Lectures on Dramatic Art and LiteratureSchlegel, August Wilhelm von
Philosophy
Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature
Schlegel, August Wilhelm von
Drama -- History and criticism; Drama -- Technique
The Lectures of A. W. SCHLEGEL on Dramatic Poetry have obtained high
celebrity on the Continent, and been much alluded to of late in several
publications in this country. The boldness of his attacks on rules which
are considered as sacred by the French critics, and on works of which the
French nation in general have long been proud, called forth a more than
ordinary degree of indignation against his work in France. It was amusing
enough to observe the hostility carried on against him in the Parisian
Journals. The writers in these Journals found it much easier to condemn M.
SCHLEGEL than to refute him: they allowed that what he said was very
ingenious, and had a great appearance of truth; but still they said it was
not truth. They never, however, as far as I could observe, thought proper
to grapple with him, to point out anything unfounded in his premises, or
illogical in the conclusions which he drew from them; they generally
confined themselves to mere assertions, or to minute and unimportant
observations by which the real question was in no manner affected.
In this country the work will no doubt meet with a very different
reception. Here we have no want of scholars to appreciate the value of his
views of the ancient drama; and it will be no disadvantage to him, in our
eyes, that he has been unsparing in his attack on the literature of our
enemies. It will hardly fail to astonish us, however, to find a stranger
better acquainted with the brightest poetical ornament of this country
than any of ourselves; and that the admiration of the English nation for
Shakspeare should first obtain a truly enlightened interpreter in a critic
of Germany.
It is not for me, however, to enlarge on the merits of a work which has
already obtained so high a reputation. I shall better consult my own
advantage in giving a short extract from the animated account of M.
SCHLEGEL'S Lectures in the late work on Germany by Madame de Staël:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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