August Wilhelm Schlegel und die Illusionen des griechischen Theaters

Abstract August Wilhelm Schlegel has spent his entire life dealing with the drama of ancient Greece, most famously in his Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Litteratur ( Lectures on dramatic art and literature ), published 1809–1811 and widely read throughout Europe. The present article examines two further examples, one practical and one scholarly: Schlegel’s only drama Ion (1803) – staged in Weimar and Berlin – and the drafts for his treatise Ueber die scenische Anordnung der griechischen Schauspiele ( On the scenic arrangement of the Greek plays ), which he worked on during the years before his death. In both cases he deals with questions of staging, more precisely with the possibilities of making the appearances of the ancient gods recognizable through the means of dramatic illusion. In Ion , he tries to depict the Gods as more human, whereas in his treatise, he tries to reconstruct the ancient stage based on the ancient sources as well as the research of his contemporaries.