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This chapter looks at the major thinkers about the philosophy of the novel over time. Giambattista Vico is identified as the first major figure, though he did not write about the novel, because his writing about epic poetry and the loss of the poetic sets up the themes of philosophy of the novel. Friedrich Schlegel is considered as the first notable philosopher of the novel, operating with German Romanticism, taking the novel as an ironic play of subjective positions. Kierkegaard is then taken up with reference to his views on irony and modernity. This is the stage for consideration of other thinkers of the novel, with regard to the historically embedded nature of the novel along with the philosophical significance of the relation between subjectivity and history.

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-54794-1_12

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