The work shows the extent to which the thinking of Friedrich Schlegel was characterized by an intense examination of the literature, philosophy and religion of the ancient world? not only in the productive phase of Jena Romanticism, but far beyond that. It highlights the significance of this preoccupation with antiquity for the creation and development of early Romantic poetics and explores the importance of antiquity as a conceptual reference point for the cultural-philosophical, ethical, political and religious positions of Friedrich Schlegel.