The Life of August Wilhelm Schlegel, Cosmopolitan of Art and Poetry ROGER PAULIN THE LIFE OF AUGUST WILHELM SCHLEGEL The Life of August Wilhelm Schlegel Cosmopolitan of Art and Poetry Roger Paulin http://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2016 Roger Paulin This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the author (but not in any way that suggests that he endorses you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Paulin, Roger, The Life of August Wilhelm Schlegel, Cosmopolitan of Art and Poetry. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0069 Further details about CC BY licenses are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Please see the list of illustrations for attribution relating to individual images. Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. For information about the rights of the Wikimedia Commons images, please refer to the Wikimedia website (the relevant links are listed in the list of illustrations). In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit http://www. openbookpublishers.com/isbn/9781909254954#copyright All external links were active on 12/01/2016 and archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine: https://archive.org/web/ Digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at http://www. openbookpublishers.com/isbn/9781909254954 resources ISBN Paperback: 978-1-909254-95-4 ISBN Hardback: 978-1-909254-96-1 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-909254-97-8 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-909254-98-5 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-909254-99-2 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0069 The Department of German and Dutch, University of Cambridge, and Trinity College, Cambridge, have generously contributed towards the publication of this volume. Cover image: background: Map of Central and Southern Europe (1855) from Wikimedia, http:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Central_and_Southern_Europe_Map_1855.jpg. Portrait of Schlegel in the 1840s from Flickr Commons, in the Internet Archive Book Images collection, https://www.flickr. com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14777435381 All paper used by Open Book Publishers is SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative), PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) and Forest Stewardship Council(r)(FSC(r) certified. Printed in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia by Lightning Source for Open Book Publishers (Cambridge, UK). Contents Acknowledgements xi List of Abbreviations xiii Introduction 1 1. Family, Childhood and Youth (1767-1794) 11 Antecedents 11 ‘From One House Four Such Marvellous Minds’ 13 Johann Adolf Schlegel 17 Growing Up in Hanover 20 Siblings 23 Childhood and Schooling 27 Göttingen 30 Gottfried August Bürger: ‘Young Eagle’ 37 The First Translations 46 Johann Dominik Fiorillo 48 Caroline Michaelis-Böhmer 50 Summer 1791-Summer 1795: Amsterdam, Mainz, Leipzig 52 Caroline’s Tribulations 54 Schlegel in Amsterdam 59 ‘Du, Caroline und ich’: Friedrich Schlegel 62 2. Jena and Berlin (1795-1804) 65 2.1 Jena 70 Die Horen 74 Goethe and Schiller on the Attack: The Xenien 79 Schlegel’s Reviews: Language, Metrics 83 Dante 88 The Shakespeare Translation 91 The Wilhelm Meister Essay 99 The Jena Group 109 The Genesis of the Athenaeum 115 The Group Meets in Dresden 121 Professor in Jena 125 The Fichte Affair 129 The Scandal of Lucinde 132 Foregathering in Jena 135 The First Strains 139 The Death of Auguste Böhmer 143 Elegies for the Dead and the Living 146 Schlegel’s Contributions to the Athenaeum 154 The Essays on Art 159 Schlegel’s Lectures in Jena 166 2.2 Berlin (1801-1804) 169 The End of Jena: Controversies and Polemics 169 The Essay on Bürger 172 Sophie Tieck-Bernhardi 182 The Ion Fiasco 186 Polemics, Caricatures and Lampoons 189 Friedrich Schlegel’s Europa 192 Calderón 198 2.3 The Berlin Lectures 202 3. The Years with Madame de Staël (1804-1817) 221 Holding Things Together 221 Germaine de Staël-Holstein 225 Madame de Staël and Germany 230 The Meeting of Staël and Schlegel 234 Schlegel in Coppet 240 In Italy with Madame de Staël 1804-1805 249 3.1 With Madame de Staël in Coppet and Acosta 1805-1807 260 The Writer in Diaspora 260 Considérations sur la civilisation en général 267 On some Tragic Roles of Madame de Staël 269 Corinne, ou l’Italie 273 Swiss Journeyings with Albert de Staël 279 Comparaison entre la Phèdre de Racine et celle d’Euripide (1807) 281 3.2 Vienna 290 Travelling to Vienna with Madame de Staël 293 Friedrich Schlegel: Rome and India 296 The Vienna Lectures 299 Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature 302 Further Travels 314 Back to Coppet 318 De l’Allemagne 325 Holed up in Berne 330 The Dash to Vienna 334 De l’Allemagne: The Book Itself 337 The Last Days in Coppet 341 3.3 The Flight: Caught Up in History 345 Through Germany, Austria and