August Schlegel | |
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| Born | August Wilhelm Schlegel 8 September 1767 |
| Died | 12 May 1845 (aged 77) |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Jena Romanticism Historicism[1] |
| Institutions | University of Bonn |
| Main interests | Philology,philosophy of history |
August Wilhelm vonSchlegel (Schlegel until 1812;/ˈʃleɪɡəl/SHLAY-gəl;[2]German:[aʊˈɡʊstˈʃleːɡl̩];8 September1767 – 12 May1845) was a German scholar, critic,Orientalist,Indologist, translator and poet. With his brotherFriedrich Schlegel, he was a leading influence withinJena Romanticism. His translations ofShakespeare turned the English dramatist's works into German classics.[3][4]
Schlegel was also the professor ofSanskrit in Continental Europe and produced a translation of theBhagavad Gita.[4]
Schlegel was born inHanover, where his father,Johann Adolf Schlegel, was aLutheran pastor. He was educated at the Hanovergymnasium and at theUniversity of Göttingen.[5][4] Initially studying theology, he received a thorough philological training underHeyne and became an admirer and friend ofBürger, with whom he was engaged in an ardent study ofDante Alighieri,Petrarch andWilliam Shakespeare. Schlegel met withCaroline Schelling andWilhelm von Humboldt. In 1790 his brotherKarl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel came to Göttingen. Both were influenced byJohann Gottfried Herder,Immanuel Kant,Tiberius Hemsterhuis,Johann Winckelmann andKarl Theodor von Dalberg. From 1791 to 1795, Schlegel was tutor to Willem Ferdinand Mogge Muilman, the son of a Dutch banker, who lived at Herengracht 476 in Amsterdam.[6]
In 1796, soon after his return to Germany, Schlegel settled inJena, following an invitation fromFriedrich Schiller.[7] That year he marriedCaroline Schelling, the widow of the physician Böhmer.[5] She assisted Schlegel in some of his literary productions, and the publication of her correspondence in 1871 established for her a posthumous reputation as a German letter writer. She separated from Schlegel in 1801 and became the wife of the philosopherFriedrich von Schelling soon after.[7]
In Jena, Schlegel made critical contributions toSchiller'sHoren and that author'sMusen-Almanach,[5] and wrote around 300 articles for theJenaer Allgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung. He also did translations from Dante and Shakespeare. This work established his literary reputation and gained for him in 1798 an extraordinary professorship at theUniversity of Jena. His house became the intellectual headquarters of the "romanticists", and was visited at various times between 1796 and 1801 byJohann Gottlieb Fichte, whoseFoundations of the Science of Knowledge was studied intensively, by his brother Friedrich, who moved in with his wifeDorothea Schlegel, byFriedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, byLudwig Tieck, byNovalis and others.[7]
It is widely accepted that the Romantic Movement in Germany emerged, on the one hand, as a reaction against the aesthetical ideals defended inClassicism andNeoclassicism, and on the other, as a deviation from the rational principles of theEnlightenment with the consequent regression to the irrational spirit of theMiddle Ages.[8]
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.[8]
In 1797 August and Friedrich broke with Friedrich Schiller. With his brother, Schlegel founded theAthenaeum (1798–1800), the organ of the Romantic school, in which he dissected disapprovingly the immensely popular works of the sentimental novelistAugust Lafontaine.[9] He also published a volume of poems and carried on a controversy withKotzebue. At this time the two brothers were remarkable for the vigour and freshness of their ideas and commanded respect as the leaders of the new Romantic criticism. A volume of their joint essays appeared in 1801 under the titleCharakteristiken und Kritiken. His playIon, performed in Weimar in January 1802, was supported byGoethe, but became a failure.
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, 309–312).[8]
In 1801 Schlegel went to Berlin, where he delivered lectures on art and literature; and in the following year he publishedIon, a tragedy inEuripidean style, which gave rise to a suggestive discussion on the principles of dramatic poetry. This was followed bySpanisches Theater (2 vols, 1803/1809), in which he presented admirable translations of five ofCalderón's plays. In another volume,Blumensträusse italienischer, spanischer und portugiesischer Poesie (1804), he gave translations ofSpanish,Portuguese andItalian lyrics. He also translated works byDante Aligheri andLuís de Camões.[5][3]
Early in 1804, he made the acquaintance ofMadame de Staël in Berlin, who hired him as a tutor for her children. After divorcing his wife Caroline, Schlegel travelled with Madame de Staël toSwitzerland,Italy andFrance, acting as an adviser in her literary work.[10] In 1807 he attracted much attention in France by an essay in the French,Comparaison entre laPhèdre de Racine et celle d'Euripide, in which he attackedFrench classicism from the standpoint of theRomantic school. His famous lectures on dramatic art and literature (Über dramatische Kunst und Literatur, 1809–1811), which have been translated into most European languages, were delivered at Vienna in 1808.[5][7] He was accompanied by De Staël and her children. In 1810 Schlegel was ordered to leave theSwiss Confederation as an enemy of the French literature.[11]
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.[8]
In 1812, he travelled with De Staël, her husbandAlbert de Rocca and her children toKyiv,Moscow,Saint Petersburg and viaFinland toStockholm and acted as press secretary between 1813 and 1814 of Swedish Crown PrinceJean Baptiste Bernadotte, through whose influence the right of his family to noble rank was revived. After this, he joined again the household of Mme. de Staël until her death in 1817 in Paris, for likeMathieu de Montmorency he was one of her intimates until the end of her life. Schlegel was made a professor ofIndology at theUniversity of Bonn in 1818, and during the remainder of his life occupied himself chiefly with oriental studies. He founded a special printing office forSanskrit. As an orientalist, he was unable to adapt himself to the new methods opened up byBopp.[5][7] He corresponded withWilhelm von Humboldt, a linguist. After the death of Madame de Staël 14 July 1817 in Paris, Schlegel married in 1818 a daughter ofHeinrich Paulus, but this union was dissolved in 1821.[5]
