Abstract

The relationship between Heine and Marx in Paris between 1843 and 1844 is the story of an extraordinary intellectual consonance. Heine’s concepts find space in Marx, those of Marx in Heine, like a thick web of references. Above all, the concept of «comedy», taken up critically by the Hegelian theorization. Not tragedy, Heine argues, but farce contrasts with comedy. This way of redefining the classic aesthetic plexus is now charged with pregnant political contents: in Heine as in Marx is in question a radical interpretation of one’s historical time. Heine, in particular, uses it to elaborate a complex (and original in many ways) theory of revolution, the influence of which leaves a consistent and problematic trace even in the mature Marx.