Russia, to Sweden 349 In the Service of Bernadotte: The Political Pamphleteer 356 Political and Military Developments 1813-1814 364 England and France 1814 376 The Return to Scholarship 380 Italy, Coppet, Paris: The Death of Madame de Staël 383 3.4 Scholarly Matters 393 Learned Reviews 397 Medieval Studies 407 The Nibelungenlied 409 4. Bonn and India (1818-1845) 415 4.1 Bonn 415 ‘Chevalier de plusieurs ordres’ 415 Auguste and Albertine 417 The European Celebrity 421 Friedrich Schlegel in Frankfurt 430 Marriage 435 The University of Bonn 442 The Bonn Professor 448 The Carlsbad Decrees 453 The Professor’s Day 458 Teacher and Taught 463 The Content of the Lectures 471 4.2 India 478 The Indische Bibliothek 490 Paris and London 1820-1823 497 Educating the Young 504 Paris and London Again 509 The Sanskrit Editions 515 5. The Past Returns 521 Friedrich Schlegel 522 Ludwig Tieck 526 Goethe 529 The 1827 Art Lectures in Berlin 536 Heinrich Heine 540 5.1 The Last Years 1834-1845 546 The Works of Frederick the Great 557 Illness and Death 560 Epilogue 563 Short Biographies 567 Select Bibliography 603 List of Illustrations 617 Index 625 The true translator, one could state boldly, who is able to render not just the content of a masterpiece, but also to preserve its noble form, its peculiar idiom, is a herald of genius who, over and beyond the narrow confines set by the separation of language, spreads abroad its fame and broadcasts its high gifts. He is a messenger from nation to nation, who mediates mutual respect and admiration, where otherwise all is indifference or even enmity. August Wilhelm von Schlegel The Schlegel Coat of Arms (‘Schlegel von Gottleben’). © SLUB Dresden, all rights reserved Acknowledgements Work on this project has been greatly assisted by my easy access to the large Schlegel holdings in Cambridge University Library and in the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge. David Lowe and Christian Staufenbiel of Cambridge University Library and Sandy Paul and the staff of the Wren Library have been of invaluable help in my researches. I am grateful to the following institutions for allowing me to consult and/ or refer to unpublished material in their possession: Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland (Murray Archives); Bonn, Universitätsbibliothek, Handschriftenabteilung; Bonn, Universitätsarchiv; Coburg, Landesarchiv; Dresden, Sächsische Staats- Landes- und Universitätsbibliothek; Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden; Hanover, Landeskirchliches Archiv; Hanover, Ev. Lutherische Stadtkirchenkanzlei; Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek; Jena, Universitätsarchiv; Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek. Hans-Joachim Dopfer (Sigmaringen) kindly permitted me to use the portrait drawing of Schlegel. I am indebted to fellow scholars working in the same field: Claudia Becker, who generously placed Ernst Behler’s Nachlass at my disposal; Anil Bhatti; Cornelia Bögel, who in addition gave me great assistance with my manuscript; Ralf Georg Czapla; Christoph Jamme; Stefan Knödler; Margaret Rose; Jochen Strobel; Rosane and Ludo Rocher kindly gave me much useful advice on Sanskrit and answered my questions; Roger Dawe gave me guidance in matters relating to Classics, Pat Boyde with regard to Italian. Stephen Fennell encouraged me to start writing; Julia Allen, David Blamires, Barry Nisbet, Helmut Pfotenhauer, and my wife, Traute, read all or part of the manuscript and made helpful suggestions towards its improvement. Responsibility for what is written lies with me alone. Anne and Thomas Bürger extended kind hospitality to me during my various visits to Dresden; Rolf Herrfahrdt similarly in Hanover. xii The Life of August Wilhelm Schlegel The Fellows’ Research Fund of Trinity College kindly met the costs of my archival visits to Bonn, Dresden, Heidelberg and Hanover. I wish to record my grateful thanks to Trinity College and to the Deparment of German, University of Cambridge (Schröder Fund) who made generous grants towards the production of this book. A final word of cordial thanks to all at Open Book Publishers, who have seen this book through its various stages to its conclusion. October 2015, Trinity College Cambridge List of Abbreviations Athenaeum: Athenaeum. Eine Zeitschrift von August Wilhelm Schlegel und Friedrich Schlegel, 3 vols (Berlin: Vieweg, 1798; Frölich, 1799-1800). Bonstettiana: Bonstettiana. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe der Briefkorrespondenzen Karl Viktor von Bonstettens und seines Kreises, 1753-1832, ed. Doris and Peter Walser-Wilhelm, 14 vols in 27 (Berne: Peter Lang, 1996-2011). Briefe: Briefe von und an August Wilhelm Schlegel, ed. Josef Körner, 2 vols (Zurich, Leipzig, Vienna: Amalthea, 1930). Carnets de voyage: Simone Balayé (ed.), Les carnets de voyage de Madame de Staël. Contribution à la genèse de ses oeuvres (Geneva: Droz, 1971). Caroline: Caroline.