Chapter XII: Introduction: To the Propylæa (6)

A comparison of the _Iliad_ with _Troilus and Cressida_ leads to similar conclusions: here, too, there is neither parody nor travesty, but, as in the case of the eagle and the owl two subjects taken from nature were put in striking contrast with each other, so here are contrasted the intellectual fibre of two epochs. The Greek poem is in the grand style, self-restrained and self-sufficient, using only the essential, and, in description and simile, disdaining all ornament,--basing itself on noble myths and tradition. The English classic, on the other hand, one might consider a happy transposition and translation of the other great work into the romantic-dramatic style.

In this connection we should not forget, however, that this piece, like many another, is based on second-hand narratives, already rendered into prose, and only half-poetical.

Yet it is also quite original, as much so as if the ancient piece had never been at all; for it requires just as profound a sincerity, just as decided a talent, to depict for us similar personalities and characters with so light a touch and so lucid a meaning, and represent them for a later age with all the human traits of that age, which thus sees itself reflected in the guise of the ancient story.

ON OTHER WRITERS

GOETHE AS A YOUNG REVIEWER

(1772)

I

_Lyrical Poems_, by J. C. Blum. Berlin, 1772

We no longer feel certain whether it is wise for young poets to read the ancients early. Our unimaginative mode of life stifles genius, unless the singers of freer times kindle it and open to it an atmosphere at least ideally more free; but these very singers also breathe into the soul so exotic a spirit that the very best poet, with the most fortunate genius, can soon merely support himself in his flight through his imagination, and can no longer give expression to that glowing inspiration which alone makes true poetry. Why are the poems of the old skalds, of the Celts and the old Greeks, even of the Orientals, so strong, so fiery, so great? Nature drives them to singing as it does the bird in the air. As for us (for we cannot deceive ourselves) we are driven to the lyre by an artificial and stimulated feeling, which we owe to our admiration for the ancients, and to our delight in them; and for this reason our best songs, with few exceptions, are merely imitative copies.

These remarks have been suggested by the lyrical poems of Herr Blum. This poet is certainly not without talent, and yet how seldom does he seem to be able to stand on his own feet when his Horace is not before his eyes. The latter illumines the way for him, like Hero’s torch; the moment he must go alone, he sinks. Space does not permit us to prove our point here, but we ask every reader who knows his Horace whether the poet does not grow tired and cold whenever Horace and King David do not lend him thoughts, feelings, expressions, situations, and in the case of the former even his mythology, all of which, we must feel, are seldom used except when the imagination creates with a cold heart. The well-known Horatian dialogue, _Donec gratus eram_, Kleist has translated much better; but the “Lamentation of David and Jonathan” we have never seen better versified than here. We wish the writer an unspoilt maiden, days of complete leisure, and the pure spirit of poetry without the spirit of mere authorship. The very best of poets degenerates when in composing he thinks of the public, and is filled with a yearning for fame, especially newspaper fame, rather than completely absorbed by his subject.

II

_Cymbelline, a Tragedy, Based on a Shakespearian Theme_ [by J. G.
Sulzer]. Danzig, 1772.

The author, obliged by a severe illness to avoid all fatiguing work,--so we are informed in the Preface,--amused himself with the study of Shakespeare’s works. We could have told him in advance that this was no reading for a convalescent; whoever wishes to share in the life that glows through Shakespeare’s plays must himself be sound in body and mind. At all events, our author, moved by a cool, weak, critical modesty, regretted that so many “incongruités” should mar the “many just sentiments” and “some beauties” (as the eminent Dr. Johnson likewise remarks) that are to be found in this play. So he resolved to separate the dross from the gold (that is _vox populi critici_ in regard to Shakespeare since time immemorial), and to attempt nothing less than this: what Sophocles would approximately have done if he had tried to make a play out of the same material. So he _travestied_--no, not travestied, for then something of the appearance of the original would remain--_parodied_--no, not that either, for then something could be guessed by the very contrast--what then? what word will express the poverty that is here, compared with the infinite riches of Shakespeare!

Shakespeare, who felt the spirit of several centuries in his breast, through whose soul the life of whole centuries was stirring!--and here--comedians in silk and buckram, and daubed scene-painting! The scene a wood; in front a thick copse, through which one enters a grotto; in the background a large pasteboard rock, on which ladies and gentlemen sit, lie, are stabbed, etc.

That is the way Sophocles would have handled this theme! It is bad enough to take Shakespeare’s play, whose very essence is the life of history, and reduce it to the Sophoclean unity which aims merely at presenting action; but to model it on the “Treatise on Tragedy” in the first part of the old _Leipziger Bibliothek_![9] We are certain that every one, not merely readers of Shakespeare, will cast it aside with contempt.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] By Nicolai.

BYRON’S _MANFRED_

(1820)

To me Byron’s tragedy of _Manfred_ was a wonderful phenomenon, touching me closely. This singular but highly gifted poet has absorbed my own _Faust_ into himself, and, like a hypochondriac, drawn from it the strangest sort of nourishment. Those motives and ideas which suited his purposes he has made use of, but in his own original way, so that everything seems different; and for this reason I cannot wonder enough at his genius. This transformation affects the whole so intimately that highly interesting lectures could be given on the similarity and dissimilarity which his work bears to his pattern; but I do not deny that in the long run the dull glow of a boundless and profound despair becomes irksome to us. Yet in the dissatisfaction which one feels there are always interwoven both admiration and respect.

