 Although subject to scholarly debate (Esterhammer 2002a: 153), Schlegel’s profound influence on English Romanticism through Coleridge is widely accepted. Some authors even claim that Coleridge found in Schlegel’s lectures the lucidity and sharpness regarding some of the main romantic principles and criticisms that he had lacked until his encounter with the Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst (Helmholtz-Phelan 1907: 361). Schlegel’s writings made Shakespeare one of the most universally known and revered authors, not only in Germany arguably in England too. In the end, however, Schlegel was quite pessimistic about the actual influence he had had in his time, and lamented that his efforts had fallen so far short of his desire to inspire an artistic movement and define an epoch.