August Wilhelm Von Schlegel (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy
August Wilhelm von Schlegel

First published Thu Jan 14, 2010; substantive revision Fri Jun 9, 2017
August W. Schlegel (Sept. 5, 1767, Hanover – May 12, 1845, Bonn) was a German essayist, critic,
translator, philosopher, and poet. Although the philosophical dimension and profundity of his
writings remain underrated, he is considered to be one of the founders of the German Romantic
Movement—which he conceived of as a European movement—as well as one of the most
prominent disseminators of its philosophical foundational ideas, not only in Germany but also
abroad and, most notably, in Britain.
Schlegel had an outstanding knowledge of art, history, literature, architecture, anthropology, and
foreign languages, which made him a decisive figure in the early development of comparative
literature (cf. Craig 2000: 864) and modern linguistics, and with the creation of the journal Indische
Bibliothek, he inaugurated the domain of Sanskrit studies in Germany. He also wrote poetry and
drama; but he is mostly known for his critical writings and his brilliant translations into German of
Shakespeare, which are still used today.
1. Life and Work

1.1 Some Biographical Notes on A.W. Schlegel
1.2 A.W. Schlegel’s Writings and Their Reception
2. A.W. Schlegel’s Influence in German and European Romanticism: The Athenaeum and the
Lectures
3. Philosophy of Art
3.1 Art and Nature
3.2 Romantic Art and the Longing for a Lost Unity
3.3 The Poetical and the Critique of Art
4. Philosophy of Language
5. Translation Theory
6. The Role of the Critic and Schlegel’s Romantic Nationalism
6.1 Between Enlightenment and Romanticism
6.2 Nationalism versus Cosmopolitanism
7. A.W. Schlegel: A Thinker of Difference
Bibliography
Works by A.W. Schlegel
Collected Works
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schlegel-aw/ 13/05/2019 20=16

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Literary Works
Critical Works
Translations
Letters
English Translations
Selected Secondary Literature
English
German
Academic Tools
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries
1. Life and Work

1.1 Some Biographical Notes on A.W. Schlegel
August Wilhelm Schlegel was son of Johanna Christiane Erdmuthe Schlegel (née Hübsh) and
Johann Adolf Schlegel, who was a Lutheran clergyman and poet. He was born in September of
1767, in Hanover. He initiated his studies at the University of Göttingen in 1786, first in theology
and later in classical philology and aesthetics. It is also in Göttingen that he first met Wilhelm von
Humboldt and Caroline Michaelis (Caroline Böhmer after 1784), an intellectual and scholar who
encouraged him and also participated in his Shakespeare translations. His youngest brother,
Friedrich Schlegel, joined him in 1790. During this period, he was influenced by some of his
lecturers, such as Heyne, Bürger, and Eschenburg, and the works of authors such as Johann
Gottfried Herder (cf. Ewton 1972 and Hölter 2010: 16–18). August Schlegel finished his studies in
1791 and moved to Amsterdam where he worked until 1795 as a private teacher of Willem
Ferdinand Mogge Muilman. In 1796 he moved to Jena to work as a literary critic. His brother
Friedrich also followed him to Jena, and they both joined important artists and philosophers such
as Novalis, Ludwig Tieck, Dorothea Schlözer, and F.W.J. Schelling, thus forming the ‘heart’ of the
so called Jena Romantik. In this same year, he married the widow Caroline Böhmer, whose role in
A.W. Schlegel’s translations of Shakespeare as well as other writings attributed solely to him (such
as the dialogue Die Gemälde, first published in the Athenaeum in 1799) was much more important
than has been acknowledged. In fact, as Ernst Behler claims, Caroline “had a decisive influence
upon the formulation of early Romantic theory” (Behler 1993: 40).
In 1798, tired of the publishing difficulties endured within the existing literary journals, A.W.
Schlegel and his brother Friedrich Schlegel founded the famous periodical Athenaeum. They were
both the editors and the main writers of this journal, which would offer an alternative to
mainstream classicist approaches in literary criticism and which was soon to become one of the
main outlets of the German Early Romantic Movement. The Athenaeum was devoted primarily to
literary criticism with a philological and historical perspective, and a large section of it featured the
review of contemporary literature. It contained critical essays, fragments, letters, announcements,
and dialogues and appeared twice a year in the period between 1798 and 1800. Most importantly,

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though, the Athenaeum became the “leading publication of the early Romantics” (Behler 1993: 36).
In that same year, 1798, A.W. Schlegel started giving Lectures at the University of Jena. He also
continued his translation of the works of Shakespeare (1797–1810), but on the whole his new
involvement with the university meant that his presence in the Athenaeum would suffer, as did his
marriage (Paulin 2016: 126). In 1801 Schlegel moved alone to Berlin, where he also lectured on
literature and art at the University. Both his Jena (1798–1799) and his Berlin Lectures (1801–1804)
were highly didactic while at the same time interspersed with important philosophical insights. So,
as well as providing a comprehensive vision of the history of European literature, poetry, and
mythology, Schlegel presented a new critical and philosophical (i.e., systematic) approach to art
and its history. Some of these lectures were published in literary journals, until 1884 when they
were posthumously collected as Vorlesungen über philosophische Kunstlehere (Lectures on
Philosophical Art Education) and Vorlesungen über schöne Literatur und Kunst (Lectures on Fine
Art and Literature) respectively. Four years later, in Vienna, Schlegel delivered another series of
lectures elaborating upon some of the ideas he had developed in his previous work. A literal
transcription of these lectures was published between 1809 and 1811 as Vorlesungen über
dramatische Kunst und Literatur (A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature). A more
extended version of his Course of Lectures was published in an 1816 edition: by that time, they had
already been translated into English, French, Dutch, and Italian and had obtained a wide
circulation. Later Schlegel shows awareness of the fact that he was read “not only from Cadiz to St.
Petersburg, but in North America as well and even as far as Asia” (Paulin 2016: 561). Indeed, the
successful circulation of his Vienna Lectures facilitated the dissemination of the fundamental ideas
underlying the Romantic Movement throughout Europe, and helped to solidify Schlegel’s influence
and reputation as a critic.
After his divorce from Caroline Michaelis, who left him for his friend the philosopher F.W.J.
Schelling, Schlegel became Mme. de Staël’s constant companion on her travels in Germany, Italy,
France, and Sweden until her death in 1817. He also was tutor of her children. In August 1818 he
married Sophie Paulus in Heidelberg, but they only remained together for a few weeks. Sophie
never accompanied him to Bonn, where Schlegel was appointed Professor of Literature and Art
History and lectured until 1844, a year before his death.
Alongside his academic work, A.W. Schlegel was a remarkably talented translator; he translated
over 16 Shakespearean plays, five plays by Calderón de la Barca, and selected pieces by Dante,
Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Miguel de Cervantes, Torquato Tasso, and Luís de Camões,
published in 1804 as Blumensträusse italiänischer, spanischer, und portugiesischer Poesie,
(Bouquets of Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese Poetry). He also made the first complete translation
of the Bhagavadgītā from Sanskrit into Latin, which helped to promote and popularize the book in
Germany (cf. Adluri and Bagche 2014: 33f.).
A.W. Schlegel can rightly be regarded as one of the first and most significant founders of Indology
in Western Europe. Apart from his translations of Sanskrit texts, and the publishing the scholarly
journal Indische Bibliothek (1820–1830), he set up a Sanskrit printing press with which he
provided the first printed editions of the Bhagavadgītā (1823) and Rāmāyana (1829) in continental
Europe.

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1.2 A.W. Schlegel’s Writings and Their Reception
An anthology of some of A.W. Schlegel’s critical essays, selected by the author himself, was
published in Berlin in 1828. Despite his opposition to the publication of the rest of his essays, A.W.
Schlegel’s ‘collected works’ were edited by E. Böcking and published in 16 volumes between 1846
and 1848 (the collection is not complete). Since then, there has been no standard, critical edition of
his works. A critical edition of his Vienna lectures was edited by E. Behler in 1989 (the edition of
his complete lectures is still in progress), and (some of his) his letters were edited by J. Körner and
published in 1930. All in all, the situation of A.W. Schlegel’s texts leaves much to be desired.
Especially during the Athenaeum period, Schlegel’s writings are witty, original, and sagacious in
both form and content (e.g., Die Sprachen, Die Gemälde). After this period, i.e., once he started
lecturing at the University, his style seems to lose its boldness and wit, gaining perhaps in depth
and erudition. Some scholars suggest that these two developments are not unconnected (cf. Paulin
2016: 126). Thus, while stressing their formal perfection, critics of his literary writings (Gedichte,
1800; Ion, 1803; Poetische Werke, 1811) tend to justify his lack of success as a poet. It is as if A.W.
Schlegel was not able to follow the aesthetics standards that he himself had developed
theoretically. Other scholars, however, consider his play Ion a great success. But, on the whole,
Heinrich Heine’s view that both Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel “were critics and
interpreters rather than poets” (Heine [1833] 1985: 2) seems to be widely accepted (cf. Craig 2000:
863; Ziolkowski 2016: 270), even by those who are critical towards Heine’s extremely negative
and sarcastic outbursts against the Schlegels.
By contrast, Schlegel’s lectures as well as his translations (some of which are still used today) were
very successful and influential. It was indeed A.W. Schlegel’s lectures, with their particular view of
world literature as an organic whole, that were to influence many authors. F.W.J. Schelling (the
most Romantic of the German idealist philosophers) and G.W. Hegel, for instance, used Schlegel’s
Jena lectures as a basis for the elaboration of their Lectures on the Philosophy of Art (1802–1804)
and Lectures on Aesthetics (1818) respectively. But A.W. Schlegel’s influence was not restricted to
Germany alone. His lectures, having been translated into many languages and successfully
promoted by authors such as Mme de Staël (Grundmann 2005: 40), were also extremely influential
abroad—S.T. Coleridge being perhaps the most notable example (cf. Helmholtz-Phelan 1907). In
the preface to his critical essays (Kritische Schriften, Berlin, 1828), Schlegel explains how many of
the ‘revolutionary’ ideas he had formerly defended in his essays and lectures had been internalized
and normalized by those very critics who had once rejected them with contempt. A.W. Schlegel’s
response to this was modest: he said, he had just been able to foresee the coming shift of taste and
evaluative parameters in the understanding and the interpretation of works of art (KS: I, vi).
Some critics have argued that, as a literary critic, A.W. Schlegel is more empirical and less
philosophical than his brother Friedrich (cf. Welleck 1955: 72–73). And it has even been
questioned whether A.W. Schlegel is the genuine creator of the ideas laid out in his writings and
lectures (Heine [1833] 1985: 47). Yet, however convincing the distinction between ‘having
created’ the ideas as opposed to merely ‘having disseminated’ them may seem, this claim is quite
disputable. Schlegel’s philosophical analyses of art and the artist were undoubtedly inspired by his

