An Essential Romantic: On Dorothea Veit-Schlegel
Dorothea von Schlegel; portrait by Anton Graff (c.1790)
Dorothea Veit-Schlegel (1764–1839), née Brendel Mendelssohn, was a translator, novelist, and early revivalist of medieval European literature. She was a core member of the Early German Romantic group, which also included her husband Friedrich Schlegel and his brother August, her sister-in-law Caroline Schlegel-Schelling, and their friend Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis). Veit-Schlegel’s works include translations from medieval and modern French, works of literary criticism, and a novel, Florentin. All these texts were published under her husband’s name. Partly for this reason, it is only recently that Veit-Schlegel’s contributions to Early German Romanticism have begun to be appreciated. The influence of her medieval translations on Heidelberg Romanticism, with its interest in folk tales and traditions, is still mostly unexplored.
Veit-Schlegel shared some philosophical and literary commitments with the better-known male Romantics, but she subtly critiqued many of their central ideas, especially in relation to gender, education, and personal development. In particular, her attention to gendered social dynamics is rooted in the lived experience of women of her time and class. For example, she draws attention to barriers to women exploring alternative lifestyles that were not an issue for men. Veit-Schlegel’s writings explore questions of women’s roles and education in a way that expands possibilities for women’s creative and intellectual development, as well as for their contributions to politics and society.
Veit-Schlegel was born in Berlin, the eldest daughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and businesswoman Fromet Mendelssohn (née Guggenheim). Her family included many prominent individuals, including her father, her brothers Joseph and Abraham (both bankers), her sister Henriette (a governess and salonnière), her sons Jonas/Johannes and Philipp Veit (both famous painters), and her niece and nephew, the composers Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn.
The Mendelssohn family was the cream of Jewish society in Berlin. While not especially wealthy, they had immense prestige as intellectuals. Veit-Schlegel may have attended classes for young Jews that her father held at their house, and she was well read, despite her mother’s disapproval of her interest in literature. She shared this interest with her childhood friends Henriette Herz, Rahel Varnhagen, and Fanny von Arnstein. These three women later became hosts of famous salons, where intellectuals from all walks of life met to discuss philosophy, literature, art, politics, and culture. Salons provided a way for women of the time to participate in, and often shape, European intellectual life, and Veit-Schlegel was therefore at the heart of the avant-garde culture of the era.
In 1783, Brendel Mendelssohn married the Jewish banker Simon Veit in an arrangement made when she was just 14. Veit possessed a “letter of protection” from the Brandenburg government, which granted him and his descendants permanent right of residency: a measure of stability not allowed to most Jews at the time. The marriage was not a happy one: the couple had four sons, only two of whom survived to adulthood, and they divorced in 1799.
During her marriage to Veit, Veit-Schlegel was active in the vibrant Berlin salon culture. Her friends included novelist and political theorist Germaine de Staël, Romantic writers Ludwig Tieck and Joseph von Eichendorff, and the brothers Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, with whom she founded a secret society called the Tugendbund (“Society of Virtue”). This society had the ambitious goal of fostering the intellectual, spiritual and moral development of its members and, through their work, of the world.
In 1797, Veit-Schlegel met the philosopher, writer, and literary critic Friedrich Schlegel and—scandalously—they lived together before marrying in 1804. Veit-Schlegel converted to Protestantism before their marriage. In 1794, she had changed her first name to the more German-sounding “Dorothea,” and with her marriage and conversion she turned away from Jewish society and adopted a Christian identity. In 1808, both Friedrich and Dorothea converted to Catholicism. These transitions were costly for Veit-Schlegel: she lost Jewish friends and became alienated from some of her family, while her Jewish origins still marked her as an outsider.
During the early years of their marriage, the Schlegels lived in Jena with Friedrich’s brother August and his wife, Caroline Schlegel-Schelling. This was the high-point of Early German Romanticism, and a productive time for Veit-Schlegel. She contributed revues and articles to Friedrich’s journal Europa, wrote her novel Florentin, and published works of translation. The couple would later live in Paris, Cologne, Vienna, and Rome, where they stayed in an artists’ commune founded by Veit-Schlegel’s sons. After Friedrich’s death in 1829, Veit-Schlegel returned to Frankfurt, where she lived with her son Philipp.
Although Veit-Schlegel’s own work has only recently begun to be recognized, her importance as an interlocuter for Friedrich has long been acknowledged. She has been described as a helper, muse, scribe, assistant, intellectual mediator, and editor to her husband. In fact, Veit-Schlegel wrote many of the texts and translations that appeared under Friedrich’s name, and she likely contributed significantly to others. The letters between the couple are important documents for understanding the theoretical commitments behind Early German Romanticism, and they are included in the critical edition of Schlegel’s work.
Friedrich Schlegel in 1801
The view of Veit-Schlegel as a “helper” to Friedrich, which was held by the couple themselves as well as later scholars, was shaped by social conventions of the time. These conventions saw women’s most important role as supporters of their husbands and children. Attitudes to Veit-Schlegel have also been influenced by the philosophical commitments of Early German Romanticism itself. Friedrich’s famous essay on “On Philosophy: To Dorothea,” which is addressed to Veit-Schlegel, outlines Friedrich’s thoughts on the characteristics of and ideal relationships between men and women. He claims that women are naturally inclined towards religion, imagination, and poetry, and that this tendency should be counteracted by educating them in the “masculine” domain of philosophy. While this position relies on an essentialist view of men and women as having “natural,” gendered characteristics, the emphasis on women’s capacity for intellectual development was meant to be radical and liberating. Veit-Schlegel, however, held more conservative views. Commenting on Fichte’s thoughts on marriage, she wrote: “In a good marriage it is necessary that the woman possesses just enough understanding to understand the man; anything more than that is harmful.”
Veit-Schlegel’s published works address the social constraints that prevent women from adopting certain roles and identities that are open to men. At the same time, she stretches the boundaries of the areas open to women. In Florentin, the characters Eleonore and Clementina act beyond women’s traditional private realm by expanding domestic and caring responsibilities into the public sphere. Eleonore manages not just the household, but also village affairs, and previously accompanied her husband to war. As a helper to her husband, she carried out a traditional woman’s role in an expanded, traditionally male arena. Meanwhile, Clementina composes music—another area supposedly reserved for men. However, this is acceptable because her music is religious and performed for charity: two more areas that, at the time, were seen as domains of women.
Florentin also includes Veit-Schlegel’s critique of Early German Romantic ideals for self-development, which, the novel suggests, cannot work for women and only work for men, at the cost of ignoring the experiences of others (especially women). Early critics viewed the novel as a failed attempt at a Bildungsroman—"failed” because its central character, Florentin, does not mature or grow. More recently, scholars have recognized this lack of development as a deliberate strategy to critique the ideals of self-development presented by Schlegel (e.g., in Lucinde, the novel to which Florentin is considered a counterpart) and Novalis (e.g., in his novel Henry of Ofterdingen). Florentin is seeking his origins, identity, and “homeland,” but is so self-absorbed that he fails to notice when he meets his birth mother, and moves on despite finding welcome in her house. The last line of the book—“Florentin was nowhere to be found”—indicates the failure of the kind of construction of identity advocated in Lucinde and other Romantic novels. It is now common to refer to Florentin not as a failed Bildungsroman, but as an “anti-Bildungsroman.”
Veit-Schlegel’s translations and adaptations of texts from medieval French sources paved the way for the work on folk traditions and fairy tales by the Heidelberg Romantics, including Tieck, Achim von Arnim, Bettina Brentano-von Arnim, and the Brothers Grimm. As well as translating de Staël’s 1807 philosophical novel Corinne, she adapted medieval biographies of Joan of Arc and the sixteenth-century princess Margaret of Valois, and a story of the life of Merlin. For some of these translations, Veit-Schlegel drew from and modified several sources, creating unique texts that express her views on gender and politics.
Veit-Schlegel’s work on The Story of the Magician Merlin is particularly interesting, as she made numerous additions and omissions that significantly changed the document. The original source, by French medieval writer Robert de Boron, spends considerable time describing Merlin’s services to the king and proofs of his magic, and makes frequent references to Christianity. These aspects are largely omitted from Veit-Schlegel’s translation. In addition, Veit-Schlegel altered the beginning to focus on Merlin’s birth following the persecution, manipulation, and eventual seduction of unwilling women. Lastly, Veit-Schlegel incorporates the story of Merlin’s enchantment by the sorceress Nynianne, which is missing from many versions. Together, these changes mean that, rather than focusing on Merlin’s role in the transfer of political power and the battle of Christian rulers against the devil, Veit-Schlegel’s story foregrounds relationships between men and women. Scholars claim that Veit-Schlegel uses this focus to raise questions about gendered power dynamics and the natures of men and women. Nynianne’s apprenticeship to Merlin in the forbidden (to women) art of magic, as well as the love affair between the two sorcerers, provides a framework for Veit-Schlegel to consider issues related to gender and women’s roles. These include the intellectual and spiritual capacities of women, the possibility of a harmonious relationship between the sexes, and the redemptive capacity of love.
Dorothea Schlegel surrounded by her grandchildren, her son the painter Philipp Veit, and his wife Caroline. Drawing by Franz Brentano
As with many women writers of the time, most of Veit-Schlegel’s contributions to philosophical questions are still to be uncovered. Until recently, women Romantics like Veit-Schlegel were assumed to espouse the same claims as their husbands, and their work (where it was recognized as their work and not their husbands’) was interpreted and evaluated on this basis. Only recently have scholars begun to investigate how writers such as Veit-Schlegel present alternatives to claims by the better-known male Romantics. These investigations already reveal striking differences, and more exciting discoveries can be expected as we continue to explore work by Romantic women writers.
Anna Ezekiel is a feminist historian of philosophy and translator working on post-Kantian German thought. She translated work by eight historical women philosophers for the Oxford University Press volume Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition. Her translations of Karoline von Günderrode’s work are available as Poetic Fragments (SUNY Press, 2016) and Philosophical Fragments (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).