Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play — and Kindle via Send to Kindle
- ✓ Choose your format — EPUB, PDF, or Kindle
- ✓ Instant download after purchase
- ✓ Yours to keep — no subscription
The Philosophy of History
1829 · translated from the German · 610 pages
The Philosophy of History
by Friedrich von Schlegel
Delivered as lectures at Vienna in 1828 and published the following year, Schlegel's Philosophy of History runs from the origins of the human race to the Europe of his own day and argues that the whole sequence is intelligible only as a religious history. It is Christian apologetic in the form of world history, from one of the founders of German Romanticism who had been thoroughly irreligious into his late twenties.
The convert behind the argument
Schlegel was a pastor's son who became, with his brother August Wilhelm, the theorist of the early Romantic movement — and whose scandalous novel Lucinde was about as far from his father's world as a book could get. He converted to Catholicism at Cologne in 1808 with his wife Dorothea, herself a convert from Judaism and the daughter of Moses Mendelssohn, and spent his later career in Austrian service.
Summary
The lectures were given in Vienna in 1828, the last year of Schlegel's life, and translated into English by James Burton Robertson with a long memoir of the author attached — a memoir that traces the arc from the early Romantic manifestos to the Catholic and conservative writer of the Vienna years.
The argument treats history as the unfolding of a single religious drama: primitive revelation and its corruption, the dispersal of the nations, the preparation of Israel, the incarnation as the centre, and the Christian ordering of Europe as the consequence. Schlegel handles Asia at unusual length for his period — he had learned Sanskrit and written the pioneering German study of Indian language and wisdom.
The book was widely read in the nineteenth century as the standard Romantic-Catholic account of history, and its influence on later conservative and providentialist historiography was considerable. Robertson's translation is the one that carried it into English.
Who was Friedrich von Schlegel?
Friedrich von Schlegel (1772–1829) was born in Hanover, the son of a Lutheran pastor, and became with his brother the leading theorist of early German Romanticism — editor of the Athenaeum, author of the fragments that defined Romantic criticism, and of the novel Lucinde, which scandalised even his allies.
He was irreligious well into adulthood. In 1808, at Cologne, he and his wife Dorothea — a daughter of Moses Mendelssohn who had herself converted — were received into the Catholic Church. He entered Austrian service, worked for Metternich, and spent his last years lecturing in Vienna, where he died in 1829.
Common questions
- What is Schlegel's Philosophy of History?
- A course of lectures delivered at Vienna in 1828 that reads universal history — from the earliest civilisations through Israel, the incarnation and Christian Europe — as a single religious development, arguing that history is unintelligible without that frame.
- Was Friedrich Schlegel a convert?
- Yes. He was a pastor's son who became a thoroughly irreligious Romantic in his twenties, and was received into the Catholic Church at Cologne in 1808, at thirty-six, together with his wife Dorothea, herself a convert from Judaism.
A note on the text. The Philosophy of History is in the public domain. What you're buying is our edition: the careful typesetting and correction. The original text is also available free here.