Friedrich Schlegel's Theory of Romantic Poetry

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the adjective romantisch was a vague and fashionable word denoting the qualities of the unusual, exotic, adventurous, incredible and fantastic. In the last few years of the century, Friedrich Schlegel made it one of his favorite critical terms, used it to denote the specific character of postclassical literature, and thus raised it to the position of primary importance which it has occupied in literary criticism ever since. Why Schlegel selected this term to describe the kind of poetry he wished to foster, and what he meant by it, are therefore questions of considerable consequence. The two most prominent attempts at answering these questions, those of Rudolf Haym and of Arthur O. Lovejoy, though incompatible with each other and made as long ago as 1870 and 1916, have not been superseded by any later investigation. In the meantime, important new sources of information about Schlegel have become available, and a re-examination seems to be called for.