Friedrich Schlegel Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung (Friedrich Schlegel Handbook: Life – Work – Reception), Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2017.

2017, J.B. METZLER: STUTTGART
Johannes Endres, author

Friedrich Schlegel’s life career, from his revolutionary youth over the Jena years up to his catholic conversion, serves as a mirror of the Romantic era as a whole. His theoretical writings laid the groundwork for the idea of Romantic poetry as a “progressive universal poetry”; his historical-critical method helped to establish ‘Literaturwissenschaft’ (literary studies) in the way it is still practiced today. This handbook presents Schlegel’s oeuvre in its entirety, covering, besides his literary and aesthetic writings, his texts and fragments on classical studies, philosophy, the history of European and world literature, history and politics, and art history, including his many-faceted activities as editor, journalist, and prolific letter writer. Additional chapters address terms and ideas pivotal to his work at large, such as Fragment, Irony, Wit (“Witz”), Mythology, Revolution, and Incomprehensibility. The book, which features contributions from internationally recognized Schlegel and Romanticism scholars, is the first comprehensive reference work on one of the most influential spearheads of European intellectual history.