THE LIBRARY 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY 
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 ELI SOBEL
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 GERMAN LITERATURE
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 GERMAN LITERATURE 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN G. ROBERTSON 
 
 LECTURER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF STRASSBURG 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 I9O2 
 
 All Rights reserved
 
 Printed by 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, Edinburgh, Scotland.
 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 WHILE the general object and scope of the present 
 History of German Literature are sufficiently obvious, 
 some explanation is necessary with regard to the 
 illustrative passages which form one of its features. 
 Such passages are accompanied, in the case of older 
 dialects, by a literal German version, which is to be 
 considered as a glossary rather than as a translation. 
 It is believed that by this means the reader will be 
 able better to appreciate the meaning and poetic value 
 of the extracts than if he were offered an English 
 version or an actual translation into modern German. 
 Medieval literature cannot be approached through the 
 medium of translations, and, as F. Pfeiffer remarks in 
 the introduction to his edition of Walther von der 
 Vogelweide, " Mittelhochdeutsche Gedichte auch nur 
 ertraglich ins Neuhochdeutsche zu iibersetzen, ist ein 
 Ding der Unmoglichkeit." Old High German, Old 
 Saxon and Middle High German extracts are based 
 on standard texts ; but, from the Early High German 
 period onwards, titles of works and quotations are 
 taken from original editions that is to say, the
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 orthography is not modernised. The bibliographical 
 notes are restricted to references which are likely to 
 be of service to the English or American student. 
 As a work which is to be found in every larger 
 library, and consequently generally accessible, the 
 collection of Deutsche Nationallitteratur, edited by J. 
 Kiirschner, is irrespective of the unequal value of the 
 individual volumes referred to throughout. 
 
 For what I owe to other workers in the field, and 
 for invaluable hints and suggestions from those who 
 have helped me in reading the proofs especially my 
 friend Professor F. H. Wilkens of Union College, 
 Schenectady I have to express my hearty thanks. 
 Above all, I am indebted to the Universitats- und 
 Landes-Bibliothek in Strassburg, which has enabled 
 me, in almost all cases, to write from a first-hand 
 acquaintance with the literature. 
 
 JOHN G. ROBERTSON. 
 
 STRASSBURG, July i, 1902. .
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE ........ v 
 
 INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 PART I. 
 
 to Ifyigb erman 
 
 CHAPTER I. EARLY GERMANIC CULTURE; THE MIGRATIONS. 
 
 The Germanic races. Tacitus's account of the West Germans. The 
 Goths ; Wulfila's translation of the Bible. The Migrations. 
 Beginnings of the national epic . . . . .3 
 
 CHAPTER II. CHRISTIANITY. LITERARY BEGINNINGS UNDER 
 CHARLES THE GREAT. 
 
 The High German Soundshifting. The Merovingian epoch. Intro- 
 duction of Christianity. Charles the Great. Translations of the 
 liturgy. The (Vessobrunner Gebet and the Hildebrandslied . 10 
 
 CHAPTER III. CHARLES THE GREAT'S SUCCESSORS. BIBLICAL 
 POETRY. 
 
 Ludwig the Pious. Tatian's Evangelienharmonie. The Old Saxon 
 Heliand and Genesis. Ludwig the German. The Muspilli. 
 Otfrid's Evangelienbuch. The Ludwigslied . . . 18 
 
 CHAPTER IV. LATIN LITERATURE UNDER THE SAXON EMPERORS. 
 NOTKER. THE LITURGIC DRAMA. 
 
 The Saxon emperors. The Spielleute. St Gall ; Waltharius and 
 Eebasis captivi. Hrotsuith of Gandersheim. Ruodlieb. Notker. 
 The origin of the drama. Religious plays . . 2 7
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 iHtoUIe f^tgf) erman ^Literature (10504350). 
 
 CHAPTER I. ASCETICISM. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE POPULAR EPIC. 
 
 Monastic reform. " Mariendichtung :) and theological mysticism. 
 The Annolied and Kaiserchronik. Konig Rather. Herzog Ernst. 
 The Spielmann's epic . . . . , -39 
 
 CHAPTER II. THE POETRY OF KNIGHTHOOD; THE BEGINNINGS 
 
 OF THE MlNNESANG. 
 
 Influence of the Crusades. The Alexanderlied and the Rolandslied. 
 Eilhart von Oberge. The Beast epic. Beginnings of the 
 Minnesang. " Spruchdichtung " . . . . 50 
 
 CHAPTER III. THE NIBELUNGENLIED. 
 
 The Nibelungen saga and Nibelungenlied. Siegfried and Kriemhild ; 
 Gunther and Brunhild. Siegfried's death. The Burgundians at 
 Etzel's Court ; Kriemhild's revenge. Diu Klage . . 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. GUDRUN AND THE HELOENBUCH. 
 
 Hilde and Gudrun. Gudrun in Normandy ; her deliverance. Com- 
 parison of Gudrun with the Nibelungenlied. The Heldenbuch. 
 The Dietrich cycle of epics. Ortnit and Wolfdietrich . . 72 
 
 CHAPTER V. THE COURT EPIC: HEINRICH VON VELDEKE, 
 HARTMAN AND WOLFRAM. 
 
 Heinrich von Veldeke's Eneit. Herbert von Fritzlar and Albrecht 
 von Halberstadt. Arthurian romance. Hartman von Aue. 
 Wolfram's Parzival, Titurel and Willehalm . . .82 
 
 CHAPTER VI. GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG ; THE DECAY OF THE 
 COURT EPIC. 
 
 Gottfried's Tristan. The later Court epic. The influence of 
 Hartman, Wolfram and Gottfried. Ulrich von Liechtenstein. 
 Meier Helmbreht. Rudolf von Ems and Konrad von Wurzburg 99
 
 CONTENTS. IX 
 
 CHAPTER VII. THE MINNESANG. 
 
 Minnesang and Minnedienst. Friedrich von Hausen, Heinrich von 
 Morungen and Reinmar von Hagenau. Walther von der Vogel- 
 weide. Neidhart von Reuenthal. Later Minnesingers . . 115 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. DIDACTIC POETRY AND PROSE. 
 
 Der Winsbeke, Thomasin von Zirclaere's Welscher Cast and Freidank's 
 Bescheidenheit. Hugo von Trimberg. The sermons of David of 
 Augsburg and Berthold of Regensburg . . . . 133 
 
 PART III. 
 
 SEarlg &efa pfig!j (Herman ^Literature (13504700). 
 
 CHAPTER I. THE DECAY OF ROMANCE. SATIRE AND BEAST FABLE. 
 
 The decay of chivalry and the rise of the middle classes. Prose 
 romances. Anecdotal literature. The Beast fable : Reynke de 
 Vos. Brant's Narrenschiff, " Reimsprecher " . . . 143 
 
 CHAPTER II. MEISTERGESANG AND VOLKSLIED. 
 
 Hugo von Montfort and Oswald von Wolkenstein. The Meister- 
 singers and their " Singschulen." The Volkslied. Historical 
 ballads; love songs and drinking songs. The religious Lied . 156 
 
 CHAPTER III. MYSTICISM AND HUMANISM ; THE REFORMATION. 
 
 The Mystics : Eckhart and Tauler. Geiler. The literature of 
 humanism : Erasmus. Martin Luther. Luther's Bible ; his 
 Geistliche Lieder and Tischreden. Ulrich von Hutten. Murner 166 
 
 CHAPTER IV. THE REFORMATION DRAMA. 
 
 Early " Fastnachtsspiele." Influence of the Reformation. The 
 Latin school comedy. Swiss dramatists. Rebhun and Frischlin. 
 Hans Sachs ; his Fastnachtsspiele and longer dramas . . 180 
 
 CHAPTER V. SATIRE AND DRAMA IN THE LATER SIXTEENTH 
 CENTURY. 
 
 Wickram, Ringwaldt and Rollenhagen. Fischart. The Volksbuch 
 of Faust, Revival of the drama under English in.fluen.ce ; Duke 
 Heinrich Julius of Brunswick and Jakob Ayrer . . .192
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 Humanists in Heidelberg. Martin Opitz and his Btuli von der 
 tietttschen Poetcrey. The literary societies. Dach, Fleming and 
 Rist. The dramas of Gryphius . . , ' . . 203 
 
 CHAPTER VII. RELIGIOUS POETRY ; EPIGRAM AND SATIRE. 
 
 Angelus Silesius and Spec. The Protestant hymn : Gerhardt. 
 Logau's epigrams. Satirists : Lauremberg and Rachel. Schupp 
 and Abraham a Santa Clara . ." ""'' ' . . 217 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. THE NOVEL IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Moscherosch. Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus. Weise and 
 Reuter. The " Robinsonaden." Zesen. Ziegler's Asiatische 
 Banise. Hofmannswaldau and Lohenstein . . . 226 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 2Ef)E SEigfjtEentf) Centurg. 
 
 CHAPTER I. RATIONALISM AND ENGLISH INFLUENCE. 
 
 Revival of Pietism : Spener. Rationalism : Thomasius, Leibniz 
 and Wolff. Giinther. Brockes and Hagedorn. Haller. The 
 " Moralischen Wochenschriften " . . . . : . 237 
 
 CHAPTER II. LEIPZIG AND ZURICH AS LITERARY CENTRES. 
 
 Gottsched : his Critische Dichtkunst. Conflict with Bodmer and 
 Breitinger. The Brenier Beytrdge ; J. E. Schlegel, Zachada, 
 Rabener and Gellert Fable writers . . . 245 
 
 CHAPTER III. THE PRUSSIAN POETS; KLOPSTOCK. 
 
 Halle as a literary centre : Pyra and Lange ; Gleim, Uz and Gotz. 
 E. C. von Kleist. Ramler. Frederick the Great. Klopstock ; 
 his Afessias and Oifen. The "bards." Gessner . . . 256 
 
 CHAPTER IV. LESSING. 
 
 Early dramas and criticism. His Leipzig friends. Die Litteratur- 
 briefe. Winckelmann. Laokoon, Minna von Barnhelm and the 
 Hamburgische Dramaturgie. Emilia Galotti and Nathan der 
 Weise 268
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 CHAPTER V. WIELAND ; MINOR PROSE WRITERS. 
 
 Wieland's novels and verse romances : Agathon, Die Abderiten, 
 Oberon. Wieland's influence. The novel : imitations of Richard- 
 son. Popular philosophers. Lichtenberg . . . 283 
 
 CHAPTER VI. HERDER; THE G$TTINGEN BUND. 
 
 Ilamann. Herder's Fragmente and Von deutscher Art und Kumt. 
 Volkslieder. Ideen zur Philosophic der Geschichte. The Gottingen 
 Dichterbund. Voss and Holty. Claudius, Gockingk and Burger 293 
 
 CHAPTER VII. "STURM UND DRANG"; GOETHE'S YOUTH. 
 
 The " Geniezeit." Goethe as a student in Leipzig and Strassburg. 
 Early writings. His Sesenheim lyrics. Gbtz von Berlichingen, 
 Werther and Clavigo. Faust in its earliest form. Egmont . 307 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. THE MINOR " STURMER UND DRANGER"; 
 SCHILLER'S EARLY YEARS. 
 
 Gerstenberg. Lenz. Klinger's first period. Leisewitz, Wagner and 
 Maler Miiller. Schiller's youth : Die Rduber^ Fiesco and Kabale 
 und Liebe. Schubart ...... 323 
 
 CHAPTER IX. SCHILLER'S SECOND PERIOD. END OF THE 
 "STURM UND DRANG." 
 
 Don Carlos. Schiller as historian. The drama : Schroder and 
 Iffland. The " Ritterdrama." The theatre in Austria. Ileinse. 
 Klinger's novels. Moritz and Forster .... 336 
 
 CHAPTER X. GOETHE'S FIRST TWENTY YEARS IN WEIMAR. 
 
 Goethe as minister of State. Frau von Stein. Goethe's lyrics of this 
 period. His visit to Italy. Iphigenie and Tasso. Return to 
 Weimar. Wilhelm Meislers Lehrjahre .... 348 
 
 CHAPTER XI. THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. GOETHE AND 
 SCHILLER'S FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Kant's three Kriliken. Schiller's writings on aesthetics ; his philo- 
 sophic lyrics. Humboldt. Schiller's friendship with Goethe. 
 Die Horen. Die Xenien. Wallenstein . . . 36*
 
 xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. GOETHE'S CLASSICISM ; THE FIRST PART OF FAUST. 
 
 Hermann nnd Dorothea. The " Balladenalmanach." Schiller's 
 Lied von tier Glocke. Goethe and the French Revolution : his 
 Natiirliche Tochter and Pandora. Faust, erster Theil . . 374 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL SCHILLER'S LAST DRAMAS. 
 
 The Weimar Court theatre. Kotzebue. Schiller's Maria Stuart, 
 Jungfrau von Orleans, Braut von Messina, Wilhelm Tell and 
 Demetrius. Schiller's death ..... 387 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. MINOR POETS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD. THE 
 TRANSITION TO ROMANTICISM. 
 
 Matthisson. Tiedge. Kosegarten. Seume. From Classicism to 
 Romanticism : Fichte, Richter and Holderlin. Dialect litera- 
 ture : Hebel and Usteri ...... 399 
 
 PART V. 
 
 SEfje Ih'ncteentfi Centurjr. 
 
 CHAPTER I. THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 
 
 Founding of the school. A. W. Schlegel as critic ; his translation of 
 Shakespeare. F. Schlegel. Tieck and Wackenroder. Novalis. 
 Schelling and Schleiermacher . . . . . 415 
 
 CHAPTER II. ROMANTIC DRAMA AND PATRIOTIC LYRIC. 
 
 The " Schicksalstragodie " : Werner, Milliner and Houwald. Kleist. 
 Lyric of the " Befreiungskrieg " : Korner, Arndt and Schenken- 
 dorf. Riickert and Hoffmann von Fallersleben . . . 430 
 
 CHAPTER III. GOETHE'S LATER YEARS. 
 
 Goethe and Napoleon. Die Wahlvenvandlschaften. Dichtung und 
 Wahrheit. Scientific interests. Der West-'dstliche Divan. Wilhelm 
 Meisters Wander jahre. Faust, zweiter Theil . . . 443 
 
 CHAPTER IV. THE HEIDELBERG ROMANTICISTS. 
 
 The Heidelberg school : Brentano, Arnim and Gcirres. Des Knaben 
 Wunderhorn. The brothers Grimm ; German philology. Arnim's 
 Kronen-waehter and Brentano's Grundung Prags . . 458
 
 CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 CHAPTER V. ROMANTICISM IN BERLIN. THE PHILOSOPHIC 
 MOVEMENT. 
 
 Berlin as a literary centre. La Motte Fouque. Chamisso. Eichen- 
 dorfFs lyrics and novels. Gentz and Miiller. Savigny. The 
 philosophy of Hegel and Schopenhauer . 468 
 
 CHAPTER VI. THE DECAY OF ROMANTICISM. 
 
 E. T. A. Hoffmann. Tieck's later " Novellen." Schulze. Riickert. 
 W. Miiller. Poetry of the Greek Revolt. Gaudy and Mosen. 
 "Polenlieder" . . . . . . .4^0 
 
 CHAPTER VII. HISTORICAL FICTION AND DRAMA. IMMERMANN 
 AND PLATEN. 
 
 The historical novel : Hauff and Haring (Alexis). Zschokke. The 
 drama : Grabbe, Beer and Holtei. The Romantic opera : 
 Weber and Marschner. Immermann and Platen . . 491 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. " YOUNG GERMANY/' 
 
 " Das junge Deutschland." Wienbarg. Borne. Heine ; his lyrics 
 and ballads. As a prose-writer. Gutzkow's novels and dramas. 
 Laube. Mundt, Gervinus and Menzel. Bettina von Arnim . 501 
 
 CHAPTER IX. THE SWABIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 Romanticism in Swabia. Uhland ; his ballads and dramas. Kerner, 
 Schwab and Waiblinger. MSrike as lyric poet ; his Maler Nolten. 
 Kurz. Vischer . . . . . . .518 
 
 CHAPTER X. LITERATURE IN AUSTRIA; GRILLPARZER. 
 
 The Metternich regime. Collin and Schreyvogel. Grillparzer; his 
 dramatic work. Halm and Bauernfeld. Raimund and Nestroy. 
 Zedlitz, Griin and Lenau ...... 5 2 9 
 
 CHAPTER XI. THE POLITICAL LYRIC. 
 
 Becker and Prutz. Herwegh. Freiligrath. Dingelstedt. Hoffmann 
 von Fallersleben. Revolutionary poets in Austria. Kinkel. 
 Geibel. Strachwitz. Annette von Droste-HUlshoff . . 544
 
 xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. LITERATURE OF THE PROVINCE. THE DRAMA. 
 
 The novel of peasant-life : Gotthelf and Auerbach. Stifter. Reuter 
 and Groth. Dramatic literature : Hebbel ; his plays. Ludwig 
 as dramatist and novelist. Minor playwrights . . . 557 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. THE NOVEL FROM 1848 TO 1870. 
 
 The philosophic movement. Freytag ; his dramas and novels. 
 Spielhagen. The historical and antiquarian romance. Keller 
 and Storm. Women-writers. Jordan . . . . 572 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. THE MUNICH GROUP. HISTORY AND CRITICISM. 
 
 Geibel in Munich. Schack. Bodenstedt. Leuthold and Lingg. 
 Scheflfel and his imitators. Lorm and Hamerling. Heyse. 
 Wilbrandt and Jensen. Humourists. Historians and critics . 586 
 
 CHAPTER XV. FROM 1870 TO 1890 ; RICHARD WAGNER. 
 
 German unification. Wagner and his dramatic work. The Bayreuth 
 Festspiele. The " Meininger." Wildenbruch. Anzengruber. 
 C. F. Meyer. Austrian novelists. Fontane . . . 59^ 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Nietzsche and individualism. The lyric : Liliencron. The realistic 
 movement. Sudermann and Hauptmann. Minor dramatists. 
 The novel at the end of the century . . . .611 
 
 INDEX ........ 623
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the criteria of poetic excellence in Germany have 
 often differed widely from those acknowledged elsewhere, the 
 historical development of German literature has naturally 
 many features in common with that of other European 
 literatures ; and, while its periods of flourishing and decay 
 have rarely coincided with those in France, in England, or 
 even in Scandinavia, they have, in general, been rooted in 
 social and intellectual movements, the significance of which 
 was more than national. In Germany, as in other lands, for 
 example, a shadowy pre-Christian epoch was followed by an 
 age of rigid monasticism ; the knight of the Crusades receded 
 before the burgher of the rising towns, and Reformation was 
 intimately associated with Renaissance. And in more recent 
 centuries, Germany has responded even more quickly than 
 her neighbours to the social and intellectual changes which, 
 heedless of national or linguistic barriers, have, from time 
 to time, swept across Europe. While no modern literature 
 has grown up in entire independence, none is bound by 
 closer ties or is more indebted to its fellows than that of 
 Germany. Before entering on the study of this literature, 
 it is consequently important to make clear, by means of a 
 comparative survey, the position which it occupies in Europe 
 and the relations in which it stands to other literatures; to 
 establish in how far divergences in the evolution of German 
 
 b
 
 XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 letters are to be ascribed to national temperament, in how 
 far to accidents of social or political history. 
 
 Divisions Historically regarded, German literature 1 admits of a 
 uterature." natural division into three epochs, each of which is dis- 
 tinguished by special linguistic characteristics : an Old High 
 German period, in which the dialects of South Germany re- 
 tained the wide range of vowel sounds to be found in all the 
 older Germanic languages ; a Middle High German epoch, 
 beginning about 1050, in which that diversity of vowel sounds 
 and grammatical forms had in great measure disappeared ; 
 and, lastly, a New High German or modern German period, 
 which began about the middle of the fourteenth century. 
 During the second of these periods, the High German dialects 
 gained an ascendancy over those of the North and of Central 
 Germany, while, in New High German times, German litera- 
 ture is practically restricted to High German. 
 
 Setting out from the fact that the " Bliitezeit " of German 
 poetry, at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was 
 followed by a period of depression, which, ultimately, towards 
 the end of the eighteenth century, made way for the crowning 
 age of German classical poetry, Wilhelm Scherer attempted 
 to establish for German literature a general law of evolution. 2 
 He regarded it as oscillating between "periods of flourish- 
 ing," which recurred at regular intervals of six hundred years ; 
 according to his hypothesis, the epoch which touched its 
 
 1 Cp. A.. Koberstein, Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen National- 
 litteratur (1827), th ed., by K. Bartsch, 6 vols., Leipzig, 1872-74 (vol. i. of a 
 sixth edition appeared in 1884) ; G. C. Gervinus, Geschichte der deutschen. 
 Dichtung (1835-36), 5th ed., by K. Bartsch, 5 vols., Leipzig, 1871-74; A. F. 
 C. Vilmar, Geschichte der deutschen Nationallitteratur (1848), 24th ed., with a 
 continuation by A. Stern, Marburg, 1894 ; W. Wackernagel, Geschichte der 
 deutschen Litteratur (1848-53), 2nd ed., by E. Martin, Basle, 1879-94 ' K. 
 Goedeke, Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung ( 1857-81), 2nd ed., 
 Dresden, 1884 ff. (seven volumes have appeared) ; W. Scherer, Geschichte der 
 deutschen Litteratur (1883), gth ed., Berlin, 1902; F. Vogt and M. Koch, 
 Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur von den dltesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart, 
 Leipzig, 1897; K. Francke, German Literature, as determined by Social Forces, 
 4th ed., New York, 1901. Cp. also J. Kiirschner, Deutsche Nationallitteratur, 
 222 vols., Stuttgart, 1882-98 (referred to in the present volume as D.N.L.) 
 
 8 Geschichte. der deutschen Litteratur, 91)1 ed., 18 f.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XVli 
 
 zenith in 1200 was preceded by an earlier " Bliitezeit " of 
 unwritten literature, which reached its highest point about 
 600. Literary evolution, however, is too complicated a 
 phenomenon to be explained by laws simple as those which 
 Kepler applied to the planetary system ; in any case, Scherer's 
 first " period of flourishing " is only a hypothesis. Other 
 Germanic races, such as the Goths, had, as early as the 
 fourth century, acquired a certain facility of literary expres- 
 sion, and the Anglo-Saxon epic of Beoivulf dates from the 
 seventh or eighth century; but, considering only the West 
 Germanic races of the continent those which especially con- 
 cern us here we possess but one fragment of a heroic lay, 
 the Hildebrandslied, and a couple of pre-Christian charms, 
 as a testimony to the nation's imagination previous to the 
 Carlovingian epoch. The themes of the German national 
 epic had originated, it is true, in the period of the Migra- 
 tions ; but whether the traditions had, in that age, taken a 
 form which could be described as literary, is open to doubt. 
 
 The Old High German period of German literature x ex- The Old 
 tended from about 750 to 1050; but, as the chief literary German 
 remains date only from the ninth century, this epoch may, period, 
 roughly speaking, be said to lie between the age in which 
 Anglo-Saxon poetry flourished and the age of Anglo-Saxon 
 prose. It was essentially a period of monkish ascendancy, and 
 if we except the epic poetry of the Saxons the Germanic 
 imagination was held rigidly in check by Christianity. In 
 the unequal battle between the World and the Church, the 
 former succumbed, and the Latin Renaissance of the eleventh 
 century finally crushed out the weak beginnings of a national 
 literature. Meanwhile, however, the Romance literatures of 
 
 1 Cp. J. Kelle, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur, i (to the middle of the 
 eleventh century), Berlin, 1892 ; R. Koegel, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur bis 
 sum Ausgang ties Mittelalters, i (in two parts), Strassburg, 1894-97; a l so R- 
 Koegel and W. Bruckner, in Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, 
 2nd ed., 2, i, Strassburg, 1901, 29 ff. ; W. Golther, Geschichte der deutschen 
 Litteratur von den ersten Anfdngen bis sum Ausgang des Alittelallers (D.N.L., 
 163, i), Stuttgart [1892].
 
 XV111 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Middle 
 High 
 German 
 literature. 
 
 the South and West of Europe were developing more 
 rapidly than those of the North. While, early in the twelfth 
 century, Germany was still engaged in freeing herself from 
 monastic asceticism, and England was being remodelled by the 
 Normans, French singers were composing the first national 
 chansons^ the lyric of the troubadours was flourishing in Prov- 
 ence, and the Poema del Cid had taken shape in Spain. 
 
 The revival of German poetry now known as Middle High 
 German 1 was late in setting in, but when it did come, it 
 advanced with all the more rapidity. In the course of the 
 twelfth century, the iron rule of the Church began to yield, 
 worldly themes took the place of religious legends as subjects 
 for poetry, and wandering singers or "Spielleute" became 
 a factor of importance. Had German literature been left 
 wholly to itself, its history in the thirteenth century might 
 possibly have been analogous to that of English literature of 
 the same period ; but, towards the close of the twelfth cen- 
 tury, German poets came under the influence of their French 
 contemporaries, and, within a few decades, Middle High 
 German literature had far outstripped all its neighbours. 
 The Arthurian epic became in Germany, what it already was 
 in France, the chosen form of courtly romance, and the 
 national sagas were remodelled under the stimulus of the new 
 ideals : even the German lyric was indebted to Provencal 
 singers. Thus, it might be said that the zenith of Middle 
 High German poetry fell a little later than that of medieval 
 literature in France, and a full century before French chivalric 
 literature awakened an echo in England. 
 
 Middle High German poetry was exposed to the same 
 causes of decay as those to which all pre-Renaissance litera- 
 
 1 Cp. F. Khull, Geschichte der altdeutschen Dichtung, Graz. 1886 ; F. Vogt 
 in Paul's Grundriss dcr germanisclien Philologie, 2nd ed., 2, i, Strassburg, 
 1901, 161 ff. The beginning of the period is discussed by J. Kelle in his 
 Geschichte der dcutschen Litteratur, 2, Berlin, 1896, and in W. Scherer, 
 Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung im n. und 12. Jahrhundert (Quellen und 
 Forschungcn, 12), Strassburg, 1875, and Geistliche Poeten der deutschen Kaiser- 
 zeit (same series, i and 7), Strassburg, 1874-75.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 tures were subject ; in Germany, as elsewhere, the change 
 which came over medieval society the disappearance of 
 knighthood and the rise of the middle classes left deep 
 traces on literature : verse yielded to prose, relative form 
 to formlessness, and the nai've art of the courtly singers to 
 didacticism and satire. But there was also another reason 
 for the rapid decay of what was the richest, because the 
 most concentrated, of all medieval literatures. The Middle 
 High German period was, as will be seen, almost exclusively 
 an epoch of poetry ; Germany had no prose writers, no Ville- 
 hardouin or Joinville, no Duns Scotus or Roger Bacon ; she 
 had only poets, neither thinkers nor historians, and before the 
 thirteenth century had reached its close, her literature, like 
 a plant without adequate roots, had withered away. And in 
 the following century the fourteenth when Italy could point 
 to Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, when, in France, the long 
 age of medieval romance was followed by a period of satire 
 and allegory, and English poetry was steadily advancing 
 towards the poetic efflorescence associated with Chaucer, 
 Germany fell back into comparative darkness ; her writers 
 appealed only to the crass tastes of the people. Not, indeed, 
 until after the early Italian Renaissance and the culture of 
 the Humanists 1 had spread beyond the Alps, did the Ger- 
 mans begin to do what their neighbours had done before 
 them, namely, to establish universities and thus lay a solid 
 basis for a national literature. At a time when Froissart was 
 writing French history, and Wyclif was fighting for reforma- 
 tion in England, mystics like Eckhart and Tauler were only 
 beginning to lay the real foundations of German intellectual life. 
 
