Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829)

THEMES ON THIS PAGE:

1. ON PHILOSOPHIZING – FRAGMENTS AND SYMPHILOSOPHY

2. PHILOSOPHY AND THE UNITY OF LIFE

3. POETIC ENERGY

Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) – whose full name was Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel – was a leading philosopher of German Romanticism, as well as a poet and a scholar. Together with his brother August Schlegel he was at the center of early German Romanticism. Romanticism was an 18th-19th century movement that appeared in Germany, Britain, France, and other countries. Its ideal was to unify the different aspects of the human world – philosophy, poetry, the sciences, art, nature – around aesthetics, or beauty. As Friedrich Schlegel wrote: “The Romantic imperative demands that all nature and science should become art, and art should become nature and science.” This ideal took various shapes, sometimes that beauty is the basis of truth, sometimes that poetry should be the model of all fields of knowledge, or that life and philosophy should be made poetic, etc. The result was much emphasis on feelings, creative imagination, and non-rational elements of existence (although without rejecting reason and systematic thinking).

Friedrich Schlegel was born in Hanover, Germany. In his mid-twenties he moved to Jena and collaborated with Novalis, Ludwig Tieck, Fichte, and Caroline Schelling (who married his brother). Together with his brother, he founded the journal Athenaeum, and published in it fragments and essays about the principles of Romanticism. He later moved to Berlin, where he lived with the thinker Friedrich Schleiermacher and met his future wife, Dorothea Veit, daughter of the Jewish thinker Moses Mendelssohn. She was a married woman, nine years older than him, but they started an affair. Even after she divorced, they remained unmarried, because he despised social norms. Eventually they married and joined the Catholic Church. After some writing and publishing activity he went to Paris, where he gave philosophy lectures and studied Indian languages and wisdom. He published an influential book on the topic, in which he argued that European languages and Sanskrit have a common origin, a view that is accepted today. Throughout the years his social and political views changed: he turned away from his earlier radicalism and became conservative and opposed to civil liberties. In 1809 he went to Vienna and took up political positions and also wrote texts on philosophy, literature and history. He died at the age of 56.

TOPIC 1. ON PHILOSOPHIZING – FRAGMENTS AND SYMPHILOSOPHY

 

The following are some of “the Atheneum fragments” which Schlegel published in 1797-1798 in Atheneum, the journal which he and his brother founded. For the Romantics, particularly for Schlegel, the philosophical fragment was an important format of writing philosophy. Each fragment is an incomplete idea, written spontaneously, and is therefore open-ended. It inspires or suggests, but without having a finished meaning. In this sense, a collection of philosophical fragments is creatively open to the universe. It points to the unity of everything, but without trying to capture it with a theory.

The idea of writing in fragments is related to another Romanic notion used by Schlegel, that of symphilosophy (Symphilosophie in German) – which means philosophizing together. In this process, each philosopher contributes a few fragments, so that the collection of fragments creates a whole composed by several authors. Both of these methods, fragment-writing and symphilosophy, were used to point to an ideal harmonic whole which cannot be captured in a theory. But this does not mean that the Romantics rejected systematic philosophy. Rather, they aimed at a balance between systematic and fragmentary thinking. Indeed, Schlegel also wrote and lectured systematic texts and lectures.

 

53. It is equally fatal for the mind to have a system and to have none. The mind will simply have to decide to combine the two.

54. You can only be in the process of becoming a philosopher, you cannot be one. As soon as you think that you are a philosopher, you stop becoming one.

77. A dialogue is a chain or garland of fragments. An exchange of letters is a dialogue on a larger scale. And memoirs constitute a system of fragments. But so far, no existing genre is fragmentary both in its form and in its content: completely subjective and individual – and at the same time completely objective, and like a necessary part in a system of all the sciences.

