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A definition of poetry can only determine what poetry should be and not what poetry actually was and is otherwise the most concise formula would be: Poetry is that which at some time and some place was thus named.

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Age: 57 †
Born: 1772
Born: January 1
Died: 1829
Died: January 11
Art Theorist
Editor
Historian
Literary Critic
Literary Theorist
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Hanover
Germany
Karl Friedrich von Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Friedrich von Schlegel
Friedrich Karl Wilhelm von Schlegel
Literature
Formulas
Actually
Named
Place
Definition
Would
Definitions
Time
Determine
Otherwise
Thus
Concise
Poetry
Formula

More quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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Those works whose ideal has not as much living reality and, as it were, personality as the beloved one or a friend had better remain unwritten. They would at least never become works of art.
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Art and works of art do not make an artist sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.
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If you want to see mankind fully, look at a family. Within the family minds become organically one, and for this reason the family is total poetry.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Even a friendly conversation which cannot be at any given moment be broken off voluntarily with complete arbitrariness has something illiberal about it. An artist, however, who is able and wants to express himself completely, who keeps nothing to himself and would wish to say everything he knows, is very much to be pitied.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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In order to be able to write well upon a subject, one must have ceased to be interested in it the thought which is to be soberlyexpressed must already be entirely past and no longer be one's actual concern.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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The whole history of modern poetry is a continuous commentary on the short text of philosophy: every art should become science, and every science should become art poetry and philosophy should be united.
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The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Like Leibniz's possible worlds, most men are only equally entitled pretenders to existence. There are few existences.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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No idea is isolated, but is only what it is among all ideas.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Original love never appears in pure form, but in manifold veils and shapes, such as confidence, humility, reverence, serenity, asfaithfulness and modesty, as gratefulness but primarily as longing and wistful melancholy.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense especially words from the ancient languages.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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In the ancients, one sees the accomplished letter of entire poetry: in the moderns, one has the presentiment of the spirit in becoming.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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The life of the artist should be distinguished from that of all other people, even in external habits. They are Brahmins, a higher caste, not ennobled by birth, however, but through deliberate self-initiation.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Wit is the appearance, the external flash, of fantasy. Hence its divinity and the similarity to the wit of mysticism.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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What is called good society is usually nothing but a mosaic of polished caricatures.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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The genuine priest always feels something higher than compassion.
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The essential point of view of Christianity is sin.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Through artists mankind becomes an individual, in that they unite the past and the future in the present. They are the higher organ of the soul, where the life spirits of entire external mankind meet and in which inner mankind first acts.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel