ABSTRACT
As the supreme creative genius of the Jena Romantic circle was Novalis, so its keenest critical thinker was Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829), one of the most progressive, most stimulating, most turbulent minds in the history of German thought. Nor are these qualities just part of an historical characterization, for they communicated themselves to his contemporaries with an aggressiveness that makes it readily understandable how opinions came to divide so sharply for and against the values he represented.
