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1. Life and work

A.W. Schlegel was son of the Lutheran pastor and hymn writer Johann Adolf Schlegel. In 1787
he began his studies at the University of Gttingen, starting in theology and later changing to
classical philology and aesthetics. He worked as a private teacher in Amsterdam and returned to
Jena in 1796 to work as a literary critic, where he joined important artists and philosophers such
as Novalis, Ludwig Tieck and F.W.J. Schelling. In the same year, he married Caroline Michaelis,
who encouraged him and also participated in his project to translate Shakespeare's plays.
In 1798, tired of the publishing difficulties they 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 German Romantic Movement's principal voices. The
Athenaeum was devoted mainly 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 between 1798 and 1800.
In that same year, 1798, A.W. Schlegel was named extraordinary professor at Jena
University, where he continued his translation of the works of Shakespeare (17971810).
Schlegel was remarkably talented as a translator; he translated over 16 Shakespearean
plays, five plays from the Spanish dramaturge Caldern de la Barca, and other selected
pieces from Dante, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Miguel de Cervantes, Torquato Tasso,
and Lus de Cames which were published in 1804 as Blumenstrusse italinischer,
spanischer, und portugiesischer Poesie, (Bouquets of Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese
Poetry).
In 1801 Schlegel went to Berlin, where he lectured on literature and art. Both his Jena
(17981799) and his Berlin lectures (18011804) 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 approach to art and its history. Some of these
lectures were published in literary journals, until 1884 when they were posthumously
collected as Vorlesungen ber philosophische Kunstlehere (Lectures on Philosophical Art
Education) and Vorlesungen ber schne Literatur und Kunst (Lectures on Fine Art and
Literature) respectively. Four years later, Schlegel delivered in Vienna another series of
lectures elaborating upon some of the ideas he had already developed in his previous work.

A literal transcription of these was published between 1809 and 1811 as Vorlesungen ber
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. This success 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, he embarked upon a relationship with Mme. de Stel; he became tutor of
her children and was her constant companion on her travels in Germany, Italy, France and
Sweden until her death in 1817. In August 1818 he married Sophie Paulus in Heidelberg,
but they only remained together for a few weeks. Sophie never accompanied him to Bonn.
In 1818 A.W. Schlegel became professor of literature and art history in Bonn, where he
published the scholarly journal Indische Bibliothek (18201830) and set up a Sanskrit
printing press with which he provided the first printed editions of the Bhagavadgt (1823)
andRmyana (1829) in continental Europe. He died in 1845.

1.1 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. Bcking and published in 16
volumes between 1846 and 1848. His complete lectures were edited by E. Behler in 1989,
and his letters were edited by J. Krner and published in 1930.
Schlegel's lectures show his commitment as a professor, combining high intellectual
standards with an appealing and interesting approach. His aphorisms are sagacious in both
form and content, but his style seems to lose its boldness and wittiness after the Athenaeum
period, gaining perhaps in depth and erudition. Critics of Schlegel's literary writings
(Gedichte, 1800;Ion, 1803; Poetische Werke, 1811) tend to stress their formal perfection,
but also justify his presumable lack of success as a poet. Other scholars, however, speak of
the considerable achievement of his play Ion and the German poet Heinrich Heine refers to
him as the poetic genius (Heine, 56). Overall A.W. Schlegel's writings are prolific in
quantity and in a certain sense remain rather unfocused and repetitive. This could be due to
the fact that many of the essays Schlegel had decided not to publish were printed after his
death. 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.

