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 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GERMANIC STUDIES 
 
 GRILLPARZER AS A POET OF 
 NATURE
 
 GRILLPARZER AS A POET OF 
 NATURE 
 
 BY 
 
 FAUST CHARLES DE WALSH, Ph.D. 
 
 Instructor in the German Language and Literature, The College of the City of New York 
 
 "gtia gork 
 
 THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1910 
 
 Al/ rights reserved
 
 Copyright, 1910 
 By The Columbia University Press 
 
 Printed from type September, 1910 
 
 Press of 
 
 The new era printing company 
 
 Lancaster. Pa.
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 NOTE 
 
 Mr. De Walsh's careful study of a neglected phase of 
 Grillparzer's poetic Eigenurt seems to me a valuable contribu- 
 tion to our knowledge of the great Austrian dramatist. 
 
 Calvin Thomas. 
 
 Columbia University, 
 June, 19 10.
 
 TO 
 
 His Excellency 
 
 CARL TRAUGOTT KREYER, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 Counsellor to the Imperial Chinese Embassy, Rome, Italy 
 
 WITH THE AFFECTION AND GRATITUDE OF 
 
 THE AUTHOR
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The present study grew out of a paper written for the 
 Germanic Seminar in Columbia University conducted by Pro- 
 fessor Calvin Thomas. I feel greatly indebted to this scholar 
 for his invaluable assistance and encouragement, and it affords 
 me pleasure to have the opportunity of thanking Professor 
 Thomas in this place for his much appreciated guidance and 
 help. 
 
 I also wish to express my sincere gratitude to Professors 
 William H. Carpenter, Hervey, Tombo and Remy for their 
 contribution to my training as a student of Germanic languages 
 and literatures. 
 
 The service of Mr. Ludwig Lewisohn, A.M., who read the 
 proof, is gratefully acknowledged. 
 
 F. C. D. 
 
 New York City, 
 June, igio.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 Introduction 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Grillparzer's sensitiveness to aspects of nature xi 
 
 Chapter I 
 General Orientation i 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 Grillparzer's Description of Nature. 
 
 1. His definition of the relation between nature and 
 
 man 14 
 
 2. The seasons. 
 
 (a) Spring 15 
 
 (b) Summer and Autumn 19 
 
 (c) Winter 21 
 
 3. Phenomena of nature. 
 
 (a) Light and darkness 24 
 
 (b) Water 35 
 
 (c) Thunder, lightning, rain, wind 39 
 
 4. General Description. 
 
 (a) Landscapes 42 
 
 (b) Comparisons 46 
 
 Chapter III 
 
 Grillparzer's Interpretation of Nature. 
 
 1. Characteristics of nature (poetry and independ- 
 
 ence ) 51 
 
 2. Solitude 58 
 
 3. Mysticism 62 
 
 4. Sympathy 66 
 
 5. Symbolism 72 
 
 ix
 
 PAGE 
 
 6. Nature as the ideal of beauty and love; nature a 
 symphony of beauty; the Loved One in nature; 
 Irenens Wiederkehr 74 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 Esthetic idea of Grillparzer ; impossibility of artificial 
 
 reproduction of nature ; general conclusions 89
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Grillparzer's Sensitiveness to Aspects of Nature 
 
 When, on November lo, 1859, the University of Leipzig 
 conferred upon Franz Grillparzer the degree of doctor of 
 philosophy, Professor Heinrich Wuttke, the speaker upon this 
 solemn occasion, the centenary of Schiller's birth, expressed 
 the hope, referring to Grillparzer, that " posterity would be 
 more just to him than his contemporaries had been." Wuttke's 
 sympathetic wish, which has reference to the inadequate rec- 
 ognition of Grillparzer's dramatic genius, has since been abun- 
 dantly fulfilled. Grillparzer's fame as a dramatist is now 
 firmly established, and the ever-increasing Grillparzer-litera- 
 ture now forms a fair-sized library. A Grillparzer Jahrbuch, 
 begun in 1890, is already a veritable encyclopedia of informa- 
 tion concerning the poet and his works; and the Grillparzer 
 bibliography in Vol. VIII of Goedeke's Grundriss fills 143 
 closely printed octavo pages. 
 
 In all this mass of literature, however, there is very little 
 relating to Grillparzer's poetry of nature, although his plays 
 fairly teem with passages that are interesting to the student 
 of that subject. I find only one brief article of seven pages, 
 published by Adolf Foglar in 1897,^ which deals with Grill- 
 parzer's relation to nature, but it contains only little informa- 
 tion and represents a mere suggestion without leading to any 
 definite conclusion. Foglar quotes a number of passages 
 from Grillparzer's diaries (Reise nach Italien; Orientreise ; 
 Reise durch Deutschland,) in which the poet recorded his 
 impressions of nature, and then he goes on to show that 
 Grillparzer's description of nature is at its best when his 
 intense patriotism blends with his poetry. For this purpose, 
 Foglar quotes from Ottokar, and this is the only reference 
 made to Grillparzer's plays. The subsequent pages of the 
 
 ^ Literarisches Jahrbuch des deutschen Schulvereins, 1897, pp. 84-91.
 
 xn 
 
 article make brief mention of a few of Grillparzer's lyric 
 poems, and, in conclusion, the author emphasizes the influence 
 exerted by nature upon the poet's musical ear. 
 
 The general neglect of Grillparzer as a poet of nature is, 
 after all, not very surprising, since that is not the important 
 aspect of his work. He is one of the foremost dramatists in 
 German literature, and this fact accounts for the small im- 
 portance of his lyric verse, in which we should naturally look 
 for his message, if he had one, as a poet of nature. With the 
 great lyrists of his own epoch — Eichendorfif, Heine, Uhland — 
 Grillparzer had little in common. " Die starke Quelle seiner 
 Dramatik," says R. M. Meyer,- " iiberschwemmte die Beete 
 der Lyrik. War ein Mann zum Dramatiker geboren, so war 
 es Franz Grillparzer." 
 
 If I have undertaken in this study, notwithstanding what 
 has been said, to treat minutely and elaborately of Grillparzer 
 as a poet of nature, it is not because I desire to claim a place 
 for him as a great poet of nature, or to show that he had any 
 peculiar or highly important message to deliver, but because 
 I wish to throw light on Grillparzer's Eigenart as a poetic 
 dramatist. Individual traits of great poets are of considerable 
 importance for the understanding of the man as w^ell as of the 
 artist, and it is necessary to have as clear a conception as pos- 
 sible of the various characteristic influences which are at work 
 in the development of genius. It is for this reason that I 
 regard my work, which deals, as has been admitted, with a 
 minor phase of Grillparzer's art, as a contribution to the 
 general characterization of the great dramatist and of the man. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Grillparzer was throughout his long 
 life very sensitive to out-of-door impressions, and the total 
 reaction of nature upon him colors his dramatic work to a 
 greater extent than has been supposed. Also his diaries and 
 letters contain frequent references to such personal impres- 
 sions. For present purposes I quote three passages from the 
 poet's diaries and one from his letters, which show that Grill- 
 parzer was keenly alive to the wonders of nature; that he 
 
 'Die deutsche Literatur des ncuncehnten Jahrhiinderts. Berlin, 1900. 
 Vol. I, p. 84.
 
 XIU 
 
 ascribed to nature an important influence upon his soul-life 
 and upon his imagination; that he liked to commune with 
 nature ; and, finally, that his sensitiveness to aspects of nature 
 stayed with him to the end of his days. In 1808, Grillparzer 
 writes :^ 
 
 Nothing is more capable of arousing love, or (according to cir- 
 cumstances) sexual passion within me, than a beautiful evening in 
 the open air, especially when the moon shines. On a fair morning 
 I feel quite different: I am inspired and lifted above all passion. I 
 do not believe that I could see the sun rise, on some fair morning, 
 while my heart is harboring vindictive or voluptuous thoughts. 
 
 In 1809, he describes the influence of nature upon his imagina- 
 tion thus :* 
 
 There is a peculiar charm for me in the observation of the clouds, 
 when I take a walk in the evening. My imagination endows them 
 with the weirdest shapes, and if these have no definite significance, 
 I imagine at least the blue sky as the ocean, and the masses of 
 clouds, scattered hither and thither, as islands. There I build 
 huts ; there I dwell with my sweetheart, and so on. 
 
 The influence of nature upon his imagination was as strong 
 in 1852^ as in 1809: 
 
 A strange thing happened to me to-day : I walked about, dream- 
 ing. I had risen early and taken water from the chalybeate spring, 
 then a bath, and another glass of water, and now I was walking 
 in the park. Suddenly, I came to a part of the park where I had 
 never yet set foot. It was so beautiful, and the groups of trees 
 were so charming, that I could not understand how this part had 
 escaped my attention to this day. Unfortunately, there were no 
 benches, while every place was an invitation to sit down. 
 
 Only a few years before his death, Grillparzer wrote Kath- 
 arina Frohlich from Teplitz, June 17, 1865:*' 
 
 Only the park with its magnificent trees and fairly green lawns 
 (the comfortable benches should not be forgotten), has entirely 
 charmed me. Here I have been sitting for hours, in spite of very 
 cold weather, with a book, and with wide-open eyes, as is my habit. 
 
 ^ Brief e und Tagebilchcr, II, p. 5- * Ibid., II, p. 21. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 136. "Ibid., I, p. 259.
 
 XIV 
 
 Numerous passages in the Tagebiicher, some of which will 
 be discussed later, indicate that, as traveler, Grillparzer was 
 keenly alive to natural beauty. It may be, as Foglar says, 
 that he " never traveled for pleasure's sake, or only to see a 
 beautiful country," but certain it is that he was never in- 
 different to the beauty that came in his way. A dull land- 
 scape gave him a sense of oppression. Hence he could say, 
 regarding his trip to Germany in 1826:^ " If I were to follow 
 my innermost inclinations, I should return at once, and journey 
 home again. Nature, in these regions, is not sufficiently attrac- 
 tive, and the people make me uncomfortable." 
 
 Interesting conclusions regarding Grillparzer's personal 
 sensitiveness to aspects of nature may be drawn from many 
 passages, in prose and verse, which deal with the reaction of 
 nature on the human soul. Two points come into considera- 
 tion here : the transitory effect of nature reflected in Stimmung, 
 and the permanent effect of natural environment reflected in 
 the character of man. In May, 1836, Grillparzer stood in 
 admiration amidst the attractions of the park of Versailles, 
 and with a vivid recollection of what he had seen, he wrote 
 in his diary, the same evening :^ " What a park ! In all my 
 life I have seen nothing more beautiful. Shall I here admire 
 nature or art? The sun shone warm, the trodden grass filled 
 the air with fragrance, and the heavens were evidently of a 
 deeper blue than in our country. / smote my breast. I zcas 
 like a child. Everything so beautiful, so fair." We should 
 not be misled here by the question : " Shall I admire nature 
 or art?" It is true that the poet was deeply impressed with 
 the beauty of the two trianons. He calls them the " pearls of 
 the park," but he turns back to nature immediately, and his 
 thirsty soul drinks in the splendor of sun, sky, and flowers. 
 His mood changes. The beauty of nature takes him back to 
 the happiest stage of life — childhood. There is innocence 
 and naive ecstasy in the words : " I smote my breast. I was 
 like a child." 
 
 But nature's message was not always joyful. When he 
 took leave of the sea, at Terracina, in June, 1819, a melancholy 
 
 ' The Roman numbers in the footnotes refer to the Cotta edition in XX 
 vols. XX, p. 27. « XX, p. 94.
 
 sensation seized upon him. It seemed as if the sea were aware 
 of the esteem in which he held it, and so it cunningly donned 
 its fairest appearance :^ " In Terracina I enjoyed, for the last 
 time on this journey, the sight of the sea. It had arrayed 
 itself most beautifully, and lay there in the splendor of 
 heavenly blue, with the intention, perhaps, to oppress my heart. 
 Sadly, I took leave of the poetic element which combines, in 
 such magic manner, formidableness and sweetness of dis- 
 position." 
 
 The beneficent relief brought by a thunder-shower is beauti- 
 fully expressed by Drahomira i^" 
 
 Es fiihlt das Aug', es fiihlt der Busen sich erweitert 
 
 Und giebt sich hin dem Andrang der Natur, 
 
 Und aller Sinne leicht erregter Chor, 
 
 Gleich schwer Belagerten, die kurz zuvor 
 
 Der Feinde Drang mit Furcht und Graus umfangen, 
 
 Sic offnen jauchzend jedes Thor, 
 
 Den siegenden Befreier zu empfangen. 
 
 References to the influence of natural environment upon 
 the formation of character are not infrequent. When Jason 
 believes Medea to be inapproachable, his heart is filled with 
 hatred for Kolchis:" 
 
 Sein rauher Hauch 
 Vertrocknete die schonste Himmelsblume, 
 Die je im Garten bliihte der Natur; 
 
 and Kreon, to whom the inflexible character of Medea and 
 Gora is incomprehensible, blames Kolchis also, when he calls 
 both women^^ 
 
 Das Bild des dunkeln Landes, das sie zeugte. 
 
 When Primislaus confides to Libussa his plan to found a city, 
 she fears that the walls of this city, separating man from 
 nature, will have an ill efifect upon the character of man. 
 Primislaus admits that communion with nature is necessary 
 for the human heart :" 
 
 •XIX, p. 241. "XI, p. 116. 
 
 "V, p. 93. "V, p. 183. 
 
 "VIII, p. 202.
 
 XVI 
 
 Gemeinschaft mit den wandellosen Dingen, 
 
 Sie ladet ein zum Fuhlen und Geniessen. 
 
 Man geht nicht riickwiirts, lebt man mit dem All; 
 
 but his progressive ambition is not satisfied with this alone ; 
 he insists upon carrying out his project, because:^* 
 
 Doch vorwarts schreiten, denken, schaffen, wirken 
 Gewinnt nach innen Raum, wenn eng der aussre. 
 
 While Primislaus is right from his point of view, Libussa's 
 words of warning contain, perhaps, a good deal of the per- 
 sonal inclination of the poet himself who, a child of the city, 
 was strongly drawn to idyllic country-life. At the same time, 
 we feel the presence of the shadow of Rousseau in this contrast 
 between civilization and nature. 
 
 The sympathetic character of Melitta is also, to a consider- 
 able extent at least, the result of early natural environment. 
 Her sunny disposition, her cheerfulness, her tender heart, 
 her lack of selfishness, and her virginal purity, are traceable 
 back to the country which she called home, before Sappho 
 purchased her from some slave-trader. Time has cast a 
 veil over Melitta's memory, but this veil is not so thick as to 
 obscure entirely the maiden's recollection : the name of her 
 native country has escaped her mind, but its natural sur- 
 roundings have left such a deep impression in her soul, that 
 she is able to speak of them to Phaon :^^ 
 
 Nur seine Blumen, seine Thaler hat 
 
 Behalten das Gedachtnis, nicht den Namen. 
 
 Nur glaub' ich, lag es, wo die Sonne herkommt, 
 
 Denn dort war alles gar so licht und hell. 
 
 Not only individual but national character is attributed by 
 Grillparzer to natural environment, and it appears that his 
 comprehension of national character is greatly assisted by his 
 study of local nature. On his way to Greece, he passed 
 through the fertile country of the Hungarians, and the wealth 
 of nature, with which he was here confronted, explained to 
 him a part of Hungarian national character which he was 
 hitherto unable to understand. In his diary one finds the 
 
 ^*Ibid. i=lV, p. 162.
 
 XVll 
 
 following significant words r^" " One understands the high as- 
 pirations of the Hungarians, upon seeing their country. I 
 am somewhat reconciled with their superlatives. The sun 
 goes down, and sets water and air on fire. The young moon 
 comes into prominence. . . . An indescribable charm lay 
 over the country." 
 
 All biographers of Grillparzer trace the poet's musical talent, 
 as well as his inclination toward melancholy, back to his 
 mother, while his keen intellectual power is generally regarded 
 as his paternal heritage. So far as Grillparzer's love for 
 nature may be attributed to pre-natal influence, it appears that 
 both parents transmitted an equal share to their oflFspring. 
 In his Autobiography, Grillparzer describes his father as 
 follows :^^ " His outward manner appeared somewhat cold 
 and harsh; he avoided all company, hut he was a passionate 
 friend of nature. To work, at first in his own, later in a 
 rented garden, and to grow flowers of all kinds, constituted 
 almost his only source of pleasure." 
 
 So far as Grillparzer's fine interpretation of the musical 
 element in nature is concerned, attention need here be called 
 only to the fact that he is, just as for his musical gift, in- 
 debted to his mother also for this phase of his nature-poetry. 
 
 Enough has been said, I think, to show in a general way 
 that the man Grillparzer was a lover of nature. He was both 
 observant and impressionable; and the suggestions that he 
 caught entered into and colored the texture of his plays. To 
 show in some detail the nature of these manifold reactions 
 of the outer world upon his mind and art, is the purpose of 
 this study. First, however, by way of orientation, let us 
 make a cursory survey of the earlier history of the poetry 
 of nature. 
 
 "XX, p. 152. "XIX, p. II.
 
 General Orientation 
 
 The nature-feeling of the modern man, whether poet or not, 
 is to a large extent the product of his reading. We have come 
 to look upon nature with the eyes of our poets, without whose 
 works the outer world would not react on us as it does. It is 
 obvious, then, that our feeling for nature is largely a matter 
 of literary tradition. If, therefore, we set out to study the 
 Eigenart of a particular poet, we need to know the tradition 
 which he inherited, in order to do him justice, and in order to 
 avoid the danger of thinking him new, original, or peculiar, 
 when in reality he only voices sentiments which have often 
 before been expressed by others. It is the purpose of the 
 present orientation to classify and illustrate the principal reac- 
 tions in the history of nature-poetry, and thus to establish, 
 from the outset, those traditions from which Grillparzer drew 
 in his own attempt to describe and interpret the external world. 
 The treatment of this subject must necessarily be cursory, and 
 it is done, without much claim to originality, mainly on the 
 basis of Biese's thorough work,^ while, for individual poets 
 or epochs, Batt,- Geo. Brandes,^ Butcher,* Danton,^ Diez,*^ 
 Fairclough,^ De Laprade,^ Motz,^ Reynolds,^*' Rundstrom,^^ 
 Schmidt,^- and Shairp^^ have been consulted. 
 
 ^ Biese, A., Die Entzvicklung des Naturgefiihls bei den Griechen, Kiel, 
 1882, and Die Entwicklung des Naturgefiihls im Mittelalter und in der 
 Neuzeit, Leipzig, 1892, 
 
 ^ Batt, Max, The Treatment of Nature in German Literature from Giinther 
 to the Appearance of Goethe's Werther, Chicago, 1902. 
 
 ^ Die Hauptstromungen der Literatur des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, 6 
 vols., Leipzig, 1897. 
 
 * Butcher, S, H., Some Aspects of the Greek Genius, London, 1904. 
 
 " Danton, G. H., The Nature Sense in the Writings of Ludwig Tieck, New 
 York, 1907. 
 
 ' Diez, Friedr., Die Poesie der Troubadours, Zwickau, 1826. 
 
 ^ Fairclough, H. R., The Attitude of the Greek Tragedians to'cvard Nature, 
 Toronto, 1897. 
 
 ^ De Laprade, V., Le sentiment de la nature chez les modernes, Paris, 1870. 
 
 * Motz, H., Uber die Empfindung der Naturschonheit bei den Alien, 
 Leipzig, 1865. 
 
 " Reynolds, Myra, The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry between 
 Pope and IVords^corth, Chicago, 1896. 
 
 " Rundstrom, Erich, Das Naturgefiihl J. J, Rousseaus, Konigsberg, 1907. 
 " Schmidt, Erich, Richardson, Rousseau und Goethe, Jena, 1875. 
 " Shairp, J. C, On Poetic Interpretation of Nature, New York, 1877. 
 
 1
 
 If poetry in general is the lofty expression of individual 
 soul-life, nature-poetry in particular reflects the attitude of 
 an entire epoch toward visible phenomena. These various 
 epochs in the history of nature-poetry are characterized by 
 individual reactions which, however, as Biese points out,^* 
 do not lead to any diametrical contrast between ancient and 
 modern nature-sense, but show only gradual differences. 
 
 It might seem, perhaps, as if the possible reactions of the 
 human soul upon the external world were too numerous, too 
 elusive, and too much intermixed, to permit of any classifica- 
 tion whatever. And from the point of view of exact science 
 this may be true. If, however, we are content to use the 
 word nature somewhat loosely, in its usual literary sense, and 
 to consider only those reactions which have played a some- 
 what important role in poetry, then the problem does not 
 seem so hopeless. The reactions fall under a comparatively 
 few heads or types, which it is possible to discriminate, not 
 indeed with ideal scientific accuracy, but well enough to serve 
 a useful purpose in literary discussion. The principal varie- 
 ties appear to be as follows : 
 
 I. The primitive or animal reaction, which expresses 
 the pleasure or displeasure that we feel — with children, savages 
 and the lower animals — ^according as nature is physically 
 agreeable or disagreeable, useful or harmful. The warm sun 
 is appreciated, if the weather is cold; the cool shade, if it is 
 hot; the refreshing spring is sought; the luscious fruit joyfully 
 gathered ; and the fertile fields viewed with happy feelings ; 
 while, on the other hand, storm, thunder, lightning, volcanic 
 eruptions, etc., inspire fear as well as awe. This is the atti- 
 tude of Homer toward nature. At his time, the influence of 
 mythological concepts and ideals was of extreme importance, 
 so that it is not surprising to find that it enters largely into his 
 portraiture of nature. Since the gods were uppermost in 
 public interest, an independent and subjective nature-poetry 
 could hardly take root. This, however, does not mean that 
 Homer's epics show no true appreciation of nature's beauties; 
 
 " Op. cit., p. 129.
 
 on the contrary, the theory expounded by Gervinus/^ Otfried 
 Miiller/*' Becker/^ and even Schiller^^ (to the effect that 
 Greek nature-sense, if it existed at all, was of a very inferior 
 order), has been completely overthrown by Biese, who points 
 out that there is an abundance of passages in Homer which 
 establish the fact that the poet was keenly alive to nature's 
 aspects. While this Homeric appreciation of nature appears 
 naive and simple, it is genuine and free from affectation. It 
 is difficult to choose from the numerous passages which bear 
 evidence of Homer's feeling for nature. However, the pas- 
 sage which is quoted below is a fair illustration of the naive 
 expression of awe and terror which the raging elements, 
 mythologically personified, inspired in the heart of primi- 
 tive man :^^ 
 
 o)? elirlov crvvayev vec^eXas, irdpaie 8e ttovtov 
 ^epcrt rpiatvav kXwv • Tracras S'opd^uvev deXAas 
 iravTOLOiv dvc/xcov, (tvv 8e ve<ji€t(J(Tt KaXvif/€v 
 yaiav ofjiov kuI ttovtov • o/owpet S'ovpavoOev vvi. 
 (TVV 8' Eipos Tc NoTos t' €7reo"ov Ze(j>vp6'i re 8vcrar]<; 
 Kol Bo/aei^s aldp-qyevirr]^ p.iya Kvpu kvXivSwv. 
 
 2. The devout reaction, which reveals a feeling of admi- 
 ration or awe in the presence of nature conceived as the handi- 
 work of a personal God. Such is, in the main, the character 
 of Hebrew nature-poetry, all of which reflects the monotheistic 
 idea. For the Hebrew, nature is not an end per se, but only 
 a means to an end, the end being Jehovah. Thus the psalmist :-'* 
 
 When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the 
 moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man, that 
 Thou art mindful of him? . . . 
 
 It cannot be said that the ancient Hebrew was unappreciative 
 of the beauty of nature, or that rigid asceticism smothered 
 within his heart the typically human joie dc vivre: he lov^ed 
 
 ^^ Deutsche Literaiurgcschichte, Vol. I, p. 113. 
 
 " Handbuch der Archdologie der Kunst, p. 468. 
 
 " Charikles, I, p. 219. 
 
 " Uber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, ed. Cotta, XII, p. 187. 
 
 '^^ Odyssey, V, 291-296. 
 
 ^ Psalm VlII, 3, 4.
 
 to gaze at the stars, and to watch the birds; the grandeur of 
 the sea inspired him with awe, and the bright sunshine filled 
 him with delight. However, he forgot at no time to associate 
 with his realistic enjoyment the ideal which, in his opinion, 
 is the source of it all. Whether we may speak of an actual 
 appreciation and enjoyment of nature under such circum- 
 stances, is perhaps doubtful, for it is difficult to imagine that 
 an individual who is constantly endeavoring to locate the 
 source of a pleasure feels as keen an enjoyment as he whose 
 entire nervous sensitiveness is thrilled with the actual realisa- 
 tion of a pleasurable experience, and who has, consequently, 
 no thought of the cause of his sensation. 
 
 It is interesting to observe that it is not only nature's bounty 
 which suggests to the Hebrew the thought of God, but that 
 the same suggestion comes to him as he drags his tired body 
 over the hot sands of the desert, and as he is near death from 
 want of water. Even under such circumstances, when cursing 
 and disbelieving would be quite intelligible from a human 
 point of view, the weak body is subdued by the mind concen- 
 trated upon God. So in Psalm LXVH, where David sings : 
 
 O God, Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee: my soul 
 thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty 
 land, where no water is; . . . 
 
 An appreciation of nature apart from Jehovah and his wor- 
 ship is therefore not to be expected from this people whose 
 characteristic attitude the psalmist sums up as follows :-^ 
 
 Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let Thy glory be 
 above all the earth. 
 