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reading of and/or encounters with Herder, Kant, Fichte, Goethe, Schiller, and Schelling among
others, but he developed his own poetology. A.W. Schlegel’s lectures had a unique dialectic
character (Schlegel himself suggest that his lectures are to be understood as a dialogue), combining
high theoretical standards with an appealing, empirical approach, thus offering “one of the first
narratives of the historical and philosophical interrelation of all art forms” (Franzel 2014: 351). In
the development and presentation of his theoretical position, he was indeed less speculative than
other German philosophers (such as Hegel). But as Walter Benjamin notes, this is the result of a
conscious decision to make room for a more critical approach, which renders Schlegel’s position
surprisingly modern (Benjamin [1920] 1996: 118). In a mixture of pride and censure, Schlegel
frequently notes how German authors are more speculative than practical (LDA: 16 and 440).
Moreover, his aesthetical essays can be seen as a comment on and criticism of those more
speculative Germanic approaches in which the particular work of art and the artist seem to be
relegated to a secondary level and are treated like the piece of a theoretical ‘whole’. Die Gemälde,
a dialogue on painting as well as a fictive visit through the gallery of Dresden (cf. Penzel 2007:
77ff.) that he co-wrote with Caroline Michaelis, is a good example of this, precisely for the
attentive way in which it approaches and engages with the individual paintings (Paulin 2016: 160).
Overall, though, A.W. Schlegel’s writings are prolific, but remain somewhat unfocused and
repetitive. As Schlegel himself had often regretted, by taking too many different topics into
consideration, his work lost the intensity of its philosophical and critical insights.
Although Schlegel’s lectures were “avidly devoured by intellectuals from all of the European
countries” (Engel and Lehmann 2004: 84) and in spite of what could be regarded as quite a success
during his lifetime—Schlegel himself was proud to have been read “from Cadiz to Edinburgh,
Stockholm and St. Petersburg” (Schirmer 1986: 233) –, the works of A.W. Schlegel have suffered
from an arguably unfair and prejudiced neglect. A first full-scale biography was only published in
2016 (!). In this biography, Roger Paulin argues that Schlegel’s reputation “never quite recovered
from Heine’s devastating attack in Die Romantische Schule of 1835” (Paulin 2016: 3). “Apart from
the Vienna Lectures and the Shakespeare translations”, he writes, “it is Heine’s attack that remains
in the general consciousness”, so that in the end the image that pervades is one of “decline,
déchéance, decrepitude, impotence” (Paulin 2016: 542). Nonetheless, the recent rising number of
dissertations, articles, and even monographies (such as Paulin’s) dedicated to different aspects
A.W. Schlegel’s writings, seem to suggest that there is a slow but steady change of attitude towards
his work.
2. A.W. Schlegel’s Influence in German and European

Romanticism: The Athenaeum and the Lectures
Despite the emphasis the ‘Romantics’ laid on the individual artist, the figure of the genius,
originality, and individuality in general (cf. Schulte-Sasse [1985] 1988: 136–137), the
conceptualization of the Romantic Movement itself needs to be understood essentially as a
collective process. And yet, as problematic as it may be to ascribe the original conception of the
romantic aesthetical and philosophical precepts to one author alone, A.W. Schlegel’s influence in
the conceptualization as well as the dissemination of some of the most characteristic and informing

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principles of German Romanticism—including the term ‘Romantic’ (romantisch) itself (cf. Ferber
2005)—is by no means trivial. Indeed, if the periodical Athenaeum (which A.W. Schlegel co-edited
and co-created with his brother Friedrich) was to become the ‘organ’ of the Romantic Movement, it
is undisputable that A.W. Schlegel’s popular lectures in Jena (1798), Berlin (1801–1804), and
Vienna (1808–1812) “disseminated the aesthetics of German Romanticism across Europe” (Engel
and Lehmann 2004: 84).
The Romantic Movement emerged, on the one hand, as a reaction against Classicist and
Neoclassicist aesthetical ideals (largely based on mimesis and representation, Behler 1993: ix), and
on the other, as a critique from the somewhat blind faith in reason set up by the Enlightenment and
which had proved to be unsatisfactory. Until the creation of the Athenaeum, A.W. Schlegel had
published some of his writings in Friedrich Schiller’s periodical Die Horen (which was to Weimar
Classicism what the Athenaeum would be to German Romanticism). Both he and his brother,
Friedrich, however soon realized that their particular aesthetic views, philosophical insights, and
literary criticisms (which they shared or thought to share with a number of authors such as Novalis,
Tieck, Fichte, and Schleiermacher) needed a new, adequate space to be published without
constraints. The Athenaeum was created with precisely this view in mind and was to provide an
alternative space that was open to new aesthetic ideas. And although it was conceived as a
collective work with an intended and welcomed diversity of positions, styles, and literary forms
(letters, aphorisms, dialogues, literary criticism, etc.), their main idea was that they would publish
only those pieces that they could consider as “their own” (A: I, iv). In effect: there were two
editors, several writers, and a diversity of opinions, but one unifying principle (A: I, vi). The
Athenaeum thus became the hotbed for powerful, original and philosophically revolutionary ideas
and insights about poetry, literature, and art in general (cf. Paulin 2016: 118).
But, in order for these ideas to have the transformative effect that the German Romantic movement
actually had within and beyond Germany, they needed to be not only systematized and organized
into a more tangible unit, but also disseminated to broader audiences. This is precisely the role that
A.W. Schlegel’s lectures played (cf. Franzel 2014). As Jochen Schulte-Sasse, argues: Schlegel’s
Berlin Vorlesungen über schöhne Kunst und Literatur (‘Lectures on Fine Arts and Literature’),
which he gave between 1801 and 1804, “have to be seen as a programmatic attempt to explain
early Romantic theories of art in a relatively ‘popular’ and accessible form” (Schulte-Sasse [1985]
1988: 136). Indeed, the last series of these lectures (1803–1804) were dedicated entirely to the
‘History of Romantic Literature’. These Berlin lectures, however, were not published until 1884
(and to my knowledge never translated into English), but Schlegel made an effort to circulate them;
for instance he sent them to Schelling, who then used them for his own Jena lectures on art. To be
sure, Schlegel’s later Vienna lectures, which were translated into several languages and rapidly
disseminated across Europe, were largely based on his Berlin lectures.
Throughout his lectures and essays, A.W. Schlegel praised the plays of Shakespeare and Calderón
to the detriment of French Neoclassical theatre. This criticism was not arbitrary, but was part of a
systematic and organic comprehension of art and art history. However, his harsh attack on classical
rules considered ‘sacred’ by French critics predisposed the latter to react with hostility (especially
to the publication of the polemical Comparaison entre la Phèdre de Racine et celle d’Euripide, in

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1807), whilst being favored by English reviewers. In fact, the rediscovery of Shakespeare’s
greatness in the 19th century was due, not only to Schlegel’s translations, but most importantly to
his special approach to Shakespearean theatre: instead of comparing Shakespeare to ancient
Tragedy, as if it were a bad copy, Schlegel claimed it should be analyzed on the grounds of
constituting a necessary and historical difference. This difference—the difference between the
ancients and the modern—was the cornerstone of Schlegel’s critique and set the basis for his
theoretical use of the concept Romantic, which became the key-concept in his comprehension and
reevaluation of modernity.
In effect, most commentators credit A.W. Schlegel for having given the word ‘romantic’ a
systematic significance and affirmative tone from the very beginning (Furst 1969: 84). In contrast
with other literary critics who used the term in contradictory and erratic ways (or avoided it
altogether, such as Schelling, even if he based his aesthetics on the difference between the Ancient
and the Modern), Schlegel believed it was important to transmit a clear-cut understanding of the
term and “to elevate it again to its true signification” (LDA: 441). Indeed, his purpose was to foster
a solid movement that should become the symbol of modernity and Germany as well as Europe, as
he clearly indicates in the introduction to his Berlin lectures:
I say, I hope to fully dispel the doubt that still arises here and there as to whether there
really is a romantic, i.e., specifically modern art: an art that does not follow the model
of the Ancient and is nevertheless appreciated as fulfilling the highest principles […],
a perfectly achieved art; in other words, I hope to dispel the doubt that there is a poetry
that is not merely nationally and temporarily interesting, but universal and eternal.
(VLK: III, 7)
Although subject to scholarly debate (Esterhammer 2002a: 153), Schlegel’s profound influence on
English Romanticism through Coleridge is widely accepted. Some authors even claim that
Coleridge found in Schlegel’s lectures the lucidity and sharpness regarding some of the main
romantic principles and criticisms that he had lacked until his encounter with the Vorlesungen über
dramatische Kunst (Helmholtz-Phelan 1907: 361). Schlegel’s writings made Shakespeare one of
the most universally known and revered authors, not only in Germany arguably in England too. In
the end, however, Schlegel was quite pessimistic about the actual influence he had had in his time,
and lamented that his efforts had fallen so far short of his desire to inspire an artistic movement and
define an epoch.
3. Philosophy of Art
3.1 Art and Nature
Art is not a mere ‘imitation’ or ‘representation’ of nature; art is the product of a creative force. This
sentence, crystallizing one of the fundamental ideas of German Romantic aesthetics, constitutes the
core of one of A.W. Schlegel’s most well-known Berlin lectures. It was published in the Viennese
journal, Prometheus in 1808 and re-collected in his Kritische Schriften (1828) as Über das
Verhältniss der schönen Kunst zur Natur; Über Täuschung und Wahrscheinlichkeit; Über Manier

