252g. Friedrich Schlegel to Fichte in Berlin: Jena, 3 November 1799 [*]
[Jena, Tuesday, 3 November 1799]
. . . We are greatly obliged to you for the news concerning Merkel. [1] My brother has already sent the necessary response to you. [2] —
But now yet another new piece has appeared, one in a certain sense connected with it — a certain Laterne des Diogenes, taken in commission by Rein in Leipzig as a pocketbook. [3] In addition to a great many literary things, it also contains pasquinian personal attacks against Madam Veit and Schleiermacher. The former has been attacked because of her association with me, the latter because of his — deformity. [4]
Both my brother and Tieck have read this piece critically, and their conclusion, the reasoning for which is too broad to explain here, is that Jenisch must be the author. He, however, has explicitly set things up both in the book itself and in the announcement in the Hamburger Correspondent such that readers are to suspect Merkel instead. [5]
I would very much like to know whether people in Berlin are familiar with this book, and, if so, to whom they are attributing it. If any solid evidence emerges, I would likely be quite inclined to publicize the author’s name.
Schelling has doubtless informed you about his quarrel with the A.L.Z.. [6] They have behaved with extreme incaution and utterly exposed themselves. They have also finally come to a scandalous and glaring break with my brother. [7]
Schütz recently had the audacity to trumpet Nicolai’s Adelheid with his usual blare. [8] In general, the A.L.Z. seems not at all disinclined to constitute itself as the gathering place of the totality of inferior subjects, in which connection it will, one would hope, discover its true nature. [9] Perhaps you yourself might also find the time and disposition to execute one or the other of your earlier ideas in this regard that might hasten the demise of this critical Babylon. . . .
Notes
[*] Sources: Fichte Briefwechsel (1930), 2:162–63; Fichte Gesamtausgabe III/4 144–45; KFSA 25:20–21. — Dating according to KFSA 25:383 based on presuppositions in the letter. Back.
[1] In Fichte’s letter to Schelling on 22 October 1799 (letter 250a) Back.
[2] Apparently no longer extant, though see Wilhelm’s letter to Schleiermacher on 1 November 1799 (letter 252b). Back.
[3] Anonymous, Diogenes Laterne (Leipzig: Wilhelm Rein, 1799); see also KGA V/3 241–42. Although it appeared anonymously, the author was known to be Daniel Jenisch. Back.
[4] For the text of the passages Friedrich mentions here concerning Dorothea, Schleiermacher, and, in connection with the latter, Henriette Herz, and for illustrations of the “deformity,” see supplementary appendix 252g.1. Back.
[5] In the Staats- und gelehrte Zeitung des Hamburgischen unpartheyischen Correspondenten, supplement 174 (30 October 1799). — Although Garlieb Merkel was concurrently involved in a feud with the Schlegels (see supplementary appendix 252.1), the author was indeed Daniel Jenisch, as attested by the publisher Johann Daniel Sander in a letter to Karl August Böttiger from Berlin on 12 November 1799 (Die Briefe Johann Daniel Sanders an Carl August Böttiger, 4 vols., ed. Bernd Maurach [Bern 1990–93], vol. 3 [1991], 52–53):
I not only believe, I know . . . that the author of Diogenes Laterne is Jenisch. As early as seven or eight weeks ago, at a social gathering with him, I saw him with galley proofs; and three months ago he read aloud a good part of the piece in manuscript form to my housemate Ferdinand Delbrück.
Jenisch persistently denied authorship. Back.
[6] See Schelling’s missive to the Intelligenzblatt of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, Saturday, 2 November 1799, and the editorial response (letter/document 252e). Back.
[7] See Wilhelm Schlegel’s declaration in the Intelligenzblatt of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung,(Wednesday, 13 November 1799 (letter/document 255a), though also Gottlieb Hufeland to Wilhelm Schlegel on 3 November 1799 (letter 252e) and Wilhelm Schlegel to Gottlieb Hufeland on 3 or 4 November 1799 (letter 252f). Back.
[8] Friedrich Nicolai, Vertraute Briefe von Adelheid B** an ihre Freundin Julie S*** (Berlin, Stettin 1799). The author of the review in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung was not Schütz, but rather Ludwig Ferdinand Huber; for this review, and concerning the entire feud and its connection with the “Litterarischer Reichsanzeiger oder Archiv der Zeit und ihres Geschmacks” in Athenaeum (1799), see the supplementary appendix on Nicolai’s Vertraute Briefe von Adelheid B**. Back.
[9] See Rudolf Haym, Die romantische Schule, 735:
Certainly, this Schleiermacherian deviltry [which Schleiermacher never published against the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung] would have done more damage to the Literatur-Zeitung than the passionate attacks by the Schlegels and Schelling. But it was the journal itself that did the most damage to its own cause. By getting on increasingly good terms with the adversaries of the Romantics, it was in part dependent on the most inferior company, and even Huber’s reviews were but moderate compensation for the disappearance of Wilhelm’s.
Unfortunately, the Romantics, too, were unable simply to keep a dignified silence or to secure victory once and for all with Schleiermacherian cold-bloodedness. Back.
Translation © 2013 Doug Stott