 Germany's recovery from this period of depression was, Reforma- 
 however, phenomenally rapid. At the beginning of the R"^"f 
 fifteenth century, the German - speaking races had virtually sance. 
 no literature and little prospect of one ; but not a hundred 
 years elapsed before Luther had inaugurated the Protestant 
 
 1 Cp. L. Geiger, Renaissance und Humanismus in Italien -and Deutschland, 
 and ed., Berlin, 1899.
 
 XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Reformation and placed his people in the van of European 
 progress. The epoch between the decay of Middle High 
 German as a distinct language, and the final cystallisation 
 of modern German, it is usual to describe as Early New 
 High German. The literature of these centuries is intim- 
 ately associated with Reformation and Renaissance ; but it 
 is significant for the German national character that the effects 
 of the Renaissance did not make themselves felt in Germany 
 until after the Reformation. In the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries, the Humanists, it is true, had endeavoured to 
 awaken Germany to the importance of the classic revival, by 
 bringing the treasures of Southern literature within the grasp 
 of German poets, but their efforts met with little success. 
 Until the way had been prepared for it by the Reformation, 
 the Renaissance made no lasting impression on German 
 literature. In its defiant individualism, Protestantism was 
 thoroughly Germanic ; under its influence, the literature of the 
 people finally triumphed over the literature of knighthood ; 
 satire and fable flourished as never before, and the drama 
 hitherto restricted to liturgic representations in the churches 
 was on the way to becoming what it had long been in 
 England and France, a national art. Thus, once more, at 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century, Germany did not lag 
 very far behind the other nations of Europe ; but her progress 
 was due to the spirit of the Reformation, not to that of the 
 Renaissance, and her poetry was Germanic, as it had never 
 yet been even at the zenith of the Middle High German 
 period. Just, however, as German culture had reached a stage 
 of its development when it might have benefited by the Latin 
 Renaissance in the seventeenth century the nation was 
 overwhelmed by the most appalling catastrophe in modern 
 history, by the Thirty Years' War. The literature of the 
 Reformation era, so full of promise, dwindled away in arti- 
 ficial imitation and formless satire ; religious poetry alone 
 was able to withstand the general decay. In the great era 
 in European literature which opened with Shakespeare and
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 Bacon, with Tassb, Cervantes and Lope de Vega, and closed 
 with Calderon, Milton and the master-dramatists of France, 
 Corneille, Racine and Moliere the most brilliant literary era 
 in the history of the world Germany had no share. Crude 
 imitations of Elizabethan dramas took the place of the abortive 
 national drama ; versions of Spanish picaresque novels and 
 French heroic romances formed the chief reading of the cul- 
 tured public : in place of a Shakespeare, a Gryphius ; in place 
 of a Cervantes, a Grimmelshausen ; while the lessons which 
 France learned from Boileau, Germany received from the 
 subordinate genius of Opitz. It was the very end of the 
 seventeenth century, before a thinker of the standing of 
 Leibniz saved the honour of the German name and laid 
 the foundations for a brighter future. 1 
 
 At the beginning of the eighteenth century, while England The 
 and France stood in the foreground of European intellectual 
 life, Germany was again the outcast. And this time, the 
 gulf that separated her from the neighbouring nations was 
 even greater than in the Reformation era, the task before 
 the nation correspondingly harder. German literature of 
 the eighteenth century 2 falls into two natural divisions, the 
 first of which was characterised by imitation of French and, 
 more especially, of English models, while the second was 
 a period of national originality. Under the influence of 
 the English nature - poets, Klopstock created the modern 
 German lyric ; under that of Richardson and Fielding, 
 Gellert and Wieland laid the basis of the novel ; while, 
 in the school of English thinkers and dramatists, Lessing 
 became the master -critic of his time, and the pioneer 
 
 1 Cp. C. Lemcke, Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung never Zeit, i (Von 
 Opitz bis Klopstock}> 2nd eel., Leipzig, 1882; K. Borinski, Geschichte der 
 deutschen Litteratur seit dent Ausgang des Mittelalters (D.N.L., 163, 2), 
 Stuttgart [1894]. 
 
 2 Cp. J. Schmidt, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur von Leibniz bis auf 
 unsere Zeit, 4 vols., Berlin, 1886-90; H. Hettner, Geschichte der deutschen 
 Litteratur im 18. Jahrhundert, 4th ed. (edited by O. Harnack), 2 vols., Bruns- 
 wick, 1893-95 ; J. W. Schaefer, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur des 18. 
 Jahrhunderts, 2nd ed. (edited by F. Muncker), Leipzig, 1881.
 
 XXll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the modern German drama. By the middle of the 
 century, when Goethe was born, Germany had thus made 
 a vast stride forwards. In drama, she could not compare 
 with Italy, where Metastasio, Goldoni and Gozzi were still 
 alive to uphold the Italian theatre, but, in all else, she was 
 in advance of both Italy and Spain. Goethe's childhood 
 was contemporary with the age of Goldsmith and the great 
 English historians that on which Dr Johnson set his stamp 
 while the fresh, vigorous beginnings of Ewald von Kleist 
 and Klopstock belong, significantly enough, to the same 
 period as the mature poetry of Gray. But France was 
 the source of ideas no less vital to German development 
 than were those that came from England, and Lessing 
 and Winckelmann were overshadowed by their French 
 contemporaries, Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau. 
 
 As the century drew to its close, the individual character 
 of the German mind became more and more marked. The 
 outburst of "Sturm und Drang" was, although inspired by 
 Rousseau, almost an isolated phenomenon in the European 
 literature of the time ; the buoyant vigour of the German 
 drama was without a parallel ; the ballad - poetry of men 
 like Burger was only equalled by the Percy Reliques on 
 which it was modelled ; with the single exception of Burns, 
 there was not a lyric poet in Europe who could be com- 
 pared with the leading German singers of that eventful 
 time ; even master-thinkers like Hume and Condillac were 
 of inferior importance to Herder and Kant. Germany's hour 
 had come at last, and, at the end of the century, when the 
 French Revolution was destroying the results of generations 
 of Latin culture, German philosophy and German literature 
 held the leading position in Europe. In the fugue of the 
 nations, to quote Hettner's application of Goethe's suggest- 
 ive metaphor, England had, during the eighteenth century, 
 led with the first voice, France had carried on the second, 
 
 nineteenth an( * to Germany had fallen the last and most resonant of all. 
 
 century. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, German
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxiil 
 
 classical literature had reached its zenith. But this was not 
 all : in half-conscious antagonism to the reigning classicism, 
 the Romantic School inaugurated a new movement, which 
 left traces on the development of literature almost to the 
 close of the century. Germany, however, soon ceased to 
 play the leading role in European literature ; for before 
 Goethe's death, France was, once again, exerting a decisive 
 influence on the general current of thought and letters, 
 and Byron was unquestionably more of a " world - poet " 
 than any of his German contemporaries, Goethe excepted. 
 The " Young German " epoch, that is to say, the epoch 
 that lay between the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848, was 
 characterised by subservience to France; the poets of the 
 French tcole romantique gave such ideas as they borrowed 
 from Germany a cosmopolitan stamp, and Hugo, Musset 
 and Beranger became, like Byron, forces in German litera- 
 ture. Between 1840 and 1848, the Germans, again docilely 
 following France, learned to express their enthusiasm for 
 freedom in political lyrics ; and Balzac and George Sand 
 like Scott, a little earlier gave Germany examples of a 
 fiction which satisfied modern needs better than did the 
 novels of the Romantic School. Except at the very begin- 
 ning of the nineteenth century, Germany passed through 
 no literary epoch which could be compared with that of 
 French Romanticism or with the " Bliitezeit " of English 
 Victorian literature. In great measure this was due to 
 political causes, to a want of national unity; for, through- 
 out the century, there was no lack of writers of genius : 
 a nation that could point to lyric poets like Eichendorff, 
 Heine, Morike and Storm, to dramatists such as Kleist, 
 Grillparzer and Hebbel, to a novelist like Gottfried Keller, 
 had no reason to take a subordinate rank. But, in the 
 nineteenth century, eminent writers were no longer, as 
 in the cosmopolitan age of German classicism, sufficient to 
 make a great literary period ; there was also necessary a 
 certain political concentration, a national life held together
 
 XXIV 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 cal distri- 
 bution. 
 
 by common aims, and this was wanting in modern Ger- 
 many. If for no other reason, the closing period of our 
 history, in which Germany appears at last as one nation, 
 has a peculiar interest for the student ; for, once more, 
 with the help of French, Russian and Scandinavian models, 
 the German mind has asserted itself as an original force 
 among the literatures of Europe. 1 
 
 It is not easy to express in a few words the peculiarities, 
 the national characteristics, of this literature, whose position 
 in relation to that of other Western nations we have 
 attempted to define. In the first place, German literature 
 is more composite than any other written in a single tongue. 
 Geographi- At the present day, it embraces the imaginative work of 
 one-third of the population of the European continent ; it is 
 the literature, not only of the German Empire, but also of 
 the eight millions who speak the German tongue in Austro- 
 Hungary, 2 and the majority of the inhabitants of Switzerland. 3 
 Moreover, within the German Empire itself there exists a 
 diversity of peoples and national temperaments one might 
 almost say of races which adds considerably to the difficulty 
 of definition. The literature of the Baltic coasts, for ex- 
 ample, is as different from that of the Bavarian Highlands 
 and of Austria as is that of France from Italy ; and centres 
 like Berlin, Munich and Vienna display wider variations in 
 their literary tastes than are to be found throughout the 
 whole English-speaking world. 
 
 In spite of these initial difficulties, however, certain broad 
 and general features may be distinguished, which are to be 
 traced throughout the entire evolution of German literature. 
 The question is most conveniently approached comparatively, 
 
 1 Cp. R. von Gottschall, Die deutsche Nationallitteratur des 19. Jahr- 
 hunderts, 4 vols., yth ed., Leipzig, 1900-02; R. M. Meyer, Die deutsche 
 Litteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts, and ed., Berlin, 1900, and the same author's 
 Grundriss der neiiern deutschen Litteraturgesehichte, Berlin, 1902. 
 
 * Cp. J. W. Nagl and J. Zeidler, Deutsch-Osterreichische Litteraturgesehichte, 
 i, Vienna, 1899. 
 
 3 Cp. J. Baechtold, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur in der Schweix, 
 Frauenfeld, 1887. 
 
 General 
 character- 
 istics.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 by contrasting German letters with French. The literatures 
 of these two nations which, by a freak of history, began 
 their political development together under the sway of one 
 king form the most striking contrast that is to be found 
 within the Aryan family. According to the testimony of 
 literary history, there would seem to be stronger bonds of 
 intellectual sympathy between Germany and Spain or Italy, 
 than between France and Germany; while French art and 
 literature have always been more warmly appreciated and 
 more successfully imitated by the Scandinavian than by the 
 German peoples. English literature, on the other hand, is 
 the result of too complicated an evolution to form as sharp 
 an antithesis to either French or German literature as do 
 these two to each other, while the Slavonic literatures have, 
 to a large extent, imitated their western neighbours. Thus, 
 it may be said that, as far as Europe is concerned, the two 
 poles of literary expression are represented by France and 
 Germany ; here are concentrated the fundamental character- 
 istics which distinguish what Madame de Stael called "la 
 litterature du nord" from "la litterature du midi." 1 The 
 poetic temperament of the Teuton, as compared with the 
 Latin, is displayed in its naivest, simplest form in the first 
 of the two " cosmopolitan " epochs of European literature, in 
 that of chivalry : the comparison is, moreover, simplified by 
 the fact that both French and German poets treated the 
 same themes, and had the same artistic ideals before them. 
 The supreme qualities of the French romances of chivalry 
 are those of style : even if a French epic is, as a whole, 
 defective in proportion, its constituent parts are rarely without 
 balance and proportion ; practical and clear - minded, the 
 French poet deals with facts and concrete ideas. The 
 German poet of the same time proved, as we shall see, an 
 apt pupil of his French masters, but the natural bent of his 
 mind is none the less clearly to be seen beneath the veneer 
 
 1 De la literature considtrte dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales, 
 Paris, 1800, 134.
 
 XXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of French imitation ; however closely he may translate from 
 the French, he is never reluctant to enlarge upon his original : 
 not content to describe things as they appear to the outward 
 eye, he reflects upon them, interprets them, and explains them. 
 In spite of its rougher workmanship, the verse of Wolfram von 
 Eschenbach or Gottfried von Strassburg consequently strikes 
 an individual note which is not to be found in the French 
 medieval writers. Thus, too, the Germans early displayed 
 their supremacy in the lyric; deeply as they had been in- 
 fluenced by the Provencal poets, the Minnesingers put into 
 their songs a subjectivity, a richness of sentimental feeling, 
 which distinguishes them from the Troubadours. 
 
 As the centuries moved on, and the epic developed into 
 the novel, the Minnesang into the modern lyric, and the 
 feeling for nature awakened, national peculiarities became 
 more emphasised. The relation, for instance, in which 
 French prose fiction stands to German is only in a higher 
 degree that in which Crestien de Troyes stood to Wolfram 
 von Eschenbach. The German novelist of the eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries deals with feelings and thoughts 
 rather than with actions and events ; his aim, to which all 
 else is sacrificed, is to follow out, in all its details, the 
 growth of an individual ; and his pen is at the service of 
 subjective and personal ideas which he enforces with an in- 
 sistence that often outsteps the bounds of aesthetic licence. 
 
 Or let us turn to the drama, and especially to comedy, 
 which, in French literature, occupies a similar place to the 
 lyric in German, or the novel in English literature. As 
 a nation, the Germans are not deficient in the comic spirit ; 
 on the contrary, they are highly endowed with a deep and 
 hearty humour; but their literature is, notwithstanding, de- 
 ficient in good comedies of the highest order. This is due 
 to the fact that comedy depends least of all on the expression 
 of individual feelings and convictions; it is, in the first in- 
 stance, a criticism of society. The representative German 
 comedies Minna von Barnhelm must be excluded, as being
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXV11 
 
 modelled on the non-German comedy of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, such as Grillparzer's Weh dem, der liigt> or Wagner's 
 Meislersinger von Nilrnberg are never, like the masterpieces 
 of French or English comedy, purely objective ; they express 
 an individual standpoint which makes it impossible to bring 
 them into the same line with the masterpieces of a Moliere, 
 Congreve or Goldoni. 
 
 The fundamental differences between French and German 
 literature might be summed up by saying that the former is 
 the supreme example of a social literature, while the latter is a 
 literature of individualism. The unique position which Paris 
 has always held in the intellectual life of the French nation 
 has determined the character of French literature ; the literary 
 spirit, which attains its highest expression in the criticism of 
 life, is essentially metropolitan. In Germany, on the other 
 hand, the national life is divided over many capitals, and 
 the nation's thought and literature centre in innumerable 
 coteries. The German writer has never known a single 
 tribunal of public opinion ; he has thought as an individual 
 and written for himself. Hence the literature he has pro- 
 duced is one in which the lyric, the most personal of all 
 forms of literature, predominates, and where the epic or 
 novel is employed to express purely personal feelings, ideas 
 and desires. Even the drama, unless in a modified degree, 
 in Austria, is not objective. At the same time, German 
 dramatists are not exposed, like those of France, Spain or 
 Italy, to the temptation of repeating themselves ; and, con- 
 sequently, a feature of the German drama is its varied 
 character. Neither Goethe nor Schiller, Grillparzer nor 
 Hebbel, has written two plays on exactly the same lines ; the 
 ability to make the same mould serve again and again, a 
 talent possessed by all the masters of the Romance drama, 
 is absent in German literature, or is, at least, restricted to 
 subordinate talents such as Hans Sachs, Weisse or Kotzebue. 
 Thus, in spite of its deficient bulk, the dramatic literature 
 of the Germanic races is rich in initiative and originality.
 
 XXVlii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Such being the outstanding characteristics of German litera- 
 ture, as they appear by contrast with the literatures of the 
 Latin peoples, it is not difficult to infer what part the former 
 has played in the evolution of European literature as a whole. 
 The antithesis of Latin and Germanic, South and North, is, 
 in art and poetry, expressed by the words " classic " and 
 " romantic " ; the Latin literatures, with their social back- 
 ground, are the representatives of rule and order, of classi- 
 cism, while the Germanic spirit finds its most perfect ex- 
 pression in Romanticism. For the Latin nationalities, the 
 great " Bliitezeit " was the classical Renaissance, or a direct 
 consequence of the Renaissance ; in the north, the classical 
 spirit whether in the Germany of Opitz and Gottsched, in 
 the Sweden of the eighteenth century, or, although naturally 
 in a lesser degree, in England from the Restoration onwards 
 has invariably been a foreign growth which has harmonised 
 but indifferently with the national temperament. And, in 
 the same way, Romanticism has been equally strange on 
 Latin soil; the word "romantique," it is true, is applied to 
 the chief French movement of the nineteenth century, but 
 it is open to question how far this movement represented 
 an encroachment of the " litteratures du nord," how far it 
 was merely a revival of the spirit that animated the early 
 Renaissance. 
 
 German literature in its highest national development has 
 always been romantic that is to say, individual, spiritual, 
 lyrical: this is its importance and this explains its mission in 
 the economy of European letters. And, just as the historian 
 of French literature must keep constantly in view the social 
 background, or as English literary history must take account 
 of the national enterprise and independence of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, so German literature must be regarded pre- 
 eminently as the literature of subjectivity and individualism.
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 P. 
 12 
 
 53 
 
 72 
 
 244 
 
 248 
 
 271 
 
 335 
 489 
 
 12 for Isidor read Isidore. 
 
 1 3 f or h as rea d have. 
 
 from foot,y0r 1883 read 2nd ed., 1901. 
 from foot, for Maler read Mahlern. 
 for Mahler read Mahlern. 
 y^r 1748 mzrf 1740. 
 
 13 from foot, for //se read
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY GERMANIC CULTURE ; THE MIGRATIONS. 
 
 IN the growth of every national literature there is a period 
 corresponding to what the ethnologist describes as a pre- 
 historic age. This age of unwritten literature may, as in 
 isolated civilisations, be synonymous with the age of unwritten 
 history, but it is not always or necessarily the case. The 
 modern nations of Europe, which grew up under the shadow 
 of the earlier civilisations of Greece and Rome, had long 
 emerged from prehistoric obscurity before they attained that 
 stage of culture which permitted of a written literature : when 
 the literary "prehistoric" period of modern Europe came to 
 a close, the individual nationalities could already look back 
 upon centuries of political history. Thus the first seven 
 centuries of the history of England, and the first eight cen- 
 turies, at least, of the history of Germany, are absolutely 
 without literary records. There is no literature in Germany 
 before the age of Charles the Great. 
 
 Of the successive waves of immigration on which the TheGer- 
 Aryans spread over Europe, that which bore the Germanic 
 races was among the last. Whence the Aryans came is still 
 a matter of uncertainty ; when they came is a question we 
 can never hope to answer. Of the earliest history of the 
 Germanic peoples all that can be said with certainty is, that 
 at the time Rome was beginning to assert herself in Southern 
 Europe they were clustered round the shores of the North 
 Sea and the Baltic : here, as early as the fourth century 
 before Christ, an adventurous voyager of Marseilles, Pytheas 
 by name, discovered them. 1 In this dim prehistoric age the 
 
 1 Cp. K. MiillenhofT, Deutsche Altertumskunde, i. 2nd ed., Berlin, 1890, 
 211 ff. ; and W. Scherer, Vortrdge und Aufsdtze, Berlin, 1874, 21 if. 
 
 manic 
 races.
 
 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD [PART L 
 
 The First 
 Sound- 
 shifting. 
 
 East and 
 West Ger- 
 mans. 
 
 Julius 
 Caesar, 55 
 and 53 B.C. 
 
 linguistic change known as the " First Soundshifting " (Erste 
 Laiitverschiebung), by which the consonantal system of the 
 Germanic languages was sharply differentiated from that of 
 the Aryan mother-tongue, had already taken place, and the 
 accent of the word, originally free, as in Sanscrit or Greek, 
 had become fixed upon the stem. The latter change was 
 essential to the development of the primitive form of Ger- 
 manic verse, which, as will presently be seen, depended on 
 the alliteration of accentuated syllables. 
 
 The first important political change which took place in the 
 group of peoples on the Baltic coast was probably a separa- 
 tion of the East Germans, namely, the Goths, and the races 
 which were to populate Scandinavia, from the others, while 
 these, moving slowly westward, were subsequently to figure in 
 history as the West Germans. This West Germanic group 
 of nationalities embraces the Frisians, Anglo-Saxons, Low 
 Germans (in modern times represented by the Dutch and the 
 Plattdeutsch-speaking peoples), and the High Germans. The 
 immigration of these various races to the settlements they 
 finally occupied was a matter of centuries. The Germanic 
 invasion of Scandinavia began some centuries before the birth 
 of Christ, but the Goths remained on the Baltic until as late 
 as the end of the second century of our era, when they, 
 too, were seized with the migratory instinct. They aban- 
 doned their old homes and, turning southwards, laid the 
 foundation of a powerful empire on the lower Danube. The 
 progress of the West Germanic races was no more rapid. 
 The most westerly of the tribes had found no settled home 
 when Caesar came into conflict with them in the first century 
 before Christ, and they were still in little better than a 
 nomadic condition when the invasion of the Huns at the 
 end of the fourth century threw the whole Germanic world 
 into confusion. 
 
 Caesar has something to say of these Germanic barbarians, 
 who, for more than half a century before his time, had been 
 a source of vague terror to the Roman world ; but his ac- 
 count J is meagre, and is written from the standpoint of a 
 Roman general, who regarded it as presumptuous for a bar- 
 barian race to oppose the progress of Roman conquest. The 
 most detailed description of the Germans with whom the 
 
 *De Bella Gallico, 6, 21-29.
 
 CHAP. I.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 5 
 
 Romans came into contact we owe to Tacitus, whose Ger- The Ger- 
 mania was written towards the close of the first century of Tacitus 
 our era. Tacitus seems to have based his work upon A.D. 98. 
 authentic information, but there is something of the special 
 pleading of a Rousseau in his description of these tall 
 northern races with their fierce blue eyes and fair hair : 
 his object was manifestly to bring the primitive simplicity 
 of the German barbarians into sharp contrast with the 
 effeminate luxury of Rome. 
 
 It is improbable that the art of writing was known to the 
 Germans whom Tacitus describes : their Runic alphabet, a 
 rough imitation of some of the Latin letters, was not in gen- 
 eral use for purposes of writing until, at the earliest, the 
 end of the second century. But, like all primitive peoples, 
 these ancient Germans had an unwritten poetry. " In old Unwritten 
 songs, their only history," says Tacitus, " they celebrate a P oetr y- 
 god Tuisto, born of the earth, and his son Mannus as the 
 ancestors of their race" ; and, in the Annals, he tells us that 
 they commemorated in song the deeds of their national hero 
 Arminius. Another form of primitive song which Tacitus 
 mentions is the barditus, a wild battle-cry or hymn sung 
 with the shield to the mouth in order to give the sound addi- 
 tional resonance. 1 Further, the religious hymn and heroic 
 song were combined with dances and solemn processions to 
 form the most characteristic of all the " literary " forms of 
 the ancient Germans, the letch (laikas), and from the letch 
 to the beginnings of the drama was not more than a step. 
 Besides hymns and war-songs, the Germans, at the time of 
 which Tacitus writes, must have possessed the spells and 
 magic charms which are characteristic of all primitive Aryan 
 literatures. They had, too, their hymns for the dead, and 
 from their Aryan home they undoubtedly brought with them 
 dim nature-myths of the victory of the sun over darkness 
 and storm, of spring over winter, the tragedy of the dying 
 day or the waning summer myths which at a later date 
 loomed in the background of the great Germanic sagas. 
 
 It is to the Goths, an East Germanic people, which, as we The Goths, 
 have seen, had settled on the lower Danube, that we must 
 look for the first awakening of intellectual life. Of all the 
 Germanic races they had made the most rapid advances in 
 
 1 Tacitus, German fa, 2, 3 ; Annals, 2, 88.
 
 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 Wulfila 
 (an-S 8 * 
 
 the Gothi 
 Bible. 
 
 culture and civilisation, a fact in great measure due to their 
 geographical position, which brought them into contact with 
 Greek ideas and Christianity at a date when their kinsfolk 
 in the north were still heathens and barbarians. The foun- 
 dations for a literature in the Gothic language were laid by a 
 single man, the Arian bishop Wulfila or Ulfilas : to him we 
 or owe the oldest monument of Germanic literature, the Gothic 
 translation of the Bible. Wulfila, whose family was of 
 Cappadocian origin, was consecrated Bishop of the West Goths 
 or Visigoths in 341 at the age of thirty. Seven years later, 
 to escape the persecution which his missionary work brought 
 upon him, he led his people, the Goti minores, across the 
 Danube into Mcesia, in the neighbourhood of the modern 
 Plevna. He died at Constantinople either in the winter of 
 380-81 or in 383. The Emperor Constantius compared 
 Wulfila to Moses : nowadays we should rather compare 
 him to Luther. But even Luther's Bible seems a small 
 achievement beside the herculean work of this Gothic 
 bishop, who conceived the plan of translating the Bible 
 into the vernacular of a people without a literature, with- 
 out even a written alphabet. Wulfila had first to invent 
 the very letters of the language in which he wrote ; he had 
 to adapt the Greek alphabet to Gothic sounds, supplementing 
 its deficiencies from the Latin alphabet and from the runes. 
 He probably did not translate more than the New Testament 
 himself, perhaps only the four Gospels ; and the translation 
 of the Old Testament according to a tradition, only the 
 books of the Kings were omitted was certainly not finished 
 until after his death, but the entire work was inspired by 
 him and rightly bears his name. Wulfila's Bible became the 
 accepted canon of Gothic Arianism, and continued so until 
 the beginning of the sixth century. The principal MS. is the 
 Upsala Codex argenteus, a beautiful transcript of the four 
 Gospels, written in silver and gold upon purple-stained parch- 
 ment. Of the original 330 pages, however, only 187 are 
 preserved. A few clumsily translated verses from Ezra 
 and Nehemiah is all that remains of the Old Testament. 1 
 
 1 The most convenient editions of the Gothic Bible are those of Stamm and 
 Heyne, gth ed., Paderborn, 1897, and of E. Bernhnrdt, Halle, 1875 and 1884. 
 On Wulfila's life, cp. G. Kaufmann in Zeitschrift f. dcutsch. Altertum, 27 
 (1883), 193 ff. ; E. Sievers in Paul's Grundriss tier germanischen Philologie, 2, 
 i (1889), 67 ff.
 
 CHAP. I.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 7 
 
 Apart from the linguistic importance of the Gothic Bible, it 
 possesses a high literary value, as being the first attempt to 
 express in a Germanic language ideas wholly foreign to it. 
 More than this, Wulfila's translation shows at times an ap- 
 preciation of the poetic capabilities of the Gothic language, 
 which can hardly be too highly estimated. It is not too much 
 to say that Wulfila's Gothic possesses a literary grace and style 
 which were not surpassed in any Germanic prose for more 
 than a thousand years after his death. 
 
 Hardly any other specimens of the Gothic language have Other 
 been preserved. The fragment of a Commentary the so- 
 called Skeireins on the Gospel of St John, written in the 
 sixth century, and a Calendar are the most important, but 
 they possess no literary interest. Of Gothic poetry there is 
 not a trace : the battle hymns, the epic lays celebrating the 
 deeds of heroes and sung by minstrels to the accompaniment 
 of the cithara, 1 have entirely disappeared, but it is improbable 
 that they were committed to writing at all. In the fierce 
 struggle for existence in which they soon became involved, the 
 Goths lost the little intellectual prestige they had gained. 
 