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und Stil (On the Relationship of Art to Nature; On Illusion and Probability; On Style and Manner).
The importance of this essay lies not only in this thesis (an idea that we also find in other texts of
that period, such as Schelling’s 1807 essay Über das Verhältniß der bildenden Künsten zu der
Natur (On the Relationship of Visual Arts to Nature), but rather in the way Schlegel developed his
argument.
In this text, Schlegel argues in favor of a Modern (i.e., Romantic) art theory, in opposition to the
representationalist and mimetic doctrines that go back to Aristotle’s Poetics and conceive the work
of the artist as that of a craftsman copying the beauty of nature (Abrams 1953: 48). But his critique
of the classicist formula ‘art imitates nature’ was accompanied by a careful analysis of the different
meanings the term ‘nature’ had come to assume within aesthetic discourses. This philological and
historical approach is distinctive of Schlegel’s writings and lends intelligibility and clarity to the
texts without eroding their philosophical sharpness. Undoubtedly, the Romantic notion of art goes
hand in hand with a reevaluation of the concept of nature. Similar to other authors who also were
inspired by Spinoza’s distinction between natura naturans and natura naturata, Schlegel argues
that, from a philosophical point of view, everything participates in an ongoing process of creation,
whereas, from an empirical point of view, natural things are conceived as if they were dead, fixed
and independent from the whole. This means that, in its purest and philosophical sense, nature is
not perceptible in the same way the worldly objects are. However, unlike Schelling with his
‘intellectual intuition’ or intellektuelle Anschauung, Schlegel did not develop an elaborate theory to
give account of this different form of perception; he succinctly argued that the comprehension of
nature’s true essence is more like a presentiment (ahnen) or an aesthetic contemplation, than like
scientific knowledge. In order to realize this ‘Romantic’ notion of nature, one needs to comprehend
or rather feel oneself as an organic whole. One needs to achieve self-awareness and to recognize
oneself as forming part of a larger unity. This resort to a non-theoretical or non-discursive plane as
an essential constituent of human knowledge was also important in Schlegel’s philosophy of
language, which he already expounded in his Letters on Poetry, Meter and Language (Briefe über
Poesie, Sylbenmaß und Sprache) in 1795.
In any case, the philosophical or Romantic notion of nature as an unfathomable unity and creative
force that cannot be seen nor touched, and which is obviously a direct response to some of the
many questions raised by Kant’s three Critiques, is not to be understood as a mere intellection, an
empty chimera: Nature is the productive force pulsing in all living beings. For Schlegel, nature is
organic in the sense that it is an organized and organizing principle, granting intelligence to the
totality of existing beings. It is a creative force that produces independent living things, the life of
which does not need any external mechanism to keep its autonomy, for it only depends on its inner,
natural power to live (as is the case with Leibniz’ vis activa). At this point Schlegel mentions the
astrological doctrines that claim that even the tiniest atom is a mirror of the universe. The idea of
Nature mirroring itself in each and every living organism is characteristic both of German Idealism
and German Romanticism. The difference between human beings and other animals, plants, or
mineral structures is that, (1) human beings are able to understand the fact that they, as an
organism, mirror Nature’s organic structure; and furthermore, (2) that they are capable of
reproducing nature’s creativity through art, as well as reflecting upon this fact. This reasoning
induced Schlegel to define human genius and his/her poetical creativity as a whole (i.e., art and

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language) as the capability of producing a world within a world (Müller-Vollmer 2000 [2002]:
317); a definition which is most tangible in dramatic literature.
Schlegel’s criticism of the physicalists’ conception of nature is surely the result of a very specific
aesthetic and philosophical perspective. But this particular viewpoint enabled him to reinterpret
and give a new meaning to the old and criticized formula ‘art imitates nature’. Indeed, once we
conceive of nature as an organic whole, constantly becoming and transforming itself, then the
sentence is quite different and seems to capture not only the true essence of (Romantic) art, but also
its most fundamental principle. It is in this sense that Schlegel polemically will say that “art should
imitate nature” (SW: III, 306). The deficiency of the formula does not lie in the idea itself, but in
the meaning we give to its components. In a very precise sense, art imitates nature, because in his
or her creativity, the genuine artist (i.e., the Romantic artist) also seeks to produce an organic whole
and thereby embody an eternal truth. For Schlegel, it is only through art and through everything
that art signifies, that man is capable of attaining that seemingly lost unity.
3.2 Romantic Art and the Longing for a Lost Unity
To be sure, if art is seen as the embodiment of an eternal truth, of absolute beauty, this implies that
art is not Beauty itself. This is also why, according to Schlegel, each work of art is the expression
of a certain longing, a craving for the recreation of that very unity experienced through the
“spiritual feeling or intuition (geistige Anschauung) of Nature” (SW: III, 307). For Schlegel, it is
only through art and through everything that art signifies, that man is capable of attaining (even if
not absolutely) such a wholeness, i.e., to recover what is felt as a ‘lost’ unity. The idea of longing or
Sehnsucht is indeed essential in Schlegel’s account of Romanticism and must be understood in
relation to the difference between ancient and modern art, which also was the structuring principle
and, in a sense, constituted the real object of Schlegel’s analysis in his Lectures on Dramatic Art.
This opposition may be summarized as follows: whereas ancient poetry is plastic, sensual,
harmonious, and, overall, a poetry of enjoyment of the present; modern poetry is a poetry of desire
and longing (Sehnsucht), hovering between the idealizations of a remote past and an unknown
future (LDA: 9). According to Schlegel, these differences encompass every sphere of reality and
every form of art, and are on the whole the result of a historical event, namely the establishment of
Christianity.
As F.W.J. Schelling had done in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Art of 1803, what Schlegel
emphasizes about the transition from paganism to Christianity is that it involved the realization of
an insurmountable breach between subject and object, between the I and the World, i.e., between
consciousness and nature. Christianity, he argues, awakened the consciousness of the internal
rupture or fundamental discord between the finite and the infinite which, in Schlegel’s analysis, is
constitutive of modernity. In other words, for Schlegel, modernity arises from the painful
realization of an insurmountable fissure, and the subsequent insight that real happiness can never
be attained, i.e., “that no external object can ever entirely fill our souls; and that every mortal
enjoyment is but a fleeting and momentary deception” (LDA: 9). As a result, in Schlegel’s view, to
understand modern and especially Romantic literature means to understand art as the eternal
longing for the reconciliation of this fissure between the subject and the universe, the finite and the

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infinite or the divine. Both the realization of the insurmountable fissure as well as the longing for
its reconciliation are part of a particular way of experiencing nature, the self, and the infinite.
In their attempts at finding alternative ways of understanding reason and its relation to life, art and
feelings, the Romantics also tried to recuperate or rediscover elements from what had been
regarded as the irrational and mythical spirit of the Middle Ages. Schlegel uses the term
‘Romantic’ to denote the very specific historical and stylistic discrepancy between German and
Modern art, on the one hand, and Ancient and Classicist art, on the other. Schlegel argued that
German culture, which he defined as having a natural inclination toward the Romantic (LDA: 439),
was indebted to all the cultures which preceded it. But he specifically laid the roots of the so-called
‘Romantic spirit’ in chivalry, i.e., in the union of the heroism of the northern conquerors with the
humanistic principles of Christianity. Schlegel associated chivalry and the Middle Ages in general
with a certain form of purity that manifests itself (1) in a more spiritual understanding of love and
female worth, to the extent that one could talk of a fusion between the metaphysical longing for the
infinite (or God) and the erotic longing for a woman; and (2) in a ‘heroic’ morality. It is a morality
“that never calculated consequences, but consecrated unconditionally certain principles of action”
(LDA: 8). On the other hand, though, Schlegel’s genealogy of the ‘romantic’ would be
incomprehensible without paying attention to his openness to and interest in other cultures and
languages. Thus, the ‘Romantic spirit’ is also found in the works of Shakespeare, and sought in the
spirit of romance cultures and languages, which, for Schlegel, are the result of a fusion between
Latin and Teutonic languages, in a similar way as German Romanticism “is the fruit of the union of
the peculiarities of the North with fragments of antiquity” (LDA: 5).
3.3 The Poetical and the Critique of Art
For Schlegel, in the same way as nature—the true experience of nature— cannot be reduced to its
mere physical or external manifestations, both the work of art and the experience it evokes are
more than just the simple perception or the analysis of its forms. Thus, he argues, the true work of
art, in order to endure the shifting modes and fashions of time, must have something more
profound than just a beautiful form, in the same way a flower needs its roots and cannot survive
long without them. For Schlegel, as for Schelling or Novalis, the attempt to understand the work of
art as the result of the conscious decisions of the artist alone would be misleading, because there is
always an unconscious element in every artistic creation. The work of art is a result of both
conscious and unconscious forces. In other words, the artist’s intention is, to a great extent,
irrelevant for the artistic product, and hence, cannot play a major role in the evaluation of the work
itself. In his Lectures on Dramatic Art, Schlegel defines genius as someone being capable of the
“almost unconscious choice of the highest degree of excellence” (LDA: 5), and in an Athenaeum
fragment he claimed that “it is a distinguishable mark of poetical genius to know a great deal more
than he knows he knows” (SW: VIII, 15). This does not mean that any sign of an ‘unconscious’
choice in the production of art is a sign of genius; what is characteristic about the great artist is that
his/her ‘unconscious’ choices seem attributable to a higher, divine and conscious force. The extent
to which the artist is capable of transcending his/her more or less involuntary particularities, i.e.,
the extent to which his/her choices seem to derive from an unconscious ability to select always the
highest degree of excellence, determines the difference between style and mannerism. When the

