Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in GermanyBrandes, Georg
History
Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany
Brandes, Georg
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Naturalism in literature; Romanticism
most astonishing courage and energy; and it was from this side of her
character, by her own heroic standard, that she judged men."
There is more praise than art in this portrait. Sainte-Beuve would have
given us a very different delineation. The original of the picture
is a woman who, after the publication of her letters under the title
Caroline, was known, as if she had been a queen, only by this, her
Christian name. It simplified matters, too, to designate her thus, for
she had had so many surnames that it was difficult to know by which
to call her. She was a daughter of the well-known German philologist,
Michaelis; her first husband was a Dr. Böhmer; after his death she
married A. W. Schlegel, and her third husband was Schelling. These two
last marriages placed her in the centre of the Romantic circle, which
seems naturally to group itself round her. She was its own special
muse. Grier, the gifted translator of Calderon and Ariosto, says of
her that she is by far the cleverest woman he has known. Steffens
and Wilhelm von Humboldt use similar expressions. A. W. Schlegel
writes of several of his essays, that they are "in part the work of
a highly gifted woman, who possessed all the qualifications of a
successful author, but whose ambition did not lie in that direction."
Schelling writes at the time of her death: "Even had she not been to
me what she was, I should mourn the human being, should lament that
this intellectual paragon no longer exists, this rare woman, who
to masculine strength of soul and the keenest intellect united the
tenderest, most womanly, most loving heart. We shall never see her like
again." Her portrait is very striking--fascinating, refined, roguish,
and yet tender. She is quite in Leonardo's style. Dorothea is far less
complex.
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