Index of Letters
Regarding letter numbers:
Numbering from Erich Schmidt’s edition of 1913 has been retained throughout with a few noteworthy exceptions. Whereas he extracted excerpts from Caroline’s letters from Friedrich Schlegel’s letters to Wilhelm (e.g., letters 135a, b, c, d), I have included Friedrich’s original letters with those excerpts still embedded (now letters “135a, 135b” and “135c, 135d”). Other letters have been given a different date commensurate with later scholarly assessment and accordingly renumbered (e.g., letters 228 and 299, which are now letters 224c and 224b).
Generally speaking, letters whose numbering includes a letter from the alphabet have been added to Erich Schmidt’s original collection of 1913. There are, however, notable exceptions, since Schmidt did include some of his own.
As I point out in the Project Introduction on this site, the basic principle in adding letters has been to include as much material as possible that throws light on Caroline’s personality, life, and letters (including especially allusions and references in her letters), and on the personalities and lives of her more intimate acquaintances to the extent such complements Caroline own life and letters. Because those acquaintances do indeed include so many persons who were genuinely significant during the period, care had to be taken not to allow the collection to become bloated or drift off into extraneous areas. Borderline decisions ultimately involved what one might call the nimbus around Caroline’s life and letters, the extent to which that nimbus was to be included, and the extent to which some extraneous material was to be included to provide a bit broader picture of the sweep of events and personalities constituting the Jena Romantic group.
In volume 1:
-
Letters published by Georg Waitz in 1882 as a supplement to his edition of 1871 but not included in Erich Schmidt’s edition of 1913 (including many letters from Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel’s mother):
-
Pertinent passages from Friedrich Schlegel’s letters to Wilhelm Schlegel and others during the time of Caroline’s confinement in Lucka near Leipzig, before and following the birth of her son Julius on 3 November 1793.
-
All of Friedrich Schlegel’s letters to Auguste Böhmer, which Schmidt included as a supplement.
-
Correspondence between Wilhelm Schlegel and the editors of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung in Jena, before, during, and after the Romantics split with that periodical. Virtually every phase of their relationship with the periodical as such comes to expression in their correspondence is documented here; the various public exchanges (in the newspaper itself or elsewhere) are included either in the expanded notes or in the supplementary appendices. Such also includes both rounds of Schelling’s feuds with the editors.
-
Much of the correspondence between Wilhelm Schlegel and Goethe, on the one hand, and Schelling and Goethe, on the other, before, during, and after the period in Jena.
-
Letters between Friedrich Schlegel and Dorothea Veit in Jena, on the one hand, and Schleiermacher in Berlin, on the other, which serve both as a source of information on the group and its life in Jena and of the way Friedrich and Dorothea reacted to what was happening in the group:
-
Dorothea Veit’s correspondence with others concerning the group, e.g., with Sophie Bernhardi and Rahel Levin in Berlin, and, later (after she and Friedrich left Jena), with Karoline Paulus:
-
Correspondence among members of the group after Auguste Böhmer’s death in Bad Bocklet on 12 July 1800.
In volume 2:
-
Exchanges between Friedrich Schlegel, Wilhelm Schlegel, and Schleiermacher regarding the various scandals, feuds, and problems attending publication and reactions to their periodical Athenaeum, virtually all of which are mentioned in Caroline’s own letters.
-
Correspondence between Dorothea Veit and Schleiermacher and between Friedrich and Wilhelm Schlegel in early 1801, when the group had obviously dissolved and the members were casting about trying to determine what they should (or could) do next as individuals.
-
Correspondence between Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel concerning a mysterious, disputed letter Caroline had written Friedrich, also concerning the alleged damage to property in the apartment in Jena while Caroline and Wilhelm were in Braunschweig after Auguste’s death.
-
Correspondence between Wilhelm Schlegel and Sophie Bernhardi during the second half of 1801 documenting their clandestine affair, including open letters using the formal form of address (Sie) and private letters using the familiar form of address (Du), the latter of which were often included covertly in the former.
-
Various of Friedrich Schlegel’s intimate letters to Rahel Levin and Sophie Mereau.
-
Correspondence between Wilhelm Schlegel, Schelling, and Goethe concerning the divorce proceedings between Wilhelm and Caroline:
-
Correspondence (and, in the supplementary appendices, the public documentation) concerning Schelling’s dispute with the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung and the insinuation that he contributed to Auguste’s death in Bad Bocklet.
-
Therese Huber’s letters to her daughter Therese Forster concerning her version of her encounter with Caroline in Stuttgart in 1803 as well as of events in Mainz in 1792–93:
-
Correspondence illuminating Schelling’s appointment in Würzburg.
-
Selected correspondence between Schelling and the various physicians and scientists with whom he came into contact during his Würzburg and Munich years and with several of whom Caroline also corresponded (e.g., Lorenz Oken, Carl Joseph Windischmann)
-
Correspondence between Schelling and members of the Bavarian administration concerning the various scandals and problems attending his time in Würzburg.
-
Correspondence of Caroline’s adversaries among faculty wives in Würzburg:
-
Correspondence between Schelling and those among his friends with whom he was sometimes less than delicate or kind; such throws light on Schelling’s sometimes extraordinarily difficult personality.
-
Correspondence between Dorothea Schlegel and Karoline Paulus concerning Friedrich’s efforts to secure an appointment in Würzburg in 1804 and 1805 and concerning Dorothea’s and Friedrich’s views not only of the situation in Würzburg (including the Schellings), but also concerning events on the broader European stage at the time; such illuminates their turn to Catholicism and a considerably more conservative posture than one might have expected during their Berlin and Jena period
-
Correspondence (with materials in the supplementary appendices) documenting Schelling’s many scandals and feuds during his Würzburg period.
-
Correspondence documenting Schelling’s maneuvering for a position in Munich and even his thoughts on possibly returning to Jena (correspondence with Goethe).
-
Correspondence documenting the solicitation of both Schelling and Caroline to contribute literary reviews to the Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung.
-
Correspondence following Caroline’s death in 1809 not included by Erich Schmidt.
-
Selected correspondence between Schelling and Pauline Gotter after Caroline’s death.
Although some of the above or certainly some of the letters found in the indices may seem extraneous to Caroline’s life and personality proper, it must be remembered, first, that there is less correspondence illuminating her life after her marriage to Schelling in June 1803 than in earlier periods, and, second, that many of the issues documented in the correspondence of others, especially of Schelling, directly and often profoundly influenced events in her life. I have tried to choose letters and documents illuminating this period of her life in ways providing a broader picture.
Of course, the above groupings do not include incidental letters that have been added or correspondence that is not prominent enough to constitute a “group” in the above sense, and yet there are indeed some remarkable documents that throw surprising light on various aspects of her life, personality, and letters, or on the lives and personalities of her more intimate circle of acquaintances. A perusal of the indices for the two volumes quickly discloses the sometimes astonishing variety of correspondents involved in various ways in Caroline’s life.
My goal is to provide thereby a broader picture of how the lives of the early Romantic group played out during Caroline’s own lifetime in ways at least peripherally, if not always directly, connected with her life: while the group was more intimately connected in its early years, during its often contentious disintegration, and afterward, when the various members tried to find their way elsewhere.