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work of art appears as if all its elements had been consciously chosen by a power above and
beyond the artist, it has style; when the artist has not transcended his/her individuality, then s/he is
categorized as mannerist (SW: III, 309–312).
The essence of a work of art, the principle that all real works of art have in common and what
makes them more than a mere accumulation of particular elements, is what Schlegel called the
‘poetical’. Consequently, the ability to grasp whatever is truly poetical in a specific work of art set
the basis for his methodological procedure in his art criticism. For Schlegel, a criterion for
evaluating a work of art is its capacity to extend itself “beyond the limits of reality into the region
of a creative fancy” (LDA: 107–108). On the other hand, the poetical aspect of a work of art
depends on its capacity to mirror and to present (darstellen) eternally true ideas (LDA: 18). But, as
in many aesthetic texts from this period, it is not always obvious which ‘ideas’ the work of art must
seek to mirror. It seems these ‘ideas’ should be understood in a Platonic sense, as they generally
refer to great values or great ideals such as beauty, greatness, and goodness.
However, and partly due to his reluctance to consider the artist’s intentionality as being decisive in
the comprehension of the work of art (which in some way prefigures the late Romantic ideal of
l’art pour l’art), Schlegel did not underline a necessary moral purpose in aesthetic objects. And
yet, for Schlegel, this did not imply that the contemplation and understanding of art should lose its
moral aura. Quite to the contrary, for Schlegel, art has the power to elevate us above our ordinary
encounters with the world, above the sorrows and daily troubles of life. This is why he argued that
the purpose of art could not be a mere imitation or reduplication of the world as it is, because in
this case, apart from the fact that music, dance, architecture, and so many other art forms become
totally inexplicable, the best works of art would be the ones that deceive the most, in the sense that
the viewer would find himself prevented from contemplating the work of art as a work of art.
Clearly, if the purpose of art were to replicate nature (understood as an object rather than a subject)
the aesthetic objects would evoke no particular interest beyond mere ornamentation. But, for
Schlegel, both the contemplation/critique and the production of art should be seen as the result of
creative activity.
In accordance with these theoretical assumptions, Schlegel was very negative about naturalistic
neo-classicist tendencies in art. He praised wholeness and poetical unity as well as originality in a
work of art. For Schlegel, similarly as for Baumgarten, the magic of a work of art is that it creates
and hence brings us into a different world, with all its own internal coherence. It is in this sense
that a work of art is organic and complete. The purpose of a work of art should therefore not be to
reflect the real world with naturalism, but rather to create its own world, which could never be a
question of applying a set of rules and principles to a particular matter (paintings, words, marble),
such as classicist aesthetics seemed to suggest. The search for naturalism and plausibility, in an
attempt at producing the most true and real representation of reality, makes art lose its greatness,
beauty, and wonder.
In his Lectures on Dramatic Art, Schlegel praised the use of masks in theatrical representations as
well as those performers who managed to create an emotional distance between themselves, the
audience and the role they were playing. Once more, art is not about deceiving or hiding, but about
the production or the creation of a world within a world. This also explains Schlegel’s admiration

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of Old Comedy, because in this case the spectator is constantly forced to remain aware of the
experience in which s/he is partaking, namely the experience of the difference between reality and
illusion. A similar reconsideration of comedy was also the basis for other contemporary authors in
Schlegel’s circle, such as Ludwig Tieck with his version of the 17th century fairy tale Der
gestiefelte Kater (Puss in Boots). Schlegel stresses that, in contrast to tragedy (where the author
needs to remain invisible to guarantee the integrity of his/her fictional world); in comedy, the gap
between the different levels of reality and illusion, or rather, the very disintegration of the unity of
the story becomes the center of the play. As Schlegel puts it, in Old Comedy: “the whole
production was one entire jest within itself” (LDA: 108). In Aristophanes’ plays, the chorus, which
regularly interrupts the course of the play to address the audience with reference to the story
(parabisis), the author and the people from the audience alike, virtually destroys all the elements
and characteristics of tragedy: its seriousness as well as its harmonious unity is systematically
parodied. Not only the scenes, not only the poetry, but also the tragic composition, the music,
acting, and dancing, were object of a hilarious distortion. For Schlegel, this did not mean that
comedy should be understood as a derivative of tragedy; on the contrary, he affirms it to be “a
species of poetry as independent and original as tragedy itself” (LDA: 108). In fact, A.W.
Schlegel’s characterization of the distinction between the character of Old Comedy and Greek
tragedy would become a central reference in literary criticism.
Among all the different artistic manifestations, Schlegel considered dramatic poetry to be “the most
entertaining of all diversions” (LDA: 12). The fundamental reason for dramatic poetry’s being so
engaging, as Schlegel points out, lies in the mimicry that is always involved in theatrical
representations. Schlegel maintained that all works of art, and in particular, all theatrical
representations, are expression of the idiosyncrasies of the country where they are produced. And
although he succinctly suggested that the existence of a theatrical tradition may be seen as a
symbol of a special intellectual and political environment, he also indicated that the enjoyment of
mimicry per se is somehow constitutive of human beings (Flaherty 1994: 195). For Schlegel,
children’s delight in imitating their relatives is also expressive of man’s basic psychological
predisposition to mimicry (LDA: 18); a disposition without which man would not be able to enter
the linguistic, let alone the poetical and creative phases of his development (SW: VII, 117).
Dramatic poetry, he argued, is the representation of an “important” action, namely an action that
has been purged of the petty and unnecessary details of real life; it is the performance of a morally
and intellectually exemplary action through dialogue. Schlegel’s placing of dramatic poetry in the
highest rank amongst the arts hardly makes his position unique. What does render him quite
distinctive, rather, is the argument he gives, namely that it produces the maximum enjoyment. This
certainly contrasts with Schiller’s moralizing views. Schlegel was very aware of the necessity for a
play to be interesting and exciting for the audience: the greatness of a play has to do with the way
in which it creates a certain tension or conflict that involves the audience. But, what makes
dramatic poetry different from a mere pantomime, what really elevates it above other human
activities is, once again, its poetical element, i.e., its capacity to mirror an idea or eternal truth.
Ultimately, this is also what determines the difference between tragedy and comedy. The tragic
tone is given through a sincere melancholy, a longing for and accepting of a “destiny soaring above
this earthly life”, whereas the main characteristic of comedy is its “forgetfulness of all discouraging
considerations” (LDA: 24). For Schlegel, the aim of tragedy is not “to purify the passions by pity

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and terror” (LDA: 43), as Aristotle had said, but to elevate us “to the most dignified view of
humanity” (LDA: 112). In fact, Schlegel’s analysis of Greek tragedy and his sharp rejection of
Aristotle’s theory of tragedy were extremely influential.
In his Lectures on Dramatic Art Schlegel was very critical towards the present state of German
theatre (LDA: 438). However, apart from Shakespeare, Calderón with their ironic way of mixing
the tragic with the comic (LDA: 175), and the ancient Greek, Schlegel also praised Lessing,
Schiller, and Goethe for having “redeemed the German theatre from its long continued mediocrity”
(LDA: 424).
4. Philosophy of Language
In his Letters on Poetry… from 1795, addressed to a fictional Amalie, Schlegel discusses the
origins of language; a theme, to which he would later return in his Jena and Berlin lectures.
Schlegel was thus resuming an old philosophical debate which had formed two opposite
hypotheses (Behler 2002: 124–128). The two basic and mutually exclusive positions maintained,
on the one hand, as Schlegel portrays them, that human language must have originated as a
transcription, representation, or imitation of external objects; and, on the other, that in its origin
language must have been purely sensual, i.e., a mere form of expression of emotions through
sounds. Thus, either directly or indirectly, Schlegel was referring to authors such as Condillac,
Hemsterhuys, Karl Phillip Moritz, August Ferdinand Bernhardi, Fichte, Herder, and Rousseau.
However, in contrast to Herder (and even his own brother Friedrich) for whom the debate about the
origin of language was primarily a debate about whether its origin was natural or divine, for
Schlegel, the real question at stake was the extent to which the nature of language could be reduced
to and explained in pure rationalistic terms. Furthermore, in these letters Schlegel implicitly
questions the possibility of attaining absolute knowledge solely through theory, i.e., attending only
to a scientific rationale that necessarily excludes more metaphorical and intuitive approaches,
which attempt to understand and grasp things “under the mysterious light of twilight” (SW: VII,
110). For Schlegel, in any case, the real problem lay in the assumed exclusivity of both alternatives
(cf. Behler 2000: 126).
Schlegel’s decision to present his position in an epistolary form, mixing different styles of
argumentation, is an almost necessary consequence of his approach to the debate: a lively debate,
which he aimed to dissolve by reconciling both perspectives but without negating any of them. In a
way, these letters are a clear example of the fusion between content and form. In fact, Schlegel
actually modified his last Letter after having received a commentary, through a missive, from
Friedrich Schiller (Behler 2002: 126). For Schlegel, the only plausible theory on the origin of
language had to take into account both its irrational elements (i.e., the purely emotional,
imaginative, sensual, and most radically communicative aspects of language) and its rational
characteristic (i.e., a system of signs based on convention), while admitting that on the whole, the
origin of language remains as secret and inexplicable as the origin of humanity itself (SW: VII,
111). In brief: for Schlegel, as for Novalis or Schleiermacher, language could not be reduced to a
mere system of signs and any account of the origin of language had to be able to integrate the two
apparently opposite aspects of it.

