The romantic theory of the novel

Throughout his study Parlej emphatically distinguishes the romantic theory of the novel from the historical genre that dominated nineteenth-century literature. In addition, by stressing the speculative-idealist origins of the theory, he sets it apart from purely formalist approaches that concentrate on self-reflexive, self-referential narrative experimentation. Parlej begins by discussing romantic theory's development by Friedrich Schlegel in the context of German idealism, especially as found in Kant, Fichte, and Novalia. Modern literary theory as articulated by Walter Benjamin, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, and others is then brought to bear on that original framework. According to Parlej, the revelation of an ironic subject in the romantic novel points to a constitutive bridge between romantic theory and speculative genre theory, Schlegel, in his speculative aesthetics, prepared the groundwork for postmodernity, and the romantic concept of the novel was essential in that preparation. Parlej goes on to examine five great works of world literature in light of Schlegel's formula that "every theory of the novel must itself be a novel." In a masterly application of theory, he identifies in each work traits of the romantic dissolved subject, which speaks ironically and is expressed by a specific transcendental genre: involution in Don Quixote: mood in Pierre; la syncope in Madame Bovary; example in Ulysses; and the neuter in The Trial. Through original, detailed readings of these masterpieces, he evaluates the relevance that romantic theory holds for texts written after historical romanticism and expands upon the theoretical work of Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida, Manfred Frank, Rodolphe Gasche, and Philippe Sollers.