Friedrich von Schlegel, (March 10, 1772 to January 12, 1829) , was a German scholar. Among his books is On the Language and Wisdom of India (1808) where he asserted that India was the ancient homeland of a Germanic culture, a concept which had the effect of elevating the history of own homeland compared with the accomplishments of the ancient Greeks. He also publicized the idea of a common source of the Indo European languages in Sanskrit, in this book. What we are interested in now is Schegel's earlier work, published in Das Athenaeum (1798 - 1800).
Rodolphe Gasche, according to a book blurb, is the Distinguished Professor & Eugenio Donato Professor of Comparative Literature at State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the author of The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection [sic] (1986). Gasche, in an introduction to Philosophical Fragments (1991) maintains Schlegel's use of the brief fragment as a literary style, demonstrates Schlegel's intellectual energy combined with a lack of discipline such as would result in methodical explication. The same scholar also suggests that the popularity of these fragments (lacking the intellectual completion of, say, Pascal's, Pensees, is because this style is a romantic manifestation of Kantian ideas in that the universal can only be achieved in a manner which is each time unique. This is the foundation for the idea of some thinkers like (the early) Schlegel that art is a paradigm of thought.
Rodolphe Gasche, according to a book blurb, is the Distinguished Professor & Eugenio Donato Professor of Comparative Literature at State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the author of The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection [sic] (1986). Gasche, in an introduction to Philosophical Fragments (1991) maintains Schlegel's use of the brief fragment as a literary style, demonstrates Schlegel's intellectual energy combined with a lack of discipline such as would result in methodical explication. The same scholar also suggests that the popularity of these fragments (lacking the intellectual completion of, say, Pascal's, Pensees, is because this style is a romantic manifestation of Kantian ideas in that the universal can only be achieved in a manner which is each time unique. This is the foundation for the idea of some thinkers like (the early) Schlegel that art is a paradigm of thought.
Okay. Here are some examples of these fragments, published first in Das Athenaeum, a periodical, which, we read, was the official mouthpiece of the German Romantics:
306. The story of the Gadarene swine is probably a symbolical prophecy from the period of the masterminds, who have now happily plunged themselves into the sea of forgetfulness.
307. When I talk about my antipathy toward cats, I exclude Peter Leberecht's puss 'n boots. His tomcat has claws and whoever has been scratched by these has, quite reasonably, cursed him; but others are amused how he, so to speak, takes his walks on the roof of dramatic art.
308. The thinker needs the same sort of light as the painter, bright; without direct sunshine or blinding reflections, and wherever possible, falling straight down from above.
That cat mentioned above -- is a literary reference, not a fluffy one.
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