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For Schlegel, language, in its most elementary conception, constitutes the basic means of
communication of immediate feelings, and therefore represents a dimension that is also present in
other animals. Children learn to move their tongues, Schlegel notes, even before they learn to use
their feet (SW: VII, 117). But in human language, this communicative capability is also the tool
that enables man to surpass a pure naturalistic or animalistic sphere. Indeed, for Schlegel, as for
Herder, language is the quintessence of human beings. Language, on the one hand, represents our
rupture with nature, but, on the other, it constitutes our first and most fundamental contact with the
world: (1) it is the true condition of possibility of our orientation in the world; and (2) it provides
us with the unique opportunity of communicating with other people and of developing subjectivity.
Moreover, for Schlegel, the world as such only makes sense through or within language. It is
through language that we tear ourselves away from nature and constitute ourselves as a subject.
Language is what takes us beyond ourselves; it is the “magical power” that leaves room for the
incorporeal, unphysical in us (SW: VII, 139).
Schlegel accepts the idea that, in its beginning, language was probably a direct expression of
feelings and emotions through sounds. The origin of language, he argues, must have been very
close to the cry of animals and the singing of birds, an idea that he reinforces through the fact that
we all began to use our voices by screaming (SW: VII, 115). But to this basic point, Schlegel also
adds the idea of rhythm. In his letters, he suggests that the rhythmic character of language is as old
as poetry, and moreover, as old as human life. The oldest or the first language, he argues, must
have been indivisible from tones, rhythms, music, and dance. Poetry, or rather rhythm, he affirms,
is thus essential to language itself. Indeed, it would be impossible to eliminate rhythm from
language (SW: VII, 108). In other words, Schlegel claims that, in its origin, language was poetry
(SW: VII, 104). Most important, though, is that Schlegel “does not limit the realm of sensuality and
feeling to an early stage in the formation of language” (Behler 2000: 81). For Schlegel, this more
sensual aspect of language is always present: however civilized a people may be, they cannot avoid
using different tones and rhythms to express themselves (SW: VII, 115). Each utterance, each
sentence is spoken with a certain rhythm, each word also carries the way in which it is said, the
way in which it refers to the world, and all these elements constitute an aspect of language, for they
help to establish the ultimate meaning of the words. This, as Schlegel points out, becomes most
obvious once we realize that, in order to comprehend the emotions that are being transmitted
through a particular speech, one does not need to understand the words literally (SW: VII, 114).
Thus, for Schlegel, language not only was poetry in its origin: language is essentially poetry. Or as
he would later claim in his Berlin lectures: “language is an ongoing becoming and continually
changing, never ending poem of human kind” (VLK: I, 388). Thus, the nature of language should
be understood, not as a more or less automatic response to the necessities the world imposes upon
us, but as a creative, poetical ability. For Schlegel, the characterization of language as poetry is the
only way a theory of language could give account of language’s inherent spontaneity and creativity.
In a certain way, Schlegel was reinterpreting Herder through Fichte, emphasizing Fichte’s idea of
man’s self-possession and his relation to the world as an active and not a passive one. This also
explains the importance Schlegel gave to the role of the poet (and to the literature translator) in the
development of the language of a nation. For Schlegel, as for Wilhelm von Humboldt, the task of
the poet and also that of the translator is to broaden the signifying and expressive capacity of a

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language. The poet, Schlegel says in his 1796 text The Works of Homer by Voss, is the force that
renders language alive, which nevertheless does not mean that s/he may introduce any kind of
changes: language’s malleability also has its grammatical and philological limits (KS: I, 75–76 and
116–117).
In his philosophical account of the fact that language is constantly changing and moving from
lower to higher stages, Schlegel operates with two very different ways of approaching language,
which, at the same time, reveal the co-existence of two opposite but equally constitutive forces in
the development of a language: the artist’s language-shaping efforts and the grammarian’s judicial
function (SW: VII, 117). In this way, Schlegel is somehow anticipating Saussure’s extremely
influential distinction between langue and parole. For Schlegel, as for Saussure or Deleuze, the
tension between language as an ordered and stable whole, and language as the subject of a more or
less arbitrary, free and creative development, is what makes language something alive.
In a similar way, Schlegel affirms that our encounters with the world are always poetical, in the
sense that they are not be merely receptive, but also creative. Reality exists through language, or, in
other words, we always relate to the world metaphorically. This also means that there cannot be an
‘absolute’ (i.e., an absolutely true) way of referring to the external world, for we do not see the
world as it is, but always in relation to ourselves. Schlegel’s theory of language is thus intrinsically
connected to his theory of mythology. Both in his Jena and in his Berlin lectures, Schlegel stressed
the fact the experience of an existing totality has a mythological basis without which the
experience itself would be impossible (Behler 1992: 77–78). Once again, Schlegel stressed the idea
that mythology is not merely a phase of human rationality, but is part of our being in the world. It is
a structural principle of human intellectual activity, the purest rational activity being a mythological
one: be it in art, sciences, or in our daily activities, we always relate to the world metaphorically.
In his letters, Schlegel claims that language is the “most wonderful creation of human being’s
poetical talent”, because it is through language that human nature is able to reflect upon itself (SW:
VII, 104). Thus, Schlegel’s theory of language is at the same time a theory of the origin of poetry,
which also explains his predilection for poetry among all the different artistic manifestations.
Thanks to this comprehension of the poetical nature of language, Schlegel can explain poetry as the
highest and freest of all arts, because it creates its own objects. Indeed, if language is defined as
poetry, then poetry itself becomes “poetry in poetry” (Behler 1992: 125). The only difference
between language and poetry, he argued, is that the poet is aware of his/her poetical creativity: s/he
consciously decides to create a dream; whereas in ordinary speech, the subject is unaware of
his/her poetical and imaginative activity (VLK: I, 275). In this way, Schlegel was anticipating some
of Nietzsche’s most interesting theses in On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense and The Birth
of Tragedy
5. Translation Theory
Although Schlegel himself denied that he had developed a translation theory (IB: I, 256), many of
his texts are devoted to the analysis of existing translations (such as Voss’s and Bürger’s
translations of Homer) as well as to the commentary on his own work as translator. Schlegel was

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almost certainly influenced by the work of Johann Gottfried von Herder, but his decision to avoid
the elaboration of a systematic translation theory can be interpreted as the result of a very precise
theoretical position, namely that each text requires a different procedure for its translation. As he
affirmed in the commentary to his Bhagavad-Gita translation, it all depends on the relation between
the two languages (IB: I, 256). In other words, for Schlegel, a translation theory as such is
uninteresting unless it involves the exposition of the actual work undertaken with the texts, i.e.,
with the original text as well as with all the existing translations. Consequently, Schlegel’s
commentary and his suggestions concerning Voss’s translation of Homer are accompanied by a
very detailed analysis of the Greek text together with a comparative study of Voss’s and Bürger’s
versions. Likewise, in his Über die Bhagavad-Gita, Schlegel analyzes all the different ways in
which a particular word (such as ‘yoga’ or ‘dharma’) has been translated, creating thus a history of
the translation. And although his commentaries appear as a work in progress, they show a very
precise and carefully conceived methodology which was mostly valuable for other translators and
translation theorists. Very much as a critique and response to Voss, Schlegel’s translations need to
be understood as an example of the so called “paradigm shift” (cf. Robinson 1991 and Bernofsky
1997) that was taking place within translation theories.
For Schlegel, a good translation is not necessarily a literal translation; the translator must be able to
translate the spirit of the text. He must follow the letter, but he must also be able to “capture some
of the innumerable, indescribable marvels that do not reside in the letter, but float above it like a
breath of spirit!” (SW: VII, 39). Thus, in an 1838 letter to Herrn Reimen, Schlegel explains that the
aim of a translator should be to “provide those who have no access to the original with as pure and
uninterrupted appreciation of the work as possible” (SW: VII, 287). Anticipating Humboldt’s
distinction between the ‘foreign’ (das Fremde) and ‘strangeness’ (die Fremdheit)—which he
introduced in the preface of his translation of the Agamemnon from 1816 –, Schlegel also
emphasizes that all translations should avoid converting foreign texts into strange texts (Berman
1992a: 154). As he had said in his Works of Homer by Voss, in order to translate a text from a
different culture, the translator needs to maintain the text’s naturalness; s/he cannot convert it into
something strange, there is no necessity in violating the language, in inventing a new language
(SW: VII, 116). Indeed, what Schlegel reproached in Voss’s translation of Homer was precisely “to
have created a much too ‘strange’ pidgin of Greek and German” (Berman 1992a: 154). On the
other hand, though, as a translator and art-critic Schlegel was also concerned with enabling the
assimilation and comprehension of otherness, and criticized strongly the way in which - especially
French translations - tended to paraphrase passages from foreign texts in order to make them seem
more French (KS: I, 75–76, cf. Berman 1992a: 36). Moreover, Schlegel believed that German
culture and language (as opposed to other languages) provided much better conditions for good
translations, i.e., translations that were able to assimilate a certain foreignization, without becoming
too ‘strange’.
Although many of Schlegel’s remarks may seem self-evident and elementary to translators today,
they did not appear so at the time. In fact they are the result of a very precise way of understanding
language. Schlegel’s translation theories are very much connected to his philosophy of language. It
is within his explanatory observations about the difficulty of translating Sanskrit terms that we find
a philosophical theory about the genealogy of abstract significance. All abstract concepts, he

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argues, are the result of a progressive growing apart between an original sensual denotation and its
future abstract meanings (IB: II, 248–258). Therefore, the translator needs to make a decision
between (a) finding a more or less neutral term in his own language that has a similar meaning to
the original, sensual meaning (in this case he needs to explain the particular use of this word); and
(b) using all the meanings that the original word has been attached to. The problem in the latter
case is that one meaning does not relate to the other, and, what is worse, the translation loses the
cohesion between all the different meanings, so the reader is not always able to know in which way
these different meanings are bound.
Schlegel describes the task of the translator as a voluntary and embarrassing slavery (IB: II, 254). It
is never gratifying, because the more he tries to make the best translation, the more he realizes how
impossible his task is:
I have come to the conviction that translation is, though freely chosen, nevertheless a
laborious bondage, an art without substance, a thankless craft; thankless not just
because the best translation is never esteemed as equal to an original, but also because
the translator, the more he gains insight, must feel even more the inevitable
imperfection of his work. (IB: II, 255)
In effect, Heine, criticized Schlegel’s translations for “polishing his words ever so sweetly and
fastidiously” (Heine [1833] 1985: 25), Voss argued that Schlegel’s Shakespeare “was not
Shakespeare but Schlegel” (quoted in Larson 1989, 124) and there is an ongoing debate as to the
extent to which Schlegel romanticizes Shakespeare (Bernofsky 1997: 180f.). And yet, there also
seems to be a consensus regarding the fact that his translations into German of the works of
Shakespeare are still and by far the best.
6. The Role of the Critic and Schlegel’s Romantic Nationalism

