 In 1798, tired of the publishing difficulties endured within the existing literary journals, A.W. Schlegel and his brother Friedrich Schlegel founded the famous periodical Athenaeum. They were both the editors and the main writers of this journal, which would offer an alternative to mainstream classicist approaches in literary criticism and which was soon to become one of the main outlets of the German Early Romantic Movement. The Athenaeum was devoted primarily to literary criticism with a philological and historical perspective, and a large section of it featured the review of contemporary literature. It contained critical essays, fragments, letters, announcements, and dialogues and appeared twice a year in the period between 1798 and 1800. Most importantly, though, the Athenaeum became the “leading publication of the early Romantics” (Behler 1993: 36).