Thus we find in this tragedy quite uniquely the very quintessence of the feelings and passions of a remarkable genius, but a genius doomed from birth to suffering and anguish. The details of his life and the characteristics of his poetry hardly permit of a just and fair criticism. He has often enough confessed his anguish; he has repeatedly presented it in his verse, and it is difficult for any one not to feel real pity for the unbearable pain which he is forever working and gnawing over in his heart.

There are two women whose shadows follow him unceasingly, and who play a large rôle in his best-known works; one appears under the name Astarte, the other, without form or presence, simply as A Voice.

The following story is told of the tragic adventure which was his experience with the first. As a young, daring and highly attractive youth he won the love of a Florentine lady; her husband discovered it and murdered her. But the murderer was found dead that same night in the street, and there was nothing to throw suspicion upon a single soul. Lord Byron left Florence, but these apparitions haunted him throughout his whole life.

This romantic event appears in his poems in countless allusions, as for example where he, probably brooding over his own tragedy, applies the sad story of the king of Sparta to his own case. The story is as follows: Pausanias, the Lacedæmonian general, having won fame in the important victory at Platæa, later through arrogance, stubbornness, and cruel treatment, loses the affection of the Greeks, and, on account of a secret understanding with the enemy, loses also the confidence of his countrymen. He thus brings blood-guiltiness upon his head, which pursues him to a miserable end. For while in command of the fleet of the Greek allies in the Black Sea, he falls violently in love with a girl of Byzantium. After a long struggle he wins her from her parents; she is to be brought to him in the night. Filled with shame, she requests the servants to put out the light; this is done, but groping about in the room, she knocks over the lamp-stand. Pausanias awakes suddenly from sleep, suspects murder, seizes his sword and kills his beloved. The horrible vision of this scene never leaves him afterwards, its shadow pursues him unceasingly, so that he appeals in vain to the gods and to necromancers for aid and absolution.

What a sick heart the poet must have who would seek out such a story from the ancient world, appropriate it to himself, and burden himself with its tragic image! This will explain the following monologue, so laden with gloom and the despair of life; we recommend it to all lovers of declamation for serious practice. Hamlet’s monologue is here intensified. It will take considerable art especially to pick out the interpolations and yet keep the connection and the flow and smoothness of the whole. Besides it will be discovered that a certain vehement, even eccentric, expression is needed in order to do justice to the intention of the poet.[10]

FOOTNOTES:

[10] The quotation which follows here, translated by Goethe into German, is Manfred’s speech at the end of act 2, scene 2, beginning:

“We are the fools of Time and Terror! Days
Steal on us, and steal from us; yet we live,
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.”

BYRON’S _DON JUAN_[11]

(1821)

In hesitating some time ago to insert a passage from [Manzoni’s] _Count Carmagnola_, a piece which is perhaps translatable, and in the present instance making the daring attempt to take up and discuss the untranslatable _Don Juan_, it may seem as if we are guilty of an inconsistency. We shall therefore point out the difference between the two cases. Manzoni is as yet but little known among us, and it is better that people should learn to know his merits first in their complete fullness, as they are presented only in the original; after that, a translation by one of our young poets would be decidedly in order. With Lord Byron’s talent, on the other hand, we are sufficiently acquainted, and can neither help nor injure him by translation, for the originals are in the hands of all cultivated people.

Yet such an attempt, even if it were attempting the impossible, will always have a certain value. For if a false reflection does not exactly give back the original picture to us, yet it makes us attentive at least to the mirror itself and to its more or less perceptible defects.

_Don Juan_ is a work of infinite genius, misanthropical with the bitterest inhumanity, yet sympathetic with the deepest intensity of tender feeling. And since we now know the author and esteem him, and do not wish him to be otherwise than he is, we enjoy thankfully what he dares with overgreat independence, indeed insolence, to bring before us. The technical treatment of the verse is quite in accord with the singular, reckless, unsparing content. The poet spares his language as little as he does his men, and as we examine it more closely we discover indeed that English poetry has a cultivated comic language which we Germans wholly lack.

The comic in German lies preëminently in the idea, less in the treatment or style. We admire Lichtenberg’s abounding wealth; he has at his command a whole world of knowledge and relations to mix like a pack of cards and deal them out roguishly at pleasure. With Blumauer too, whose compositions in verse certainly possess the comic spirit, it is especially the sharp contrast between old and new, aristocrats and common people, the noble and the mean, that delights us. If we examine further we find that the German, in order to be amusing, steps back several centuries and has the luck to be peculiarly ingenuous and engaging only in doggerel rhyme.

In translating _Don Juan_ there are many useful things to be learned from the Englishman. There is only one joke which we cannot imitate from him,--one that gets its effect by a singular and dubious accent in words which look quite differently on paper. The English linguist may judge how far the poet in this case has wantonly exceeded the proper limits.

