SCHLEGEL, CARL WILHELM FRIEDRICH VON (1772–1829)

SCHLEGEL, CARL WILHELM FRIEDRICH VON (1772–1829)

Friedrich Schlegel was a leading representative of German Romanticism, philosopher, writer and critic. His great creativity and brilliant classical education allowed him to contribute—notably and importantly—to various fields of human science. A bright literary critic, he also wrote on the theory of language and poetry, philosophy of history and hermeneutics. Schlegel’s works have had profound influence not only on the German Romantic movement but also on the next generations of philosophers, historians, writers, linguists and historians of literature.

Born in Hanover (Saxony) on 10 March 1772 Friedrich Schlegel showed an early interest to the Ancient Greek and Roman culture, languages and philosophy. However, following the advice of his family, he started studying Law at Göttingen University in 1790. It was May 1793 when Schlegel abruptly decided to break away from his legal studies and devote his entire life to the study of the nature of the literary. Schlegel was very active in self-educating. He was well aware of every important stream of German thought. Particularly, he was influenced by KANT’S Critique of Judgment and Fichte’s doctrine of the world-creating ego, SCHELLING’s natural philosophy and Schleiermacher’s mysticism.

In 1794 Schlegel moved to Dresden where he betook himself to the study of Greek and Roman literature. His work resulted in a series of publications in German literary journals. In his articles, Schlegel argued that Greek civilization had reached harmony and perfection in its art and culture. According to Schlegel, Greek art is bound to nature. By contrast to its antique antecedents, modern arts abandoned its natural origin and took the path of the infinite progress that allows for multiple achievements but hinders the way to true perfection and balance.

In 1798 Friedrich and his elder brother August Wilhelm von Schlegel (translator and critic) set up a quarterly Athenaeum (Athenäum) that laid down the theoretical basis for German Romanticism. Friedrich Schlegel both edited this journal and contributed his theoretical articles. Dialogue on Poetry (Gespräch über die Poesie, 1800) is the most significant of his works published in Athenaeum. The four parts of this work provide a brief outline of the history of Western poetry, describe the distinctive features of the Romantic style in literature and analyse the style of Goethe’s early and later works. Dialogue also puts forward a new interpretation of mythology as a product of human mind.

During his work at Athenaeum, Schlegel paid particular attention to the theoretical issues of Romanticism. He developed his conception of Romantic poetry as the only authentic type of literature. Schlegel insisted that it should be at once philosophical and religious, rhetorical and prosaicin effect, it should embody the life itself. Also Schlegel developed a new conception of irony based on the notion of Socratic irony and Fichte’s doctrine of the self-induction of thought by means of self-affirmation and self-negation. Romantic irony results from the discrepancies between the real and the ideal; it is rooted in the disagreement between the finite and the infinite.

Entries A-Z 587 At this time, Schlegel mostly writes short and self-contained passages that he calls

‘fragments’. He praises this form of expression as the best way of literary communion: it unites the genres and amalgamates philosophy, religion, poetry and rhetoric.

Schlegel’s Romantic speculations found their imaginative expression in his novel Lucinde (1799). Experimental in its form and contents, this novel reveals the essence of love between man and woman. Described as the harmony between feelings and mind, and the synthesis of the masculine and the feminine, love requires education and culture from a woman. This semi-biographical novel refers to Schlegel’s relationship with Dorothea Veit, whom he married in 1804.

In 1802 Schlegel moved to Paris. This opened a new stage of his intellectual development. From now on, he focused on linguistics and comparative studies of languages and literatures. In Paris Schlegel studied Sanskrit and Indian culture and published his On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians (Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier, 1808). In this work, he examined India’s culture and philosophy, and analysed the inter-relation between Sanskrit and modern Indo-European languages. For the first time in the history of science he clearly demonstrated that it is grammatical structure of languages—rather than their vocabulary—that constitutes the primary subject matter of comparative linguistics. In 1808 Schlegel and his wife became Roman Catholics. Schlegel had prepared himself for this event beforehand by studying patristic and scholastic texts.

In 1809 in Vienna Schlegel started his political career as an Imperial Court Secretary. At the same time, he continued his research work and gave two series of lectures, namely

A Course of Lectures on Modern History (Über die neuere Geschichte, 1810; first published in 1811) and Lectures on the History of Literature (Geschichte der alten und neueren Literatur, 1812; first published in 1815). Here, Schlegel’s general attention shifted from the theory of literature to the consideration of its patriotic function and its conformity to Christian world outlook. He also considered the types of tragic conclusion and other particular issues. In the period between 1820 and 1823 Schlegel co-edited the Catholic magazine Concordia.

Schlegel died on 11 January 1829. His intellectually turbulent life that had led him from his early Romanticism to Catholic conservatism resulted in a number of important contributions to the human sciences.