163a. Friedrich Schlegel to Wilhelm Schlegel in Jena: Pillnitz, 11 June 1796 [*]
Pillnitz, 11 June [1796]
To Wilhelm.
Only a few lines today. I was enormously pleased with your news. [1] And certainly no less pleasing and welcome was all the news contained in the letters Caroline passed on to me. [2] It is very nice indeed that you get on so well with Goethe, and everything you write about him positively delights me, as do other delectable things in your first letters. . . .
I am quite pleased that I will be able to live with you until Michaelmas. [3] Let me thank you in advance. . . .
Notes
[*] Sources: Walzel, 280–81; KFSA 23:308–9. Back.
[1] After visiting Friedrich and his sister Charlotte Ernst in Dresden during late March and April 1796, Wilhelm had continued on to Jena, ultimately also visiting Weimar (see his letter to Schiller on 28 June 1796 [letter 163i]; Post Karte Durch ganz Deutschland, ed. J. Walch [Augsburg 1795]):
Here Jena from a distance in 1785 (Johann Ernst Basillus Wiedeburg, Beschreibung der Stadt Jena nach ihrer Topographisch- Politisch- und Akademischen Verfassung [Jena 1785], fold-out illustration Tab. 2):
In Jena, he rented quarters in the house of the merchant Beyer on Jena’s Market Square, which today bears the address Am Markt 23. It is visible here in the eighteenth century, the building in the right back corner, behind the carriage; the town hall is the building with the tower; Das alte Jena und seine Universität: eine Jubiläumsgabe zur Universitätsfeier [Jena 1908], 138):
Here in an illustration prior to 1755, the house to the immediate left of the town hall at center (Carl Schreiber and Alexander Färber, “Das Rathaus zu Jena vor 1755,” in Jena von seinem Ursprunge bis zur neuesten Zeit, nach Adrian Beier, Wiedeburg, Spangenberg, Faselius, Zenker u. A. von Carl Schreiber u. Alexander Färber: Mit Kupfern, Karten, Lithographien u. Holzschnitten [Jena 1850], plate following p. 76):
The lease duration (extending until Michaelmas, i.e., 29 September 1796) is attested in Friedrich’s letter to Karl August Böttiger on 7 June 1796 (KFSA 23:308), in which he mentions that after his arrival in Jena (Friedrich anticipated being in Jena “after 25 July” [letter to Friedrich von Hardenberg on 29 June 1796, KFSA 23:317]), he could be reached “c/o Merchant Beyer am Markt,” where he would be living with his brother “until Michaelmas”; the location of the rented quarters is also attested in Wilhelm’s letter from Jena to Johann Friedrich Reichardt on 20 June 1796 (Körner [1930], 30–31, here 31), in which he gives his address as Rath Schlegel, c/o of Kaufmann Beyer am Markte.
What eventually happened is that after their arrival in Jena, Wilhelm and Caroline moved into a garden apartment (see Wilhelm’s letter to Georg Joachim Göschen on 24 June 1796 [letter 163i]), while Friedrich took the quarters with Merchant Beyer on Jena’s Market Square until the lease ran out at Michaelmas (attested in his letter to Friedrich von Hardenberg on 23 July 1796 [letter 167a]), thereafter moving in with Wilhelm and Caroline in October in their new quarters at Leutragasse 5.
For a reconstruction of these residence logistics and an enumeration of the correspondence supporting such reconstruction, see Peer Kösling, Die Frühromantiker in Jena, esp. 18–19. Back.
[2] Caroline, still in Braunschweig, was passing Wilhelm’s letters on to Friedrich in Dresden (Post Karte Durch ganz Deutschland, ed. J. Walch [Augsburg 1795]):
[3] As described in note 1 above: in Jena, in rented quarters in the house of the merchant Beyer on Market Square. Back.
Translation © 2011 Doug Stott