Critics have also pointed out that, as a literary critic, A.W. Schlegel is more empirical and
less philosophical than his brother Friedrich Schlegel (Welleck, 7273). Contemporary
scholars have even questioned his being the genuine creator of the ideas laid out in his
writings and lectures. But however theoretically convincing the distinction between having
created the ideas as opposed to merely having disseminated them may seem, this is in
actual fact quite disputable. It was A.W. Schlegel's lectures, with their particular view of
world literature as an organic whole, that were to influence many authors; amongst the
most prominent of whom was S. T. Coleridge as well as the philosopher F.W.J. Schelling.
Throughout his lectures and essays, A.W. Schlegel praised the plays of Shakespeare and
Caldern to the detriment of French Neoclassical theatre. Although this was part of a
systematic and organic comprehension of art and art history, his harsh attack on classical
rules considered sacred by French critics predisposed the latter to react hostilely (especially
with the publication of the polemical Comparaison entre la Phdre de Racine et celle
d'Euripide, in 1807), whilst it favored the approval of 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 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 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)[1].

2. A.W. Schlegel's influence in German Romanticism

It is widely accepted that the Romantic Movement in Germany emerged, on the one hand,
as a reaction against the aesthetical ideals defended in Classicism and Neoclassicism, and
on the other, as a deviation from the rational principles of the Enlightenment with the
consequent regression to the irrational spirit of the Middle Ages. However, some scholars
maintain that the Romantic Movement should be seen as a radicalization, and not a
rejection, of Weimar Classicism (Behler, 1992, 43). Certainly, in some of his essays, A.W.
Schlegel offered a harsh critique of Friedrich Schiller, who had been regarded, together

with Goethe, as the founding father of Weimar Classicism; but this rivalry seemed to
involve more than just strictly philosophical issues.
It would be impossible to ascribe the original conception of the Romantic aesthetical and
philosophical precepts to one author alone. Despite the emphasis the Romantics laid on the
individual artist and his/her genius and originality, the conceptualization of the Romantic
Movement itself is essentially a collective work. This is most evident in what has been
considered to be the organ of the Romantic Movement, the Athenaeum: there were two
editors, several writers and a diversity of opinions, but one unifying principle (A, I, vi).
And yet, most commentators credit A.W. Schlegel for having given the word romantic a
systematic significance from the very beginning (Furst, 84). In contrast with other literary
critics who used the term in contradictory and erratic ways, 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.
Schlegel's philosophical analysis of art and the artist were inspired by his reading of Kant,
Fichte, Goethe, Schiller and Schelling among others, but he developed his own poetology.
In the presentation of his theoretical position, however, A.W. Schlegel was less speculative
than other German philosophers. But as 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, 118). Thus, in a mixture of pride and censure, Schlegel
frequently notes how German authors are more speculative than practical (LDA, 16 and
440). Indeed, 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.
F.W.J. Schelling (the most Romantic of the German idealist philosophers) was very much
influenced by Schlegel's Jena lectures, and used them as a basis for the elaboration of
hisLectures on the Philosophy of Art (18021804). Although subject of scholarly debate
(Esterhammer, 153), Schlegel's profound influence on English Romanticism through
Coleridge is widely accepted. 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
Art is not a mere imitation or representation of nature; art is the product of a creative force.
This principle, embodying a pivotal idea of the German Romantic aesthetics is also the core
of one of A.W. Schlegel's Berlin lectures published in the Viennese journal, Prometheus
(1808). Re-collected in his Kritische Schriften (1828) as ber das Verhltniss der schnen

Kunst zur Natur; ber Tuschung und Wahrscheinlichkeit; ber Manier 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 ber das Verhltni der bildenden Knste zu
der Natur (On the Relationship of Visual Arts to Nature), but also 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,
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. 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 apresentiment (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 selfawareness and to recognize oneself as forming part of a larger unity. Indeed, this resort to a
non-theoretical or non-discursive plane as an essential constituent of human comprehension
was also important in Schlegel's philosophy of language, which he already expounded in
his Letters on Poetry, Meter and Language (Briefe ber Poesie, Sylbema und Sprache) in
1795.
In any case, the philosophical or Romantic notion of nature as an unfathomable unity and
creative force which 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. In
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) 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 language) as the
capability of producing a world within a world (Mller-Vollmer, 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 perspective. But this particular viewpoint enabled him to reinterpret the
old formula art imitates nature, in such a way as to grasp not only the true essence of art,
but also its most fundamental principle. Indeed, once we conceive of nature as an organic
whole, constantly becoming and transforming itself, then Schlegel's paradoxical
determination artshould imitate nature (SW III, 306) becomes quite coherent. The
deficiency of the formula does not lie in the idea itself, but in the meaning we give to it. In
a very precise sense, art imitates nature, because in his/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.
However, Schlegel was also very aware of the fact that, if art was the embodiment of an
eternal truth, of absolute beauty, this indirectly meant that it was not Beauty itself. This is
also why he emphasized that 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
(geistige Anschauung)[2]of Nature (SW III, 307). Indeed, the idea of longing or Sehnsucht
is 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.

