Karoline Schelling

Karoline Schelling (September 2, 1763 — September 7, 1809), one of the most intellectual German women of her age, was born at Göttingen, the daughter of the orientalist Michaelis.

She married, in 1784, a district medical officer, one Böhmer, in Clausthal in the Harz, and after his death, in 1788, returned to Göttingen. Here she entered into close relations to the poet Gottfried August Burger and the critic of the Romantic school, August Wilhelm von Schlegel. In 1791 she took up her residence in Mainz, joined the famous society of the Clubbists (Klubbisten), and suffered a short period of imprisonment on account of her political opinions.

In 1796 she married Schlegel, was divorced in 1803, and then became the wife of the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. She died at Maulbronn on the 7th of September 1809.

Karoline Schelling played a considerable role in the intellectual movement of her time, and is especially remarkable for the assistance she afforded Schlegel in his translation of Shakespeare's works. She published nothing, however, in her own name.

See G Waltz, Caroline: Briefe an ihre Geschwister, etc. (2 vols., 1871), and, by the same author, Caroline und ihre Freunde (1882); further, J. Janssen, Eine Kulturdame und ihre Freunde, Zeit und Lebensbilder (1885), and Mrs A Sidgwick, Caroline Schlegel and her Friends (London, 1899).

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.