6.1 Between Enlightenment and Romanticism
The Romantic vision of the great artist as an exceptional individual, an unrepeatable genius, creator
of his own rules, of his own style, leaves the figure of the philosopher and essayist in a rather
difficult position. The art critic has a very different task from that of the artist. As a critic, Schlegel
conceives his activity as an educational and moral one, something which he definitely does not
demand from the artist. “Art needs the discourse of art history for its artistry to become visible”
(Schulte-Sasse [1985] 1988: 137). Certainly, in order to appreciate correctly the work of the artist,
in order to avoid being dazed by superficialities, the art critic also has to have an inner feeling, a
certain genius. But his task is not to create, but to comprehend and to educate the public in their
taste, to enable them to value the new, modern artistic productions with a profound understanding
of their significance. For,
what ennobles human nature [is] to recognize and respect whatever is beautiful and
grand under those external modifications which are necessary to their existence, and
which sometimes even seem to disguise them. There is no monopoly of poetry for

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certain ages and nations. (LDA: 2)
Throughout Schlegel’s entire work the Romantic ideals are in fact embedded in an enlightenment
project.
Thus in the 1809 preface to the publication of his Lectures on Dramatic Art, Schlegel argued that
his main purpose was not so much to transmit an indifferent account of the history of dramatic
poetry, but most importantly to “develop those ideas which ought to guide us in our estimate”
(LDA: vii). His objective was to liberate his listeners and readers from what he calls a “despotism
in taste” (LDA: 2), that is, to release them, both from their provincial prejudices towards unknown
cultures and from the new tendencies developing in German literature. He wanted to prepare the
German public for a (future) German Romantic theatre.
In a similar fashion, Schlegel argued that in order to appreciate art productions from past cultures
and remote nations, an acquaintance not only with the actual work of art is indispensable, but also
with its historical and cultural background: it is imperative to understand the peculiarities of their
culture and history as a whole. The profound comprehension of History is the basis for any
comprehension of art and languages, which necessarily bears a direct relationship with the
historical conditions circumscribing it (KS: I, x). As a consequence, Schlegel introduced in all of
his lectures historical, social, and cultural observations; because for him, the aim of the critic is,
primarily, to reconcile the division between theory and experience, i.e., between a philosophical
and a historical approach. Such was the balance Schlegel sought to achieve in his lectures between
what would be a purely theoretical comprehension of tragedy and the consideration of the theatre
as such, with all the historical, architectural and cultural characteristics that conditioned the actual
performance of the play.
The critic of art and history needs to be a connoisseur in the strictest sense of the word, for he must
be able to explain the actual state of humanity from its most remote past. He needs to distance
himself sufficiently from his own time in order to be able to understand and judge it. The true critic
must have a “universality of mind” so that he may leave aside his “personal predilections” (LDA:
5). Schlegel conceived his lectures as a true critique, and many years later, he still considered that
this is what made his approach in his Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature unique (KS: I, xiii).
In the preface to the publication of his critical writings from 1828, Schlegel explains that the
difficulty of his task as an art critic lies not so much in the critique or the judgment itself, or in the
laying out of the proper argument in demonstration of his views, as in finding, i.e., creating the
right concepts with which to express the effect and the impressions generated by a specific work of
art (KS: I, xii). The genius of the critic is that he is able to use the word ‘romantic’ in such a way
that it may express the essence of an epoch. And, although Schlegel did not believe he actually had
a big influence on the German public, by 1828 he did remark that a shift of taste had taken place in
Europe, a shift that showed how the Romantic ideals had in fact widely pervaded European
audiences.
6.2 Nationalism versus Cosmopolitanism

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Through his translations and essays A.W. Schlegel intended to make foreign literary traditions and
literary works accessible to the German public, but he also thought that the opposite was necessary.
That is, Schlegel understood that his task as an art critic was also to defend and disseminate
German culture, within Germany and throughout Europe. Indeed, Schlegel’s preoccupation with
the historical and cultural diversities had two different, even opposite, consequences. On the one
hand it made Schlegel’s approach to different cultures and their artistic production much more
tolerant, because he was aware of the fact that one needs to immerse oneself in their culture in
order to grasp the universal or poetical nature of the particular work of art and avoid a provincial
attitude. In fact, Schlegel liked to think of himself as a citizen of the world. But, on the other hand,
it led him to harbor a certain nationalistic sentiment, which he projected both abroad and to the
German literati. So, as well as restoring German culture (many of his writings can be regarded as a
manifesto of German Romanticism and German philosophy), he also encouraged his fellow
countrymen, in a highly patriotic tone, to become deeply national and historical and to depict “what
Germans of olden times were and what they should become again”, lest they should lose their
“unity as Germans” (LDA: 441). Schlegel believed that for the true potential of Romantic literature
to be realized in Germany, Germans needed to regain an interest in the great events of their history
and in their identity as an independent nation (Carlson 1994: 143).
In his late essay Abriß von den Europäischen Verhältnissen der Deutschen Literatur (1825), written
for an English audience, he repeats an idea he had also defended in his Lectures on Dramatic Art,
namely that German literature was young because of the historical evolution of the German
language, and not because of its qualities (LDA: 421, SW: VIII, 207). Schlegel fervently defended
German authors (such as Klopstock, Lessing, Winkelmann, Wieland, Goethe, or Herder) as well as
German philosophers, from the English accusations of being abstract and obscure (SW: VIII, 212).
He also claimed that Germans were the most cosmopolitan and intellectual leaders of European
culture, and that Germany had reached its maturity, its autonomy, and hence its freedom (SW: VIII,
214). This is why, for Schlegel, Germany had a central role in the development of European
culture: in the recuperation of the Roman and Greek cultures, which were the very foundations of
Europe. The evidence of this ‘superiority’ would lie in the development of natural sciences,
philosophy, and the critical interpretation of classical texts (SW: VII, 214–217). In short, A.W.
Schlegel’s concern became more and more a problem of national identity (Schmelling 1994: 35–
36). But, at the same time, these assertions must be seen against the background of his statements
from earlier texts, such as the Wettstreit der Sprachen (The Contest of Languages) from 1798, in
which Schlegel develops his idea of a “cosmopolitan literature” (Albrecht 2005: 307) and seems to
criticize and make fun of all forms of nationalism. As Andrea Albrecht argues, Schlegel’s
engagement with translations, investigation, and dissemination of European and non-European
literature, must be seen as a sign and proof of his cosmopolitanism. In the third part of his Berlin
lectures from 1803, Schlegel expresses his desire that all different nationalities be united. But,
again, this desire to transcend national boarders seems to go hand in hand with the necessity of
establishing Germany as the new “center for the human spirit” (quoted in Albrecht 2005: 308, my
translation), the rationale behind this being, that “universality, cosmopolitanism, is the real German
characteristic” (VLK: III, 36). Undoubtedly, Schlegel’s cosmopolitanism is uncannily mixed up
with a strange form of blind, romantic nationalism.

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After the disastrous consequences of German nationalism during the 20th century, and the fact that
it is also a common view that “political romanticism”, in its regard for organic
community, was a precursor to Nazism, (Black 1964: 32)
such ‘romantic’ nationalistic statements are not received without a certain apprehension. However,
without trying to solve the ambivalent character of the Romantic political program, it is important
to note how these very statements show that Schlegel was not an impartial critic. He too was in
some way trapped in what he called the Romantic spirit, despite his efforts to contemplate art,
history, and society from a neutral perspective. In explaining the spirit of the Romantic, Schlegel
himself is being very romantic. The very division he made between the ancient and the modern, as
well as his views of Shakespeare, Aristophanes, or the Greeks as a people who were
conscious of no wants, and aspired at no higher perfection than that which they could
actually attain by the exercise of their own faculties, (LDA: 9)
were inevitably influenced by his own time.
7. A.W. Schlegel: A Thinker of Difference

A.W. Schlegel’s writings show a great preoccupation and interest in the perspective of the ‘other’:
women, children, and, above all, other cultures. He constantly reminds the reader about the
necessity, in critical thought, of creating a link between theory and practical experience or
historical knowledge. This enables him to defend the idea that two totally different works of art can
be great and admirable, not only in spite of their differences, but because of them. It was indeed
this affirmation of difference that enabled him to use the notion ‘Romantic’ in the way that he did.
In fact, although Schlegel’s Lectures on Dramatic Art can be seen as a plea for modern or
Romantic poetry and culture in general (“the feeling of the moderns is, upon the whole, more
intense, their fancy more incorporeal, and their thoughts more contemplative”, LDA: 9), in contrast
to other authors, he is always very careful not to judge modern works of art according to their
similarities or dissimilarities with ancient ones. It was not by chance that Schlegel should be the
first to introduce the idea of a comparative literature.
The emphasis on the opposition between ancient and modern art, and its parallel to the antagonism
between Christianity and Greek pagan mythology, are recurring assumptions in 19th century
aesthetics. But Schlegel’s aim is not to conceptualize a particular canon of beauty, but much more,
as a means of elevating oneself above all partial views, to find an approach that may enable the
comprehension and enjoyment of the different ways in which art is manifested throughout history.
Thus, Schlegel is taking to its highest point the 19th century idealist principle according to which
art is the “power of creating what is beautiful and representing (darstellen) it to the human eye and
ear” (LDA: 3) as well as the idea that “poetry, as the fervid expression of our whole being, must
assume a new and peculiar form in different ages” (LDA: 29).
The experience of difference also becomes an important element in his critique of art. Schlegel

