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August Wilhelm von Schlegel |
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The lectures, essays, and translations of August Wilhelm Schlegel count among the most significant productions of German Early Romanticism. One of the great intermediaries in the history of literature, he awakened Germany through his translations and critical essays to previously unknown or unappreciated works and traditions. Moreover, through his Über dramatische Kunst und Litteratur: Vorlesungen (1809-1811; translated as A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature , 1815), which was quickly translated into French, English, and Italian, he established German literary theory and criticism as an international model whose influence pervaded the first half of the nineteenth century. If there is one figure who can be called central to Romanticism as an international phenomenon, it is Schlegel. His primary achievement as a critic was to synthesize, systematize, and clarify the program of Early Romanticism, but he brought to that program a distinct emphasis which was his own: a view of the unity of the work of art as the product of the consummate technical skill and "tiefe Absichtlichkeit" (deep intentionality) of the artist.
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