Moral and social concepts in Friedrich Schlegel's Lucinde

Abstract

Friedrich Schlegel has not infrequently been regarded as a pioneer treading new ground beyond the confines of traditional morality. Critics have seen in his work, and above all in the novel Lucinde, an attack on many of the social and moral values of his times and, in particular, a plea for female emancipation. The purpose of this study of moral and social concepts in Lucinde is to examine the extent to which this judgement is valid. Since it is argued that critical evaluations of the novel are still - as they were for Schlegel's contemporaries - to some extent coloured by the circumstances which surrounded the first publication of Lucinde and by attempts to defend it against the charge of immorality, it will be necessary to deal briefly with the biographical background and with Schlegel's rehabilitation through modern scholars before proceeding to a discussion of his conception of morality. It is shown that Schlegel is reluctant to admit of any social component in "morality", and that this reluctance has important bearings on the assessment of his role as a moral and social critic. Thus, he does not concern himself with the social and political position of women; instead, his attack on conventional morality is limited to an affirmation of female eroticism. This affirmation coincides with a language that employs floral metaphorism, thus mystifying the nature of woman and counteracting the initial aim of liberation. Furthermore, Schlegel's religious conceptions are under examination, and it is illustrated that Julius and Lucinde, the heroes of the novel, are endowed with the features of Christ and the Madonna. It is made evident in various examples that the sacred and the erotic undergo a strange fusion in the author's mystic terminology. A study of the cult of self and the polemics against the Enlightenment in Lucinde reveals that Schlegel's concern was not with society as a whole, but with outsiders whose genius set them apart from society.