 Some critics have argued that, as a literary critic, A.W. Schlegel is more empirical and less philosophical than his brother Friedrich (cf. Welleck 1955: 72–73). And it has even been questioned whether A.W. Schlegel is the genuine creator of the ideas laid out in his writings and lectures (Heine [1833] 1985: 47). Yet, however convincing the distinction between ‘having created’ the ideas as opposed to merely ‘having disseminated’ them may seem, this claim is quite disputable. Schlegel’s philosophical analyses of art and the artist were undoubtedly inspired by his reading of and/or encounters with Herder, Kant, Fichte, Goethe, Schiller, and Schelling among others, but he developed his own poetology. A.W. Schlegel’s lectures had a unique dialectic character (Schlegel himself suggest that his lectures are to be understood as a dialogue), combining high theoretical standards with an appealing, empirical approach, thus offering “one of the first narratives of the historical and philosophical interrelation of all art forms” (Franzel 2014: 351). In the development and presentation of his theoretical position, he was indeed less speculative than other German philosophers (such as Hegel). But as Walter Benjamin notes, this is the result of a conscious decision to make room for a more critical approach, which renders Schlegel’s position surprisingly modern (Benjamin [1920] 1996: 118). In a mixture of pride and censure, Schlegel frequently notes how German authors are more speculative than practical (LDA: 16 and 440). Moreover, his aesthetical essays can be seen as a comment on and criticism of those more speculative Germanic approaches in which the particular work of art and the artist seem to be relegated to a secondary level and are treated like the piece of a theoretical ‘whole’. Die Gemälde, a dialogue on painting as well as a fictive visit through the gallery of Dresden (cf. Penzel 2007: 77ff.) that he co-wrote with Caroline Michaelis, is a good example of this, precisely for the attentive way in which it approaches and engages with the individual paintings (Paulin 2016: 160). Overall, though, A.W. Schlegel’s writings are prolific, but remain somewhat unfocused and repetitive. As Schlegel himself had often regretted, by taking too many different topics into consideration, his work lost the intensity of its philosophical and critical insights.