Abstract: The intellectual progression from Hegel and Schelling to Marx gradually established the concept of the “real” (Wirklichkeit) as a fundamental concept of modern philosophy, in which process, Early Romanticism also made significant contributions. From Early Romanticism to Marx, new meanings of the “real” were elucidated across four dimensions: emphasizing sensuous reality in terms of individuality, spontaneity, personality, passion, and concrete specificity; emphasizing social reality from the perspective of community (and its unity with individuality); emphasizing natural reality from the angle of an ever-generating, creative nature; and emphasizing creative reality from the vantage point of constant creation based on art and technology. Marx’s historical materialism advanced each of these dimensions further on the foundation laid by Early Romanticism. Individual reality does not conflict with rational universality but rather harmonizes with it; social reality is not grounded in traditional communities but in modern economic and social life; and the “nature” that freely follows, extends, and sublimates is termed the “real nature”-These are the three dimensions expounded upon in this paper. Marx’s immersion in the intellectual genealogy of Romanticism during his student years, as well as his exposure to the theory of the “romantic machine” in Paris, render the study of the relationship between historical materialism and Early Romanticism not only meaningful but also grounded in tangible historical fact. The historical materialist conception of reality absorbed and sublimated the Early Romantic conception of reality.

Key words: individual reality, social reality, natural reality, Early Romanticism, Marx