112. Philosophers who are not opposed to each other are usually joined only by sympathy, not by symphilosophy.

116. Romantic poetry is a progressive, universal poetry. Its aim is not just to reunite all the separate types of poetry and put poetry in touch with philosophy and rhetoric. It tries to, and has to, mix and fuse poetry and prose, inspiration and criticism, the poetry of art and the poetry of nature, and make poetry lively and sociable, and make life and society poetical. It should poeticize wit, and fill and saturate the forms of art with every kind of good solid educational matter, and animate them with the pulses of humor. It embraces everything that is purely poetic, from the greatest systems of art […] to the sigh, to the kiss that the poetizing child breathes in a natural song. […] Only Romantic poetry can become, like the epic, a mirror of the whole surrounding world, an image of the period. […]

The romantic kind of poetry is still in the process of becoming. This, in fact, is its real essence: that it is always in the process of becoming and is never perfected. It cannot be exhausted by any theory, and only a guessing interpretation would dare try to characterize its ideal. It alone is infinite, just as it alone is free, and it recognizes as its first commandment that the will of the poet cannot tolerate any law above itself. The romantic kind of poetry is the only one that is more than a kind – it is, as it were, poetry itself. Because in a certain sense, all poetry is, or should be, romantic.

125. Perhaps there would be a birth of a whole new historical period of the sciences and arts if symphilosophy and sympoetry became so universal and heartfelt that it would no longer be unusual for several complementary minds to create communal works of art. One is often struck by the idea that two minds really belong together, like divided halves that can realize their full potential only when joined. […]

206. A fragment, like miniature work of art, must be entirely isolated from the surrounding world, and be completely in itself like a porcupine.

264. You shouldn’t try to symphilosophize with everyone, only with those who are à la hauteur.

297. A work is cultivated when it is everywhere sharply limited by boundaries, but within those limits it is limitless and inexhaustible; when it is completely faithful to itself, entirely homogenous, and nevertheless exalted above itself. Like the education of young Englishmen, the most important thing about it is le grand tour. It should have traveled through all the three or four continents of humanity […] in order to broaden its vision and give its spirit more freedom and inner versatility, and thus greater independence and self-sufficiency.

344. Philosophy is a mutual search for omniscience.

451. Universality is the gradual realization of all forms and substances. Universality can reach harmony only through the unification of poetry and philosophy; and even the greatest and most universal works of isolated poetry and philosophy seem to lack this final synthesis. They come to a stop, still imperfect but close to the goal of harmony. The life of the Universal Spirit is an unbroken chain of inner revolutions. All individuals – that is, all original and eternal individuals – live in it. It is a genuine polytheist, and it bears within itself all Olympus.

 

TOPIC 2. PHILOSOPHY AND THE UNITY OF LIFE

 

Throughout his philosophical career, Schlegel believed that philosophy, like poetry, should aim at the unity of life. Although the life we see around us seems to be divided, although it consists of conflict and contradictions, life in its highest form is a unity. Romantic philosophy, as he envisioned it, aims at restoring this unity.

The following text is adapted from Lecture 1 from his series of lectures, titled “Philosophy of Language,” which he gave in Germany during the last years of life, in 1828-29. By this time he had turned away from his radical years, and had become conservative in his political and ethical views. Yet, the theme of philosophy as unifying life remained central in his late philosophy. Schlegel argues here that if we want to truly understand life, we should explore it not in everyday moments in which it is fragmented and in conflict, but in its pure or higher state, in which it is a harmonious unity.

 

If the object of philosophy is the sublime understanding of our inner life, which struggles to expose the mystery of its own being, how could it possibly want to exclude one half of humanity, or society, or of civilized life? The proper sphere of philosophy, no less than of art, is the whole of human life. […] Therefore, the field in which philosophy has to act and work is not a narrow field, limited and confined by some unjustified exclusivity. On the contrary, it must be complete and perfect, as much as humanly possible. And for this reason, too, philosophy must not, and cannot start from a consciousness that is artificially divided, and which is only half of its true self, and which, biased in its views, is divorced from real life. It can originate only from the mind’s greatest perfection and its full and most undivided totality, so that it makes this consciousness clear to itself and to others.