 3. The erotic reaction, that is, the effect produced by the 
 spring-time (nature's pairing-time), with its flowers, birds and 
 sunshine, with its suggestion of sexual love and of erotic 
 images. This reaction is reflected in the nature-poetry of the 
 troubadours and minnesingers, a nature-poetry where nature 
 is the means and love the end. Bernart de Ventadorn, for 
 example, tells us that his love for his sweetheart is never so 
 deep as in spring ; he takes a naive delight in the natural beauty 
 
 ^ Psalm LXVIII.
 
 which surrounds him, but he does not describe this beauty at 
 length. Using a few terms, such as grass, fohage, blossoms, 
 and nightingale, he hastens on as it were to his subject proper, 
 viz., love. The lines quoted below form the beginning of the 
 poem, and the inference lies near that nature was looked upon 
 as the most fitting background for love and as a good intro- 
 duction to the subject. 
 
 Quant I'erba fresqu' e.l fuelha par 
 E la flors botona el verian, 
 E.l rossinhols autet e clar 
 Leva sa votz e mou son chan, 
 Joy ai de luy e ioy ai de la flor 
 E ioy de me e de mi dous maior;" 
 
 The poet is ready to express his appreciation of nature, but 
 nature cannot inspire him as much as love ; love stands higher 
 in his esteem than nature, and nature as such is not his theme, 
 as the following lines naively admit : 
 
 Dans totas partz suy de ioy claus e sens, 
 
 Mas sel (i. e., love) es ioys que totz autres ioys vens," 
 
 What Diez says-* about the nature-poetry of the troubadours, 
 is equally true of the minnesingers, Walther von der Vogel- 
 weide not excepted. The greatest lyric poet of the Middle 
 Ages deliberately turns his back on nature and worships at 
 the shrine of woman. So in his well-known spring-song: 
 
 Wir lazen alle bluomen stan und kapfen an das werde wip. 
 
 It is true that, in this poem, Walther expresses Bernart's 
 thought in more poetic language, but the fundamental idea 
 remains the same : woman is looked upon as the ideal, and 
 nature is subordinated. This is, therefore, not a description 
 of nature for nature's sake. 
 
 4. The spiritistic reaction, showing how nature was con- 
 
 ^ Appel, Provenzalische Chrestomathie, Leipzig, 1902, p. 58. 
 
 =« Ibid. 
 
 ^^ Diez, F., Die Poesic der Troubadours, Zwickau, 1826, p. 123: "The 
 green of the meadows and trees, the scent of flowers, the radiance of the 
 sun, the song of the birds, form the sole material for the description of 
 nature, and not once has this material been used for painting a small, clear 
 picture, but all appears in confusion and is, in reality, barely mentioned."
 
 6 
 
 ceived as a source of mysterious oracles, voices, messages (the 
 echo, the wind, the murmuring stream, etc.), which speak to 
 man with a more or less definite meaning and show interest 
 in his affairs. This reaction is largely represented by the 
 nature-poetry of the Renaissance. What the troubadours and 
 minnesingers were unable to accomplish on account of their 
 lack of critical consciousness, that was now made possible 
 through the resurrection of ancient ideals. The appreciation 
 of nature's sympathetic message and appeals to her for assist- 
 ance are not new: the three classical dramatists of antiquity — 
 ^schylus, Sophocles, Euripides — eloquently express their 
 consciousness of nature's sympathetic power. In Sophocles' 
 Philoctetes nature sympathetically replies through the mouth 
 of the echo to Philoctetes, who is left alone with the wild 
 beasts of the forest, alone with his misery and with nature. 
 This incipient demand of sympathy and compassion brought 
 man and nature closer together, and gave rise, at the same 
 time, to a longing for harmonious union with nature, the pre- 
 requisite for which is solitude. Passages which express the 
 longing for solitude are not infrequent in the works of the 
 dramatic trio, and Euripides' melancholy language is often so 
 strikingly modern, especially because of the sentimental ele- 
 ment which it contains and which induces Butcher-^ to refer 
 to Euripides as " the fore-runner of modern romanticism," 
 that one is often reminded of recent poetry. It is quite natural, 
 therefore, if on reading Creusa's words in Ion (line 796) : 
 
 O for wings to cleave the liquid air beyond the land of Hellas, 
 Away to the Western stars, so keen the anguish of my soul ! 
 
 Schiller's familiar words suggest themselves :-^ 
 
 Eilende Wolken, Segler der Liifte ! 
 
 Wer mit euch wanderte, mit euch schiffte ! 
 
 It is true that Greek nature-poetry lacked the conception 
 of nature and God as one, and the profound mysticism of the 
 Romantic School, but it should not be overlooked that there is 
 keen and genuine appreciation of nature expressed through 
 
 ^ Some Aspects of the Greek Genius^ p. 295. 
 "^ Maria Stuart, III, i.
 
 vivid description which gradually assumed a consciously sub- 
 jective and strongly emotional character. 
 
 Renaissance nature-poetry appears at its best in landscape- 
 paintings which are of a more individual and subjective type 
 even than those of the Hellenic Age. The solitude of nature 
 is now consciously sought and enjoyed, and there arises a 
 sentimental and melancholy nature-poetry characterized by a 
 fondness for ruins and graves, which has its foundation in 
 the memory of ancient legends and of ancient history. 
 
 In the original sense of the term, Petrarch is a minnesinger, 
 because he is preeminently a poet of love. But while Walther 
 von der Vogelweide regards nature only as an intermediary, 
 Petrarch forms so close an association of the concepts nature 
 and love, that they merge into one another. In the solitude 
 of nature he converses with his beloved Laura; in nature he 
 seeks and finds solace when he becomes aware that there will 
 never be any response to his love ; and nature, finally, stays his 
 suicidal hand. Even after Laura's death, Petrarch finds in 
 nature the needed friend who mourns with him, who comforts 
 and sustains him:-^ 
 
 Per alti monti e per selva aspre trovo 
 Qualche riposo; ogni abitato loco 
 E nemico mortal degli occhi miei. 
 A ciascun passo nasce un pensier novo 
 Delia mia donna, che sorente in gioco 
 Gira'l tormento ch'i' porto per lei. 
 
 The great nature-poet of the Renaissance is Shakespeare, 
 whose work abundantly illustrates all the types of nature- 
 feeling hitherto considered. So true is this, and so well- 
 known, that quotation appears unnecessary. Indeed it would 
 be a bold thesis to maintain that there is any type of nature- 
 feeling known to the modern man which is not expressed, or 
 at least adumbrated, somewhere in the works of Shakespeare. 
 
 A nature-poetry such as Shakespeare's can be compared only 
 with most recent productions in this field, and even then it 
 must be emphasized that but ver}' few poets come into con- 
 
 ^ Canzone, XIII.
 
 sideration as his competitors, perhaps only Goethe, Byron and 
 Shelley.-^ 
 
 5. The anti-social or misanthropic reaction, showing 
 the conception of nature as a safe refuge from man's incon- 
 stancy, from the vice and corruption of the city, from the evils 
 of civilization, and from the cruelty and injustice of human 
 society. As I have already observed, a phase of this feeling 
 is found in the Greek poetry of solitude. One is also re- 
 minded of Horace and his Sabine farm, remote from the bad- 
 ness of the Roman civium prava iubentium. We often meet 
 it also in Shakespeare, more especially perhaps in his romantic 
 comedies. Take for example these verses from Two Gentle- 
 men of Verona:-^ 
 
 How use doth breed a habit in a man ! 
 The shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, 
 I better brook than flourishing peopled towns ; 
 Here can I sit alone, unseen of any, 
 And, to the nightingale's complaining notes. 
 Tune my distresses and record my woes. 
 
 In the eighteenth century, however, the feeling comes into 
 literature in a more intense form, expressing not so much a 
 pure love of nature or of solitude as a passionate aversion to 
 the works and ways of the civilized man. The herald of this 
 new feeling — so far as it is new — was Jean Jacques Rousseau 
 who was, to some extent at least, indebted to England. Upon 
 his return from his idyllic sojourn at Chambery and Les 
 Charmettes, he studied zealously the descriptive nature-poetry 
 of Pope, Thomson and Young, but his inborn love for nature 
 carried him far beyond any of his predecessors. For Rousseau 
 there was no happiness without nature : life in Paris, with all 
 the attractions which civilization and culture could offer was 
 loathsome to him. In the Ermitage, near Montmorency, to 
 which he had fled, he felt at home, surrounded by living forms 
 of his own imagination. Rousseau's important position in the 
 history of nature-poetry is due to the fact that he sees in 
 nature the primeval and universal Good which the badness of 
 man had debased. It is true that Rousseau's standpoint is still 
 
 ^ Biese, p. 224. ^ Act V, Sc. 4.
 
 theistic, in so far as God is proclaimed as nature's creator, but 
 we find here, nevertheless, the beginning of a pantheistic 
 idealization of nature, which culminates in Goethe. Atheism 
 is incomprehensible to Rousseau, for the very reason that all 
 nature represents to him a grand revelation of God. Those 
 who live amidst the wonders of nature cannot be without 
 faith : " Je comprends comment les habitants des villes qui ne 
 voient que des murs, des rues et des crimes, ont peu de foi ; 
 mais je ne puis comprendre comment des campagnards, et 
 surtout des solitaires, peuvent n'en point avoir."^*' Rundstrom^^ 
 well characterises the difference between Rousseau and the 
 theists, by pointing out that Rousseau needs no demonstration 
 of God, since he knows that God exists. Expressed in other 
 words, this means that, to the theist, God represents an idea; 
 to Rousseau, however, God is a fact. And this fact is always 
 before him, always within his reach : nature reveals the god- 
 head. 
 
 The exalted rank which Rousseau assigns to nature makes 
 a nature-worship possible, and nature-worship presupposes 
 intimate association with nature. Hence Rousseau's constant 
 desire which, when granted, is the cause of " inexpressible 
 rapture," to " s'identifier avec la nature entiere.''^- Only in 
 solitude is he able thoroughly to appreciate the grandeur of 
 nature, because only when absolutely undisturbed is it possible 
 for him to concentrate his thoughts upon so lofty a subject. 
 Thus he flees civilization and turns to nature, and when the 
 last obstacle between himself and God is removed, he kneels in 
 adoration in the temple which the Lord has erected for Him- 
 self: "Je n'ai jamais aime a prier dans la chambre; il me 
 semble que les murs et tous ces petits ouvrages des hommcs 
 s'interposent entre Dieu et moi. J'aime a le contempler dans 
 ses oeuvres tandis que mon coeur s'eleve a lui.^^ 
 
 It must not be overlooked that Rousseau was a true son of 
 his century, " whose very nature-sense does not fail to reveal 
 the foundation of a morbid disposition which may be analyzed 
 as Wcltschmers, Weltfiucht, misanthropy, or melancholia."^* 
 
 ^ Rousseau, ed. Hachette, IX, p. 72. ^ P. 56. 
 
 ^-Rousseau, IX, p. 376. ^Rousseau, VIII, p. 169. 
 
 " Biese, p. 358.
 
 10 
 
 Rousseau changed the direction of the current of nature-poetry, 
 but it remained for Goethe to change the current itself. This 
 new current is 
 
 6. The pantheistic reaction, representing the identifica- 
 tion of nature with the godhead. Nature is conceived as 
 omnipresent divinity speaking to the human soul, not with 
 separate and localized voices, but as a totality. 
 
 In the inimitable scene where Gretchen appears so sweetly 
 and naively concerned in guiding her lover back to the path of 
 orthodox Catholicism, Faust relieves her tender anxiety by 
 dwelling at length upon his religious feeling ; and so convincing 
 is the expression of his pantheism, so close is the adaptation 
 of his own lofty ideas to the unconsciously narrow boundaries 
 of Margaret's religious tolerance, that she is forced to admit: 
 " Ungefahr sagt das der Pfarrer auch." The passage in 
 question is so well-known that it may suffice to quote its last 
 summarizing lines : 
 
 Erfiiir davon dein Herz, so gross es ist, 
 Und wenn du ganz in dem Gefiihle selig hist, 
 Nenn' es dann, wie du willst, 
 Nenn's Gliick ! Herz ! Liebe ! Gott ! 
 Ich babe keinen Namen 
 Daf iir ! Gefiihl ist alles; 
 Name ist Schall und Ranch, 
 Umnebelnd Himmelsglut. 
 
 Special emphasis must here be placed upon the words Gefi'ilil 
 ist alles, for therein consists the very essence of the youthful 
 Goethe's message. For Goethe life is feeling, and feeling 
 comes through nature, so that direct communion with nature 
 becomes a necessity for human existence. That is the reason 
 why Goethe, as Robert Saitschick puts it,^^ " could grasp only 
 that philosophy which establishes and intensifies our inborn 
 feeling that we are one with nature ; a philosophy which trans- 
 forms this feeling into profound and calm contemplation, in 
 whose perpetual syncrisis and diacrisis we recognise a godly 
 life." That is why all the works of Goethe bear the stamp of 
 that vitality which can only spring from real life and from 
 nature. 
 
 ^ Goethes Charaktcr, Stuttgart, 1898, p. 119.
 
 11 
 
 As for the N aturschivdrmerei of Werther, it has been so well 
 analyzed by Laprade,^** Erich Schmidt^'' and Biese,^^ that any 
 further attempt in that direction appears useless. A remark 
 may be made, however, on the difference between Werther and 
 the Nouvelle Helo'ise. While in Rousseau's work nature occu- 
 pies a secondary position, serving the purpose of a suitable 
 background, Goethe connects nature directly with every im- 
 pulse and act of young Werther, and he drops entirely the con- 
 trast between civilization and nature which is so strongly 
 emphasized by Rousseau. On the other hand, with Goethe 
 nature no longer appears as the reflection of the godhead, but 
 as God Himself. Conventionality and unnatural affection, in 
 short all that may be gathered together in the one term Zopf, 
 is entirely foreign to Werther. Like Rousseau, Werther is 
 passionately fond of solitude, but he is not a misanthrope. He 
 speaks to nature, and nature replies. He feels nature as love. 
 There exist between nature and Werther unbreakable bonds of 
 sympathy which lead to the well-defined reflex action : " Wie 
 die Natur sich zum Herbste neigt, wird es Herbst in mir und 
 um mich her. Meine Blatter werden gelb, und schon sind die 
 Blatter der benachbarten Baume abge fallen." ^^ Biese justly 
 remarks*" that Werther's feeling for nature rests upon the 
 foundation of poetic pantheism. 
 
 There remains only a word to be said here with regard to 
 the evolution of the interpretation of nature within Goethe 
 himself. I borrow for this purpose the language of R. M. 
 Meyer,*^ who so clearly defines the various stages : " For the 
 illusionist Werther, nature was the sacred, pure, world-foreign 
 and inapproachable maiden ; for the maturing disciple of Char- 
 lotte von Stein, the all-providing, all-loving, indefatigable 
 mother; for the author of Tasso and Iphlgenia, the ruling 
 all-powerful queen ; for the poet in old age, the only adorable 
 goddess : 
 
 Werde jeder bessere Sinn 
 
 Dir zum Dienst erbotig! 
 
 Jungfrau, Mutter, Konigin, 
 
 Gottin, bleibe gnadig! 
 
 '' Op. cit., pp. 323, 336, 346. ^ Op. Cit., pp. 173 ff, 
 
 ^ Op. cit., pp. 380 ff. =» Ed. Hempel, XIV, p. 83. 
 
 ""P. 387. *" Goethe, ■p. S76.
 
 12 
 
 7- The romantic reaction, consisting of two distinct cur- 
 rents: (a) the largely sentimental feeling for nature shown 
 especially by the older members of the Romantic School and 
 well exemplified in Stolberg's 
 
 Siisse, heilige Natur, 
 
 Lass mich gehn auf deiner Spur, 
 
 and (b) the feeling of wild delight in nature's destructive and 
 terrible aspects, such as the storm at sea, the cyclone in the 
 woods. 
 
 Music and nature are the passions of Romanticism, and, 
 of the earlier Romantic poets, Tieck and Novalis best reveal 
 the truth of such a statement. Grillparzer, as an interpreter 
 of the musical element in nature, is greatly indebted to the 
 Romantic School, and there is many a passage in Grillparzer's 
 sympathetic nature-poetry which reminds one vividly of such 
 words as those uttered by Tieck's Franz Sternhald: 
 
 Ich mochte die ganze Welt mit Liebesgesangen durchstromen, 
 den Mondschimmer und die Morgenrote anrtihren, dass sie mein 
 Laid und Gliick wiederklingen, dass die Melodie Baume, Zweige, 
 Blatter und Graser ergreife, damit alle spielend meinen Gesang wie 
 mit Millionen Zungen wiederholen miissten. 
 
 What I have called the second phase of the romantic reac- 
 tion is illustrated in a well-known passage of Faust: 
 
 Und wenn der Sturm im Walde braust und knarrt, 
 Die Riesenfichte stiirzend Nachbaraste 
 Und Nachbarstamme quetschend nieder streift, 
 Und ihrem Fall dumpf hohl der Hiigel donnert; 
 Dann fiihrst du mich zur sichern Hohle, zeigst 
 Mich dann mir selbst, und meiner eignen Brust 
 Geheime tiefe Wunder ofifnen sich. 
 
 Among the English Romanticists who were contemporary with 
 Grillparzer, this feeling is expressed most frequently by Lord 
 Byron. The following passages from Childe Harold are char- 
 acteristic : 
 
 Dear Nature is the kindest mother still, 
 Though always changing, in her aspect mild; 
 From her bare bosom let me take my fill.
 
 13 
 
 Her never-wean'd, though not her favour'd child. 
 
 Oh ! She is fairest in her features wild, 
 
 Where nothing polish'd dares pollute her path; 
 
 To me by day or night she ever smiled, 
 
 Though I have marked her when none other hath, 
 
 And sought her more and more, and loved her best in wrath.^ 
 
 And then, Canto III, 92, 93: 
 
 The sky is changed ! — and such a change ! O night. 
 And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 
 Yet lovely in your strength, as in the light 
 Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along. 
 From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
 Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, 
 But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 
 And Jura answers through her misty shroud. 
 Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud! 
 
 And this is in the night: — Most glorious Night! 
 Thou wert not sent for slumber! Let me be 
 A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, — 
 A portion of the tempest and of thee! . . . 
 
 " Canto, II, 37.
 
 II 
 
 Grillparzer's Description of Nature 
 
 In his description of nature Grillparzer often animadverts 
 on the relation between nature and man. Both nature and 
 man, the "king of creation," are subject to law and order, and 
 neither nature nor man exists without purpose. Nature, how- 
 ever, is subject to her own laws which man, also, must obey. 
 This law of nature surrounds man like an invisible net from 
 which there is no escape, and the transgression of which means 
 death and destruction. Man is well aware of the existence of 
 this law, but he is unable to comprehend it, for in spite of all 
 the knowledge he boasts, he is a king without sceptre: he sits 
 upon the throne of creation, but nature rules. In the poem 
 of 1842 Wie viel weisst du, Metisch, der Schopfung Konig,^ 
 Grillparzer sets forth this idea with considerable sarcasm. 
 But this is not the only place where one may find a recognition 
 of the exalted position of nature, mingled with sarcastic, pessi- 
 mistic reflections on the physical and mental imperfections of 
 man. So, for example, in the poem Pflanzenwelt,^ the poet 
 shows that nature, conscious of her purpose, follows gladly 
 the outlined paths, and is satisfied with her lot, while man — 
 shiftless and malcontent — might learn a valuable lesson from 
 trees and flowers. A melancholy note is sounded in the poem 
 Im Gewdchshaus/ where Grillparzer laments the brevity of 
 human life, in contrast with the permanency of nature : 
 
 Aloe! Aloe! 
 
 Bliihest so schon. 
 
 Aber nur einmal in Menschengedenken, 
 
 Aloe ! 
 
 Wir leben nur eines, 
 
 Ein einziges Menschengedenken. 
 
 Wenn die erste Bliite voriiber, 
 
 *n, p. 55- "I, p. 175- ^Ibid. 
 
 14
 
 15 
 
 Aloe, Aloe ! 
 
 Wo Zeit fiir die zweite? 
 
 Nature is looked upon by Grillparzer as perfect, while man 
 is imperfect; nature is permanent, man is transitory; nature 
 follows and reaches her aim, man wavers, stumbles and falls. 
 Man is in need of nature's assistance and sympathy, and both 
 are granted him: nature loves man (the relation between the 
 two is that of parent to child), and man returns this love. 
 Gradually, as his appreciation and gratitude mature, he sinks 
 into nature's wide-open arms, finding comfort and compassion. 
 In unity with nature man finds strength, and by conforming 
 to her laws, he may be able to increase his vitality. Hence 
 the confident words of Rudolf in the Brudcr'^zi'ist:^ 
 
 Mein Haus wird bleiben immerdar . . . 
 
 . . . well es, einig mit dem Geist des All, 
 
 Durch Klug und scheinbar Unklug, rasch und zogernd, 
 
 Den Gang nachahmt der ewigen Natur, . . . 
 
 Turning now from the general to the particular, let us first 
 take up the poetry of the seasons. Naturally Spring plays the 
 most important role. The arrival of spring is beautifully 
 described in a poem by that title. ^ The cries of the cuckoo 
 herald the approach of the fairest season of the year, and by 
 means of a play upon the word Kukuck, which the poet 
 changes to Guck, guck!, the birds' surprise and pleasure are 
 cleverly drawn. The melting snow is likened to white 
 draperies, which a servant now proceeds to remove from the 
 furniture in the house, while another attendant is busy spread- 
 ing magnificent rugs, for which the blossoming trees have 
 furnished the material. This exquisite picture, over which the 
 golden gate-keeper (the sun) is pouring floods of light, is 
 made alive — like fine scenery on a modern stage by the sweet 
 notes of a well-trained voice — by the clever little orchestra of 
 nature which always plays in harmony, even if no rehearsals 
 have been held. Slowly, and with dignity, the stranger now 
 approaches, and while the orchestra is playing a joyous tune 
 of welcome, while sweet little flowers are crowding both sides 
 of the path over which he must come, while all nature rejoices 
 
 * IX, p. 67. ^ Fruhliiigskommen, I, p. 210. 
 
 3
 
 16 
 
 in anxious anticipation, the king now takes possession of his 
 kingdom. The heart of the poet is touched: the universal 
 rejoicing communicates itself to his muse, and thus spring is 
 also for him a source of blessing: new life and new vigor 
 follow in the wake of the " king." 
 
 Pull of charming details referring to spring, though its con- 
 clusion breathes pessimism and despair, is the poem Als mein 
 Schreibpult zersprang.^ All nature longs for Spring: 
 
 Und des Friihlings Kuss entgegen 
 Dehnt, erwacht, sich Zweig und Ast. 
 
 But not only the trees in the forest experience this conscious 
 longing, even the wood, which has long since ceased to be part 
 of a tree, and which man has already turned to his own pur- 
 poses, is affected by the powerful influence of spring, and 
 makes a last though futile effort to grow and sprout. Grill- 
 parzer also feels the potent forces of rejuvenating spring act- 
 ing upon him ; he, too, makes an effort to produce and bear : 
 a new enthusiasm, fanned by spring breezes, seems to awaken 
 in him, but it proves to be nothing but the last rally, which is 
 immediately followed by death : 
 
 Und mein Busen drangt und hebt sich; 
 Doch, nicht fahig mehr zu griinen, 
 Achzt er laut auf und — zerbirst. 
 
 The pessimism of these lines, which date from the year 1813, 
 is a reflex of unhappy moods and experiences which caused 
 Grillparzer to despair, for a while, of his poetic talent. 
 
 Grillparzer regards spring as nature's youth. Youth is a 
 formative period, a period of hope and of enjoyment. In Fur 
 ein sechzehnjdhnges Mddchen'^ the poet advises the maid to 
 make the best of her youth. He writes these lines in the month 
 of May, the fairest of the whole year, and compares the short 
 duration of spring beauty with the few months of pleasure, of 
 youth, which are still in store for the maiden of sweet sixteen. 
 Soon this happy time will be behind her, and the serious duties 
 awaiting her as wife and mother will tax her strength and 
 occupy her time. Spring is but brief, and summer, autumn, 
 
 '11, p. II. Mil, p. 52.
 
 17 
 
 winter will follow in rapid succession. Be happy then while 
 nature herself rejoices. Enjoy life while you are young: Dunt 
 loquimiir, fugerit invida Adas; carpe diem!^ Or, in Grill- 
 parzer's language : 
 
 Flattre, bunter Sommervogel, 
 Sonnenwend' ist bald vorbei . . . 
 Flattre! Denn noch ist der Mai. 
 
 Optimism and hope thus lie in the words of Bertha,^ who 
 looks forward with pleasure to the approach of May, 
 
 Wo das Feld sich kleidet neu, 
 Wo die Liifte sanfter wehen 
 Und die Blumen auferstehen. 
 
 On the other hand, when Graf Borotin complains^" of the 
 difficulty which he experiences in giving up, one by one, all 
 the fair hopes " In der Jugend Lenz empfangen," we have to 
 deal with one of Grillparzer's personal pessimistic reflections 
 where Youth-Spring, and Old-Age-Winter, are mournfully 
 contrasted. 
 
 In another part of the Ahnfrau^'^ Bertha compares the feel- 
 ing of hope, which begins gradually to fill her heart, with the 
 effect of " Spring's soothing finger," which removes the dark 
 envelope from the tender germ, and, likewise, in the poem 
 Der Genesene,^- the hopeful attitude toward life, upon the 
 recovery from an illness, is likened to the awakening and to 
 the productive power of spring: 
 
 Und als ob der Lenz erwache 
 All mit seiner Freuden Chor, 
 Treibt es nach der langen Brache 
 Griine Spitzen neu hervor. 
 