It is only by chance that the verses inserted here happened to be translated, and they are now published not as a pattern but for their suggestiveness. All our talented translators ought to try their skill at least partly upon them; they will have to permit assonances and imperfect rhymes and who knows what besides. A certain laconic treatment will also be necessary, in order to give the full quality and significance of this audacious mischievousness. Only when something has been accomplished along these lines, can we discuss the subject further.

Possibly we may be reproached for spreading in translation such writings as these through Germany, thus making an honest, peaceful, decorous nation acquainted with the most immoral works that the art of poetry ever produced. But according to our way of thinking, these attempts at translation should not be intended for the press, but may serve as excellent practice for talented brains. Our poets may then discreetly apply and cultivate what they acquire in this way, for the pleasure and delight of their countrymen. No particular injury to morality is to be feared from the publication of such poems, since poets and authors would have to cast aside all restraint to be more corrupting than the papers of the present day.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] This paper is preceded by a translation into German verse of the first five stanzas of _Don Juan_.

CALDERON’S _DAUGHTER OF THE AIR_

(1822)

“De nugis hominum seria veritas
Uno volvitur assere.”

Certainly if any course of human follies, presented in lofty style, is to be put upon the stage, then this drama should carry off the prize.

We often allow ourselves to be charmed by the merits of a work of art, to the extent that the last good thing which has come before us we consider and discuss as the greatest we have ever seen. Still this does no harm, for we study such a work then _con amore_ and all the more closely, and seek to discover its merits, in order that our judgment may be justified. For this reason I do not hesitate to acknowledge that in the _Daughter of the Air_ I admire more than ever Calderon’s great talent, his lofty genius and clear insight. We should not fail to recognize that the subject is superior to his other plays, in that the story is based on motives purely human, and there is no more of the supernatural element than is necessary for the extraordinary and the exceptional in human affairs to develop and proceed in natural fashion. Only the beginning and the end are marvelous; everything else proceeds in a natural course.

What there is to say of this play is true of all the plays by this poet. He gives us in no way a real view of nature; he is rather theatrical throughout, even stagey. Of what we call illusion, especially such as touches the feelings, we find not a trace. The design is clear to one’s mind, the scenes follow of necessity, in a kind of ballet-order, pleasing and artistic in its way, and suggest the technique of our latest comic opera. The inner leading motives are always the same,--conflict of duty, passion, conditions derived from the antithesis of the characters and the existing relations.

The main action proceeds in a poetic and dignified manner; the minor scenes, which have an elegant movement, in the style of the minuet, are rhetorical, dialectical, sophisticated. All the types of humanity are exhausted; there is not missing even the fool, whose simple mind makes havoc of deception whenever a pretense is made of sympathy and kindness.

Now we must admit on reflection that human situations and emotions cannot be put on the stage in their primitive realism, but must be worked up, touched up, idealized. And thus we find them in this case, too; the poet however stands on the threshold of over-refinement, he gives us a quintessence of humanity.

Shakespeare on the contrary gives us the rich ripe grape from the vine. According to our taste we can enjoy the single berries, press them out and taste or sip the juice or the fermented wine--however we treat them we are refreshed. With Calderon, on the other hand, nothing is left to the choice or taste of the spectator; we receive from him the spirits already drawn off and distilled, seasoned with many spices, or flavored with sweets; we must accept the beverage as it is, as a delicious and palatable stimulant, or else refuse it.

But the reason for our giving the _Daughter of the Air_ so high a place has already been suggested; it is favored by its excellent subject-matter. For we object to seeing a noble and free man, as in several of Calderon’s plays, indulging in dark error and lending his reason to indiscretions and folly; here we have a quarrel with the poet himself, since his material offends us, whereas his manner charms. This is the case in _The Devotion of the Cross_ and in _Daybreak in Copacabana_.

In this connection we may say in print what we have often expressed privately, that we must regard it as one of the greatest advantages of life that Shakespeare enjoyed, that he was born and brought up as a Protestant. He appears always as a human being, with a complete faith and confidence in human values and affairs: error and superstition he feels to be beneath him, and only toys with them, compelling the supernatural to serve his purposes. Tragic ghosts, droll goblins he summons to his ends, in which everything is clarified and cleansed of superstition, so that the poet never feels the dilemma of being compelled to deify the absurd, the saddest downfall which mankind, conscious of possessing reason, can experience.

Returning to the _Daughter of the Air_, this question suggests itself: If we are now enabled to transport ourselves to so remote an atmosphere, without knowing the locality or understanding the language, to enter familiarly into a foreign literature without previous historical research, and to bring home to ourselves in one example the quality and flavor of a certain age, the mind and genius of a people--to whom do we owe thanks for all this? Evidently to the translator, who all his life and with laborious industry has thus utilized his talent to our benefit. Our warmest thanks, therefore, we present to Dr. Gries; he has given us a gift whose value is overwhelming, a gift in considering which we gladly refrain from all comparisons, because it delights us by its clearness, wins us by its charm, and by the complete harmony of all its parts convinces us that nothing in it could or should have been different.

Such excellence older readers are likely to prize more highly, for they like to enjoy in comfort a perfectly adequate presentation; younger men, on the contrary, actively engaged in work, coöperating and struggling, do not always acknowledge merit which they themselves hope to emulate.

All honor then to the translator, who concentrated his energies on a single point, and went ahead in a _single_ direction, so that we could enjoy in a _thousand_ different ways!

MOLIÈRE’S _MISANTHROPE_

(1828)

_Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de Molière_, par J. Taschereau.
Paris, 1828.

This work deserves to be read carefully by all true lovers of literature, because it gives us new insight into the qualities and individuality of a great man. It will also be welcome to his devoted admirers, although they hardly need this in order to treasure him highly; to the attentive reader he has revealed himself sufficiently in his works.

Examine the _Misanthrope_ carefully and ask yourself whether a poet has ever represented his inner spirit more completely or more admirably. We can well call the content and treatment of this play “tragic.” Such an impression at least it has always left with us, because that mood is brought before our mind’s eye which often in itself brings us to despair, and seems as if it would make the world unbearable.

Here is represented the type of man who despite great cultivation has yet remained natural, and who with himself, as well as others, would like only too well to express himself with complete truth and sincerity. But we see him in conflict with the social world, where one cannot move without dissimulation and shallowness.

In contrast to such a type Timon is merely a comic character. I wish that a talented poet would depict such a visionary who was always deceiving himself as to the world, and then was greatly put out with it, as if it had deceived him.

OLD GERMAN FOLKSONGS

(1806)

_Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Old German Songs_, edited by Achim von Arnim
and Klemens Brentano. Heidelberg, 1806.

We are decidedly of the opinion that for the present criticism should not concern itself with this collection. The editors have collected and arranged this volume with such love and diligence, such good taste and delicacy of feeling, that their countrymen should first of all show their gratitude for this loving care by their good-will, their interest, and their sympathetic appreciation. This little book ought to be found in every home in which lively and healthy people dwell,--at the window, under the mirror, or wherever else songbooks and cookbooks are usually found, so that it may be opened in any happy or unhappy mood, and one may always find something which strikes a similar or a new chord, even though one must perhaps turn over a few pages.

But the most fitting place for this volume would be upon the piano of a lover or a master of music, so that full justice might be done the songs by setting them to old familiar tunes, or suitable tunes might be adapted to them, or, God willing, new and striking melodies might be composed through their inspiration.

If these songs were then borne from ear to ear, from mouth to mouth, clothed in their own melodious harmony, if they gradually returned regenerated and enhanced in beauty to the people from whom they, so to speak, have in part sprung, then we might truly say that the little book had fulfilled its mission, and could now be lost again in its written or printed form, because it had become part and parcel of the life and culture of the nation.

But since in our modern times, especially in Germany, nothing seems to exist or to have any effect unless it is written about again and again, adjudged and made a bone of contention, a few remarks may not improperly be introduced here about this collection,--a few observations which may not enhance our enjoyment of the book, but at least will not impair or destroy it.

What may at the outset be said unreservedly in praise of the collection is that it is thoroughly varied and characteristic. It contains more than two hundred poems of the last three centuries, all of them differing so much from one another in sense, conception, sound, and manner that the same criticism cannot apply to any two of them. We shall therefore assume the agreeable task of characterizing [some of] them in order as the inspiration of the moment may prompt us:

_The Wunderhorn._ Fairy-like, childlike, pleasing.

_The Sultan’s Little Daughter._ Tender Christian feeling, charming.

_Tell and His Child._ Honest and solid.

_Grandmother Snake-cook._ Deep, enigmatic, dramatic, admirably
handled.

_Isaiah’s Face._ Barbaric grandeur.

_Fire Incantation._ Appropriate and true to the spirit of the brigand.

_Poor Schwartenhals._ Roguish, whimsical, jolly.

_Death and the Maiden._ After the manner of the Dance of Death; like
a woodcut; admirable.

_Nocturnal Musicians._ Droll, extravagant, inimitable.

_The Stubborn Bride._ Humorous, somewhat grotesque.

_Cloister-shy._ Capriciously confused, yet to the purpose.

_The Braggart Knight._ Very good in the realistic-romantic manner.

_The Black-brown Witch._ Rather confused in transmission, but the
theme of inestimable value.

_Love Without Caste._ Romantic twilight.

_The Hospitality of Winter._ Written with a great deal of elegance.

_The High-born Maiden._ Christian pedantry, but not wholly unpoetical.

_Love Spins no Silk._ Charmingly confused and therefore rousing the
imagination.

_The Faith of an Hussar._ Swiftness and lightness expressed in a
wonderful way.

_The Ratcatcher of Hameln._ Tends toward the manner of the
ballad-monger, but not coarse.

_Tuck Your Dress, Gretlein._ After the manner of vagabond poets;
unexpectedly epigrammatic.

_The Song of the Ring._ Romantic tenderness.

_The Knight and the Maiden._ Romantic twilight; powerful.

_Harvest Song._ A Catholic funeral hymn; good enough to be Protestant!

_A Surfeit of Learning._ A gallant piece; but the pedant cannot get
rid of his learning.

_The Fight at Murten._ Realistic, probably modernized.

_The Haste of Time in God._ Christian, somewhat too historical, but
quite suited to its subject, and very good.

_Reveille._ Priceless for any one who has the imagination to
understand it.

_Drought._ Thought, feeling, presentation everywhere right.

_The Drummer Boy._ Lively presentation of a distressing incident. A
poem which the discriminating will find it difficult to match.

