Abstract

The main aim of this essay is to investigate the notion of extraneousness in the different meanings it takes on within Hegelian philosophy, i.e. considered both as tragic otherness and as cultural otherness. From Jena to Nuremberg and Berlin, Hegel develops an always relative conception of extraneousness that will be put in synergy in the present contribution with other more radical and contemporary interpretations of extraneousness – such as that of Dag Solstad – in order to evaluate the potential and limits of a notion that is as precious as it is dangerous, if conceived in its absoluteness. On the basis of a plastic and porous conception of extraneousness and of a philosophy of art based on the infinite exploration of the human being, it will therefore be possible to rethink the controversial thesis of the end – or death – of art, considered in its particular declination as the end of literature.