192a. Christian Gottfried Schütz to Wilhelm Schlegel in Jena: Jena, early December 1797 [*]
[Jena, early December 1797]
Esteemed Herr Rath,
You have, as Herr Justizrath Hufeland related to me yesterday, lodged a complaint concerning changes to a couple of sentences at the beginning of your review of Balde etc., and if I understand him correctly, or he you, you also felt constrained to have something in this regard passed on to Herr Herder. [1]
The cause of the complaint cannot be the alteration of a manner of expression [Schütz enumerates the various objections as well as the reasons for the changes.]. . . .
Commensurate with the contract and the general guidelines, the editors of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung reserve the right to effect insignificant changes of this sort for reasons of stylistic polish; indeed, we must often make such changes in the phraseology that are not really improvements as such. Let us assume that — a case that genuinely did arise — three or four reviews one after the other begin with the same turn of phrase, e.g., “This play belongs to the many etc.,” a disagreeable situation might indeed arise, yet a situation none of the three or four reviewers could do anything about but which the editors must necessarily remedy.
For thirteen years, that is, from the very beginning of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, its editors have observed these guidelines. No one, not even our most respected contributors, has ever objected. . . . And who in any case would make such a fuss over a couple of idioms?
You, my most esteemed Herr Rath, are on the whole a good writer, something I am pleased to acknowledge yet again; you are not, however, beyond improvement, something I will say with equal frankness! And, indeed, what writer is beyond improvement? You will find that we have made use of our rights toward you with considerable discretion and thereby fulfilled our own obligation. Such will continue to be the case in the future.
Since, however, a large number of reviews have previously been submitted that are much too long for the concept of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, we must pay closer attention to the limits of extension set forth there. Hence if in the future you send us a review that would take up two issues even though there be room for only one, we will in each case send the piece back for you to shorten it; I at the very least will not occupy myself with such; far from being pleasant work, it is instead an extremely thankless task. I did not think your manuscript of the review of the Terpsichore would extend all the way into a 3rd issue, and had given the typesetters instructions to do everything they could to fit it into 2 issues. I then learned too late, when it was no longer res integra, [2] otherwise I would have had to ask you to delete everything you had said about Balde; for as beautiful as it indeed is, or may be, it was superfluous given our space restrictions, and no one would have reproached your review as not being sufficiently thorough had you taken the attitude “I can presuppose this among my readers.”
Now, I do not really understand just what Herr Herder was supposed to learn through you concerning this trifle, or what you felt prompted to alert him to. We have never encountered a case of this sort. Should you persist in this inclination, I must at least request that you relate to me as a man of honor that you have indeed made such a communication. I am not demanding to know what you communicate, merely that you have done so. I will then also write to Herder, to whom I owe a letter in any case; I know not which of us he will then publicly consider to be in the right; I do know, however, for whom in such a case he in private cannot but have more respect.
I can certainly accept that in the future Herr Justizrath Hufeland intends to communicate to you manuscripts and reviews from your hand in which I might have changed a word or turn of phrase; you cannot, however, demand such as long as you cannot prove that something of yours has thereby been botched. The deletion of such passages that extend a review past the limits of our own concept can in your case be dropped if you yourself would like to undertake such deletions.
When someone has something published in his name and with his name, I would consider it a grave offense should someone else willfully want to correct even a single k where the author in fact writes a ck. But that is quite a different matter with a journal of this scope, which simply cannot exist without editing. Here every contributor will have to accommodate himself to the whole; indeed, we do such in any case merely by being contributors. I discarded 2 sheets from the manuscript of the review of Garve; [3] whether doing so improved it, I cannot say, but it did make it more commensurate and shorter.
Stay well. Most respectfully,
Your,
Schütz
I noticed one typographical error in the review. On p. 417 it should read “and gives him back to his mother tongue”; what is actually printed is “his . . . back to him.” If you have found others, please be so kind as let us know. I will add this one to the errata today. [4]
Notes
[*] Source: Körner (1930), 67–70. — This letter documents initial tensions between Wilhelm Schlegel and the editors of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, tensions that increased for various reasons over the next two years and occuped Wilhelm (and later Schelling) not least because contributing to the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung represented a source of income.
Concerning this episode, see also the supplementary appendix Garlieb Merkel on Christian Gottfried Schütz and the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, and Wilhelm Dilthey on the break between the Romantics and the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (supplementary appendix 258a.1). Back.
[1] At issue is Wilhelm’s review of Johann Gottfried Herder’s Terpsichore, parts 1–3 (Lübeck 1795–96) in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (1797) 53 (Thursday, 16 February 1797) 417–24; 54 (Friday, 17 February 1797) 425–32; 55 (Saturday, 18 February 1797) 433–37 (whence Schütze’s later reference to Wilhelm’s review extending into a “3rd issue” ) (Sämmtliche Werke 10:376–413), in which he includes translations of the neo-Latin poems of Jakob Balde. Back.
[2] Latin, “a case or a question that has not been examined or passed upon.” Back.
[3] Anonymous review of Christian Garve, Vermischte Aufsätze (Breslau 1796) in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (1796) 323 (Friday, 14 October 1796) 125–28. Back.
[4] See letter 192b for Wilhelm’s reponse to Schütz on 10 December 1797. Back.
Translation © 2012 Doug Stott