Thus, as F.W.J. Schelling had done in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Art of 1803,
Schlegel presents the passage from paganism to Christianity as the historical realization of
an insurmountable division between the subject and the object, 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 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.
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 considered that German culture, which he defined as having a natural
inclination to 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, which,
in a certain sense, evokes the severity of Kantian ethics. 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, in a similar way as German Romanticism is the fruit
of the union of the peculiarities of the northern with the fragments of antiquity (LDA, 5).
In the same way as Nature, or to be precise, the true experience of Nature cannot be
reduced to its mere physical or external manifestation, a work of art and its contemplation
of it are, also, more than just the simple perception or the analysis of its appearance.
Therefore, in order to endure the shifting modes of time, the work of art needs to have
something more profound than just a beautiful form, as a flower needs its roots and cannot

survive long without them. Conversely, 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 also 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 irrelevant for the artistic product, and hence, must
remain irrelevant in the evaluation of his work. In his Lectures on Dramatic Art, Schlegel
defines a genius as 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 unconscious choices seem to derive from a
higher instance (consciously choosing the highest degree of excellence) determines the
difference betweenstyle and mannerism. When the work of art appears as if all its elements
had been consciously chosen by a power above the artist, it has style; when the artist has
not transcended his/her individuality, then s/he is categorized as a mannerist artist (SW III,
309312).
The essence of a work of art, the principle that all real works of art have in common and
which makes them be more than a mere accumulation of countable 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, 107108). 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, as Schiller had done. 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 which 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 a
collection of things) the aesthetic objects would have no particular interest other than
ornamentation. But, for Schlegel, both the contemplation as well as the production of art
should be seen as the result of a creative activity.
In accordance with these theoretical assumptions, Schlegel was very negative about the
naturalistic neoclassicist tendencies in art. Schlegel praised the wholeness and the poetical
unity as well as the originality in a work of art. For Schlegel, the magic of a work of art is
that it brings us into a different world, with all its own internal coherence, and this is why it
needs to become organic and complete unto itself. Therefore, its purpose should 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 principles seemed to do. 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.
Consequently, 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 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, the author of which
needs to remain invisible lest his/her fictional world should disintegrate; 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, the author and the people from the audience alike (parabasis),
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. However, for Schlegel, this did not make comedy dependent on 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 the 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, 195). For Schlegel, children's delight in imitating
their relatives is also explanatory 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, phase 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 all the petty and unnecessary details of real life; it is the performance of a
morally and intellectually exemplary action through dialogue. Indeed, to place dramatic
poetry in the highest rank amongst the arts does not make Schlegel unique. What does
render him quite distinctive, however, 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 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 other authors such as
Schelling and Nietzsche.