 Towards the close of the fourth century the Germanic races The Mig- 
 were thrown back into the unsettled life from which they had ratlons > 
 just begun to emerge. The Huns, a barbarous Mongolian 50 i. " 
 race, burst into Europe from the east, and swept all before 
 them. The Germanic nationalities either succumbed before, 
 them or, joining their hordes, were swept farther westward. 
 It was the age of the so-called " Volkerwanderung " or "Mig- 
 rations." The beginnings of an East Gothic or Ostrogothic 
 empire in the south-east of Europe were destroyed, the Roman 
 empire itself tottered to its fall, and, when quiescence began 
 to return, we find the Ostrogoths in Italy, a Visigothic kingdom 
 in Spain, Vandals in the north of Africa, and Germanic races 
 in England. But the Huns, who had thus changed the face 
 of Europe as it has never been changed again, had disap- 
 peared as suddenly and mysteriously as they had come. 
 
 Of a written literature in such an age there could be no Beginnings 
 question, but the struggles of the Migrations afforded a favour- 
 able soil for the growth of the epic. The famous deeds of the epic, 
 national heroes of Ermanarich, of Odoaker, and, above all, of 
 
 1 Jordanes, De Origine Actibusque Getarum, ed. Mommsen, Berlin, 1882, 
 5> 43-
 
 8 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 the great Theodorich, who, as Dietrich von Bern (i.e., Verona), 
 is a central figure in the popular German literature of the 
 entire middle ages the annihilation of the Burgundians, and 
 the fate of the Hunnish king Attila, were the materials out of 
 which the German people welded their national epic. Little 
 but a vague tradition of the primitive religion and the mythic 
 heroes survived from the period before the Migrations, and 
 that little was soon blended in the popular imagination with 
 the great events of the more immediate past. As tranquillity 
 returned, the Germanic races began to build up their national 
 life afresh. A new poetry arose in the fifth and sixth cen- 
 turies, dealing with the men and events uppermost in the 
 nation's mind. 
 
 The Nibe- The history of the Burgundians formed a middle point in 
 batgatsaga. the development of the national epic. This was a West Ger- 
 manic race which had settled in the beginning of the fifth 
 century in the valley of the Rhine ; their king, Gunther, reigned 
 at Worms. The richness of the land round Worms led to 
 the Burgundians being connected in the popular imagination 
 with an early mythical saga of a treasure that lay sunk in the 
 Rhine. This treasure or " hoard " was watched over by the 
 Nibelungs or children of mist and darkness, from whom Sieg- 
 fried, the hero of light, the sun-god, had wrested it. But, like 
 the day before the night, Siegfried had to succumb before the 
 powers of darkness ; and the Nibelung Hagen, at whose hands 
 he fell, became associated in the later development of the saga 
 with the Burgundian kings. A terrible fate, however, awaited 
 the Burgundian people: in 437 the Huns swept down upon 
 them and annihilated them ; Attila, said the saga, would gain 
 possession of the Nibelungs' hoard. Deep as was the impression 
 which this catastrophe made upon the Germanic imagination, 
 Attila's own end impressed it even more deeply: in 453 the 
 king of the Huns was found dead in a pool of blood by the 
 side of his newly wedded bride. Before long the popular 
 mind had invested this incident with the dignity of an aveng- 
 ing destiny. It made out Attila's wife, who was a German, 
 to have been the same Grimhild whom Siegfried married, the 
 sister of the Nibelungs whose fate was identified by tradition 
 with that of the Burgundians. Thus Grimhild had wrought 
 "blood-vengeance" upon Attila for the murder of her kinsfolk. 
 In this early form, more myth than history, the Nibelungen-
 
 CHAP. I.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 9 
 
 saga spread over all Germanic lands, becoming in Scandinavia 
 the basis of part of the Eddal In the lays of the Edda, the The Edda 
 Siegfried or Sigurd story retains more of the primitive, mythic ( ca - ?5- 
 character of the saga than in the later German versions. The 
 Scandinavian Sigurd is of the mythical race of the Volsungs ; 
 he is brought up by a dwarf in ignorance of his parentage. 
 He kills a dragon, wins the treasure over which it watches, 
 and wakens the sleeping Valkyrie Brynhild, whom Odin has 
 surrounded with a ring of fire upon a mountain summit. 
 Leaving Brynhild, Sigurd comes to the land of Gunnar or 
 Gunther, where he is given a magic potion which destroys his 
 memory. He marries Gunnar's sister Gudrun, the Grimhild 
 of the German saga, and aids Gunnar to marry Brynhild. 
 When the latter learns the deceit that has been practised 
 upon her, that not her husband but Sigurd had won her in 
 Gunnar's shape, she determines to take vengeance. She in- 
 cites Gunnar against Sigurd ; Sigurd is murdered and Bryn- 
 hild shares his lot upon the funeral pile. To Gudrun it now 
 falls to marry Atli, the king of the Huns. With the object 
 of obtaining possession of the hoard, Atli invites Gudrun's 
 kinsfolk to his Court, where they are all murdered, without, 
 however, revealing in what part of the Rhine they have sunk 
 their treasure. With the terrible revenge which Gudrun takes 
 upon her husband, giving him the blood of his own children 
 to drink and stabbing him in his bed, the Nibelungensaga, 
 as it is told in the Edda, closes. These lays originated in 
 Scandinavia, and more particularly in Iceland, between the 
 middle of the ninth and the middle of the eleventh centuries, 
 but in Germany it was the twelfth century before the story of 
 the Nibelungs crystallised into final literary form as the Nibe- 
 Inngenlied. 
 
 1 Editions of the Edda by F. Jonsson, Halle, 1888-90, and P.. Sijmons, i, 
 Halle, 1888 ; also in G. Vigfusson and F. J. Powell, Corpus I'oeticum Borcale, 
 i, Oxford, 1883.
 
 10 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 LITERARY BEGINNINGS UNDER CHARLES 
 THE GREAT. 
 
 The High 
 German 
 Sound- 
 shifting. 
 
 THE political history of the West Germanic races on the Con- 
 tinent, in the centuries immediately succeeding the Migrations, 
 is summed up in the growing preponderance of the Franks. 
 Although the Ostrogothic empire in Italy promised for a 
 brief period under Theodorich the Great to revive the glory 
 of the old Roman empire, it had ultimately to yield to the 
 Franks under their Merovingian kings. In the reign of 
 Chlodwig (481-511) the Prankish kingdom was greatly 
 extended, and towards the middle of the sixth century it 
 embraced not merely the Romanised peoples of Gaul, but 
 all the West Germanic races on the Continent except the 
 Saxons and the Frisians. 
 
 Between the fifth and seventh centuries another great con- 
 sonantal change came over a group of the West Germanic 
 dialects. This was the " Second " or " High German Sound- 
 shifting," virtually a repetition of the first process by which, 
 as we have seen, the Germanic languages had been differenti- 
 ated from the primitive Aryan language. The Second Sound- 
 shifting affected the dialects of Bavaria and Alemannia in 
 their entirety, as well as a part of the Prankish dialect namely, 
 the East, Rhine and Middle Frankish. 1 These dialects, which 
 were ultimately to form the literary language of Germany, are 
 
 1 The chief feature in the Second Sound-shifting is the conversion of the 
 tenues(/,/, k) into the corresponding affricates and spirants (s, s ; f/,/; A, cA); 
 this is characteristic of all High German dialects, while the shifting of the 
 medice (d, b,g) to the corresponding tenues was mainly limited to the Upper 
 German dialects of Bavaria and Alemannia. The Germanic spirants (lh,f, ch) 
 with the possible exception of th, which appears in High German as d were 
 not affected by the High German Sound-shifting.
 
 CHAP. II.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 1 1 
 
 henceforth distinguished as High German, while the dialects 
 of North Germany and Holland are known as Low German. 
 
 In the history of German culture, the Merovingian period The Mer- 
 (ca. 480-750) is marked by the infiltration of Roman civilisa- ?^ ng ^ s 
 tion and Roman ideas. But susceptible as the Merovingian 75 o). 
 Franks were to Roman influence, they did not allow them- 
 selves to become Latinised ; they retained their Germanic 
 character. Latin, however, was the language of the State as 
 it was of the Church, and even the beginnings may be traced 
 of a literature in Latin. This general adoption of the Latin 
 language had one great advantage : it brought the Franks into 
 touch with the outer world ; above all, it paved the way for 
 Christianity. Missionaries had found their way into Alemannia Chris- 
 as early as the sixth century, but it was a hundred years later tiamt y- 
 before Christianity began to take root. Under Chlotar II., 
 in the beginning of the seventh century, Columbanus and 
 Gallus came over from Ireland the land of light in those 
 dark ages and fought a hard battle for the faith in 
 Alemannia ; and, at a somewhat later date, Christianity began 
 to make converts in Bavaria. The new religion widened the 
 imagination of the people and enriched their vocabulary with 
 new expressions, but at the same time it discountenanced the 
 old ballads and sagas, which savoured too much of heathenism. 
 It is questionable, however, if the Church did more than re- 
 tard by a few generations the growth of a secular literature. 
 For the sagas were kept alive in the songs of the people, and 
 remained unaffected by the decrees of ecclesiastical authorities. 
 Their later development shows how vital the tradition must 
 have been. 
 
 At first the Church made attempts to replace the vernacular 
 by Latin, but it was only at first. It soon became clear that, 
 if the hearts of the people were to be reached at all, it would 
 need to be through their native tongue. A decree by the 
 great "Apostle of the Germans," the Anglo-Saxon Winfrith 
 or Bonifacius (ca. 680-755), issued in 748, expressly enjoined Bonifacius 
 that "every priest shall require from persons about to be ( C ^- 6S< 
 baptised, a clear statement in their mother-tongue of the 
 Confession of Faith and the Renunciation of the Devil," and 
 the translation of important parts of the Church ordinances 
 was frequently insisted upon in later statutes. It is thus 
 natural that the earliest connected records of the German
 
 12 
 
 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 Old High 
 
 German 
 
 glosses. 
 
 The Merse- 
 burger 
 7,a tiber - 
 spriiche. 
 
 Charles 
 the Great 
 (742-814). 
 
 language should have been translations of the Liturgy; at 
 the same time, none of those which have come down to us 
 can with certainty be traced back beyond the age of Charles 
 the Great. The need of bridging over the gulf that separated 
 Latin from the language of the people gave rise at an earlier 
 date to German glosses, as an aid to the translation of Latin 
 manuscripts. By far the oldest of these are the so-called 
 Malbergischen Glossen to the Lex salica, in Low Prankish of 
 the sixth century. The two most important collections are, 
 however, the so-called Keronische Glossar to a Latin dictionary, 
 and the Vocabularius Sancti Galli, which contains glosses to 
 Isidor, Aldhelm, and other writers. Both belong to the 
 earlier half of the eighth century, and were probably origi- 
 nally Bavarian ; the Keronian Glossary served, however, as a 
 basis for a number of later glossaries in other dialects (Pariser 
 Glossen, Reichenauer Glossen, Hrabanische Glosseti). 1 
 
 More important, from a literary point of view, are the two 
 so-called Merseburger Zauber spriiche? perhaps the only wholly 
 pre-Christian verses in the German language. The first of 
 these "charms" they are in rude alliterative verse gives 
 us a glimpse of the old German "Idisi," the "Valkyries" of 
 the Scandinavians, who watch over the fortunes of war ; the 
 second is a charm by which Wodan cures Balder's horse of 
 lameness. But the MS. of the Merseburg Charms dates only 
 from the tenth century. 
 
 In Charles the Great the best traditions of the Roman 
 emperors were revived. A warrior and a born leader of men, 
 a great lawgiver and a far-seeing patron of the spiritual and 
 intellectual advancement of his people, Charles gathered up 
 in himself all that was best in his predecessors, and made a 
 magnificent reality out of what to them had been only an 
 impracticable ideal. And the seat of his revival of Caesarian 
 empire was neither Byzantium nor Rome : it was amongst rude 
 barbarians whom the Romans had despised, but barbarians 
 in whose hands lay the future of the continent of Europe. 
 Although long before Charles the Great's time Rome had 
 ceased to be the unique political capital of the world, it 
 
 1 E. Steinmeyer and E. Sievers, Die althochdeutschen Glossen, i (Berlin, 
 1879) and 3 (1895), i ff. Cp. R. Koegel, Geschichle der dentschen Litteratur, 
 i, 2, Strassburg, 1897. 426 ff. 
 
 2 K. Miillcnhoff and W. Scherer, Dcnkmaler dentscher Poesie tind Frosa aus 
 dem 8.-I2. Juhrhundert. 3rd ed., Berlin, 1892, i, 15 ff.
 
 CHAP. II.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 13 
 
 still controlled the world's destinies, and the coronation of 
 Charles in 768 virtually meant the restoration of Rome to her 
 old supremacy. Under the protection of this new empire in 
 the West, the breach between Rome and Byzantium became 
 complete : the capital of the Christian faith shook itself free 
 from the city of Constantine. Before the new Rome lay a 
 vista of spiritual dominion compared with which the territorial 
 magnitude of the old Roman empire seemed small. 
 
 Charles the Great remained all his life a faithful son and 
 servant of the Church, and his earliest cares, when he came 
 to the throne, were devoted to religion. The hold which 
 Christianity had had upon the people under the Merovingian 
 dynasty was still slight, and missionary work lacked discipline 
 and organisation. Charles, fully aware of the weak points, 
 proceeded at once to reinforce the existing ecclesiastical legis- 
 lation by new ordinances. He heartily endorsed the principle 
 upon which Bonifacius had insisted, namely, that religious 
 ceremonies, the understanding of which was of importance 
 to the laity, should be conducted in the vernacular, and Transla- 
 several small literary fragments from the close of the eighth L t y S r ofthe 
 century and beginning of the ninth baptismal vows, frag- Catechism, 
 ments of prayers, paternosters, credos, for the most part in &c - 
 High German dialects l were directly due to Charles's 
 recommendations and legislation. The chief specimen of 
 this group is the Weissenburger Katechismus, which consists 
 mainly of translations of the Lord's Prayer with commentary, 
 of the Apostolic and Athanasian Creeds, and of the Gloria 
 in excelsis. It is written in the same Rhine-Frankish dialect 
 in which Otfrid wrote his Gospel Book a generation later. 
 
 Intimately bound up with Charles the Great's ecclesiastical Scholastic 
 reforms were his far-reaching schemes for the advancement of actmt y- 
 learning. With the aid of the great Alcuin (ca. 735-804) he 
 established a kind of university at his Court, and brought the 
 highest learning of the time within the reach of his subjects. 
 He inspired the clergy with the zeal for earnest scholarship 
 which had been hithert6 unknown in the German monas- 
 teries. The fruits of this scholastic activity, so far as they 
 were expressed in German, have mainly a linguistic interest. 
 The most important is a lengthy fragment of an excellent 
 
 i Miillenhoff and Scherer, I.e., i, 198-209; P. Piper, Die dlteste deutsche 
 Litteratur (D.N.L., i [1885]), 81 ff.
 
 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 The Mon- 
 seer Frag- 
 mente. 
 
 The Wes- 
 sobrunner 
 Gebet, ca. 
 780. 
 
 translation into Rhine-Frankish of the tract De fide catholica 
 contra Judtcos by Isidorus. The same translation is also to be 
 found in part in another codex, the Monseer fragmente t so- 
 called from the monastery of Monsee in Upper Austria, where 
 the copy was made. Besides the tract by Isidorus, the Monsee 
 codex contains a fragment of the Gospel of St Matthew, a 
 sermon, De vocatione gentium, on the text that God may be 
 prayed to in all languages, and the seventy-sixth Sermon of 
 St Augustine, all in the same Rhine-Frankish dialect. 1 These 
 translations, although they date from the earliest years of 
 Charles the Great's reign, are the best specimens of Old High 
 German prose from the Carlovingian period. To find a writer 
 worthy of being placed beside the translator of the Monsee 
 Fragments it is difficult to believe that there was more than 
 one hand engaged in the work we have to turn to the St Gall 
 monk Notker, more than two hundred years later. In this 
 group of scholastic literature may also be included several 
 interlinear versions of Latin works, such as the twenty-six 
 Murbacher Hymnen, a Tegernsee Carmen ad Deum, and frag- 
 ments of various Psalms. The Benedictine Rule (Bencdik- 
 tinerregel} was also glossed at St Gall between 800 and 8o4. 2 
 Having once admitted the vernacular into its liturgy, the 
 Church began to interest itself in popular verse. Latin 
 ecclesiastical poetry was gradually degenerating into a mere 
 jingle of words, and it was only a question of time for a 
 poetry in German to take its place. The earliest example 
 of an interest in such poetry on the part of the clergy is the 
 Wessobrunner Gebet from a MS. which formerly belonged to 
 the monastery of Wessobrunn in Bavaria. On the last two 
 pages of this MS., which contains a strange medley of monas- 
 tic lore in Latin, are to be found under the heading De poeta 
 some twenty-one lines of German. The fragment begins with 
 the following nine lines of alliterative verse : 
 
 " Dat gafregin ih mil firahim firiuuizzo meista, 
 Dat ero ni uuas noh ufhimil, 
 noh paum noh pereg ni uuas, 
 ni . . . nohheinig noh sunna ni scein, 
 
 1 G. A. Hench, The Monsee Fragments, Strassburg, 1890 ; also by the same 
 editor, Dcr althochdeutsche Isidor \Quellen und Forschungen, 72), Strassburg, 
 1893. Cp. P. Piper, I.e., 93 ff. 
 
 a Cp. P. Piper, I.e., 105 ff., and Nachtrdge (D.N.L., 162 [1898]), 22 ff.
 
 CHAP. II.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. , 15 
 
 noh inano ni liuhta, noh der marco seo. 
 
 Do dar niuuiht ni uuas cnteo ni uuenteo, 
 
 cnti do uuas der eino almahtico cot, 
 
 manno miltisto, enti dar uuarun auh manakc mil inan 
 
 cootlihhe geista. cnti cot heilac." . . .* 
 
 Here the verses break off abruptly, and are followed by the 
 fragment of a prayer in prose. There is not, as was formerly 
 believed, anything pre-Christian in the ideas expressed in these 
 lines ; their theme is obviously the beginning of the first 
 chapter of Genesis, with possibly a reminiscence of the second 
 verse of the ninetieth Psalm. But they retain something of 
 the epic grandeur and reverential awe of the early Germanic 
 imagination : the heathen spirit is there, although disguised in 
 the garb of the new faith. The dialect of the poem is Bavarian, 
 but such forms as dat and gafregin point to a Saxon original. 
 This original was probably written from memory by a Bavarian 
 monk. The MS. dates from the end of the eighth century, 
 but the original may have been considerably older. 
 
 From a poetic beginning like the Wessobrunn Prayer to 
 verses on secular themes was only a step. As early as 789 a 
 capitular was issued forbidding nuns "to write or send wini- 
 leodos" and with these winileodos may possibly be identified The 
 the beginnings of German love poetry : in any case, the Wmileod ' 
 winileod was a secular popular song as opposed to the re- 
 ligious poetry of the Church. With the exception, however, 
 of a half Latin fragment of the eleventh century 2 and the 
 so-called Liebesgruss in the Latin epic Ruodlieb, no lyrics have 
 been preserved from the Old High German period. 
 
 Although insisting upon the strictest discipline within the 
 monasteries, Charles the Great was not intolerant of the 
 secular element in the germinating literature of his reign. 
 Indeed, so far from showing intolerance, he was fully aware 
 that the preservation of his own memory lay in the hands of 
 the popular singers : he accordingly commanded that the 
 
 1 " Das erfuhr ich unter (den) .Menschen (als der) Wunder grosstes, dass 
 (die) Erde nicht war noch (der) Uberhimmel, noch Baum noch Berg [nicht] 
 var, nicht . . . kein . . . noch (die) Sonne schien, noch (der) Mond leuch- 
 tete, noch die herrliche See. Als da nichts war (von) Enden noch Wenden 
 (i.e., Grenzen), [und] da war der eine allmachtige Gott,'(der) Manner mildcster 
 und da waren auch mil ihm manche gute Geister. Und Gott heilig. . . ." 
 The text is that of W. Braune, Althochdeutsches Lesetuch, 4th ed., Halle, 1897. 
 Cp. Miillenhoff and Scherer, I.e., i, i f. ; P. Piper, I.e., 139 ff. 
 
 2 The so-called Kleriker und Nonne. Cp. R. Koegel, I.e., i. 2, 136 ff.
 
 16 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 songs of the people should be collected and preserved. 1 
 This collection is lost, but a fragment of an alliterative 
 The mide- " Heldenlied," preserved in a copy made by two monks 
 of the monastery of Fulda about 800, affords an idea of 
 the kind of poetry which Charles's collection would have 
 contained. This is the Hildebrandslied, the lay of Hilde- 
 brand and Hadubrand. 2 
 
 " Ik gihorta " (so begins the poem) " Sat seggen, 
 Sat sih urhettun aenon muotin, 
 Hiltibrant enti HaSubrant untar heriun tuem." 
 
 The old Hildebrand and the youthful Hadubrand stand 
 opposed to each other in the course of battle. The old 
 man asks his opponent his father's name. " My father," 
 replies Hadubrand, "was Hildebrand, my name is Hadu- 
 brand." A faithful vassal of Theodorich, Hildebrand had fled 
 with him from the wrath of Odoaker and found refuge with 
 the Huns. The old warrior is now on his way back to the 
 home where he had left wife and child thirty years before. 
 He doubts no longer that it is his own son who stands before 
 him, and joyfully offers him the arm-rings which he has 
 received as gifts from the great Attila. But Hadubrand, with 
 the impetuosity of youth, only sees in the old man's story an 
 excuse to avoid a conflict : 
 
 " Hadubrant gimahalta, Hiltibrantes sunu : 
 ' mil gem seal man geba infahan, 
 ort widar orte. . . . 
 dd bist dir, alter Hun, ummet spaher, 
 
 spenis mih mit dinem wortun, wili mih dinu speru werpan. 
 pist also gialtet man, s6 du ewin inwit fuortos. 
 dat sagetun ml seolidante 
 westar ubar wentilseo, dat inan wic furnam : 
 t6t ist Hiltibrant, Heribrantes suno.'" 
 
 The conflict between father and son is unavoidable : 
 
 " Welaga nu, waltant got " (cries Hildebrand), " wewurt skihit. 
 ih wallota sumaro enti wintro sehstic ur lante, 
 dar man mih eo scerita in folc sceotantero : 
 
 1 Einhard, Vita Caroli Magni (ed. P. Jaffe', Berlin, 1876), cap. 29. 
 
 2 Miillenhoff and Scherer, I.e., i, 2 ff. ; P. Piper, I.e., 142 ff. The dialectic 
 peculiarities of the text are explained on the assumption that the original 
 was Low German and written from memory by a High German ; the Fulda 
 monks (East Frankish dialect) then copied this High German version. The 
 fragment consists of sixty-eight lines.
 
 CHAP, II.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. I? 
 
 s6 man mir at burc enigeru banun ni gifasta, 
 
 nu seal mih suasat chind suertu hauwan, 
 
 breton mit sinu billiu, eddo ih imo ti banin werdan." 1 
 
 The fight begins, but the MS. breaks off and leaves us in ignor- 
 ance as to how it ends. There is, however, little doubt that 
 the close was tragic ; the youthful warrior falls by his father's ^ 
 hand, like Sohrab by Rustem's in the similar Persian saga. 
 
 Like the Scandinavian Edda and the Anglo-Saxon epic 
 Beowulf, the Hildebrandslied is composed in alliterative verse. Alliterative 
 In this, the oldest metrical system of Germanic poetry, the line verse> 
 is divided rhythmically into two halves. These two half-lines 
 are connected by alliteration, that is to say, the syllables 
 upon which most stress is laid in reading or singing the lines 
 begin with the same letter or sound. Each line has usually 
 three such alliterating syllables, two in the first half and one 
 in the second, but there may be only two. All initial vowels 
 alliterate indifferently with one another, and consonantal com- 
 binations such as sc, sp, and st, are regarded as single sounds. 
 
 The Hildebrandslied is an example of the rough, uncouth 
 ballad out of which the German national epic was, at a much 
 later date, to be constructed. There is no Homeric breadth 
 here, there are no literary graces ; in place of them we find 
 a directness of speech, a fierce dramatic intensity and a grim 
 irony, which are to be sought for in vain in less primitive 
 literature. But the Hildebrandslied stands alone ; the frag- 
 mentary Anglo-Saxon Waldere, which is evidently a translation 
 of an Old High German lay, is the only other evidence we 
 possess of a national epic in the Carlovingian age. 
 
 1 " Ich horte das sagen, dass sich (als) Kampfer allein begegneten Hilde- 
 brand und Hadubrand zwischen Heeren zwei" (11. 1-3). " Hadubrand sprach, 
 Hildebrands Sohu : Mit Gere soil man Gabe empfangen, Spitze wider Spitze. 
 Du bist [dir], alter Hunne, unmassig schlau. . . . Lockst mich mit deinen 
 Worten, willst mich mit deinem Speere werfen, bist so (ein) alt gewordener 
 Mann, so du ewigen Betrug (im Schilde) fuhrtest. Das sagten mir Seeleute, 
 die westwarts iiber das Meer (die Wendelsee) kamen, dass ihn der Kampf 
 hinraffte : tot ist Hildebrand, Heribrands Sohn" (11. 36-44). " Wolan nun, 
 waltender Gott, Wehgeschick geschieht. Ich wallte (der) Sommer und Winter 
 (i.e., der Halbjahre) sechzig ausser Landes, wo man mich immerauslas in (das) 
 Volk (der) Krieger, ohne dass man mir bei irgend einer Burg den Tod [nicht] 
 gab: nun soil mich (mein) liebes Kind (mit dem) Schwerte hauen, (mich) 
 niederstrecken mit seiner Streitaxt, oder ich ihm zum Tode werden " (11. 49-54).
 
 18 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CHARLES THE GREAT'S SUCCESSORS. HIULICAL POETRY. 
 
 IT was hardly to be expected that Charles the Great should 
 have had a successor of such character and intellectual breadth 
 as himself. At his death in 814, the responsibilities of the 
 Ludwig empire fell upon the shoulders of his son, Ludwig the Pious. 
 sT s'o" 8 ' E arnest an d clear-headed as Ludwig was, he had but little of 
 his father's kingly genius ; he was essentially a man of peace 
 and a Churchman. The strong religious bent of his mind was 
 not, however, detrimental to the best interests of literature. 
 He may have subordinated the intellectual life of his time 
 to the Church, in a manner which his father would not have 
 countenanced, but in the ninth century, it must be remem- 
 bered, there was still no hope of a literature outside the 
 Church. An important event of Ludwig's reign was the rise 
 of the monasteries, among which that of Fulda soon took up a 
 leading position. Fulda became the Tours of the North, and 
 the greatest men of the age flocked to it, to sit at the feet 
 of Alcuin's most distinguished scholar, Rabanus Maurus. 
 The ideas of education which Rabanus Maurus put into 
 practice were broad and liberal ; he was faithful to the best 
 traditions of the reign of Charles the Great, and, himself a 
 poet, he showed no clerical contempt for the language of 
 the people. To his direct instigation is probably to be traced 
 The Evan- an East-Frankish translation, made at Fulda, of the Evangelien- 
 moni^Qi harmonic of Tatian, or rather, of a Latin Gospel Harmony 
 Tatian, compiled according to the Diatessaron of Tatian. 1 This trans- 
 ca- 8 3S- lation, which dates from the fourth decade of the ninth cen- 
 
 1 Ed. E. Sievers, 2nd ed., Paderborn, 1892. Cp. P. Piper in D.N.L., i, 120- 
 "5-
 
 CHAP. III.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 19 
 
 tury, cannot, however, be compared, for accuracy or literary 
 qualities, with the translations of the Monsee codex. 
 
 The eyes of the clergy were gradually opening to the power 
 which a literature in the popular tongue might exert in the 
 service of the Church, and it would have been surprising 
 had they not soon employed their literary activity in something 
 more than glossing and translating. In point of fact, the ninth 
 century the brightest in the Old High German period 
 stands out as the age of the two earliest Christian epics in a 
 European vernacular, the Old Saxon Heliand, and the Evan- 
 gelienbuch of Otfrid, the latter the earliest German poem in 
 rhymed verse. 
 
