Editing August Wilhelm Schlegel (section)

==Career==
In 1796, soon after his return to Germany, Schlegel settled in [[Jena]], following an invitation from [[Friedrich Schiller]].{{sfn|Böhme|1920}} That year he married [[Caroline Schelling]], the widow of the physician Böhmer.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} She assisted Schlegel in some of his literary productions, and the publication of her correspondence in 1871 established for her a posthumous reputation as a German letter writer. She separated from Schlegel in 1801 and became the wife of the philosopher Schelling soon after.{{sfn|Böhme|1920}}

[[File:August Wilhelm Schlegel.jpg|thumb|Schlegel c. 1800]]
In Jena, Schlegel made critical contributions to [[Die Horen (Schiller)|Schiller's ''Horen'']] and that author's ''[[Musen-Almanach]]'',{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} and wrote around 300 articles for the ''Jenaer Allgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung''. He also did translations from Dante and Shakespeare. This work established his literary reputation and gained for him in 1798 an extraordinary professorship at the [[University of Jena]]. His house became the intellectual headquarters of the "romanticists", and was visited at various times between 1796 and 1801 by [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]], whose ''[[Foundations of the Science of Knowledge]]'' was studied intensively, by his brother Friedrich, who moved in with his wife [[Dorothea Schlegel]], by [[Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling]], by [[Ludwig Tieck]], by [[Novalis]] and others.{{sfn|Böhme|1920}}

{{blockquote|It is widely accepted that the Romantic Movement in Germany emerged, on the one hand, as a reaction against the aesthetical ideals defended in [[Classicism]] and [[Neoclassicism]], and on the other, as a deviation from the rational principles of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] with the consequent regression to the irrational spirit of the [[Middle Ages]].<ref name="plato.stanford.edu">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Hay|first= Katia D.|title= August Wilhelm von Schlegel|encyclopedia= [[The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |year= 2010|edition=Spring 2010 |publisher= Edward N. Zalta (ed.)|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/schlegel-aw/}}</ref>}}

{{blockquote|Schlegel argues that, from a philosophical point of view, everything participates in an ongoing process of creation, whereas, from an empirical point of view, natural things are conceived as if they were dead, fixed and independent from the whole.<ref name="plato.stanford.edu"/>}}

In 1797 August and Friedrich broke with Friedrich Schiller. With his brother, Schlegel founded the ''[[Athenaeum (German magazine)|Athenaeum]]'' (1798–1800), the organ of the Romantic school, in which he dissected disapprovingly the immensely popular works of the sentimental novelist [[August Lafontaine]].<ref name=Zeitlaeufte>Dirk Sangmeister, [http://www.zeit.de/1999/31/Der_Lieblingsdichter_der_Nation_ Der Lieblingsdichter der Nation...], article in German newspaper ''Die Zeit'' no. 31, 1999.</ref> He also published a volume of poems and carried on a controversy with [[August von Kotzebue|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''. His play ''Ion'', performed in Weimar in January 1802, was supported by [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]], but became a failure.

{{blockquote|When the work of art appears as if all its elements had been consciously chosen by a power above the artist, it has style; when the artist has not transcended his/her individuality, then s/he is categorized as a mannerist artist (SW III, 309–312).<ref name="plato.stanford.edu"/>}}

In 1801 Schlegel went to Berlin, where he delivered lectures on art and literature; and in the following year he published ''Ion'', a tragedy in [[Euripides|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 [[Pedro Calderón de la Barca|Calderón]]'s plays. In another volume, ''Blumensträusse italienischer, spanischer und portugiesischer Poesie'' (1804), he gave translations of [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] and [[Italian language|Italian]] lyrics. He also translated works by [[Dante Aligheri]] and [[Luís de Camões]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}<ref name="colliers"/>