 But spring means more to Grillparzer than only youth and 
 hope. Linked with these two characteristics is the direct influ- 
 ence which spring exerts upon the human heart by fostering 
 love. The beauty of nature, at this particular time of the 
 year, is a powerful stimulus to passion, but our poet never 
 
 'Horace, Odes, I, ii. ^ Ahnfran, IV, p. 16. 
 
 "IV, p. 49. "IV, p. 124. 
 
 "I, p. 139.
 
 18 
 
 so directly associates spring with love, as the minnesingers are 
 wont to do. Love, according to Grillparzer, may be inspired 
 by nature's beauty at any time, although spring, which means 
 hope, is, perhaps, the most favorable period. This idea is 
 expressed in the poem Intermezzo :^^ in the month of May, 
 when the flowers bloom and when the sweet melodies of the 
 forest birds resound, love investigates if the natural condi- 
 tions are favorable : 
 
 Da hebt sich eine Scholle, 
 Die Liebe lauscht hervor, 
 Ob noch der Winter grolle, 
 Noch laut der Stiirme Chor ? 
 
 This sounds, perhaps, as if love had been asleep throughout 
 the long winter months. However, this is not so : love is like 
 a tender flower, unable to endure, unprotected, the hardships 
 of cold; and like a flower it demands to be cherished and 
 nursed. The sheltering roof of man affords ample protection 
 during the cold season, and thus we read, in the last stanza : 
 
 Doch friert es etwa nachtig, 
 Sucht sic der Menschen Dach 
 Und schiirt ein Feuer machtig 
 Im jungen Herzen wach. 
 
 The beauty of the description of spring and love is intensi- 
 fied by the introduction of the musical element to which the 
 Romantic School paid marked attention. The music of love, 
 its wonderful crescendo, its resounding forte, fortissimo, and 
 its gradual decrescendo, piano, pianissimo, and final morente, 
 is alluded to in a glowing tribute to the nightingale, the song- 
 bird of love. The lines in question form the last stanza of 
 the poem Mistress Shazn':^^ 
 
 Da tont vom Busch ein Laut der Wunderkehle, 
 
 Es steigt und schwillt, klingt nach, verhallt und stirbt. 
 
 Hab Dank, du Zauberin, o Philomela, 
 
 In die verloren, man sich selbst erwirbt. 
 
 Apart from those pessimistic references which we attributed 
 to unfortunate circumstances in the poet's life, Grillparzer's 
 
 '' I, p. 223. " II, p. 46.
 
 19 
 
 description of spring is altogether joyous. It is his constant 
 endeavor to bring out the loveliness of the season, and to 
 show its manifold aspects. He succeeds well, and his success 
 seems to be due to the fact that he is well able to gather the 
 various details together into one picture, where excessive in- 
 tensity of light is artistically avoided by the use of well-dis- 
 tributed shadow. It is with interest that we watch the painter 
 Grillparzer at work. Touch after touch we see him make 
 upon the canvas with his saturated colors, and, at last, perhaps 
 only in one line, he makes reference to the effect. One of the 
 best pictures of this kind, in which I fail to find the lack of 
 warmth and color for which Grillparzer's lyric efforts have 
 been criticised, may be quoted in conclusion. The words are 
 Publipor's in Spartakus:^'' 
 
 Wie wenn des jungen Friihlings lauer Finger 
 
 Den Schnee streift von der Erde starren Gliedern, 
 
 Das Gras hervortritt aus der Winterhiille, 
 
 Der Rose zarte Wangen siiss erroten, 
 
 Die blauen Glocklein holde Freude tonen, 
 
 Die Knospe auszieht ihren rauhen Pelz, 
 
 Des Bachleins Wellen durch die Wiesen hiipfen, 
 
 Und alles lebt und atmet und sich freut. 
 
 Summer, it appears, appeals to Grillparzer's nature-sense 
 most effectively at night, but his descriptions of summer seem 
 few among the numerous references to other phases of nature. 
 A touch of weariness and languor rests upon the few passages 
 that deal with this subject. Exhausted from the heat of day, 
 nature enjoys the refreshing breezes of a summer-night, and 
 man seeks comfort in cooling waves. So says Hero in Des 
 Meeres und der Liehe Wellen:^^ 
 
 Wo, wie der Mensch, der, miid am Sommerabend, 
 Vom Ufer steigt ins weiche Wellcnbad 
 Und, von dem lauen Strome rings umfangen. 
 In gleicher Warme seine Glieder breitet, . . . 
 
 The balmy air and the inebriating fragrance of a multitude 
 of blossoms increase the languor of the senses, and so, gradu- 
 ally, lead to self-oblivion. Nothing disturbs the holy com- 
 
 ^=XI, p. 134. "IV, p. 12.
 
 20 
 
 munion with nature, and even the melancholy vibrating notes 
 of the lute, luring like the voice of the nightingale, add to the 
 scene of universal repose and peace: the air listens, and the 
 foliage ceases to stir because of the lack of wind :^' 
 
 Hab' ich's euch doch schon erzahlet, 
 Wie in einer Sommernacht 
 Ich dort in dem nahen Walde 
 Mich lustwandelnd einst erging 
 Und, vom Schmeichelhauch der Liifte, 
 Von dem Duft der tausend Bluten 
 Eingelullt in siiss Vergessen, 
 Waiter ging als je zuvor. 
 Wie mit einmal durch die Naclit 
 Einer Laute Klang erwacht, 
 Klagend, stohnend, Mitleid flehend, 
 Mit der Tonkunst ganzer Macht, 
 Girrend bald gleich zarten Tauben 
 Durch die dichtverschlungnen Lauben, 
 Bald mit langgedehntem Schall 
 Lockend gleich der Nachtigall, 
 Dass die Liifte schweigend horchten 
 Und das Laub der regen Espe 
 Seine Regsamkeit vergass. 
 
 The almost total neglect of autumn in Grillparzer's treat- 
 ment of the seasons is characteristic. Is this due to the fact 
 that he does not care for autumn, or that he attributes but 
 little importance to this season? Neither one nor the other 
 can be true, because so careful an observer of nature as Grill- 
 parzer does not fail to appreciate the charm of an autumnal 
 landscape ; nor is there any reference to autumn which implies 
 that the poet regards this season as inferior to spring, summer 
 and winter. The fact is that Grillparzer's Hcrbststiiinnung 
 is somber, because autumn heralds the approach of winter, 
 which he dreads. The realisation of the impending necessity 
 of destruction is keener than the pleasure to be derived from 
 an autumnal landscape, and, it is interesting to note, the out- 
 look into the future is more painful to the poet than the actual 
 experience proves to be later, when the dreaded future has 
 
 '^'^ Ahnfrau, IV, p, 21.
 
 come. Death itself has no horrors for Grillparzer, but the 
 gradual and inevitable process of dissolution preparatory to 
 ultimate chaos deeply affects him. The leaves which are blown 
 from the trees in autumn storms are called " sommersatt " in 
 the poem Ein Herbstblatt,^^ and this one word characterizes 
 Grillparzer's attitude toward autumn, and explains, perhaps, 
 his preference for winter : all excesses lead to disease, and 
 disease is ultimately fatal. This condition gives rise to a 
 melancholy sensation in the poet, and may even go so far as 
 to become unbearable and repulsive to him. 
 
 How different is the exhilarating atmosphere with which 
 we meet in the poem Dezembcrlicd}^ Winter, the poet argues, 
 deprives nature of a great deal, but the loss on one side is 
 compensated by the gain on the other. This observation is 
 then followed by a comparison of the two great extremes, 
 winter and spring: 
 
 Eis dein Schmuck und fallend Laub 
 
 Deine Schmetterlinge. 
 
 Rabe deine Nachtigall, 
 
 Schnee dein Bliitenstauben; 
 
 Deine Bkmien, traurig all, 
 
 Auf gefrornen Scheiben. 
 
 A slight vibration of melancholy is perceivable also in this 
 passage, but we can hardly expect anything else when falling 
 leaves and butterflies, raven and nightingale, snow and the 
 rain of blossoms, etc., are considered side by side. It is in 
 this very contrast that I find the beauty of the description : the 
 attributes of nature are vastly different in spring and in 
 winter, but Grillparzer substitutes the attributes of the latter 
 for those of the former. Another note of appreciation rings 
 through the subsequent stanzas, where the beneficent influence 
 of the retreat to the fireside, in winter, is mentioned. For 
 man in general, and for the poet in particular, one of the 
 effects of this season is of utmost importance : 
 
 Sammlung, jene Gotterbraut, 
 
 Mutter alles Grossen, 
 
 Steigt herab auf deinen (Winter's) Laut 
 
 Scgciiilhcrgosscn. 
 
 "Ill, p. 48. "I, p. 157.
 
 22 
 
 This is why Grillparzer cannot understand the disrespectful 
 epithet Wilrger by which winter is sometimes designated. He, 
 on the contrary, bids him welcome; he looks far beneath the 
 surface, and expresses the result of his examination with the 
 appreciative words : 
 
 Und die Winter der Natur 
 Sind der Geister Lenze. 
 
 The vivid contrast between winter and spring, the sudden and 
 unexpected transition from one to the other, appears also in 
 his Diary en his Italian journey:-'^ 
 
 Noch in der Nacht passierten wir Monselice ; endlich brach der 
 Tag an, eben als Rovigo vor una lag. Ich schaute um mich her 
 und schaute wieder, aber es war kein Traum. Schien es doch, als 
 ob die Welt der Marchen wiedergekehrt ware, und irgend ein 
 wohlthatiger Zauberer uns in der Nacht in einen andern Weltteil 
 gefiihrt hatte. Auf unserer Reise bis Triest fanden wir iiberall 
 noch Schnee und Winter ; die See, das aXs d.Tpvyero';, bot kein Griin 
 als das ihres Wassers, in Venedig sprosst und griint nichts, selbst 
 keine Baume; nach der tJberfahrt iiber die Lagunen fanden wir 
 das Land schon in Nacht verhiillt, wir befanden uns daher mit 
 unsern Gedanken noch im Winter, und wenn wir auch glaubten, 
 manches weiter vorgeriickt zu sehn, als in den Gegenden, die wir 
 verlassen, so konnte doch der Unterschied, Zeit und Entfernung 
 betrachtet, unserer Meinung nach nicht so gross sein. Nun stellte 
 sich aber mit einemmal eine ganz andere Welt dar. Grune Felder, 
 von lebendigen Zaunen umfangen, mit Feigen — und Maulbeer- 
 baumen besetzt, an denen sich festonartig Weinreben f ortwanden ; 
 mit einem Worte : wir waren in Italien angelangt. 
 
 The more one studies the poetry of winter in Grillparzer, 
 the more one notes his fondness for that season. And yet 
 there is a number of descriptive passages referring to winter, 
 which bear the marks of blackest pessimism and despair. 
 Bertha's gloomy description of the winter-night,-^ where the 
 earth is likened to a corpse over which winter has spread the 
 shroud of snow, is motivated and made appreciable by her 
 youth. She longs for spring because her heart is young, be- 
 cause her blood is warm. To her, winter is as yet a cold 
 
 ^OXIX, p. 206. -'Ahnfrau, IV, p. 16.
 
 23 
 
 mystery of death and horror, which she fears because she is 
 not sufficiently mature to comprehend it. This explanation, 
 however, cannot be offered when one considers Grillparzer's 
 somber winter-poem Polarszene,— for here the poet speaks 
 himself. Death is also here the chord, and plaintive is the 
 note which rings throughout both stanzas. It is not so much 
 the presence of ice and snow, and the lack of warming sun- 
 shine, which seems to freeze Grillparzer's poetic imagination 
 and deprive him of his productive ambition : a keener con- 
 sciousness of utter desolation and, consequently, a depres- 
 sion sufficiently powerful to kill all self-confidence and hope, 
 must be attributed directly to the total absence of song-birds. 
 The musical poet needs encouragement from nature's voice : 
 
 Auf blinkenden Gefilden 
 Ringsum nur Eis und Schnee, 
 Verstummt der Trieb zu bilden, 
 Kein Sanger in der Holi' ! 
 Kein Strauch, der Labung bote, 
 Kein Sonnenstrahl, der frei. 
 Und nur des Nordlichts Rote 
 Zeigt wiist die Wiistenei. 
 
 Grillparzer here expresses his temporary Stiuimung, as he says 
 in the second stanza : 
 
 So sieht's in einem Innern, 
 So steht's in einer Brust, 
 Erstorben die Gefiihle, 
 Des Griinens frische Lust. 
 Nur schimmernde Ideen, 
 Im Kalten angefacht, 
 Erheben sich, entstehen, 
 Und schwinden in die Nacht. 
 
 The poet's general treatment of winter is wholly different. 
 Another specimen of optimistic description of winter may here 
 be mentioned: Jagd im Winter.-^ Emphasis is laid in this 
 poemupon the color-scheme of a winter-landscape : the heavens 
 gray, and the earth white. The monotony of this combination 
 of colors, due to the absence of a bit of relieving green — Die 
 
 ^ I, p. 209. ■■■' II, p. 50.
 
 24 
 
 Baume kahl — is enlivened, however, by the ghttering, crystal 
 ice. The poet's joie de vivre is only intensified by the cold, 
 and in a buoyant spirit he sings : 
 
 Mag zagen, wer will, mir wallet es heiss, 
 Ich nenne willkommen dich, blinkendes Eis, 
 Dich, starrender Winter willkommen. 
 
 In the second and last stanza of Jagd im Winter, there is 
 contained a reminiscence of spring, but in each instance we 
 notice the desire to suppress all thoughts of this kind, and the 
 anxiety to appreciate what is, and not what might be. With 
 this end in view, Grillparzer compares the present generation 
 of man with winter, and he comes to the conclusion that such 
 a comparison is more fitting than one with spring. Again he 
 welcomes, therefore, the snow-bedecked fields. To the advan- 
 tage of winter is also the comparison between the winter of 
 nature and the winter of the human intellect. The latter goes 
 further than nature, causing death, while nature only chills. 
 In the evening only, seated by the fireside, the poet believes 
 his longing for spring to be justified, but even here he states 
 particularly that the expression of his longing shall be con- 
 fined to 
 
 ein cinziger Seufzer 
 Nach Lenz und Bliiten und Friichten. 
 
 Of importance for the study of Grillparzer's description of 
 nature is his treatment of sunrise and sunset, morning and 
 evening, day and night, light and darkness. Wonderfully 
 blended are the colors into which the artist here dips his brush, 
 and ever-varied are his pictures. 
 
 One of these pictures of sunrise, suffused with a wealth 
 of color and light, may be found in Melusina,-* where Bertha 
 and Troll together call Raimund's attention to the break of 
 day : rosy clouds brighten up the heavens, and a " sea of fire " 
 rushes from des Auf gangs Pforten. This rapidly spreading 
 sea of fire overflows all creation ; its vital influence is felt 
 everywhere. So, the divine rays of sunlight lay bare the heart 
 of man: care-worn, he has tossed himself about, throughout 
 
 ==*VII, p. 258.
 
 25 
 
 the night, slumber has fled his couch; but now the soothing 
 messenger of nature seeks him out, and as hght and clearness 
 enter his anxious soul, lifting the veil from the chaos of doubt 
 and anguish, he feels relieved and comforted. Cf. the words 
 of Preisl in Friedrich der Streitbarc :^^ 
 
 Der Morgen schimmert schon von jenen Bergen, 
 
 Die Sonne steigt empor. Ist's doch, als ob ihr Strahl, 
 
 Indem er die Umgebungen erleuchtet, 
 
 Zugleich des Menschen Inneres erhellte. 
 
 Was uns bei Nacht auf scblummerlosem Lager 
 
 In marternder Verwirrung angstigte, 
 
 Es schlichtet sich beim ersten Blick des Tages, 
 
 Und Klarheit kehrt und Rub zur Brust zuriick. 
 
 The sun himself is heiter, and this characteristic trait is 
 rapidly communicated to all nature under the influence of light. 
 Even the smallest insects make merry in the sunshine, and the 
 awakening flowers nicken freundUch ihr en still en Gruss.-'^ — 
 The idea concomitant with sunshine is pleasure — pure, unselfish, 
 and universal : 
 
 Seht, im Osten steigt die Sonne, 
 
 Alles lacht in ihrem Schein."' 
 
 This pleasure is evinced by new ambition and by new activity. 
 Sunlight is thus a stimulus to work, and, with a consciousness 
 of purpose, the sun looks down in astonishment upon the idle. 
 This idea is beautifully carried out in Der Traum ein Leben,-^ 
 where the uplifting influence of sunrise is made use of, not 
 merely as a decorative stage-eflrect, but for the purpose of 
 arousing Rustan from his indifiference. Upon the sight of the 
 sun, Rustan bends his knee in worship and expresses elo- 
 quently his admiration of and his gratitude to the Eternal Sim. 
 While Rustan's prayer is the expression of youthful enthu- 
 siasm, we find in Merenberg's words'^ the light-inspired atti- 
 tude of hope, the last flickering flame kindled in the heart of 
 an age-worn man. To him sunrise means another day: 
 another day of life for him and another opportunity for the 
 
 -'XII, p. g. - "'^Psyche, XI, p. 124. 
 
 ^ Mehisina, VII, p. 257. "^ VII, p. 214. 
 
 ^ Konig Ottokars Gli'ick und Ende_ VI, p. 71.
 
 26 
 
 ruling House of Hapsburg, wliich he serves, to restore 
 Austria to the beauty and wealth which the tyranny of war 
 had temporarily laid waste. But the beauty and wealth of 
 nature must be seen, to be appreciated. This is made possible 
 only through the medium of light, as Grillparzer states briefly 
 in the Chorus in Mclusina:^^ 
 
 Doch wie aller Erden Pracht 
 Erst die Sonne sichtbar macht ; 
 
 while, in his Tagchiich atif der Reise nach Italieii,^^ he refers 
 to the effect of the rising sun, which unfolds to him the 
 wonders of nature as zvelch eiiidger Gcmiss! 
 
 The manifest combination of the moral and aesthetic ele- 
 ments in light justify Hero^- in calling it gottentsprungen, and 
 the poet carries out this idea more elaborately in his ode of 
 appreciation An die Sonnc,^^ which represents, at the same 
 time, a summing up of all the characteristics of sunlight: 
 
 Sonne, gottliches Licht ! Schaffende, nahrende 
 Himmelstochter ! Du spendest uns 
 Wonne, Segen und Lust, Fruchte den lockenden 
 Fluren, zeugest den Traubensaft. 
 
 Grillparzer likewise shows keen appreciation for the ro- 
 mantic beauty of moonlight effects. So, he lets Publipor^* 
 describe the magic charm of a moonlit landscape. The modh 
 herself is likened to a silver sickle contrasting prominently 
 with a background of dark-blue clouds ; the light itself is 
 characterized by the adjective si'iss. A passage in Das Kloster 
 bci Sendomir^^ shows the rising moon struggling with and 
 conquering the last rays of the evening twilight, while the 
 dark shadows of night " settle in the folds of the valley and 
 beneath the trees in the forest." If sunlight inspires to 
 activity, the moon, as a characteristic attribute of night, invites 
 to rest. This is the thought reflected in Grillparzer's ode An 
 den Mond,^^ a fitting counterpart to his above-mentioned 
 tribute An die Sonne. In this poem the heavens are likened 
 
 ^VII, p. 262. ^XIX, p. 253. 
 
 ^^ VII, p. 20. ^ II, p. 70. 
 
 ^'Spartakus, XI, p. 134. ^ XIII, p. 196. 
 '' II, p. 78.
 
 27 
 
 to the waves of the sea over which the moon ghcles gently. 
 Here, also, the moonlight is referred to as holder Schimmer. 
 The moon herself is personified, and her light is called Blick. 
 Rest, joy, solace and oblivion are the effects of moonlight 
 upon the soul of man : 
 
 Sanfter, als die heisse Sonne, 
 Winkt dein Schimmer Ruh' und Freud', 
 Und erfiillt mit siisser Wonne, 
 Trostung und Vergessenheit. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that Grillparzer sought Trostung 
 und Vergessenheit in the realm of poetry. The moon, now, 
 is one of the phenomena of nature which furnishes a source 
 of inspiration. In a later reference^' to the poem An den 
 Mond, its two first stanzas are attributed directly to the action 
 of the full moon upon the poet's imagination. 
 
 With glowing red, a contrast to the blue sky, the whole in 
 a frame of dark-gray, Grillparzer paints a placid picture of 
 sunset and evening.^^ Lest the green of the foliage disappear 
 in this sea of red, a gentle breeze is made to stir the leaves, 
 thus causing a vibration of color which the poet believes to be 
 so beautiful that he calls attention to it again through its 
 reflection in a near-by pond. Gradually, together with the 
 setting sun, the entire picture disappears from view ; the 
 approaching night casts its dark veil over it, and, like a mist 
 in the background, the fragrance of mountain, dale and 
 meadow rises slowly up to the heavens — incense from altars 
 of worship: 
 
 Berg und Tal und Wiese diiften, 
 Dampfenden Altaren gleich. 
 
 All is gray; farbloses Grau the priest calls it in Des Meercs 
 und der Liebc Wellcn;^^ utter hopelessness seems to linger 
 over the universe. But this does not last. Soon the picture 
 changes, as the somber gray is enlivened, here and there, by 
 the brightness of a star. We stand and count. One by one, at 
 
 ^ Zh den einzclnen Werkcn, XVIII, p. 165. 
 ^^Der Abend, II, p. 81. 
 =' VII, p. 47.
 
 28 
 
 first, then faster, and ever faster, until the number grows 
 beyond us 
 
 blinkt dort ein Stern, 
 Und dort ein zweiter, dritter, hundert, tausend, 
 
 and the former spectacle of hopelessness changes to an inspi- 
 ration of fairest hope : 
 
 Die Ahnung einer reichen, gotterhellten Nacht 
 
 drifts into the soul of man. Everlasting is this feeling and 
 the blessing of hope; it is a hope beyond the grave, for the 
 stars are always the same : their mild, soothing, hope-inspiring 
 light is always present. So Medea :*^ 
 
 Die Nacht bricht ein, die Sterne steigen auf, 
 Mit mildeni, sanften Licht herunterscheinend; 
 Dieselben heute, die sie gestern waren, 
 Als ware alles heut', wie's gestern war. 
 
 A suggestive passage referring to sunset and evening may 
 be found in Der Traum ein Lehen. Mirza here^^ passes from 
 one to the other. The parting sun which goes to rest is used 
 here for the purpose of introducing the idea of tranquillity 
 and repose. In this manner, the connection between sunset 
 and evening is established, and now follows a beautiful elabo- 
 ration of the theme which has found so much favor with 
 nature-poets of renown : evening, representing the cessation of 
 nature's activity, grants her the well-earned rest from the 
 labors of the day. The birds in the branches announce the 
 hour of relief for all creation, the herds seek shelter for the 
 night, and the drooping flower-heads, like babes at bedtime, 
 show that they have already obeyed the call of ^Mother Nature : 
 
 Abend ist's, die Schopfung feiert, 
 Und die Vogel aus den Zweigen, 
 Wie beschwingte Silberglockchen, 
 Lauten ein den Feierabend, 
 Schon bereit, ihr siiss Gebot, 
 Ruhend, selber zu erfiillen. 
 Alles folget ihrem Rufe, 
 AUe Augen fallen zu ; 
 Zu den Hiirden zieht die Herde, 
 
 "V, p. 217, "VII, p. 112.
 
 29 
 
 Und die Blume senkt in Ruh 
 Schlummerschwer das Haupt zur Erde. 
 
 It may not be far-fetched to recall in this connection Goethe's 
 well-known poem tjhcr alien Gipfeln ist Ruh' . . . 
 
 How does the period of nature's slumber appear to Grill- 
 parzer? This question leads us to the consideration of his 
 treatment of night and darkness. What is remarkable here 
 is Grillparzer's point of view. The element of rest and slum- 
 ber, although not entirely missing, appears to have been 
 crowded into the background under the forceful strain of 
 the realization that night's steady companion is darkness, the 
 mother of evil. There is a great number of passages which 
 thus describe night from the viewpoint of horror. The very 
 thought that night obscures the beauty of nature is sufficient 
 to inspire horror and fear. So in the poem Verzvandlungcn:^- 
 
 Wie bist du schaurig, 
 Du dunkle Nacht ! 
 Hier waren Wiesen, 
 War Farbenpracht, 
 Doch kaum zur Riiste 
 Der Sonne Schein, 
 So sank zur Wiiste 
 Das Eden ein. 
 
 More vivid even than this, is the description of the awesome 
 element in night as the result of a bad conscience, linked 
 invariably with the irrational fear of phantoms and spooks. 
 Night here becomes a tormenting persecutor and avenger of 
 crime — darkness not only breeds, but also punishes deeds of 
 evil. Jaromir's slumber is disturbed by the ghost of the 
 ancestress who leaves her grave at night. His morbid imagina- 
 tion and the consciousness of wrong make night and darkness 
 an intolerable burden for him:^^ 
 
 Da reiss' ich des Bettes Vorhang 
 Auf mit ungestiimer Hast : 
 Und mit tausend Flammenaugen 
 Starrt die Nacht mich glotzend an. 
 
 ^=1, p. 216. "IV, p. 44.
 