 In 1562 Mathias Vlacich, or Flacius, a zealous Protestant 
 theologian, intent on proving that the ideas of the Reforma- 
 tion were not new, unearthed, it is not known where, a Pr&fatio 
 in librum antiquum lingua saxonica conscriptum, together with 
 some Latin verses concerning the same " ancient book in the 
 Saxon tongue." According to this Prcefatio^ Ludwig the 
 Pious commissioned a Saxon who possessed a certain reputa- 
 tion as a poet, to translate the Bible into German verse. The 
 Latin verses, which are evidently of later date, only repeat the 
 story which Bede relates of Caedmon : a peasant watching his 
 flocks falls asleep under a tree, and is commanded by a voice 
 from heaven to interpret the Word of God in his own tongue. 
 However apocryphal these verses may be, there is no reason 
 to doubt that the epic poem of all but 6000 verses which its 
 first editor entitled Der Heliand ("The Saviour"), and the The Old 
 recently discovered fragments of Genesis, are portions of the Saxon He- 
 
 .-. , . . .,-.., , , F /<* and 
 
 Old Saxon poetic version of the Bible, which is referred to in Genesis, 
 the Prcefatio}- ca - 8 3o- 
 
 Concerning the author of this Biblical poem or the locality 
 where it was written, we have no definite information. A 
 generally accepted view is that it was the work of a monk of 
 the monastery of Werden ; but if the poet was a monk at all, 
 which seems doubtful, he was too deeply versed in the 
 technicalities and style of the popular epic, to have spent 
 his entire life within the cloisters. He may perhaps have 
 entered a monastery in later years, but there seems little doubt 
 
 1 Heliand, mil Glossar herausgegeben, von M. Heyne. 3rd ed., Pader- 
 born, 1883 ; Die altsdchsische Bibddichtung, herausgegeben, von P. Piper, i, 
 Stuttgart, 1897. Cp. also P. Piper in D.N.L. i, 159-186.
 
 2O THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 that he was in the first place what the Anglo-Saxons called a 
 scop, a wandering singer. The home of the poet ought also 
 perhaps to be sought farther north and nearer the sea than 
 Werden. It is not altogether clear how this Biblical epic was 
 composed : traces of a familiarity with the best exegetical works 
 of the time are unmistakable, but it is doubtful if the poet's 
 acquaintance with these authorities was at first-hand : he may, 
 as has been recently suggested, have simply based his poem 
 upon a collection of homilies. In any case, there is no slavish 
 adherence to the letter of the commentaries. 1 The date of 
 the composition of the Heliand and Genesis is approximately 
 830 ; with considerable certainty it may be said that they were 
 not written before 822 and not later than 840. 
 
 The To the old Saxon poet, Christ is a king over His people, 
 
 German!^ a warrior, a mighty ruler. Episodes such as the entry into 
 epic. Jerusalem on the ass, which were inconsistent with the Saxon 
 
 singer's idea of kingly dignity, are omitted or passed lightly 
 over: humility and resignation could hardly be accounted 
 virtues in his eyes. The Christ of the Heliand is a hero of 
 the old Germanic type, an ideal of courage and loyalty, and 
 His disciples are noble vassals from whom He demands un- 
 flinching loyalty in return. Like the kings in the epic of 
 Beowulf^ He shows His graciousness by distributing rewards 
 and arm-rings. The background of the events in the Heliand 
 is the flat Saxon land with the fresh North Sea, familiar to the 
 poet and his hearers : " Nazarethburg," " Bethleemaburg," 
 " Rumuburg," called up more vivid, if more homely, pictures 
 than any description of Palestine or Rome; the marriage at 
 Cana and Herod's birthday feast become drinking-bouts in 
 the hall of a Germanic prince. 
 
 The Biblical story is thus transferred to the milieu of the 
 Germanic epic, but it is surprising that the poem is not in this 
 respect even more realistic than it is : as a matter of fact, the 
 Saxon poet preserves the spirit of the New Testament more 
 faithfully than Heinrich von Veldeke some centuries later 
 preserves that of the ALneid. And although the Heliand is 
 essentially didactic in purpose, its poet never forgets that he 
 is, in the first place, not a preacher but a singer ; he has the 
 
 1 Cp. F. Jostes' papers in the Zeitschrift f. deutsch. Altertum, 40 (1896), 160 
 ff., and 341 ff. ; A. E. Schdnbach's article on Deutschfs Christentum vor tau- 
 send Jahren in Cosmopolis, i (1896), 605 ff., and R. Koegel, I.e., i, i, 276 ff.
 
 CHAP. III.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 21 
 
 artist's power of making his story dramatic and interesting. 
 The Heliand is thus a genuine epic. Early Christian poetry 
 has nothing that surpasses in vividness the Saxon poet's de- 
 scription of Herod's feast, or the storm upon the Sea of Galilee ; 
 it has little that approaches the solemn grandeur of the 
 Sermon on the Mount or the scene on the Mount of Olives. 
 Lines like the following show the poet's power of rendering 
 the more solemn tones of the Gospel narrative : 
 
 " ' Ik mag iu tellian,' quat hie 'that noh uuirSit thiu tid cuman, 
 that is afstandan ni seal sten obar 6o"rum, 
 ac it fellit ti foldu, endi it fiur nimit, 
 gradag logna, thoh it nu so guodlic si, 
 
 so uuislico giuuaraht, endi so duot all thesaro uueroldes giscapu, 
 teglidit gruoni uuang.' Thuo gengun im is iungron tuo, 
 fragodun ina so stillo, ' Huo lango seal standan noh,' quathun sia, 
 ' thius uuerold an uuunnion, er than that giuuand cume, 
 that thie lasto dag liohtes seine 
 
 thuru uuolcansceon, eftha huann is thin eft uuan cuman 
 an thesan middilgard, manno cunnie 
 te adclianne, dodun endi quikun, 
 fro min thie guodo ? us is thes firiuuitt mikil, 
 uualdandeo Crist, huann that giuuerthan sculi.' " J 
 
 Old Saxon Biblical poetry bears witness to that intimate in- 
 tercourse between the Continental and English Saxons which, 
 still existing in the ninth century, enriched the old German 
 speech with so many new words. The poet of the Heliand 
 was undoubtedly familiar with the beginnings of a religious epic 
 in England, and his poem was in turn read by Anglo-Saxons. 
 A large part of the Anglo-Saxon Genesis is, in fact, merely a 
 translation of the Old Saxon Genesis?- The Heliand is the 
 last great poem in alliterative verse in a West Germanic 
 
 1 " ' Ich kann euch erzahlen,' sagte er, ' dass die Zeit noch kommen wird, 
 dass davon (i.e., von dem Tempel) nicht (ein) Stein iiber (dem) andern stehen 
 soil, sondern er fallt zur Erde, und Feuer ergreift (lit., nimmt) ihn, gierige Lohe, 
 obgleich er jetzt so stattlich ist, so weislich bereitet ; und gleiches thun alle 
 Schopfungen dieser Welt ; die griine Aue vergeht.' Da gingen seine Jiinger zu 
 ihm, fragten ihn so stille: ' Wie lange soil stehen noch,' sprachen sie, 'diese 
 Welt in Wonnen, ehe dann die Wende kommt, dass der letzte Tag (des) 
 Lichtes durch (den) Wolkenhimmel scheme ? oder wann ist deine Absicht, auf 
 dieses Erdenrund wieder zu kommen, (der) Menschen Geschlecht zu richten, 
 Tote und Lebendige, Herre mein, der gute? Uns ist dessen grosse Neugier, 
 waltender Christ, wann das werden solle ' " (11. 4280-4293). 
 
 2 That part of the Anglo-Saxon Genesis is a translation from the Old Saxon 
 was first conjectured by E. Sievers in 1875, and corroborated nearly twenty 
 years later by K. Zangemeister's discovery of fragments of the Old Saxon 
 Genesis in the Vatican. Cp. K. Zangemeister and W. Braune, Bruchslucke der 
 altsdchsischen Bibeldichtung in the Neue Heidelberger Jahrb. , 4 (1894), 205 ff.
 
 22 
 
 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 The S 'trass- 
 burger 
 Eide, 842. 
 
 Ludwig the 
 
 German, 
 
 843-876. 
 
 The 
 Muspilli. 
 
 language, and this, together with the fact that it was written 
 in a dialect incomprehensible to the great mass of the people, 
 militated against any widespread popularity. As far as the 
 Germans of the tenth century were concerned, the Heliand 
 might have been written in a dead language ; but it stands 
 out, nevertheless, as the greatest poetic achievement in the 
 European literature of its time. 
 
 When in 840 Charles the Great's first successor died, for- 
 saken and forlorn, in a tent on an island in the Rhine, a storm 
 of war and dissension had already broken over the empire. 
 The two sons of Ludwig the Pious, Ludwig and Charles, who 
 were in revolt against their father, now turned upon each 
 other, and only when a common enemy appeared in the 
 person of their brother Lothar, did they amicably join forces 
 and agree to a division of the empire. In 842 the two 
 brothers met at Strassburg and solemnly swore mutual allegi- 
 ance, Ludwig taking the oath in the Romance tongue of 
 the Western Franks, Charles in the German tongue, which 
 his brother's followers understood. These Strassburger 
 Eide 1 form an outstanding landmark in the history of both 
 France and Germany; they mark the division of the Carlo- 
 vingian empire, the first step in the independent development 
 of the two leading nations of the European continent. A year 
 later, by the Treaty of Verdun, Ludwig, known henceforth as 
 Ludwig the German, became acknowledged ruler of the 
 " Kingdom of the Eastern Franks," while Charles ruled over 
 the Western Franks. Ludwig the German (843-876) proved 
 a more liberal-minded patron of literature than his father had 
 been ; he had something of Charles the Great's wide intel- 
 lectual sympathies, and preferred to have men of education 
 around him. The Germanisation of the liturgy and ordin- 
 ances of the Church went on apace during Ludwig's reign, 
 and the monasteries were unwearied in providing glosses to 
 Latin manuscripts. 
 
 One of the most interesting fragments of Old High German 
 literature belongs, in the form in which it has been preserved, 
 to Ludwig the German's reign. This is the so-called Muspilli, 
 one hundred and six lines of alliterative verse in the Bavarian 
 dialect, which are written on the spare sheets of a beautiful 
 Latin manuscript known to have been in the possession of 
 
 1 Miillenhoff and Scherer, I.e., i, 231 f.; P. Piper, I.e., 133 ff.
 
 CHAP. III.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 23 
 
 the king himself. 1 It is tempting to see in this fragment a 
 description of the Germanic " Muspilli " or " World Destruc- 
 tion," to find in it a remnant of the old heathen religion in 
 the guise of the Christian Apocalypse. The battle between 
 the angels and the spirits of darkness for the souls of the dead 
 at the Last Judgment is, for instance, depicted with an imagi- 
 native grandeur which is foreign to medieval Christianity, while 
 Elijah fighting with the Antichrist suggests the Scandinavian 
 Thor's destruction of the Serpent of Midgard : 
 
 " S6 daz Eliases pluot in erda kitriufit, 
 s& inprinnant die perga, poum ni kistentit, 
 entc in erdu, aha artruknent, 
 muor varswilhit sih, suiliz6t lougiu der himil. 
 mano vallit, prinnit mittilagart. . . . 
 dar ni mac mak andremo helfan vora demo muspille." ~ 
 
 But there is, after all, nothing in the Muspilli which cannot 
 be traced to canonical sources ; the Christian ideas have only 
 passed through the Germanic imagination and become tinged 
 with the grandeur of a pre-Christian heroism. 
 
 As the reign of Ludwig the Pious had been marked by 
 one great poem on the life of Christ, the Heliand, so that of 
 his successor stands out as the age of the second German 
 Messiad namely, the Evangelienbiich or "Gospel Book" of 
 Otfrid. But while the Heliand is written in alliterative verse 
 and looks backward to the heroic age, then disappearing 
 rapidly before Christianity, Otfrid's poem stands at the be- 
 ginning of a new epoch ; it is suffused with the meekness of 
 the new religion, and its thoughts are set to the music of 
 modern poetry. 
 
 Otfrid, the first German poet whose name is known to us, otfrid, 
 was monk and priest in the Alsatian monastery of Weissen- <-a. 8cx> 
 burg. Born probably about the beginning of the century, 7 
 he studied for some years as a young man under Rabanus 
 Maurus in Fulda, and ultimately rose to be the head of the 
 convent school in Weissenburg. He was still alive in 868, 
 about which date, or some years earlier, his work was com- 
 pleted. The motive which prompted the writing of the Liber C a. 868. 
 
 1 Mullenhoff and Scherer, I.e., i, 7 ff.; P. Piper, I.e., 149 ff. 
 
 2 " Wenn des Elias Blut auf (die) Erde trauft, so entbrennen die Berge, 
 (es) stcht nicht irgend ein Baum auf Erden, (die) Bache vertrocknen, (das) Meer 
 verschluckt sich, (es) verbrennt in Lohe der Himmel, (der) Mond fiillt, (es) 
 brennt (die) Erde ... da mag nicht (ein) Verwandter (dem) andern helfen 
 vor dem Untergang der Erde" (11. 50-57).
 
 24 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 evangeliorum theotisce conscriptus 1 was similar to that which 
 called forth the Heliand namely, a desire to combat the 
 love of heathen poetry in the laity, by winning their interest 
 for stories from the Bible written in their own tongue. But 
 Otfrid was far from being as successful as his Saxon predecessor. 
 He had nothing of the spontaneity of the born singer ; he 
 made no attempt to imitate the popular epic. Above all, 
 he was a monk, and a monk learned in the exegetical 
 literature of his time. He set about his work with the 
 conscious intention of the scholar who wished to give his 
 countrymen an epic similar to those which Juvencus, Sedulius, 
 and Arator had written for readers of Latin. 
 
 Otfrid's The High German Soundshifting had hastened the end 
 
 of alliterative verse in South Germany. With regard to 
 the form of his poem, Otfrid had no choice; he was com- 
 pelled to abandon alliteration, and to adopt in its place 
 rhyme, with which the Church hymns had already made him 
 familiar. He virtually retained, however, the alliterative verse 
 form, namely, the long line broken in the middle, but, instead 
 of using alliterative syllables, he made the half verses rhyme 
 with each other. Two long lines form a strophe. The 
 whole poem is divided into five books, and each book into a 
 number of smaller divisions which correspond with the peri- 
 copes or lessons of the Church service. While it is mainly to 
 his adaptation of rhyme to German verse that Otfrid owes his 
 position in German literature, it would be unjust to deny him 
 altogether the possession of higher poetic powers. Overladen 
 as his work is with theological learning, and hampered, es- 
 pecially in the earlier part of the poem, by technical diffi- 
 culties, there are here and there in his verse flashes of 
 genuine lyric feeling which deserve to be lifted out of the dry 
 religious didacticism in which they are imbedded. In lines 
 like the following, the note of the German national lyric is 
 not to be mistaken : 
 
 " Uuolaga elilenti, harto bistu herti, 
 
 thu bist harto filu suar, thaz sagen ih thir in alauuar. 
 Mit arabeitin uuerbent, thie heiminges tharbent ; 
 
 ih haben iz funtan in mir, ni fand ih liebes uuiht in thir ; 
 
 1 Ed. O. Erdmann, Halle, 1882 ; selections in P. Piper, D.N.L., i, 186 ff. 
 On Otfrid see especially A. E. Schonbach's papers in the Zeitschrift f. deutsch. 
 Altertum, 38-40 (1894-96), and in Cosmopolis, i, 605 ff.
 
 CHAP. III.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 25 
 
 Ni fand in thir ih ander guat, suntar r6zagaz muat, 
 
 seragaz herza ioh managfalta smerza. 
 Ob uns in muat gigange, thaz unsih heim lange, 
 
 zi themo lante in gahe ouh iamar gifahe : 
 Farames s& thie gin6za ouh andara striza, 
 
 then uueg, ther tmsih uuenta zi eiginemo lante." 1 
 
 Otfrid had no small share of the characteristic Germanic Otfrid's 
 love for mysticism ; he delighted in that quest for hidden m y sticism 
 meanings in Scripture which the Alexandrine Jews of the 
 third century had introduced into Biblical exegesis ; he dwelt 
 not only upon the moral application of the Gospel story, but 
 upon its spiritual and mystic sides. This mysticism might 
 have added to the poetic beauties of Otfrid's poem, had 
 the work not been conceived in such a sordidly didactic spirit. 
 The Evangelienbuch lacks entirely that intimate sympathy 
 with old German life which is to be found in the Heliand. 
 Otfrid's Christ, however, is no less a German king than the 
 Saxon Christ ; the Jewish towns are " burgen," and John the 
 Baptist fasts "in waldes einote" an expression that fore- 
 shadows Tieck's " Waldeinsamkeit." But the fire of the 
 Germanic epic is gone, and the mild peace and also the 
 prosaic homeliness of the cloister have taken its place. As 
 an epic, the Gospel Book of Otfrid cannot be compared with 
 the Heliand, but it is, nevertheless, a literary monument of the 
 first importance ; its influence upon both the language and the 
 metrical forms of German poetry may be traced through at 
 least two centuries ; from it some of the chief streams in the 
 national literature take their beginning. 
 
 With Otfrid, Old High German poetry reaches, we might 
 say, its culminating-point, and the scanty religious fragments of 
 the latter half of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth 
 century stand completely in the shadow of the Evangelien- 
 buch. Generally speaking, the literary tendency of Ludwig Later 
 the German's reign was in the direction of a freer, more 
 imaginative treatment of religious themes. This is apparent, 
 not only in the Muspilli^ but in such post-Otfridian poems 
 
 1 ' ' Ach (du) Fremdland ! sehr hart bist du, du bist gar sehr schwer, das 
 sage ich dir furwahr. Unter Miihsalen leben dahin (die), die (der) Heimat 
 entbehren. Ich habe es an mir erfahren (lit., gefunden), nicht fand ich etwas 
 Liebes an dir. Nicht fand ich an dir anderes Gutes, ausser traurigen Sinn, 
 weherfulltes Herz und mannigfaltigen Schmerz. Wenn uns in den Sinn 
 kommt, dass uns heim verlangt, (wenn uns) auch Sehnsucht nach dem Lande 
 plbtzlich ergreift, (so) fahren wir, wie die Genossen, [auch] eine andere Strasse, 
 den Weg, der uns zu (unserem) eignen Lande fuhre" (r, 18, 11. 25-34).
 
 26 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 as the Bittgesang an den heiligen Petms, Christus und die 
 Samariterin^ the Lied vom heiligen Georg, and a Bavarian 
 version of the 138^ Psalm. 1 
 
 After the death of Ludwig the German in 876, the kingdom 
 of the Eastern Franks was again at the mercy of dissension 
 within and foes without, and German literature, which has 
 suffered perhaps more than other literatures from the nation's 
 checkered political history, lost completely the small vantage- 
 ground it had gained. As regards poetry under the last 
 Carlovingians, there is little to say. The victory of young 
 Ludwig III. over the Normans at Saucourt, in 88 1, elicited a 
 The Lttd German song in his honour, the so-called Ludwigslied, in 
 8i* te ' ' which the king is celebrated as the champion of heaven ; z 
 the author was evidently a Rhine-Frankish monk. The 
 decay of the Carlovingian empire is to be seen in the 
 readiness with which men's thoughts reverted to the great 
 Charles. A Saxon singer, the " Poeta Saxo," celebrated, 
 between 888 and 891, the deeds of Charles (De gestis 
 Caroli] in Latin verses, and a " Monk of St Gall," whose 
 name is unknown, wrote, between 884 and 887, a Latin 
 life of the great king which often throws a more vivid 
 light on his personality than Einhard's biography. But 
 German king although he was, Charles the Great never be- 
 came in Germany what he was among his Latin subjects, 
 an epic hero and the central figure of a poetic literature ; the 
 only German poems in which he plays a leading part are 
 adaptations from the French. 
 
 1 Mullenhoff and Scherer. I.e., i, 21 f., 22 ff.. 31 ff., 35 ff. ; also P. Piper 
 I.e., 261 ff. 
 
 2 Miillenhoff and Scherer, I.e., i, 24 ff.; P. Piper, I.e., 257 ff.
 
 27 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LATIN LITERATURE UNDER THE SAXON EMPERORS. 
 NOTKER. THE LITURGIC DRAMA. 
 
 WITH the accession of Heinrich I. German literature re- 
 ceived a check which undid the slow achievement of genera- 
 tions. The High German tongue, and especially that 
 Prankish dialect of it which Otfrid wrote, was just be- 
 ginning to be recognised as the literary language of the 
 East Prankish kingdom when the light of courtly favour was 
 suddenly withdrawn from it. The new dynasty was a Saxon The Saxon 
 race of kings who held their Court amidst a Low German 
 people, to the north of the Harz Mountains. This, however, 
 is not in itself sufficient to explain the disadvantage at which 
 literature was placed in the tenth century. Under the feeble 
 rule of the later Carlovingians, the struggle of the German 
 peoples for existence had begun anew. First, Normans had 
 made victorious inroads into the kingdom, then came Slavs 
 and Danes, and then, like a second Hunnish invasion, the 
 Hungarians swept down upon the eastern frontiers. The 
 conflicts of the Migrations seemed about to repeat them- 
 selves when the strong hand of the Saxon kings saved the 
 empire. It was manifestly no age for literature, but the 
 literary undercurrent was strong, and only awaited a favour- 
 able opportunity to make itself felt. In the Carlovingian age 
 the Saxons, as we have seen, possessed in the Hildebrandslied 
 and the Heliand a vigorous national poetry, and it was un- 
 doubtedly the Saxon race that kept the national epic alive. 
 But the struggles of the tenth century filled the popular 
 imagination with new poetry and gave it new heroes, and 
 these were by degrees ingrafted upon the older traditions,
 
 28 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 just as, centuries before, the heroic poetry of the Migrations 
 had blended with the prehistoric sagas. 
 
 In spite of the stormy times, we might have possessed actual 
 proofs of this Saxon epic tradition, had the conditions for 
 literature been as favourable at the Saxon Court as they had 
 been at that of the Carlovingians. But the early Saxon kings 
 cared little for literature the first Heinrich could neither read 
 nor write, Otto I. not until late in life, and when the " Saxon 
 Renaissance " did set in, it was restricted to a literature in 
 Latin, inspired by Greek and Byzantine ideas. Otto the 
 Great had other things to do than to foster literature : it was 
 he who laid the real foundations of the " Holy Roman 
 Empire" and gave Germany the leading voice in European 
 politics for the remaining centuries of the middle ages ; he 
 first inspired the German people with a sense of unity and of 
 national greatness. But of a national literature the Saxon 
 emperors knew practically nothing, and not a single poem 
 in the German tongue has been preserved from a period of 
 more than a century and a half. 
 
 The The only healthy sign in this, the darkest age of German 
 
 ieute"" poetry, was the growing importance of the " Spielleute " 
 or " Gleemen." These " wandering folk " (diu varnde diet}, 
 as they were called at a later period, were the virtual de- 
 scendants of the old Roman histriones and mimi ; they were 
 the jesters and mountebanks to whom the people looked 
 for their entertainment. But they were more than jesters, 
 more even than the gossips and news-bearers of their age ; 
 they also took the place of the scops or rhapsodists who, 
 centuries before, had sung at the Courts of Gothic kings. 
 Now, under the Saxon emperors, these wandering singers 
 began to recover something of the prestige which their pre- 
 Christian forerunners had enjoyed. In the dark centuries 
 the "Spielleute" were the real bearers of epic traditions, 
 the true preservers of the national poetry. But of this 
 poetry we possess nothing that is older than the twelfth 
 century ; our knowledge of it comes only from indirect 
 sources, and from Latin versions made by monks in the 
 seclusion of monasteries. 
 
 For the monasteries remained, now as under the Carlo- 
 vingians, the only abiding-places for intellectual life : here 
 alone could a written literature find refuge. After the death
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 29 
 
 of Rabanus Maurus in 856, the glory of Fulda was eclipsed 
 by that of Reichenau, which in turn had to yield to the 
 Alemannian monastery of St Gall. All through the tenth StGall. 
 and a considerable part of the eleventh century, St Gall was 
 one of the great fountainheads of light north of the Alps. 
 Under the Saxon emperors, literature, scholarship, and music 
 owed more to this monastery than to any other. Notker 
 the Stammerer, the first of three famous monks of St Gall 
 who bore the name Notker, perfected the " Sequentia," a form 
 of religious poetry of French origin ; it consisted of Latin 
 verses adapted to the modulations sung after the word 
 " Hallelujah " in the Gradual of the Mass. A Lobgesang auf 
 den heiligen Gallus (ca. 890), ascribed to Ratpert of St Gall, 
 was long popular among the people, but it has only been 
 preserved in a Latin translation ; x and about a hundred years 
 later, Notker Labeo, the third Notker, once more made this 
 monastery famous in literary annals by his translations. But 
 the greatest debt which literature owes St Gall is the Latin 
 version of the Lay of Walther of Aquitaine, the Waltharius Wal- 
 manu fortis? a poem which was written by Ekkehard of thar * us > 
 St Gall about 930, and revised a century later by another 
 Ekkehard the fourth of that name in the records of the 
 monastery. 
 
 The Waltharilied describes an episode in the lives of 
 Walther of Aquitaine and his betrothed, Hildegund of Burg- 
 undy, both of whom were held as hostages by the Huns. 
 They escape from Attila's Court, and after forty days' wandering 
 reach the Rhine near Worms. Gunther, the Prankish king, 
 whose vassal, Hagen, has also been a hostage, learns of their 
 return, and lays claim to the treasure with which Walther's 
 horse is laden. To enforce his claim, Gunther sets out with 
 twelve chosen vassals in pursuit of Walther and Hildegund, 
 and overtakes them in a wild defile of the Vosges Mountains. 
 Here Walther slays eleven of these vassals one after the 
 other, each of the combats being fully described by the poet, 
 with a skilful avoidance of repetition. Hagen and the king 
 alone are left, and on the following day both fall upon Walther 
 together. After a desperate struggle all three are disabled. 
 
 1 Miillenhoff and Scherer, I.e., i, 27 ff. 
 
 9 Ed. J. V. Scheffel and A. Holder (with German translation), Stuttgart, 
 1874, and by H. Althof, i, Leipzig, 1899 ; the latter has also published a 
 translation, Leipzig, 1896.
 
 3O THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 Peace is made, and Walther brings bride and treasure home 
 in safety. 
 
 Ekkehard wrote Waltharius as an exercise in Latin verse, 
 while still an " unfledged scholar " in the convent : it takes, 
 however, a high place, perhaps the highest, among the epics 
 of medieval Latin literature. The Waltharius is not, as 
 was once supposed, a mere translation of some lost Old 
 High German epic ; and if Ekkehard had any written version 
 of the story before him at all, it was most likely one in 
 Latin prose. His poetic style is modelled upon Virgil and 
 Prudentius ; the polish of the Latin hexameter and the 
 classic sense of proportion, generally lacking in medieval 
 literature, give an appearance of artistic ripeness to the poem 
 which is in some measure spurious. The heroic spirit in 
 the Waltharilied is still unsoftened by the courtesies of 
 medieval chivalry, but through the fierce life which it de- 
 scribes there runs a strain of almost modern tenderness. 
 One might seek long through pre- Renaissance literature to 
 find anything more beautiful than Ekkehard's description of 
 the eve of the final combat, when Hildegund, singing to keep 
 herself awake, watches by her sleeping champion through the 
 first half of the night, while the latter keeps watch over her 
 during the second. 1 But the tenderness here is not Germanic ; 
 it is rather the antique tenderness of Virgil. Ekkehard's poem 
 has not the virility of the Middle High German epics; the 
 reader is spared the long uninteresting passages which occur in 
 the latter, but he also misses their rough vigour and freshness. 
 The issues of Waltharius are narrower ; its ideas are illum- 
 ined, not by the sun and moon of the real world, but by 
 the subdued artificial light, half classical, half monkish, of 
 the Ottonian Renaissance. After all, the chief ,value of this 
 poem is that it is the only specimen of a German heroic 
 saga that has come down to us from a period of more than 
 three centuries. Of a Latin version of the Nibelungen saga, 
 written at the command of Bishop Pilgrim of Passau at the 
 close of the tenth century, nothing has been preserved. 
 The Another Latin poem is the Ecbasis captivi ("The Flight of 
 
 Ecbasis the Captive "), 2 which was written in leonine hexameters, about 
 ca. 940'. 94> by a German monk of Toul in Lorraine. This poem has 
 
 1 Lines 1172-1187. The entire poem is only 1456 verses long. 
 
 2 Ed. E. Voigt in Quellen und Forschungen, 8, Strassburg, 1875.
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 31 
 
 a particular interest as forming the first link in the chain of 
 the " Beast Epic " in European literature. The naive em- 
 bodiment of popular satire, in which animals are the dramatis 
 persona, sprang partly from the Greek and oriental fable-lore 
 associated with ^Esop's name, partly from the allegories of the 
 Alexandrian Physiologus of the second century : it was one of 
 the favourite vehicles of satire in the age of the Reformation, 
 and retained its hold upon the imagination of the Continent 
 for long after. An idle monk, on whom the monastic reforms 
 of the tenth century weigh heavily, resolves, so the introduc- 
 tion to the Ecbasis captivi tells us, to atone for his past sloth 
 by composing a poem. He relates, as a kind of allegory 
 of his own life, the story of a calf which, escaping from its 
 tether, wanders into the forest and falls into the clutches of 
 a wolf. The wolf, like a monk weary of fasting, rejoices in 
 the prospect of a good meal ; but he grants the calf respite 
 until the following morning. When the morrow comes, the 
 herd, in its search for the missing calf, appears before the 
 wolf's den, and with the aid of the fox's cunning which is 
 further exemplified by the fable of the sick lion, told at great 
 length by the wolf rescues the calf. 
 
 The writings of the nun Hrotsuith or Roswitha (born ca. Hrotsuith 
 930), of the Saxon monastery of Gandersheim, are characteristic ofGanders- 
 of the literary and religious spirit of the Ottonian renaissance, C a. 930- 
 but they belong to a history of Latin rather than of German I000> 
 literature. Her six dramas, 1 written with a view to supplant- 
 ing Terence in the monasteries, are legends in dialogue rather 
 than dramas, but the dialogue has often genuinely dramatic 
 qualities : it is handled with a naturalness and skill which were 
 not surpassed by the humanistic dramatists of the sixteenth 
 century. In these plays Hrotsuith enforces the purity of life 
 which Terence made light of. They are essentially dramas 
 with a purpose, but the authoress is at the same time not 
 afraid of embellishing them with a piquancy which is hardly 
 in keeping with that purpose. Probably, however, without 
 this piquancy Hrotsuith would have had little chance of suc- 
 cessfully rivalling the Roman dramatist. 
 
 Besides the Ecbasis captivi, other Latin literature of this 
 period bears witness to the eagerness with which the German 
 
 1 Ed. K. A. Barack, Nurnberg, 1858 ; a translation by O. Pilz in Reclam's 
 Universal-Bibliothek, No. 2491-92.
 
 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 Latin 
 sequences. 
 
 De Hein- 
 rico, ca. 
 984. 
 
 Ruodlieb, 
 ca. 1030. 
 
 mind seized upon the anecdotes, fables, and jests which 
 intercourse with the south of Europe had brought within 
 its reach. The sequences preserved under the names Modus 
 floruni) Modus Liebinc, De Lantfrido et Cobbone^- are ex- 
 amples of an anecdotal literature which, from this time on, 
 continued steadily to increase until, in the age of the Refor- 
 mation, it reached its high -water mark. A short political 
 poem, De Heinrico (ca. 984), 2 on Duke Heinrich of Bavaria, 
 Otto I.'s brother, may also be mentioned here : it is written 
 in alternating Latin and German lines which are connected 
 by rhymes and assonances. 
 
 The most important evidence of the literary activity of the 
 Spielleute is to be found in the Latin epic Ruodlieb? written 
 about the year 1030 in the Bavarian monastery of Tegernsee. 
 Ruodlieb is the first romance of adventure, the oldest novel, 
 in European literature ; it stands, it might be said, upon the 
 threshold of the medieval renaissance which was to sweep over 
 Europe in the coming centuries. Thus it belongs, properly 
 speaking, rather to the Middle High German than to the Old 
 High German epoch. Ruodlieb is a purely German poem in 
 Latin garb ; we seek vainly in it either for the classical re- 
 miniscences or the classical form of Waltharius. It is char- 
 acteristically medieval in its fondness for realistic detail ; its 
 author takes as much delight in describing the knightly 
 costumes and ceremonials of his time as any Middle High 
 German Court singer. But Ruodlieb is not only a forerunner 
 of the Court Epic ; with even more justice it may be placed 
 at the head of that lower anecdotal epic with which the 
 Spielleute were especially associated in Middle High Ger- 
 man times : the realism, again, with which the life of the 
 common people is described, makes it the earliest example 
 of that peasant poetry which culminated in the thirteenth 
 century in Meier Helmbrecht, It is thus possible to dis- 
 cover in Ruodlieb the germs of the greater mass of Middle 
 High German narrative poetry. The basis of the story is 
 one of those cosmopolitan anecdotes for which the Spielleute 
 show so strong a preference. A young man of noble birth 
 leaves his home to seek in distant lands the honours that are 
 
 1 Mullenhoff and Scherer, I.e., i, 40 ff. 
 
 2 Mullenhoff and Scherer, I.e., i, 39 f. 
 
 3 Ed. F. Seller, Halle, 1882. A German translation by M. Heyne, Leipzig, 
 1897.
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 33 
 
 denied him in his own. He meets a huntsman who brings 
 him to the court of a king, where he is successful not only 
 in the chase but as a leader in battle. After the lapse of ten 
 years, a letter arrives from his mother, begging him to return 
 to her. The king asks him what remuneration he desires for 
 his services, and he chooses wisdom rather than riches. The 
 king thereupon gives him twelve wise maxims, but at the same 
 time does not let him depart without more material reward. 
 He presents him with two loaves of bread, not to be cut until 
 he reaches home ; in these loaves are concealed money and 
 treasures. The poet evidently intended to lead his hero 
 through twelve adventures illustrating the truth of the king's 
 maxims, but only three are narrated, and then the story 
 loses itself in other issues. Of the multifarious elements 
 which are thus loosely thrown together to form Ruodlieb^ one 
 is taken from the old Germanic " Heldensage," namely, an 
 episode from the life of a King Ruodlieb, whom we find 
 again two centuries later in the Eckenlied ; and although it is 
 not expressly mentioned, it was evidently intended that the 
 hero should bear this name, Ruodlieb. Of the author nothing 
 is known. From the poem itself, it has been inferred that 
 he was of noble birth, spent his best years at the Court of 
 Heinrich II., and retired to the monastery of Tegernsee only 
 in later life. Whatever truth there may be in these suppo- 
 sitions, it must be admitted that the stamp of actuality is 
 strong upon the poem ; kings and courts, women and peasants, 
 are not seen in such vividly realistic colours through the 
 narrow windows of a cloister. The poet of Ruodlieb was 
 clearly more man of the world than monk. 
 
 In this age of exclusively Latin culture, Notker III., Notker Notker, ca. 
 the German, or Notker Labeo ("the thick-lipped"), as he 952-1022. 
 was variously called (ca. 952-1022), the head of the convent 
 school of St Gall, occupies a unique position : he was, as far 
 as is known, the only scholar of his age who took a warm 
 interest in the language of the people. He revived that form 
 of activity which, since the decay of the Carlovingian dynasty, 
 had fallen into abeyance in the monasteries, the interpretation 
 of Latin works in the vernacular. Notker, however, was a 
 schoolman rather than a theologian; the books he selected 
 for translation, his method of retaining or introducing Latin 
 words and phrases, presumably familiar to his scholars, point 
 
 c
 
 34 
 
 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 Notker's 
 style. 
 
 The origin 
 of the 
 drama. 
 
 to an essentially pedagogic object in his work. Besides 
 several writings in Latin, we possess German versions 
 by Notker of Boethius's De consolatione philosophic, of 
 Aristotle's Categories and Hermeneutics, of the remarkable 
 allegorical treatise, De nuptiis Philologies ef Mercurii by 
 Marcianus Capella, a Neoplatonist of the fifth century, and, 
 most popular of all, a translation and commentary of the 
 Psalter. A few shorter writings, collected under the title 
 De musica, are distinguished from his other works by being 
 exclusively in German. It is unfortunate, however, that the 
 most interesting of Notker's translations, those of the Disticha 
 Catonis, of Virgil's Bucolica, and the Andria of Terence, have 
 not been preserved. 1 Notwithstanding the admixture of Latin 
 in his prose, Notker is a master in the use of the vernacular : 
 he is the only prose-writer in older German literature, with 
 the exception of the unknown translator of Isidorus, who may 
 be said to have possessed a style. His choice of words 
 reveals fineness of taste, the balance of his sentences a feeling 
 for rhythm, which it would be difficult to parallel in any 
 German writer earlier than the eighteenth century. 
 
 Before leaving this first period in the history of German 
 literature, it is necessary to look for a moment at the origins 
 of a literary genre which was not, however, to play any con- 
 siderable part in German poetry for more than six hundred 
 years the drama. The modern European drama, like the 
 drama of the Greeks, was religious in its origin ; but it sprang 
 from the liturgy of the Church, and not from the old, in- 
 digenous religion, which was too soon and too completely 
 effaced by Christianity to leave upon literature more than a 
 few uncertain traces. The earliest dramas in all European 
 literatures are liturgic. As far back as the tenth century, the 
 Easter and Christmas services of the Church were invested 
 with a certain dramatic character : the sacred events were 
 narrated in the form of a dialogue between two priests. A 
 certain part of the church represented, for instance, the 
 Holy Sepulchre ; the burial of Christ on Good Friday was 
 symbolised by a cross wrapped in cloths and deposited in 
 this place ; and on Easter Sunday, two priests dressed as 
 
 1 P. Piper, Die Schriften Notkers und seiner Schule, Freiburg, 1882 ; also 
 in D.N.L., i, 337 ff.
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. 35 
 
 angels announced to the women who came to the empty grave 
 seeking Christ : " Non est hie, surrexit sicut prcedixerat, ite, 
 nunciate, quia surrexit de sepulchral This was the starting- 
 point for the development of the later Easter and Passion 
 Plays. 
 
 These representations at Easter and Christmas soon became 
 more elaborate, but for long they remained essentially part of 
 the Church service. It is thus not to them, but to the 
 celebrations of the Epiphany, that we must look for the first Epiphany 
 step towards a secularisation of the drama. The elements of Pla y s - 
 these latter representations the Wise Men before Herod, the 
 Slaughter of the Innocents, the Flight into Egypt being of a 
 less solemn nature, admitted more readily of secular treat- 
 ment. A German Dreikonigsspiel of this kind in Latin verse 
 has been preserved from the eleventh century. As time went 
 on, these plays were collected into cycles ; events of less im- 
 mediate bearing on the story were interpolated ; the books of 
 the Old Testament, more especially those of the Prophets, 
 were drawn upon. Thus, in the course of the eleventh 
 and twelfth centuries, the liturgic drama gradually assumed 
 the proportions of a " world drama," in which the whole 
 religious cosmogony of the age was embodied. Isaac and his 
 Sons was the theme of a drama of the twelfth century, and 
 in 1194 a great representation was given at Regensburg, the 
 subject of which was the creation of the angels, the dethrone- 
 ment of Lucifer, the Creation, the Fall, and the prophecies. 
 A Spiel vom Antichrist from the monastery of Tegernsee is a Antichrist 
 good example of the " Antichrist Plays " of the twelfth century ; 
 it reflects faintly the national spirit of the German empire 
 under Barbarossa, for it is a German Kaiser who here rules 
 over the earth at the end of things. 
 
 As the religious drama grew more secular and elaborate, 
 two changes became inevitable, the exclusion of the plays 
 from the churches and the use of the language of the people. 
 The first of these changes took place in the twelfth century, 
 the scene of the performances being removed in the first place 
 to the adjacent churchyards. But the Latin tongue was not 
 so easily ousted ; in fact, no form of literature so long resisted 
 the inroads of the vernacular as the drama. Even as late as 
 the thirteenth century all that was German in these religious
 
 36 THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD. [PART I. 
 
 plays consisted of hymns which were obviously intended to be 
 sung by the spectators. 1 
 
 But this brings us far beyond the limits of Old High Ger- 
 man literature. With Notker of St Gall, who stands alone in 
 his age without immediate predecessors or successors, the first 
 period in the history of German literature comes to a close. 
 It is in no sense a great period ; with the exception of a few 
 fragmentary verses which mirror the ancient Germanic im- 
 agination, Old High German literature has little or no poetic 
 worth. The only great literary monument of the period, 
 the Heliand, is written in a Saxon, not a High German 
 dialect. Thus, the most that can be claimed for the litera- 
 ture of these centuries is that it casts a faint and fitful 
 light upon the intellectual evolution of the German people, 
 under the Carlovingians and the Saxon emperors. The 
 interest which it possesses for us to-day is not literary but 
 linguistic. 
 
 1 Cp. E. Wilkens, Geschichte der geistlichen Splele in Deutschland, Got- 
 tingen, 1872 ; L. Wirth, Die Osier- und Passionsspiele bis zum 16. Jahrhun- 
 dert, Halle, 1889; R. Froning, Das mittelalterliche Drama, D.N.L., 14. i, 
 2, and 3 [1892].
 
 PART II. 
 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ASCETICISM. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE POPULAR EPIC. 
 
 THE eleventh century was hardly more favourable for German 
 literature than the tenth had been. The brilliant political 
 history of the Saxon emperors had found, as we have seen, 
 no echo in popular poetry ; and the monastic reforms which, Monas 
 issuing from the Burgundian monastery of Cluny, gradually reform< 
 spread over Europe until, towards the close of the eleventh 
 century, they were thundered from the papal throne by Gregory 
 VII. , were even less favourable to literary production than the 
 Ottonian renaissance had been. But, on the other hand, a 
 return to the strict letter of the Benedictine Rule was urgent 
 for the credit of the Christian faith, and many of the best 
 features of medieval life the outburst of scholasticism in 
 France, for instance, the enthusiasm that led the flower of 
 Europe to the Holy Sepulchre may be traced back to the 
 Cluny reforms. The fact, however, remains that, in the be- 
 ginning, this spirit of reform created a breach between the 
 secular and religious life, which made progress impossible : 
 its asceticism fell like a blight upon literature. The classical 
 poets whom the monks had read in the tenth century now lay 
 undisturbed in the cloister libraries, and the scholarly activity 
 of monasteries like St Gall died completely out. 
 
 The beginnings of these monastic reforms had already been The poetry 
 lightly reflected in the Ecbasis captivi of the monk of Toul, in 
 the tenth century ; their depressing influence is first seen in 
 the literature of the following one. What little poetry was 
 written, only reiterated the disconsolate cry, "Memento mori ! " 
 A poem on " the contempt for the world," to which this title, 
 Memento mori, has been given, is a sermon in verse on the un-
 
 4O MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Hartman's 
 
 Vom 
 
 Glauben. 
 
 The 
 
 Etzolied, 
 ca. 1060. 
 
 Willeram, 
 ca. 1060. 
 
 Biblical 
 narrative. 
 
 certainty of human life and the vanity of worldly possessions ; 
 it was probably written about 1070 by an Alemannian monk. 
 The same spirit breathes through a description in rhythmical 
 prose of Himmel und Hoik, and has left its mark on other 
 prose fragments of the time. The fullest expression, how- 
 ever, of this asceticism is to be found in a long poetic ex- 
 position of the Nicene Creed, entitled Vom Glauben, which 
 was written early in the twelfth century by Hartman, a monk 
 or lay brother of some convent of Central Germany. Hartman 
 rails with the bitterness of a recluse against the secular spirit 
 which, with the rise of knighthood, was beginning to permeate 
 all classes of society. Love, honour, beauty, learning all is 
 vanity, he preaches ; only the solitary hermit lives the highest 
 life, the life of the heavenly seraphim. 
 
 One of the oldest poems of this period is the Lied of Ezzo, 
 a scholastic of Bamberg; it was composed about 1060 or a 
 little later, at the command of Bishop Gunther of Bamberg, a 
 famous Churchman who led an ill-starred pilgrimage to the 
 Holy Land, more than thirty years before the first crusade. 
 Ezzo sings in glowing verses, which might well have served 
 to inspire those early crusaders, of the beginning of things, of 
 Christ's life and miracles, and of His death upon the cross. 
 The Song of Songs, Das hohe Lied, was paraphrased and 
 commented upon in German about 1060, by Willeram, an 
 abbot of Ebersberg in Bavaria. Willeram's language, freely 
 interspersed, as it is, with Latin words, has something of the 
 beauty of Notker's. His paraphrase, and also fragmentary 
 translations of the Psalms by other hands, show that the good 
 seed sown by Notker had not altogether fallen on barren 
 ground. 
 
 Here and there, as in two Biblical poems, Judith and Die 
 drei Jiinglinge im Feuerqfen, written in Central Germany, per- 
 haps as early as 1060, a childlike delight in the narrative 
 makes the poet forget that he is a monk : in such poetry 
 the influence of the Spielmann is unmistakable. But the 
 Spielmann himself, with his popular lays, his jests and 
 love -songs, was naturally discountenanced : his place was 
 disputed by wandering monks, who had learned the Spiel- 
 mann's art, but knew better how to adapt it to the religious 
 temper of the time. Until late in the twelfth century, litera- 
 ture came either directly from the cloisters or from these
 
 CHAP. I.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 41 
 
 clerical Spielleute. Comparatively little secular influence is 
 to be found in a poetic version of Genesis, the so-called Vienna 
 Genesis, by an Austrian monk ; while in an Exodus, which 
 belongs to about the same period, there are occasional re- 
 miniscences of the German national epic. These scanty 
 literary remains, to which may be added the so - called 
 Merigarto, a fragmentary exposition of monkish geography, 
 and one or two prose versions of the Physiologus are all that 
 can with confidence be ascribed to the last half of the 
 eleventh and the first quarter of the twelfth century, that 
 is to say, to the reigns of Heinrich IV. and Heinrich V. 1 
 
 Although the revival of medieval literature may thus be Linguistic 
 traced back almost to the middle of the eleventh century, chan e - 
 the linguistic change which divides Old High German from 
 Middle High German was hardly accomplished before the 
 beginning of the twelfth century; for practical purposes the 
 chronological boundary between the dialects may be placed 
 in the year noo. The change which about this time spread 
 over the High German dialects, affected in a marked degree 
 those flectional endings in which Old High German was 
 particularly rich ; the varied range of vowel sounds of the 
 older language gave place, for the most part, in Middle High 
 German to e, z From the end of the eleventh century onwards, 
 High German is the dominant literary language of the German 
 races, and the literary renaissance of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries was essentially High German. 
 
 The history of the twelfth century after 1125 has to deal 
 mainly with a continuation of those beginnings which have just 
 been considered, but, with each succeeding decade, the literary 
 development was more rapid. Once more the ascetic spirit, 
 this time mingled with satire, in which one detects the retalia- 
 tion of a losing cause, appears in a poem entitled Von des todes 
 gehugede ("Remembrance of Death"), by Heinrich, a lay ca. 1150. 
 
 i Miillenhoff and Scherer, I.e.; P. Piper, Die geistliche Dichtung des Mittel- 
 alters, D.N.L., 3, i [1888]. Willeram has been edited by J. Seemiiller in 
 Quellen und Forschungen, 24 and 28, Strassburg, 1877-78 ; cp. P. Piper in 
 D.N.L., i, 446 ff. The Exodus will also be found in Quellen und For- 
 schungen, 57, Strassburg, 1886, edited by E. Kossmann. 
 
 3 The plural of the substantive tac ("day"), for example, is in Old High 
 German, N.A. tagd, G. tagS, D. tagum ; in Middle High German, N.A. (age, 
 G. tage, D. tagen. In the same way, the present of the verb "give" is in 
 Old High German, gibu, gibis, gibit, gebam&s, gebet, gebant ; in Middle 
 High German, gibe, gibes(f), gibet, gebcn, gebet, gebent.
 
 42 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 " Marien- 
 dichtung." 
 
 Mysticism. 
 
 brother of the Austrian monastery of Melk, who wrote about 
 the middle of the century. Perhaps by the same poet is the 
 more didactic Priesterkben, in which the life of the priests is 
 satirised as severely as that of the laity was satirised in the 
 Remembrance of Death. 
 
 The poetic worship of the Virgin opened up a new source 
 of lyric inspiration to the German religious poet. Two 
 German sequences on this theme from the monasteries of 
 Muri in Switzerland and St Lambrecht in Styria may even be 
 as old as the beginning of the twelfth century. The " cult of 
 the Virgin " does not, however, begin to assert itself in German 
 poetry before the middle of the century (Arnsteiner Marien- 
 leich, Melker Marienlied). Towards 1170, a Bavarian priest, 
 Wernher by name, wrote three Liet von der maget (Lieder 
 von der Jungfrau), 1 which are among the most genuinely 
 poetic productions of the time. The current of lyric feeling 
 held back by asceticism finds a legitimate outlet in this 
 " Mariendichtung " ; the Virgin becomes the object of a lyric 
 adoration ; she is the " Queen of Heaven," the " Gate of 
 Paradise," the "Star of the Sea." Here, too, the trend 
 towards mysticism, the most salient feature in the intellectual 
 movement of the twelfth century, finds literary expression. 
 
 The theological mysticism of this age was also the soil from 
 which sprang poems like the Pater noster, Von der Siebenzahl, 
 and Von den vier Rddern. The author of the last-mentioned 
 allegory, in which the "four wheels" of Aminadab's chariot 
 symbolise Christ's birth, death, resurrection, and ascension, 
 was another Wernher, a mystic of the Lower Rhine. The 
 so-called Summa theologies and Anegenge ("Beginning"), both 
 written probably in Austria not earlier than 1170, draw their 
 imagery mainly from the writings of the Flemish mystic Hugo 
 de St Victor. A fondness for mystic interpretation is even 
 to be found in narrative poems of this epoch. The Vorauer 
 Genesis, written perhaps as late as 1130 in an Austrian mon- 
 astery, is saturated with mysticism : where the poet of the 
 older Vienna Genesis was content to narrate, the poet of this 
 Genesis who was evidently familiar with his predecessor's 
 version interprets and explains. There is little doubt that 
 a continuation of the Old Testament from Exodus to Joshua, 
 preserved in the same Vorau MS., is by the poet of the 
 * Ed. J. Feifalik, Vienna, 1860.
 
 CHAP. I.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 43 
 
 Genesis. The Leben Jesu, Von den Gaben des heiligen Geistes, 
 Vom Antichrist, and Vom jiingsten Gerichte, again, by a Frau Frau Ava. 
 Ava, who wrote in Austria, are free from scholastic or mystic 
 influences, but do not reach a very high poetic level. 1 
 
 The Legend forms a kind of bridge between the religious The 
 and secular poetry of the twelfth century, and it is usual to re- Annolied > 
 gard the Annolied? written in the district of the Lower Rhine, 
 in the first half of the century, as the earliest example of this 
 form of poetry in Middle High German literature. Anno II. 
 was an Archbishop of Cologne who played a great role in 
 the political life of his time, fighting on the side of reform 
 in ecclesiastical matters. Some twenty or thirty years after 
 his death in 1075, his biography was written in Latin, and 
 after the lapse of another decade or two, it was made the 
 subject of a German poem of 876 lines, by a clerical poet 
 of the monastery of Siegburg. This poem, of which, how- 
 ever, we only possess a reprint of the seventeenth century, 
 is the so-called Annolied. Like the Ezzolied, the Lay of 
 Anno goes back to the Creation, and dwells on the Fall, 
 the Redemption, and the spread of Christianity. Then, 
 after describing the founding of Cologne, the poet passes 
 to the history of its archbishop and sings his life, his 
 death, and the miracles that happened at his grave. Al- 
 though it is difficult to justify the epithet " Pindaric " which 
 Herder applied to the Annolied, it must be admitted that it 
 occasionally catches the tone of the national epic of more than 
 a hundred years later. It has a vigour and sincerity which 
 make up for the want of finer poetic graces. 
 
 The Kaiserchronik? although so rarely read nowadays, is The 
 one of the most interesting poetical productions of the period. K ^"^' k 
 In more than 18,000 lines it unrolls the history of the Roman 00.1130-50. 
 kings and emperors, "unze an diesen hiutigen tac" ("to the 
 present day ") that is to say, to the close of the first crusade 
 under Konrad III. in 1147. There is not much literary 
 distinction in the endless confusion of legend and history, of 
 
 1 The majority of the smaller literary remains referred to above will be 
 found in Miillenhoff and Scherer's De nkmdler ; P. Piper in D.N.L., 3, i 
 (already referred to), gives extracts from the more important of the longer 
 poems. 
 
 2 Ed. J. Kehrein, Frankfurt, 1865. Cp. P. Piper. Die Sf>idmannsdichtung 
 
 2(D.N.L., 2, 2 [l888]), iff. 
 
 3 Ed. E. Schroder in the Monumenta Germanics, Berlin, 1892 ; P. Piper, 
 in D.N.L., 2, 2, 182 ff.
 
 44 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 romance and anecdote, which makes up this work, but it 
 mirrors, as no other poem does, the spirit and temper of the 
 twelfth century. The Kaiserchronik was obviously inspired 
 by the Church ; the point of view from which it regards his- 
 tory is a theological one; Christianity and heathendom are 
 brought into the sharpest conflict, and the burning ecclesias- 
 tical questions of the day have left their marks upon it. 
 But, essentially monastic as the Kaiserchronik is, it throws 
 an important light on the secular life of its time; the old 
 heroes of the Germanic sagas find a place in it, and there 
 is more than an echo in its verses of the Crusades and the 
 rise of chivalry ; one may even find here a foreshadowing of 
 those ideals of " Frauenminne " which were to inspire the 
 poets of the following century. The parts of the Kaiser- 
 chronik to which a modern reader turns with most interest 
 are the legends embedded in it. One of these, the legend of 
 Legends. Sylvester (11. 7806 ff.), is also preserved in another form, and 
 that of Crescentia (11. 11352-12808), poetically the most 
 interesting of all, has been edited as a separate poem. An 
 extract has even been made from the Annolied in the begin- 
 ning of the Chronicle. The Kaiserchronik represents the 
 work of several hands : all that can be said with any certainty 
 of its authorship is that it may have been begun as early 
 as 1130, and was completed in Regensburg about the middle 
 of the century. It is also not improbable that the same 
 Konrad to whom we owe the German Rolandslied gave k its 
 final form. From the middle of the twelfth century onwards, 
 the legends of the saints gained rapidly in favour as subjects 
 of religious poetry. 1 Two versions one in Latin, the other in 
 German have been preserved of the Vision of Tunda/us, one 
 of the most interesting of these legends : it is the story of 
 an Irish knight whose soul leaves his body for three days 
 and visits heaven and hell. 
 
 With the growth of the secular spirit, the Spielleute, the 
 
 real bearers of the popular traditions, became once more a 
 
 factor in literature. For the first time since the fragmentary 
 
 ^oth^r Hildebrandslied, we meet with the direct literary expression of 
 
 ca. 1160. a Germanic saga in the epic of Kb'nig Rother? The motive 
 
 1 P. Piper, Diegeistliche Dichtung des Mittelalters, z (D.N.L. 3, 2 [1889]) ; 
 E. Kraus, Deutsche Gedichte des 12. Jahrhunderts, Halle, 1894. 
 
