The Schlegel Brothers and their Romantic Constellations (GSA 2020)

By Jan Oliver Jost-Fritz

GSA Annual Conference

October 1-4, 2020, Washington DC, USA

Deadline: February 10, 2020

Panel (sponsored by the Goethe Society of North America): "The Schlegel Brothers and their Romantic Constellations"

Covering the widest possible range of subjects from Greek and Roman literature to contemporary criticism, European mythology to ancient Indian thought and language, medieval poetry to Shakespeare, transcendental philosophy to men’s redemption through love and faith (cf. F. Schlegel. Philosophie der Geschichte), as well as love, marriage, gender relations and both progressive and conservative politics, August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel put their very particular mark on German and European Romanticism. While scholarship has long favored the younger Friedrich to flesh out the progressive elements of romantic thought, the allegedly more academically dry August Wilhelm continues to stand in the long shadow of Early Romanticism of the Jena epoch. Thus, whereas Friedrich was recently honored with a Handbuch covering every aspect of his life and writing including a survey of the latest state of research (Metzler, 2017), many parts of August Wilhelm’s diverse and multi-lingual oeuvre still await deeper inquiry – despite recent approaches to the older of the two brothers, such as Roger Paulin’s indispensable biographical exploration in the ‘cosmopolitan’ Schlegel (OpenBookPublishers, 2016) or the special issue of Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie (2018) on August Wilhelm’s significance for the development of philology.

Contributions concerned with any aspect of both Early Romanticism and the Schlegels’ later lives and writings, as well as contributions focusing not only on the two brothers but also on Caroline Schlegel (née Michaelis, later Schelling), Dorothea Schlegel (née Mendelssohn), or Germaine de Staël – women who played an underappreciated yet pivotal role in the brothers’ lives and writings – are particularly welcomed.

Please send a brief abstract (350 words) and a short bio to Jan O. Jost-Fritz (jostfritz@etsu.edu) by February 10.

The panel is sponsored by the Goethe Society of North America.