When Friedrich Schlegel published his novel

Lucinde

in 1799, at the dawn of German Romanticism, he caused a scandal because his readers identified the protagonists Julius and Lucinde as alter egos of the author and Dorothea Veit (1763-1839), a divorcee with whom the author lived in Berlin and Jena (they married in 1804). Critics objected to the arabesque form of the novel, which they considered a failure in the light of Goethe’s paradigmatic

Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre

[

Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship

, 1796]. Until the twentieth century, scholarship did not appreciate

Lucinde

as a radical and experimental challenge to the aesthetic and moral conventions of the past. Yet in the wake of the French Revolution, young Schlegel had set out to use the

Zauberstab

(magic wand) of poetry to…

1647 words

Citation: Hoffmeister, Gerhart. "Lucinde". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 February 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14270, accessed 19 March 2024.]

14270 Lucinde 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.