“A Related yet Foreign Element”. Schleiermacher Reviews Fichte’s The Destination of Man
From Firenze University Press Book: Philosophical Reviews in German Territories (1668–1799)
Davide Bondì, University of Verona
- A. W. Schlegel and the critical function of reviews in Enlightenment periodicals
The first issue of the “Athenaeum”, which appeared in May 1798, contains an essay by August Wilhelm Schlegel entitled Contributions to the Criticism of Recent Literature, which echoes and expands on the journal’s brief preface, the Vorerinnerung, describing the journal’s aim.1 In fact, the Beyträge focus on the philosophical vision and cultural purpose of the “Athenaeum”, placing the journal in opposition to the kind of scholarly discourse that prevailed in German literary periodicals in the second half of the eighteenth century. The tensions between the strategies and cultural goals of Enlightenment journals are most evident in the passages on the function and value of the activity of reviewing. In fact Ernst Behler wrote that the authors of the “Athenaeum” conceived their forum “wie ein rezensierendes Institut” (Behler 1983, 19). This statement is more evaluative than descriptive, since the first reviews appeared in the fourth issue (August 1799), while the previous three contained essays, dialogues, rhapsodic reflections, and aphoristic fragments. And yet Behler was not wrong, for the different types of text that appeared within the pages of the “Athenaeum” were intended by its founders to serve as contrasting articulations of the same “critical function”, that of reviewing par excellence. Thus any text that fulfils the same critical function, regardless of its literary or narrative form, can be regarded from this perspective as a kind of review. According to August Wilhelm, the presence of the Notizen explains the popularity of scientific journals, as they provide an effective way to communicate and reach as many people as possible. In fact, they not only reach a wide readership among those who are already interested in cultural issues, but also build a new and previously non-existent literary audience, thus increasing the number of scholars and influencing contemporary life. In order to achieve this, however, the journals and reviews, which constitute the most important element, must not only inform, explain, and comment, but also be critical, and this in a completely new way from the literary traditions that prevailed, for example, in the famous “Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek” founded in Berlin in 1765 by Friedrich Nicolai. Schlegel thus began to introduce some elements of marked departure and dissent from the Enlightenment mentality, distinguishing between two meanings of criticism that reflected two different intellectual functions. This was how he described the kind of criticism that was typical of traditional periodicals:
When reviewing, one puts on official clothes: one no longer speaks in one’s own name, but as a member of a community. Those who have their own unique spirit must subordinate it to the purpose and tone of the institution; and one wonders whether sharing in the dignity of the institution can compensate for the sacrifice, since one is always bound by a collective spirit. This can easily lead to a certain rigidity and conformity to rules, which is at odds with the animated freedom that is the common thread running through their creativity and sensitivity to what they produce. Moreover, this formal discourse claims a general validity, which can only be produced by the scientific application of scientific truths, but can in no case be extended to such things that only achieve definition in the mind of those who examine them thanks to a singular play of internal forces (Schlegel 1798a, 146–7).
Those who review, sacrifice their own name and wear official clothes, subordinating their voice to that of a corporation. Although he does not mention it, Schlegel was thinking of the style of the “Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung”, the journal founded in Jena in 1785 by Friedrich Justin Bertuch, Christian Gottfried Schütz, and Cristoph Martin Wieland, to which the most important scholars of the time contributed: Kant, Humboldt, Fichte, Bruno Bauer, and he himself. In the “Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung”, all reviews were anonymous, not only to protect the authors from possible censorship or retaliation, but above all because anonymity gave them scientific authority.3 In the eyes of the readers of the time, the absence of any identification was proof of the impersonality of the judgement expressed in the review and thus guaranteed its claim to truth. The ‘author’ should speak neither in his own name nor in the name of the institution, but only in the name of the ‘collective spirit’, as an ‘intellectual’ embodying a universal function. Authorship could then be shifted from the voice of the individual to the voice of a supra-individual intelligence, which would ensure the transition from ‘opinion versus opinion’ to a shared truth, from sectarianism to objectivity.4 Only when these conditions were met could the magazine be perceived as a cultural device capable of transcending any biased perspective. For most people the review was convincing if the writers and the recipients shared the same principles; the former could be replaced by anyone else without harming the article, because the judgement was considered valid not as something personal, nor the expression of an intellectual circle, but as an expression of the dictates of reason.5 Under the contemporary cultural conditions, Schlegel wrote, reviews were “institutions of general criticism” in which “despite all the differences of opinion, a certain uniformity still prevails” and the textual form of the review, which is its most important part, “must measure the most diverse things by the same criterion” (Schlegel 1798a, 144).
DOI: 10.36253/979–12–215–0573–3.06
Read Full Text: https://books.fupress.it/chapter/a-related-yet-foreign-element-schleiermacher-reviews-fichtes-ithe-destination-of-mani/15854
