La formule mathématique de la beauté dans les Fragments esthétiques de G. Chpet

The Mathematical Formula of the Beauty in the “Aesthetic Fragments” of Gustav Shpet (Gustav Shpet’s Aesthetic Fragments, III)

My paper analyzes the 3rd volume of Gustav Shpet’s Aesthetic Fragments with special regard to his quasi-mathematical formula allegedly expressing “the aesthetic reception of the word” in a literary work that caps this text. The obviously unserious character of the algorithm proffered by Shpet raises the question of his intentions. The paper argues that this is a case of self-parody, of laughter that Samuel Beckett termed risus purus through which the Russian thinker reacted to the overall ambiguity of the socio-political situation in early 1922 when he wrote his essay.