Record Detail

As part of the programme of an art-religion, Early Romanticism presents
the authorship model of the poet as a priest. Being based on ideas of aesthetic autonomy,
this model is presented in opposition to ›normal‹ Christian ideas supporting
a both polemic and esoteric self-representation of the circle around the Schlegel
brothers which is mainly connected to the Athenaeum. Only one year after the last
issue of the journal, the Schlegel circle publishes the Musen-Almanach für das Jahr
1802 which appears to be an exoteric revision of the esoteric Athenaeum. It not
only takes into account expectations of a large public, it also presents models of
authorship which appear to be compatible with ›normal‹ Christian ideas. As part of
a genuinely Romantic interpretation of popular poetry, the almanac follows the concept
of a ›secondary naïveté‹ projecting esoteric aesthetic ideas on forms of exoteric
piety