August Wilhelm von Schlegel

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Schlegel, August Wilhelm von (Hanover, 1767-1845, Bonn), elder brother of Friedrich Schlegel, came of a family with literary traditions; J. E. Schlegel was his uncle, and his father, J. A. Schlegel, was a noted hymn and fable writer. A. W. Schlegel was at school at Hanover, and studied at Göttingen University from 1786 to 1791. He then took up a post as private tutor in Amsterdam, which he retained until 1795, afterwards moving to Jena, where he established contact with Schiller, to whose Die Horen he contributed.

In 1796 Schlegel began to lecture at Jena University and in the same year he married Caroline Böhmer (see Schelling, Caroline von), a young widow. In 1798 he was appointed a professor at Jena. He fell out with Schiller in 1797, but kept on the right side of Goethe. In 1798 he began to expound his Romantic conception of literature (see Romantik) in a new journal, Athenäum, which he edited with his brother Friedrich. A. W. Schlegel was a gifted translator, whose verse rendering of Shakespeare (17 plays, 1797-1810) became a household book. His Spanisches Theater (1803-9) and Blumensträuße italienischer, spanischer und portugiesischer Poesie (1803) were almost as successful. In 1801, though still resident in Jena, he shifted the focus of his activities to Berlin, where he repeatedly stayed, delivering between 1801 and 1804 a series of lectures supporting the Romantic movement, later published (ed. J. Minor) under the title Vorlesungen über schöne Literatur und Kunst (3 vols., 1884, reissued 1966). In 1804 he joined Mme de Staël at Coppet and accompanied her in the next few years on extensive journeyings through Europe from Sweden to Italy, and France to Russia. In 1808 Schlegel gave a course of lectures in Vienna which constitute his most important critical work ( Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Literatur, 1809-11). In 1812 he took service with the Swedish prince and general Bernadotte, as a French-speaking propagandist, and after 1815 he again joined Mme de Staël. Following her death in 1817 he accepted a chair of oriental languages at Bonn University and devoted the rest of his life to Sanskrit and Indian studies, as both scholar and translator. His patent of nobility was granted in 1815.

Apart from his achievements as a translator, A. W. Schlegel is important as the propagandist of the first Romantic school, presenting his own thought and that of his brother Friedrich in systematic and coherent form. His original work, consisting mainly of poems, especially sonnets (Gedichte, 1800), made little impact. A classical play Ion (1803), produced by Goethe at Weimar, is an adaptation of Euripides. He is also the author of a bitter satire directed against A. von Kotzebue, Ehrenpforte und Triumphbogen für den Theaterpräsidenten von Kotzebue (1801). Kritische Schriften appeared in 1828 and Sämmtliche Werke (16 vols.), ed. E. Böcking, in 1846-8 (reissued 1971-2), Kritische Schriften und Briefe (7 vols.), ed. E. Lohner, in 1962-74.

Quotes:

"Literature is the immortality of speech."