249d. WilhelmWilhelm Schlegel to Christian Gottfried Schütz in Jena: Jena, 21 October 1799 [*]
[Jena, 21 October 1799]
Please forgive me, esteemed Herr Hofrath, for not having answered your billet yesterday because of other business.
Since you seem not to have read Athenaeum — something one indeed cannot really expect of you — let me remark the following. [1]
The assertion that Garve is a mediocre philosopher can indeed be found in Athenaeum, issue 2, p. 89, albeit not in those exact words, though certainly to that effect; the assertion that the best elements in Wieland’s works are borrowed from others can similarly be found there on the final page of issue 4. [2] The former will soon be given a more thorough presentation, [3] and something similar would be easy enough with the latter as well were it not so boring, almost as boring as reviewing a piece by Wieland with a stale aphorism by Lessing and with a comparison of insignificant variant readings.
So as you can see, I was not told something that does not exist, that the misunderstanding of finding Athenaeum mentioned in the prologue was not at all particularly crude, and that your prologue itself did not quite understand what it was saying.
For the rest, I do withdraw my request that you find so captious. The sample you gave is quite incapable of raising my curiosity concerning the rest of the prologue. Connoisseurs have long concurred concerning two of the statements that are supposed to characterize the conceited young scholar; and although the third judgment does contain an incomprehensible reproach, I would be the last person to take it as a demonstration of conceit. Since you yourself once made the connection “Schlegel produced only a mediocre translation of Shakespeare,” just be careful lest it creep into the A.L.Z., something that might well happen were there but hope that a truly mediocre translation of Shakespeare might be raised up against my own through precisely this assertion. [4]
Were I myself to portray a conceited (young or old) scholar, I would have him mock Fichte, or have him imagine he might be able to manipulate public opinion and the course of literature by means of a boring journal that basically no one genuinely reads even though many receive it. [5]
Although the Intelligenzblatt of the A.L.Z. owes you a considerable debt of gratitude for keeping it untainted by base pasquinade rants, we are utterly unconcerned if you choose to include every possible sort of vulgar tirade against Athenaeum and Lucinde. In fact, we find it quite in order that the A.L.Z., considering it has no intention of speaking about us in any dignified fashion, would find itself worthy of behaving thus.
Your esteemed Sir’s
most devoted
A. W. Schlegel
Notes
[*] Response to letter 249c. — Sources (letters 249b, 249c, 249d): Originally published by Christian Gottfried Schütz in the Intelligenzblatt of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (1800) 62 (Saturday, 10 May 1800) 513–20. Reprinted in Christian Gottfried Schütz. Darstellung seines Lebens 2:428–31; Wilhelm Schlegel, Sämmtliche Werke 11:427–30; Fambach 385–86. — Concerning the background to this exchange with Wilhelm Schlegel, see the editorial note to Wilhelm’s letter to Schütz on the same day (letter 249b). Back.
[1] The following explanation refers to the “excerpt” Schütz provided in his own letter of 20 October 1799 (letter 249c, with note 1) concerning Christian Garve, Christoph Martin Wieland, and Wilhelm’s edition of Shakespeare. Back.
[2] I.e., Athenaeum (1798) issue 2, Athenaeum (1799) issue 2 (overall issue 4); concerning Wieland, see the Citatio edictalis in supplementary appendix 194c.2 on the break with Wieland. Back.
[3] Schleiermacher’s essay “Garve’s letzte noch von ihm selbst herausgegebene Schriften” in Athenaeum 3 (1800) 129–39; see also Friedrich Schlegel’s letter to Caroline on 20 October 1798 (letter 205), note 7. Back.
[4] Presumably an allusion to the slight to which Wilhelm felt he had been subjected in Schütz’s earlier review of Johann Joachim Eschenburg’s translation of Shakespeare (Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung [1797] 347 [Wednesday, 1 November 1797] 273–80; 348 [Wednesday, 1 November 1797] 281–82), a slight Wilhelm mentioned in his letter of late April 1799 to the other editor of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, Gottlieb Hufeland (letter 235a). Back.
[5] That is, the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung itself. Back.
Translation © 2013 Doug Stott