[…]

A true and living philosophy cannot choose and follow the method of higher and higher abstraction, much less can it regard it as the only right method. It starts, rather, from life itself and the feeling of life, and indeed from a feeling and consciousness of life which strives to be as complete as possible. It does not seek its success and hope of true knowledge in any artificial and elaborate division of the human mind. […] This kind of philosophy is based on an assumption which is entirely arbitrary, and which is discovered to be baseless once we examine it more carefully: It assumes that the human mind as it exists now is in a perfect state, and has always remained entire and complete, and has not changed from its original constitution. It believes that nothing is missing for the task of finding the truth, except for a careful and skillful analysis of man’s self-consciousness, and a correct and appropriate classification of its different elements. But we, in contrast, whenever we examine the experience of our inner consciousness, and try carefully to understand it simply as it is, the first thing that strikes us most strongly is conflict and opposition – not only between ourselves and the external world, but also within our own self in the inmost center of the mind. Thus, our mind seems to fall apart and to split into absolute unconsciousness and irreconcilable contrarieties.

[…]

The immediate and specific aim of philosophy is simply to analyze and clearly understand the psychological fact of the conflict and opposition which exists between the several faculties of the soul and spirit, and to present it just as it is. After accomplishing this, philosophy will continue to show the point from which the work of restoration must begin, or at least the way which leads to it – the path of returning to the original harmony of the soul. In other words, the ultimate object of philosophy will be to discover the way to restore a living and perfect consciousness, and to create a more harmonious cooperation of its divided powers and faculties, whether of soul or spirit.

Now, even in ordinary experience, under certain circumstances this inner conflict and disagreement between the understanding and the will, reason and imagination, is happily overcome. When this happens, the faculties which previously were separated and divided, or which fought against each other, are brought into profitable agreement and harmony, at least partly. These rare moments are characterized by extraordinary energy of character, unique artistic genius, or other high and rare mental gifts. These, therefore, do not only prove the possibility of restoring the conflicting and isolated elements of the inner man to completeness of unity and entirety of life, but also provide stable starting points from which we can begin with the work of restoration. Such moments, however, are only exceptions from the usual situation. They are, no doubt, fortunate and rare exceptions, but even so they prove the universal fact of the internal conflict among the faculties of the human mind.

[…]

To sum up, the ordinary state of the human mind, as it shows itself in its present condition to our inner perception, is in a state of four-fold conflict and disturbance. We may say that it is a consciousness divided to four, that it is the victim of the double opposition between the understanding and the will, and between reason and imagination. […] Now, the return from the divided mind into a harmonious consciousness is the very beginning of a true philosophy of life, and, indeed, of a renewed and enhanced vitality.

 

TOPIC 3. POETIC ENERGY

 

Poetry was a central topic for German Romantic thinkers. It was viewed as a metaphysical force representing unity, harmony, and beauty, which were humanity’s highest goals and aspirations. Poetry was often associated with philosophy – poetry and philosophy enriching each other, uniting, and acting towards unity and harmony.

Friedrich Schlegel, who was the main critical thinker of the German Romantic school, spoke about poetry in many of his texts. But his most important text about the topic was DIALOGUE ON POETRY, published in 1800. It is structured, like Plato’s Symposium, as a collection of speeches and conversations between several people. The selections below are from the first two main sections, “Epochs of literature” and “Talk on mythology” (slightly adapted for ease of reading). They express Schlegel’s idea that poetry is a metaphysical energy that flows through human history.

“EPOCHS OF LITERATURE”

This first main section is about the history of poetry. It describes Homer as the “fountain” of Greek poetry and Western poetry in general. From there, poetry continued to flow like a river that inspired future poets and that split into several smaller rivers. The details of this historical exposition should not interest us here, but note that Schlegel uses the metaphor of a flowing river of poetic inspiration:

 

It is an essential quality of all art to follow closely what has already been formed. Therefore, history goes back from generation to generation, from phase to phase, always farther back into antiquity, to its original source.