 30 
 
 Forces of nature, to which httle attention is paid in the 
 daytime, inspire fear at night. The howhng storm thus 
 becomes the terrifying language of darkness (cf. Ahnfrau, 
 IV, p. 86), and darkness is the grave, is death (cf. Sappho, 
 IV, p. i88). At night Mehtta was taken away from the lov- 
 ing arms of her parents. That night has left an inextinguish- 
 able impression upon her; she calls it imld}^ Drahomira*^ 
 directly refers to night as Die Mutter nachtlich schivarser Tat, 
 and she likens darkness to a dragon whose wings protect the 
 brood of evil, until it has sufficiently matured to withstand 
 the penetrating rays of sunlight. — Medea calls upon the 
 di'istern Gcister der schaurigen Nacht^^ for assistance; her 
 black magic art is the child of night.'*' The horrible dragon 
 who guards the Golden Fleece dwells in the darkness of a 
 cave,'*^ and Gora threatens the life of those who would deprive 
 Medea of her children with the words :*^ 
 
 Sie sollen . . . 
 
 . . . sterben, fallen, 
 
 In Grausen, in Nacht ! 
 
 Don Pedro speaks of the poisonous breath of darkness, and 
 midnight, he says, is pregnant with a black monster.^" The 
 horrors of midnight, when the owl, the bird of misery, shrieks, 
 when the graves open themselves and give forth their grue- 
 some contents, are drastically pictured also by Publipor.^^ 
 
 Again and again, as we have seen, night and darkness are 
 identified with horror and evil, but this is not the only aspect 
 of Grillparzer's description of the subject. Total absence of 
 light is always accompanied by hopelessness and despair. In 
 the description of sunset this idea was reproduced; in the 
 description of night, the poet carries it still further. To 
 exemplify, the words of Count Borotin may be quoted :^- 
 
 Fahre wohl denn, f ahre wohl ! 
 Maine letzte, einz'ge Hoffnung! 
 
 **IV, p. 163. '=XI, p. 3. 
 
 '"V, p. 45. ^'V, p. 133. 
 
 «V, p. 67. ''V, p. 178. 
 
 ■^"X, p. 187. "XI, p. 138. 
 '' IV, p. 93.
 
 31 
 
 Wohl, die Sonne ist hinunter, 
 Ausgeglimmt der letzte Schein, 
 Dunkle Nacht bricht rings herein. 
 
 The pure and innocent are spared the horrors of night. To 
 them night brings rest and refreshment, darkness brings sleep. 
 In Bertha's Lied in der Nacht^^ we have a beautiful exposi- 
 tion of this thought. Attention must be given here to the 
 fact that the terms dark or black are not to be found : Grill- 
 parzer associates horror and evil with these terms, and inas- 
 much as this poem has no reference thereto, they have been 
 carefully avoided. The whole poem, on the contrary, breathes 
 a beneficent air, and the consciousness of the blessings of 
 sleep is uppermost in the poet's mind. Darkness, as has just 
 been pointed out, is not directly mentioned, but only alluded 
 to, and the allusion itself is highly poetic: 
 
 Nacht umhilllt 
 Mit wehendem Flilgel 
 Taler und Hiigel, 
 Ladend zur Ruh. 
 
 The description of night as a time of rest leads further to 
 the consideration of that element without which rest is impos- 
 sible : quiet, tranquillity. Quiet is necessary for the prepara- 
 tion of some great work, for the planning of some important 
 undertaking, and this necessary element of stillness is afforded 
 by night, the time when all nature is asleep. Thus night may 
 be a source of inspiration to man; a thought which Spartakus 
 expresses so well :^* 
 
 Im Dunkel wird das Wiirdige geboren, 
 Und erst voUendet zeigt es sich dem Licht, 
 So hat mein Thun die Nacht zur Wieg erkoren, 
 Es flieht die Sonn', doch fiirchtet es sie nicht. 
 
 The same tranquillity which is an inspiration of work acts also 
 as an inspiration of love, thus opening the most important 
 page in the book of nature. At night, when darkness con- 
 demns our outer senses to inactivity, our inmost feeling is 
 more easily accessible to nature's influence than at any other 
 
 =*il, p. 12. ^*XI, p. 241. 
 
 4
 
 32 
 
 time. It is again Spartakus who translates this thought into 
 romantic language :^^ 
 
 Wenn sie vertrauend lag in meinen Armen, 
 Im Schoss der Nacht, die unsre innern Sinne 
 Vom Schlaf erweckt, wenn sie die aussern einlullt, 
 Vom Zitterschein der Sterne mild umflossen. 
 
 The reflection of night and darkness in the character of man 
 is shown in Jason's words t^*^ 
 
 Ich lieb' die Nacht, der Tag verletzt mein Auge. 
 
 This line is prompted by the fact that Jason is conscious of his 
 wrong-doing. — On the other hand, Grillparzer draws a power- 
 ful picture of the inhabitants of Kolchis by careful descrip- 
 tion of the darkness of its forests, the thickness of its fogs, 
 and the prevailing stillness of death, which is interrupted only 
 by the howling of the wind and by the uncanny rustling of 
 lofty pines.^'^ This gloomy picture is used for the purpose 
 of preparing us for just as gloomy deeds, to be perpetrated by 
 the natives of such a country. It is significant that Milo, a 
 member of the Greek expedition, rather than a Kolchian, gave 
 this description of Kolchis. A Kolchian could not give it, 
 could not do justice to it, because his description of nature 
 would be too subjective, as Medea herself remarks :^^ 
 
 O Kolchis ! O du meiner Vater Land ! 
 Sie nennen dunkel dich, mir scheinst du hell ! 
 
 Grillparzer attached so much importance to the description 
 of night that he devoted an entire scene, the first act of the 
 Arg&nauten, to a symbolic representation of it. We are in 
 Kolchis. Wilde Gegend mit Felsen und Bdiimeii (obscuring 
 light), . . . finstere Nacht, says the introductory note. Soon 
 xMetes appears gans in einen dunkeln Mantel gehiillt. Ab- 
 syrtus speaks in glowing terms of the beauty of Kolchis, the 
 land where the sun sets ; later he calls up to the lonely tower 
 in which his sister practises hlack zvitchcraft (the tower is 
 scantily lighted by but one flickering light). He addresses 
 Medea as Du IVandlerin der Nacht. When she finally con- 
 
 «XI, p. 152. »»V, p. 134. 
 
 ''V, pp. 47, 48. ^V, p. 146.
 
 33 
 
 sents to come down and to meet father and brother, she appears 
 in clothes which are highly suggestive of the poet's intention to 
 introduce a personification of sunset (cf. V, p. 37, bottom). 
 Aietes' guilt-laden conscience cannot bear so much light, and 
 thus Medea extinguishes her torch. She yields to her father's 
 wishes, and she agrees to make use of her art, to slay the bold 
 foreigners. For this purpose, she invokes the diistern Geister 
 der schaurigen Nacht. The appearance of Jason, who repre- 
 sents Light, sets off Medea's characteristics still more promi- 
 nently. Later, we are taken into ein diisteres Gewolhe im 
 Innern des Turmes, and Medea comes einen schwarsen Stab 
 in der Rechten. During her invocation of the furchtbare 
 Filrsten der Tiefe, she is surprised by Jason. He wounds her 
 and would have killed her, but as he raises the lamp to discover 
 her hiding-place, he is awed by so much beauty which darkness 
 had concealed from him. Light-Jason finally conquers Dark- 
 ness-Medea, because into her soul have penetrated the heavenly 
 rays of light, of love. The next act contains the following 
 significant introductory note : Es ist Tag. 
 
 There remains to be discussed under the heading of light 
 and darkness, the contrast between the two which Grillparzer 
 uses with considerable effect. While light leads to knowledge, 
 in so far as it represents experience gained through our visual 
 sense, darkness makes appeal to our inner feeling. Too much 
 light, however, is as harmful as too much darkness, and nature 
 has thus wisely provided for a proper distribution of each. 
 This is well expressed by Rudolf in the Bruderzivist.^^ Like- 
 wise, when Phaon awakes from the dream which shows that 
 he has now grown conscious of his love for Melitta, he con- 
 trasts the new light which has been poured out over his soul, 
 with the former state of gloom. The entire contrast is visual- 
 ized by means of describing the joy of one who sees the sun- 
 light again after being cast suddenly into the dark depths of 
 the sea. The entire passage*'" reminds one vividly of Schiller's 
 Tauchcr: 
 
 Ich atme wieder unbeklemmt und f rei ; 
 
 Und gleich dem Armen, den ein jaher Sturz 
 
 ='IX, p. 108. ""IV, p. 175.
 
 34 
 
 Ins dunkle Reich der See hinabgeschleudert, 
 
 Wo Grausen herrscht und angstlich dumpfes Bangen, 
 
 Wenn ihn empor nun hebt der Wellen Arm 
 
 Und jetzt das heitre goldne Sonnenlicht, 
 
 Der Kuss der Luft, des Klanges freud'ge Stimme 
 
 Mit einemmal um seine Stimme spielen : 
 
 So steh' ich freudetrunken, gliicklich, selig, 
 
 Und wiinsche mir, erliegend all der Wonne, 
 
 Mehr Sinne oder weniger Genuss. 
 
 We have here all the characteristics of darkness : horror, 
 gloom, and quiet, set off by all the attributes of light : impulse 
 of energy, sound and joy of living. In his apology to Kreusa, 
 for allowing himself to fall in love with the Barbarian woman, 
 Jason also effectively avails himself of the contrast between 
 light and darkness. The radiant beauty of Medea, in the 
 milieu of Kolchis' horrible night, captured his light-loving 
 heart ; but she remains beautiful only so long as her fairness is 
 brought into prominence by a dark background : in Greece, in 
 the land of light, she appears dark, and thus she loses her 
 former attraction :^^ 
 
 1st sie hier dunkel, dort erschien sie licht, 
 Im Abstich ihrer nachtlichen Umgebung. 
 
 As we have seen, Medea always represents darkness, in spite 
 of the above-quoted passage which seems to me to characterize 
 Jason's infatuation as an illusion. The very failure of the 
 marriage between Jason and Medea appears to be caused by 
 the contrast of light and darkness, sunrise and sunset, day and 
 night, which has been shown to exist between the two. A union 
 of two elements so opposed to each other is an impossibility, 
 just as day and night can have no place side by side. Their 
 paths, aims and purposes lie in altogether different directions, 
 and their children — (they are Jason's children as well as 
 Medea's, but they resemble him more than her) — are the chil- 
 dren of light rather than of darkness, and they obey more 
 readily the impulses of light. It is this realization which places 
 the dagger in the mother's hand:*^- 
 
 "V, p. 149. «2 Y, p. 215.
 
 35 
 
 Wenn ich bedenk', dass es mein eigen Blut, 
 
 Das Kind, das ich im eignen Schoss getragen, 
 
 Das ich genahrt an dieser meiner Brust, 
 
 Dass es mein Selbst, das sich gen mich empdrt. 
 
 So sieht der Grimm mir schneidend diirch das Innre, 
 
 Und Blutgedanken h'dumcn sich empor. 
 
 The significant passage through which Grillparzer seems to 
 anticipate, from the very outset, the gloomy end of the rela- 
 tions between the ill-mated pair, is the symbolic wedding 
 scene,^^ in which Jason tears the black veil (symbol of dark- 
 ness) from Medea's brow: 
 
 Und wie ich diesen Schleier von dir reisse, 
 Durchwoben mit der Unterird'schen Zeichen, 
 So reiss' ich dich von all den Banden los, 
 Die dich gekniipft an dieses Landes Frevel . . . 
 So f rei und offen bist du Jasons Braut ! 
 
 Jason here desires to wed light unto darkness, and the under- 
 taking of the impossible must finally be fatal to both. 
 
 A glance over the many passages which embody Grillparzer's 
 treatment of water reveals only one reference to its 
 usefulness :^* 
 
 Der Strom, der Schiffe tragt und Wiesen wassert, 
 Er mag durch Felsen sich und Klippen drangen, 
 Vermischen sich mit seiner Ufer Grund, 
 Er fordert, nutzt, ob klar, ob triib verbreitet. 
 
 A general description of water is given in the poem Das 
 Spiegclhild.^^ The poet lies stretched out in the green, by the 
 side of a spring, and, unconsciously, he allows himself to come 
 under the influence of the clear water in which he sees his own 
 countenance reflected. He forgets, for a moment, his prejudice 
 against water's treachery, and associates the still purity of the 
 transparent element with the longing of his heart, resolving 
 to settle here, and to dwell in harmony with it, in the expecta- 
 tion of finding rest and comfort : 
 
 ''^ V, p. 100. 
 
 ^ Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellcn, VII, p. 48. 
 
 ^ I, pp, 162, 163.
 
 36 
 
 An deinem Ufer will ich ruhn, 
 Will mir ein Laubdach baun, 
 Matt von des Lebens Miihn und Thun 
 In deine Wellen schaun. 
 
 But suddenly he beholds in the water not only his own picture, 
 but also that of a friend whom he believed in the distance, and 
 this reminds him again of water's insincerity. However, he 
 is far from quarreling with nature on this account, and he 
 accepts and appreciates nature as she is : to suggest improve- 
 ments would seem sacrilegious to him : 
 
 Des Wassers Art ist eben so, 
 Zeigt nicht nut ein Gesicht, 
 Die ganze Welt ist dessen froh, 
 Und ich auch grolle nicht. 
 
 In spite of the unreliabihty of water, the poet is ready to enjoy 
 its beauties, also in the future ; but appreciation of beauty does 
 not lay claim to trust, and he decides therefore to build his 
 home elsewhere. 
 
 The insincere character of water is made the object of 
 description in a number of other passages. Grillparzer's 
 personal sincerity and straightforwardness resents it, and yet 
 there seems to be a peculiar attraction for him in this par- 
 ticular trait. Like Lord Byron, he is at times aroused by the 
 beautiful spectacle presented by the conspiracy of the raging 
 elements against man. A picture of this kind is drawn by 
 Phryxus :*"' 
 
 Und wie die Wogen schaumten, Donner briillten, 
 Und Meer und Wind und Holle sich verschworen, 
 Mich zu versenken in das nasse Grab ; 
 
 and tiickisch and schzvars (the latter being here synonymous 
 with evil) are the qualifying adjectives with which Count 
 Borotin''" refers to water. 
 
 However, far more important than the treatment of water as 
 a treacherous element are Grillparzer's allusions to its harmoni- 
 ous language. In the poem BachcsgemurmeP^ he imitates with 
 rare skill the splashing of the billows, and he interprets the 
 
 * V, p. 23. «< IV, p. 98. «* I, p. 173.
 
 37 
 
 language of water. The poem represents a dialogue between 
 two waves. The second, i. e., the next-following wave, crowds 
 upon the first. The latter remonstrates, claiming priority, but 
 Wave No. 2 pays no heed. A cry of pain indicates that the 
 first wave has been struck and crowded out of its original 
 place. The remaining waves then comfort their companion 
 and chide the impatient one: 
 
 Nu, nu ! 
 
 Keine Rub? 
 
 Fliessen doch alle dem Frieden zu. 
 
 The musical murmuring of a brook conveys to the poet the 
 idea of joy. " Scht an den Bach," says Libussa,'^'' " wie froh 
 cr inurnicit/' and the hollow murmur of ocean billows, in the 
 neighborhood of St. Helena Island, reveals the voice of an 
 avenging deity.^° We observe then that the language of water 
 is one of the causes which lead to the poet's pantheistic in- 
 terpretation of nature. 
 
 Grillparzer's description of water, as may have become evi- 
 dent, shows particular interest in the source of a river, and 
 in the brook. His treatment of stream and river is not so 
 enthusiastically appreciative. This is due to the fact that the 
 transparent purity of spring and brook 
 
 Zu dem der Pilger naht mit durst'gem Mund, 
 Die Priesterin, zu sprengen am Altar,'^ 
 
 is much more attractive and symbolically significant to him than 
 the prosaic Strom, dcr Schiffe trdgt und Wicsen zvdsscrtJ- 
 The other reason for Grillparzer's apparent neglect of the river 
 is to be sought in his realization that the element of freedom, 
 so closely linked with spring and brook, is lost in stream and 
 river which become the Diencr eincs andcr-n''^ (i. e., of the 
 sea), thus losing their original individuality. 
 
 Guided by the Servant, we follow our poet to his description 
 of the Master, and we admire with him the beauty of the 
 sea. In 1819, on his trip to Italy, Grillparzcr saw the sea for 
 the first time. It is interesting to note with what impetuous 
 
 ""VIII, p. 214. '"11, p. 88. 
 
 "VII, p. 48. 'Ubid. 
 
 "VIII, p. 214.
 
 38 
 
 impatience the poet leaped from his carriage, when he arrived 
 at the top of the hill which was the last obstacle between him 
 and the object of his longing. Like a wild, resounding shout 
 of joy, a second @d\arra, OaXarra ! there comes from the 
 bottom of his heart the utterance: "Ah! und da lag es vor mis 
 zifcit und Man und hell, und es war das Meer! "''*' Grillparzer's 
 imagination had drawn a loftier, mightier picture than that 
 which he now beheld, but he had not expected so much beauty. 
 It is true, as he himself remarks, that the sea in the vicinity of 
 Trieste is not especially awe-inspiring. Perhaps, had he first 
 seen the sea in some other more favorable locality, the real 
 would have come closer to his ideal. Nevertheless, the im- 
 pression made upon him by the beauty of the spectacle was so 
 overwhelming that words failed him to express it. He 
 expected to find a " rigid, unsubdued element," and his admir- 
 ing eyes fell upon a calm and gentle sea which he likened in 
 beautiful language to a pacified sweetheart, " die doppelt schon 
 ist, wenn sie geziirnt hat und getobt, und nun doppelt hold den 
 Teuren schmeichelnd und besanftigend umfangt — ." Par- 
 ticularly beautiful appears to Grillparzer the sea at sunset. If 
 he had been charmed by the light-efifect, displayed by morning 
 — and midday — sun in connection with the sea, he went into 
 ecstasy {"und ich dachte mir im Fcenlande su sein"'^^), when 
 all the colors of the rainbow — blue and red and green and 
 gold — seemed to be reflected in the water. So powerful was 
 the effect that he was anxious to return home, for rest and — 
 for meditation. 
 
 In contrast with the immeasurable beauty of a calm sea is 
 the terror inspired by the raging element. Beauty may be 
 affected by a change of character, and so the poet describes 
 (Am Morgen nach einem Sturmey^ the sea as tauh und duster 
 in consequence of its foolish and useless struggle against 
 heaven and earth. Return to the state of calmness, i. e., of 
 beauty, is therefore the poet's advice to the sea. The cause 
 of the sea's hostility is attributed by Grillparzer to envy, and 
 this envy, he attempts to show, is unfounded as the beauty of 
 neither heaven nor earth in any way surpasses that of the sea. 
 
 '*XIX, p. 198. "XIX, p. 200. ■'!, p. 132.
 
 39 
 
 In another passage (Mir jams Siegesgesang) ,''^ on the other 
 hand, the storming sea is described as an agent of vengeance 
 whose anger can be appeased only by the destruction of the 
 guilty. So complete is this act of destruction, that not a trace 
 remains of the criminal, who disappears entirely, hidden from 
 view by the punishing waves, which are grave and coffin at the 
 same time. This is again an allusion to the ideal of ethics 
 expressed through one of the forces of nature, but in this 
 instance, strictly in accordance with the subject of this poem, 
 the avenging sea does not represent the godhead itself, but — 
 scripture-like — nature sings the glory of Almighty God : 
 
 Drum mit Zimbel und mit Saiten 
 
 Lasst den Hall es (d. h. das Meer) tragen weit. 
 
 Gross der Herr zu alien Zeiten, 
 
 Heute gross vor aller Zeit. 
 
 Descriptions of the raging elements coupled with reflections 
 upon their effect on nature and man are not infrequent; par- 
 ticular attention, however, seems to have been paid to the sub- 
 ject of thunderstorms. In the poem Gedmiken am Fenster''^ 
 we have a fine exposition of the contrast which lies in the 
 twofold effect of a thunderstorm. From the near mountains 
 comes the first warning roar of thunder; gloom, fear and 
 death is spread out everywhere : the whole represents a mani- 
 festation of the supreme power of the deity. The earth is 
 terrified, the air is in a state of breathless anxiety, the birds 
 have ceased their singing and they listen, from their nests, to 
 the mightier voice. All nature is conscious of the approach 
 of judgment. A flash of lightning causes the guilty eye of man 
 to close, and his inmost soul is bared by the brilliancy of the 
 pure avenging light. A squall of wind, which raises a cloud 
 of dust, thus hiding everything from view, adds to the general 
 confusion, and intensifies fear. The climax of tension is 
 therewith reached, and immediate relief is now brought by a 
 cooling shower. The fearful anticipation of vengeance yields 
 to the consciousness of nature's blessings : 
 
 Doch horch ! welch' leis' Bewegen 
 Rauscht durch die Blatterwand? 
 
 "I, p. 1 88. "II, p. 26."
 
 40 
 
 Was Strafe schien, wird Segen, 
 Vom Himmel rieselt Regen 
 Und trankt das durst'ge Land. 
 
 But not always is the damage done by the raging elements of 
 so little consequence as here. The irrestrainable power of 
 nature's destructive forces brings man to the sad realization of 
 his own impotence : with a shrug of his shoulders he must look 
 on, well aware of the futility of any attempt at interference. 
 So Naukleros :''''' 
 
 War sprach' auch wohl zum brandend tauben Meer, 
 Zuni lauten Sturm, dem wilden Tier der Wiiste, 
 Das achtlos folgt der angebornen Gier? 
 
 The destruction so often wrought by a thunderstorm is alluded 
 to by Ottokar, who compares his own actions with the ravages 
 of a storm.^'' Another inference, however, is to be drawn 
 from this passage. Grillparzer here defends the right of 
 nature to inflict injury, by calling attention to nature's ability 
 to make amends. He who destroys, must have the power to 
 replace, and he who destroys knowing that he cannot replace, 
 must necessarily commit an immoral act. Of such immorality 
 man may well be guilty, but nature is regarded by Grillparzer 
 as the moral ideal, so that an immoral action on the part of 
 nature is an impossibility. 
 
 Ich hab' nicht gut in deiner Welt gehaust, 
 Du grosser Gott ! Wie Sturm und Ungewitter 
 Bin ich gezogen iiber deine Fluren; 
 Du aber bist's allein, der stiirmen kann, 
 Denn du allein kannst heilen, grosser Gott. 
 
 The musical element is not found wanting in the poet's 
 description of storm and wind. Again we are able to dis- 
 tinguish the fine feeling and the trained ear of the musician to 
 whom the roaring thunder, the surging sea and the howling 
 wind mean infinitely more than noise, and who even attempts 
 to classify the music of nature. Like frivolous dance-music 
 seems to Grillparzer the roaring of the wind, and all that is 
 
 "VII, p. 77. ^ovi, p. 137.
 
 41 
 
 leer mid leicht, i. e., frivolously inclined, is seized by it and 
 whirled around in loud merriment :^^ 
 
 Wenn starke Winde wehen, 
 Dann fliegt, vom Schwung erreicht, 
 Papier und diirre Blatter, 
 Was irgend leer und leicht. 
 
 The birds take no part in the wild dance because they, the real 
 musicians of nature, feel the same aversion toward dance- 
 music as many of their human colleagues. They wait patiently 
 in their nests, until the orgy is over : 
 
 Doch wenn die Stiirme schweigen, 
 Die Sonne wieder lacht, 
 Dann sinkt mit eins zu Boden, 
 Was hob des Windes Macht; 
 Indes die kleinen Vogel 
 Hoch fliegen mit Gcton. 
 
 The words hoch and Geton are significant. Hoch, un- 
 doubtedly, is to be taken as contrast to the light, frivolous 
 element which remains much nearer to the earth, while Geton, 
 which is equal to harmony, or any other related term, is found 
 wanting in the references to storm and wind. One may un- 
 hesitatingly interpret this contrast as symbolic of the gap 
 between trivial and ideal music. The former, as one may 
 easily comprehend, has but little attraction for Grillparzer, so 
 that his longing for the cessation of storm and for the return 
 of nature's calm beauty (in which the birds' song is an im- 
 portant element) sounds very natural. 
 
 Without mentioning any of the many useful qualities of 
 rain, Grillparzer describes, in gloomy language, the effect 
 of rainy weather upon his own Stimmimg. Still better ex- 
 pressed, the poem Sendschreiben,^- which I have in mind, 
 shows not so much the effect of rainy weather upon his mood 
 as the reflection of his melancholy Sthnmung through the 
 medium of rain. Two of his fair friends have left Gastein, 
 the pleasure is past — " der Freiide Blumenkranz serrissen." 
 The heavens have donned black mourning and weep because 
 of this loss: 
 
 ^^ Bases Wetter, II, p. 70. *= III, p. 12.
 
 42 
 
 Es hat der Himmel sich mit schwarzem Flor behangt, 
 Und wcint in dicken, schwcren Tropfen ; 
 So sehr man ihn mit Flehn und Bitten drangt, 
 Nichts kann die Schleusen seines Zorns verstopfen. 
 
 This well characterizes our poet's general attitude toward the 
 phenomena of wind and rain. 
 
 To the study of Grillparzer's description of nature belongs 
 also the consideration of what I should like to call his 
 general description. This subject, again, has two subdivisions, 
 viz., landscapes and comparisons. 
 
