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SCHLEGEL, shlā'gel,August Wilhelm von(1767-1845). A distinguished German critic,poet, and Orientalist. He was born at Hanover,September 8, 1767, and studied at Göttingen.He first began to win prominence in literature,while a lecturer at Jena, by his contributions toSchiller'sHoren andMusenalmanach, and to theAllgemeine Litteraturzeitung. About the sametime his translation of Shakespeare began toappear (1797-1810), the influence of which on Germanpoetry and on the German stage was alikegreat. The poet Tieck undertook a revision ofthe work, together with a translation of suchplays as Schlegel had omitted (1825, 1839, 1843).The Schlegel-Tieck translation is universallyconsidered better than any other rendering ofShakespeare in a foreign language. Thanks to Sehlegeland Tieck, Shakespeare has become a nationalpoet of Germany. Schlegel also delivered at Jenaa series of lectures on æsthetics, and, with hisbrotherFriedrich (q.v.), edited theAthenäum(1798-1800), a severely critical authority of highrank. He published, besides his first volume ofpoems,Gedichte (1800), and, in company withhis brother, theCharakteristiken und Kritiken(1801). In 1801 Sehlegel left Jena for Berlin,where he gave a series of lectures on literature,art, and the spirit of the time. In 1803 appearedhisIon, an antique tragedy of considerable merit.It was followed by hisSpanisches Theater (1803-09),consisting of five pieces of Calderon's,admirably translated, the effect of which has beento make that poet a favorite with the Germanpeople, and hisBlumensträusse der italienischen,spanischen und portugiesischen Poesie (Berlin,1804), a charming collection of southern lyrics,from the appearance of which dates the naturalizationin German verse of the metrical forms ofthe Romanic races. In 1804, having becomeestranged from his wife, a daughter of ProfessorMichaelis of Göttingen, Schlegel entered thehousehold of Madame de Staël as a tutor of herchildren. He traveled much, visiting Italy,France, Austria, and Sweden. He wrote inFrench aComparaison de la Phèdre d'Euripideavec celle de Racine (1807). Probably his mostvaluable, and certainly his most widely popularwork, was theVorlesungen über dramatischeKunst und Litteratur (1809-11), originallydelivered at Vienna, in the spring of 1808, andtranslated into most European languages.
Between 1811 and 1815 Schlegel published anew collection of his poems (Poetische Werke),which contains his masterpieces, “Arion,”“Pygmalion,” “Sankt Lucas,” and is notable for therichness and variety of its poetic forms. In 1818Schlegel, now raised to the nobility, wasappointed professor of history in the University ofBonn, and devoted himself especially to thehistory of the fine arts and to philological research.He was one of the first students of Sanskrit inGermany, and published at Bonn anIndischeBibliothek (1820-26). About 1817 Schlegelmarried a daughter of Professor Paulus of Heidelberg,but they parted in 1821. Schlegel wasquarrelsome, jealous, and ungenerous in his relationswith literary men, and did not even shrink fromslander when his spleen was excited. He diedin Bonn, May 12, 1845. Consult: Pichtos,DieAesthetik A. W. von Schlegels in ihrer geschichtlichenEntwicklung) (Berlin, 1894); and Bernays,Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des SchlegelschenShakspeare (Leipzig, 1872).
