Chapter X: Introduction: I (9)

(_γγ_) A _third_ fundamental subject-matter, which arrests the interest of the poetry of the Middle Ages, is that of _chivalry._ This interest is not merely limited to its worldly and romantic association with love-adventure and tilting matches, but is occupied with religious objects in virtue of the mysticism of Christian knighthood. The actions and events of such compositions have no relation to national interests; they are matters effected by individuals, which only concern the personal agent as such; they are generally similar to what I have described in my previous reference to romantic chivalry. Individuals are consequently placed in a position of complete freedom and independence. A novel form of heroism is thereby created within a social environment that is not as yet stereotyped to the prosaic mode and temper; a heroism, however, which, on account of interests which in part are due to religious phantasy, and in part--that is from the worldly point of view--are wholly personal and imaginary, eschews that substantive Real, upon the basis of which the Greek heroes are united, or as units contend, are victorious or are vanquished. Despite all the varied epic compositions, which such a course as the above occasions, the adventurous character of the situations, conflicts and plots rather tends, on the one hand, in the direction of a treatment usually met with in romances, where the various examples of adventure are loosely interwoven in no more stringent bond of unity, and on the other to that which, while sharing the general features of such works, is not evolved on the background of a consistently organized civic order and a truly prosaic condition of general life. Moreover the imagination is not content with the mere invention of knightly characters and adventures outside the pale of the ordinary world of things; it furthermore associates the exploits of the same with important legendary centres of interest, pre-eminent historical personages, decisive conflicts of the age, and receives by doing so, if we view its broader lines, at least a foundation such as we found indispensable to epic creation. Such a basis, however, we shall find is as a rule commingled with fantastic elements, and is unable to secure the clarity of objective vision in its elaboration, which above all distinguishes the Homeric Epos. Add to this the fact that on account of the very similar treatment accorded to the same subject-matter by Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, and to some extent even Spaniards, we fail to find here relatively at least, and if we contrast it with that of the Hindoo, Persian, Greek, and Celt, the essentially national temper, which in the last-mentioned cases constitutes in its security the epic core of the content and its execution. I must, however, excuse myself here from entering further into the detail of this aspect, either by way of illustration or critical judgment. It will be sufficient if I merely draw attention to the larger circle, within which the most important of these Epopaea of knight-errantry are to be met with if we estimate them relatively to their subject-matter.

As a _leading_ figure in this respect we have first Charles the Great with his peers in the conflict fought against Saracens and pagans. In this Frankish circle of legend feudal chivalry forms a background of prime importance, and branches off into poems of every description, whose most significant material is concerned with the exploits of one of the twelve heroes, such as Roland or Doolin, of Maintz and others. More particularly in France during the reign of Philip Augustus many of such Epopees were composed. We have a _further_ garland of legend with an English source, one which aims at reproducing the exploits of King Arthur and the Round Table. Legendary tale, the chivalry of Normans and Englishmen, service to woman, the fealty of the vassal, are all here involved together in melancholy or fantastic combination with Christian mysticism. The search for the Holy Grail, that chalice containing the sacred blood of Christ, is, indeed, one main object of all knightly exploit, and every description of fantastic adventure originates in this source, until, finally, the entire company takes flight to Abyssinia. The above two subjects of legendary story are worked out with most completeness in Northern France, England, and Germany. And as a last illustration we have a _third_ circle of chivalrous poetry, composed with yet more caprice and less substantive content, which ever tends to emphasize knightly heroism to an excess with ideas of fairyland and fable; this rather points to Portugal or Spain as its original nursery. In this the family of the Amadi are accepted as principal heroes.

The great allegorical poems, so much beloved mainly in Northern France in the thirteenth century, are more nearly prose compositions in their abstract type. I will only mention one example of these, that is, the famous _Roman de la Rose._ We may compare or rather contrast such with the many anecdotes and still lengthier narratives, the so-called _fabliaux_ and _contes_, which rather borrow their subject-matter from contemporary life, tales of knights, priests, citizens, and above all _amours_, lawful and the reverse, retailed to us sometimes in the comic vein, at others in the tragic, now in prose, and again in verse. Such was the type of writing which the clear intellect and trained culture of a Boccaccio carried to its perfection.

There is a final class of such compositions, which, turning to the ancients--with a casual knowledge of the Epic of Homer and Virgil, or ancient legend, celebrates also, in precisely the manner of the Epopaea of chivalry, the exploits of Trojan heroes, the foundation of Rome by Æneas, the conquests of Alexander, and other like subjects.

And this will conclude what I have to say upon the Epic poetry of the Middle Ages.

(_γ_) In a _third_ principal group of which I have still to speak, the rich and pregnant study of _ancient_ literature marks a point of departure for the purer artistic taste of a new culture, in whose learning, assimilation, and blending of diverse elements, however, we frequently miss that primitive creative power, which we admire in the Hindoos, Arabs, as also in Homer and writers of the Middle Ages. In the many-sided development in which, dating from this age of the re-awakened sciences and their influence on national literatures, the actual conditions of mankind undergo a reform in religion, political condition, morals, and social relations, epic poetry also seizes hold of the most varied content, as also the most manifold forms, the historical course of which I can only direct attention to in its most essential characteristics.

