ABSTRACT
This chapter by exploring the account of the symbolic relationship between God and the beauty of creation familiar to Robinson prior to his German studies, using a comparison with a fellow Unitarian in the 1790s: Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It illuminates both the systematic and psychological reasons for Henry Crabb Robinson's subsequent immersion in Kant's theory respecting the autonomy of beauty. The chapter then sketches the way in which Robinson's absorption of Schelling's new philosophy of art caused him to modify his Kantian perspective on symbolism. Finally, using quotations from the first part of Robinson's manuscript translation, the chapter explores what significance the essay 'Uber die bildende Nachahmung des Schonen' may have held for the Englishman. The great paradigm for Schelling's account of art as self-sufficient, and yet as disclosing the constitution of the universe, is classical mythology. The great paradigm for Schelling's account of art as self-sufficient, and yet as disclosing the constitution of the universe, is classical mythology.
