Past philosophical ideas about arts influence contemporary artistic practices. We still use traditional Idealist concepts, such as the autonomy of art or the subjective expression of the artist. At the same time, today's art often attacks and abandons Idealist thinking.

The author of this book analyses this relation between the Idealist conception of the arts including literature and present-day reality. The aim is to create a link between past and present artistic practices and theoretical, philosophical thinking. The author also questions the Idealist notions of history and the relation between the theoretical, the aesthetic and the practical, and seeks new ways to deal with the relation between the past and the present.