 2 Ed. H. Ruckert, Leipzig, 1872, and K. von Bahder, Halle, 1884. Cp. P. 
 Piper, Die Spielmannsdichtung, i (D.N.L., 2, i [1887]), 75 ff.
 
 CHAP. I.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 45 
 
 of Konig Rother was a favourite one with the poets of the 
 latter half of the twelfth century ; it reappears in various forms 
 in the literature of this period. The young king Rother, 
 whose court is at Bari in Southern Italy, is recommended by 
 his councillors to wed the daughter of King Constantine of 
 Constantinople, the only princess whom they deem worthy to 
 share his throne. The sons of Duke Berchter of Meran are 
 among the envoys sent to Constantinople to woo the princess. 
 Constantine, however, throws them all into prison. Under 
 the name of Dietrich itself an echo of the national sagas 
 Rother sets out accompanied by his faithful Berchter, to free 
 his vassals and win his bride. This Duke Berchter, who, as 
 Berchtung, plays an important part in the epic of Wolfdietrich, 
 is, as we shall see, a traditional example of loyalty (Treue) in 
 the Germanic saga. Rother obtains an interview with the prin- 
 cess, fits a golden shoe upon her foot, and learns from her 
 own lips that she will wed none but King Rother. She 
 induces her father to set the imprisoned vassals at liberty for 
 the space of three days ; they are brought up haggard and 
 starving from the dungeon, to a meal which the princess has 
 prepared for them. Rother, meanwhile, conceals himself be- 
 hind a curtain and plays upon his harp the " Leich " which he 
 had played to them when they departed upon their mission. 
 
 "'Swilich ir begunde trinkin, 
 deme begundiz nidir sinkin, 
 daz er iz uffe den tisc goz. 
 swilich ir abir sneit daz brot, 
 deme intfiel das mezses durch not. 
 sie wurdin von troste wizzelos. 
 wie manich sin truren virlos ! 
 sie sazin alle unde hortin 
 war daz spil hinnen karte. 
 lude der eine leich klanc : 
 Luppolt ober den tisch spranch 
 unde der grave Erwin, 
 sie heizin in willekume sin, 
 den richen harfere 
 unde kustin en zwaren." 1 
 
 1 "Wer von ihnen (zu) trinken begann, dem begann es nieder (zu) sinken, 
 dass er es (i.e., den Trank) auf den Tisch goss. Wer von ihnen aber das 
 Brot schnitt, dem entfiel das Messer durch Not (i.e., der war durch innere 
 Bewegung uberwaltigt). Sie wurden von (dem) Troste (den sie empfingen), 
 verstandlos. Wie mancher sein Trauern verier ! Sie sassen alle und horten, 
 wohin das Spiel weiter ginge. Laut klang der einzige Leich ; Luppolt sprang 
 iiber den Tisch und der Graf Erwin, sie heissen ihn, den vornehmen Harfner, 
 willkommen fsein], und kiissten ihn fiirwahr" (11. 2513-2527).
 
 46 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 King Rother and his men do Constantine a service by 
 vanquishing a heathen king who invades the country, and 
 upon his departure from Constantinople, Rother carries off 
 the princess in his ship. This is obviously the end of the 
 original story, but the inventive author could not resist the 
 temptation to spin out a sequel, in which Rother's queen 
 is brought back to her parents by a cunning Spielmann, and 
 Rother is obliged to go through a fresh series of adventures 
 to win her again. 
 
 The importance of Konig Rother lies in its relations to the 
 national sagas. The name of the hero may perhaps be traced 
 to a Lombardian king Rothari, who lived in the seventh 
 century, and the story is also to be found in a Low German 
 version preserved in the Icelandic Thidrekssaga. But Konig 
 Rother is, at the same time, inspired by the Crusades ; the 
 hero does not seek his. bride in the land of the Huns, as in 
 the older form of the saga, but in the Orient. The influence 
 of the crusade of the Bavarian Duke Welf, in 1101, is not to 
 be mistaken, and many traits in the character of Constantine 
 suggest the Byzantine Emperor Alexius. Konig Rother is 
 an excellent specimen of that spirited, light-hearted form of 
 narrative poetry which is associated with the medieval Spiel- 
 mann. There is little attempt at finer characterisation in it, 
 but its figures are not without life : they live by virtue of what 
 they do. The whole poem, with its healthy if somewhat rough 
 humour, is clearly composed with a view to catching the ear 
 of a popular audience. The author of Konig Rother seems 
 to have been a Spielmann of the Rhineland, which in literary 
 respects was the most advanced part of Germany in the 
 twelfth century, but the poem itself was written in Bavaria. 
 The year 1160 may be regarded as the approximate date of 
 its composition. 
 
 Herzog Herzog Ernst l is an epic of a different class. It is question- 
 
 Ernst, ca. able, indeed, if we have here the work of a Spielmann at all. 
 The genial tone and the intimate touch with the popular epic 
 traditions, which the poetry of the Spielleute almost always 
 shows, are absent from Herzog Ernst. The author was more 
 probably some lay brother who went farther afield than the 
 Christian legends, which, as we have seen, the clerical poets 
 of the time usually made the subjects of their poetry. Herzog 
 
 1 Edited by K. Bartsch, Vienna, 1869. Cp. P- Piper, in D.N.L. 2, i, 108 ff.
 
 CHAP. I.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 47 
 
 Ernst is a remarkable medley of historical and legendary ele- 
 ments. Ernst II. was a Duke of Swabia who lived a stormy 
 life of constant rebellion against his stepfather, King Konrad 
 II. ; finally reduced to freebooting, he met his death in the 
 Black Forest in 1030. The life of this freebooting duke 
 was seized upon by the popular imagination, and he became 
 a kind of Gotz von Berlichingen of the eleventh century. 
 Older historical elements were gradually woven into the story, 
 and finally Duke Ernst was associated with a crusade : to 
 put an end to the constant fighting in which he and his 
 followers are involved, they set out for the Holy Land. The 
 second and longer part of the poem describes, somewhat in 
 the manner of the Alexanderlted, presently to be discussed, 
 the duke's adventures among men with cranes' heads, among 
 griffins and web -footed people who, when it rains, have 
 simply to lie on their backs and raise one leg to obtain 
 shelter among pigmies and giants, not to speak of natural 
 wonders such as a magnetic mountain and an underground 
 river. In fact, this part of the epic is a collection of 
 ideas then current about the East, drawn from all possible 
 sources. Duke Ernst ultimately vanquishes the Saracens, 
 reaches the Holy Sepulchre, and then returns home to be re- 
 conciled to his stepfather. Herzog Ernst was originally written 
 on the Lower Rhine, and a few fragments of this oldest 
 version have been preserved : it seems, however, at an early 
 date, to have found its way to Bavaria, where it was remodelled 
 and given its present form about 1180. A later version 
 of the poem, also in the Bavarian dialect, as well as a ballad 
 of the fourteenth and a " Volksbuch" of the fifteenth century, 
 bear testimony to its lasting popularity. As literature, Herzog 
 Ernst is inferior to Konig Rather ; the personal note of the 
 Spielmann, which makes the latter epic so interesting, is 
 missing. On the other hand, although Herzog Ernst shows 
 plainly the influence of the Crusades, there is in it none of 
 that higher spirit of chivalry which was just at this time 
 being introduced into German literature from France. It is 
 neither Spielmann's poetry nor Court epic. 
 
 With the rise of a " Court " poetry, and the growing 
 interest of the higher ranks of society in literature, the Spiel- 
 mann found himself at a disadvantage. The consequence was 
 that, as the literary horizon of the nation widened, the class
 
 48 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 of epic of which Rother is the best example degenerated. 
 The Spielmann's poetry which is to be met with at the close 
 of the twelfth century is essentially popular, appealing in the 
 first instance to the crasser tastes of the multitude. Three 
 poems Salman und Morolf^ Orendel, and Oswald may be 
 taken as representative of this class of poetry : each of these 
 works treats, under a different guise, a theme similar to that of 
 Konig Rother. 
 
 Salman Salman und Morolf^ is the typical example of the German 
 
 U Moroif Spielmann's epic. The saga itself, which goes back to the 
 Jewish traditions of Solomon's wisdom, is one of the most 
 popular and wide spread in Western literatures ; in German 
 literature, it reappears later on, in the form of a ballad, and 
 the wit of Morolf enjoyed great popularity in the age of the 
 Reformation. Solomon or Salman, who is here no longer the 
 Biblical Solomon, but a Christian King of Jerusalem, occupies 
 the position of the King of Constantinople in Rother. It is, 
 however, not Salman's daughter, but his wife, who is wooed 
 and carried off by the heathen king, Fore. Salman's brother 
 Morolf the best literary portrait of the medieval Spielmann 
 that we possess discovers her, and she is brought back to 
 Jerusalem by a strategy similar to that related in the second 
 part of Rother. Once more, as in the older epic, the heroine 
 is stolen, this time by another heathen king, and it again falls 
 to the quick-witted Morolf to effect a rescue. 
 
 Orendel While Herzog Ernst was probably, as we have seen, an 
 
 ^Oswald example of what the Spielmann's epic became in the hands 
 of a clerical poet, Orendel and Oswald* are examples of 
 religious legends written by Spielleute. Orendel, in whose 
 name and story there is perhaps a faint echo of a Ger- 
 manic saga of the sea, is in the present poem a King of 
 Treves (Trier), while the lady whom he wooes, and for whose 
 sake he undertakes his adventures, is a Queen of Jerusalem. 
 The real centre, however, round which the poem turns, is 
 the Holy Coat : this falls into Orendel's hands, and he 
 brings it back with him to Treves. In the same way, King 
 Oswald of Northumbria is a figure rather to be associated 
 with legendary poetry than with the light epic of the Spiel- 
 
 1 Ed. F. Vogt, Halle, 1880. Cp. Piper, I.e., 196 ff. 
 
 2 Orendel, ed. A. Berger, Bonn, 1888 ; Oswald, ed. L. Ettmiiller, Zurich, 
 1835. Cp. P. Piper, I.e., 146 ff.
 
 CHAP. I.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 49 
 
 inann. The daughter of a fierce Saracen king has in this 
 poem to be won by stealth, and a talking raven plays the 
 part of messenger. 
 
 Although the Spielmann thus represented the most ener- 
 getic and healthy reaction against asceticism which is to be 
 found in this age, he could not, alone and unaided, be a 
 literary force of much positive value ; his art was of necessity 
 undisciplined. Indigenous forces were clearly not sufficient 
 to effect the salvation of German literature in the twelfth 
 century. A fresh stimulus had to come from without, and 
 that stimulus was due to chivalry. To the beginnings of 
 the literature of chivalry we must now turn. 
 
 D
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE POETRY OF KNIGHTHOOD ; THE BEGINNINGS OF THE 
 MINNESANG. 
 
 " THE chief historical problem of the middle ages in Europe," 
 it has been said, "was the reconciliation of the Germanic 
 national spirit with Christianity." The conflict between these 
 two elements explains much of the dualism of the age : so 
 long as they were at war with each other, the barrier that 
 separated Church and World was insurmountable. The solu- 
 tion of the problem which the eleventh and twelfth centuries 
 Influence had to offer was the Knight of the Crusades ; in him the 
 of the spiritual and the temporal were, for a time at least, recon- 
 ciled. The conception of knighthood or chivalry was of 
 Germanic origin ; it was a natural development of the social 
 conditions of the Merovingian and Carlovingian periods. 
 Chivalry, however, first took shape on Latin soil, namely, in 
 Provence, and it developed most rapidly in Northern France. 
 The Crusades brought the " Ritter " or knight to perfection. 
 They gave him that ideal calling for which the early conflicts 
 with the Saracens had paved the way ; they raised him from 
 a purely practical existence to a life inspired by higher aims : 
 he became the champion of an unworldly idea. The Crusades 
 revived those old Germanic ideals of loyalty and faithfulness, 
 of manly bearing and respect for womanhood, which, under the 
 routine of an uninspiring life in the Roman atmosphere of 
 Southern Europe, were gradually being obliterated. But, 
 most important of all, they reconciled the ruling classes with 
 the Church, and the rise of the orders of chivalry gave the 
 Christian knight his final stamp. 
 
 The influence of the Crusades as a factor in the social and 
 intellectual life of Europe can hardly be overestimated. The
 
 CHAP. II.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 5 I 
 
 ideal interests which they awakened, permeated all classes of 
 society; they raised men above selfish ambitions and united 
 all nations in one great aim ; they gave Europe a community 
 not merely of ideas, but also of social customs, such as it 
 had not known since the Roman empire, and was not to 
 know again and then only in a limited degree until the 
 century of Lessing and Rousseau. Again, through their 
 contact with the East, the crusaders threw open a new world 
 to the European imagination. The strange peoples and 
 customs, the unfamiliar plants and animals, the rich textures, 
 precious stones, and fabulous wealth of the Orient had a 
 peculiar fascination for the western mind, and a childish 
 delight in these wonders re-echoes through medieval poetry 
 until long after the classical renaissance in Italy. 
 
 The Crusades thus introduced a new element into the 
 popular poetry of the age : Konig Rother and Herzog Ernst 
 are, as we have just seen, examples of how the western world 
 regarded the newly discovered Orient. And in a still more 
 marked degree, the Orient lent its colouring to the new poetry The poetry 
 of knighthood, the beginnings of which have now to be con- f k g ht - 
 sidered. The forms and ceremonies of knighthood, just as 
 the knight himself, had come to Germany from France ; it 
 was thus only natural that the new literature should also have 
 been an importation from France. About the middle of the 
 twelfth century were written two poems, both by clerical poets, 
 both translations from the French, which may be regarded as 
 forming the starting-point for the German epic of knighthood. 
 These are the Alexanderlied and the Rolandslied. 
 
 As far back as the third century, the saga of Alexander the Lamp- 
 Great had been made the subject of a Greek romance, and r %xander- 
 through this romance it became familiar both to the East lied, ca. 
 and to the West. Apart from the purely anecdotal literature " 4 - 
 which the early crusaders brought back with them, the saga 
 of Alexander was the first channel by which oriental influence 
 found its way into western literature. In Europe its popu 
 larity was due to two Latin versions which served the French 
 poet Auberi, or, as his German translator calls him, Alberich, 
 of Bisenzun (probably Briangon), as the basis of a Chanson 
 d'Alexandre. Unfortunately, only the opening verses of this 
 French epic have been preserved, and it is impossible to esti- 
 mate with how much originality Lamprecht, who was a priest
 
 52 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 of the Rhineland, translated it into German. His Alexander- 
 lied, which was originally written about 1 1 40, exists, moreover, 
 in three MSS., all of them of a much later date than the 
 original poem, and differing materially from one another. 1 
 
 In technique and spirit more akin to the popular epic 
 than to the Court epic, the Alexanderlied stands at the 
 parting of the ways. Lamprecht's own poetic ideals were 
 naturally those of the Spielleute, while his French model was 
 an epic of chivalry. The German poet compares one of his 
 hero's combats not merely with those that took place round 
 Troy, but with the battle on the Wiilpensand in the saga of 
 Gudrun ; and Alexander himself is ranged beside Hagen, 
 Wate, Herwig, and Wolfwin. Lamprecht's imagery, too, is that 
 of the popular sagas ; his battle-scenes as, for instance, that 
 between Alexander and Porus are wild and sanguinary; 
 his heroes wade in blood. His pathos is of that large- 
 hearted kind to be found in early literature. In all this the 
 Alexanderlied is primitive, Germanic. But the conception of 
 life in the poem is tempered by chivalry ; the hero has not, 
 perhaps, passed through the school of knighthood, but he has 
 at least mingled with knights. There is an almost modern 
 sentiment in the letter which Alexander sends to his mother 
 and Aristotle, telling of his adventures in wonderful lands that 
 reach to the end of the world ; how in a dim forest he finds, 
 for example, flower-maidens who are born from the cups of 
 the flowers and die at the approach of winter. In all this 
 there is a gentler light, a more lyric beauty, than we are 
 accustomed to find in the poetry of the early twelfth century, 
 and it is at times difficult to believe that the letter was written 
 by the same poet who described the sanguinary encounters of 
 the earlier part of the poem. 
 
 Konrad's The second of the two epics which stand at the beginning 
 Rolands- o f the new epoch, the Rolandslicd? a version of the Chanson de 
 
 lied C3. 
 
 "35- Roland, is farther removed from the indigenous " Spielmanns- 
 
 epik" and brings us a step nearer to the new poetry which 
 was to dominate Middle High German literature as the 
 "Court Epic." Konrad, the author of the Rolandslied, was 
 also, like Lamprecht, a pfaffe or priest. His translation was 
 
 1 Ed. K. Kinzel, Halle, 1884; P. Piper, Die Spielmannsdichtung, D.N.L., 
 2, 2 [1888], 116 ff. 
 
 2 Ed. K. Bartsch, Leipzig, 1874; P. Piper, Die Spielmannsdichtung, 2 
 D.N.L., 2, 2 ([1888]), 14 ff.
 
 CHAP. II.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 53 
 
 undertaken in Regensburg, probably in the early 'thirties, at 
 the command of Heinrich the Proud of Bavaria, who had 
 presumably brought the French manuscript with him from 
 France. Unlike the great Court epics of a later date, the 
 German Rolandslied suffers by comparison with its French 
 original. The Chanson de Roland is the oldest of the " chan- 
 sons de geste " ; it describes Charles the Great's heroic Spanish 
 campaign, the death of Roland by the treason of his step- 
 father Genelon, and the terrible Nemesis comparable to the 
 " Rache " of the Nibelungenlied which overtakes the traitor 
 and his heathen allies. But all this lay beyond the horizon of 
 the narrow-souled Bavarian priest. The magnificent heroism 
 and patriotism of the Chanson de Roland has to give place to 
 religious fanaticism ; the spirit of the original is national, that 
 of the German Rolandslied is purely monastic. Konrad's 
 poetic talents were not much greater than Lamprecht's had 
 been ; but his conversion of the French assonances into 
 rhymed couplets at least shows an understanding for the 
 needs of German verse. Besides translating the Chanson de 
 Roland, Konrad, it may be noted, had possibly some hand in 
 the production of the Kaiserchronik. 
 
 However much of the spirit of chivalry there may be in Eilhart 
 the Alexanderlied and the Rolandslied, both works still belong y?^ r 
 essentially to the category of " Spielmannsepik." A more 
 immediate forerunner of the German Court poets is Eilhart 
 von Oberge, born in the neighbourhood of Hildesheim, and 
 probably a vassal of Heinrich the Lion's. Eilhart's Tristrant * Tristrant, 
 is a German version, not of the French epic by Thomas de ^ " 7 ~ 
 Bretagne, which served Gottfried von Strassburg as model, 
 but of an earlier French romance ascribed to a jongleur 
 Berol. Eilhart's native language was naturally Low Ger- 
 man, but he wrote his poem in a Middle German dialect, 
 presumably that it might find a wider circle of readers. 
 According to the accepted view, the date of the poem is 
 approximately 1170-73; but it is possible that it was not 
 written until considerably later. Tristrant is still rough and 
 crude in workmanship ; it has nothing of the polish of the 
 later Court epic ; but if we compare it with the earlier Spiel- 
 
 1 Ed. F. Lichtenstein (Qvellen und Forschungen, 19), Strassburg, 1877 ; P. 
 Piper, Die hofische Epik, i (D.N.L., 4, i, i [1892]). 13 ft. Cp. E. Schroder's 
 paper in the Zeitschrift /. deutsches Altertum, 42 (1898), 72 ff.
 
 54 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Floris und 
 Blanche- 
 flur, ca. 
 1170. 
 
 Graf 
 Rudolf, 
 ca. 1170. 
 
 The 
 " Beast 
 Epic." 
 
 Nivardus's 
 Ysen- 
 grimus, 
 1150. 
 
 Heinrich 
 der 
 
 Gliche- 
 saere. ca. 
 1180. 
 
 mann's poetry, we find a different atmosphere. Life is here 
 looked upon from a new standpoint. The passions are no 
 longer simple as in the old epic ; love merges into the gal- 
 lantry of the " Minnedienst." Eilhart takes a pleasure in the 
 phrases of chivalry, and his light, conversational dialogue is 
 foreign to older German narrative poetry. 
 
 Another forerunner of Gottfried's in this age was an un- 
 known poet of the Lower Rhine, who introduced to German 
 readers the favourite love-saga of the middle ages, Floris und 
 Blancheflur, a story of two youthful lovers whose passion sur- 
 mounts all obstacles and ultimately triumphs. The fragments 
 of the poem which have been preserved do not, however, 
 reveal much poetic charm. Still another knightly romance of 
 this period is Graf Rudolf, a Thuringian poem descriptive of 
 adventures in the East. The poet of Graf Rudolf, which was 
 also undoubtedly based on a French original, endeavours to 
 make up by means of patriotism for what he lacks in literary 
 ability. 1 
 
 From France came also another form of romance, the 
 " Beast Epic." As we have seen, it was not new to 
 Germany, but between the purely anecdotal 'Ecbasis captivi 
 of the tenth century and the connected story of the 
 twelfth there must obviously have been many stages of de- 
 velopment. The focus of that development was Lorraine ; 
 here the Ecbasis captivi was composed, and in Ghent was 
 written the first continuous Beast Romance, namely, the 
 Latin Ysengrimus of Nivardus (ii5o). 2 Poets in Northern 
 France then took up the theme, which had already in the 
 hands of Nivardus become a vehicle for satire, and thus 
 arose the Roman de Renart with its many " branches." 3 The 
 first German Beast Romance was founded upon the Roman 
 de Renart, and written about 1 1 80 by an Alsatian monk, 
 Heinrich der Glichesaere. 4 Heinrich's poem, of which only 
 some 700 verses have been preserved, is a dry narrative 
 of no great literary charm : it relates how Isengrin the 
 wolf is befooled by Reinhart the fox, and how Reinhart 
 cures the sick lion, into whose ear an ant has crept. The 
 fox compounds a plaster, to which the other animals are 
 
 1 P. Piper, Die Spielmannsdichtung, 2 (D.N.L., 2, 2 [1888]), 292 ff. 
 
 2 Ed. E. Voigt, Halle, 1884. Cp. also P. Piper in D.N.L., 2, i, 237 ff. 
 
 3 Ed. E. Martin. 3 vols., Strassburg, 1881-87. 
 
 4 Ed. J. Grimm, Leipzig, 1840. Cp. D.N.L., 2, i, 287 ff.
 
 CHAP. II.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 55 
 
 compelled to contribute pieces of their skin ; the heat of 
 the plaster drives the ant out of the lion's ear and he regains 
 his hearing. The German poet shows some originality in not 
 allowing the fox's slyness to end without further consequences, 
 as it does in his French original ; Reinhart turns traitor to 
 his lord and ultimately poisons him. 
 
 In all literatures, the lyric is one of the most elemental forms Beginnings 
 of poetic expression, coeval with, if not still older than, the Minne- 
 embryo stage of the epic, but, owing to the fact that it is not sang, 
 so necessary to commit songs to writing as it is in the case of 
 narrative poetry, the lyric does not appear until a compara- 
 tively late date in literary history. It is, nevertheless, strange 
 that in a literature like that of Germany, where the lyric is 
 the supreme form of poetic expression, lyric poetry cannot be 
 traced farther back a few fragments in Old High German 
 times excepted than the middle of the twelfth century. 
 As early as Charles the Great's time there was mention, it 
 will be remembered, of certain winileod or love messages, 
 although none of these winileod have been preserved. But 
 now, on the very threshold of the German Minnesang, 
 we find, forming the close of a Latin love-letter from a 
 lady to a monk, half-a-dozen lines of simple charm which 
 might well be analogous to the Carlovingian winileod. 
 
 " Du bist min, ih bin din : 
 des solt du gewis sin. 
 dii bist beslozzen 
 in minem herzen : 
 verlorn ist daz sliizzelin : . 
 du muost immer drinne sin." J 
 
 Again, in the songs of the Goliards or wandering scholars, The Car- 
 of which a Bavarian collection, the Carmina JSurana, 2 so 
 called from the monastery of Benediktbeuern, dates from 
 the twelfth century, there is, besides witty satire and joviality, 
 genuine lyric feeling. This Goliard poetry is in Latin, but 
 the refrains are occasionally in German, and now and then 
 a wholly German verse is to be met with. With these very 
 
 i "Du bist mein, ich bin dein. Dessen sollst du gewiss sein. Du bist 
 eingeschlossen in meinem Herzen ; verloren ist das Schlusselein ; du musst 
 immer darinnen sein " (Des Minnesangs Fruhling, herausg. von K. Lachmann 
 und M. Haupt, 4th ed., Leipzig, 1888, 3) ; in D.N.L. the Minnesang is edited 
 by F. Pfaff, 2 vols., 8, i and 2 [1892-95]. 
 
 a Ed. J. A. Schmeller, 2nd ed., Breslau, 1883.
 
 56 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Proven9al 
 influence. 
 
 Kiiren- 
 berg. 
 
 Dietmar 
 von Aist. 
 
 scanty beginnings, to which might be added the older clerical 
 poetry in honour of the Virgin, the first or most nearly 
 primitive stage in the development of the German lyric is 
 exhausted. From the middle of the twelfth century onwards 
 a new element, that of chivalry, made its appearance in the 
 lyric ; and in the train of chivalry came the literary influence 
 and example of Provence. The cultivation of the lyric noiv 
 passed over into the hands of the " Minnesingers," an aristo- 
 cratic class belonging mainly to the ranks of the lower nobility. 
 The fact that the beginnings of this poetry are found in 
 Austria might imply that it sprang up in comparative freedom 
 from foreign influences, but it is more likely that the German 
 Minnesang was from the first influenced by the Provencal 
 lyric. Austria undoubtedly came into touch with the south 
 of France by way of Italy at an early date. At the same 
 time, no form of Middle High German literature, not even 
 the national " Volksepos," retained, as we shall see, its Ger- 
 manic characteristics so completely as the Minnesang. 1 
 
 One of the oldest of the German Minnesingers was an 
 Austrian nobleman, a Herr von Kiirenberg, under whose 
 name a number of strophes have been preserved, similar to 
 those which are familiar to us from the Nibelungenlied? In 
 simple terse phrases, often in the direct narrative form of the 
 epic, the " Kiirenberger " calls up lyric scenes and situations 
 of a certain pristine beauty. A lady stands upon her tower 
 and sighs for her lover ; she compares him, like Kriemhild in 
 the Nibelungenlied, to a falcon which flies away to a foreign 
 land ; the falcon returns with the silk threads still upon his 
 talons and the golden ornaments on his plumage, and the 
 poem closes with the line 
 
 " got sende si zesamene, die gerne geliebe wellen stn." 3 
 
 The poetry of another Austrian singer, Dietmar von Aist, 4 
 shows the primitive Minnesang in the process of develop- 
 
 1 Cp. W. Wilmanns, Leben und Dichten Walthers von der Vogelweide, 
 Bonn, 1882, 16 ff.; A. E. Schonbach, Die Anfdnge des deutschen Minnesangs, 
 Graz, 1898, and also papers by K. Burdach and R. M. Meyer in the Zeitschrift 
 f. deutsches Altertum, 27 (1883), 343 ff., 29 (1885), 121 ff.. 34 (1890), 146 ff. 
 
 a Minnesangs Friihling. 7 ff. ; D.N.L., 8, i, 6 ff. Cp. E. Joseph, Die 
 Friihzeit des deutschen Minnesangs (Quellen iind Forsckungen, 79), Strassburc;, 
 1896. 
 
 3 " Gott sende sie zusammen, die gern in Liebe vereint sein mochten." 
 