In his Lectures on Dramatic Art Schlegel was very critical towards the present state of
German theatre (LDA, 438). However, apart from Shakespeare, Caldern, with their ironic
way of mixing the tragic with the comic (LDA, 175), and the ancient Greeks, 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 influential Letters on Poetry from 1795, addressed to a fictional Amalie, Schlegel
discusses the possible origins of language; a theme, to which he would later return in his
Jena and Berlin lectures. In his disputation, Schlegel was taking part in an old philosophical
debate which had formed two opposite hypotheses (Behler, 2002, 124128). 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 purely 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 prefer to see everything under the
mysterious light of twilight (SW VII, 110). For Schlegel, the real problem lay in the
presupposed exclusivity of both alternatives (Behler, 2000, 126).
The fact that Schlegel entered into an already existing debate and that he aimed to dissolve
it by reconciling both perspectives, makes his decision to present his position in an
epistolary form, mixing different styles of argumentation, much more interesting and
valuable; especially if we take into consideration that Schlegel actually modified his last
Letter after having received a commentary, through a missive, from Friedrich Schiller
(Behler, 2002, 126). Schlegel's letters were indeed an example of what he claimed in them,
namely that 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.
For Schlegel, language constitutes, in its most elementary conception, 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 purely naturalistic or animalistic
sphere. Indeed, for Schlegel, as for Herder, language is the quintessence of human beings.
Language is 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 which he supports
with 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 maintains 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: howevercivilized 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, but 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 (1884, 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 of that of the translator is to broaden the signifying and expressive
capacity of a 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, 7576 and 116117).
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 differentiation 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 cannot 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 that the experience of an existing
totality has a mythological basis without which the experience itself would be impossible
(Behler, 1992, 7778). 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 maintained that language is the most wonderful creation of human
beings' 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, 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 (1884, I, 275). In this way, Schlegel was clearly anticipating
Nietzsche's On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense.

5. Translation theory
Although Schlegel himself denied that he had developed any translation theory (IB, I, 256),
many of his texts are devoted to the analysis of existing translations (such as Voss's and
Brger's translations of Homer) as well as to the commentary on his own work as
translator. Schlegel was 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 BhagavadGita 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 Brger's versions. Likewise, in
his ber 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.
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 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, 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 to violate the language, to invent a new language (SW VII, 116). In fact,
Schlegel's principal concern as a translator seems to be to enable the assimilation and
comprehension of otherness. In this sense, Schlegel also believed that German culture and
language provided much better conditions for good translations than other languages, and
he criticized the way in which especially French translations tended to paraphrase passages
from foreign texts in order to make them seem more French (KS, I, 7576, see also
Berman, 36). As Antoine Berman notes, what Schlegel reproached in Voss's translation of
Homer is precisely to have created a much too strange pidgin of Greek and German
(Berman, 154).
Although many of Schlegel's remarks may seem self-evident and elementary, they did not
appear so at the time. In fact they are the result of a very precise way of understanding
language. Indeed Schlegel's translation theories are very much connected to his philosophy
of language. Thus, 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 argues, are the result of a progressive
growing apart between an original sensual denotation and its future abstract meanings (IB,
II, 248258). Therefore, the translator needs to make a decision between (a) finding a more
or less neutral term in his/her own language that has a similar meaning to the original,
sensual meaning (in this case s/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 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, I,
254). It is never gratifying, because the more s/he tries to make the best translation, the
more s/he realizes how impossible his/her task is. And yet, Schlegel's translations of
Shakespeare are still read today.

6. The role of the critic and Schlegel's Romantic nationalism

The Romantic vision of the great artist as an exceptional individual, an unrepeatable
genius, creator of his/her own rules, of his/her 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. Certainly, in
order to appreciate correctly the work of the artist, in order to avoid being dazed by
superficial beauty, 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 certain ages and nations (LDA, 2). In Schlegel's oeuvre 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 the (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). Schlegel consequently introduced in all of his lectures historical, social and cultural
observations; because for him, the aim of the critic was, 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. creatingthe 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.
Schlegel's writings made Shakespeare one of the most universally known and revered
authors in Germany and, to a great extent, also in England. Through his translations and
essays he 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 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., pp. 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, 143).
In his late essay Abri von den Europischen Verhltnissen der Deutschen Literatur (1825),
written for an English public, 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 quality (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, 214217). In short, A.W. Schlegel's
concern became more and more a problem of national identity (Schmelling, 3536).
After the disastrous consequences of German nationalism during the 20 th 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, 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 with 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. In fact, although Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Art can
be seen as a plea for what he calls 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 author 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 purpose 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 19 th
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 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 19 th 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 Ren Girard.