karolin Mirzakhan's An Ironic Approach to the Absolute: Schlegel's Poetic Mysticism argues for the contemporary relevance of Friedrich Schlegel's ironic approach to the interpretation of texts as diverse as ancient philosophy and contemporary poetry. Reading irony against the usual interpretive tendency to emphasize its relation to either transcendence or disruption, Mirzakhan's argument that irony simultaneously testifies to its own finitude and deploys contradiction to exceed limits provides a rich addition to the literature on this subject.", "Mirzakhan states that her purpose in writing is pedagogical, and her attention to her readers and skill as a communicator are evident throughout this sensitive text. As Mirzakhan claims, Schlegel’s writings on irony and the Dao De Jing are mutually illuminating, especially as deployed by Mirzakhan. Mirzakhan’s patient, insightful unpicking of Schlegelian irony and its resistance to Hegel’s criticism in the early chapters provides an access point to some of the most apparently counter-intuitive claims of this ancient text. Mirzakhan’s careful exposition of the use of metaphor, performance, and other indirect forms of communication in the Dao De Jing guide the reader towards what is unspoken, unilluminated – that which exceeds language and thought – at the heart of Schlegel’s philosophy. Mirzakhan concludes with a lucid account of John Ashbery’s poem Flow Chart that brings the encounter with the Absolute into the 20th century.", "The philosophical significance of Early German Romanticism has regained considerable recognition and, within this movement, Friedrich Schlegel deserves special attention. Karolin Mirzakhan's well-written study succeeds in illuminating the complex ironic features of Schlegel's work by comparing it in an original way with that of other writers, ancient (Laozi) and contemporary (Ashbery).", "Given that the early German Romantics were some of the first truly comparative philosophers, it is most fitting that in, An Ironic Approach to the Absolute, Karolin Mirzakhan places Schlegel’s work into a truly comparative context. This exciting, innovative study clearly establishes Mirzakhan as one of the leading new voices on Schlegel’s work."

Karolin Mirzakhan is a lecturer of philosophy at Kennesaw State University.