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The Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung was a literary journal founded in Jena in 1785 and discontinued in Halle in 1849. It was launched with the aim of reviewing and critically accompanying the entire current literary production of the time. It became the highest-circulation and most influential German-language newspaper of its kind during this period.
Founded by the publisher and patron Friedrich Justin Bertuch together with the literature professor at the University of Jena Christian Gottfried Schütz and the Weimar poet and writer Christoph Martin Wieland. The newspaper attracted more than 2,000 subscribers, and started publishing daily just two years later. Its best-known contributors included Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Alexander von Humboldt. The works reviewed in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung between 1785 and 1800 were indexed in the Schriftenverzeichnis Allgemeines Repertorium der Literatur (Weimar 1793–1807).
In 1804 Schütz accepted a professorship in literary history and rhetoric in Halle (Saale), having moved the place of publication of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung to that city as early as 1803. He continued to publish the newspaper there together with the professor and librarian Johann Samuel Ersch.
Starting in January 1804, an offshoot off the journal, named the Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung appeared, at Goethe's instigation beginning in August 1803. Goethe felt compelled to take this step because he feared the decline of the status of the university in Jena. He recruited the Jena classical philologist Heinrich Karl Abraham Eichstädt as the chief editor. Both literary newspapers, the Jenaische and Hallesche, were initially in competition with each other. However, the Jenaische Literaturzeitung opened itself more and more to the new political and philosophical directions and regularly included contributions from the fields of medicine, anthropology and natural science, whereas the Hallesche Zeitung, with Schütz, remained true to Kantian philosophy and suffered from increasing decline over the following years.
The Jenaische Literaturzeitung very quickly surpassed the Hallesche in type and scope. In a preface to the 1812 edition, it was mentioned that there were already over 600 contributors to the newspaper. Articles on the "fine arts" were often accompanied by the byline "W.K.F.", an abbreviation for the "Weimar Friends of the Arts" (Weimarer Kunstfreunde). Heinrich Meyer was often the author, but Goethe and Schiller also used this signet. During the years 1804 to 1837, the newspaper appeared three times a week. The frequency of publication was then gradually reduced until it finally appeared only monthly, finally ceasing publication in 1841.
After the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung in Halle also ceased publication in 1849, its place in the world of German letters was taken by the Literarisches Centralblatt für Deutschland, founded by Friedrich Zarncke in Leipzig in 1850, until it closed down in 1944.
August WilhelmSchlegel, usually cited as August Schlegel, was a German Indologist, poet, translator and critic, and with his brother Friedrich Schlegel the leading influence within Jena Romanticism. His translations of Shakespeare turned the English dramatist's works into German classics. Schlegel was also the professor of Sanskrit in Continental Europe and produced a translation of the Bhagavad Gita.
Karl Wilhelm FriedrichSchlegel was a German poet, literary critic, philosopher, philologist, and Indologist. With his older brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel, he was one of the main figures of Jena Romanticism.
Johann Gottfried Gruber was a German critic and literary historian.
Johann Samuel Ersch was a German bibliographer, generally regarded as the founder of German bibliography.
Carl Joachim Friedrich Ludwig von Arnim, better known as Achim von Arnim, was a German poet, novelist, and together with Clemens Brentano and Joseph von Eichendorff, a leading figure of German Romanticism.
Ludwig Ferdinand Huber or Louis Ferdinand Huber was a German translator, diplomat, playwright, literary critic, and journalist. Born in Paris, Huber was the son of the Bavarian-born writer and translator Michael Huber and his French wife Anna Louise, née l'Epine. He grew up bilingual in French and German after his parents moved to Leipzig when he was two years old. He lacked a classical education but read voraciously and was well versed in modern languages, and started publishing translations from French and English at an early age. He also translated plays that were performed in theatres all over Germany. In the early 1780s, Huber became friends with the jurist Christian Gottfried Körner, his fiancée Minna Stock, and her older sister Dora Stock, whom he later promised to marry. Together, the friends wrote in admiration to the poet Friedrich Schiller and successfully invited him to come to Leipzig. Körner and Minna were married in 1785 and lived in Dresden, where they were joined by Dora, Schiller, and finally Huber, who shared a house with Schiller.
Johann Friedrich, Freiherr Cotta von Cottendorf was a German publisher, industrial pioneer and politician.
The Allgemeine Zeitung was the leading political daily journal in Germany in the first part of the 19th century. It has been widely recognised as the first world-class German journal and a symbol of the German press abroad.
Weimar Classicism was a German literary and cultural movement, whose practitioners established a new humanism from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. It was named after the city of Weimar, Germany, because the leading authors of Weimar Classicism lived there.
Friedrich August Ukert was a German history scholar, teacher and humanitarian. He was born in Eutin, Bishopric of Lübeck.
Friedrich Johann Justin Bertuch was a German publisher and patron of the arts. He co-founded the Weimar Princely Free Drawing School with the painter Georg Melchior Kraus in 1776. He was the father of the writer and journalist Karl Bertuch.
Johann Heinrich Meyer was a Swiss painter, engraver and art critic. He served as the second Director of the Weimar Princely Free Drawing School. A close associate of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, he was often referred to as "Goethemeyer".
Pauline Gotter was the second wife of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and a friend of Louise Seidler and Sylvie von Cigars.
Johann Bernhard Vermehren was an early Romantic poet and scholar.
Heinrich Doring, born Michael Johann Heinrich Döring was a German writer, theologian and mineralogist.
Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer was a German scholar and literary historian. He worked in the households of Wilhelm von Humboldt and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Christian Gottfried Schütz was a German classical scholar and humanist, known for his contributions in philosophy and philology, and for his work as an academic and literary editor and publisher.
Friedrich August Carus was a German philosopher. He was the father of surgeon Ernst August Carus (1797–1854).
Johann Diederich Gries was a German poet and socialite during the Romantic period. His extensive list of friends and acquaintances included Goethe and Schiller. Viewed through the prism of intervening years, his most enduring contribution is as a translator.
Christian Johann Christoph Schreiber was a German theologian, philologist, philosopher, and poet. He was also the Superintendent of the dioceses of Lengsfeld and Dermbach. He was connected in friendship or correspondence to writers and philosophers of his time, and published poetry, sermons, historical and philosophical works.