 The passages which I have been able to collect for the 
 study of Grillparzer's landscape paintings are too numerous 
 for individual discussion at this place, so that I shall have to 
 confine myself to those which are best adapted to and, con- 
 sequently, most important for the present purpose. 
 
 On the whole, Grillparzer's landscapes show the lavish, 
 though not wasteful hand of the painter. Very rare, there- 
 fore, is the extreme terseness of the following picture,^^ in 
 Des Mecrcs und der Liehe Wellen: 
 
 Sei du erst heim in deiner dumpfen Hiitte, 
 
 Vom Meer bespiilt, wo rings nur Sand und Wellen 
 
 Und triibe Wolken, die mit Regen draun ; 
 
 It will be admitted that the outlines of this picture of a lonely 
 strand are scant enough, but the effect of the ensemble is far 
 from dull. Only two significant adjectives — diimpf and trilbe 
 — which characterize the whole situation, are met by the 
 weight of a few nouns which follow one another almost as 
 rapidly as in direct enumeration: Hiltte, Meer, Sand, Wellen, 
 Wolken, Regen. One may notice the logical succession of the 
 individual parts of the picture, which assigns the first place 
 to the sujet — Hiltte, the dwelling of Leander — then follows 
 the milieu — Meer, Sand, Wellen — and finally the background 
 of gloom is marked by Wolken and Regen. 
 
 Not so terse, though just as plastic, is the picture drawn in 
 Grillparzer's Diary on his Italian Journey.^* On reaching 
 Sessana, the last stop before Trieste, he finds the landscape 
 
 ^VII, p. 31. «XIX, p. 197.
 
 43 
 
 suddenly transformed into a desert. And this desert he now 
 proceeds to describe : total absence of all signs of fertility ; 
 now and then, a solitary chestnut-tree, with withered leaves, 
 and a few crippled mulberry bushes are sad reminders of 
 what might have been. Rocks — a sea of cold, unsympathetic 
 stone. And then the magnificent reflection which, reviewing 
 the whole picture of utter desolation, attributes the lack of 
 natural beauty to the curse of God. Only he who has ever 
 beheld the distressing monotony of a vast expanse of desert 
 land can fully appreciate the words : " Es war, als hatte Gott 
 hier gestanden, als er nach dem Falle des Alenschen den Fluch 
 iiber die Erde aussprach." 
 
 We do not look in vain for the counterpart of this picture 
 of despair. It is drawn by the king, in Die Jildin von 
 Toledo,^^ who describes the immeasurable joy of the traveler 
 in the Arabian desert, on finding, at last, the longed for oasis, 
 the bountiful island of green in this endless sea of sand. No 
 stronger contrast can be imagined than that which is here 
 developed before our eyes, in utmost appreciation of nature's 
 bounty : 
 
 Da bliihen Blumen, winkt der Baume Schatten, 
 Der Krauter Hauch steigt mildernd in die Luft 
 Und wolbt sich unterm Himmel als ein zweiter. 
 Zwar ringelt sich die Schlange unterm Busch, 
 Ein reissend Tier, von gleichem Durst gequalt, 
 Fand etwa seinen Weg zur kiihlen Quelle ; 
 Doch jubelt auch der Wandrer wegemiid, 
 Und saugt mit gier'gem Mund den Labetrank 
 Und wirft sich in des Grases iipp'gen Wuchs. 
 
 No detail is here forgotten, though thoroughness is hardly the 
 only merit of this description. The sujet of a painting must be 
 evident from the ensemble, and that the present picture, even 
 if the label Oasis, which Grillparzer places at the head of it 
 (in the five lines which precede the above quotation), were 
 lacking, would be just as intelligible and clear, needs no fur- 
 ther argument. In addition to thoroughness and clearness, 
 comes the painter's greatest merit : the naturalness of color 
 
 " IX, p. 206.
 
 44 
 
 which endows the picture with such intensity of Hght and Hfe. 
 We feel the cool shade of the trees, we smell the fragrance 
 of the herbs, and we appreciate with the weary wanderer the 
 draught of refreshing water, as well as the rest-inviting couch 
 of luxurious grass. 
 
 The overwhelming impression made upon Grillparzer by 
 Mount Vesuvius is expressed in a beautiful description, almost 
 five pages in length, in his Diary on his Italian Journey.^° Well 
 distributed, again, is the magnificent contrast of colors : green 
 in the foothills, the higher portions, near the crater, black, 
 set off by a deep-blue sky; glowing red the smoke at the 
 summit, bluish-green the sea far below. No wonder that the 
 inimitable combination of such colors aroused the greatest 
 enthusiasm: " . . . ich konnte zmhrend meines ganzen Aufent- 
 halfs in Neapel nicht satt zverden, ihn zu betrachten und micli 
 su freuen." The hermitage at the danger-line appears to the 
 poet like the boundary between the dominion of man and the 
 unrestrained freedom of nature. Before crossing this bound- 
 ary, which separates him from the black horror of the vast 
 lava-fields, he turns his eyes once more to the gentle beauties 
 of nature spread out at the base of the terrible volcano : 
 Naples, Castell a Mare, Sorrento, Vico lie there amidst nature's 
 charms. He bids them farewell, climbs higher and higher, 
 until he finally stands with his feet on the superficially cooled 
 surface of a fresh lava-stream. Instead of horror, his heart 
 is full of enthusiasm and awe. He kneels at the throne of 
 nature's majesty: 
 
 Habe Dank, Natur, dass es ein Land giebt, wo du heraugehst aus 
 deiner Werkeltagsgeschaftigkeit und dich erweisest als Gotter- 
 braut und Weltenkonigin, habe Dank ! Und mir sei vergonnt, dich 
 von Zeit zu Zeit zu schauen in deiner Majestat, wenn du mich lang 
 genug ermiidet in deiner Alltaglichkeit ! 
 
 We follow the poet still higher up, to the very side of the 
 crater, which now begins to shower huge glowing boulders 
 over all the surrounding country. A loftier spectacle of the 
 power of nature is unimaginable : we feel that we are stand- 
 ing in the shadow of death. — The description of Mount 
 
 ^0 XIX, pp. 226 ff.
 
 45 
 
 Vesuvius ends almost abruptly with the chmax itself which 
 is, undoubtedly, the death-bringing crater; almost nothing at 
 all is said about the following descent. This is not due, how- 
 ever, to the fact that the night had meantime come, but to the 
 well-planned purpose of the poet. The entire picture of the 
 great mountain is unfolded before us, as a panorama is 
 unrolled by a cinematograph. We follow the various stages 
 until the climax is reached, and here Grillparzer deliberately 
 cuts the film in order to keep our attention concentrated upon 
 the all-inspiring grandeur of nature. 
 
 Grillparzer's landscapes, in so far as they represent the 
 reflection of impressions gained on travels abroad, are full of 
 life, color and enthusiasm, but they are not the best which his 
 hand was able to draw. Foglar remarks justly :^^ "The first 
 and last, from which Grillparzer always derived the greatest 
 pleasure, was and remained his immediate home-territory. 
 Here were the very roots of his existence, and everything 
 appeared glorified by his most faithful love for Austria." The 
 patriot Grillparzer surpassed himself in his unusually plastic 
 pictures of his own native land. Some of these need our atten- 
 tion. Primislaus'^'* points in enthusiastic language to the 
 beautifully situated bed of the Moldau River. He likens the 
 river itself to the main artery of the whole country (Bohemia), 
 the source of blood and life. The rich fertility of the sur- 
 rounding country, and its mineral wealth, are to be inferred 
 from the proposal of Primislaus to build ships on which the 
 Moldau will carry 
 
 des Landes Uberfluss 
 An Frucht, an Korn, an Silber und an Gold, 
 
 far beyond the Austrian border, to the distant sea. 
 
 The two best Austrian landscapes are contained in the 
 ultra-Austrian tragedy Koiiig Ottokars Gliick und Endc. One 
 of these^'* is drawn by Emperor Rudolf himself, when he calls 
 his son's attention to the fact that he has now, for the first 
 time, set foot on Austrian soil. It is a description of the 
 March-field on which Ottokar was to meet his fate. Rudolf 
 calls it a splendid battle-field. This, however, is only inci- 
 
 ^P. 8s. ^Libussa, VIII, p. 203. *" VI, p. 133.
 
 46 
 
 dental. The true purpose of a field is fertility, but fertility- 
 presupposes peace. Hence Rudolf's advice to his first-born, 
 to devote himself to the maintenance of peace. The sight of 
 the March-River intensifies this picture of peaceful fertility, 
 while in the distance, "wo noch Nebel ringt," loom up the 
 dim outlines of the great city of Vienna, with the fair Danube, 
 a personification of Austria's wealth and power. — The other 
 picture"*' is contained in Horneck's report to Emperor Rudolf, 
 concerning the unjustified incarceration of his Lord, by 
 Ottokar. Only an Austrian can paint a picture of Austria 
 with such glowing colors ; however, we are far from reproach- 
 ing the poet for his patriotic partiality, and we are concerned 
 here solely with the consideration of descriptive beauty. The 
 painting speaks for itself: 
 
 Schaut rings umber, wohin der Blick sich wendet, 
 
 Lacht's wie dem Brautigam die Braut entgegen. 
 
 Mit hellem Wiesengriin und Saatengold, 
 
 Von Lein und Safran gelb und blau gestickt, 
 
 Von Blumen siiss durchwiirzt und edlem Kraut, 
 
 Schvveift es in breitgestreckten Talern bin — 
 
 Ein voller Blumenstrauss, so wait es reicht, 
 
 Vom Silberband der Donau rings umwunden — 
 
 Hebt sich's empor zu Hiigeln voller Wein, 
 
 Wo auf und auf die goldne Traube hangt 
 
 Und schwellend reift in Gottes Sonnenglanze ; 
 
 Der dunkle Wald voll Jagdlust kront das Ganze, 
 
 Und Gottes lauer Hauch schwebt driiber bin 
 
 Und warmt und reift und macht die Pulse schlagen, 
 
 Wie nie ein Puis auf kalten Steppen scblagt. 
 
 So dazzling a display of colors — griln, gold, gelb, blaii, silbern 
 — cannot be found again in any other of the poet's landscapes. 
 The whole represents, as he expressly states, einen vollen 
 Blumenstrauss. Nuptial joy is spread out over this inimitable 
 picture ; love here rules supreme : 
 
 Und Gottes lauer Haucb schwebt driiber hm. 
 
 Grillparzer's ideas concerning poetry apparently make com- 
 parisons of subjects under discussion, with nature, a matter of 
 
 ^ VI, pp. 86, 87.
 
 47 
 
 course. This accounts, perhaps, for the abundance of such 
 comparisons a selection of which only can be considered here. 
 Like Heine, Grillparzer compares the characteristics of his 
 sweetheart with those of a flower. His lyric language is not 
 as simple and as fluent as that of the author of Du bist zvie 
 eine Blumc, but his pictures are often just as bold: 
 
 Dass dein Kleid rosenrot, 
 Find' ich recht fein, 
 Kann's, wo der Giirtel schliesst, 
 Anders wohl sein? 
 Denn wo im Lenz ich sah 
 Knospchen am Rain 
 Gaben sic ahnlichen 
 Blassroten Schein." 
 
 In the same poem, Grillparzer likens the eyes of his beloved 
 to forget-me-nots, and her blond hair to the bright yellow of 
 a maturing cornfield. In the poem Bcgcgnung,^- the counte- 
 nance of the adored woman recalls roses, 
 
 . . . aber nicht wie rote, 
 
 Wie weisser Rosen Schmelz im Morgentau, 
 
 and her beautiful gray eyes are bathed in dew. Her lips 
 exhale the fragrance of flowers. — Individual beauty of woman 
 is also expressed by means of individual flowers. This is 
 done by Naukleros,'*^ who, in speaking of the multitude of 
 maidens that crowded about him and Leander, in Aphrodite's 
 temple, distinguishes 
 
 . . . bunte Blumen, 
 
 So Ros' als Nelke, Tulpe, Veilchen, Lilie — 
 
 Ein Gansebliimchen auch wohl ab und zu — 
 
 Not only beauty, but also youth is often compared with 
 flowers. Eurcr Jiigend Bhmicnzcit, says Jaqueline to Blanka f* 
 Medea complains that Jason's ambition has killed die sclwncn 
 Bliiten von dem Jugendbaum,^^ and, in the same passage, she 
 pleads with him to turn back once more to the beautiful time 
 of youth and love: 
 
 ^^ Huldigungen, II, pp. 30, 31. '"11, p. 36. 
 
 ''VII, p. 33. "X, p. 29. 
 
 '"V, p. 191. 
 
 5
 
 48 
 
 Nur einen Schritt komm in die schone Zeit, 
 Da wir in unsrer Jugend frischem Griinen 
 Uns fanden an des Phasis Blumenstrand. 
 
 The period of youth and happiness, free from care and danger, 
 is, likewise, characterized by Medea's sarcastic words addressed 
 to her innocent and inexperienced rival Kreusa. The early 
 part of life is here compared with a tiny boat drifting stream- 
 downward, and Kreusa, the youthful occupant of the craft, 
 clings an des Ufers Blutenzweigcn.^^ — In a description of the 
 virginal beauty of youth given by Phaon,^" the same idea 
 reoccurs, the fair form of Sappho having made upon him the 
 impression of BlumenJmgel. 
 
 Life itself is frequently called a tree. The best example, 
 perhaps, for the poetic use of this metaphor is contained in 
 Blanka's life-weary words :^* 
 
 O lass mich sterben ! An dem Baum des Lebens 
 
 1st mir im Keim ersticket jede Frucht, 
 
 Soil traurig ich die welken Blatter sammein, 
 
 Bis sie der Tod von diirren Asten schiittelt? 
 
 Gib mir den Tod, Allgiitiger ! den Tod ! 
 
 Des Lebens Freuden hast du mir genommen, 
 
 So nimm denn auch dies kahle Leben bin ! 
 
 The majority of other references merely speak of "Der Baum 
 des Lebens " ; the above quotation represents one of two pas- 
 sages in which the picture is fully drawn. The other may be 
 found in the poem Einem Soldaten.^^ 
 
 To mention all the comparisons with nature which Grill- 
 parzer used would lead too far; a booklet, one half the size 
 of Henkel's Das Goethesche Gleichnis, Halle, 1886, might 
 easily be filled with a treatment of Grillparzer's metaphors, 
 and details would be more in order there than here. For my 
 present purpose a few indications must suffice. 
 
 In the poem Worte des Abschieds/^° Grillparzer compares 
 the voice of the Muses with the Chor der Sphdren, the music 
 of nature, which is intelligible only to the thorough student,. 
 
 "^v, p. 147. »nv, p. 147. 
 
 °'X, p. 192. »MI, p. 140. 
 
 ^■^iii, pp. 24, 25.
 
 49 
 
 Avhile the beginner misinterprets what he hears. On the other 
 hand, the three Muses who favored our poet most (Melpo- 
 mene, Terpsichore and Euterpe), made him feel the necessity 
 of selecting a place where the natural surroundings would be 
 most suitable. The poem Wenn der Vogel singen will . . . "^ 
 shows us Grillparzer in search of such a place. The birds are 
 here made bearers of the ideas of music and poetry: 
 
 Wenn der Vogel singen will, 
 
 Sucht er einen Ast, 
 
 Nur die Lerche tragt beim Sang 
 
 Eigne leichte Last. 
 
 Doch der Fink, die Nachtigall, 
 
 Selbst der muntre Spatz, 
 
 Wahlen, eh die Kehle tont, 
 
 Fiir den Fuss den Platz. 
 
 Gebt mir, wo ich stehen soil, 
 
 Weist mir ein Gebiet, 
 
 Und ich will euch wohl erfreu'n 
 
 Noch mit manchem Lied. 
 
 In Germany rules storm and stress, in Austria dunkcH's ticf 
 and there is oppression from the clergy (Dohloi schzcarc), 
 ignorance among the bureaucracy {Kaus und Eule), non- 
 sensical talk on the part of critics (Staar>iiata), while the 
 people at large (Frdsche) show the traditional lack of intel- 
 ligent appreciation. No wonder that Grillparzer does not 
 know in which direction to turn : 
 
 Und so schweb' ich ew'gen Flugs 
 Zwischen Erd' und Luft, 
 Und kein Platz dem muden Fuss, 
 Als dereinst die Gruft. 
 
 Very impressive is also the comparison of the soothing 
 notes which, coming from the chapel where the funeral rites 
 are held over the body of Count Borotin, penetrate the very 
 soul of the patricide Jaromir, while silver swans glide softly 
 over a troubled sea:^"^ 
 
 Sauselt, sauselt, holde Tone, 
 Sauselt lieblich um mich her, 
 
 ^°' II, pp. 44, 45- >»=IV, p. IIS.
 
 50 
 
 Sanft und weich, wie Silberschwane 
 Uber ein bewegtes Meer, 
 Schiittelt cure weichen Schwingen, 
 Traufelt Balsam auf dies Herz, 
 Lasst die Himmelslieder klingen, 
 Einzuschlafern meinen Schmerz.
 
 Ill 
 
 Grillparzer's Interpretation of Nature 
 
 While, in the preceding chapter, I was concerned to show 
 the range and character of Grillparzer's feeling for nature; 
 what aspects of the outer world appealed to him most, and 
 how this appeal is poetically denoted ; the present chapter will 
 be concerned more with the meaning of nature's message : in 
 other words, with Grillparzer's interpretation of nature's 
 voices, and his attitude toward nature as a whole. It is true 
 that description and interpretation interblend more or less, 
 so that it is not possible to keep them entirely apart; never- 
 theless, the distinction can be made in a rough way, and the 
 present chapter is thus devoted to the consideration of those 
 passages on the basis of which one may study the poet's phi- 
 losophy of nature. 
 
 An analysis of Grillparzer's interpretation of nature is not 
 a speculative matter, necessitating to read between the lines 
 or to seek for some cryptic significance; on the contrary, the 
 poet's language is at all times clear and free from disturbing 
 circumlocutions.^ Thus it is possible to base all conclusions 
 upon actual facts rather than upon a number of loosely con- 
 nected hypotheses. 
 
 In the first place, a multitude of passages show that, for 
 Grillparzer, nature is not a mechanism but a conscious being. 
 With him, all nature represents a living, feeling, and thinking 
 personality. Nothing nature may do bears the least resem- 
 blance to the thoughtless indifference and mechanicalness with 
 which many human beings perform their assigned tasks. In 
 nature, then, there is, at all times, a pronounced consciousness 
 
 ^ Compare with this statement the words of Ehrhard, Le Theatre en 
 Auiriche, Paris, 1900, p. 115: "His (Grillparzer's) lyric works have not the 
 ingenuous charm or the transparent form of Goethe's Lieder or ballads. 
 Although full of emotion, they reveal a certain painfulness and calculation, 
 which at times culminate in obscurity." 
 
 51
 
 52 
 
 of purpose, from which alone may spring her joy of Hving. 
 Most keen is nature's ambition in the early hours of morning 
 when, with a new day, begins new activity, new life, new joy. 
 The sun knows what he is doing as he pours his red light over 
 the tree-tops, the bushes become alive with the song of birds, 
 even grass and foliage reflect new energy in the nightly dew 
 which the morning-sun has not yet been able to remove, and 
 the lark sings a herscrhebend Juhellied:- 
 
 Und alias wacht und lebt und freut sich seines Lebens. 
 
 The mere consciousness of being light, i. e., beauty, is not suffi- 
 cient to satisfy the sun, but coupled with it is the realization 
 of the function of light.^ Consciousness of purpose, now, 
 results in calm contentment with the circumstances in which 
 nature lives : her path lies outlined before her, and her duty 
 is a source of pleasure, rather than of misery. This idea is 
 set forth in the poem Pfianzemvelt^ The same poem shows 
 also that nature's heart knows nothing of envy. The fragrance 
 of the rose thus fails to fill the lofty oak with shame, and the 
 rose itself continues to fulfil its purpose, undisturbed by the 
 fact that it has nothing to give but fragrance, while a sloe- 
 tree, in its immediate neighborhood, is laden down with fruit. 
 The importance, according to Grillparzer, lies with the genus 
 rather than with the species, with the cause itself rather than 
 with the effect. Or, as Bertha significantly expresses it:° 
 
 Schmetterlinge, bunte Gaukler, 
 Die die keusche Rose kiissen, 
 Aber nicht, weil sie die Rose, 
 Weil sie eine Blutne ist. 
 
 Another phase of nature's consciousness is her obedience to 
 law. Nature is thus aware of the eternal law by which it is 
 governed, and it at all times obeys the law. This law of nature, 
 which Kascha*' calls Notigimg, is universal, wise, unchangeable, 
 and ever-valid. Without law there is anarchy and chaos. The 
 Rhine, therefore (cf. the poem Diplomatischy obediently 
 follows the path which God (nature) has mapped out; the 
 
 ^ Wer ist scliuldig?, X, p. 227. ^ Treiier Dicner, VI, p. 211. 
 
 *IV, p. 48. ^I, p. 174. 
 
 «VIII, p. 169. ''II, p. 102.
 
 53 
 
 river is conscious of the consequences which would arise from 
 disobedience : 
 
 Denn ohne Ufer war' er "Uberschwemmung, 
 Ein greulich Mittelding von See und Sumpf, 
 Aus dem die Sonne feuchte Nebel zieht, 
 Von Unken nur bewohnt und ihrer Brut. 
 
 According to this law, nature is ever new, because the process 
 of reproduction is constantly going on. Every spring brings a 
 fresh supply of foliage, and this takes the place of last year's 
 foliage which is now a matter of the past: Tlavra fel. In- 
 dividual strength is most essential for him who deserves to 
 remain on the surface of this rapidly flowing stream : the weak 
 must perish in order to make room for the development of their 
 superiors in endurance and vitality: the survival of the fittest 
 is a physical necessity. In Jngenderinnertingen im Grilnen^ 
 Grillparzer alludes to this law. 
 
 The law of nature, now, embodies not only physical, but also 
 economic, logical and moral principles. Grillparzer does not 
 neglect any of these, but rather than mention them as parts of 
 the law, he assigns a place to them as components of nature's 
 personality. The economic character of nature is emphasized 
 in various places. Nature herself represents wealth. This 
 wealth is safe in the hands of nature, because she is a thrifty 
 manager who distributes it wisely and fairly. A lavish ex- 
 penditure, carefully noted on one page of her ledger, is bal- 
 anced, on the other, by conscientious economy. So in 
 F ortschrittsmdnner :^ 
 
 AUein bedenkt doch ! Die Natur ist sparsam 
 Mit Gleichem, seit dem Anfang halt sic Haus, 
 Was allzuviel, nimmt 'riick sie in Gewahrsam 
 Und gleicht durch Kargheit die Verschwendung aus. 
 
 On the other hand, nature's thoroughness is a safeguard 
 against losses. All she undertakes is finished and complete. 
 
 The infaUible logic and consistency of nature is referred to 
 with almost exactly the same words. It is impossible for 
 nature to contradict herself (cf. Sappho and Blanka),^° for 
 
 * I, p. 229. • II, p. 205. 
 
 ^"IV, p. 183, and X, p. 186.
 
 54 
 
 the very reason that nature is embodied truth. This is 
 poetically expressed by Gregor (Weh dem, der lilgt!) :" 
 
 Wahr ist die ganze kreisende Natur; 
 Wahr ist der Wolf, der briillt, eh er verschlingt, 
 ■ Wahr ist der Donner, drohend, wenn es blitzt, 
 Wahr ist die Flamme, die von fern schon sengt, 
 Die Wasserflut, die heulend Wirbel schlagt; 
 Wahr sind sie, weil sie sind, weil Dasein Wahrheit. 
 
 Here lies the great contrast between nature and man, between 
 God and his fallen image. Rudolf (Bruderszvist) ,^^ as well 
 as Pedro (Blanka),^^ deplore the sad condition of affairs 
 which leaves such an abyss between the lofty path of the god- 
 head and the crooked road of cunning and deception trodden 
 by the erring foot of man. 
 
 The logical element leads over directly to the moral. The 
 conscious choice of truth, in preference to untruth, is one of 
 nature's many virtues. The heart of nature is true and pure ! 
 A pure heart, now, shudders at the thought of evil, and is 
 horrified by depravity. So Jaromir^* is obliged to continue on 
 his terrible path of wanton bloodshed, in spite of nature's 
 revolt, and the mere sight of Don Pedro's^^ wretched counselors 
 causes nature to shrink away in horror. Only he who is free 
 from sin has the right to cast the first stone. Nature, there- 
 fore, is entitled to the privilege of avenging wrong. She is the 
 power to which man appeals in the moment of extreme agony, 
 when he realizes his own helplessness. " Von euch, ihr 
 Kraniche dort ohen," Schiller's Ibykus exclaims, and Grill- 
 parzer's Phryxus^*' expresses exactly the same idea when he 
 appeals to the thunder of the gods, to wreak vengeance upon 
 his faithless host: 
 
 So treffe dich der Gotter Donnerfluch, 
 Der liber dem rollt, der die Treue bricht. 
 
 Nature herself, however, does not look upon the act of 
 vengeance as a pleasurable privilege, but as a duty ; and in the 
 performance of duty she is pitiless and unrestrainable. It 
 
 "VIII, p. 12. ^2 IX, p. 25. 
 
 "X, p. 103. "IV, p. 119. 
 
 "X, p. 113. "V, p. 30.
 
 55 
 
 falls to Leander's lot to make this sad experience, and Hero^'^ 
 calls attention to the plight of her swimming lover, in his futile 
 struggle against the raging elements. In vain is his appeal to 
 the sympathy of nature ; sea, storm and darkness unite for his 
 destruction ; nature loses heart, ear and eye, in this lofty 
 combat between right and wrong. Leander must pay the 
 penalty for his guilt. This avenging role of nature is evident 
 also indirectly from the method pursued by her in making 
 wrong visible, for the protection of right. We have to deal 
 here with the mark of Cain, by means of which nature desires 
 to warn and frighten : 
 
 Mit blut'gcr Flammenschrift hat die Natur 
 Auf deinem Antlitz " Morder " dich gescholten. 
 
 With these significant words Fedriko^'^ shows that he is aware 
 of Haro's character, and that he divines the latter's gloomy 
 mission. At times, the very aspect of nature may frighten the 
 evil-doer and make him drop his nefarious schemes. This 
 causes Medea, who has once before yielded to the unrighteous 
 demand of her father, to refuse him obedience a second time. 
 Even though this refusal be only temporary — Aietes finally 
 wins her over by proving to her that the lives of himself and 
 Absyrtus are at stake — Medea's wavering sufificiently estab- 
 lishes the point :^^ 
 
 Glaubst du, ich konnt's, ich vermocht' es? 
 
 Hundertmal hab' ich aufgeblickt 
 
 Zu den glanzenden Zeichen 
 
 Am Firmament der Nacht, 
 
 Und alle hundert Male 
 
 Sanken meine Blicke, 
 
 Von Schreck getroffen, unbelehrt, 
 
 Es schien der Himmel mir ein aufgerolltcs Buch, 
 
 Und Mord darauf geschrieben, tausendfach, 
 
 Und Rache mit demantnen Lettern 
 
 Auf seinem schwarzen Grund. 
 
 Grillparzer appears to be extremely careful to make the 
 interpretation of nature as a moral power as complete as 
 possible. A being with the consciousness of right and wrong, 
 
 "VII, p. 95. '»x, p. 133. "V, p. 41.
 
 56 
 
 without ever doing wrong, cannot be devoid of the sense of 
 justice. Nature, therefore, is called blind,^^ and her ideal im- 
 partiality is emphasized in Blanka.-^ Rich and poor, king and 
 beggar, find like favor in nature's eyes, and the fairest gift 
 which she has bestowed upon all, without discrimination, is the 
 very reflection of her ideal goodness which appears in man as 
 rcine Menschlichkeit: 
 
 Der schone Name Mensch, den die Natur 
 
 Dem Bettler wie dem Konig giitig gab, 
 
 Den schonsten, den sie ihnen geben konnte." 
 
 Again, Grillparzer looks upon nature as the visible personi- 
 fication of the ideas of eternity and freedom. Only the deity 
 rules forever — the law of nature is ever the same. What a 
 contrast, therefore, between nature and man who is constantly 
 changing in accordance with the circumstances. 
 
 So wandellos, sich gleich ist die Natur, 
 
 So wandelbar der Mensch und sein Geschick, 
 
 says Medea,^^ while Scipio,^* boasting of the regularity of the 
 Roman machinery of state, likens it to the perpetuity of nature : 
 
 Vom Wechsel frei und unaufhaltsam, wie 
 Der Wesen Kreis im Umschwung der Natur, 
 Geht unsers Staates immer kreisend Rad ; 
 Das Einzelne wird wohl erwagt, das Ganze — 
 Wie Winter sich und Sommer, Herbst und Lenz 
 Mit Sturm und Sonne, Herbst und Bliite folgen — 
 Bleibt sich in ewig gleichen Bahnen gleich. 
 
 In numerous passages, nature appears as the idea of free- 
 dom. This alone is an inspiration to the poet who, like a bird 
 in the cage, is unable to sing,^^ unless he shares the freedom of 
 nature. This freedom, the breath of nature, in Rustan's 
 
 ^ Die Tdnzerin, III, p. 21. 
 =^X, p. 155: 
 
 Die Macht zum Grossen kommt von innen, und 
 
 Parteiisch hat nie die Natur geteilt ; 
 
 Es bliihn in jedes Menschen stolzer Brust 
 
 Die Zeugen der Gottahnlichkeit. 
 "^X, p. 45. =^V, p. 217. 
 
 •* Hannibal, XII, p. 130. "'II, p. 175.
 
 57 
 
 language,-*^ is "the mother of all," the uplifting influence of 
 the universe, and only he who is free is capable of an intelli- 
 gent appreciation of nature.-^ Without freedom, nature is an 
 impossibility : the very roots of nature's strength are planted in 
 this precious soil, and they will suffer no interference. The 
 young pine-tree will break the yoke imposed by human hands, 
 and the unfortunate plant grown in the hot-house'^ betrays by 
 its pallor the nearness of death. An attempt to pacify the 
 roaring of the wind, and to subdue the mighty upheaval of the 
 sea^^ is a ridiculous exhibition of human frailty, for nature is 
 free, knows freedom, and claims it as her privilege. Woe 
 unto him who dares encroach upon her sacred rights : 
 
 Denn der Natur allher notwend'ge Machte, 
 Sie hassen, was sich freie Bahnen zieht, 
 Als vorenthalten ihrem ew'gen Rechte, 
 Und reissen's lauernd in ihr Machtgebiet.'" 
 
 To the poet belongs all nature. Not only a part of the god- 
 head, but God Himself: 
 
 Wo warst du denn, als man die Welt geteilet? 
 Ich war, sprach der Poet, bei dir.^^ 
 
 Thus all nature is, for Grillparzer, not only an inspiration of 
 poetry, but rather poetry itself. This makes nature an end, 
 not a means, and nature and poetry become inseparable. There 
 is poetry in a landscape, in a waterfall, in a tree which has 
 been set aflame by lightning, in the fragrance of flowers, and 
 in the chorus of the birds. Nature speaks in rhythmic lan- 
 guage, and all the poet has to do is to transcribe the voice of 
 nature, not imitate it. Grillparzer faithfully recorded what he 
 saw and heard, and thus his nature-poetry is the result of his 
 communication with nature. The wonderful interpretation of 
 nature's voice in the poem Am Hilgel,^- is so clear that further 
 comment seems unnecessary: 
 
 O Hiigel ! sanft von Steinen aufgeschichtet, 
 Die saftig Gras und Alpenmoos umzicht, 
 
 '"VII, p. 174. ^ Klostcrscene, I, p. 202, 
 
 -"Nachruf, II, p. 71. "^ Dlaiika, X, p. 47. 
 
 ^^ I, p. 129. "Schiller, Teilung der Erdc. 
 
 "I, p. 143-
 
 58 
 
 Von dcincm Haupt ein Baum emporgerichtet, 
 
 An dem die Vogclbeere gliiht; 
 Indes am Fuss, in buntgemischter Reihe, 
 
 Der Schwarzbeer' dunkle Frucht und helles Kraut, 
 Hoch iiberragt von Weidrichs Veilchenblaue, 
 
 Dir einen Thron, sich eine Freistatt baut; 
 Wie schon blickst du herab von deiner Hohe, 
 
 Wie wiirdig stellst du dich dem Auge dar ! 
 Der Wandrer steht entziickt in deiner Nahe, 
 
 Und sucht beinah nach Weihort und Altar. 
 Gewiss auch, rollten noch die alten Zeiten, 
 
 Da unentzweit der Gott und die Natur, 
 Ein Schutzgott wiirde hier sich Sitz bereiten, 
 
 Wo Graser jetzt, hilflose Blumen nur. 
 Doch, da ich solches kaum gewagt zu denken, 
 
 Straft Liigen mich ein schauerndes Gefiihl ; 
 Ich fiihie Geister sich herniedersenken, 
 
 Und mich umlispeln in der Winde Spiel. 
 Erinnrung kommt, der stillvertraute Zeuge 
 
 Von dem, -was einst das Gliick mir hier verlieh. 
 Und wie geschlossnen Augs ich mich hiniiberneige, 
 
 An ihrer Hand die Poesie. 
 
 Let us now consider Grillparzer's feeling for Solitude. On 
 this subject we get light from what he says of Rousseau in his 
 Studicn siir Literatiir.^^ Rousseau is there characterized as 
 the egotist par excellence, whose every thought and act centers 
 around his own person, and who seeks solitude only " because 
 there only did he find the only thing of interest to him in all 
 the world, viz., himself, his thoughts, his emotions!" Grill- 
 parzer then goes on to show that Rousseau, notwithstanding 
 his own opinion in this matter, was ruled by his thoughts 
 rather than by his feelings, by his intellect rather than by his 
 heart. Such a condition, especially in solitude, has fatal results 
 according to Grillparzer : 
 
 Wenn man sich seinen Gedanken, zumal in der Einsamkeit, ganz 
 hingibt, so verschlingen sie die ganze Welt, nahren sich mit allem, 
 was darin fiir sie geniessbar ist, und bleiben zuletzt allein mit dem, 
 der sie tragt, in einer wesens- und freudenlosen Wiiste. 
 
 ="XVI, pp. 131 ff.
 
 59 
 
 The egotistic attitude of Rousseau toward the world could find 
 no echo of understanding, to say nothing of approval, with a 
 man who, like Grillparzer, was all heart, all feeling. And yet, 
 Grillparzer calls himself the brother of Rousseau ; like Jason, 
 he feels " Voll Selbstheit, nicht des Nutzens, doch des Sinnes." 
 As a matter of fact, Grillparzer's interpretation of solitude has 
 little resemblance to that of Rousseau. There is no relation 
 whatever between the two men, in spite of the fraternal allu- 
 sion mentioned above. The satire which Grillparzer's 
 Mephistopheles pours over Rousseau's doctrine best expresses 
 the poet's personal attitude in the matter :^* 
 
 Muss doch ein wenig spionieren, 
 Wo main vertrackter Doktor ist, 
 Der nach Rousseau auf alien Vieren 
 Hier unter dieses Waldes Tieren 
 Des Gliicks, ein Mensch zu sein, geniesst 
 Und Wasser sauft und Eicheln frisst. 
 
 And in the same passage we hear Faust complain that solitude 
 has not bestowed upon him those blessings which he expected — 
 rest and peace : 
 
 O Einsamkeit, wie hast du mich betrogen, 
 Als ich an deinen stillen Busen floh, 
 Du hast mir Ruh und Frieda vorgalogan, 
 Und ach ! nun find' ich dich nicht so ! 
 
 This passage can be interpreted only in the light of the preced- 
 ing one: Grillparzer here means that one who seeks solitude, 
 as Rousseau did, will not derive the satisfaction which would be 
 his if he went solely with the purpose of being in direct com- 
 munication with nature herself. Like Rousseau, Grillparzer 
 is fond of seclusion, but his love of solitude is a matter of his 
 soul, not of his intellect, and his appreciation of the beauty of 
 solitude springs, therefore, from an entirely different source. 
 The conscious longing for solitude on Grillparzer's part lies in 
 his character — the poet is melancholy; hostile to the noisy 
 pleasures of society ; full of fantastic dreams, and hence often 
 uncommunicative; endowed with the vibrating nerves of a 
 musician which are easily unbalanced. On the other hand, the 
 
 ^^ Faust, XI, p. 255, 256.
 
 60 
 
 poet's longing for solitude is, to a certain extent, also the result 
 of his personal experiences : like a haven of rest and safety 
 seem to the misunderstood, wronged and persecuted poet the 
 arms of solitude. His anxiety to be alone with nature arises 
 from causes similar to those which make Lord Byron seek 
 solitude, but while Byron is fond of solitary communion with 
 nature when the latter is in an angry mood, Grillparzer prefers 
 the quiet of solitude ; and, unlike Rousseau who would wander 
 about aimlessly, unconcerned whether he would find his way 
 back or not,^^ Grillparzer is, at times, overcome with fear that 
 he has ventured too far beyond the realm of man ; blindly he 
 has followed the muse to a lofty height which the voice of the 
 world can hardly reach: 
 
 Halt ein, Unselige ! Halt ein ! 
 Wohin verlockst dti mich ? 
 Uber Berge bin ich gekommen, 
 Durch Schliinde dir gefolgt. 
 Kein Pfad ist, wo ich trete, keine Spur, 
 Fern herauf tont der Menschen Stimme, 
 Tont der Harden frohliches Gelaut' 
 Und des Waldbachs Rauschen.^* 
 
 Generally, however, Grillparzer finds in solitude what he longs 
 for : rest, quiet, happiness. Phaon's words^^ well express the 
 deep significance which Grillparzer attaches to quiet solitude : 
 
 Wohl mir! Hier ist es still. Des Gastmahls Jubel, 
 
 Der Zimbelspieler Larm, der Floten Tone, 
 
 Der losgelassnen Freude lautes Regen, 
 
 Es tont nicht bis hier unter diese Baume, 
 
 Die, leise fliisternd, wie besorgt, zu storen, 
 
 Zu einsamer Betrachtung freundlich laden. 
 
 This preference for solitude is the only trait which Sappho and 
 Phaon have in common, but even here there is a contrast 
 between the two, caused by the difference in purpose which 
 guides either along the path of loneliness. Phaon seeks soli- 
 
 ^ Cf. Rousseau, ed. Hachette, VIII, p. ii6 : " Un jour entre autres, m'etant 
 a dessein detourne pour voir de pres un lieu qui me parut admirable, je 
 m'y plus si fort et j'y fis tant de tours que je me perdis enfin tout-a-fait." 
 
 ^ Die tragische Muse, I, p. 159. 
 
 ^IV, p. 156.
 
 61 
 
 tude because he loves — Melitta, while Sappho's longing is 
 prompted by the needs of genius : Es bildet ein Talent sich in 
 der Stillc}^ In Sappho, Grillparzer shows not only the rela- 
 tion between poetry and reality, between genius and man, but 
 in establishing this relation, he permits us at the same time 
 to look deep into his own tormented heart. Sappho expresses 
 Grillparzer's own feelings when, overcome by disappointment 
 and despair, she would rather be banished into the solitude of 
 nature zvith the belief in Phaon's love than continue life in her 
 present surroundings, where Phaon's treachery brought such 
 unspeakable misery upon her. With rough hands Phaon has 
 severed the relations between genius and man, and the realiza- 
 tion of his own position overcomes Grillparzer when he lets 
 Rhamnes word Sappho's epitaph thus :^^ 
 
 Es war auf Erden ihre Heimat nicht. 
 Sie ist zuriickgekehret zu den Ihren. 
 
 Medea, also, seeks solitude, but although, like Sappho, she is 
 prompted to flee the world because of despair, she is lashed 
 into the closest possible communion with nature by the furies 
 of her guilty conscience :*'' 
 
 Mich sende zuruck 
 In das Innre des Landes, Vater, 
 Tief, wo nur Walder und dunkles Gekliift, 
 Wo kein Auge hindringt, kein Ohr, keine Stimme, 
 Wo nur die Einsamkelt und ich. 
 
 What does Medea seek in this dark wilderness where she may 
 be alone with herself and with nature? She seeks the godhead 
 in its very temple, because only in solitude is it possible to 
 worship nature. And that is Medea's aim. She is anxious to 
 prostrate herself before the deity, to confess and to obtain 
 absolution. The same comfort and blessing which she here 
 expects from solitude actually comes to her later when fair 
 pictures of long-forgotten happiness, pictures of the beloved 
 home of her childhood-days, bring a smile of relief to her 
 sorrowful countenance upon which is already engraved the 
 somber determination to murder her own blood :" 
 
 ^ Goethe, Tasso. ^ IV, p. 227. 
 
 "V, p. 81. "V, p. 217.
 
 62 
 
 Willkommen, holde, freundliche Gestalten, 
 Sucht ihr mich heim in meiner Einsamkeit? 
 
 In solitude, then, our imagination develops greater activity 
 and our heart is purified because of the immediate contact with 
 nature — God. Solitude opens the eyes of the blind and the 
 ears of the deaf. We not only see the beauty of nature, but we 
 also hear her voice. Thus Hero*^ converses with the echo, 
 and the gentle splashing of the waves of the Hellespont beneath 
 her brings her a whispered message. In this close contact 
 with nature. Hero feels confident,*^ the strength necessary for 
 performing her sacred function will return to her. 
 
 The influence of solitude upon character is described by 
 Drahomira,** who attributes the filial affection of her younger 
 child to the fact that he was brought up fern von der Menschen 
 Aiifenthalt, in close communion with nature. For him it is 
 impossible to forget the laws of nature, and to turn against his 
 own mother, like the first-born son. Nursed at nature's very 
 bosom, he has imbibed the divine lesson (which, by the way, 
 is not Christian !) 
 
 zu hassen, wer ihn hasst, 
 Und wer ihm wohlthut, den zu lieben. 
 
 Man has, at all times, been attracted by that which he is 
 unable to grasp, and which he can, therefore, only divine. This 
 mystic element, which forms part of every religion, is con- 
 sequently closely associated with nature by any person who 
 undertakes a pantheistic interpretation of nature. That Grill- 
 parzer is one of these has appeared from the preceding dis- 
 cussion of a number of passages, especially from those which 
 interpret nature as the moral ideal, but the matter may become 
 more firmly established by these lines which are intended to 
 show Grillparzer's attitude toward the mystic forces of nature. 
 This subject is of no little importance for the understanding 
 of his nature-cult. 
 
 From his early youth on, the poet's imagination fed upon the 
 mysteries of nature, which he connected with his immediate 
 surroundings. In his Autobiography^^ we read: 
 
 "VII, p. 50. «VII, p. 47. 
 
 "XI, p. 114. «XIX, p. 14.
 
 63 
 
 . . . Da war denn der Gebote und Verbote kein Ende, und an 
 ein Herumlaufen ohne Aufsicht war gar nicht zu denken. Beson- 
 ders hatte der der Gartenmauer zugekehrte hintere Rand des 
 Teiches, der nie betreten wurde, fiir mich etwas hochst Mysterioses, 
 und ohne etwas Bestimmtes dabei zu denken, verlegte ich unter 
 die breiten Lattichblatter und dichten Gestrauche alle die Schauder 
 und Geheimnisse, mit denen in unsrer Stadtwohnung das " Holzge- 
 wolbe " bevolkert war. 
 
 This can mean nothing else than that the Ahnung of the inex- 
 plicable, of the divine in nature, had entered his heart even at 
 this early stage of life. The Ahnung subsequently grows into 
 consciousness, and this consciousness appears not infrequently 
 in his works, although, with the exception of Dcs Mceres und 
 der Liehe Wellen and Medea, the references are mostly dis- 
 tributed among the earlier dramas. It is interesting to observe 
 that Grillparzer's mystic interpretation of nature centers, in the 
 main, in water and darkness (night). 
 
 The mystic force in water which brings destruction to man 
 (mythologically personified as water-nix, mermaid, etc.) is 
 expressed in the poem Herkules und Hylas:^° 
 
 Denn, als d^n Krug in emsigen Handen, 
 
 Ubergebtugt in den spiegelnden See, 
 
 Er am Ufer schopfend gestanden, 
 
 Hab' es gequollen vom Grund in die Hoh — 
 
 Glanzende Stirn' und Augen und Wangen 
 
 Und zwei Hande, von denen umfangen, 
 
 Hylas versank in dem wallenden See. 
 
 And the unknown power which stirs up the sea and which 
 causes all nature to tremble, is referred to in the following 
 metaphor, in Spartakus:*'' 
 
 Ein unergriindet, tief bewegtes Meer 
 1st dieses Wilden seltsam fremdes Wesen; 
 Du siehst die Wellen an einander rauschen 
 Und an des Himmels, an des Orkus Toren 
 Mit ungestiimen Hauptern wechselnd pochen, 
 Mit aufgesperrtem, schwarzem Schreckensrachen 
 Was sich ihm zagend nahet, wild verschlingen ; 
 Doch was des Sturmes Toben aufgeregt, 
 
 *'II, p. 38. "XI, p. 135. 
 
 6
 
 64 
 
 Die Macht, die mit gewalt'ger Riesenfaust 
 
 Die Wasser, die geruhig sclilummcrtcn, 
 
 Aufschreckt und ballt und durch die Liifte schleudert, 
 
 Dass drob die Erde bebt, die Winde heulen, 
 
 Das liegt verborgen in den dunkeln Tiefen, 
 
 Und keines Menschen Aug hat es erspiiht. 
 
 Night, on the other hand, is mystically interpreted because of 
 the concomitant idea of darkness, which breeds horror. So 
 the priest, in Des M ceres und der Licbe Wellen:^^ 
 
 Komm mit ! Es sinkt die Nacht 
 Und briitet iiber ungeschehne Dinge. 
 
 More at length, Drahomira*" dwells upon the same idea: 
 
 Noch deckt die Nacht mit dunkelm Drachenfittich 
 
 Die stillen Raume der entschlafnen Erde, 
 
 Und briitet iiber schwarzen Greueltaten, 
 
 Die sie, entschliipft dem miitterlichen Ei, 
 
 Mit Blut nahrt und mit Fleisch von Menschenleichen. 
 
 And Bertha^" intensifies the description of the horror of night 
 by conceiving the howling winds as Nachtgespcnstcr, thus 
 mystically personifying the voice of nature. However, this 
 voice does not always inspire horror, but is often gently sooth- 
 ing and comforting. Night, darkness, is the most auspicious 
 place for the mysterious voice of the godhead : no one knows 
 this better than Hero's uncle, the priest, hence his advice 
 to her :^^ 
 
 Ich riet dir oft, in still verborgner Nacht 
 Zu nahen unsrer Gottin Heiligtum 
 Und dort zu lauschen auf die leisen Stimmen, 
 Mit denen wohl das Uberird'sche spricht. 
 
 This mystic manifestation of the deity favored by the cover 
 of night is referred to also by Phaon f- only in this instance 
 the lips of nature breathe words of love : 
 
 Nur ich stand schweigend auf und ging hinaus 
 Ins einsam stille Reich der heil'gen Nacht. 
 
 "VII, p. 89. «XI, p. 117. 
 
 ""IV, p. 15. "VII, p. 13. 
 
 ^IV, p. 146.
 
 65 
 
 Dort, an den Pulsen der siiss schlummernden Natur, 
 In ihres Zaubers magisch-macht'gen Kreisen, 
 Da breitet' ich die Arme nach dir aus. 
 
 A magic-mystic veil is spread over the figure of Aledea 
 in whom I have attempted to show a personification of dark- 
 ness and night. 
 
 Des Nachts aber geht sic gespenstisch hervor, 
 
 says Absyrtus^^ with regard to his sister, and the art itself 
 which Medea practises is mystic: mystic-black, therefore, are 
 also all her attributes, as well as the place where she dwells, 
 Medea thus holds in her hands a black staff, and her retreat 
 is " a somber den, in the interior of a tower." She is Mysti- 
 cism personified. The forces of nature not only obey her, but 
 also speak through her. In Medea's mother I see Nature her- 
 self. This accounts for Medea's mysterious endowment, to 
 which the weak Aietes appeals for help :^* 
 
 Du bist klug, du bist stark, 
 
 Dich hat die INIutter gelehrt 
 
 Aus Krautern, aus Steinen 
 
 Tranke bereiten, 
 
 Die den Willen binden 
 
 Und fesseln die Kraft ; 
 
 Du rufst Geister , 
 
 Und besprichst den Mond. 
 
 Hilf mir, mein gutes Kind. 
 
 Mystic, also, is Medea's language. When she calls upon the 
 forces of nature at her command, her conjuring formula is 
 worded thus:^^ 
 
 Die ihr einhergeht im Gewande der Nacht 
 Und auf des Sturmes Fittichcn wandelt ! 
 Furchtbare Fiirsten der Tiefc ! . . . 
 Erscheinet ! Erscheinet ! 
 
 When she offers the poisoned draught to Jason,^" she takc"^ 
 care to mention the various ingredients. Mystic is the potion 
 itself, and mystic, therefore, must be its result — death ! : 
 
 ^v, p. 35. "■'V. p. 14. 
 
 ""V, p. 51. "V, p. 108.
 
 66 
 
 Den Becher hier nimm ! 
 Vom Honig des Berges, 
 Vom Tau der Nacht 
 Und der Milch der Wolfin 
 Braust darin gegoren ein Trank. 
 
 Medea, as personification of Mysticism, has a tragic fate, and 
 her very guilt is based upon her magic-mystic power. Sym- 
 bolically, this might mean that Grillparzer condemned mysti- 
 cism from a rationalistic viewpoint. However, this is some- 
 what hypothetical. On the other hand, if this could be proven, 
 it would furnish a valuable suggestion for the development of 
 the idea of mysticism in Grillparzer's mind, for the following 
 fact would then be obvious: he condemns in 1820 (Das 
 goldene Vliess), what he had sanctioned in 1818 (Sappho), 
 while he returns to his original views regarding mysticism in 
 1831 (Des Meeres und der Liehe Wellen). However this may 
 be, one point is certain: the sources of information for the 
 study of Grillparzer's mystic interpretation of nature are suffi- 
 ciently rich in his earlier works, while the supply grows scant 
 as the poet grows older. This needs to be emphasized, because 
 the same is not true, so far as references to nature are con- 
 cerned, which may be found everywhere. 
 
 To appeal to nature for sympathy, i. e., to interpret her as 
 a personality which takes an interest in the affairs of man, is 
 not new. However, this does not concern us. The direct 
 appeal to nature for sympathy and relief presupposes implicit 
 faith in her power to respond, and it will be logical, therefore, 
 to show first to what extent Grillparzer endows nature with 
 this necessary power. 
 
 The roots of nature's sympathy are embedded in her uni- 
 versal charity. Not infrequently Grillparzer attributes a com- 
 forting influence to the sources of light. Thus in the poems 
 An die Sonne f""^ 
 
 Du verscheuchest den Schlaf, der mit allmachtigen 
 Schwingen jeglichen Menschen deckt, 
 Der im qualenden Traum foltert den Erdensohn, 
 Den du gntig der Qual entreisst ; 
 and An den Mond:^^ 
 " 11, r. 77. '' 11, p. 78.
 
 67 
 
 Manchen driicket schwerer Kummer, 
 Manchen lastet Qual und Pein; 
 Doch du wiegst in sanften Schlummer 
 Trostend ihn, voll Mitleid ein. 
 
 The same idea is set forth in a passage of the Ahnfrau,^^ 
 where Bertha calls Jaromir's attention to the mercy of God 
 whose sunrays cast the golden hght of hope and comfort over 
 the very scafifold upon which punishment is meted out to the 
 murderer. — At times, though rarely, even darkness, which 
 Grillparzer generally invests with horror, appears sympathetic. 
 In the poem Vision,'^^ death, i. e., darkness, expressly referred 
 to as Nachtgeivolk is not cruel enough to carry out its gloomy 
 mission, in view of the many hearts which beat in love for 
 Emperor Francis : 
 
 Nicht iiber meinen Auftrag geht die Pflicht; 
 Ich ward gesandt, ein einzig Herz zu brechen. 
 So viele Tausend Herzen brech' ich nicht ! 
 
 In the same way, darkness is once referred to as the reflection 
 of human misery. In this reflection appears the idea of sym- 
 pathy, since nature mourns the fate of manf'^ 
 
 Als diese Nacht ich schlaflos stieg vom Lager 
 Und, offnend meiner Hiitte niedre Tiir, 
 Aus jenem Dunkel trat in neues Dunkel, 
 Da lag das Meer .vor mir mit seinen Kusten, 
 Ein schwarzer Teppich, ungeteilt, zu schaun, 
 Wie eingehiillt in Trauer und in Gram. 
 
 The last line is significant, because it establishes, in this in- 
 stance, sympathy as the cause of darkness. 
 
 A number of passages have a sympathetic-mystic character. 
 In the poem Der Selbstmorder^- nature prevents, with all 
 means at her command, a suicide from carrying out his plan. 
 The very consciousness on the part of the suicide that he is 
 watched by nature, that nature takes an interest in him, and, 
 as moral ideal, strives to prevent wrong, is sufficient to arrest 
 him, and his bad conscience is unable to endure nature's scruti- 
 nizing glance. Not satisfied with her effect upon the suicide's 
 
 ^IV, p. 78. '"1. p. I S3. 
 
 "VII, p. 52. ^11, p. 168.
 
 68 
 
 eye, nature seeks to make an impression also upon his ear, 
 and with a mighty voice she imparts the sympathetic lesson : 
 Wo wir stehn, da fiillt niemand, als zwingender Gewalt. 
 
 Sympathy, likewise, is expressed by the voice of nature which 
 transmits a greeting from beyond the grave. So Sappho :®^ 
 
 Hier, wo Zypressen von der Ehern Grab 
 Mir leisen Geistergruss heriiberlispeln. 
 
 The same sympathetic connection which nature establishes 
 between life and death, between the known and the mystic, 
 appears also from Count Borotin's words :®* 
 
 Sieh, mein Sohn, ich bin ein Greis ; 
 Die Natur winkt mir zu Grabe, 
 
 which do not merely represent a poetic phrase for " Ich bin alt 
 und muss sterben ! " 
 
 The interest which nature takes in man is evinced further 
 by her absolute secrecy, in which man may trust. Nature is 
 omniscient ; nothing can escape her attention, and her eyes rest 
 constantly upon the fate of man : cf . the words of Gora :®^ 
 
 Dem Herakles ... 
 
 Hin sank er, und des Oeta waldiger Riicken 
 
 Sail ihn vergehn, in Flammen vergehn ! 
 
 And Hero,*^*^ full of confidence in the sympathetic secrecy of 
 nature, replies to her uncle's suspicious inquiries with a brief: 
 
 Die Liifte wissen's ; 
 Doch sie verschweigen's auch. 
 
 On the other hand, the fact that nature is omniscient makes it 
 possible for her to sound a sympathetic note of warning, long 
 before the actual catastrophe occurs. Jason, immediately after 
 placing himself in possession of the dragon-guarded fleece, 
 perceives a sigh in the foliage above, and a voice behind him 
 cries " Wehe ! " indicating that his daring feat will bring about 
 his downfall. 
 
 These are the principal characteristics upon which Grill- 
 parzer bases nature's sympathetic power, and we may now 
 
 ^IV, p. 142. «*IV. p. so. 
 
 *V, p. 181. "^Vil, p. 70.
 
 69 
 
 turn to the consideration of those passages which contain 
 man's direct appeal to nature for sympathy. 
 
 In appeahng to nature for assistance, man pleads his cause 
 before the highest tribunal. The poet himself {Zmischen 
 Gdta und Capuay^ takes refuge with nature as the only power 
 which is able to afford him relief: 
 
 Nun denn, versuch' es, 
 Eden der Lust, 
 Ebne die Wogen 
 Auch dieser Brust ! 
 
 and in midwinter {Stlindchen),^^ surrounded by ice and snow, 
 he calls upon the ice to cool the glowing passion of his breast. 
 For the same reason, Hero*'^ appeals to the gentle night breeze 
 which is not only to fan the flames that rage in her heart, but 
 to bring her a message from the one she loves. The whole 
 passage is a fine example of nature's sympathetic voice which 
 sounds like music in the poet's ear: 
 
 Komm, Wind der Nacht, 
 Und kiihle mir das Aug, die heissen Wangen ! 
 Kommst du doch iibers Meer von ihm, 
 Und, o dein Rauschen und der Blatter Lispeln, 
 Wie Worte klingt es mir: von ihm mir: ihm, von ihm. 
 
 Grillparzer's loftiest interpretation of nature lies in his 
 identification of nature with love. Nature, now, as the ideal 
 of love, has particular attraction for lovers who fed the rela- 
 tion of their own position to that of nature, and who, conse- 
 quently, appeal to her sympathy more frequently and with 
 greater assurance. Grillparzer often makes use of this senti- 
 mental appeal to the sympathy of nature, and the passage just 
 quoted represents but one example out of many. It must be 
 observed here that the interpretation, from Grillparzer's point 
 of view, is considerably affected by the introduction of love. 
 For lovers, darkness (night) loses its heretofore so much 
 emphasized suggestion of horror. Every attribute of nature 
 is now viewed from the standpoint of sympathy alone, and 
 thus darkness is interpreted as the shielding, love-inviting con- 
 
 «■!, p. 131. '«II, p. 16. »°VII, p. 88.
 
 70 
 
 fidante of man. Thus the love-stricken Spartakus seeks the 
 company of night, and PubHpor/^ to whom darkness signifies 
 only horror, is unable to account for the strange action of 
 his friend : 
 
 Da flieht er des Lagers siissen Arm 
 
 Und macht die Nacht zu seiner Brust Vertrauten, 
 
 In ihren Purpurmantel eingehiillt 
 
 Hort' ich ihn oftmals auf und nieder gehn, 
 
 Zum grausen Dunkel seltsam schaurig sprechend. 
 
 The same contrast of Stimmung is shown by Bertha who 
 speaks of cine grause Nacht,'''^ and yet, in the very same 
 scene,''^ wishes to confide the overwhelming happiness of her 
 young love to clouds and winds, and to the silence of night. 
 She actually carries out this project, and leaves the house: 
 nature has now only sympathy, but no horror for her. 
 
 Also disappointment in love leads to an appeal to nature's 
 sympathy. This appeal, however, is not, cannot always be 
 granted, because of the character of the appeal itself. If the 
 appeal is justified, nature does not refuse her aid: Sappho'^ 
 thus finds the needed sympathy in the quiet solitude of the 
 grotto, to which she retreats with the first stings of disap- 
 pointment in her heart; but when mad jealousy wrests from 
 her tortured breast an ardent appeal to nature's vengeance, 
 she hopes for sympathy in vain : 
 
 Hernieder euren racherischen Strahl, 
 Hernieder iuf den Scheitel der Verrater ! 
 Zermalmt sie, Gotter, wie ihr mich zermalmt ! 
 Umsonst ! Kein Blitz durchzuckt die stille Luft, 
 Die Winde sauseln buhlerisch im Laube, 
 Und auf den breiten Armen tragt die See 
 Den Kahn der Liebe schaukelnd vom Gestade ! 
 Da ist nicht Hilfe ! 
 
 Nature here fails to respond because, on one hand, she will not 
 interfere with the freedom of love, and, on the other hand, 
 because the guilt lies with Sappho herself rather than with 
 Phaon and Melitta. Nature cannot grant any appeal which 
 
 '»XI, p. 133. "IV, p. 15. 
 
 "IV, p. 2z. "IV, p. 171.
 
 71 
 
 would involve injustice or wrong. Neither Poseidon (water), 
 nor the goddess of love (all nature) pay, therefore, any atten- 
 tion to Leander's prayer for protection,"'* while the paternal 
 curse which is hurled at Medea comes to pass, letter by letter, 
 with nature's assistance : 
 
 Dann wirst du stehen und die Hande ringen, 
 
 Sie hiniiber breiten nach dem Vaterland, 
 
 Getrennt durch weite, brandende Meere, 
 
 Deren Wellen dir murmelnd bringen des Vaters Fluch ! 
 
 Grillparzer's interpretation of nature is, then, not at all 
 times the same. The constant influence of Stivinmng upon 
 the poet's viewpoint has been discussed elsewhere, but it 
 becomes necessary to return to this matter here. It has just 
 been shown that night (darkness), for example, is interpreted, 
 on the one hand, as an inspiration of fear and horror, and, 
 on the other hand, as a phenomenon capable of sympathy. At 
 first glance, this seems contradictory. Apparent contradictions 
 are not infrequent with Grillparzer (also his political views 
 were attacked on this ground), and when we read so gloomy 
 a passage as, for instance, in JugcndcrinnerungenimGriinen:'^ 
 
 Doch sie (Natur), die oft gefiihrt schon meine Sache, 
 Getrostet mich so oft und gern zuvor, 
 Verloren hatte sie fiir mich die Sprache, 
 Die Sprache, oder ich fiir sie das Ohr ; 
 
 we need not wonder how it is possible for the same poet who 
 interprets nature as the ideal of beauty, goodness and love, 
 and who, having shown the sympathetic power of nature, 
 appeals to this power, to record elsewhere the loss of this 
 sympathetic influence. The explanation for this, as well as 
 for all other passages which seem to contain contradictions, 
 is given in the last line of the above quotation : nature can 
 never lose her voice, but the poet had temporarily, under the 
 influence of a pessimistic Stimmung, lost the ear. This is an 
 absolutely natural and as easily intelligible occurrence as the 
 lack of musical appreciation on the part of a husband who, 
 at the open grave of his young wife, hears the strains of the 
 
 ''VII, p. 80. "I, p. 222.
 
 72 
 
 Bridal March from Lohengrin, played at a wedding celebra- 
 tion in the neighborhood. 
 
 Of as great importance as Grillparzer's mystic and sympa- 
 thetic interpretation of nature, is his extensive symbolism. 
 His flower-symbolism is of special interest. Flowers, in gen- 
 eral, mean love; they bloom in the fairest season of the year 
 (spring itself is love personified), and they are bright because 
 beauty and light form two inseparable ideas with Grillparzer. 
 Thus, in the poem Intermezzo:''*^ 
 
 Im holden Mond der Maien, 
 Wenn lichte Blumen bluhn, 
 Gefliigelte Schalmeien 
 Die Waldesnacht durchziehn; 
 Da hebt sich eine Scholle, 
 Die Liebe lauscht hervor. 
 
 The same idea which shows that, to Grillparzer, all flowers 
 represent love, is set forth also in the two following passages, 
 the first of which (Mit einem Blmnenkorbcheny 
 
 Durch Blumen spricht das Herz aufs Beste, 
 Denn, schweigend, reden sie doch laut; 
 
 characterizes flowers as messengers of love (indirect symbol- 
 ism), while the second (SappJio)''^ 
 
 Eiicharis: Ihr Madchen, auf ! Mehr Blumen bringt herbei ! 
 Zu ganzen Haufen Blumen. Schmiickt das Haus, 
 Und Hof und Halle, Saule, Tiir und Schwelle, 
 Ja, selbst die Blumenbeete schmiickt mit Blumen ! 
 Tut Wiirze zum Gewiirz, denn heute feiert 
 Das Fest der Liebe die Gebieterin; 
 
 makes flowers appear as love itself (direct symbolism). Thus 
 a gift of flowers is, likewise, with contrasting emphasis, shown 
 to be a token of love, by Phaon -J^ 
 
 Gold schenkt die Eitelkeit, der rauhe Stolz; 
 
 Die Freundschaft und die Liebe schenken Blumen. 
 
 It is of interest, in this connection, to note one passage in 
 which Grillparzer reverses the symbol. If flowers were shown 
 
 "I, p. 223. "II, p. 15s. 
 
 "IV, p. 158. '»/&W.
 
 73 
 
 heretofore as love, love itself now appears as a flower. So 
 in SappJio:^'^ 
 
 Und findet er die Lieb', biickt er sich wohl, 
 Das holde Bliimchen von dem Grund zu lesen. 
 
 A number of flowers are used by Grillparzer individually; 
 myrtle, violet, lily and rose are those with which we are most con- 
 cerned. The myrtle's simplicity suggests purity and innocence 
 of afifection, and thus becomes the symbol of virginity upon 
 the bridal brow ; the gentle violet represents modest and quiet 
 (secret) enjoyment of love; the lily appears as symbol of 
 naivete, and the rose, in particular, is made the flower of love 
 par excellence. What we have to deal with here is apparently 
 the effect of color, rather than anything else. Grillparzer's 
 optic nerve is just as sensitive as his musical ear, and thus 
 color does not only act upon his eye, but leads also to the 
 formation of symbolic associations. The green of the myrtle, 
 therefore, at once appears as fertility, and not as green alone; 
 the color of the violet combines with its fragrance and leads 
 to the above-mentioned symbolic interpretation ; the spotless 
 vvrhite of the lily reflects purity and innocence, and the glowing 
 red of the rose expresses the supreme bliss of love. The color 
 of the rose itself is not mentioned in this connection, but it 
 must be inferred with certainty that these particular roses 
 are red, rather than white, because the color white could not 
 mean innocence, naivete and consciously sexual love (cf. 
 Phaon who hands Sappho a rose) at the same time; and fur- 
 thermore, the following picture — if all white — would be abso- 
 lutely dull, a defect from which Grillparzer's pictures are 
 totally free:^^ 
 
 Hero: So lasst an unserm Ufer ihn begraben, 
 Wo er erblich, wo er, ein Toter, lag, 
 Am Fusse meines Turms. Und Rosen soUen 
 Und weisse Lilian, vom Tau befeuchtet, 
 Aufsprossen, wo er liegt. 
 
 Apart from Grillparzer's interpretation of all nature as love 
 (which shows the poet as his best, and which is so important 
 
 ^'IV, p. 174. "VII, p. 100.
 
 74 
 
 as to make it necessary to discuss is separately), there remains 
 to be mentioned here but one mystic-symbolic reference. It is 
 contained in the poem Zu Mozarts Feicr,^^ where the pure air 
 of lofty mountain-tops, mingled with the fragrance of herbs 
 and flowers, is called the breath of God. No matter which 
 phase of Grillparzer's interpretation of nature one may investi- 
 gate, there appears a conscious effort on the part of the poet to 
 establish God and nature as one inseparable unity. We have 
 had occasion to observe that the poet endows nature with 
 consciousness, with a moral, economic, and logical character; 
 elsewhere attention has been called to the voice of nature, and 
 here we meet with nature's breath. In this way, we approach 
 more and more the completion of Grillparzer's picture, which 
 reveals the godhead as a visible, tangible personality in nature 
 herself. Two more elements — beauty and love — are necessary 
 to complete the idealization of Nature Divine. Attention will 
 be given these elements presently, but even now the poet's 
 lofty conception of nature is fairly established. 
 
 That Grillparzer is deeply impressed with nature's beauty 
 is now, upon consideration of the various phases of his descrip- 
 tion and interpretation of nature, a mere matter of course ; 
 however, the appreciation of nature alone hardly entitles any- 
 one to be named in the list of nature-poets. The beauty of 
 nature leads further, with Grillparzer, than to mere apprecia- 
 tion ; it enables him to actually know nature, and with this 
 knowledge begins his idealistic interpretation which culminates 
 in the conception of nature as ideal of beauty and love. j\Iany 
 passages quoted heretofore reveal individual characteristics 
 of nature as beautiful and lofty, but there are three particular 
 poems which furnish the best evidence for the conception of 
 All-Nature as visible ideal of beauty: Zivischen Gdta und 
 Capua,^^ Mistress Shaw,^^ and Irenens Wiederkehr.^^ The 
 last of these will later be discussed at length, because it is of 
 importance also for other reasons, so that a consideration of 
 the first two may suffice here. 
 
 Zzuischcn Gdta und Capua represents, at the same time, 
 
 ''U, p. 60. *M, p. 130. 
 
 " II, p. 46. ^ XI, p. 23 ff.
 
 75 
 
 one of the finest landscapes the poet ever drew. The question 
 may be raised here, why we seek Grillparzer's ideahzation of 
 the beauty of nature in a foreign landscape, rather than in a 
 home-painting in which, as we have seen, he makes so lavish 
 a display of color. It should be observed, now, that this 
 foreign landscape is in Italy, the country which nature endowed 
 more richly perhaps than any other part of Europe. Italy 
 thus afforded the poet a far better opportunity for expressing 
 his ideal, than Austria, or even Germany by which he was 
 but little attracted (cf. Tagehilcher, XX, p. 27). 
 
 Here, between Gata and Capua, the incomparable beauty of 
 the country acts like an intoxicant upon the poet who barely 
 knows in which direction to turn his eyes first. Gentle breezes 
 are fanning his feverish brow, and he imagines to be in the 
 realm of poetry. All colors seem more vivid to him; the sun 
 shines brighter, the heavens are of a deeper blue, the green 
 of the foliage appears fresher, and the fragrance of the flowers 
 sweeter. Semi-tropical vegetation, to which he is not accus- 
 tomed, does not fail to exert its powerful influence upon him : 
 olive-tree and cypress suggest graceful women, and he is 
 thrilled with pleasure upon discovering a golden pomegranate. 
 " Apf el der Schonheit," he significantly calls it, while nature 
 herself receives the cognomen Paris for giving this prize of 
 beauty to charming Naples. The usefulness of the vine-plant 
 is then with purpose introduced as incidental, while emphasis 
 is placed upon its beauty. All these elements taken together 
 lead to the exclamation: 
 
 tjbrall Schonheit, 
 tjbrall Glanz! 
 
 Again light is used as a synonym of beauty, and all nature (it 
 makes no difference that this is Italian nature in particular) 
 appears as the sun from which all beauty emanates. Nature 
 is everywhere the ideal of beauty; however, this beauty is not 
 the same in all places ; it is wisely and economically distributed, 
 and may be registered upon a graduated scale. Hence the 
 qualitative and quantitative dift'erence in beauty between 
 Austria and Italy, which Grillparzer expresses with the words :
 
 76 
 
 Was bei uns schreitet, 
 Schwebt hier im Tanz. 
 
 If the idealization of nature's beauty in Zwischeii Gdta und 
 Capua is due directly to the effect upon the visual sense, the 
 other poem, Mistress Shaw, idealizes the cause by virtue of 
 its effect upon the auditory sense. It is the musician, rather 
 than the painter, who here interprets the voice of nature as a 
 symphony of beauty. The poet lies on a soft couch of moss, 
 by the side of a brook; above him, a "canopy of foliage" 
 affords protection from the hot summer sun, and a beautiful 
 carpet of grass, interwoven with flowers of brilliant gold, 
 covers the stage of this theatre. Thus the poet shuts his eye- 
 lids, and suddenly he hears the voice of nature. The water 
 has lips, and the trees have tongues. Music, such as he never 
 heard before, sounds in the air: his ear turns soul. 
 
 Des Wassers Lippen und der Baume Zungen 
 Stimmt ein zum Ton beriihrter Phantasie, 
 Halb an dem Ohr, halb in der Brust erklungen, 
 Umkreist ein Strom mich leiser Harmonie. 
 
 The Platonic definition of beauty as %ai/3eiz^ ev tm OeoopelaOac 
 (Gorgias) is apparently incomplete, so far as Grillparzer is 
 concerned, because he shows beauty, through the idealization 
 of nature, to be of a twofold character, so that beauty does 
 not only consist of ^at/aeti' iv rw dewpela-dat but also of 
 XaipeLv iv rw aKpodcrdat which seems to be contained in Kant's 
 definition:^*' Das Schone its das, was ohne Bcgriff, als Object 
 eines allgemeinen Wohlgef aliens vorgestellt wird. For Grill- 
 parzer, nature is indeed the "object of universal pleasure"; so 
 much so, in fact, that the grateful poet does not hesitate to see 
 in nature the highest good : 
 
 Der Giiter hochstes, was uns Gott gegeben, 
 Was Himmelsfreuden in uns wiederklingt, 
 Es ist das klare, heitre, warnie Leben, 
 Das durch das Auge ein zum Herzen dringt. 
 
 According to this passage, nature is the ideal representation of 
 TO KoXov and as an ideal it is an end per se, rather than a 
 
 ^^ Kritik des Urteiis. 1. par. 6.
 
 77 
 
 means to an end. However, is beauty alone the guiding star 
 of human existence, and is the deification of nature justified 
 upon the basis of beauty as the ultimate end of all striving? 
 Beauty, to be sure, does not presuppose goodness, but must 
 not TO KdXov be coupled with to a^adov before man is able to 
 worship all nature as God? Grillparzer is well aware of the 
 requirements without which a pantheistic interpretation of 
 nature would be irrational, and therefore impossible. We had 
 occasion before, to point to the poet's interpretation of nature 
 as moral ideal (pp. 54 fif.), but even in the just-quoted refer- 
 ence the element of goodness is not lacking. The qualifying 
 adjectives klar and hciter refer to beauty, while n'arm (love, 
 charity,) appears to be the missing link which establishes a 
 KuXoKayaOia, in the Socratic sense of the word. This connects 
 us directly with Grillparzer's interpretation of nature as the 
 ideal of love, which is to be discussed in the following 
 paragraphs. 
 
 It is with purpose that the consideration of Grillparzer's 
 nature-love cult has been reserved until the last, because his 
 nature-sense appears here most highly developed, and because 
 here his lyric language less deserves the harsh criticism which 
 has been passed upon it by a number of stern judges, and which 
 is shared also by Richard M. Meyer,^'^ who admits Grillparzer's 
 lyrische Stimmung von hinrcissender Kraft, while he denies 
 his ability to produce eigentliche Lyrik. 
 
 It lies in the nature of the subject that the greatest part of 
 the passages which concern us here are to be found in those 
 of Grillparzer's dramatic works in which love is a prominent 
 issue {Blanka, Sappho, Hero), and in the early fragments 
 (Spartakus, Psyche, Irenens Wiederkehr), but it is hard to 
 find any of our poet's works which do not contain some 
 allusion to nature as the ideal of love. In all of these refer- 
 ences the idea is essentially the same, but this idea is expressed 
 in so many varied ways as to make a detailed consideration 
 well worth while. 
 
 That light and love are identical, with Grillparzer, has been 
 shown ; however, the fundamental principle of this interpreta- 
 
 "£>/(? deufsche Literatnr des igtcn Jahrhnndcrts, I, p. 83.
 
 78 
 
 tion may become more clear by calling attention to the words 
 of Melusina,^^ who states directly that nature's beauty (visible 
 by daylight) breathes love, while without love, all nature would 
 be dark and gloomy : 
 
 tjbrall Nacht ist ohne Liebe, 
 Ubrall Tag, wo Liebe lacht. 
 
 However, this does not mean that nature ceases to be love 
 with the beginning of night (darkness), because Melusina 
 continues : 
 
 Wenn die Sonne fern auch bliebe, 
 
 Lieb' ist Mond in sel'ger Nacht. 
 
 We met with the same thought before when we pointed out 
 that Bertha's horror of night vanishes, at the very moment 
 when she is able to look upon nature with the eyes of love. 
 Nature-love can be fully understood only by one who is him- 
 self under the influence of an altruistic emotion. All nature 
 thus appears to Fedriko^^ in brighter colors and in fairer forms, 
 when he finds Blanka alive whom he had never expected to see 
 again ; and with his appreciation of nature, made possible by 
 love, there comes upon him the full realization of nature's 
 supreme mission, viz., to destroy pessimism and melancholy, 
 and to plant in the heart of man the seed of faith and hope. 
 With more elaborate details, Grillparzer shows that love alone 
 leads to an appreciation of nature, by pointing out, in the 
 Kloster bei Sendomir,^'^ that nature's language is intelligible 
 only to him who loves : " As the warm hand touched his, a 
 hitherto unknown sensation seized upon his heart. An 
 oriental fairy-tale relates of one who was suddenly endowed 
 with the gift to understand the language of the birds and of 
 the other phenomena of nature, and who now, resting in the 
 shade by the edge of a brook, perceived in glad astonishment 
 word and meaning, everywhere about him, while, before, he 
 heard only noise and sounds. The Count had this experi- 
 ence. A new world arose before him, and with faltering steps 
 he followed his graceful guide who opened a small door and 
 stepped with him into a low, dimly lighted chamber." 
 