_Should and Must._ Perfect in plan, although here in a dismembered
and curiously restored condition.

_A Friendly Service._ German romanticism, pious and pleasing.

_Cradle Song._ Rhyming nonsense, perfectly suited to put one to sleep.

_Miller’s Farewell._ To one who can grasp the situation, a priceless
thing; but the first stanza requires an emendation.

_Abbot Neidhard and His Monks._ A prank of Till Eulenspiegel of the
very best sort, and very well told.

_The Horrible Marriage._ An extraordinary case; in the
ballad-monger’s manner, but admirably handled.

_The Excellent Comrade._ Nonsense; but happy the man who can sing it
agreeably!

_Unrequited Love._ Very good, but tending toward a rather Philistine
prose.

_The Little Tree._ Full of longing and playfulness, yet full of
fervor.

_Mésalliance._ Excellent enigmatic fable, but a clearer treatment
might have been more pleasing to the reader.

With these impromptu characterizations--for how could they be other than impromptu?--we do not intend to anticipate the judgment of any readers of the book, and least of all those readers who by their own lyric enjoyment and the appreciation of a sympathetic heart can get more from the poems themselves than any brief characterizations like ours can ever give them. We should like, however, in conclusion to say something about the value of the collection as a whole.

We have been accustomed for years to give the name of “folksongs” to this species of poetry, not because it is really composed by the people or for the people, but because it embraces in itself something so vigorous and wholesome that the healthy stock of the nation understands it, remembers it, appropriates it, and at times propagates it. Poetry of this kind is as true poetry as can possibly exist. It has an incredible charm even for us who stand on a higher plane of culture, just as the sight of young people and the memory of one’s own youth have for old age. Art in them is in conflict with nature; and it is because of their gradual development, their mutual influence, and their striving for form that these songs seem to seek a further perfection when they have already reached their goal. True poetic genius, wherever it appears, is perfect in itself: no matter what imperfections of language, of external technique, or anything else, stand in its way, it possesses the higher inner form which ultimately has everything at its command, and often in an obscure and imperfect medium produces a more striking effect than it can later produce in a more perfect medium. The vivid poetic perception of a limited state or condition gives to what is purely individual a universal significance, finite to be sure, but after all limitless and unrestricted, so that within a small compass we fancy we see the whole world. The promptings of a profound intuition urge the poet to a significant brevity; and what would seem in prose unpardonably topsy-turvy is to the true poetic sense a necessity and a virtue; even a solecism, if it appeals seriously to our whole imagination, stimulates it to a surprisingly high degree of enjoyment.

In characterizing the individual poems we avoided the kind of formal classification which may more readily be made in the future when several authentic and typical examples of every kind have been collected. But we cannot conceal our own preference for those songs in which lyric, dramatic, and epic treatment is interwoven in such a way that a problem, at first shrouded in mystery, is finally solved skilfully, or even, if you will, epigrammatically. The well-known ballad, “Why dois your brand sae drop wi’ bluid, Edward, Edward?” is, especially in the original, the most perfect example of this species of poetry.

We hope that the editors will be encouraged to publish in the near future another volume of poems from the rich store collected by them as well as from those already printed. We trust that when they do this they will guard themselves carefully against the sing-song of the Minnesingers, the blatant coarseness and the platitudes of the Mastersingers, as well as against everything monkish and pedantic. If they should collect a second volume of these German songs, they might also be asked to select songs of the same kind from foreign nations and to give them in the original and in translations that are either already extant or may be made by them for this special purpose. The most of these, to be sure, will be from the English, fewer from the French, some of a different type from the Spanish, and almost none from the Italian.

If from the outset we have doubted the competence of criticism, even in its highest sense, to judge this work, we have all the more reason to ignore that kind of research which attempts to separate the songs that are genuine from those that have been more or less restored. The editors, so far as it is possible in these later times, have caught the spirit of their task, and we ought to be grateful to them even for those poems which have been oddly restored or made up of heterogeneous parts or are absolutely spurious. Who does not know what a song has to undergo when it has been for some time in the mouth of the people, and not merely uneducated people either? Why should he who finally writes it down and inserts it in a collection with other poems not have a certain personal right to it? We do not possess any poetic or sacred book of earlier times which has not depended for its final form on the skill or whim of him who first wrote it down or some later copyist.

If we accept the printed collection lying before us from this point of view, and with a grateful and kindly spirit, we may charge the editors all the more earnestly to keep their poetic archives pure, lofty, and in good order. It serves no purpose to print everything; but they will place the whole nation in their debt if they contribute toward that thorough, faithful, and intelligent history of our poetry and our poetic culture which from now on must be the ultimate goal of scholars.

FOLKSONGS AGAIN COMMENDED

(1823)

My old love for original folksongs has not lessened, but has rather been increased by receiving valuable communications from many quarters.

In particular, I have received from the East, some separately, and some in collections, such songs of many different peoples; they extend from Olympus to the Baltic Sea, and from that line towards the northeast.

My hesitation in publishing any of them is due partly to the fact that many varied interests have drawn me here and there and so prevented me, but also more particularly to the following circumstance.

All true national poems have a small circle of ideas, to which they are always limited, and in which they revolve. For that reason they become monotonous in mass, because they express one and the same limited situation.