Schlegel was 50 years old and his own master.[12] He was financially independent and could travel at his own expense.[13] Schlegel's Vienna Lectures had been published and were read across Europe and inSaint Petersburg. Therefore, he could cultivate friendships with the educated elite.[14] He continued to lecture on art and literature, publishing in 1827On the Theory and History of the Plastic Arts,[3] and in 1828 two volumes of critical writings (Kritische Schriften).[3][5]
Schlegel's translation ofWilliam Shakespeare, begun in Jena, was ultimately completed, under the superintendence ofLudwig Tieck,Dorothea Tieck, andWolf Heinrich Graf von Baudissin. This rendering is considered one of the best poetical translations in German.[5]
Schlegel did find the time to pursue his fascination forIndia and dedicated himself to the study ofSanskrit.[15] From 1823 til 1830 he published the journalIndische Bibliothek. In 1823 edited theBhagavad Gita, with aLatin translation, and in 1829, theRamayana. This was followed by his 1832 workReflections on the Study of the Asiatic Languages.[3][5]
Schlegel became convinced that the origin of Germanic people could be identified inlinguistic evidence and believed that languages could be used to reconstruct patterns ofhuman migration, so he studied the epics ofPersia and India.[16] Schlegel published on this matter, attesting Indians, Egyptians, Greeks, andAztecs the benefit ofprogress. He was impressed with their architecture, their mathematics, and their technology. In 1837 he wrote the preface to the German translation ofJames Cowles Prichard's bookAn Analysis of the Egyptian Mythology which originally had been published in 1819.[17]
In 1835, Schlegel became head of the committee organisinga monument in memory of Ludwig van Beethoven in Bonn, thecomposer's birthplace. Schlegel died in Bonn in 1845,[5] three months before its official unveiling.
According to the 1910-1911Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition:
As an original poet Schlegel is unimportant, but as a poetical translator he has rarely been excelled, and in criticism he put into practice the Romantic principle that a critic's first duty is not to judge from the standpoint of superiority, but to understand and to "characterize" a work of art.[5]
An article for the 1920Encyclopedia Americana provided the following thoughts:
As a critic [Schlegel] carried on the tradition ofLessing andHerder. Without possessing Lessing's power of style and personality, [Schlegel] commanded a wider range of artistic susceptibility. His unerring linguistic and historical scholarship and the calm objectivity of his judgment enabled him to carry out, even more successfully than Herder himself, Herder's demand that literary criticism should be based on a sympathetic penetration into the specific individuality of each poetic production rather than on the application of preconceived aesthetic standards.
Schlegel established models for the new method of analytical and interpretative criticism in his essays onGoethe'sHermann and Dorothea and onShakespeare'sRomeo and Juliet. His Vienna lecturesOn Dramatic Art and Literature were translated into most of the languages of Europe and stand as a permanent contribution to critical literature; his definition of the terms "classic" and "romantic" met with general recognition; his views on the so-called "three unities" and on the "correctness" of Shakespeare evoked an especially strong echo in England and finally made theJohnsonian attitude toward Shakespeare appear obsolete.
Formal perfection of language is the chief merit of his poems, which suffer from a lack of originality. In his dramaIon, he vainly attempted to rival Goethe'sIphigenie. He prided himself on being "model and master in the art of sonnets" among the Germans. He is at his best in sparkling literature parodies such asEhrenpforte und Triumphbogen für Kotzebue (1801).[7]
The 1905New International Encyclopedia in its article on Schlegel, gives the following opinions:
- The Schlegel-Tieck translation is universally considered better than any other rendering of Shakespeare in a foreign language. Thanks to Schlegel and Tieck, Shakespeare has become a national poet of Germany.
- [Schlegel's]Spanisches Theater (1803-09), consisting of five pieces of Calderon's, admirably translated,... [made] that poet a favorite with the German people, and hisBlumensträusse der italienischen, spanischen und portugiesischen Poesie (Berlin, 1804), a charming collection of southern lyrics, [marks] the appearance of . . . the naturalization in German verse of the metrical forms of the Romanic races.
- Schlegel was quarrelsome, jealous, and ungenerous in his relations with literary men, and did not even shrink from slander when his spleen was excited.
Schlegel's Shakespeare translations have been often reprinted. The edition of 1871–72 was revised with Schlegel's manuscripts byMichael Bernays. See Bernays'sZur Entstehungsgeschichte des Schlegelschen Shakespeare (1872);Rudolph Genée,Schlegel und Shakespeare (1903). Schlegel also translated plays byPedro Calderón de la Barca, such asLa banda y flor, which became the basis for E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1807 singspielLiebe und Eifersucht.
A selection of the writings of both August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel, edited by Oskar Walzel, will be found inKürschner'sDeutsche Nationalliteratur, 143 (1892).
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Schlegel, August Wilhelm von".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 328–329.
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