Gaál’s doctoral dissertation-in-progress compares the conceptualization of romantic irony* with contemporary artistic practices. Romantic irony is a historical idea of the work of art maintaining multiple commitments without being bound to fixed standpoints of speaking. A specific mode of ‘irony’ that is ‘romantic’ in its character. The research is to contest romantic irony in the present-day as a form of emotional intelligence, and to compare it as the capacity of an abstract textual speaker to that of the artist. The project is a PhD study in fine arts. Romantic irony is the context to discuss the philosophical stance of possessing contradictory sense and the artistic quality of making subversions in a space of fiction. The genre of the dissertation is essay. It consists of artistic practice and a series of written components, applying artistic apprehension on theoretical abstractions and philosophical distinctions that informing the research in equal amounts. * (Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis & al, 1790s Germany, a.k.a. Jena romanticism. Romantic irony is their historical idea about art in its “modern state”, formulated in the group’s collective practice of experimental poetry. It was meant, eventually, to unite art and philosophy.)