Ernst Behler was a German philosopher. In 1976 he became the founding Chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Washington in Seattle. His research included Friedrich von Schlegel, Friedrich Nietzsche and the early Romanticism. Also notable are his books on irony: Irony and the discourse of modernity (1990), Klassische Ironie, romantische Ironie, tragische Ironie (1972), Ironie und literarische Moderne (1997).
