Abstract

Responding to recent critical interest in the formal qualities of political arrangements, and the political significance of literary and cultural forms, this essay turns to the preeminent philosopher of political form: Carl Schmitt. My contention is not at all that recent interest in political form is, or ought to become, Schmittian. Rather, Schmitt’s theorization of—and difficulties with—political form illuminate the ambit and potential of political form in the present. A literary thread runs from Schmitt’s political formalism to those of our present moment: the legacy of Romanticism. Schmitt’s critique of Romanticism represents a sustained effort to think the limits of the political, yet his theorization of political form leads him back to the poets Byron and Shelley. This essay traces the dual development of political formalism and anti-Romanticism in Schmitt in order to present an immanent critique. Grappling with Schmittian political formalism challenges us to think about political form and Romanticism in new ways.