[In the following excerpt, Stoljar discusses Schlegel's contributions to the journal Athenaeum, including his numerous polemical pieces and his study of Ludwig Tieck's Volksmärchen.]

1

The importance of the Athenäum in the definition of romantic attitudes to the art of literary criticism is greater than the proportion of critical articles in the strict sense would indicate. So great is the originality and fecundity of the journal in respect of aesthetic and literary theory that its purely critical function at first appears less challenging. In truth, however, both the theory and the practice of literary criticism sustained through the innovations of the romantic school very far-reaching changes, to such an extent that Friedrich Schlegel, in particular, may in a very real sense be considered the founder of modern criticism in Germany.¹

The subject is approached on a number of different levels, which very frequently meet and influence one another on points of specific literary practice. In the first place there is the approach of the reviewer, who fulfils a useful function as the guide and informant of the public in his discussion of new works. In this rôle August Wilhelm Schlegel was foremost among the romantic circle, and through his critical pieces in the Jena Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung enjoyed a reputation far in excess of that which he could have established solely through the medium of the Athenäum.² Despite the obvious pleasure which the elder Schlegel took in polemical gibes and sallies at his literary rivals, his concept of the critic's task was by no means that of censor or preceptor, and his appreciation of the creative aspect of the higher criticism was no less sensitive than his brother's.

Secondly there is the approach to major works of art which are universally recognised as bearing the stamp of greatness, with the purpose of appraising them critically in order to distinguish the particular qualities that cause them to be so recognised. This type of criticism is in the main that which is practised by Friedrich Schlegel in the Fragmente, in his brief comments on authors such as Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Goethe. Through the discerning approach to these masters and through perceptive comparisons with other classical and modern authors Schlegel's aesthetic doctrine of romantic poetry was worked out, as the theoretical foundation upon which a future literature of comparable stature might be based.

Third, and to some degree an extension of the second approach, is the evolution of new aesthetic principles through the critical discussion of particular works, and through the acceptance or rejection of given aspects of their artistic form. This approach is most enlightening when combined with positive design and experiment in the realisation of the newly established critical principles. In this respect the romantic criticism of Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, and the resulting new dimension in the theory of the novel, provides an especially informative subject of study. Both in his unfinished review of Meister and in the essay Über Goethes Stil, Friedrich Schlegel selects those aspects of the work which best illustrate the ideal qualities of the Roman; then in the Fragmente and the Brief über den Roman these qualities are explored theoretically and built into a critical corpus which in turn provides the basis for Schlegel's own poetic essay in Lucinde. Similarly Hardenberg's assessment of Meister, with its very significant variations, gives a clear indication of the aesthetic principles upon which his own literary practice in Heinrich von Ofterdingen was founded.

Lastly there is a purely theoretical approach in the romantics' desire to establish the notion of a truly poetic criticism, which should employ the same artistic virtues of sensitivity combined with critical detachment that the poet employs in his own creative activity. These principles are not laid down in any article specifically concerned with them, but arise in many contexts, some of which have already been pointed out, and others of which occur in the critical articles about to be considered.

2

The critical contributions of August Wilhelm Schlegel may conveniently be examined first, since they are more self-contained than those of his brother, with less direct relevance in the evolution of romantic literary theory. August Wilhelm's approach to literature is less impassioned than Friedrich's, and he frequently employs a light, even flippant tone, as for instance in his parody of two lines from Faust (“Das Leben ist kurz und die Bücher sind lang”)³ when commenting upon the impossibility of reviewing or even reading all the books currently being published. This quip appears in the course of some introductory comment preceding Schlegel's first critical essay in the Athenäum, in which he heaps scorn on the fashionable novelist A. H. J. Lafontaine, and approves warmly of Tieck's Volksmärchen.⁴ The first few pages make fun of the “allgemeine kritische Institute,” the proliferating literary journals, and particularly Nicolai's Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, which, Schlegel observes, seems only to review bad works. This practice he considers a waste of time, since more worthy criticism should aim at the introduction of good works to a wide public. Some positive observations on the function of the literary critic follow, and although Schlegel does not voice the more profound romantic view that criticism itself must be poetic and therefore creative, he does make the point that the critic must speak freely “wie in einem zwanglosen Gespräch” (p. 148). His task is not to pass judgment, but to characterise the work and record his own impressions of it, once he has allowed himself to respond to it spontaneously. It is a similar concept of criticism to that demonstrated in the Gemäldegespräch.

In discussing the popular novel which dominated literary fashion at the end of the eighteenth century,⁵ Schlegel makes a number of comments on the literary genre Roman, which have little in common with his brother's theories of romantic poetry. August Wilhelm does not think of Roman as a great universal work of art such as a Shakespearean tragedy, but more conventionally and prosaically as merely a work of prose fiction. The only general comment on the nature of the novel made by Schlegel is that the genre serves to deepen the vast gulf separating the cultivated classes from the unlettered masses. While novel reading was equally popular among all classes, the standards of excellence required by the educated were totally disregarded by the majority, who on the other hand demanded nothing but a varied recital of incidents. The works of August Lafontaine are cited as examples of novels designed to please the greatest possible number of readers.