(_αα_) _First,_ we may remark that it is still the _Middle Ages_, which now, as previously, supplies the material for the Epos, although the same is conceived and presented in a new spirit, namely, one permeated with the culture of classic literature> We find here pre-eminently two directions in which the art of epic poetry displays itself.

On the one side the awakening consciousness of the age shows a necessary tendency to treat as ridiculous all that is capricious in the adventurous feats of the Middle Ages, all that is fantastic and exaggerated in chivalry, all that is merely formal in the independence and personal isolation of the heroes, and which is now contained within a social reality embracing more abundance of national conditions and interest; a consciousness which further brings this entire world before our vision in the light of comedy, which does this, however much what is really genuine within it is also asserted, with seriousness and delight. As the culminating points of this genial conception of the entire world of chivalry I have already pointed to Ariosto and Cervantes. I will therefore in the present passage merely draw attention to the brilliant facility, the charm and wit, the loveliness and intense ingenuousness, with which Ariosto, whose poem still hovers among the poetic aims of the Middle Ages, merely in a more veiled and humorous fashion makes what is fantastic vanish away by means of the incredibility of his nonsense, while the profounder romance of Cervantes already assumes knight-errantry to be a Past behind it; which, consequently, can only enter into the real prose and presence of life as vanity in its isolation and fantastic folly; yet at the same time it gives equal prominence to its great and noble aspects in their contrast to what is awkward, stupid, devoid of reason and order in this very prosaic reality, making the defects of the same live before our eyes.

Among writers who have contributed to a _second_ phase in this type of epic development I will merely mention the representative name of Tasso. In his "Jerusalem Delivered" this poet, in contrast to the poetry of Ariosto, selects for his central theme, without any admixture of the humorist's temper whatever, the great and common aims of Christian chivalry, the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, the victorious pilgrimage of the Crusades, and, after the model of Homer and Virgil, creates an Epos with enthusiasm and study, which may even be compared with the great prototypes abovementioned. And no doubt we do discover in this work, quite apart from a genuine, and, in part, too, national and religious interest, a type of unity, development, and elaboration of the whole such as we have previously fixed as a primary condition. We may add to this a fascinating music in the verse, which makes the same still harmonious to living speech. What, however, is pre-eminently wanting in this poem is just that kind of primitive origin which is alone able to create the real Bible of an entire nation. In other words, instead of having, as in Homer's case, a work which, as true Epos, expresses once for all in language, and with direct simplicity, that which the nation is through its actions, the epic in question rather appears simply a poem, that is, a poetically constructed event. We are mainly pleased and satisfied with it in virtue of the artistic effect of its beautiful speech and form, whether we consider its more lyrical aspects, or its epic descriptions. Consequently, however much Tasso may have taken Homer for his model in the collective arrangement of his material, in the entire spirit of the conception and presentation it is rather and in chief the influence of Virgil that we actually discover in the work, and of course do so not to the poem's advantage.

_Finally_, among the great Epopaea, which are constructed upon the basis of a classic culture, we must include the "Lysiad" of Camoens. In the subject-matter of this entirely national composition, which celebrates the bold sea-faring of the Portuguese, we are already beyond the true Middle Ages, and have interests unfolded, which inaugurate a new era. But here, too, despite the glow of its patriotism, despite the life-like character of the descriptive matter, based for the most part upon the author's own experience, we are still conscious of a real barrier between the subject that is national and an artistic culture which is partly borrowed from the ancients and in part from the Italians, and which impairs its impression as a truly original epic.

(_ββ_) The essentially new manifestations in the religious belief and actual composition of modern life originate in the principle of the Reformation. The whole tendency of this general change of outlook is, indeed, rather favourable to lyric and dramatic, than epic poetry. But we do find nevertheless, even in the latter sphere, an autumnal blossoming of the religious Epopaea, of which the pre-eminent examples are Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Klopstock's "Messias." In breadth of culture, gained through study of the ancients, and the correct elegance of his language, Milton is no doubt an admirable master of his age. In the profundity of his content, in energy, original invention and execution, and, above all, in the epic objectivity of his presentment, however, he is in every respect inferior to Dante. For not only does the conflict and the catastrophe of "Paradise Lost" take a direction which is contrary to its dramatic character; but, as I have above incidentally observed, it is, in a unique way, supported by a lyrical impulse and ethical or didactic predilections, which lie far enough away from the subject in its original form.[35] I have already, in discussing Klopstock, referred to a similar cleft between the material and the form, which a particular age gives to it in its epic reflection. In the case of Klopstock, moreover, an endeavour is throughout apparent through a rhetoric, which is little more than the caricature of the Sublime, to infuse the reader with that recognition of the worth and solemnity of his subject, which the poet has himself experienced. From a somewhat different point of view we arrive at very much the same conclusion in the case of Voltaire's "Henriade." At any rate here too the poetry is an artificial production, and all the more so, inasmuch as the material, as already observed, is not adapted to the truly primitive Epos.

(_γγ_) If we try to discover really epic compositions in our own day we shall find ourselves in an atmosphere totally different from that of the genuine Epopaea. The general condition of the world to-day has assumed a form, which, in its prosaic character, is diametrically opposed to everything which we found indispensable to the genuine Epos, while the revolutions, which have been imposed upon the actual social conditions of states and nations, are still too strongly riveted in our memory as actual experiences that they should be able to receive an epic type of art. Epic poetry has consequently taken refuge from the great national events in the narrow circle of the domestic life of individuals in the country and in the small town, striving to find here the material adapted to epic composition. In this way, more particularly among us Germans, the Epic has become idyllic, after the genuine Idyll, of the sweet sentimentality and wishy-washy type, died out.

As an example lying close to hand of an idyllic Epos I will merely mention the "Luise" of Voss, as also and above all Goethe's masterpiece, "Herman and Dorothea." In the latter work we have no doubt our attention directed to the background of the greatest world-event of our age, with which the circumstances of the innkeeper and his family, of the pastor and the apothecary, are directly associated. And inasmuch as the little country town is not placed before us in its political relations we at once remark a gap in the narrative which is not explained or mediated by any connecting link. Yet it is precisely through this omission of the intermediate link that the whole keeps its unique character. For with the stroke of a master Goethe has removed the revolution into the background, despite the fact that he has known how to make the most happy use of it in the enlargement of his poem. He only interweaves such circumstances with the action as, in their simple humanity, connect themselves absolutely without constraint with domestic and civic conditions. The main point, therefore, is that Goethe in this work has succeeded in detaching from the reality of our modern life traits, descriptions, conditions, and developments, and depicting the same, which in their province once more make that alive which contributes to the imperishable charm of those primitive human conditions of the Odyssey and the patriarchal picture of the Old Testament.

In respect to other spheres of our present national and social life I would observe in conclusion that in the field of epic poetry there are practically unlimited opportunities for the _romance_, the _narrative_, and the _novel._ I am, however, unable, even in the most general outline, to follow the history of these in the breadth of their development from their first appearance until the present time.

[Footnote 1: _Die echt poetische Abrundung._ Not, however, merely literary finish, but complete ideal totality.]

[Footnote 2: _Einem bestimmten Tone_. Perhaps more truly "a particular strain or atmosphere." But both aspects are suggested.]

[Footnote 3: There is a misprint here _eine recht_ for _einer echt_, and also I should prefer eight lines lower down _die_ for _das_ agreeing with _Freiheit_ rather than _Leben._]

[Footnote 4: This sentence is obviously ironical, but the sense intended is not very clear. The words _die sic_ are clearly a misprint for _die sick,_ and I presume _kindisch_ is not used in its more common depreciatory sense of childish. I am, however, not very confident of my translation. _War es ein Zeichen_ would apparently refer back to the general intention of the previous sentence, _i.e.,_ the attempt of Klopstock and others to make a national book.]

[Footnote 5: See vol. I, pp. 240-289, and particularly pp. 270-289.]

[Footnote 6: _Eine Sittlichkeit._]

[Footnote 7: Poet., c. 14.]

[Footnote 8: That is to say, that the whole remains intact in its opposition. The question of international ethics is not directly considered, though reference is here made to historical evolution in its widest sense.]

[Footnote 9: Wrong that is inflicted on a state which is, as a whole, innocent.]

[Footnote 10: I presume the reference is mainly to the United States. Hegel's sentence is _so möchten diese nur den Sieg dereinstiger Americanischer lebendiger Vernünftigkeit über die Einkerkerung in ein ins Unendliche fortgehendes Messen und Particularisiren darzustellen haben._ It may be doubted, perhaps, whether he would have expressed himself with equal confidence in our own day. At least the position of the German States of his own time no doubt was strongly present in his mind.]

[Footnote 11: _Von einem anderen beschränkt._ Curtailed, I imagine, as a spontaneous and free power.]

[Footnote 12: That is acting in subservience to eternal forces, not directing those forces. Hegel conceives the event as supplying the lines of direction through which the forces are effective.]

[Footnote 13: _Aus der Dumpfheit des Bewusstseyns._ Out of the confusions of consciousness.]

[Footnote 14: I have adopted the masculine gender in accordance with the text, though of course it does not imply personality in the ordinary sense.]

[Footnote 15: I suppose the meaning is that it is a purely objective panorama.]

[Footnote 16: _Seiner Sache,_ Somewhat vague and difficult to translate. It means more than his affair or business.]

[Footnote 17: _Trauer._ Mournfulness or gloom is perhaps better.]

[Footnote 18: Liv., II, c. 32.]

[Footnote 19: Lit., so far as they do not emphasize essential phases in (_Momente_).]

[Footnote 20: I presume the allusion is to the way, already illustrated, the Homeric gods do not take themselves seriously.]

[Footnote 21: Messias, Canto II, vv, 627-850.]

[Footnote 22: It is possible Hegel means by _geistige_ intelligible.]

[Footnote 23: Act II, sc. 6.]

[Footnote 24: "O, that I had never shipped hither over the sea, unhappy that I am! Vain was the fancy which befooled me to seek an empty fame in France; and now a fatal destiny carries me to this bloody field of death. O that I were far from here housed at home on the banks of the blue Severn, where the mother remained behind and the gentle sweet bride mourning for me."]

[Footnote 25: "To Death thou art decreed! A British matron it was that conceived thee!"]

[Footnote 26: "With vow to slay at everything alive with the sword that the fateful god of battles confronts her with."]

[Footnote 27: _Sitte und Settlichkeit._]

[Footnote 28: That is of the Epos.]

[Footnote 29: The course of painting is similar to that of sculpture in virtue of the fact that it is wholly of one type, viz., romantic, but it differs from it in being less objective and requiring more historical illustration.]

[Footnote 30: _Substantiellen_, _i.e.,_ an outlook which concentrates attention on the one Divine substance, the essence beneath the phenomenal.]

[Footnote 31: I presume this is another Persian composition, but it may be a cult of some kind.]

[Footnote 32: Substantive as contrasted with phenomenal.]

[Footnote 33: That is the Iliad and Odyssey.]

[Footnote 34: What Hegel means to say by this and the following paragraph is by no means clear. He first seems to state as a fact that a rivalry may be asserted, or at least has been asserted by others, between the Spanish romances and the finest Greek and Latin epic literature, and then immediately afterwards denies the fact so far as the Iliad and Odyssey is concerned. The confusion and indeed uncertainty seems to be due to the fact that while explaining the disadvantage in which the German work is placed as compared with the Spanish romances, he merely contrasts the Homeric poems with the former. What he apparently means us to infer is that the latter are as superior as the German work is, at least as an Epos, inferior. The words "we moderns" are apparently ironical. In any case the entire passage is, I think, clearly one which needed revision, and it is possible that the two paragraphs have been tacked together by Hegel's editors from different connections.]

[Footnote 35: As we find it, presumably, in Genesis.]

(B.) LYRIC POETRY

The poetic imagination does not, as the plastic arts do, present the objects of its creation before our vision in an objective shape, but only envisages them to the inward vision and emotions. No doubt from the first, relatively to certain aspects of this universal type of composition, it is the _personal_ quality of ideal creation and construction which pre-eminently asserts itself in the presented work, and as such is to be contrasted with plastic construction. But when epic poetry offers to our contemplation its object either in its substantive universality, or under a mode comparable with that of sculptor and painter--in other words, in its living presence--in that case, at least where the art is most consummate, the individual mind and soul of the creator involved in the creation disappears before the objective result created. The above personal or subjective aspect of mind can only completely be discarded in so far as, in the first place, the entire world of objects and relations are essentially absorbed by it and then permitted to stand forth freely from the veiled presence of the individual consciousness, and, further, in so far as the self-centred soul unbars its doors, opens wide its ears and eyes, extends the purely unenlightened feeling to vision and idea, and attaches to this wealth of hidden content word and speech as the vehicle of its intimate self-expression. And just in proportion as this kind of communication persists in shutting itself away from the objective manifestation of epic art, to that extent, and precisely for that reason, the subjective type of poetry is bound to find its own forms, in a province of its own, wholly independent of the Epos. In other words, the human spirit descends from the objectivity of the object into its own private domain; it peers into its particular conscious life; it endeavours to satisfy the desire to reproduce the presence and reality of _that_, as displayed in soul, in the experience of heart and reflected idea, and in doing so to unfold the content and activity of the personal life rather than the actual presence of the external fact. But, again, inasmuch as this expression, if it is not simply to remain the chance expression of mere individuality[1] in its immediate feeling and conception, must assert itself in speech as the reflection of an inner life that is _poetic_, all that is thus envisaged of feeling or otherwise--and however much, too, it may be a part of the poet's unique personality, and be presented by him as such--must nevertheless possess a universal validity, in other words, it must essentially include feelings and reflections for which the art of poetry is able to discover the vital and adequate means of expression. And although, apart from this, pain and desire, as conceived, described, and expressed in speech, may lighten the heart, and poetic ebullition is unquestionably permissible for such a purpose, yet its function is not restricted to such domestic service. Rather it has a nobler vocation, which is not so much to liberate the human spirit from emotion, but in the medium of the same. The blind tumult of passion surges on in a union with the entire soul-life unenlightened, unawakened to the grasp of mind. In such a state the soul cannot assert itself in idea and expression. It is the function of poetry no doubt to free the heart from such a prison house, in so far as it presents that life as an object to it. But it does more than this mere translation of content from the immediacy of emotional experience; it creates therefrom an object which is purified from all mere contingency of the passing mood; an object in which the soul-life in this deliverance returns once more to itself freely and with self-conscious satisfaction, and remains there at home. Conversely, however, this primary objectivisation ought not to be carried to the point of a reflection that actually discloses the individual activity of the soul-life and its passions as it is carried forward in practical impulse and _action_; in other words, in the self-return of the individual upon himself in veritable deed. For the most pertinent reality of our inner life is still itself an inward something, and consequently this passage from itself can only give us the _sense_ of deliverance from the immediate concentration of heart in its blind and formless presence, which now unbars itself in self-expression, and in doing so grasps and expresses what was previously merely felt in the form of a self-conscious vision and ideas. And with these remarks I think we have determined in their essential features both the sphere and function of lyric poetry as contrasted with the epic and dramatic types.

As regards the more detailed examination and classification of our new subject-matter, we cannot do better than follow the course previously adopted in our examination of epic poetry.

_First_, we have to discuss the _general_ character of lyric composition.

_Secondly_, we shall consider the _particular_ characteristics which make the lyric work of art and the types of the same worthy of attention in their more direct relation to the lyric poet.

_Thirdly_, we shall conclude the survey with a few remarks upon the _historical_ development of this class of poetic work.

Generally I may remark that this survey will be extremely restricted, and for two reasons--first, because I am compelled to reserve the necessary space for the discussion of the dramatic field; secondly, because I must limit myself exclusively to general considerations, inasmuch as the detail embraced by it possesses far more incalculable resources of manifold complexity than in the case of the Epos, and could only be treated in greater fulness and completeness if viewed historically, which is not within the aim of the present work.

I. GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE LYRIC.

In the stimulus of epic poetry is the desire to hear the thing or matter which is unfolded on its own account, and independently of the poet,[2] as an objective and essentially exclusive totality. In the lyric, on the contrary, it is the converse need which finds its satisfaction in self-expression and the coming to a knowledge of the soul in this expression of itself. With regard to the nature of this effusion,[3] we may enumerate its most important constituents as follows:

_First,_ there is the _content_ in which soul-life is aware of itself and reflects itself in idea.

_Secondly_, there is the _form,_ in virtue of which the expression of this content becomes lyric poetry.

_Thirdly_, there is the stage of conscious life and culture from which the person thus lyrically viewed discloses his feelings and ideas.

(_a_) The content of the lyric work of art cannot comprise the development of an objective action in its possibilities of expansion into all the breadth and wealth of a world. It is the single person, and along with him the isolated fact of situation and objects, no less than the mode and manner in which the soul is made aware of itself in such content, with its private judgments, its joy, its wonder, its pain, and its feeling, which it presents to our vision. Through this principle of division and particularity, as present in the Lyric, the content may be of the greatest variety, associated with every tendency of national life. There is, however, this essential distinction, that whereas the Epos combines in one and the same work the spirit of a people in all its breadth, and in its actual deed and fashion, the more definite content of lyrical poetry limits itself to one particular aspect, or at least is unable successfully to attain to the explicit completeness and exposition which the Epos ought at least to possess. The entire wealth of lyrical poetry in a nation may, therefore, no doubt embrace the collective exuberance of national interest, idea, and purpose; but it is not the single lyrical poem that can do this.

The Lyric is not called upon to produce Bibles such as we have discovered in Epic poetry. It does, however, enjoy the advantage of being able to touch upon every conceivable aspect of national development; whereas the true Epos is limited to distinct epochs of a primitive age, and its success in our more recent times of prosaic culture is very jejune.

(_α_) Within this field of particularization we have, to start with, the _universal_ as such--the supreme height and depth of human belief, imagination, and knowledge--the essential content of religion, art, ay, even of scientific thought, in so far as the same is adaptable to the form of imagination and creation, and can enter the sphere of emotions. Consequently general opinions, what is of permanent substance in a view of the world, the profounder grasp of far-reaching social conditions are all not excluded from the Lyric; and a considerable part of the material I have referred to[4] when discussing the more incomplete types of the Epic falls rightly, and with pertinency into the sphere now under review.

(_β_) And along with such essentially universal topics we have associated the aspect of _particularity_, which can be so interwoven with what is thus substantive that any specific situation, feeling, or idea is thereby seized in its profounder significance and expressed in a way wholly accordant thereto. This is, for example, almost always the case in Schiller's lyrical work, as also in his ballads; in this connection I will merely recall the superb description of the Eumenides chorus in the Cranes of Ibicus, which is neither dramatic nor epic, but lyrical. From a further point of view we may have this combination so asserted that a variety of particular traits, moods, occurrences are introduced by way of testimony to comprehensive views and maxims, interlaced in vital coalescence by virtue of the general principle. This style of writing is frequently employed in the elegy and epistle, and generally in reflections upon life of a comprehensive character.

(_γ_) In conclusion, inasmuch as in lyrical composition what is self-expressed is the _individual person_, a content, which is extremely slight, will primarily suffice for this purpose. It is, in other words, the soul itself, subjective life simply, which is the true content. The emphasis is therefore throughout upon the animation of feeling, rather than upon the more immediate object. The most fleeting moods of the moment, the overjoyment of the heart, the swiftly passing gleams or clouds of careless merriment and jest, sorrow, melancholy, and complaint, in a word, all and every phase of emotion are here seized in their momentary movement or isolated occurrence, and rendered permanent in their expression. What we find here in the domain of poetry may be paralleled with what I previously referred to when describing _genre_ paintings. The content, the subject-matter, is here the wholly contingent, and what is over and above this important is exclusively the character of the individual conception and mode of presentment, the charm of which in the Lyric will either consist in the aroma of exquisite feeling, or in the novelty of arresting points of view, and the genial suggestion of literary phrases and turns which surprise.

(_b_) In the _second_ place we may observe in general with respect to the _form_, wherein the Lyric is composed, that here too it is the individual person, in the intimacy of his ideas or emotion that constitutes the focal centre. The growth of the whole is rooted in the heart and temperament; it starts, to be more precise, from a particular mood and situation of the poet. By virtue of this fact the content and conjunction of the particular aspects of its growth are not inferred from it objectively as a substantively independent content, or from its external manifestation as some really self-exclusive event, but are borrowed from the individual subject as such. But for this reason it is essential that the individual in question should himself appear poetical, rich in fancy and feeling, or imposing and profound in his views and reflections, and above all should be essentially independent, the possessor of a unique ideal world, from which the servility and caprice of a prosaic nature is excluded.

The lyric poem, then, retains a mode of unity wholly different from that of the Epos, in other words, the mysterious intimacy of the mood or reflection, which expatiates upon itself, mirrors itself in the objective world, describes itself, or concerns itself as it wills with any other matter, always, however, retaining the right in the pursuit of such an interest to begin and break off very much as it pleases. Horace, for instance, very frequently comes to a stop at the very point, where, in the commonplace view of its literary treatment, we might suppose he had only just started with his subject. In other words, what he describes is simply his feelings, commands or arrangements for a banquet, say, without giving us further information as to how it went off. In the same way we have every conceivable mode of progression and combination supplied by the nature of the mood, the actual condition of the individual soul-life, the degree of passion, its excitement or rapid transition of conflicting emotion, or the tranquillity of the heart or the mind in some long-drawn process of contemplation. As a rule, in respect to all such subject-matter, we are able to determine very little that is fixed, owing to the repeated changes in the ever varied facets of the soul. I will therefore restrict myself to a few salient points of distinction.

(_α_) Just as we met with several specific kinds of epic poetry which showed a tendency to adopt a lyric vein of expression, so, too, the Lyric may accept as its subject-matter and its form an occurrence, which, so far as content and external appearance are concerned, are epic, and to this extent it will approximate to the latter type. Heroic songs, romances, and ballads belong to such a class. The form of the whole is in such examples narrative, inasmuch as it is the progressive advance of a situation or event, as among other instances, a particular direction in the fate of a nation, which is communicated. And yet at the same time the fundamental temper is wholly lyric, inasmuch as the main object is not to give us a description and representation of the actual fact apart from all relation to the narrator, but rather to disclose his personal attitude to it in the way he conceives and feels it, whether with delight or complaint, whether as a stimulus to good or depressed spirits, the mood in short that rings throughout it. And similarly the nature of the impression which the poet endeavours to produce thereby is entirely that of the province of the lyric. In other words, what the poet seeks to effect in his audience is precisely that state of emotion, which the recounted event has produced in himself, and which he therefore has attached to his composition. He expresses his dejection, mourning, merriment, his fire of patriotism, and so forth, in an appropriate occurrence in such a way that it is not this fact so much which contributes, as it were, the focus, but rather the state of his emotional life we find reflected therein. And for this reason he, above all emphasizes those traits, and depicts the same with feeling, which are in accord with his own personal impulses; and in the degree of vivacity with which these are expressed by them the same feelings are likely to be excited in his audience. And thus, though the content may be epic, the treatment is lyrical.

(_αα_) To come yet more directly to detail there is, first, the example of the _epigram_, in such a case where it is not merely an inscription which states concisely the bald nature of some fact, but further associates with this an emotional state; where, in short, the content, regarded as the bare statement of external fact, is merged in a condition of the soul. In other words, the writer here ceases to surrender himself wholly to the object: rather he makes his own personality expressive in it; he records his desires with regard to it; he attaches to it his own sportive fancies, his acute or unexpected suggestions and associations. The Greek Anthology contains many such witty epigrams which have lost the epic manner. In more recent times we find similar examples in the piquante couplets of the French, abundantly illustrated in their Vaudevilles. We Germans have much the same thing in our didactic distiches, Xenien, and the like. Even tomb inscriptions frequently approximate to this lyrical character in virtue of the strong emotions expressed.

(_ββ_) In much the same way the Lyric accepts a wider range in descriptive narrative. I will merely mention, as a composition of this class, the _romance._ It is the most obvious and simple form of it, in so far that is as it isolates the different scenes of an event, and then depicts rapidly and with the full force of their most important characteristics each on its own account, in descriptions marked throughout by sympathetic feeling. Such a consistent and well-defined grasp of the characteristic features of a situation, together with an emphatic assertion of the writer's absolute sympathy with his subject, is above all nobly represented in Spanish literature and makes such romances strikingly impressive. A peculiar clarity of atmosphere surrounds these lyrical representations which rather identifies them with the clear-cut definition of objective vision, than with the ideal world of the imagination.

(_γγ_) The class of the _ballad_, in contrast to the above, includes for the most part, if in less degree than the truly epic poem, the completeness of an independent event, whose reflection, of course, it merely embodies in the most conspicuous of its phases, while it seeks at the same time to give full, if concentrated and ideal emphasis, to the depth of the sentiment with which it is throughout interwoven, and therein the plaint, dejection, joy, and so forth, of the soul. English literature above all contains many such poetic compositions in the early and more primitive epoch of its history; and, generally, popular poetry delights in the narration of such histories and collisions, usually unfortunate, with a true and emotional emphasis calculated to make both heart and voice thrill and falter with anguish. But in more recent times also among ourselves Bürger and, most famous of all, Goethe and Schiller, have composed masterpieces in this field; Bürger in virtue of his sombre tone of naïveté; Goethe through the impeccable clarity of his emotional, no less than imaginative vision, which forms the lyrical thread throughout; and Schiller, on account of his superb emotional emphasis on the fundamental thought which he seeks, in a wholly lyrical manner, to express under the form of an event, in order thereby to affect the hearts of his readers with a similar lyric movement of feeling and contemplation.

(_β_) The purely _personal_ element of lyric poetry is rightly emphasized in those cases, when the fact of a given situation is taken by the poet as an effective means of expressing his _own_ individuality therein. Such is the case in the so-called poems _d'occasion._ So far back as the poems of Callinus and Tyrtaeus we find elegies of battle based on conditions regarded as real, which are made the stimulus of a personal enthusiasm, albeit the poet's own individuality, his purely private affections and feelings, are as yet not so much in evidence. The Pindaric Odes also bring to light in their panegyrics of particular contests, victors, and circumstances, a vein or impulse that is more private; and yet more in some of the odes of Horace we mark a definitely personal motive, or rather expressed thought to the effect, "I will as myself a man of culture and fame, write a poem on this subject." But the best illustration of all we have in our own Goethe, whose partiality for such a style was due to the fact that he discovered a poem in every incident of his life.

(_αα_) If, however, the lyric work of art is to be divested of all _dependence_ of external occasion and purpose, that may be implied in it, and to be composed as a self-subsistent whole on its own account, it is obviously essential that the poet also only make use of such external stimulus as an opportunity to express _himself,_ his mood, delight, sorrow, or modes of thought and reflection generally. The condition of most importance to such an intimate mode of personal expression consists in the poet's ability to absorb the real content absolutely, converting it thereby into his own possession. The true lyric poet lives a life of introspection, he grasps relations in the light of his poetic individuality; and, however in varied fashion his inner life may be blended with the world around him, in its conditions and destiny, what he presents to us exclusively in such material is the unique and independent animation of his own emotions and observations. When, to take our former example, Pindar was invited to celebrate a victor of the Hellenic games, or undertakes this uninvited, he made himself so entirely master of his subject-matter, that his composition no longer so much appears a poem _on_ the victor as an effusion of song created from his own resources.

(_ββ_) If we consider more closely the manner of presentment of such a poem _d'occasion,_ we shall, no doubt, be ready to admit that the same can to a real extent borrow its more defined material and character, no less than its conceived organization as an artistic work, from the actual features of the occurrence or individual which constitute its content. It is, in fact, precisely from this content that the emotional movement of the poet proceeds. As the most illuminating, though an extreme example, I will merely mention Schiller's "Song of the Bell," which makes out of the varied stages of bell-foundry the significant and arresting moments in the composition of the entire poem, and only subject to this introduces the emotional element relevant thereto, as also the various observations upon human life and the description of its conditions. In a somewhat different manner, too, Pindar makes use of the place of birth of the victor, the exploits of the family to which he belongs, or other relations of life as an opportunity in his own person to exalt certain gods to the exclusion of others, or to mention these particular exploits and results alone, or to emphasize exclusively the observations or maxims he has interpolated. From a further point of view, however, the lyric poet is absolutely free, inasmuch as it is not the external occasion as such, but rather the poet's _own_ soul-life which is here the subject; and consequently it entirely depends on the particular views of the poet and the character of his general mood, what aspects of the subject-matter and in what threads of connection and sequence they shall be composed. In other words, we are unable to predict decisively and _a priori_ the degree in which the objective occasion with its given content, or the purely personal factor of poet, shall be predominant, or whether both aspects shall on equal terms coalesce.

(_γγ_) Furthermore, it is not the incentive and its positive reality, but the ideal movement and conception of the individual soul which supplies the _focus of unity._ The particular mood or general review, which is aroused poetically by the occasion, these constitute the centre, radiating from which not merely the colour of the whole, but also the embrace of the particular features unfolded, the very mode of the execution and construction, and therewith the build and coalescence of the poem as a work of art are determined. In this way, to return to our previous example, Pindar possesses in the life-conditions of his victors a genuine core of reality for differentiation or amplification. In the particular poems, however, which he has written it is invariably other points of view, another mood altogether, whether it be of warning, comfort, or exaltation, which he makes most pervasive, and which, although such exclusively belong to the poet in his creative capacity, do none the less give him precisely that grasp of all he wishes to touch upon, execute, and hand to posterity in those historical facts, while unfolding therewith the illuminating and constructive power of genius, without which he would fail to secure the lyric effect intended.

(_γ_) But, _thirdly_, it is not absolutely necessary for the genuine lyrical poet to start from the external occurrence, which he recounts in a medium rich with emotion, or, indeed, from any such objectively real stimulus of his efforts. He is, let us repeat, a truly exclusive world _in himself._ He may find there both the original incentive and content, and consequently go no further than this ideal world of condition, event, and passion discovered in his own heart and soul. This is that domain in which man becomes, in virtue of his private inner life, himself the work of art; while the epic poet avails himself exclusively of the hero and his exploits and experiences for this purpose.

(_αα_) And yet in this field, too, an element of narrative may enter, where, as in the case of the songs of Anacreon, bright little pictures of adventure with Eros and the like receive the finish of delightful miniatures. Such an event, however, must obviously rather resemble the unveiling of a condition of personal soul-life. In a somewhat different mode of the same thing Horace, in his _Integer vitæ_ makes use of the fact of his meeting a wolf, not to the extent that we can, therefore, call his poem the verse _d'occasion_, but rather regarding this fact as the prompting force of his first sentence and the serenity of the feelings of affection with which he concludes.

(_ββ_) As a rule we may also observe that the situation under which the poet depicts himself should not restrict itself merely to the _inner personal_ life as such. It must rather attest itself as concrete, and thereby we may even say external totality. The poet, in short, reveals himself not merely in that inward personal life, but as one of the objects of the external world. In the example just cited of the Anacreon odes the poet depicts himself among roses, fair maidens, and youths in the merry enjoyment of wine and dance, without regret or yearning, without obligation, and yet without dislike of loftier aims, which, indeed, are not present at all; reveals himself rather as a hero, who freely and without reserve, and consequently without hesitation or loss, is just this unity, is what he is, a man of his own type, and figures as such in this intimate artistic presentment. In the love-songs of Hafis also we may observe the entire vital individuality of the poet in all its changes of content, pose, and an expression which approaches close to self-conscious humour. And yet his poetry is without any specific theme, any objective picture, any god, or mythology; or, rather, when we peruse these light-hearted ebullitions, one feels as though it would be impossible for the Oriental to possess any such definite picture and constructive art. He passes easily from one object to another; he takes his walks abroad, but it is a scene in which the entire man, with his wine, his damsels, his court-life, and all the rest of it, is placed before us with delightful unreserve, without passion or self-seeking in the simplicity of his enjoyment eye to eye and soul to soul. Improvisations of this type adapt themselves in the most various ways not merely to a reflection of the soul-life, but also to external condition. If, however, the poet is absorbed in his own individual experience, we are not so much concerned to hear his particular fancies, love affairs, domestic arrangements, and the history of his uncles and aunts. We are so invited, for instance, in Klopstock's Eidli and Fanny, as to nave some vision given us of what is of universal human interest, in order that our sympathies may be roused. From this point of view, therefore, such lyrical poetry can readily degenerate into the spurious assumption that what is essentially private and particular must necessarily awaken interest. On the contrary, it would be no incorrect description of many songs of Goethe if we called them "Songs of _Comradeship_," although they are not exactly executed by the poet under such a category. In other words, it is not so much himself that a man offers in society; rather he places his particularity in the background, and converses with the help of something else, whether it be a story or an anecdote, seizing its specific features in some particular mood, and communicating them agreeably to such a temper. In a case like this it is not exactly the poet, and yet it is himself for all that. It is not himself he gives us, but something else as best he can. He is, in short, an actor, who runs through an infinite variety of parts. First he lingers on this, then on that; he reviews momentarily a scene, then maybe a group of people. But whatever he may endeavour to reproduce, it is throughout his individual artistic soul-life, his own experience, his own feeling, which is vitally interwoven with it.

(_γγ_) But, further, in so far as the individuality of self-conscious life is the true source of the Lyric, the poet is justified in limiting his expression to his own moods and reflections without any further combination of them in a concrete situation that includes a truly objective character. It is in this direction that examples of what is little more than an empty fluting for fluting's sake, the song and trill simply on its own account, will yet give us genuine lyrical satisfaction. In such the words are to a more or less extent merely the vehicle of cheerfulness or sorrow, whose effect, moreover, very readily serves as an invitation to musical accompaniment. Folk-songs especially very often amount to little more than this. In the songs of Goethe, too, though we may no doubt discover here a more defined and abundant mode of expression, it is not unfrequently simply a single and transitory bit of merriment that is vouchsafed, a passing mood that the poet does not attempt to throw aside, but on the tune of which he pipes for a moment in his tiny song. In others, of course, his treatment of similar moods is on a larger scale, even systematic, as, for instance, in the poem: "_Ich hab mein Sach' auf nichts gestellt_," in which the poet passes before us as things that come and vanish, first, money and property, then women, travel, fame, honour, and, last of all, fight and war, retaining throughout as the ever-recurring refrain of stability his own free and careless cheerfulness. Conversely, however, the intimate individual life may from the same point of view grow in depth and expansion, in conditions of the soul of the most imposing proportions and ideas that embrace the world itself. A considerable number of Schiller's poems are of this type. What is great, what opens to intelligence, this is the incentive of his heart. But he will neither celebrate in hymn fashion a religious or otherwise profound subject; nor will he be the minstrel who looks for inspiration without him to the pertinent fact or occasion. He sings in the presence of, and inspired by, his own soul-life, the highest interest of which are the ideals of life, beauty, and the imperishable claims and thoughts of our humanity.

(_c_) There is a _third_ consideration we have to deal with in connection with the general character of lyric poetry. It is the nature of the general stage of human development and culture from which the isolated poem originates.