SCHLEGEL AUGUST WILHELM
He studied at Göttingen and Jena, where he became friends with Fichte and Schelling. In 1804 he married Caroline Schelling (widow of August Wilhelm's friend August Schlegel, née Michaelis), and lived with her in the famous villa of Coppet, the center of the new European culture. In his attempt to acquaint the French with the new phase of German spiritual life, he fought against the invasion of French classicism (Comparaison entre la Phèdre de Racine et celle d'Euripide, 1807). In Vienna in 1808 he delivered the Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Literatur (Heidelberg 1808-11), in which he codified the concept of "romantic art" (the art of nostalgia, yearning for God, for the mystery of the universe; the union of life and death, of sensuality and spirituality) that is, the art of Shakespeare and the Spaniards, and contrasted it with that of "classical art" (the art of possession and serene joy, harmonious legislation of the world, participating in the autonomous perfection of nature), the art of the Greeks, Romans, French, and Italians. This division opened the way to the literary disputes of the early 19th century. After 1818 he was at the University of Bonn and, as the first professor of Sanskrit in Germany, introduced the scientific study of this literature with the journal Indische Bibliothek (1823-30) and with the edition and publication of Indian works. In Berichtigung einiger Mißverständnisse (1827) he expressed his aversion to Catholicism. His last writings, especially the Musenalmanach of Wendt (1832), are violent satires against his former romantic companions, Schiller, Goethe, and his own brother Friedrich. His poetic production was mediocre (Gedichte, 1800; Poetische Werke, 1811; the drama Jon [1803], on models of Euripides). A spirit more imitative than creative, but who knew how to penetrate the innermost being of other poets, he gave valuable critical contributions and pointed out new paths in the field of aesthetics. However, he pushed too far his opposition to the 18th century, losing sight of nature in order to adhere to the Fichtean concept of the work of art as the exclusive emanation of the subjective Ego.
Ed.: the only complete one is the old one by Ed. Böcking (12 vols., Leipzig 1846-47).