Amsterdam, he went to Jena, where, in 1796, he married Karoline, the widow of the physician Böhmer (see Schelling, Karoline) and in 1798 was appointed extraordinary professor. Here he began his translation of Shakespeare, which was ultimately completed, under the superintendence of Ludwig Tieck, by Tieck's daughter Dorothea and Graf W. H. Baudissin. This rendering is one of the best poetical translations in German, or indeed in any language. At Jena Schlegel contributed to Schiller's periodicals the Horen and the Musenalmanach; and with his brother Friedrich he conducted the Athenaeum, the organ of the Romantic school. He also published a volume of poems, and carried on a rather bitter controversy with Kotzebue. 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 title Charakteristiken und Kritiken. In 1802 Schlegel went to Berlin, where he delivered lectures on art and literature; and in the following year he published Ion, a tragedy in Euripidean style, which gave rise to a suggestive discussion on the principles of dramatic poetry. This was followed by Spanisches Theater (2 vols., 1803–1809), in which he presented admirable translations of five of Calderon's plays; and in another volume, Blumenstraüsse italienischer, spanischer und portuguesischer Poesie (1804), he gave translations of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian lyrics. In 1807 he attracted much attention in France by an essay in the French language, Comparaison entre la Phèdre de Racine et celle d'Euripide, in which he attacked French classicism from the standpoint of the Romantic school. His 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. Meanwhile, after a divorce from his wife Karoline, in 1804, he travelled in France, Germany, Italy and other countries with Madame de Staël, who owed to him many of the ideas which she embodied in her work, De l'Allemagne. In 1813 he acted as secretary of the crown prince of Sweden, through whose influence the right of his family to noble rank was revived. Schlegel was made a professor of literature at the university of Bonn in 1818, and during the remainder of his life occupied himself chiefly with oriental studies, although he continued to lecture on art and literature, and in 1828 he issued two volumes of critical writings (Kritische Schriften). In 1823-1830 he published the journal Indische Bibliothek (3 vols.) and edited (1823) the Bhagavad-Gita with a Latin translation, and (1829) the Ramayana. These works mark the beginning of Sanskrit scholarship in Germany. After the death of Madame de Staël Schlegel married (1818) a daughter of Professor Paulus of Heidelberg; but this union was dissolved in 1821. He died at Bonn on the 12th of May 1845. 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.
In 1846-1847 Schlegel's Sämtliche Werke were issued in twelve volumes by E. Böcking. There are also editions by the same editor of his Œuvres écrites en français (3 vols., 1846), and of his Opuscula Latine scripta (1848). Schlegel's Shakespeare translations have been often reprinted; the edition of 1871–1872 was revised with Schlegel's MSS. by M. Bernays. See M. Bernays, Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Schlegelschen Shakespeare (1872); R. Genée, Schlegel und Shakespeare (1903). Schlegel's Berlin lectures of 1801-1804 were reprinted from MS. notes by J. Minor (1884). A selection of the writings of both A. W. and Friedrich Schlegel, edited by O. F. Walzel, will be found in Kürschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur, 143 (1892). See especially R. Haym, Romantische Schule, and the article in the Allg. deutsche Biographie by F. Muncker.
SCHLEGEL, JOHANN ELIAS (1719–1749), German critic
and dramatic poet, was born at Meissen on the 28th of January
1719. He was educated at Schulpforta and at the university
of Leipzig, where he studied law. In 1743 he became private
secretary to his relative, von Spener, the Saxon ambassador
at the Danish court. Afterwards he was made professor extraordinary
at the academy of Seröe, where he died on the 13th
of August 1749. Schlegel was a contributor to the Bremer
Beiträge and for some time, while he was living in Denmark,
edited a weekly periodical, Der Fremde. With his dramas as
well as with his critical writings he did much to prepare the way
for Lessing, by whom his genius was warmly appreciated. He
wrote two lively and well-constructed comedies, Der Triumph
der guten Frauen and Die stumme Schönheit, the former in prose,
the latter in alexandrines. Hermann and Canut (in alexandrines)
are generally considered his best tragedies.
His works were edited (in 5 vols., 1761–1770) by his brother, J. H. Schlegel (1724–1780), who had a considerable reputation as a writer on Danish history. Another brother, J. Adolf Schlegel (1721–1793), an eminent preacher, and author of some volumes of verse, was the father of August Wilhelm and Friedrich von Schlegel. J. E. Schlegel's Ästhetische und dramaturgische Schriften have been edited by J. von Antoniewicz (1887), and a selection of his plays by F. Muncker in Bremer Beiträge, vol. ii. (Kürschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur, vol. xliv., 1899). See, besides the biography by his brother in the edition of his works, E. Wolff, Johann Elias Schlegel (1889); and J. Rentsch, Johann Elias Schlegel als Trauerspieldichter (1890).
SCHLEGEL, KARL WILHELM FRIEDRICH VON (1772–1829),
German poet, critic and scholar, was the younger brother of
August Wilhelm von Schlegel. He was born at Hanover on
the 10th of March 1772. He studied law at Göttingen and
Leipzig, but ultimately devoted himself entirely to literary
studies. He published in 1797 the important book Die Griechen
und Römer, which was followed by the suggestive Geschichte
der Poesie der Griechen und Römer (1798). At Jena, where he
lectured as a Privatdozent at the university, he contributed to
the Athenaeum the aphorisms and essays in which the principles
of the Romantic school are most definitely stated. Here also
he wrote Lucinde (1799), an unfinished romance, which is interesting
as an attempt to transfer to practical ethics the Romantic
demand for complete individual freedom, and Alarcos, a tragedy
(1802) in which, without much success, he combined romantic
and classical elements. In 1802 he went to Paris, where he
edited the review Europa (1803), lectured on philosophy and
carried on Oriental studies, some results of which he embodied
in an epoch-making book, Über die Sprache und Weisheit der
Indier (1808). In the same year in which this work appeared,
he and his wife Dorothea (1763–1839), a daughter of Moses
Mendelssohn, joined the Roman Catholic Church, and from
this time he became more and more opposed to the principles
of political and religious freedom. He went to Vienna and in
1809 was appointed imperial court secretary at the headquarters
of the archduke Charles. At a later period he was councillor
of legation in the Austrian embassy at the Frankfort diet,
but in 1818 he returned to Vienna. Meanwhile he had published
his collected Gedichte (1809) and two series of lectures, Über
die neuere Geschichte (1811) and Geschichte der alten und neuen
Literatur (1815). After his return to Vienna from Frankfort
he edited Concordia (1820–1823), and began the issue of his
Sämtliche Werke. He also delivered lectures, which were
republished in his Philosophie des Lebens (1828) and in his
Philosophie der Geschichte (1829). He died on the 11th of January
1829 at Dresden. A permanent place in the history of German
literature belongs to Friedrich Schlegel and his brother August
Wilhelm as the critical leaders of the Romantic school, which
derived from them most of its governing ideas as to the
characteristics of the middle ages, and as to the methods of literary
expression. Of the two brothers, Friedrich was unquestionably
the more original genius. He was the real founder of the
Romantic school; to him more than to any other member of
the school we owe the revolutionizing and germinating ideas
which influenced so profoundly the development of German
literature at the beginning of the 19th century.
Friedrich Schlegel's wife, Dorothea, was the author of an unfinished romance, Florentin (1801), a Sammlung romantischer Dichtungen des Mittelalters (2 vols., 1804), a version of Lother und Maller (1805), and a translation of Madame de Staël's Corinne (1807–1808)—all of which were issued under her husband's name. By her first marriage she had a son, Philipp Veit, who became an eminent painter.
