August Wilhelm (later:
von) Schlegel (September 8, 1767
– May 12, 1845) was a German
poet, translator, critic, and a foremost leader of German Romanticism.
Life and work
Schlegel
was born at Hanover
, where his
father, Johann Adolf Schlegel,
was a Lutheran pastor. He was educated at the
Hanover gymnasium and at the university of
Göttingen
. With his brother
Friedrich, the principal
philosopher of German romanticism, he founded
Athenaeum
(1798-1800), the chief journal of the movement.
Having spent some
years as a tutor in the house of a banker at Amsterdam
, he went to Jena
, where, in
1796, he married Karoline, the
widow of the physician Böhmer 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
Wolf Heinrich Graf von
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,
Blumensträusse italienischer, spanischer und
portugiesischer 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
(Ãœber 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 and edited (1823) the
Bhagavad Gita with a
Latin translation, and (1829) the
Ramayana.
After the
death of Madame de Staël, Schlegel married (1818) a daughter of
Professor Paulus of
Heidelberg
; but this union was dissolved in 1821.
His sister-in-law (his brother Friedrich's wife) was an aunt of
Felix Mendelssohn, who in 1826, at
the age of 17, was inspired by August Wilhelm's translation of
Shakespeare's
A Midsummer
Night's Dream to write a
concert
overture.
He died in Bonn in 1845.
Selected works
- Ion (1803)
- Poetische Werke (1811)
- Bhagavad Gita (1823,
Latin translation)
- Kritische Schriften (1828, critical works)
- Sämtliche Werke (1846-1848)
- Œuvres écrites en francais (1846)
- Opuscula Latine scripta (1848)
Letters
- Ludwig Tieck und die Brüder Schlegel. Briefe
ed. by Edgar Lohner (München 1972)
Portraits
References
- Portland Chamber Orchestra
External links
(Switzerland)
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