Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 (Re)translating the West: Humboldt, Habermas, and Intercultural Dialogue
- 2 Friedrich Schlegel's Writings on India: Reimagining Germany as Europe's True Oriental Self
- 3 Germany's Local Orientalisms
- 4 Tales from the Oriental Borderlands: On the Making and Uses of Colonial Algiers in Germanophone Travel Writing from the Maghreb around 1840
- 5 The Jew, the Turk, and the Indian: Figurations of the Oriental in the German-Speaking World
- 6 M. C. Sprengel's Writings on India: A Disenchanted and Forgotten Orientalism of the Late Eighteenth Century
- 7 Occident and Orient in Narratives of Exile: The Case of Willy Haas's Indian Exile Writings
- 8 Distant Neighbors: Uses of Orientalism in the Late Nineteenth-Century Austro-Hungarian Empire
- 9 Modes of Orientalism in Hungarian Letters and Learning of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
- 10 Where the Orient Ends? Orientalism and Its Function for Imperial Rule in the Russian Empire
- 11 Noncolonial Orientalism? Czech Travel Writing on Africa and Asia around 1918
- 12 Oriental Sexuality and Its Uses in Nineteenth-Century Travelogues
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
2 - Friedrich Schlegel's Writings on India: Reimagining Germany as Europe's True Oriental Self
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 (Re)translating the West: Humboldt, Habermas, and Intercultural Dialogue
- 2 Friedrich Schlegel's Writings on India: Reimagining Germany as Europe's True Oriental Self
- 3 Germany's Local Orientalisms
- 4 Tales from the Oriental Borderlands: On the Making and Uses of Colonial Algiers in Germanophone Travel Writing from the Maghreb around 1840
- 5 The Jew, the Turk, and the Indian: Figurations of the Oriental in the German-Speaking World
- 6 M. C. Sprengel's Writings on India: A Disenchanted and Forgotten Orientalism of the Late Eighteenth Century
- 7 Occident and Orient in Narratives of Exile: The Case of Willy Haas's Indian Exile Writings
- 8 Distant Neighbors: Uses of Orientalism in the Late Nineteenth-Century Austro-Hungarian Empire
- 9 Modes of Orientalism in Hungarian Letters and Learning of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
- 10 Where the Orient Ends? Orientalism and Its Function for Imperial Rule in the Russian Empire
- 11 Noncolonial Orientalism? Czech Travel Writing on Africa and Asia around 1918
- 12 Oriental Sexuality and Its Uses in Nineteenth-Century Travelogues
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
This chapter looks at how Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) developed and applied his particular kind of orientalist thinking and writing within the German geographical, linguistic, and cultural context of the early nineteenth century. Schlegel's orientalism developed in Paris (1802–4) in the context of the Pan-European clamor against French cultural (later political) hegemony and against modernity, capitalism, urban life, and individualism. his reflections on the orient, particularly the topos of “India,” became part of a process whereby Germany was reimagined as no longer being part of Western Europe but rather as the “true” oriental self of Europe.
Much has been written on the romantics generally and their influence on early German nationalism, and many scholars have come to similar conclusions. None, arguably, has been able to reveal through a close reading of “Reise nach Frankreich” and Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier Schlegel's use of Indian language and culture in contesting French cultural hegemony. This contribution seeks to compensate for this deficiency by bringing to bear the study of early nineteenth-century nationalism on the study of Schlegel's engagement with India.
Friedrich Schlegel in Paris
Schlegel's interest in Sanskrit studies spans a period of nearly forty years, during which an enthusiasm for India took hold of many German intellectuals. The period begins in 1791 with Georg Forster's (1754–94) translation of Kalidasa's Shakuntala and ends in 1827 with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's (1770–1831) dismissive verdict on India.
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- Information
- Deploying Orientalism in Culture and HistoryFrom Germany to Central and Eastern Europe, pp. 31 - 54Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013