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clearly positions himself against modern critics, who consider the mixture of reality and imitation
“destructive of theatrical illusion” (LDA: 34). Although not always explicit in his writings,
Schlegel constantly stresses the idea that in the contemplation of a work of art, the spectator must
still perceive the craftedness of the whole; i.e., the difference between reality and illusion. This is a
fundamental element of his criticism of naturalism and his defense of the use of verse and masks in
theatre. What is more interesting, though, is that the constant awareness of the difference between
reality and illusion (for instance through irony) also shows the fundamental fragility of difference
itself in a much more compelling way than a rigorous classicist work of art does. Reality is also an
illusion; it also is the result of creative forces, such as language is.
In this specific sense, Schlegel could be understood as a thinker of difference in a much more
radical way than other philosophers of his time. Although Schlegel’s writings have not been
considered as philosophical as those of other 19th century German philosophers, his approach to art
and its history, and his reflections on language and cultural differences are much closer to what is
sometimes called a postmodern comprehension of aesthetics than that of his contemporaries.
Indeed, in his characteristically unpresumptuous style, Schlegel anticipates philosophers such as
Nietzsche, Blumenberg, or Deleuze.
Bibliography
Works by A.W. Schlegel
The abbreviations used for references to, or quotations of, A.W. Schlegel are indicated below, at
the beginning of the bibliography entries for the cited editions. All translation from German are
mine.
Collected Works
1846–1848, Sämtliche Werke [SW], edited by Eduard Böcking, 16 vols., Leipzig: Weidmann;
reprinted in 1971–72, Hildesheim: Neudruck Verlag Olms. Includes his works written in
French (Œuvres, in 3 volumes, 1848) and in Latin (Opuscula, quae Schlegelius latine scripta
reliquit, 1848).
1962–1974, Kritische Schriften und Briefe, edited by Edgar Lohner, Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.
1989–in progress, Kritische Ausgabe der Vorlesungen, 6 vol., edited by Ernst Behler and Frank
Jolles, Paderborn, Munich: F. Schöningh.
Literary Works
1800, Gedichte, Tübingen: Cotta.

1803, Ion, Ein Schauspiel, Hamburg: Perthes.
1811, Poetische Werke, 2 vols., Heidelberg: Mohr & Zimmer.
Critical Works

Página 21 de 27
1798–1800, Athenaeum [A], 3 vols., (Co-editor with Friedrich Schlegel), Berlin: Vieweg (vol. 1),
Berlin: Frölich (vols. 2 and 3); reprinted in 1989, Dortmund: Harenberg.
1801, Charakteristiken und Kritiken, with Friedrich Schlegel, 2 vols., Königsberg: Nicolovius.
1807, Comparaison entre la Phèdre de Racine et celle d’Euripide, Paris : Tourneisen Fils ; reedited
with slight modifications in 1842, Essais littéraires et historiques, Bonn: Edouard Weber, pp.
85 ff).
1809–11, Über dramatische Kunst und Literatur. Vorlesungen, 3 vols., Heidelberg: Mohr &
Zimmer.
1813, Sur le système continental et sur les rapports avec la Suède, Hamburg.
1816, Der deutsche Mann und der Patriot im Streit, Philadelphia: Spottvogel (i.e., Reutlingen:
Mäken).
1820–30, Indische Bibliothek [IB], 3 vols., Bonn: Weber.
1828, Kritische Schriften [KS], 2 vols., Berlin: Reimer.
1832, Réflexions sur l’étude des Langues Asiatiques suivies d’une lettre à M. Horace, Hayman
Wilson, Bonn: Edouard Weber.
1842, Essais littéraires et historiques, Bonn: Edouard Weber.
1884 (posthumous), Vorlesungen über schöne Literatur und Kunst [VLK], edited by Jakob Minor,
3 vols., Heilbronn: Henningen; reprinted in 1968, Nendeln; Liechtenstein: Kraus.
1913 (posthumous), Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Poesie, (Lectures delivered at Bonn
University between 1818–1819, edited by J. Körner, Berlin: Behr.
Translations
Rendorps, Joachim, 1793, Joachim Rendorps geheime Nachrichten zur Aufklärung der Vorfälle
während des letzten Kriegs zwischen England und Holland, Leipzig: Heinsius.
William Shakespeare, 1797–1810, Shakespeare’s Dramatische Werke, with Caroline Schlegel,
Ludwig and Dorothea Tieck, 9 vols., Berlin: Unger.
Horace Walpole, 1800, Historische, literarische und unterhaltende Schriften, Leipzig: Hartknoch.
Calderón de la Barca, 1803–1809, Spanisches Theater, 2 vols., Berlin: Hitzig.
assorted, 1804, Blumensträuße italienischer, spanischer und portugiesischer Poesie, Berlin:
Realschulbuchhandlung.
Albertine Necker de Saussure, 1820, Über den Charackter und die Schriften der Frau von Staël,
Paris, London and Strasburg: Treuttel und Würtz.
anonymous, 1823, Bhagavad-Gita, Bonn: Weber.
anonymous, 1829–46, Ramayana, 4 vols, Bonn: Weber.
Letters
1922, August Wilhelm Schlegels Briefwechsel mit seinen Heidelberger Verlegern, edited by Erich
Jenisch, Heidelber: Winter.
1930, Briefe von und an August Wilhelm Schlegel, edited by Josef Körner, Zürich, Leipzig, Vienna:
Amalthea.
1936–37 and 1958, Kriesenjahre der Frühromantik. Briefen aus dem Schlegelkreis, edited by Josef
Körner, Vienna, Leipzig: Rohrer and Berne: Francke.

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1972, Ludwig Tieck und die Brüder Schlegel. Briefe, edited by Edgar Lohner, Munich: Winkler.
2012, Der Briefwechsel zwischen August Wilhelm von Schlegel und seiner Bonner Haushälterin
Maria Löbel, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, edited by Ralf G. Czapla and Franca V.
Schwankweiler, Bonn: Bernstein.
2013, Founders of Western Indology. August Wilhelm Schlegel and Henry Thomas Colebrooke in
Correspondance 1820–1837, edited by Rosane Rocher and Ludo Rocher, Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz.
2015, Der Briefwechsel zwischen Christian Friedrich Tieck und August Wilhelm Schlegel in den
Jahren 1804 bis 1811, edited by Cornelia Bögel, Dresden: Thelem.
English Translations
1813, The Continental System, and its relations with Sweden, London: J.J. Stockdale; anonymous
translation.
1815, A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature [LDA], translated by John Black and
A.J.W. Morrison, London: George Bell and Sons; reprinted in 1846, London: H.G. Bohn;
revised edition in 1894, reprinted in 1973, New York: AMS Press and 2004, Whitefish, MT:
Kessinger.
1944 (1833), A.W. Schlegel’s Lectures on German literature from Gottsched to Goethe, Oxford: B.
Blackwell (notes taken by George Toynbee).
Selected Secondary Literature
English
Abrams, Meyer Howard, 1953, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical
Tradition, London: Oxford University Press.
Adluri, Vishwa and Joydeep Bagche, 2014, The Nay Science: A History of German Indology,
Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199931347.001.0001
Atkinson, Margaret Edith, 1958, August Wilhelm Schlegel as a Translator of Shakespeare; a
Comparison of Three Plays with the Original, Oxford: B. Blackwell.
Behler, Ernst, 1993, German Romantic Literary Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
–––, 2000, “On Truth and Lie in an Aesthetical Sense”, in Revenge of the Aesthetic: The Place of
Literature Theory Today, Michael P. Clark (ed.), Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, pp. 76–93.
–––, 2002, “Lyric Poetry in the Early Romantic Theory of the Schlegel Brothers”, in Esterhammer
2002b: 115–141.
Benjamin, Walter, [1920] 1996, “The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism”, Ph.D. thesis,
printed in Walter Benjamin. Selected Writings, volume 1, 1913–1926, trans. by D.
Lachtermann, H. Eiland and I. Balfour; M. Bullock, Michael W. Jennings (eds.), Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 116–201.
Berman, Antoine, 1992a, The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic
Germany, Albany: State University of New York Press.

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–––, [1984] 1992b, “A.W. Schlegel, The Will to Translate Everything”, in The Experience of the
Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany (L’épreuve de l'étranger), trans. S.
Heyvaert, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, pp. 129–141.
Bernofsky, Susan, 1997, “Schleiermacher’s Translation Theory and Varieties of Foreignization.
August Wilhelm Schlegel vs. Johann Heinrich Voss”, The Translator, 3(2): 175–192.
doi:10.1080/13556509.1997.10798997
Billings, Joshua, 2013, “‘An Alien Body’? Choral Autonomy around 1800”, in Billings,
Budelmann, & Macintosh 2013: 133–151. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199670574.003.0009
Billings, Joshua, Felix Budelmann, and Fiona Macintosh (eds.), 2013, Choruses, Ancient and
Modern, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199670574.001.0001
Black, John D., 1964, “The Education of Desire. Romanticizing Cultural Studies”, in his, The
Politics of Enchantment: Romanticism, Media, and Cultural Studies, Waterloo: Wilfrid
Laurier University Press, pp. 15–37.
Carlson, Marvin, 1994, “Nationalism and the Romantic Drama in Europe”, in Gillespie 1994: 139–
153.
Craig, Charlotte M., 2000, “August Wilhelm Schlegel 1767–1845”, in Encyclopedia of German
Literature, M. Konzett (ed.), Chicago and London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, pp. 863–865.
Dunbar, Zachary, 2013, “‘How do we solve a Problem like the Chorus?’ Hammerstein’s Allegro
and the Reception of the Greek Chorus on Broadway”, in Billings, Budelmann, & Macintosh
2013: 243–260. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199670574.003.0015
Engel, Manfred and Jürgen Lehmann, 2004, “The Aesthetics of German Idealism and Its Reception
in European Romanticism”, in Nonfictional Romantic Prose: Expanding Boarders
(Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages), S.P. Steven, N. Virgil (eds.) in
collaboration with G. Gillespie, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing
Company, pp. 69–95.
Esterhammer, Angela, 2002a, “The Critic”, in The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge,
(Cambridge Companions to Literature), Lucy Newly (ed.), Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 142–155. doi:10.1017/CCOL0521650712.010
––– (ed.), 2002b, Romantic Poetry, Amsterdam: John Benjamin’s Pub. Co.
Ewton, Ralph W., 1972, The Literary Theories of August Wilhelm Schlegel, The Hague: Mouton.
Ferber, Michael (ed.), 2005, A Companion to European Romanticism, Malden and Oxford:
Blackwell. doi:10.1111/b.9781405110396.2005.x
Franzel, Sean, 2014, “Romantic Encyclopedics and the Lecture Form: Schelling, A.W. Schlegel, A.
von Humboldt”, European Romantic Review, 25(3): 347–356.
doi:10.1080/10509585.2014.899762
Furst, Lilian R., 1969 [1976, 1982], Romanticism, London: Cambridge University Press.
Flaherty, Gloria, 1994, “Empathy and Distance. German Romantic Theories of Acting
Reconsidered”, in Gillespie 1994: 181–209.
Gillespie, Gerald (ed.), 1994, Romantic Drama, Philadelphia and Amsterdam: John Benjamin’s
Publishing Co.
Goldhill, Simon, 2013, “The Greek Chorus: Our German Eyes”, in Billings, Budelmann, &
Macintosh 2013: 35–52. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199670574.003.0003
Grundmann, Heike, 2005, “Shakespeare and European Romanticism”, in Ferber 2005: 29–48.
doi:10.1111/b.9781405110396.2005.00004.x

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Heine, Heinrich, 1833, “The Romantic School”, in Heinrich Heine 1797–1856: The Romantic
School and Other Essays (The German Library, 33), trans. by Robert C. Holub, Jost Hermand
and Volkmar Sander (eds.), New York: Continuum, 1985, pp. 1–128.
Helmholtz-Phelan, Anna Augusta von, 1907, The Indebtedness of Samuel Taylor Coleridge to
August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Thesis (doctoral), Madison: University of Wisconsin (Philology
and literature series).
Lacoue-Labarthe Philippe and Jean-Luc Nancy, [1978] 1988, The Literary Absolute: the Theory of
Literature in German Romanticism (L’absolu littéraire : théorie de la littérature du
romantisme allemand), trans. by Philip Barnard and Cheryl Lester, Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
Lefevere, André, 1977, Translating Literature: The German Tradition from Luther to Rosenzweig,
Assen and Amsterdam: Van Gorcum (especially pp. 46–57).
Müller-Vollmer, Kurt, 2000 [2002], “Transcendentalist Writings. Transfers, Inscriptions,
Transformations”, in The Internationality of National Literature in Either America: Transfer
and Transformation, A. Paul Frank and Kurt Mueller-Vollmer (eds.), Göttingen: Wallstein
Verlag, pp. 295–319.
Neubauer, John, 2002, “Organicist Poetics as Romantic Heritage?”, in Esterhammer 2002b: 491–
508.
Paulin, Roger, 2016, The Life of August Wilhelm Schlegel, Cosmopolitan of Art and Poetry,
Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.
Plug, Jan, 2004, “Romanticism and the Invention of Literature”, in Idealism without Absolutes:
Philosophy and Romantic Culture, Tilottama Rajan and Arkady Plotnitsky (ed.), New York:
State University of New York Press, pp. 15–39.
Robinson, Douglas, 1991, The Translator’s Turn, Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University
Press.
Sauer, Thomas G., 1981, A.W. Schlegel’s Shakespearean Criticism in England, 1811–1846, Bonn:
Bouvier Verlag H. Grundmann.
Schmelling, Manfred, 1994, “‘Theatre in the Theatre’ and ‘World Theatre’: Play Thematics and the
Breakthrough of Romantic Drama”, in Gillespie 1994: 35–59.
Schulte-Sasse, Jochen, [1985] 1988, “The Concept of Literary Criticism in German Romanticism,
1795–1810”, in A History of German Literary Criticism, 1730–1980 (Geschichte der
deutschen Literaturkritik (1730-1980)), Peter Uwe Hohendahl (ed.), Lincoln and London:
University of Nebraska Press, pp. 99–177.
Welleck, René, 1955, “August Wilhelm Schlegel”, in A History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950,
vol. II, New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 36–73.
Ziolkowski, Theodore, 2016, “Ruminations on Ruins: Classical versus Romantic”, The German
Quarterly, 89(3): 265–281. doi:10.1111/gequ.12000
German
Albrecht, Andrea, 2005, Kosmopolitismus. Weltbürgerdiskurse in Literatur, Philosophie und

Publizistik um 1800, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (especially pp. 306–311).
Alt, Carl, 1904, Schiller und die Brüder Schlegel, Weimar: Böhlau.
Becker, Claudia, 1998, “Naturgeschichte der Kunst”, August Wilhelm Schlegels ästhetischer Ansatz

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im Schnittpunkt zwischen Aufklärung, Klassik und Frühromantik, Munich: Fink.
Behler, Ernst, 1983, Die Zeitschriften der Brüder Schlegel. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
deutschen Romantik, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
–––, 1992, Frühromantik, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Bernays, Michael, 1865, “Der Schlegel-Tieck Shakespeare”, in Jahrbuch der Deutschen
Shakespeare-Gesellschaft I, 396–405.
–––, 1891, “Vorrede und Nachwort zum neuen Abdruck des Schlegel-Tieckschen Shakespeare”,
Preussische Jahrbücher, 68(3): 524–69.
–––, 1872, Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Schlegelschen Shakespeare, Leipzig: Hirzel.
Besenbeck, Alfred, 1930, Kunstanschauung und Kunstlehre August Wilhelm Schlegels, Berlin: E.
Ebering.
Brentano, Bernard von, 1986, August Wilhelm Schlegel. Geschichte eines romantischen Geistes,
Frankfurt a.M.: Insel.
Byun, Hak-Su, 1994, Hermeneutische und ästhetische Erfahrung des Fremden. August Wilhelm
Schlegel, Munich: Iudicium.
Gipper, Helmut and Peter Schmitter, 1979, Sprachwissenschaft und Sprachphilosophie im Zeitalter
der Romantik. Ein Beitrag zur Historiographie der Linguistik, Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Grosse-Brockhoff, Annelen, 1981, Das Konzept des Klassischen bei Friedrich und August Wilhelm
Schlegel, Köln: In Kommission bei Böhlau.
Holmes, Susanne, 2005, Synthesis der Vielheit die Begründung der Gattungstheorie bei August
Wilhelm Schlegel, Paderborn: Schöningh.
Hölter, Achim, 2010, “August Wilhelm Schlegels Göttinger Mentoren”, in Der Europäer August
Wilhelm Schlegel. Romantischer Kulturtransfer—romantische Wissenswelten, York-Gothart
Mix and Jochen Strobel (eds.), Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 13–29.
Jagenlauf, Franz, 1934, August Wilhelm von Schlegel und die Lehre vom Verstehen, Leipzig: M.
Fischer.
Körner, Josef, 1924, Romantiker und Klassiker. Die Brüder Schlegel in ihrer Beziehung zu Schiller
u. Goethe, Berlin: Askanischer Verlag.
Larson, Kenneth E., 1989, “Pro und contra Schlegel. Die zwei gegensätzlichen
Blankversübersetzungen des King Lear von Heinrich Voss (1806 und 1819) ”, in Deutsche
Shakespeare-Gesellschaft West Jahrbuch: pp. 113–33.
Masiakowska, Dorota, 2002, Vielfalt und Einheit im Europabild August Wilhelm Schlegels,
Frankfurt a.M.: Lang.
Mix, York-Gothart and Jochen Strobel (eds.), 2010, Der Europäer August Wilhelm Schlegel.
Romantischer Kulturtransfer—romantische Wissenswelten, Berlin and New York: Walter de
Gruyter.
Nagavajara, Chetana, 1966, August Wilhelm Schlegel in Frankreich. Sein Anteil an die
französischen Literaturkritik 1807–1835, Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Paulini, Hilde Marianne, 1985, August Wilhelm Schlegel und die Vergleichende
Literaturwissenschaft, Frankfurt a.M.: P. Lang.
Penzel, Joachim, 2007, Der Betrachter ist im Text, Berlin: Lit Verlag.
Reavis, Silke Agnes, 1978, August Wilhelm Schlegels Auffassung der Tragödie im Zusammenhang
mit seiner Poetik und ästhetischen Theorien seiner Zeit, Bern: P. Lang.
Schenk-Lenzen, Ulrike, 1991, Das ungleiche Verhältnis von Kunst und Kritik. zur Literaturkritik

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August Wilhelm Schlegels, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
Schirmer, Ruth, 1986, August Wilhelm Schlegel und seine Zeit: ein Bonner Leben, Bonn: Bouvier.
Schwartz, Wilhelm, 1914, August Wilhelm Schlegels Verhältnis zur spanischen und portugiesischen
Literatur, Halle: M. Niemeyer.
Strobel, Jochen, 2010, “Der Romantiker als homo academicus. August Wilhelm Schlegel in der
Wissenschaft”, in Jahrbuch des Freien Deutschen Hochstifts, pp. 298–338.
Wulf, Erich, 1913, August Wilhelm Schlegel als Lyriker, Berlin: Ebering.
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August Wilhelm von Schlegel

1. Life and Work

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1. Life and Work

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2. A.W. Schlegel’s Influence in German and European

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3.2 Romantic Art and the Longing for a Lost Unity

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3.3 The Poetical and the Critique of Art

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6. The Role of the Critic and Schlegel’s Romantic Nationalism

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6.2 Nationalism versus Cosmopolitanism

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were inevitably influenced by his own time.

7. A.W. Schlegel: A Thinker of Difference

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1800, Gedichte, Tübingen: Cotta.

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Selected Secondary Literature

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Albrecht, Andrea, 2005, Kosmopolitismus. Weltbürgerdiskurse in Literatur, Philosophie und

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Other Internet Resources

Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding initiative.

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

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