August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845) was a leader of the German Romantic movement. A poet, critic, linguist and translator of Shakespeare and Cervantes, Schlegel collaborated with his brother Friedrich Karl Wilhelm (1772-1829) on the literary journal Athenaeum, which laid out the principles of Romantic thought. August Wilhelm’s theoretical works, especially his lecture series Fine Art and Literature [Über schöne Literatur und Kunst] (Berlin, 1801-04) and Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature [Über dramatische Kunst und Literatur] (Vienna, 1809-11) were enormously influential. A friend and traveling companion of the widely read French interpreter of German cultural life, Madame Germaine de Staël (1766-1817), Schlegel held professorships in Jena and Bonn. He made important contributions to the study of Sanskrit and Romance languages and literatures. Painting by Johann Friedrich August Tischbein (1750-1812), c. 1890.