SOURCE: Hughes, Glyn Tegai. “Profusion and Order: The Brothers Schlegel.” In Romantic German Literature, pp. 41-60. London: Edward Arnold, 1979.

In the following excerpt, Hughes summarizes Schlegel's literary criticism, principally concentrating on the writer's influential formulation of Romantic theory, and notes his accomplishments as a translator of Shakespeare.

August Wilhelm studied at Göttingen, where he came into close and fruitful contact with the great classical scholar Heyne and with the poet Bürger, both of whom thought highly of him. After four years as tutor to a Dutch family he married Caroline as a kind of rescue operation and moved with her to Jena, where he lectured in aesthetics and made ends meet by reviewing. In 1801 he went to Berlin to lecture on literature and art, and the series of lectures he delivered there between then and 1804, although not published as a whole until 1884, may be said to...