 •"VII, p. 230. «'X, p. 21. ^XIII, p. 200.
 
 79 
 
 All nature sings songs of love, but the voice of nature is 
 soft and low, perceptible only to the loving ear. So 
 Spartakus :''^ 
 
 Indes die ganze Schopfung Liebeslieder 
 Mit leisem Ton zu unsern Herzen sang — 
 
 Love, the very essence of nature, raises man upon the highest 
 plane of his development. Only in direct communication with 
 nature, man may, therefore, become perfect ; only under the 
 influence of love is it possible for him to pay his great debt to 
 his fellowmen, which consists in universal charity and altruistic 
 usefulness.. The mature philosophy of the aged man in the 
 fragment Spartakus may be inferred from his significant words 
 of welcome addressed to his young friend :"- 
 
 Du liebst ! Du bist vollendet ! Die Natur 
 
 Hat dir ihr Siegel aufgedriickt. Du liebst! 
 
 O, sei willkommen, Mensch, im Namen der Menscheit. 
 
 At times, nature's love-language is heard by some particu- 
 larly attentive person, but, just as the rustling of the foliage 
 and the murmuring of a brook present nothing but a meaning- 
 less noise-riddle to him who is not bound to nature by the ties 
 of love, he fails to grasp the sweet enticing accents of this 
 inimitable speech. This is the case with the watchman who 
 guards Hero's dwelling and Aphrodite's sacred grove against 
 intruders. In reporting his suspicion to his master, the morn- 
 ing after Leander's secret visit, he describes in vivid language 
 the very love notes of nature, however without any under- 
 standing :^^ 
 
 Und oben war's so laut, und doch so heimlich, 
 Ein Fliistern und ein Rauschen hicr und dort. 
 Die ganze Gegend schien erwacht, bewegt ; 
 Im dichtsten Laub ein sonderbares Regen, 
 Wie Windeswehn, und wehte doch kein Wind ; 
 Und was getont und wiederklang, war nichts. 
 Das Meer sticg rauschend hohcr an die Ufer, 
 Ein halb enthiillt Gehcimnis schien die Nacht. 
 Und dieser Turm war all des dumpfen Trcibcns 
 Und leisen Regens Mittelpunkt und Ziel. 
 
 "XI. p. 152. ''XI, p. 142. "'VII, p. 64. 
 
 7
 
 80 
 
 Wohl zwanzigmal eilt' ich an seinen Fuss, 
 Nun meinend jetzt das Ratsel zu enthiillen, 
 Und sah hinan, nichts schaut' ich als das Licht, 
 Das fort und fort aus Heros Fenster schien. 
 Ein einzig mal lief wie ein Mannesschatten 
 Vom Meeresufer nach dem Turme zu. 
 Ich folg', und angelangt, war wieder nichts, 
 Nur Rauschen rings und Regen, wie zuvor. 
 
 How different from this is Phaon's language, when he en- 
 courages his timid sweetheart by calling her attention to the 
 sympathy which nature expresses, as the protecting power of 
 love :^* 
 
 Fort ! Die Sterne blinken freundlich, 
 Die See rauscht auf, die lauen Liifte wehn, 
 Und Amphritrite ist der Liebe hold. 
 
 As our appreciation of nature matures upon regarding hef 
 as the ideal of love, which, however, we are able to do only 
 when we ourselves understand the meaning of love from our 
 own experience, it is natural that that part of nature, that part 
 of the world in which this experience came to us, is endowed, 
 in our imagination, with particular beauty and special attrac- 
 tion. Therefore, if circumstances have separated us from that 
 particular place, it remains in our hearts as the object of our 
 perpetual longing. This longing fills the mourning soul of 
 the unfortunate Blanka, who, bound in marriage to a monster 
 she cannot respect, has but one desire : to see, once more before 
 her death, the happy land where she was first initiated into the 
 mysteries of nature and of love. Like a Mignon-song sound 
 the passionate accents of Blanka's agony :®^ 
 
 Dahin lass mich ziehn, 
 Diesem Kerker entfliehn. 
 Die seligen Auen 
 Noch einmal schauen. 
 In deren Schoss 
 Mein junges Herz 
 Der Liebe Schmerz, 
 Der Liebe Wonne 
 Entzuckt genoss; 
 *• IV, p. 202. "^ X, pp. 29, 30.
 
 81 
 
 Mich schaun die Sonne, 
 
 Die mich bestrahlte, 
 
 Als Himmelslust 
 
 An seiner Brust 
 
 Mit Purpur meine Wangen malte; 
 
 Mich sehn das Land, 
 
 Wo an der Hand 
 
 Ich der Natur 
 
 Zuerst erfuhr, 
 
 Wie Lieb' begliickt, 
 
 Wie sie betriigt ! 
 
 Dahin lass mich fliehn; 
 
 In seinen stillen Griinden 
 
 Ein Grab mich finden ! 
 
 In conceiving nature as the ideal of love, the picture of our 
 own individual ideal — our own Beloved — must be reflected 
 in this mirror of beauty and purity. It is quite intelligible, 
 therefore, that Grillparzer devotes particular attention to this 
 requirement. According to Spartakus' own statement,"*' all 
 nature — the track of love — reveals characteristics of his Be- 
 loved. Every breath of air, every living creature, every sprout 
 of green, and every brook remind him of his love, and from 
 the very lips of nature comes his sweetheart's name. Alore 
 beautiful even than this statement, and still more explicit, is 
 Spartakus' analysis of the significance of nature's voice at 
 night. The fear-inspiring element of darkness here disappears 
 altogether, and night is associated only with the ideas of still- 
 ness and rest, which enable nature to deliver her message of 
 love. This is a psychic, rather than a physical message, and its 
 delivery is therefore more certain at that time when the body 
 is in the subconscious state of sleep which bares the soul to 
 nature's influence. The entire passage"^ is one of those which 
 show how much Grillparzer was influenced by romanticism : 
 
 Wenn die Sonne hinab ist, 
 
 Und die feuchte Nacht niedersteigt, 
 
 Und die Vogel schlafen, 
 
 Und die Menschen ruhn, 
 
 Und allcs Lebendige schweigt, 
 
 ^"XI, p. 139. "XI, p. 141.
 
 82 
 
 Miide des Korpers Ohr sich schliesst; 
 Da erklingen leise Stimmen, 
 Und des Geistes Ohr 
 Tut sich ahndend, sehnend auf. 
 Was ihr sprachlos nennt, gewinnt Rede, 
 Und der Hain spricht, 
 Und die Wolken, 
 Die zitternden Sterne, 
 ^ Des Mondes wehmutiger Schein. 
 
 Und von ihr lispelt der Wald, 
 Von ihr murmelt der Bach, 
 Sie spricht durch die leisen Klange, 
 Die auf goldenen Fliigeln 
 Durch den Ather sauseln, 
 Und sie und ubrall sie, 
 Durch die ganze Schopfung nur sie ! 
 
 It should be observed that Grillparzer enlivens the reflection 
 of the Loved One in nature, by appealing to the ear, as well 
 as to the eye. Nature thus reveals no mere spectres of love 
 that pass by us like lantern views, but love is endowed with 
 flesh and blood and language, a real actor upon the stage of 
 life. Overwhelming, at first, seems the consciousness that 
 nature is love. So with Bertha:®^ 
 
 Ich kann's nicht fassen, 
 
 Mich selber nicht fassen; 
 
 Alles zeigt mir und spricht mir nur ihn . . . 
 
 On the other hand, nature brings clearness in matters of 
 affection. Phaon thus learns,®^ through intimate communica- 
 tion with nature, that he loves Melitta, while the feeling kindled 
 within him by Sappho's art is admiration and reverence. 
 
 The fairest note in Grillparzer's treatment of nature as love 
 is struck by Blanka,^"** for whom the very appreciation of 
 nature is a matter of altruism. She, too, like Bertha, Spar- 
 takus and Phaon, sees in nature the reflection of her Beloved, 
 but she goes further than that when she emphasizes that that 
 (love) is all the meaning nature has for her, and that she is 
 charmed by nature only because nature attracts Fedriko's 
 heart. An enjoyment of nature without love — or without the 
 
 ^IV, p. 23. ^IV, p. 146. "»X, p. 38.
 
 83 
 
 Loved One — is impossible: the death of love means the death 
 of nature; not for all (because nature is immortal), but for the 
 particular unfortunate individual. Without love, without 
 nature, life is not worth living, and should the shock of the loss 
 itself not be sufficient to kill — the soul is dead, and the body is 
 a living corpse. This is the truth which lies in Hero's lament- 
 ing words :^°^ 
 
 Sag: er war alles! Was noch iibrig blieb, 
 Es sind nur Schatten; es zerfallt, ein Nichts. 
 Sein Atem war die Luft, sein Aug die Sonne, 
 Sein Leib die Kraft der sprossenden Natur; 
 Sein Leben war das Leben ; deines, mains, 
 Des Weltalls Leben. Als wir's liessen sterben. 
 Da starben wir mit ihm. Komm, lass'ger Freund, 
 Komm, lass uns gehn mit unsrer eignen Leiche. 
 
 We turn now to the discussion of Irenens Wiederkehr which 
 is not only of importance for Grillparzer's interpretation of 
 nature as ideal of beauty and love, but which contains, crowded 
 together into the close space of ten pages, almost all the char- 
 acteristics of the poet's conception of nature to which attention 
 has been called in the preceding pages. The poet himself calls 
 Irenens Wiederkehr Ein poetisches Gemdlde; in reality, it is 
 not one painting, but a succession of paintings, all of which 
 have the same sujef, nature, but each of which shows a modi- 
 fication of the color-scheme, i. e., each of these paintings repre- 
 sents the individual point of view held by the different char- 
 acters — wanderer, peasant, youth and maiden. There is no 
 actual exchange of opinion, because there is no dialogue ; but a 
 well-connected series of monologues make it possible to look 
 upon the aggregate of pictures as a sort of evolution of nature- 
 interpretation. 
 
 The first picture is drawn by the wanderer, the oldest of the 
 characters introduced. He describes and interprets the mag- 
 nificent spectacle of sunrise. All nature is endowed with con- 
 sciousness, and there is universal rejoicing over the advent of 
 light. The ever-varied beauty of nature causes a " current of 
 pleasurable sensations," but beauty alone is not sufficient to 
 
 ^»^ VII, p. 96.
 
 84 
 
 bind permanently the human heart, and love is necessary to 
 make a close communion between nature and man possible. It 
 is with significant purpose, therefore, that the wanderer refers 
 to nature as " Das liebende All." Coupled with beauty and 
 love are rest and peace, two essential requirements for a happy 
 old-age. In spite of his years, the wanderer displays youthful 
 enthusiasm, but if the enthusiasm of youth is based upon hope, 
 his is based upon conviction, the result of experience. The 
 experimental stage of the wanderer's life lies far behind him, 
 and his thorough comprehension of the actual significance of 
 nature enables him to feel as an inseparable part of the whole : 
 his relation to nature is that of creature to creator, of man to 
 God. And God-Nature is not a God of wrath, but of love, 
 who never fails to show sympathy for the sufferings of man. 
 
 The very appearance of the youth, who sketches the second 
 picture, points to his interpretation of nature. Quiver and 
 spear are the attributes which he carries: he goes out to hunt 
 in the wilderness of the forest, his aim, as we shall see, being 
 freedom and pleasure. His ruthless energy causes him to be 
 dissatisfied with the narrow boundaries of domestic life, and 
 the peaceful performance of manual labor lies as heavily upon 
 him as prison chains. He yearns to breathe the free air of the 
 mountains, and his adventurous disposition inflames his imagi- 
 nation with pictures of game, pursued by the daring hunter 
 upon precipitous paths. The youth seeks pleasure in nature, 
 rather than nature herself: 
 
 An der Hand der Natur 
 Folgt er der Freude Spur; 
 
 and thus, with him, nature is an object, rather than an end. 
 His conception of nature is just as erroneous as the attitude of 
 hedonistic philosophy toward life. On the other hand, the 
 youth has heard the voice of nature in solitude, of which he is 
 fond, like all youthful dreamers who have visions of future 
 greatness and fame. His impressionable heart is full of ideals, 
 and sunrise inspires him to deeds of unheard of bravery. But, 
 after all, he does not understand the language of the universe, 
 he has only an intimation of nature's true function, while the 
 wanderer has knowledge. The blame rests with his youth.
 
 85 
 
 with his immaturity which makes him the sport of his im- 
 pulses. The following words of the wanderer may be taken 
 as an apologetic characterization of the youth : 
 
 Rasch stiirmt der Jiingling durch das Leben, 
 
 Verzehrend lodert seine Glut, 
 
 Nach Taten geht sein sehnend Streben, 
 
 Das AH umspannt sein keeker Mut; 
 
 Verachtend sieht er auf den Wert des Kleinen ; 
 
 Was ihm gefallt, muss ungeheuer scheinen. 
 
 These words are then followed by a consideration of the con- 
 sequences which youthful impulsiveness may have, and the 
 horrors of war are depicted in vivid colors. Here lies the 
 great contrast in the interpretation of nature given by wanderer 
 and youth : while the wanderer reads in the pages of the great 
 Book of Nature a message of peace and of universal love, the 
 youth interprets the freedom of nature as an inspiration to 
 obtain freedom for himself at any cost — if need be, with the 
 aid of the sword. 
 
 The peasant who now appears behind the plough at once 
 expresses his appreciation of nature by singing a hymn in 
 praise of the sun. But, although his warm words of grati- 
 tude for nature's blessings seem to indicate a more advanced 
 stage of interpretation than that occupied by the youth, it is 
 very evident that even by him beauty is not worshipped for 
 beauty's sake alone, inasmuch as he emphasizes particularly 
 the element of usefulness as the actual source of his apprecia- 
 tion and gratitude. 
 
 Hehr am hohen Himmelszelt 
 
 Flammt dein Lauf 
 
 Und erhalt 
 
 Saat und Feld, 
 
 Die durch dich begliickte Welt 
 
 Sieht mit Dank zu dir hinauf ! 
 
 As a peasant, he depends, of course, largely upon nature for 
 his livelihood, and we cannot be astonished, therefore, that he 
 regards nature but as a means to the end. Grillparzer, it 
 seems, has chosen with purpose the character of a peasant for 
 an illustration of utilitarian interpretation of nature. More-
 
 86 
 
 over, it is not without significance that this peasant is a middle- 
 aged man : his interpretation of nature thus appears semi- 
 mature, and he talces his place between the two extremes repre- 
 sented by wanderer and youth. We are informed that the 
 peasant is a married man, and that the physical welfare of his 
 wife and children depends upon the results of his labor which, 
 in turn, depend upon nature. This point is to be taken into 
 consideration in addition to the peasant's age, if we wish to 
 compare his relation to nature with that of the youth. The 
 weight of responsibility affects the formation of character, and 
 the particular responsibility resting upon husband and father 
 tends to break down the altar of selfishness upon which the 
 young man sacrifices. While the youth's interpretation of 
 nature is obviously hedonistic, the peasant stands on a con- 
 siderably higher plane : he sees in nature the welcome helpmeet 
 in his efforts for those he loves. This follows from his appeal 
 to nature's sympathy: 
 
 Verdopple dein Feuer, flammende Sonne, 
 Gliihende Liifte, weht gliihender fort ! 
 Kiihlung hauch zu mir das siisse Wort : 
 
 Alle Miih 
 
 Fiir sie, f iir sie ! 
 Mag meinen Schweiss die Erde trinken, 
 Das Bild der Teuren lasst mich nicht sinken ! 
 
 The entire attitude of the peasant is then commented upon by 
 the wanderer who defines the contrast between him and the 
 youth : the youth destroys, while the peasant constructs ; the 
 youth misinterprets, while the peasant begins to interpret 
 nature. The picture which the wanderer here unfolds repre- 
 sents the bourgeois in his happy home, and the interpretation 
 of nature of this bourgeois is that of the average man. 
 
 A maiden, who has " sixteen times beheld the apple-tree in 
 bloom," is introduced in the next-following picture. She 
 shows as yet no interpretation of nature at all; or, if the fact 
 that the beauty of spring no longer thrills her heart as before, 
 and that she is unable to take part in nature's universal rejoic- 
 ing, is to be called interpretation of nature, it is certainly sub- 
 conscious. She knows as little of the significance of nature as
 
 87 
 
 she is able to account for the change which has come over her. 
 The wanderer becomes her teacher. It is he who, hidden 
 behind a rock, comforts the distracted child by showing her 
 the cause of her sentimental malady, and who thus arouses 
 her slumbering virginity to consciousness. His mature appre- 
 ciation of nature appears again in the method which he pur- 
 sues. A spark from nature's divinity has fallen into the heart 
 of the girl, and before the wanderer is able to explain to the 
 bewildered maiden the meaning of her experience, he turns 
 to the cause, to the origin itself, and lends expression to his 
 lofty conception of nature: 
 
 Es steigt ein Gott von Himmel nieder, 
 Die Schopfung ist ihm untertan, 
 Es tonen ihm der Vogel Lieder, 
 I Jim flammt die Sonn' auf lichter Bahn ! 
 Die Erde fiihlet seine Triebe; 
 Als kraft'ge Pflanze reisst sich los. 
 Was einst in ihrem kalten Schoss 
 Verhiillt sich barg als schwacher Same. 
 
 Liebe, 
 
 Liebe ! 
 Ist des Belebers siisser Name ! 
 
 The impression made upon the young girl then assumes a 
 visible form with the sudden appearance of the youth she 
 loves, upon the height of the rock. It is then that she comes 
 to the full realization of what is taking place within her heart ; 
 she flees, to conceal her blushing cheeks, and we lose sight of 
 her. We are not told where she is going, but there can be no 
 doubt, that her aim is solitary communion with nature which, 
 as ideal of love, will henceforth be her haven of rest and 
 refuge, and which alone can give her instruction in tlie per- 
 formance of woman's sublime and altruistic mission — mother- 
 hood! 
 
 After the maiden's escape, the wanderer, in the form of an 
 epilogue points out the differences in the character of man 
 and woman, and he shows that these differences are so dis- 
 tributed as to supplement rather than to counteract each other. 
 Importance must be attached also to this statement, because
 
 by showing that man and woman together form one unit, the 
 wanderer establishes the symmetry of nature as part of her 
 ideal beauty. 
 
 Who, now, is this mysterious wanderer who, from " jenseits 
 von Gut und Bose," as it were, passes judgment upon the 
 various kinds of interpretation of nature shown by youth, 
 peasant and maiden, and who sets forth his own lofty ideas 
 with such overwhelming force? It can be no one else than 
 Grillparzer himself, to whom nature means so much, and who 
 desires to impress others with the purified truth which he 
 believes to have in his possession. We have had occasion to 
 hear the " wanderer's " voice in numerous other passages, but 
 in Irenens Wiederkehr it is not only most eloquent, but also 
 expresses the thought in its most complete form, and thus 
 solidifies the basis of the poet's pantheistic interpretation of 
 nature.
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 Grillparzer's nature-poetry is not so much an original con- 
 ception of nature as an original expression of modern inter- 
 pretation. We have had occasion to study the poet's careful 
 treatment of the seasons of the year, and we have noted his 
 preference for the two extremes Spring and Winter. Our 
 attention has been directed upon his exceedingly sensitive dis- 
 position toward light and darkness, as well as upon his appre- 
 ciation of water, thunder, rain and storm, while we were able 
 to admire his many-colored landscapes, and to infer his love 
 for nature from his readiness to make use of her in meta- 
 phors. On the other hand, we are now acquainted with the 
 particular characteristics which Grillparzer ascribes to nature ; 
 with his treatment of solitude and mysticism; with his appeals 
 to nature's sympathy; with his symbolic interpretation of 
 nature, and, finally, with his analysis of cosmic metaphysics. 
 Grillparzer, as a poet of nature, reveals the influence exerted 
 upon him especially by the romantic reaction,^ but he is more 
 closely related to Byron than to Tieck or Novalis. That he 
 could not, without Goethe, have given expression to a panthe- 
 istic conception of nature, or, without the influence of the 
 Greeks and of Rousseau, to a perpetual longing for the balm 
 of solitude, goes without saying. While he, then, like any 
 modern poet, derived the essence of his interpretation of 
 nature from traditional standards, his inborn love for nature 
 and the individuality of his expression must be taken into 
 consideration. 
 
 The key to Grillparzer's nature-poetry may be found in his 
 aesthetic principles. In his Autobiography- he refers to 
 nature as the " real source of the true poet," and in his studies 
 Zur Poesie im Allgemeinen^ he says emphatically : " That 
 which attains the vivacity of nature and yet, by virtue of the 
 concomitant ideas, goes beyond nature, that, and only that is 
 
 'Vide above, p. 12. -XIX, p. 186. 'XV, p. 55. 
 
 89
 
 90 
 
 poetry." However, Grillparzer's art does not consist of a 
 mere imitation of nature, for he admits the truth of a passage 
 in Revue des Deux Mondes,'^ where art is defined as the inter- 
 pretation of nature. " Nor is art," he says elsewhere,^ " an 
 embelhshment of nature, for who could render individual 
 traits of nature more beautiful than they are? Compare a 
 painted tree with life, the description of a landscape with 
 reality, the Venus of Medici with your sweetheart ! " — Another 
 statement made by the poet himself, in the evening of his life 
 (1864), is of special interest for the characterization of his 
 nature-poetry -.^ " The Brothers Schlegel have cast the shibbo- 
 leth into the world, that ancient poetry is objective, while 
 modern poetry is subjective. That sort of poetry which is 
 not subjective is, in my opinion, no poetry at all." The pro- 
 nounced subjectivity which appears in Grillparzer's description 
 and interpretation of nature often reminds one of Geo. 
 Brandes'" definition of Lord Byron's true greatness : namely, 
 the passionate manifestation of subjectivity and individualism. 
 
 It is far from me to attempt to lift Grillparzer's lyric poetry 
 to the height of Lord Byron or to that of Goethe. As a 
 dramatic poet, Grillparzer shows many points of contact 
 with Goethe, as Waniek has shown in his pamphlet Grill- 
 parzer unter Goethes Einfluss, Bielitz, 1893, and also in his 
 interpretation of nature we meet with kindred thoughts (cf. 
 for example the following passage from the Ahnfrau: Und 
 mit tausend Flammenaugen starrt die Nacht nich glotzcnd an 
 with Goethe's Finsternis, die aiis dcm Gcstrduche mit hundert 
 schivarzen Augen sieht), although Goethe's wonderful lyric 
 language has not been duplicated. 
 
 As for Lord Byron, Grillparzer himself felt that there was 
 an apparent relation between them, and, in various passages, 
 in his Diaries, he draws comparisons between the British poet 
 and himself. Both poets were also of kindred temperament, 
 and their various sad experiences, which ultimately led them 
 to a solitary life, would tend to show points of biographical 
 similarity. 
 
 * Asthetische Studien, XV, p. 26. ^ Ibid., p. 25, 
 
 ° Tagebiicher, II, p. 141. '' Der N aturalismiis in England, p. 303.
 
 91 
 
 To establish the position of Grillparzer, as a poet of nature, 
 between Goethe and Lord Byron, would require another bulky 
 treatise in which Grillparzer's nature-poetry should be studied 
 from a comparative point of view. The present investigation 
 is confined to the discussion of Grillparzer's individual treat- 
 ment of nature, and the poet's apparent kinship to the foremost 
 representatives of lyric poetry in Germany and England must 
 be regarded as a mere suggestion to some other student. 
 
 Whatever has been, and may still be said in criticism of 
 Grillparzer's lyric vein, it is earnestly hoped that these pages 
 may have prepared the way for a more serious consideration 
 of his genius and of his actual achievements in the field of 
 lyrics. Above all, let us not forget that Grillparzer at all times 
 painted what he saw as he saw it. The truthfulness of his 
 character which his biographers laud is reflected also in his 
 poetry, and in his poetry of nature in particular. Gustav 
 Pollak^ sums up this thought as follows : " Grillparzer's lyric 
 vein which lends to his dramas so unique a charm, found ex- 
 pression in numerous poems which are a remarkably faithful 
 reflex of his inner life. No writer ever followed more scru- 
 pulously Goethe's example in seeking inspiration in the reality 
 of his experiences." In addition to this comes the poet's con- 
 sciousness that he possessed the true original. The following 
 poem, in which Grillparzer apparently pokes fun at the copy- 
 ists of past and present, contains a significant self-praise which, 
 however, we must accept as justified and true: 
 
 Das Urbild und die Abbilder. 
 (An eine Nicht-Dichterin) 
 Kunstbeflissen und unverzagt, 
 Feder und Farben und Stift in den Taschen, 
 Ziehen sie aus in wilder Jagd, 
 Unschuld und Reiz und Natur zu erhaschen. 
 Was er erhascht und was er erringt, 
 Jeder fein fleissig zu Buche bringt, 
 Um in des Winters Frieren und Harmen 
 Sich an dem kostlichen Labsal zu warmen. 
 Wie ? und nur du mehrst nicht ihre Zahl ? 
 Schatzest du nicht, wonach jene geizen? 
 ^ Frans Grillparzer and the Austrian Drama, p. 401.
 
 92 
 
 Kann dich Natur und Unschuld nicht reizen? 
 Oder war's hier wie im Bildersaal? 
 Alles rennt dort und hascht nach Kopieen; 
 Einer nur will sich nicht viel bemiihen — 
 "Tragt er im Busen ein Herz von Stahl?" 
 Nein — er besitzt das Original !
 
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