Friedrich Schlegel and Romantic Irony

Abstract

Friedrich Schlegel obviously enjoyed being ironic and allusive about irony, offering glances and indirections in the form of aphorisms and Delphic fragments calculated to quicken the imagination but never making altogether clear exactly what he meant by the ‘schillernde Phänomen’ of his new irony.⁶ His emphasis is all suggestion, generating sparks of insight, a philosophy of aspiration and self-doubt. A considerable range of apercus leading towards a definition are available, however, in the Lyceum and Athenaeum fragments; they both encourage and frustrate our attempt to see Romantic irony plain.