200c. Wilhelm Schlegel to Goethe in Weimar: Jena, 9 May 1798 [*]
Jena, 9 May 1798
Let me hasten to send you in my and my brother’s name the first complete copy of the first issue of Athenaeum I have received, that it may at the very least exert the charm of novelty should it be unable to earn the merit of such through its content. In this particular issue, you will find that I still am the most visible among the Schlegel Brothers & Co., whereas in the second it is my brother who will have the upper hand.
Our participation will be approximately equal when his own does not preponderate. He will supply the journal with philosophy and criticism, I with literature, and both of us, each in his own way, with the Greeks. Thus do we hope to have an arena that can never become too restricted and in which we may try to attract and maintain a variety of readers through the treatment of the material. Above all, of course, we are excitedly hoping for your own approval and will view such as an extremely favorable premonitory sign for the success of our young and (we hope: not all too) youthful enterprise.
The “Blüthenstaub” comes from the hand of a philosophical friend who prefers not to be credited by his real name. [1]
With respect to the translations from the Greek, [2] I tried to pay particular attention to the adaptation of the pentameter and will perhaps say something at another time about the difference between the Greek and Roman pentameter and about the advantages of the former. I was, it is true, only rarely successful in implementing the multi-syllable conclusions of the Greeks, though I do believe it worth investigating whether the transition of meaning from one distich into the next — which always constitutes new elegiac periods and removes the epigrammatic and symmetrical elements and in general gives the elegy a freer and easier gait — might not also be used to advantage in German.
Commensurate with your kind advice, I immediately sent the previously discussed petition to the four directing courts, [3] and accompanied the missives to Gotha and Weimar with letters to Messieurs Geheimräte von Fritsch and Frankenberg, and am now calmly awaiting a propitious outcome. [4]
My wife departed early this morning for Dresden and sends her warmest regards. [5] I certainly yet hope to have the pleasure of seeing you in Weimar or here.
AWSchlegel
[*] Source: Körner-Wieneke 67–68. — Stephan Füssel, Sabine Doering, Marion Marquardt, Georg Joachim Göschen, ein Verleger der Spätaufklärung und der deutschen Klassik (Göttingen 1996), lists under no. 2150 a letter written from Jena by Caroline to Georg Joachim Göschen on 7 May 1798 (received on 9 May 1798) requesting that a letter to Johann Friedrich Cotta not be sent and announcing her visit there in Leipzig in two days (she left for Dresden on 9 May). This letter from Caroline on 7 May would have preceded this present letter in this edition. See also Caroline’s letter to Göschen on 26 April 1798 (letter 199a) with the editorial note.
This letter documents Wilhelm’s first mention to Goethe of his and Friedrich’s new periodical, and it is worth noting that Wilhelm is sending Goethe “the first complete copy of the first issue . . . I have received”:
[1] “Blüthenstaub: Von Novalis,” Athenaeum (1798) 70–106. Concerning the pseudonym Novalis, see Hardenberg’s letter to Wilhelm on 24 February 1798 (letter 196b), note 4. Back.
[2] “Elegien aus dem Griechischen,” Athenaeum (1798) 107–40, which included fragments from Phanocles, Hermesianax of Colophon, and Callimachus; Friedrich seems to have authored the introductions, Wilhelm the translations. Concerning Christoph Martin Wieland’s reaction to the translations, see his excursus in supplementary appendix 194c.2. Back.
[3] Wilhelm had directed a petition for the bestowal of a professorship in Jena to the four Thuringian courts that collectively oversaw the affairs of the university in Jena, namely, Weimar, Meinigen, Gotha, and Coburg (Rudolf Koch and Fritz Kredel, Deutschland und angrenzende Gebiete [Leipzig 1937]):
University affairs in Jena were ultimately under the jurisdiction not just of Saxe-Weimar, but of other duchies as well. See the section on Upper Saxony in the supplementary appendix on Germany in the eighteenth century, esp. the initial footnote on the dukes of Saxe of the line of Ernest. Back.
[4] Goethe wrote to Schiller on 16 May 1798 (Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe 2:100):
Schlegel can hardly fail to get the professorship. He has the duke’s support, on account of his translations of Shakespeare, and communications in his favour have already been despatched to Gotha.
Additional correspondence in this present edition documents the course of Wilhelm’s petition during this summer of 1798. Back.
[5] See Caroline’s letter to Dorothea Marie Campe on 6 May 1798 (letter 200b) with note 1. Back.
Translation © 2012 Doug Stott