Friedrich Schlegels early Romantic notion of religion in relation to two presuppositions of the Enlightenment

Asko Nivala, University of Turku Asko Nivala (MA) is a doctoral student in cultural history at the University of Turku. He received his MA degree in 2007. His research focuses on German early Romanticism and especially on Friedrich Schlegel, who was one of the most famous members of the Romantic movement in Jena in the 1790s. In his study, Nivala disentangles the cultural implications which underlie the early Romantic philosophy of history. One of his essential research methods is the metaphorological analysis of philosophical concepts. His PhD research is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. His other research interests include the philosophy of history, the German Enlightenment and the recent discussion on political theology. Besides his academic work, Nivala is also an internationally acknowledged performance artist as a member of Finnish performance group MRCVE.German early Romanticism was an intellectual movement that originated in the era between the great French Revolution of 1789 and the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803. Usually, it is defined in contrast to the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is presented as the age of reason, criticism and scientific naturalism, while the Romantics are portrayed as its reactionary enemies. According to a still customary prejudice, Romanticism was the age of exaggerated emotions, authoritarian dogmatism and mystical superstition. However, our notion of the Enlightenment has undergone changes in recent decades. Because the traditional antagonism between Aufklärung and Frühromantik has become questionable, the Romantic revival of religion needs reconsideration. In this paper, Nivala proposes an argument why the Romantics did not fall into reactionary irrationalism. His discussion focuses on one person, Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829). Nivala presents how two vital presuppositions of the Enlightenment, naturalism and criticism, were reinterpreted by Schlegel as pantheism and mysticism