Examine the six modern Greek songs inserted above; every one will admire the powerful contrast between the virile freedom of spirit in the wilderness and a government, orderly indeed, but still barbaric and of insufficient power. A dozen or more would be sufficient to exhibit this refractory character in them, and show us repetitions such as we find in our own folksongs, where we often come upon more or less happy variations of the same theme, as well as mixed and heterogeneous fragments.

It is remarkable, nevertheless, how much the individual peoples mentioned above differ among themselves in their songs; this characteristic we shall not discuss abstractly, but will rather develop by means of examples from time to time in the ensuing numbers.

Since contributions for this purpose will be highly welcome from all quarters, we request the friend who showed us at Wiesbaden in the summer of 1815 some Greek songs in the original and in a very happy translation, promising to send us soon a copy which never however appeared, to get in touch with us again and cooperate with us in this praiseworthy undertaking.

LAURENCE STERNE

(1827)

In the swift progress of literary, as of human, culture it happens commonly that we forget the person to whom we owe the first stimulus, the original influence. What is, and what flourishes here and now, we believe had to be so and had to happen so. But in this we are wrong, for we lose sight of those who guided us to the right path. From this point of view I call attention to a man who first gave the stimulus to the great epoch in the second half of the last century, an epoch of clearer human knowledge, nobler toleration, gentler humanity.

Of this man, to whom I owe so much, I am often reminded, especially when the talk is of truth and error, which fluctuate here and there among mankind. A third word may be added of gentler meaning, that is, “singularity” (_Eigenheit_), for there are certain human phenomena which can be best expressed by this term. Viewed externally they are erroneous, but from within full of truth, and rightly considered, of the highest psychological importance. They are those qualities which constitute the individual; the universal is thereby specified, and in the most peculiar of them there always shines some intelligence, reason, and good-will which charms us and fetters us. From this standpoint, “Yorick” Sterne, revealing in the tenderest way the human in men, has called these “singularities,” in so far as they express themselves in action, “ruling passions.” For certainly they are what drive men in a certain direction, push them along on a consistent track, and without requiring reflection, conviction, purpose or strength of will, keep them continually in life and motion. It is immediately apparent how closely related habit is to them; for it promotes that convenience in which our idiosyncrasies love to saunter undisturbed.

THE ENGLISH REVIEWERS

(1821)

English critics, as we have come to know them from their various Reviews, deserve a great deal of respect. Their acquaintance not only with their own literature, but also with that of other countries, is most gratifying; the seriousness and the thoroughness with which they go to work arouse our admiration, and we are glad to confess that much may be learned from them. Moreover, we find ourselves very favorably impressed by the attitude these men take toward their calling as critics and the respect which they have for the intelligence of the public,--a public, to be sure, which is very attentive to all things written and spoken, but is probably hard to satisfy, and ever disposed to contradict and argue.

No matter how thorough and comprehensive the presentation of a case by an attorney before a body of judges or by a speaker before a provincial diet may be, some opponent will very soon come to the fore with forcible arguments; the attentive and critical hearers will themselves be divided, and many an important matter is often decided by a very small majority.

Such a spirit of opposition, even though passive, we occasionally assume toward critics, both at home and abroad, whose knowledge of facts we by no means deny and whose premises we often grant, but whose conclusions nevertheless we do not share.

Still we must be especially forbearing to the English when they appear harsh and unjust toward foreign productions; for those who count Shakespeare among their forebears may well allow themselves to be carried away by their pride of ancestry.

GERMAN LITERATURE IN GOETHE’S YOUTH

(1811-14)

So much has been written about the condition of German literature at that time,[12] and to such good purpose, that every one who takes any interest in it can obtain full information; the opinions with regard to it, too, are fairly unanimous; so that anything I say about it here, in my fragmentary and desultory fashion, is not so much an analysis of its characteristics as of its relation to me. I will therefore first speak of those branches which especially react upon the public, those two hereditary foes of all easy-going life, and of all cheerful, self-sufficient, living poetry:--I mean, satire and criticism.

In quiet times every one desires to live after his own fashion; the citizen wishes to carry on his trade or his business, and then enjoy himself; so, too, the author likes to produce something, see his work published, and, in the consciousness of having done something good and useful, looks, if not for remuneration, at any rate for praise. From this state of tranquillity the citizen is roused by the satirist, the author by the critic, and so it comes that peaceful society is rudely disturbed.

The literary epoch in which I was born developed out of the preceding one by opposition. Germany, so long inundated by foreign people, pervaded by other nations, employing foreign languages in learned and diplomatic transactions, could not possibly cultivate her own. Together with so many new ideas, innumerable strange words were obtruded necessarily and unnecessarily upon her, and even for objects already known people were induced to make use of foreign expressions and turns of language. The Germans, brutalized by nearly two centuries of misery and confusion, took lessons from the French in manners and from the Latins in the art of expression. This art ought to have been cultivated in German, since the use of French and Latin idioms, and their partial translation into German, made both their social and business style ridiculous. Besides this, they recklessly adopted figures of speech belonging to the southern languages, and employed them most extravagantly. In the same way the stately ceremoniousness of prince-like Roman citizens had been transferred to the educated circles in German provincial towns. As a result, they nowhere felt themselves at home, least of all in their own houses.

