Friedrich Schlegel im Spiegel seiner Zeitgenossen by Hans Eichner (review)

I It is an honour to be able to welcome this extraordinary contribution to our knowledge of early Romanticism. When he died in 2009, Hans Eichner left unfinished the enormous project on which he had laboured for many years as a capstone to his endeavours on the Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe. (Hermann Patsch, one of the editors of this Dokumentation, has contributed a valuable overview of Eichner’s work on Schlegel.¹ Eichner’s involvement with the critical edition, which included responsibility for six volumes, was preceded by his edition of the Literary Notebooks.²) Much gratitude is owed to Hartwig Mayer and Hermann Patsch for taking on the unfinished project and steering it to its final form.

The core of the project is the mass of texts contained as “Briefe und Berichte” in the first two volumes, which cover the whole of Schlegel’s adult life, starting around 1792 and continuing until his death in 1829. The materials come from an exceptionally broad range of sources, which, listed in the fourth volume (which contains the commentary to volumes 1 and 2 as well as the three indices), come to around five hundred separate entries, many of which will have required considerable effort to locate and consult. Most of the texts are extracts from letters, though there are (among other genres) journal articles, diaries, memoirs, and reviews. The context of each text is explained in the commentary, together with cross-references to other relevant texts. Where necessary, the notes contain excerpts from further sources, usually letters, in order to bring a whole situation to life. Only occasionally does a text by Schlegel himself appear in the main part, though excerpts from his letters appear in the commentary when they are needed to explain context. The overall effect is rather like a novel written from multiple perspectives, without a central narrator, but focusing on a character who never appears in person. An intriguing source that is cited early on is “Abschrift Josef Körners in seinem Zettelkasten ‘Friedrich Schlegel’ in der Universitätsbibliothek Bonn.” This reminds us that Eichner saw himself as the successor to Körner, “the pioneer of Schlegel studies,” as Willi Goetschel has called him.³ Many of Körner’s publications also appear in the bibliography, including his three-volume edition of letters, Krisenjahre der Frühromantik. (Eichner’s relation to Körner is discussed by Goetschel in the article cited above.) Eichner admired the scholars of positivism for the energy and persistence they displayed in compiling their great editions. He once contrasted positivism with werkimmanente Interpretation, which, as he once remarked to me, “I can do in my armchair.” He certainly had to move a long way from his armchair to assemble and edit this remarkable Dokumentation, a work that Körner would certainly have appreciated.

The editors’ foreword includes a draft that Eichner composed as part of an application for funding. The draft explains that the work can be read from three perspectives. First, it provides information about Schlegel’s biography. Second, it illuminates how he was seen by his contemporaries. Lastly (a vintage Eichnerism, with its ironic ruefulness), “sie [die Dokumentation] gibt ein buntes Bild dieser Umwelt, der allerdings kein gutes Zeugnis ausgestellt wird” (1: 10). In all three respects readers will receive full satisfaction. Schlegel’s own activities, movements, projects, and so on are tracked in considerable detail; the year 1798, for example, accounts for some seventy pages with up to five entries per page. Many of Schlegel’s contemporaries come across with vivid impressions of their personalities, whether they are (despite frequent exasperations) well disposed towards him, like his brother August Wilhelm and his long-suffering wife, Dorothea, or not, like the older...