198b. Friedrich Schlegel to Wilhelm Schlegel in Jena: Berlin, 25 March 1798 [*]
Berlin, Sunday morning, 25 March 1798
. . . I can join in your chorus of astonishment only halfway. That is, I cannot be astonished in my own turn at Caroline’s astonishment. I find it quite natural that she, who has become so accustomed to abuse men who respect and love her, eventually thinks there is nothing wrong with it. —
I do comprehend your own astonishment very well, except that you must allow me not to recognize you as a judge here. That is, I can recognize no one as a judge here except myself; otherwise, of course, it would be you. It is all just so excessively Sapphic.
I have already responded to you concerning the things in Caroline’s letter about Athenaeum. . . .
[Editing Friedrich von Hardenberg’s “Blüthenstaub” fragments.] [1] Otherwise I am changing nothing in his, except for insignificant things you deleted or marked, or similar things. In the fragment on Schlegel-irony I merely deleted the “so sharply.” [2] —
I am letting him have the one on death. [3] Caroline definitely has more sense for living than for dying. Although that is all very fine and good, why has she been so inclined lately to obscure the edges of individuality? . . .
Let me also request that you abandon the old Carolinian hypothesis of “abundant sensitivity because of vanity,” since it is fundamentally incorrect. . . .
Notes
[*] Source: Walzel, 370–71; KFSA 24:106–15.
Friedrich goes into considerable detail in this letter concerning editorial considerations pertaining to the initial issues of Athenaeum. The few passages included here attest Caroline’s editorial participation in the venture and what seems to be the continuing tension between her and Friedrich (see Friedrich’s letter to Wilhelm on 6 March 1798 [letter 198]). Back.
[1] “Blüthenstaub: Von Novalis,” Athenaeum (1798) 70–106. Back.
Humor is an arbitrarily assumed mannerism. Its caprice is its piquancy. Humor is the result of the free fusion of the conditioned and unconditioned. Through humor the conditioned, properly speaking, becomes interesting to all, and receives objective value. Where imagination and judgment meet, wit arises; where reason and caprice mate, humor. Persiflage pertains to humor, but is a degree smaller; it is no longer purely artistic, and is much more limited. What Fr. Schlegel characterizes as irony is in my view nothing other than the result, the character of sober reflection, of true presence of the intellect. Schlegel’s irony seems to me to be genuine humor. Having several different names can benefit an idea. Back.
Life is the beginning of death. There is life for the sake of death. Death is at once both ending and beginning, separation and closer self-connection. Reduction is completed through death. Back.
Translation © 2012 Doug Stott