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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
Thus
Concise
Poetry
Formula
Literature
Formulas
Actually
Named
Place
Definition
Would
Definitions
Time
Determine
Otherwise

More quotes by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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Most thoughts are only profiles of thoughts. They must be inverted and synthesized with their antipodes. Thus many philosophical writings become very interesting which would not have been so otherwise.
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Laziness is the one divine fragment of a godlike existence left to man from paradise.
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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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A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach.
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As the ancient commander addressed his soldiers before battle, so should the moralist speak to men in the struggle of the era.
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Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius.
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Just as the Romans were the only nation that was truly a nation, so our age is the first genuine age.
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From what the moderns want, we must learn what poetry should become from what the ancients did, what poetry must be.
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When the author has no idea of what to reply to a critic, he then likes to say: you could not do it better anyway. This is the same as if a dogmatic philosopher reproached a skeptic for not being able to devise a system.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Can we expect the redemption of the world from scholars? I doubt it. But the time has come for all artists to join together as a confederation in an eternal league.
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Every uneducated person is a caricature of himself.
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True love should be, according to its origin, entirely arbitrary and entirely accidental at the same time it should seem both necessary and free in keeping with its nature, however, it should be both destiny and virtue and appear as a mystery and a miracle.
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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.
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It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque, just because they are men and in this respect artists might well be regarded as man multiplied by two. So it is, was, and shall be.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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The obsession with moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness.
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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About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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German writings attain popularity through a great name, or through personalities, or through good connections, or through effort,or through moderate immorality, or through accomplished incomprehensibility, or through harmonious platitude, or through versatile boredom, or through constant striving after the absolute.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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Kant introduced the concept of the negative into philosophy. Would it not also be worthwhile to try to introduce the concept of the positive into philosophy?
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel