Schlegel, August Wilhelm von

Schlegel, August Wilhelm von (ou`gst vĭl`hĕlm fən shlā`gəl), 1767–1845, German scholar and poet. With his brother, Friedrich von Schlegel, he founded the Athenaeum, which he edited (1798–1800). He served as secretary to Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte (later Charles XIV of Sweden) and became professor (1818–45) of art and literary history at Bonn. Schlegel was one of the first critics to see the importance of social evolution in the history of art, and he was a champion of the Nibelungenlied. He is most noted for his extraordinary translations of Shakespeare (1797–1810), later completed by Ludwig Tieck and others, which established Shakespeare's greatness in Germany.

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Schlegel, August Wilhelm von

(born Sept. 8, 1767, Hannover, Hanover—died May 12, 1845, Bonn) German scholar and critic. He worked as a tutor and wrote for Friedrich Schiller's short-lived periodical Die Horen before cofounding with his brother Friedrich von Schlegel the periodical Athenäum (1798–1800), which became the organ of German Romanticism. While a professor at the University of Jena, he undertook translations of the works of William Shakespeare (1797–1810) that became standard editions and are among the finest of all German literary translations. His Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (1809–11) was widely translated and helped spread fundamental Romantic ideas throughout Europe. From 1818 until his death he taught at the University of Bonn.