Caroline Schelling

Caroline Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling

Caroline Schelling, née Michaelis, widowed Böhmer, divorced Schlegel (September 2, 1763 — September 7, 1809) was a noted German intellectual.

Biography

She was born at Göttingen, the daughter of the orientalist Johann David Michaelis.

French Revolutionary Society

In 1784, she married a district medical officer named Böhmer, in Clausthal in the Harz. After his death, in 1788, she returned to Göttingen, where she became familiar with the poet Gottfried August Burger and the critic of the Romantic school, August Wilhelm Schlegel. In 1791, she took up residence in Mainz, joining the famous French revolutionary society of the Clubbists (Klubbisten), and suffering a short period of imprisonment on account of her political opinions.

In 1796, she went to Jena and married Schlegel, who was appointed extraordinary professor. They were divorced in 1803. She became the wife of the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. She died at Maulbronn in 1809.

Caroline Schelling played a considerable role in the intellectual movement of her time, especially in her role with Jena Romanticism. Here she debated with poets and philosophers like Novalis, Fichte, Hegel, Schiller and her later husband Schelling, and was considered as the heart of the early German romanticism. She is especially remarkable for the assistance she afforded Schlegel in his translation of Shakespeare's works. In her own name, she only published some critical reviews.

References

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) This work in turn cites:
  • G. Waltz, Caroline: Briefe an ihre Geschwister, etc. (2 vols., 1871)
  • G. Waltz, Caroline und ihre Freunde (1882)
  • J. Janssen, Eine Kulturdame und ihre Freunde, Zeit und Lebensbilder (1885)
  • Mrs. A. Sidgwick, Caroline Schlegel and her Friends (London, 1899)

External links

• Caroline. Letters from Early Romanticism