Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel Article, KarlWilhelmFriedrichvonSchlegel Information

He was born at Hanover . He studied law at Göttingen and Leipzig , but ultimately devoted himself entirely to literary studies. He published in 1797 the important book Die Griechen und Römer, which was followed by the suggestiveGeschichte der Poesie der Griechen und Römer (1798). At Jena, where he lectured as a Privatdozent at theuniversity, he contributed to the Athenaeum the aphorisms and essays in which the principles of the Romantic school are most definitely stated. Here also he wrote Lucinde (1799), an unfinishedromance, which is interesting as an attempt to transfer to practical ethics the Romantic demand for complete individual freedom,and Alarcos, a tragedy (1802) in which, without much success, he combined romantic and classical elements.

In 1802 he went to Paris ,where he edited the review Europa (1803), lectured on philosophy and carried on Oriental studies, some results of whichhe embodied in an epoch-making book, Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808). In the same year in which thiswork appeared, he and his wife Dorothea (1763-1839), a daughter of MosesMendelssohn , joined the Roman Catholic Church , andfrom this time he became more and more opposed to the principles of political and religious freedom. He went to Vienna and in 1809 was appointed imperial court secretaryat the headquarters of the archduke Charles.

At a later period he was councillor of legation in the Austrian embassy at the Frankfurt diet, but in 1818 he returned toVienna. Meanwhile he had published his collected Geschichte (1809) and two series of lectures, Über die neuereGeschichte (1811) and Geschichte der alten und neuen Literatur (1815). After his return to Vienna from Frankfurt heedited Concordia (1820-1823), and began the issue of his Sämtliche Werke. He also delivered lectures, whichwere republished in his Philosophie des Lebens (1828) and in his Philosophie der Geschichte (1829). He died onthe 11th of January 1829 at Dresden.

A permanent place in the history of German literature belongs to Friedrich Schlegel and his brother August Wilhelm as thecritical leaders of the Romantic school, which derived from them most of its governing ideas as to the characteristics of themiddle ages, and as to the methods of literary expression. Of the two brothers, Friedrich was unquestionably the more originalgenius. He was the real founder of the Romantic school; to him more than to any other member of the school we owe therevolutionizing and germinating ideas which influenced so profoundly the development of German literature at the beginning of the 19th century .

Friedrich Schlegel's wife, Dorothea, was the author of an unfinished romance, Florentin (180,), a Sammlungromantischer Dichtungen des Mittelalters (2 vols., 1804), a version of Lother und Maller (1805), and a translationof Madame de Staël 's Corinne (1807-1808)--all of whichwere issued under her husband's name. By her first marriage she had a son, Philipp Veit, who became an eminent painter.

Works and Literature

Friedrich Schlegel's Sämtliche Werke appeared in 10 vols. (1822-1825); a second edition (1846) in 55 vols. HisProsaische Jugendschriften (1794-1802) have been edited by J. Minor (1882, 2nd ed. 1906); there are also reprints ofLucinde, and F. Schleiermacher's Vertraute Briefe über Lucinde, 1800 (1907). See R. Haym, Die romantischeSchule (1870); I. Rouge, F. Schlegel et la genie du romantisme allemand (1904); by the same, Erläuterungen InF. Schiegels Lucinde (1905); M. Joachimi, Die Weltanschauung der Romantik (1905); W. Glawe, Die Religion F. Schlegels (1906); E. Kircher, Philosophie der Romantik(1906).

On Dorothea Schlegel see J.M. Raich, Dorothea von Schiegel und deren Söhne (1881); F. Diebel, Dorothea Schlegelals Schriftsteller im Zusammenhang mit der romantischen Schule (1905).

Letters

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This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica .

This article is part of the Influential Western Philosophers series