SOURCE: Stoljar, Margaret. “The Art of Criticism.” In Athenaeum: A Critical Commentary, pp. 111-33. Bern: Herbert Lang & Co., 1973.

In the following excerpt, Stoljar discusses Schlegel's contributions to the journal Athenaeum, including his numerous polemical pieces and his study of Ludwig Tieck's Volksmärchen.

1

The importance of the Athenäum in the definition of romantic attitudes to the art of literary criticism is greater than the proportion of critical articles in the strict sense would indicate. So great is the originality and fecundity of the journal in respect of aesthetic and literary theory that its purely critical function at first appears less challenging. In truth, however, both the theory and the practice of literary criticism sustained through the innovations of the romantic school very far-reaching changes, to such an extent that Friedrich Schlegel, in particular, may in a very real sense be considered the founder of modern criticism in...