Lafontaine⁶ appealed to a mass audience by offering them plenty of sentimentality. This was the alternative ingredient supplied by the popular novelist to that section of the public which was too genteel to enjoy the equally commonplace “Schauer- und Abenteuerromane” (the “Gothick” tales of contemporary English fashion). Schlegel castigates Lafontaine for repetitiveness, triviality and, above all, for eroticism, which is the more offensive since it appears in novels with domestic settings, and in relation to very young lovers. The author, remarks Schlegel contemptuously, is truly the children's Ovid. He belittles Lafontaine's transparent attempts to adopt a moralising tone by the conspicuous praise of virtue, and to achieve a philosophical dimension by making universal observations. Lafontaine borrows freely from the style of Goldsmith in The Vicar of Wakefield, Goethe in Werther and Wilhelm Meister, Jean Paul and the French sentimental novelists, but Schlegel finds ridiculous a serious review in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung which compares Lafontaine with Rousseau and expatiates on his art (p. 154).

After a detailed and sharply critical examination of several of Lafontaine's novels, Schlegel turns to a discussion of Tieck's Volksmärchen, some of which he had already favourably reviewed in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung. The association and flattering contrast between Lafontaine and Tieck in this essay paved the way for a warm relationship between Tieck and the elder Schlegel, whom he met for the first time during the latter's visit to Berlin in the summer of 1798.⁷ Schlegel commends Tieck's unpretentious style to the reader, remarking that true poetic worth is too often overlooked when the poet scorns to use the weapons of prurience, coarseness or sanctimoniousness. He praises equally the light, easy wit of Tieck's satire on the Berlin theatrical world in Der gestiefelte Kater, and the simplicity and historical sympathy of his romances, comparing them to Ariosto's evocation of the Middle Ages in the Orlando Furioso. This tribute was recalled a year later by Schlegel's dedication to Tieck of his translation of the eleventh canto of the Orlando in the August 1799 issue of the Athenäum, and again in the last issue of August 1800 by Schlegel's sonnet addressed to Tieck, this time in praise of his evocation of the past in his Genoveva.

In the discussion of Der blonde Eckbert Schlegel comes nearest to his own expressed ideals of criticism in giving a “Charakterisierung” of the work, emphasising in particular Tieck's achievement of “Anschaulichkeit” in the representation of mysteries which can otherwise be only dimly grasped (p. 174). On the one hand he is commending the same faculty of the imagination in portraying reality beyond that of the senses that Hardenberg saw as an essential component of poetic genius; on the other he is isolating an aspect of romantic poetry—the symbolic depiction of hidden truths—which later was developed as the foundation of the doctrine of a new mythology. In the same passage Schlegel makes a rare use of his brother's aesthetic terminology in the formula “poetisirte Poesie,” in order to stress the imaginative suggestiveness of Tieck's prose.

Schlegel pays Tieck the further compliment of saying that his measured, yet freely moving prose style is learnt from Goethe, who in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre and in the Märchen first uncovered the beauties of the best German style. (Sound proof of August Wilhelm Schlegel's critical perspicacity is his recognition of Goethe's unique importance in the development of German prose through these particular works, only two or three years after their publication.⁸ Whereas Friedrich Schlegel's review of Meister hails the novel as a supremely poetic work of unmatched philosophical value, his brother's more prosaic comment points out more clearly its stylistic significance.)

Schlegel rightly singles out the lyrics included in Der blonde Eckbert for special mention, as he draws the reader's attention to the dramatic effectiveness of their use, occurring as they do at moments of special intensity in the narrative. He describes the peculiar effect of these lyrics in words which prophetically sum up the very heart of romantic poetry, while he himself at this moment writes in an impressionistic, “poetic” style characteristic of much later romantic prose (pp. 175-76).

In diesen klaren Thautropfen der Poesie spiegelt sich alle die jugendliche Sehnsucht nach dem Unbekannten und Vergangenen, nach dem was der frische Glanz der Morgensonne enthüllt, und der schwülere Mittag wieder mit Dunst umgiebt; die ganze ahndungsvolle Wonne des Lebens und der fröhliche Schmerz der Liebe … Es ist der romantische Ausdruck der wahrsten Innigkeit, schlicht und fantastisch zugleich.

Once more Schlegel compares Tieck's poetry with Goethe's, declaring that, apart from Goethe, he could think of no lyrics in German the equal of Tieck's.

Brief though it is, August Wilhelm Schlegel's essay on the Volksmärchen, published in the very first issue of the founding organ of German romanticism, pointed the way to the evolution of a new, genuinely integrated literary school, unified by the closest sympathy between theorist, critic and poet, all of whom had discovered independently that, in a revolutionary age, revolutionary discoveries outside the classical tradition were inevitable.

