Schlegel
Schlegel names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Schlegel AUGUST WILHELM VON (schlā'gel)
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
AUGUST WILHELM VON (schlā'gel), German author, born in Hanover, Prussia, Sept. 8, 1767. He was Professor of Literature in the University of Bonn. His most notable works in literary and art criticism are: "Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature" (3 vols. 1809-1811), translated into nearly all the languages of western Europe; "On the Theory and History of the Plastic Arts" (1827). In the field of Orientalism he wrote "Reflections on the Study of the Asiatic Languages" (1832), and prepared editions of several Indian classics. He translated many of the plays of Shakespeare Shakespeare and made the English dramatist a German classic. He translated Dante, Calderon, Camoens, and other foreign masters of literature. He wrote sonnets, an elegy, "Rome" (1812), and other poems. He died in Bonn, Germany, May 12, 1845.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
shlagel, August Wilhelm (1767-1845), a German poet and critic. He was born at Hanover and received his education at the University of Gottingen. His first literary work of importance consisted of translations from Dante and Shakespeare, his work in this line causing Shakespeare to be known almost as well in Germany as in England. He translated also the works of Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese poets. In this he was wonderfully successful. Hosmer says that "Shakespeare, Calderon, Petrarch, and Dante speak through Schlegel as they would have spoken had they talked German." In his original poems Schlegel showed some grace and beauty, but he possessed no creative genius and produced nothing great. His Lectures upon Dramatic Art and Literature are a valuable contribution to critical literature.
Schlegel FRIEDRICH VON, a German philologist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FRIEDRICH VON, a German philologist, born in Hanover, Prussia, March 10, 10, 1772. He first devoted himself to the study of Greek antiquity, and in 1794 published his great essay "On the Schools of Grecian Poetry"; following it with many others of a like tenor, as "The Greeks and Romans" (1797), and "History of Greek and Roman Poetry" (1798). In his "Fragments" (1798-1800) he essa essayed to establish the theory of a new romanticism; in the meantime writing the unfinished romance "Lucinda," and a volume of "Poems." He wrote also a tragedy, "Alarcos." His work "Language and Wisdom of the Indians" (1808) was a valuable contribution to the science of language. Among his other writings are lectures on "Modern History" (1811); "History of Ancient and Modern Literature" (1815); "Philosophy of Life." He died in Dresden, Saxony, Jan. 12, 1829.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The facts as Collier's gave them in 1921 still stand, with one slip: Hanover was not "Prussia" in 1767 but a separate electorate, absorbed by Prussia only in 1866. August Wilhelm's Shakespeare, completed by Ludwig Tieck and his collaborators, remains the standard German stage text nearly two centuries on, and his Bonn appointment of 1818 is now generally counted the first chair of Sanskrit in Germany and the start of German Indology. The sharpest shift is in Friedrich's standing: his "Language and Wisdom of the Indians" (1808) is credited with launching comparative Indo-European philology, and "Lucinde", long dismissed as a scandalous failure, is now read seriously as a central Romantic novel. Aiton's 1910 verdict that August Wilhelm "possessed no creative genius" is still roughly the consensus — he is valued as translator and critic, not poet.
Written for this edition, 2026.