Shortly before the winter semester 1818/1819, when he would begin his decades-long professional career at the newly founded Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn, August Wilhelm Schlegel published his Observations sur la langue et la littérature provençales while still living in Paris. Originally intended as a review of the first volumes of Raynouard’s Choix des poésies originales des troubadours, the Observations quickly became known as nothing less than an original and momentous outline of a philologically, linguistically, and literarily founded historical-comparative concept of Provençal and Romance studies. Besides, Schlegel also considered Germanic languages since these, according to him, played a decisive role in the emergence of at least the French language. The contributors to this volume open up new approaches to the study of Schlegel’s Observations. On the one hand, these concern both the numerous linguistic and literary aspects of the Observations; on the other hand, they also treat Schlegel’s translations from Romance literatures as well as their reception in modern literature.