The
Jena romantics was a group centred in
Jena from about 1798 to 1804 which played an important part in the first phase of
Romanticism in
German literature. The group was led by the versatile writer
Ludwig Tieck. Two members of the group, brothers
August Wilhelm and
Friedrich von Schlegel, who laid down the theoretical basis for Romanticism in the circle’s organ, the
Athenäum, maintained that the first duty of criticism was to understand and appreciate the right of genius to follow its natural bent.