But in this epoch works of genius had already appeared, and the German independence of mind and enjoyment of life began to assert themselves. This cheerful spirit, combined with an honest sincerity, led to the demand for purity and naturalness in writing, without the intermixture of foreign words, and in accordance with the dictates of plain common sense. By these praiseworthy endeavors, however, the flood-gates were thrown open to a prolix national insipidity, nay, the dam was broken down, and an inundation was bound to follow. However, a stiff pedantry continued for some time to hold sway in the four learned professions, and eventually, at a much later date, fled for refuge first to one and then to another.

Men of parts, children of nature looking freely about them, had therefore two objects on which they could exercise their faculties, against which they could direct their energies, and, as the matter was of no great importance, vent their mischievousness; these were, on the one hand, a language disfigured by foreign words, forms, and turns of speech; and on the other, the worthlessness of such writings as had been careful to avoid those faults; but it never occurred to any one that each evil was being combated by fostering the other.

Liscow, a daring young man, first ventured to attack by name a shallow, silly writer, whose foolish behavior soon gave him an opportunity for yet more drastic treatment. He then sought other subjects, invariably directing his satire against particular objects and persons, whom he despised and sought to render despicable; indeed, he pursued them with passionate hatred. But his career was short; for he died early, and was remembered only as a restless, irregular youth. The talent and character shown in what he did, in spite of the smallness of his production, may well have seemed valuable to his countrymen: for the Germans have always shown a peculiar piety towards the promise of genius prematurely cut off. Suffice it to say that in our early youth Liscow was praised and commended to us as an excellent satirist, who might justly claim preference even before the universally beloved Rabener. But we did not gain much from him; for the only thing we discovered from his works was that he considered the absurd absurd, and this seemed to us a matter of course.

Rabener, well educated, grown up under good school discipline, of a cheerful and by no means passionate or malicious disposition, turned to general satire. His censure of so-called vices and follies is the outcome of clear-sighted and unimpassioned common sense, and of a definite moral conception as to what the world ought to be. His denunciation of faults and failings is harmless and cheerful; and in order to excuse even the slight daring of his writings, he assumes that the attempt to improve fools by ridicule is not in vain.

Rabener’s personal character was such as we do not often meet. A thorough and strict man of business, he did his duty, and so gained the good opinion of his fellow-townsmen and the confidence of his superiors; at the same time, by way of relaxation, he indulged in a genial contempt for all that immediately surrounded him. Learned pedants, vain youngsters, every sort of narrowness and conceit, he made fun of rather than satirized, and even his satire expressed no scorn. Just in the same way he jested about his own condition, his unhappiness, his life, and his death.

There is little of the æsthetic in the manner in which this writer treats his subjects. In external form he is indeed varied enough, but throughout he makes too much use of direct irony, that is, in praising the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy, whereas this rhetorical device should be adopted extremely sparingly; for, in the long run, it becomes annoying to the clear-sighted, perplexes the foolish, but appeals, it is true, to the great majority, who without special intellectual effort imagine themselves cleverer than other people. But all that he presents to us, whatever its form, bears witness to his rectitude, cheerfulness, and equanimity, so that we are always favorably impressed. The unbounded admiration of his own times was a consequence of these moral excellencies.

It was natural that people should try to discover originals for his general descriptions and should succeed; and consequently he was attacked on this score by certain individuals: his over-long apologies denying that his satire was personal, prove the annoyance to which he was subjected. Some of his letters do honor to him both as a man and an author. The confidential epistle in which he describes the siege of Dresden and the loss of his house, his effects, his writings, and his wigs, without having his equanimity in the least shaken or his cheerfulness clouded, is most estimable, although his contemporaries and fellow-citizens could not forgive him his happy temperament. The letter in which he speaks of the decay of his strength and of his approaching death is in the highest degree worthy of respect, and Rabener deserves to be honored as a saint by all happy sensible people, who cheerfully accept their earthly lot.

I tear myself away from him reluctantly, and merely add this remark: his satire refers throughout to the middle classes; he lets us see here and there that he is also acquainted with the upper classes, but does not hold it advisable to discuss them. It may be said that he had no successor; it would be impossible to point to any one at all equal, or even similar to him.

Let us turn to criticism; and first of all to the theoretic attempts. It is not going too far to say that idealism had at that time fled from the world to religion; it was hardly discoverable even in ethics; of a supreme principle in art no one had a notion. They put Gottsched’s _Critical Art of Poetry_ into our hands; it was useful and instructive enough, for it gave us historical information about the various kinds of poetry, as well as about rhythm and its different movements; poetic genius was taken for granted! But besides this the poet was to have education, and even learning, he should possess taste, and other things of the same nature. Finally, we were referred to Horace’s _Art of Poetry_; we gazed at single golden maxims of this invaluable work with veneration, but did not know in the least what to do with it as a whole, or how to use it.

The Swiss came to the front as Gottsched’s antagonists; hence they must intend to do something different, to accomplish something better: accordingly we heard that they were, in fact, superior. Breitinger’s _Critical Art of Poetry_ was now studied. Here we entered a wider field, or, properly speaking, only a greater labyrinth, which was the more wearisome, as an able man in whom we had confidence drove us about in it. Let a brief review justify these words.

As yet no one had been able to discover the essential principle of poetry; it was too spiritual and too evanescent. Painting, an art which one could keep within sight, and follow step by step with the external senses, seemed more adapted to such an end; the English and French had already theorized about the arts of painting and sculpture, and it was thought possible to explain the nature of poetry by drawing a comparison from these arts. Painting presented images to the eyes, poetry to the imagination; poetical images, therefore, were the first thing to be taken into consideration. Similes came first, then descriptions and whatever it was possible to represent to the external senses came under discussion.

Images, then! But whence should these images be taken except from nature? The painter obviously imitated nature; why not the poet also? But nature, just as she is, cannot be imitated: she contains so much that is insignificant and unsuitable, that a selection must be made; but what determines the choice? what is important must be selected; but what is important?

The answer to this question the Swiss probably took a long time to consider: for they arrived at an idea which is indeed strange, but pretty, even amusing; for they said what is new is always most important: and after they had considered this for a while, they discovered that the marvelous is always newer than anything else.

Apparently they now had the essentials of poetry before them, but it had further to be taken into consideration that the marvelous may be barren and without human interest. This human interest which is indispensable must be moral, and would then obviously tend to the improvement of man; hence that poem would fulfil its ultimate aim which in addition to its merits possessed utility. It was the fulfilment of all these demands which constituted the test they wished to apply to the various kinds of poetry, and that species which imitated nature, and furthermore was marvelous, and at the same time moral in purpose and effect, they placed first and highest. And after much deliberation this great preëminence was finally ascribed, with the utmost conviction, to Æsop’s fables!

Strange as such a deduction may now appear, it had the most decided influence on the best minds. That Gellert and subsequently Lichtwer devoted themselves to this department of literature, that even Lessing attempted to do work in it, that so many others applied their talents to it, speaks for the faith they put in this species of poetry. Theory and practice always act upon each other; one can see from men’s works what opinions they hold; and, from their opinions, it is possible to predict what they will do.

Yet we must not dismiss our Swiss theory without doing it justice. Bodmer, with all the pains he took, remained in theory and practice a child all his life. Breitinger was an able, learned, sagacious man, who, after making a careful survey, recognized all the requirements to be fulfilled by a poem; in fact, it can be shown that he was dimly conscious of the deficiencies of his method. Noteworthy, for instance, is his query, whether a certain descriptive poem by König, on the _Review Camp of Augustus the Second_, is properly speaking a poem; and the answer to it displays good sense. But it may serve for his complete justification that, after starting on a wrong track and nearly completing his circle, he yet discovers the main issue, and at the end of his book, as a kind of supplement, feels it incumbent on him to urge the representation of manners, character, passions, in short the inner man--which surely constitutes the chief theme of poetry.

It may well be imagined into what perplexity young minds were thrown by such maxims torn from their contexts, half-understood laws, and random dogmas. We clung to examples, and there, too, were no better off: the foreign as well as the classical ones were too remote from us; behind the best native ones always lurked a distinct individuality, the good points of which we could not arrogate to ourselves, and into the faults of which we could not but be afraid of falling. For any one conscious of productive power it was a desperate condition.

When one considers carefully what was wanting in German poetry, it was a significant theme, especially of national import; there was never any lack of gifted writers. It is only necessary to mention Günther, who may be called a poet in the full sense of the word. A decided genius, endowed with sensuousness, imagination, memory, the gifts of conception and representation, productive in the highest degree, possessing rhythmic fluency, ingenious, witty, and at the same time well-informed;--he possessed, in short, all the requisites for creating by his poetry a second life out of the actual commonplace life around him. We admire the great facility with which, in his occasional poems, he ennobles all situations by appealing to the emotions, and embellishes them with suitable sentiments, images, and historical and fabulous traditions. The roughness and wildness in them belong to his time, his mode of life, and especially to his character, or, if you will, his want of character. He did not know how to curb himself, and so his life, like his poetry, proved ineffectual.

By his vacillating conduct, Günther had trifled away the good fortune of being appointed at the Court of Augustus the Second, where, with their love of magnificence, they desired to find a laureate who would impart warmth and grace to their festivities, and immortalize a transitory pomp. Von König was more self-controlled and more fortunate; he filled this post with dignity and success.

In all sovereign states the material for poetry begins with the highest social ranks, and the _Review Camp at Mühlberg_ was, perhaps, the first worthy subject of provincial, if not of national importance which presented itself to a poet. Two kings saluting one another in the presence of a great host, their whole court and military state around them, well-appointed troops, a sham-fight, _fêtes_ of all kinds,--here was plenty to captivate the senses, and matter enough and to spare for descriptive poetry.

This subject, indeed, suffered from an inner defect, in that it was only pomp and show, from which no real action could result. None except the very highest were involved, and even if this had not been the case, the poet could not render any one conspicuous lest he should offend the others. He had to consult the _Court and State Calendar_, and the delineation of the persons was therefore not particularly exciting; nay, even his contemporaries reproached him with having described the horses better than the men. But should not the fact that he showed his art as soon as a fitting subject presented itself redound to his credit? The main difficulty, too, seems soon to have become apparent to him--for the poem never advanced beyond the first canto.