 * Minnesangs Friihling, 32 ff. ; D.N.L., I.e., i ff.
 
 CHAP. II.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 57 
 
 ment. Many of Dietmar's verses are still on the na'ive level 
 of the Kiirenberger's ; others, again, suggest the conventional 
 Minnesang of a later date. Dietmar knows no keener delight 
 than in the passing of winter and the return of the birds and 
 flowers ; here, as in the Kiirenberger's poetry, a lady expresses 
 yearning for her absent lover, the latter appearing once more 
 under the guise of a falcon. One poem preserved under 
 Dietmar's name is especially noteworthy as being the oldest 
 example in the German Minnesang of the " Tagelied," the 
 Provencal " alba." The parting of two lovers at daybreak was 
 one of the favourite themes of the early Romance lyric, but 
 so simple are Dietmar's lines that it is hard to believe he was 
 obliged to go to Provencal models for the thought underlying 
 them. A bird on the linden awakens the lovers ; the knight 
 must go 
 
 " Diu frouwe begunde weinen. 
 ' du rttest hinne und last mich einen. 
 
 wenne wilt du wider her? 
 
 owe, du fuerest mine froide dar.'" 1 
 
 To this early period of the Minnesang belong also two 
 Bavarian singers, the Burggraf von Regensburg and Meinloh 
 von Sevelingen. 2 The few strophes by these poets which have 
 been preserved are written in the half- ballad style of the 
 Kiirenberger and Dietmar von Aist. Occasionally, however, 
 Meinloh's verses show the influence of the Minnedienst of 
 a later age. 
 
 Not only the beginnings of the Minnesang, but also those 
 of a closely allied form of poetry, the " Spruch," may be 
 traced back to the last quarter of the twelfth century. The 
 Spruch in its oldest form was a one-strophe poem of a satiric 
 or didactic nature, and in German literature, at least, belongs 
 to the more primitive literary forms. In the oldest collections 
 of the Minnesang are preserved a number of such Spriiche 
 by a Spielmann called Herger ; other Spriiche, again, mention 
 as their author "Der Spervogel"; 3 in any case, the older 
 poetry of this class lay exclusively in the hands of the 
 Spielleute. Characteristic of these verses is the pessimism 
 
 1 " Die Frau begann zu weinen. ' Du reitest bin und liisst mich allein. 
 Wann willst du wieder her (i.e., wicderkehren) ? O weh, du fuhrst meine 
 Freude fort (mit dir). '" 
 
 2 Minnesangs Friihling, ir ff. ; D.N.L., I.e., 10 ft". 
 
 3 Minnesangs Friihling, 20 ff. Cp. D.N.L. , 2, i, 315 ff. 
 
 The Burg- 
 graf von 
 Regens- 
 burg and 
 Meinloh 
 von 
 Sevelingen. 
 
 "Spruch- 
 dichtung." 
 
 Herger and 
 the Sper- 
 vogcl.
 
 58 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 that pervades them ; the singer is fond of looking back regret- 
 fully upon his own past, and seeing how much might have 
 been otherwise : there is pessimism, too, in the tone in which 
 he sings the praises and virtues of domestic life. These 
 strophes form the beginning of a class of poetry which accom- 
 panies the Minnesang throughout its Bliitezeit. As knight- 
 hood decayed and the middle class rose in importance, the 
 Spruchdichtung made corresponding advances in popular 
 favour, until in the period of the Reformation it became 
 one of the most characteristic forms of literary expression, 
 and a favourite weapon of offence and defence.
 
 59 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE NIBE L UNGENL I ED. 
 
 THE traditional ballad poetry of the German people, the 
 materials out of which their national epic was to be formed, 
 had, as we have seen, been kept alive through the dark cen- 
 turies by wandering Spielleute. With the awakening of more 
 ideal interests under the influence of the Crusades in the 
 twelfth century, the popular epic entered, however, upon a new 
 phase of development. The position of the Spielmann was 
 improved ; his work became more literary in character, an 
 advance which is to be noticed in romances like Konig Rather 
 and Herzog Ernst. Thus the literature associated with the Develop- 
 Spielmann in the Middle High German period falls into two Jj^ 1 " /j 
 groups. On the one hand, we have the typical epic of the mann's 
 Spielmann, such as the poems already considered in the first 
 chapter of the present part poems essentially popular in tone, 
 and depending for their interest on rough anecdote, comic 
 incident, and adventure; on the other hand, national epics 
 like the Nibelungenlied, Gudrun, and the best poems of the 
 Heldenbuch. Under the influence of the serious literary tastes 
 of the aristocratic classes, the traditions of Siegfried, of Attila 
 and the Nibelungs, of Dietrich and Ermanarich, were welded 
 into epics of primeval grandeur. 
 
 We have already seen how the mythological saga of Sieg- 
 fried and the Nibelungs had, in the age subsequent to the 
 Migrations, been grafted upon the events which culminated in 
 the annihilation of the Burgundians by the Huns. Siegfried 
 is the son of a Prankish king, Brunhild a Princess of Iceland, 
 while Hagen the Nibelung has become a kinsman of the 
 Burgundian king Gunther. For a time these epic traditions . 
 were only preserved in Saxon lands ; then they seem to have
 
 60 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 passed over to Austria. In Austria, several new personages 
 were added to the saga, such as Dietrich of Bern (Theodorich 
 of Verona) who was not, of course, a contemporary of Attila 
 and Markgraf Riideger. At a still later date, Bishop Pilgrim 
 of Passau the same bishop who is said to have made a Latin 
 version of the Nibelungen saga at the beginning of the tenth 
 century was introduced as an uncle of Kriemhild. 
 
 In 1816, Karl Lachmann published his investigations on 
 the Nibelungenlied, in which he applied to the German epic 
 the theory of ballad-origin which Wolf, twenty years earlier, 
 had applied to the Homeric epics. Lachmann distinguished, 
 as the original components of the Nibelungenlied, twenty 
 ballads which, according to his view, had been composed 
 about 1190, while the epic itself had taken its present form 
 about 1210. The comparative study of the epic since Lach- 
 mann's time has not weakened his theory, but it has shown 
 that the development from ballad to epic is by no means 
 so simple or so rapid as he supposed. The Nibelungen- 
 lied had undoubtedly passed through a long evolution before 
 it crystallised into the earliest form in which it has been pre- 
 served, and Lachmann's attempt to discover separable lays or 
 ballads in the existing Middle High German poem has thus 
 small positive value. Of the three principal manuscripts of 
 the poem * each of which in turn has been regarded as most 
 nearly approaching the original form none is as old as the 
 beginning of the thirteenth century. Whatever may have 
 been the earlier history of the Nibelungenlied, it is tolerably 
 certain that in its latest stage the epic was written in Austria 
 about 1 200 or a little earlier. The poet of the Nibelungenlied 
 that is to say, the poet who gave the epic its final form 
 may possibly have been of noble birth, but it is more likely that 
 he was only a Spielmann, 2 schooled in the higher Court poetry 
 and acquainted with courtly life; he was, above all, familiar 
 
 1 A in Munich, the shortest MS., edited by K. Lachmann, $th ed., Berlin, 
 1878 ; B in St Gall, edited by K. Bartsch, 6th ed., Leipzig, 1886 ; C in Donau- 
 eschingen, which approximates most nearly to the Court epic, edited by E. 
 Zarncke, 6th ed., Leipzig, 1887. A and B are entitled Der Nibelunge Not; C, 
 Der Nibelunge Liet. Cp. also the edition in D.N.L., by P. Piper, 6, 2 and 3 
 [1890-91]. Of the many modern translations, that by K. Simrock (1827 ; 52nd 
 ed., Stuttgart, 1894) enjoys the widest popularity. R. von Muth, Einleitung 
 in das Nibelungenlied, Paderborn, 1877 ; H. Lichtenberger, Le Poeme et la 
 Ltgende des Nibelungcn, Paris, 1891. 
 
 a Cp., however, E. Kettner, Die ostc rreichischc Nibclungcndichtung, Berlin, 
 1897, 199 ff.
 
 CHAP. III.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 6l 
 
 with the revival of lyric poetry, which, as we have seen, began 
 on Austrian soil in the last decades of the twelfth century. 
 
 " Uns ist in alien mceren wunders vil geseit 
 von heleden lobebrcren, von grozer arebeit, 
 von frouden, hochgeziten, von weinen und von klagen, 
 von kiiener recken striten, muget ir nu wunder hceren sagen. 
 
 Ez wuohs in Burgonden ein vil edel magedin, 
 daz in alien landen niht schceners mohte sin, 
 Kriemhilt geheizen : si wart ein sccene wip, 
 dar umbe muosen degene vil verliesen den lip." 1 
 
 In these opening strophes of Der Nibelunge Not, the reader is Kriemhild. 
 at once introduced to the central figure of the whole epic, the 
 Burgundian princess Kriemhild, who lives at Worms, under the 
 protection of her mother Ute and her three brothers, Gunther, 
 Gernot, and the youthful Giselher. In the service of these 
 Burgundian kings are faithful vassals Hagen of Troneg, 
 Dankwart, Ortwin, Volker, and many others. At the be- 
 ginning of the poem, Kriemhild has a dream in which a wild 
 falcon, which she had reared, is torn by two eagles before her 
 eyes. The falcon, her mother tells her, is a noble husband. 
 But Kriemhild will hear nothing of marriage : she knows 
 too well 
 
 ' ' wie liebe mil leide ze jungest 16nen kan. " 2 
 
 In this line is concentrated the whole tragedy of the epic. 
 
 In his second " Aventiure " the poet turns aside to Siegfried, 
 tell of Sifrit or Siegfried. The mythological background of 
 the Siegfried saga has grown dim, giving place to a more 
 definite historical setting. Of the young hero's youth in the 
 forest, of his bringing up by the smith, we hear nothing ; of 
 
 1 " Uns ist in alten Mahren (Sagen) viel Wundersames gesagt, von lobens- 
 wcrten Helden, von grosser Not, von Freuden, Festlichkeiten, von Weinen und 
 von Klagen ; von kiihner Helden Streiten konnt ihr nun Wunderbares sagen 
 horen. Es wuchs in Burgunden eine sehr edle Jungfrau, dass in alien L3.n- 
 dern nichts Schoneres mochte sein, Kriemhild (war sie) geheissen ; sie wurde 
 ein schbnes Weib. Um derentwillen mussten viele Helden das Leben verlieren " 
 (i, i, 2 ; Text B). The Nibelungen epic is composed, not in the rhymed coup- 
 lets of the great mass of Middle High German narrative poetry, but in strophes 
 of four lines a metrical form which first appears in the lyrics of the Kiiren- 
 berger. A caesura divides each line into two, and in each half line there are 
 three accented or stress syllables, except in the fourth line, where the second 
 half contains four. 
 
 2 "Wie Freude mit Leid zuletzt lohnen kann " (i, 17, 3). Cp. xxxix, 2378, 
 4 (below, p. 69).
 
 Siegfried's 
 meeting 
 with 
 Kriemhild. 
 
 62 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 his fight with the dragon and the winning of the hoard, little. 
 Siegfried is the son of a king of the Netherlands, a knight of 
 the twelfth century. He has heard of the beauty of Kriemhild, 
 and sets out for Worms accompanied by eleven vassals. He 
 arrives at King Gunther's Court as a stranger; Hagen alone 
 guesses that he can be no other than Siegfried who slew the 
 dragon and bathed himself invulnerable in its blood. Kriem- 
 hild sees Siegfried from her window, and the love she would 
 fain avoid takes possession of her heart. Meanwhile a war 
 between the Burgundians and the Kings of Sachsenland 
 and Denmark gives Siegfried an opportunity to do knightly 
 service for his hosts. His victory is celebrated by a festival 
 which lasts twelve days ; the captive kings are set free, and 
 Siegfried sees Kriemhild for the first time. Kriemhild's 
 beauty is described by the poet in the lyric tones of the 
 early German Minnesang ; and here it may be noted that 
 the lyric element in the Nibelungenlied is still naively Ger- 
 manic ; it is but little influenced by the more formal qualities 
 of the Romance lyric. The poet, for instance, compares his 
 heroine coming from the " kemenate " or women's apartments 
 of the castle, with the dawn : 
 
 " Nu gie diu minnecliche also der morgenrot 
 tuot (iz den triieben wolken. da sciet von maneger n&t 
 der si da truog in herzen und lange het getan : 
 er sach die minneclichen nu vil herlichen stan." 
 
 And again with the moon : 
 
 " Sam der liehte mane 
 des scin so luterliche 
 
 vor den sternen stat, 
 ab den wolken gat." 1 
 
 The actual meeting of Siegfried and Kriemhild is described 
 with a simplicity and truth which the phrases of chivalry are 
 not able to conceal : 
 
 " D6 si den hohgemuoten vor ir stende sach, 
 do erzunde sich stn verwe. diu scoene magt sprach : 
 ' sit willekomen, her Sivrit, ein edel ritter guot.' 
 d6 wart im von dem gruoze vil wol gehcehet der muot. 
 
 1 " Nun ging die Liebliche, wie das Morgenrot aus den triiben Wolken 
 thut (i.e., geht). Da schied (i.e., wurde frei) von mancher Not der, der sie 
 im Herzen [da] trug und (es) lange gethan hatte ; er sah die Liebliche nun 
 sehr herrlich stehen. . . . Gleichwie der liehte Mond vor den Sternen 
 steht, dessen Schein so hell von den Wolken herab geht " (v, 281 ; 283, i, 2).
 
 CHAP, ill.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 63 
 
 Er neig ir flizecliche : bi der hende si in vie. 
 
 wie rehte minnecliche er bi der frouwen gie ! 
 
 mit lieben ougen blicken ein ander sahen an 
 
 der herre und ouch diu frouwe : daz wart vil tougenlich getan." 1 
 
 In silence they enter the minster together, and when mass 
 is over Kriemhild thanks Siegfried for the services he has 
 done her brother. " Daz ist," returns Siegfried, " nach iuwern 
 hulden, min frou Kriemhilt, getan." 2 The festival comes to 
 an end and the guests prepare to depart ; Siegfried, however, 
 is persuaded by Giselher to remain in Worms. 
 
 In the sixth "Aventiure" the mythical Siegfried saga is once Briinhild. 
 more brought into the foreground. A report has reached the 
 Rhine of a beautiful princess, Priinhilt or Brunhild by name, 
 who lives in the sea-girt castle of Isenstein in Iceland. The 
 poet of the Nibelungenlied has done his best to humanise 
 the superhuman Valkyrie of the old saga; but the German 
 Brunhild is still endowed with supernatural strength. He who 
 will win her as his bride must first prove his superiority to 
 her in three feats : in throwing the ger or spear, in hurling the 
 stone, and in leaping ; and who fails must, as in all similar 
 sagas, lose his head. Gunther has set his heart upon this 
 princess, and promises his sister to Siegfried if the latter will 
 help him to woo her. With a few chosen vassals, amidst the 
 tears of the women, they set out for Isenstein, sailing down the 
 Rhine. Siegfried stands at the helm, while Gunther himself 
 takes an oar. They reach the open sea, and after twelve days 
 come within sight of Brunhild's castle. With the aid of the 
 "Tarnkappe," a mantle which he had wrested from the dwarf 
 Alberich, Siegfried stands invisible at Gunther's side and assists 
 him to defeat Brunhild in all three tests of strength ; whereupon 
 she commands her men to show their allegiance to Gunther. 
 Meanwhile, however in an " Aventiure " which is obviously 
 a late addition to the poem the Burgundians are afraid of 
 betrayal; as a precaution, Siegfried returns to his kingdom, 
 
 1 "Da sie den Hochherzigen vor sich stehen sah, [da] entbrannte seine 
 Farbe. Die schone Maid sprach : ' Seid willkommen, Herr Sivrit, [ein] edler 
 Ritter gut.' Da wurde ihm infolge des Grusses der Mut hoch gehoben. Er 
 verneigte sich vor ihr mit Aufmerksamkeit ; sie nahm ihn bei der Hand. Wie 
 recht lieblich er bei der Jungfrau ging ! Mit freundlichen [Augen-] Blicken 
 sahen einander an der (edle) Heir und auch die Jungfrau : das wurde sehr 
 
 .heimlich gethan" (v, 292, 293). 
 
 2 "Das ist urn cure Huld zu erwerben, meine Frau Kriemhild, gethan" 
 (v, 304, 4).
 
 64 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 The double 
 wedding. 
 
 Brunhild 
 and Kriem- 
 hild's 
 quarrel. 
 
 where, not being recognised, he is obliged to force an entrance 
 and brings back with him a thousand chosen vassals. 
 
 Siegfried then returns to Worms to announce the coming of 
 Gunther and his bride; Kriemhild and her maidens make 
 preparations for their reception. The double wedding is cele- 
 brated at Gunther's Court ; Brunhild becomes Gunther's wife, 
 Kriemhild Siegfried's. But Brunhild is secretly envious of 
 Kriemhild's husband; her eyes fill with tears. She weeps, 
 she says, to see her husband's sister married to a bondsman 
 (eigenholt), for, when Brunhild was won at Isenstein, Siegfried 
 had given himself out as Gunther's vassal. Gunther promises 
 to tell her at some other time why he has given his sister to 
 Siegfried. Brunhild is not, however, so easily satisfied, and on 
 the night of the wedding, when Siegfried is not at hand to help 
 him, she ties her husband with her girdle and hangs him on 
 a nail in the wall. On the following night, Siegfried in the 
 " Tarnkappe " once more takes Gunther's part ; he overpowers 
 Brunhild after a long struggle and leaves her to her husband, 
 not, however, before taking from her as trophies her ring and 
 girdle, which he gives to Kriemhild. Siegfried then returns 
 with his wife to the Netherlands, where, amidst great ceremony, 
 his father makes him king. 
 
 Once more, after the lapse of ten years, Siegfried and 
 Kriemhild return to Worms ; Gunther, at Briinhild's suggestion, 
 has invited them to be present at a festival. They accept the 
 invitation, unsuspecting the tragic fate that awaits them. One 
 afternoon before vespers, as the two queens are sitting side by 
 side, watching the knights tourneying in the court, Kriemhild 
 is moved by the sight of her husband, and cannot resist ex- 
 pressing her admiration of him to Brunhild : 
 
 ' ' ich ban einen man, 
 daz elliu disiu riche zuo sinen handen solden stan." 
 
 To which Brunhild retorts darkly : 
 
 "wie kunde daz gesln ? 
 obe niemen lebete wan sin unde din, 
 so mbhten im diu riche wol wesen undertan : 
 die wile lebet Gunther, so kunde'z nimmer ergan." 1 
 
 1 " Ich habe einen (solchen) Mann, dass alle diese Lander in seiner Macht 
 stehen sollten " (xiv, 815, 3, 4). " Wie konnte das sein ? Wenn niemand lebte 
 ausser ihm und dir, so konnten ihm die Lander wohl unterthan sein : so lange 
 Gunther lebt, [so] konnte es nimmer geschehen " (xiv, 816)
 
 CHAP. III.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 65 
 
 Kriemhild, still musing as she watches Siegfried, compares 
 him to the moon among the stars. Brunhild again insists 
 upon Gunther's superiority. The gentler Kriemhild, anxious 
 to avoid strife, begs Brunhild only to believe that the two 
 kings are peers. Hereupon Brunhild assumes a more 
 friendly tone, but insidiously reminds Kriemhild that when 
 Gunther came to woo her, Siegfried was his vassal. Kriem- 
 hild's indignation is roused at being thus branded as a 
 bondsman's wife, and later, when the two queens meet before 
 the minster, and Brunhild commands her to stand with the 
 words 
 
 " ja sol vor kiiniges wibe nitnmer eigendiu gegan," 
 she throws in blind rage the accusation at her sister-in-law 
 
 " Kundestu noch geswigen, daz wsere dir guot. 
 du hast gescendet selbe den dlnen schcenen lip : 
 wie mohte marines kebse immer werden kiiniges wip?" 1 
 
 " It was Siegfried, not Gunther, who made thee his wife ten 
 years ago." Brunhild bursts into tears, and when the evening 
 service in the minster is over, she asks Kriemhild for proofs of 
 her statement. Kriemhild brings out the ring ; a ring might 
 have been stolen from her, but when Brunhild sees the girdle, 
 she weeps bitterly. She now turns to her husband, who 
 summons Siegfried. The latter at first treats the matter 
 lightly as a woman's quarrel, but, being pressed, he takes his 
 oath that his wife's accusation is not true. Shame, however, 
 still rankles in Brunhild's heart, and she has a ready ear for 
 the counsels of Hagen, who has resolved, in grim and un- 
 scrupulous loyalty to his king, that Siegfried must die. Even 
 Gunther himself is won over by Hagen to regard the incident 
 as a personal insult, and to give his consent to Siegfried's 
 murder. 
 
 By a ruse of Hagen's, messengers arrive in Worms pretend- Hagen's 
 ing to bring a declaration of war from the two Saxon kings P lot - 
 whom Siegfried had already defeated. This gives Siegfried 
 the opportunity of once more offering his services to Gunther, 
 and Kriemhild intrusts him blindly to Hagen's care. She 
 
 1 ' ' Wahrlich, (es) soil vor (des) Konigs Weib nimmer (cine) Leibeigene gehen " 
 (xiv, 838, 4). " Kbnntest du noch schweigen, ware es gut fur dich. Du hast 
 selbst Schande iiber deinen schonen Leib gebracht ; wie konnte je (eines 
 Dienst-)Mannes Kebsweib (eines) Konigs Weib werden?" (xiv, 839, 2-4). 
 
 E
 
 66 
 
 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 The chase 
 in the Was- 
 kenwald. 
 
 Siegfried's 
 death. 
 
 sews a cross upon his coat between the shoulders, above the 
 spot where the leaf fell when he bathed in the dragon's blood, 
 the only part of his body that is vulnerable. As soon as 
 Hagen has obtained this information, the pretext of war is no 
 longer necessary; other messengers arrive contradicting the 
 declaration, and a hunt is proposed instead. The description 
 of the chase in the Waskenwald (the forests of the Vosges), 1 
 with Siegfried's capture of the bear, is one of the best parts 
 of the whole epic. Midday arrives and the hunters pause for 
 refreshment, but the wine has not arrived. Hagen, however, 
 knows a spring in the neighbourhood, and offers, by way of 
 jest, to run a race to it with Gunther and Siegfried. The latter 
 is there long before the others, but he will not drink before 
 King Gunther. When Siegfried's turn comes and he bends 
 down to the spring, Hagen plunges the hero's own spear into 
 his back. Siegfried springs up, but he has no arms within 
 reach except his shield ; with it he strikes at Hagen, who 
 flees from him as he had never before fled from any man. 
 
 " Die bluomen allenthalben von bluote waren naz. 
 d6 rang er mit dem tode : unlange let er daz, 
 want des todes wafen ie ze sere sneit. 
 do mohte reden niht mere der recke kiien' unt genieit." 2 
 
 When night falls the body is carried home, and at Hagen's 
 command laid before Kriemhild's door. Next morning, when 
 the minster bell rings to early mass, she wakens her women ; 
 her chamberlain brings a light and finds the body. Kriemhild 
 at once has a presentiment that it is her husband ; she falls 
 to the ground with a cry : 
 
 " D6 rief vil trurecliche diu kiineginne milt : 
 ' Owe mir mines leides ! nu ist dir din schilt 
 mit swerten niht verhouwen : du list ermorder6t. 
 unt wesse ich wer iz het getan, ich riete im immer sinen tot. ' " 3 
 
 1 According to the Donaueschingen MS. (C), the chase took place in the 
 Odenwald, a change obviously suggested by the fact that the poet makes 
 the hunters cross the Rhine. 
 
 2 "Die Blumen allenthalben von Blute waren nass. Da rang er mit dem 
 Tode ; nicht lange that er das, weil des Todes Waffe immer allzusehr schnitt. 
 Da konnte nicht mehr reden der Recke kiihn und froh " (xvi, 998). 
 
 3 " Da rief sehr traurig die Konigin liebreich : 'O weh mir (wegen) meines 
 Leides ! Es ist dir doch dein Schild mit Schwertern nicht verhauen ; du liegst 
 ermordet. Und wenn ich wiisste, wer es gethan hat, .wiirde ich immer auf 
 seinen Tod sinnen ' " (xvii, 1012, 2-4).
 
 CHAP. III.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 67 
 
 When the body is laid out in its coffin of gold and silver 
 in the minster, the wound bleeds at Hagen's approach, thus 
 pointing to him as the murderer. The first part of the epic 
 virtually closes with Siegfried's death. His father, Siegmund, 
 returns to the Netherlands, but Kriemhild remains in Worms. 
 A further "Aventiure" relates how Kriemhild is reconciled 
 to Gunther, and how she causes the Nibelungs' hoard to be 
 brought to Burgundy. Hagen, however, afraid of the con- 
 sequences of her generosity, sinks the treasure and here we 
 meet again with one of the oldest elements of the saga in 
 the Rhine. 
 
 Thirteen years after Siegfried's death, King Etzel (Attila) of Kriemhild 
 Hunnenland, whose wife, Helche, is dead, sends Markgraf and Etzel- 
 Rudeger von Bechlaren (Pochlarn) to Worms, to sue for 
 Kriemhild's hand in marriage. At first Kriemhild will hear 
 nothing of Etzel's suit. When, however, Rudeger promises 
 her amends for every wrong that has ever been done to her, 
 she consents, for she sees in this marriage a means of avenging 
 Siegfried's death. Kriemhild journeys to Vienna, where her 
 wedding is celebrated with great pomp. For thirteen years 
 she lives happily with Etzel, in the seventh year of her 
 marriage bearing him a son, Ortlieb, but all this time the 
 thought of vengeance has never left her. At last the time 
 seems ripe to her. One night she begs her husband to 
 invite her kinsfolk to a festival. Two Spielleute act as 
 messengers, and have a special injunction to see that Hagen 
 does not remain behind. The latter, wise and foreseeing as 
 ever, guesses Kriemhild's intentions; he counsels the Bur- 
 gundians not to accept the invitation. They, however, taunt The 
 him with cowardice, and he consents to accompany them. J th > e I Bur f 
 On the journey, Hagen learns from two water-nixes, whom gundians 
 he surprises bathing in the Danube, that none of the Bur- t? Etzel>s 
 gundians, with the exception of the chaplain, will ever see 
 his home again. To nullify at least part of this prophecy, 
 Hagen throws the chaplain into the river as they are being 
 ferried over; but God's hand is stronger than Hagen's will, 
 and the chaplain reaches the shore in safety. Thus the 
 Burgundians, or, as the poet now prefers to call them, the 
 Nibelungs, journey on, welcomed and entertained on the 
 way by Rudeger, warned by Dietrich von Bern, who rides 
 out to meet them, until at last they reach Etzel's Court.
 