For the modern generation, for Europe, this source resides in Greece, and for the Greeks and their poetry is was Homer and his followers. This was the inexhaustible source of poetry, a powerful stream of representation in which waves of life rush against each other, a peaceful ocean where the fullness of the earth and the splendor of the heavens are nicely reflected. Just as the ancient thinkers saw water as the beginning of nature, so does the oldest poetry manifest itself in fluid form.

From ancient Greece, the flow of poetic energies continued to flow in many rivers throughout the history of Europe: “…The Romans had only a short outburst of poetry… the stream of fervent love flowed powerfully from Horace’s sincere heart… With the appearance of the Teutons, a new fountain of a new heroic poetry flowed across Europe. And then the wild energy of Gothic poetry merged… After it sprang from such sources, the stream of poetry in the fortunate Italian nation could not run dry again…”

“TALK ON MYTHOLOGY”

In the next section, which is also built as a speech, Schlegel presents his vision about the essence and future of poetry. He tells us that the spirit of poetry must be given a new life. But in order to do this, it needs a new cultural source of life. Without such a common fountain, each poet would be a separate creator, an isolated little fountain that is forced to start poetry from the beginning. This common fountain of poetic inspiration, Schlegel proposes, is mythology – a non-rational, complex, “chaotic” framework about human life, nature, and reality.

Poetry needs individual creators, but it also needs a cultural fountain of poetic energies. To be a poet you must have certain personal gifts, but you also need to be connected to the river of poetic energies that is bigger than you. In the ancient world, this river was fed by mythology. Now, in modern times, we need a new poetic source that would unify all poetic creativity.

You yourselves have written poetry, and you must have often felt the absence of a firm foundation for your activity, a matrix, a sky, a living atmosphere. The modern poet is forced to create all these things from within himself, and many have done it wonderfully. But until now, each poet had to do it separately, and to work on it from its very beginning, like a new creation out of nothing.

I will go right to the point. Our poetry, I maintain, lacks a focus, something like mythology was for the ancients. We can summarize the inferiority of modern poetry to ancient poetry in these words: We have no mythology. But, I add, we are close to getting one! Or, rather, it is time that we work seriously together to create one.

[…]
The new mythology must be created from the deepest depths of the spirit. It must be the most creative work of art, because it must include all the other arts. It must be a new vessel for the ancient eternal fountain of poetry, an infinite poem which contains the seeds of all other poems.

You may smile at this mystical poem, and at the disorder that might result from so many poetic creations. But the highest beauty – indeed the highest order – is that of chaos. It is a chaos which waits only for the touch of love to reveal itself as a harmonious world, a chaos like ancient mythology and poetry were. Because mythology and poetry are one and inseparable. All poems of antiquity join one another, until a whole is created from the many members. Everything inter-penetrates everything else, and everywhere there is one and the same spirit, only expressed differently. And thus, it is not an empty image to say: Ancient poetry is a single, indivisible, and perfect poem. Why shouldn’t that which once was, come to life again? – in a different way, of course. And why not in a more beautiful, in a greater way?

[…]

Because this is the beginning of all poetry: To cancel the laws of rationally thinking reason, and to transplant us once again into the beautiful confusion of the imagination, into the original chaos of human nature. I don’t know a better symbol for this than the many different gods of the ancient world.

[…]

We must be able to press towards the goal in more than one way. Let each one of us pursue his own way in joyful confidence in the most individual manner. Because individuality has the greatest validity here, where the sublime is at issue – as long as we understand what individuality means: indivisible unity and an inner and vital coherence. From this standpoint, I would not hesitate to say that the true value – indeed the virtue of man, is his originality.

[…]

And so, let us, by light and life, no longer hesitate, but accelerate the great development to which we are called, each one according to his own mind. […] What an immense expansion will this power experience, and especially now! It seems to me that anybody who could understand the historical period – that is, those great principles of general renewal and of eternal revolution – would be able to grasp the poles of mankind, to recognize the activity of the first man, as well as the nature of the Golden Age which is about to come. Then the empty chatting would stop, and man would become conscious of what he is: He would understand the earth and the sun.