The Beiträge zur Kritik were not continued beyond the first issue of the Athenäum, but were replaced in the fourth, fifth and sixth issues by a series of Notizen.⁹ These were short notices of recently published works, contributed by various hands. Conceived by Friedrich Schlegel, they were designed to give information on new events in all fields of intellectual interest, with brief comments of a spontaneous character, rather than scaled-down reviews.¹⁰ The notices would provide a further opportunity for the mutual stimulation and exchange of impressions so prized in the romantic circle; all were invited to record their responses to a new book or lecture and to contribute them to a collection made by Friedrich. Those written by August Wilhelm are without exception polemical and provocative notes on comparatively insignificant authors, and while Schleiermacher's subjects were more distinguished (including Kant, Fichte and Garve), his barbed pen was equally destructive. The three sets of Notizen included the major part of the contributions to the journal other than by the Schlegels and Hardenberg, among them two by Dorothea Veit, and one each by Caroline Schlegel, Schleiermacher's friend Karl Gustav Brinkmann, and Tieck's brother-in-law August Ferdinand Bernhardi.¹¹ Friedrich Schlegel himself contributed notes on Schleiermacher's Reden, and on Tieck's translation of Don Quixote, also a general introduction emphasising the personal standpoint of the Notizen.¹²

More frankly polemical in intention was August Wilhelm Schlegel's satirical “Literarischer Reichsanzeiger,”¹³ with which the 1799 volume of the Athenäum closes. Printed in smaller type like the Intelligenz-Blatt of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung which was one of the main butts of Schlegel's satire, the “Reichsanzeiger” contains the sharpest barbs of the whole journal, including those aimed at Nicolai, Wieland, the art historian Hirt, who was also attacked in the Flaxman essay,¹⁴ the popular dramatist Kotzebue, and many of the current literary journals. Conspicuous exceptions to the list of persons satirised were Goethe, whose journal Die Propyläen could have been an obvious target, but whose favour the Schlegels cultivated, and Schiller, whom they did not wish to offend further, for fear of alienating Goethe. It is curious that the professional theologian and passionate moralist Schleiermacher took more malicious delight in the “Reichsanzeiger” than any other member of the romantic circle, and wished particularly to direct new and ever fiercer “Teufeleien” against Schiller. Schlegel decidedly refused to do this, however, and the “Reichsanzeiger,” on the express advice of Goethe, was not continued.¹⁵

Notes

1. See Heinrich Henel: “Friedrich Schlegel und die Grundlagen der modernen Literaturkritik.” Germanic Review 20, 1945. Pp. 81-93. Also Hans Eichner: “Friedrich Schlegels Theorie der Literaturkritik.” In Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 88, Sonderheft 1969, pp. 2-19.

2. See the list of his reviews in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung 1796-1799, Athen. III 1, on four unnumbered pages following p. 164.

3. Athen. I 1, p. 143.

4. Beyträge zur Kritik der neuesten Litteratur. Athen. I 1, pp. 141-177.

5. Nicolai's Neue Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek reported in 1796 that since 1773 more than 6000 novels had been published in Germany. See Hettner, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im achtzehnten Jahrhundert III 1. Sixth ed. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1913. p. 362.

6. (1758-1831). His first novel was published in 1792, and a series of Familiengeschichten began appearing in 1797.

7. For Schlegel's influence on Tieck's literary criticism see Haym, op.cit., pp. 304-5. At the same time as Schlegel was preparing the Beyträge Tieck himself wrote a critical review of Lafontaine's novels which appeared in the 1798 volume of the Archiv der Zeit.

8. Goethe's Märchen was published in Die Horen in 1795; Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre appeared in four volumes during 1795 and 1796.

9. Athen. II 2, pp. 285-327; III 1, pp. 129-164; III 2, pp. 238-336.

10. Friedrich to August Wilhelm, February 25, 1799: “Ich habe die Idee wir geben unter dem Titel Notizen was der Titel sagt, ganz kurze Nachrichten von dem Neuesten in Kunst und Wissenschaft in Poesie und Litteratur; etwa wie wir einer an den andern von einem Buche schreiben würden, was dieser noch nicht kennt … Dann aber auch von Universitäten wenigstens von Jena, solche Begebenheiten wie die Fichtesche …” Walzel p. 406. See also Friedrich to Hardenberg, early March 1799, when he asked his friend for notices on the newest developments in “Physik.” Preitz p. 153.

11. See Nachwort to the 1960 re-print of the Athenäum, pp. 63-64.

12. See Walzel p. 422.

13. Litterarischer Reichsanzeiger oder Archiv der Zeit und ihres Geschmacks. Athen. II 2, pp. 328-340. The second part of the title invokes the Berlin journal of that name, one of the victims of Schlegel's satirical pen.

14. Athen. II 2, pp. 226-7.

15. Goethe and even Schiller found some things to praise in the Reichsanzeiger (See letters of October 16 and 17, 1799, Borcherdt, op.cit., pp. 494-5). Schiller remarked that it was modelled on the Xenien. For Schleiermacher's correspondence with August Wilhelm Schlegel on the “Teufeleien,” see Borcherdt pp. 567-8. For literary polemic in the Athenäum see Haym, op.cit., pp. 783-91.