Ludwig Tieck's Kaiser Octavianus as the Capstone of Early Romanticism

When Ludwig Tieck started to publish his Schriften in 1828, he opened the edition with Kaiser Octavianus (1804), thereby setting the drama as the capstone to Early Romanticism. In this essay, I intend to explore what might have motivated Tieck's decision and to what extent it can be justified. Firstly, I will argue that Kaiser Octavianus fulfils a requirement for good poetry formulated in the early essay 'uber Shakspeare's Behandlung des Wunderbaren' (1793) that the poet should take subjects from folklore and sublimate them, thus creating a combination of simplicity and artificiality. Secondly, the drama can also be considered a contribution to the creation of a new mythology as proposed by Tieck's associate Friedrich Schlegel. Thirdly, Kaiser Octavianus constitutes an example of Schlegel's 'Universalpoesie', mixing genres and styles in a drama of epic proportions.