 68 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Etzel has made most hospitable preparations, and Kriemhild 
 receives them, but only for her youngest brother Giselher 
 has she a kiss. She makes no secret of her hatred of 
 Hagen, and asks him defiantly why he has not brought 
 with him her treasure : 
 
 " ' Ich bringe in den tiuvel,' sprach aber Hagene. 
 ' ich ban an minem schilde so vil ze tragene 
 und an miner briinne : mtn helm der ist lieht, 
 daz swert an miner hand, des enbringe ich iu nieht. ' " 1 
 
 Kriemhild invites her guests to disarm, but Hagen refuses. 
 The clouds which hang over this part of the Nibelungenlied 
 now begin to lower ; the conflict between Hagen and Kriem- 
 hild increases rapidly in tragic intensity. Hagen even admits 
 defiantly to her that he was the murderer of Siegfried, 
 and that it is Siegfried's sword which he wears at his side. 
 Night comes down, and the Nibelungs retire to rest in a 
 hall that has been prepared for them. Hagen and the 
 Spielmann, Volker von Alzei, who, upon his fiddle, has 
 played his comrades to sleep, keep watch at the door of 
 the hall. The Huns steal upon their sleeping guests with 
 Kriem- intent to murder them, but when they see Hagen's helmet 
 shining in the night, they withdraw. Next day the guests 
 go to church, and afterwards a tournament takes place at 
 which Volker kills a noble Hun. Etzel, who knows nothing 
 of Kriemhild's dark purposes, forbids the kinsfolk of the 
 Hun to take blood-revenge. Kriemhild begs Dietrich von 
 Bern to help her to carry out her plot, but he refuses; she 
 then turns to Etzel's brother, Blcedelin, who proves more 
 pliable to her wishes. With a thousand men, Bloedelin 
 treacherously attacks Dankwart and his followers, but, after 
 great losses, Bloedelin is slain, and Dankwart makes his way to 
 the hall where the kings are eating. When Hagen hears of 
 the treachery, he strikes off the head of Kriemhild's son. The 
 fight now becomes general, but through Dietrich's intercession, 
 Etzel, Kriemhild, and he, accompanied by six hundred men, 
 are allowed to leave the hall ; all the other Huns are slain, 
 and the Nibelungs remain in possession. 
 
 1 '"Ich bringe euch den Teufel (i.e., so gut wie nichts), erwiederte 
 Hagen. ' Ich babe an meinem Schilde so viel zu tragen und an meinem 
 Brustharnisch ; mein Helm, der ist blank, das Schwert in meiner Hand, das 
 bringe ich euch nicht'" (xxviii, 1744).
 
 CHAP. III.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 69 
 
 Night has again fallen, and the Nibelungs are still masters 
 of the hall ; but a more fearful fate awaits them. Kriemhild 
 commands the building to be set on fire ; the heroes stand 
 ranged along the wall for protection from the flames, and 
 drink the blood of the slain to quench their thirst. In 
 the morning the fight begins anew. Amidst the lamenta- 
 tions of the Huns, Riideger falls, and Dietrich is at last 
 roused from his inactivity. He sends his vassal Hildebrand, 
 who succeeds in slaying Volker, although he loses all his men, 
 and must himself flee from Hagen. Only Gunther and 
 Hagen are left of the ill-fated Nibelungs. Dietrich now 
 comes forward himself; he fights first with Hagen and then 
 with Gunther, both of whom he overcomes and makes pri- 
 soners. Once more Kriemhild confronts Hagen and de- 
 mands from him her treasure ; but he refuses to give it up as 
 long as any of his masters live. Whereupon Kriemhild orders 
 her brother to be beheaded, and the head brought to Hagen. 
 
 " Also der ungemuote sins herren houbet sach, 
 wider Kriemhilde do der recke sprach : 
 ' du hast iz nach dim' willen z'einem ende braht, 
 und ist ouch rehte ergangen als ich mir hete gedaht. 
 
 Nu ist von Burgonden der edel kiinec t6t, 
 Giselher der junge, und ouch her Gern6t. 
 den scaz den weiz nu niemen wan got unde mfn : 
 der sol dich, valandinne, immer wol verholen sin.' " l 
 
 Kriemhild draws Siegfried's sword from its sheath and strikes 
 off Hagen's head with her own hand. Dietrich's vassal Hilde- 
 brand, who is standing by, cannot see the brave Hagen die so 
 shameful a death unavenged, and slays the oueen. And so 
 the lurid tragedy closes : 
 
 " Diu vil michel ere was da gelegen t&t. 
 die liute heten alle jamer unde n6t. 
 mit leide was verendet des kiiniges h6hgeztt. 
 als ie diu Hebe leide z'aller jungeste git. 
 
 1 "Als der Traurige seines Herren Haupt sah, da sprach der Recke zu 
 Kriemhild : ' Du hast es nach deinem Willen zu [einem] Ende gebracht, und 
 es ist auch ganz so gekommen, wie ich mir gedacht hatte. Nun ist von 
 Burgunden der edle Konig tot, Giselher der junge, und auch der Herr Gfirnot. 
 Den Schatz (i.e., den Ort v:o der Schatz Hegt), den weiss nun niemand ausser 
 Gott und mir ; der soil dir, Tetifelin, immer \vohl verborgen sein ' " (xxxix, 
 2370, 2371).
 
 7<D MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 I'ne kan iu niht bescheiden, waz sider da geschach : 
 
 wan ritter unde vrouwen weinen man da sach, 
 
 dar zuo die edeln knehte, ir lieben friunde t6t. 
 
 hie hat daz moere ein ende : daz ist der Nibelunge nfit." 1 
 
 The Nibelungenlied has often been called the Iliad of the 
 - Germanic races, and the comparison, although only a general 
 alepic. one, is suggestive. The Nibehmgenlied might be said to 
 represent at once an earlier and a later stage of epic de- 
 velopment than the Homeric epic. In the great essentials 
 of story and motive, it is certainly cruder and more primi- 
 tive. Feelings and passions are simple and fundamental; 
 Siegfried and Hagen, Brunhild and Kriemhild, have none 
 of the subtler attributes of Homer's characters; they have 
 nothing of the evenly balanced intellectuality of the Greeks. 
 Their vices, and even their virtues, are so unveiled as to be 
 almost repellent ; their motives are always naively transparent. 
 In all the finer qualities, too, of literary art, in beauty of 
 language, wealth of poetic imagery, in balance and propor- 
 tion, the Nibehmgenlied belongs to a comparatively less ad- 
 vanced stage of epic poetry than the Iliad. But, from another 
 point of view, its development has proceeded farther than that 
 of the Greek epic. As it stands, the German poem is both a 
 Christian epic and an epic of chivalry, while the events it 
 describes belong to an age alike ignorant of chivalry and 
 Christianity. And, although these later elements in the 
 German epic are only loosely attached to it, they cannot be 
 regarded as unessential accessories. 2 In the Iliad, on the 
 other hand, there is no trace of such a break in the continuity 
 of tradition ; Homer stands as far, at least, as modern criti- 
 cism can judge in a much more intimate relation with his 
 subject than does the poet of the Nibelungenlied. 
 
 The Nibelungenlied is the representative national epic of 
 the Germans ; it is national in the sense that it mirrors not 
 the ideas of a single poet, but of a whole race. Its theme 
 was a common possession of that race ; its ideals of loyalty, 
 
 1 " Die sehr grosse Herrlichkeit lag da tot. Das ganze Volk hatte Jammer 
 und Not. Mit Trauer war geendet des Konigs hohes Fest, wie (denn) die 
 Freude immer zu allerlctzt Trauer gibt. Ich kann euch nicht berichten, was 
 nachher geschah ; nur (weiss ich, dass) man Ritter und Frauen weinen sah, dazu 
 die edlen Knappen, (um) ihre lieben Verwandten tot (i.e., als Tote). Hier hat 
 die Mahre ein Knde ; das ist der Nibehmgen Not" (xxxix, 2378, 2379). 
 
 2 Cp. R. von Mulh, I.e., 344 ff., and A. E. Schonbach, Das Christentum 
 in der altdeutschen Heldendichtung, Graz, 1897, 3 ff.
 
 CHAP. III.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. /I 
 
 of nobility, of kingly virtue, its scorn of treason and deceit, 
 and its firm faith in the implacableness of rightful vengeance, 
 all this is flesh and blood of the Germanic peoples. The 
 Nibelungenlied is, in such respects, primitive, but it is not Its pathos 
 barbaric ; nor is it, as we have seen, without pathos and lyric 
 beauty. Scenes such as that where Giselher wooes Riideger's 
 daughter at Bechlaren, or where Volker fiddles his comrades 
 to sleep, while Hagen, leaning on his shield, keeps watch by 
 the door of the hall, are full of a beauty which is unsurpassed 
 in any later epic. Occasionally, too, the sombreness of the 
 tragedy is relieved by that grim irony which is rarely wanting 
 in primitive literature, and which has, perhaps, never found 
 finer expression than in the passage where the poet likens 
 Volker's sword to a fiddle-bow playing upon the steel of 
 the Huns' helmets. And, like all great national epics, the 
 Nibelungenlied is built up upon a simple and fundamental 
 idea, of which the poet never loses .sight. This idea, the 
 mysterious retribution which follows on the heels of all 
 earthly happiness, sounds like a deep organ note through 
 the Nibelungenlied from its opening words to its close. 
 Neither in Iliad nor Odyssey nowhere, indeed, in the epic 
 poetry of any people has the tragic movement of events been 
 depicted upon such a sublime scale as in the second part of 
 the Nibelungen Not. 
 
 In the principal MSS. of the Nibelungenlied the epic is fol- Diu Klage. 
 lowed by a shorter poem, Diu Klage, 1 in which the popular 
 craving for a continuation is satisfied. The Klage relates 
 how the survivors at Etzel's court, at Bechlaren and at 
 Worms, mourned for the fallen heroes. This continuation, 
 which is not written in the Nibelungen strophe, but in rhymed 
 couplets, is, however, much inferior to the epic itself; the 
 heathen spirit of the Nibelungenlied is, under the influence 
 of the Court epic, tempered by Christian sympathy ; the 
 grim silence of the heroic world is disturbed bv psychological 
 explanations and sentimental regrets. 
 
 1 Ed. by K. L.ichmann (with the Nibelungen Not), also by K. Bartsch, 
 Leipzig, 1871;, and A. Edzardi, Hamburg, 1875. Cp. P. Piper. Die Nibel- 
 ungen i (D.N.L., 6, 2 [1890]). 187 ff.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GUDRUN AND THE HELDENBUCH. 
 
 BESIDES the Nibelungenlied, there is only one other " Volks- 
 epos" or epic based on a national saga which calls for a 
 Gudrun, detailed description namely, the lay of Gudrun. 1 In the 
 ca. 1215. form in which Gudrun or Kudrun^ as the South Germans 
 called it has been handed down to us, it, too, is an Austrian 
 epic, but the story belonged originally to that Northern cycle 
 of sagas to which the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf is related. On 
 the shores of the Northern seas, the myth of the conflict of 
 light and darkness, of storm and sunshine, took a peculiar 
 form : here, the hero, the sun-god, had to cross stormy seas 
 to win his bride and fight unending battles in order to 
 retain her. The saga of Gudrun, or rather, in its original 
 form, the saga of Gudrun's mother, Hilde, is intimately asso- 
 ciated with the Germanic mythology, Hilde being a Valkyrie, 
 and the oldest form of the story is to be found in the later 
 Edda. It must, however, at an early date, have been known 
 to the Germans of the Rhineland ; Lamprecht, it will be 
 remembered, showed a familiarity with the saga in his 
 Alexanderlied. 
 
 Gudrun is lacking in dramatic unity. The original story, 
 which in itself was hardly long enough to form an epic, was 
 developed, not organically from within, but by the accretion 
 of fresh materials from without. The poet, for instance, not 
 only relates the wooing of Gudrun and the parallel story of 
 her mother Hilde, but, following the example of the Court 
 epics, goes back still farther and describes the adventures 
 of the heroine's grandfather Hagen. This first part of the 
 
 * Ed. by K. Bartsch, 4th ed., Leipzig, 1880; by E. Martin, Halle, 1883. 
 In D.N.L., Gudrun is again edited by K. Bartsch, vol. 6, i [1885]. Cp. A. 
 Fe'camp, Le Potme de Gudrun, Paris, 1892.
 
 CHAP. IV.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 73 
 
 epic, which occupies four " Aventiuren," is poetically the 
 least important, and is made up of incidents and situations of 
 frequent occurrence in the poetry of the Spielmann. Hagen, Hagen. 
 son of an Irish king Sigebant, is, as a boy of seven, carried off 
 by a griffin to a lonely island where he finds three young 
 princesses in the same position as himself; a ship ultimately 
 comes in sight, and, after many vicissitudes, the four adven- 
 turers reach Ireland. Hagen marries one of the princesses, 
 Hilde of India. The daughter of this marriage, likewise 
 called Hilde, is very beautiful ; her father considers none Hilde. 
 of her many suitors good enough for her, and hangs their 
 envoys. At last, Hetel, king of the Hegelingen, a mighty 
 Scandinavian king, resolves to make Hilde his queen. Three 
 of his vassals the sweet singer Horant, the generous Fruote, 
 and the grim " Recke " Wate set out, disguised as merchants, 
 to woo for their master the king's daughter of Ireland. With 
 the help of costly wares and open-handed generosity, they 
 ingratiate themselves at Hagen's Court, and, one evening, 
 Horant succeeds in winning Hilde's ear by his singing, which 
 is so wondrously sweet that all birds and beasts stop to listen 
 to it. She invites him into the "kemenate," where he has 
 an opportunity of pressing his master's suit. Hilde is not 
 unwilling to marry Hetel, and a plot is arranged to carry 
 her off. The Court is invited to visit the strangers' ships 
 and examine their wares, and while Hilde and her women 
 are on board one of the ships, the men who have accom- 
 panied her are thrown into the sea. The ship is pushed off 
 from land, sails are hoisted, oars plied, and Hilde's father is 
 left behind in helpless wrath upon the shore. The three 
 envoys reach Hetel's land in safety with the princess, but 
 on the following morning Hagen's ships are seen approach- 
 ing the coast. A fierce battle takes place, in which Hagen 
 wounds Hetel, but is himself wounded by Wate. Hilde now 
 intercedes as peacemaker ; she begs Hetel to separate the com- 
 batants, and Hagen is reconciled to his daughter's marriage. 
 Hilde bears Hetel a son, Ortwin, and a daughter, Gudrun, the 
 latter being even more beautiful than Hilde herself. 
 
 Gudrun's story is now virtually a repetition of that of her Gudrun 
 mother. She, too, is jealously guarded by her father from all ?^ d . 
 suitors. One of these, however, King Herwig of Seeland, 
 has won her heart by his valour, and in a combat between
 
 74 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Herwig and Gudrun's father, Gudrun acts as intercessor, just 
 as Hilde had done in the earlier story. She is then betrothed 
 to Herwig. In the mean time, a disappointed suitor, Siegfried 
 of Morland, makes war upon Herwig's kingdom, and Hetel 
 goes to the assistance of his future son-in-law. Hetel's king- 
 dom is left unprotected, and a third suitor, Hartmut, with his 
 father, King Ludwig of Normandy or Ormandie, as the poet 
 writes seizes the opportunity to carry off Gudrun and her 
 maidens. Hetel sets out in pursuit, and a terrible battle 
 takes place upon the island of Wiilpensand near the Dutch 
 coast. Gudrun's father is slain by King Ludwig, and in the 
 darkness of the night the Normans escape with their captives. 
 The Hegelingen return home in sorrow, and are obliged to 
 wait patiently until a new generation of fighters has grown up 
 and they feel strong enough to invade the Norman's land. 
 Gudrun Meanwhile Gudrun is brought to Normandy, but refuses to 
 
 m Nor- marry Hartmut. Hereupon Hartmut's mother, Gerlind, treats 
 her with all manner of cruelty ; she is set to the most menial 
 tasks. But Gudrun is resigned to her fate : 
 
 " Do sprach diu maget edele : 'swaz ich dienen mac 
 mit willen und mit henden, naht unde tac, 
 daz sol ich vliziclichen tuon in alien stunden, 
 sit mir min ungeliicke bi minen friunden niht ze wesene gunde.' " l 
 
 As years pass and she still continues firm, a new indignity 
 is put upon her : she is made to wash, the clothes of her 
 masters. But even this does not break her proud spirit : 
 
 " ich sol niht haben vviinne, ich wolte daz ir mir noch tsetet leider." 2 
 
 And for five years and a half, day after day, Gudrun kneels on 
 the shore, washing clothes in the sea. A faithful maid, Hilde- 
 burg, shares her task with her. 
 
 Thirteen years have now elapsed since the battle on the 
 Wiilpensand, and the Hegelingen have again an army with 
 which they can face the Normans. They accordingly set out 
 upon their voyage, and, after many vicissitudes, reach the coast 
 
 1 "Da sprach die edle Jungfrau : 'wie ich (auch immer) dienen kann mit 
 (gutem) Willen und mit Handen, Nacht und Tag, das will ich eifrig zu jeder 
 Zeit thun, seitdem mir mein Ungliick nicht gb'nnte bei meinen Verwandten 
 zu sein' " (xxi, 1053). 
 
 2 " Ich soil nicht haben Wonne ; ich wollte, dass ihr mir noch grosseres 
 Leid thiitet " (xxi, 1055, 4).
 
 CHAP. IV.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 75 
 
 of Normandy. One day as Gudrun is at her work on the 
 
 shore, an angel comes to her in the form of a bird and tells 
 
 her of her kinsfolk and her coming rescue. Next morning 
 
 she and her companion Hildeburg are washing barefoot in the 
 
 frost and snow as usual, when a boat approaches with two 
 
 men in it. They are Gudrun's brother Ortwin and her be- Ortwin and 
 
 trothed Herwig. They ask for Gudrun, but Gudrun replies J-^J^j. 
 
 that she whom they seek is long dead. Thereupon the men run on the 
 
 burst into tears : shore - 
 
 "1)6 sprach der ftirste Ilerwic : ' ja riuwet mich ir lip 
 uf mines lebenes ende. diu maget was min wip.' . . . 
 
 ' Nu wellet ir mich triegen,' sprach diu arme meit. 
 
 'von Herwiges lode ist mir vil geseit. 
 
 al der werlte vviinne die solte ich gewinnen, 
 
 waere er inder lebende : so hete er mich gefiieret von hinnen.' 
 
 D6 sprach der ritter edele : ' nu seht an mine hant, 
 
 ob ir daz golt erkennet : s6 bin ich genant. 
 
 da mite ich wart gemahelet Kudrun ze minnen. 
 
 sit ir dann' min frouwe, s6 fiiere ich inch meinliche hinnen.' " l 
 
 Gudrun joyfully recognises the ring, and Herwig sees his ring 
 upon Gudrun's finger : 
 
 " Er umbesloz mit armen die herlichen meit. 
 in was ir beider maere Hep unde leit. 
 er kuste, i'n weiz wie ofte, die kiiniginne riche, 
 si und Hildeburgen die ellenden maget minnicliclie." 3 
 
 Ortwin and Herwig intend to make their attack upon the 
 castle next day before sunrise. Meanwhile Gudrun throws the 
 clothes of her taskmasters into the sea, and enters the castle 
 with the dignity of a queen. She declares herself willing at 
 last to be Hartmut's bride. The Normans provide her and 
 
 i " Da sprach der Fiirst Herwig : ' Fiirvvahr, ich betraure ihren Leib (i.e., sie) 
 bis zu meines Lebens Ende. Die Jungfrau war mein Weib (i.e., meine Braut).' 
 . . . ' Nun wollt ihr mich betriigen,' sprach die arme Jungfrau. ' Von Herwigs 
 Tode ist mir viel gesagt. Aller Welt Wonne, die sollte ich gewinnen, ware 
 er irgendwo am Leben ; dann hiitte er mich von hinnen gefuhrt. ' Da sprach der 
 Ritter edel : ' Nu seht auf meine Hand, ob ihr das Gold erkennt ; so (i.e., wie 
 ihr soeben gesagt habt) bin ich genannt. Damit wurde ich verlobt, Kudrun 
 zur Erinnerung. Wenn ihr denn meine Herrin seid, so fiihre ich euch mit 
 Gewalt von hinnen'" (xxv, 1245, i, 2 ; 1246, 1247). 
 
 a " Er umschloss mit (seinen) Armen die lierrliche Jungfrau. Ihnen war die 
 Kunde, die sie einander gegeben hatten, lieb und leid. Er kiisste, ich weiss 
 nicht wie oft, die edle Kbnigin, sie und Hildeburg, die elende liebliche Jung- 
 frau" (xxv, 1251).
 
 76 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 The defeat 
 of the 
 Normans. 
 
 Gudrun 
 compared 
 with the 
 Nibelung- 
 enlied. 
 
 her maids with garments worthy of them, and give them a 
 rich banquet in the privacy of the " kemenate." Early on 
 the following morning the fight begins. In a fierce combat 
 Herwig succeeds in slaying Ludwig; Hartmut's life is saved 
 by the intercession of his sister Ortrun, who from the first has 
 been Gudrun's friend ; he is, however, made prisoner. Wate 
 meanwhile takes fearful " blood-vengeance " upon the rest of 
 the Normans : all are slain except Ortrun, whom Gudrun 
 takes under her protection. Wate strikes off Gerlind's head 
 with words of fiendish irony : 
 
 "kiiniginne here, 
 iu sol mln juncfrouwe iuwer kleider waschen nimmer mere." * 
 
 But the tragic retribution with which Gudrun closes is not 
 entirely unrelieved as in the Nibelungenlied ; for not only is 
 Gudrun united to Herwig, but her brother marries the 
 Norman princess Ortrun, and Hartmut Hildeburg. 
 
 The grandeur and simplicity of the Nibelungenlied are absent 
 in Gudnin ; it is an epic of adventure, a Germanic Odyssey, 
 rather than a pure tragedy of revenge. The construction, too, 
 as we have seen, is looser, and the poetic kernel of the poem 
 more concealed by subsidiary additions. Even the style of 
 Gudrun is unequal ; as it proceeds the epic seems to grow 
 younger. The Hilde romance might be compared with the 
 Nibelungenlied ; the characters of this part of the poem are 
 drawn with bold and simple lines, and the movement of events 
 offers no psychological complications. In the latter part of 
 the epic, however, where Gudrun herself is the central figure, 
 there is a gentler, less primitive spirit ; Christianity has pene- 
 trated more deeply, and the motives of the characters are 
 prompted by the courtly ethics of the twelfth century. The 
 technique, too, is less naive ; it makes higher claims upon the 
 intelligence of the listener or reader. Gudrun herself is more 
 finely delineated than the women of the Nibelungenlied ; she 
 is more human and lovable. Indeed, of all the heroines 6f 
 the popular epic Gudrun shows most resemblance to the 
 characters of the Court epic. Of literary influences upon 
 Gudrun, that of the Nibelungenlied is naturally strongest ; the 
 form of Gudrun, its verse, which is a finer development of the 
 
 1 " 'Hohe Kbnigin, euch soli meine junge Herrin cure Kleider nimmer- 
 mehr waschen ' " (xxix, 1522, 3, 4).
 
 CHAP. IV.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 77 
 
 Nibelungen strophe, 1 and even many of its incidents, are obvi- 
 ously modelled on the older epic. Gudrun is supposed to 
 have been written between 1210 and 1215, but the evidence 
 on which this belief is based is slight, and the only existing 
 MS. dates from the beginning of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Compared with the Nibelungenlied and Gudrun^ the remain- 
 ing popular epics of Middle High German literature are of 
 inferior interest. Many of them are Spielmann's epics of the 
 type of Konig Rother, others, again, attempt to reconcile the 
 popular epic with the Court romance. The dominant influence 
 on all is that of the Nibelungenlied ; without exception, how- 
 ever, the romances of the Heldenbuch 2 the general title under The Hel- 
 which these poems are grouped are deficient in the unity of denbuch - 
 plan and the subordination of the action to one ruling idea, 
 which make the Nibelungenlied so great. The longer poems 
 show all the formlessness of the Court epic, without its 
 psychological delicacy ; the crude fairy lore of the popular 
 imagination, with its dwarfs and dragons, its giants and witch- 
 craft, was obviously more to the tastes of the audience to 
 which the Spielleute appealed, than were the literary graces of 
 Arthurian romance. 
 
 The central figure of the majority of these poems is Theo- Dietrich 
 dorich the Great, who, as we have seen, is known as Dietrich von In> 
 of Bern. Indeed, had the many sagas which centre in Dietrich 
 only met with the same good fortune as those of Siegfried and 
 the Burgundians, they too might have been combined to form 
 a great national epic, and one even more representative of the 
 nation's life and thought than the Nibelungenlied. For it was 
 Dietrich, not Siegfried, who was the highest popular ideal of a 
 hero in the twelfth century. Dietrich was more of a king and 
 leader of men than the less responsible, less deliberate, if more 
 daring and impulsive, hero of the Rhineland ; in Siegfried 
 the popular imagination expressed its delight in its heroes, in 
 Dietrich it expressed its reverential awe for the strong man. 
 
 1 The difference between the strophes of the Nibelungenlied and of Gudrun 
 is that in the latter the second half of the fourth line has five instead of four 
 accentuated syllables ; the third and fourth lines have also double instead of 
 single rhymes (i.e., kiiniginne, minne ; mire, Ire, in place of rhymes such as 
 wip, lip; genant, lant). On the date of Gudrun. cp. A. E. Schonbach, Das 
 Ckristentum in der altdeutschen Heldendichtung, Graz, 1897, 156 ff. 
 
 2 Deutsches Heldenbuch, herausg. von O. Janicke, E. Martin, A. Amelung 
 and J. Zupitza, 5 vols.. Berlin, 1866-73; selections edited by E. Henrici in 
 D.N.L., 7 [1887].
 
 78 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Biterolf 
 
 und 
 
 Dietlieb. 
 
 The Rosen- 
 gar ten. 
 
 Laurin. 
 
 lied. 
 
 Dietrich appears in all these sagas as wise and earnest, a man 
 who thinks well before he acts, who is slow to be moved to 
 wrath, but relentless in the execution of vengeance. He 
 stands in the background of these stories of the Heldenbuch, 
 not inactively like Charles the Great in the Carlovingian 
 romances, or King Arthur in the Court epic, but as a practical 
 ideal of manhood. 
 
 On Biterolf und Dietlieb, a poem written in Austria at the 
 beginning of the thirteenth century, the influence of the 
 Court epic is strong. Like an Arthurian knight, Biterolf has 
 sallied forth from his kingdom at Toledo to prove his mettle 
 at Etzel's Court. Meanwhile his son Dietlieb grows up and 
 feels it his duty to go out into the world to seek his father. 
 After many adventures, father and son ultimately stand face to 
 face in single combat ; but a tragic close, like that of the Hilde- 
 brandslied, is, thanks to Riideger's timely intervention, avoided. 
 The poem concludes with the description of a great tourna- 
 ment at Worms, where Dietrich and Siegfried meet in single 
 combat. Less polished than Biterolf und Dietlieb, the romance 
 of the Rosengarten has more of the character of a Spielmann's 
 epic. According to the saga, Kriemhild possessed a famous 
 " rose-garden " at Worms, which she gave into the keeping of 
 her twelve greatest heroes. In the many conflicts which take 
 place round this rose-garden, Dietrich is always the victor : 
 even Siegfried is obliged to flee from him under Kriemhild's 
 protection. 
 
 In another poem, Laurin und der kleine Rosengarten^ one 
 of the most charming of all these medieval " Volksmarchen," 
 the rose-garden of Worms is transferred to the Tyrol, where 
 a dwarf Laurin watches over it. Whoever breaks the silken 
 thread with which the garden is surrounded, must forfeit 
 his right foot and his left hand. Dietrich and Witege re- 
 solve to undertake the adventure. With the help of Meister 
 Hildebrand they overcome the dwarf, and compel him to 
 open up to them his subterranean kingdom. But Laurin 
 is treacherous : he gives the heroes a sleeping-draught and 
 makes them prisoners. Thus, more dangers and adventures 
 have to be gone through before Laurin is once more caught 
 and carried off in triumph to Verona. The Eckenlied has for 
 
 1 The latest edition, Halle, 1897, is by G. Holz, who has also edited the 
 Rosengarten, Halle, 1893.
 
 CHAP. IV.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 79 
 
 its subject Dietrich's conflicts with the giant Ecke and his 
 brother Fasolt, in the Tyrolese forests. Later poems, again, 
 tell of his adventures with the giant St'genof, with a dwarf 
 king Goldemar?- and of the deeds which he wrought in 
 the service of Queen Virginal. The ultimate basis of all 
 these giant stories is obviously the same mythological idea 
 which lies behind the Nibelungenlied and Gudrun, namely, 
 the conflict of sunshine and storm, of light and darkness, 
 which made so deep an impression on the imagination of all 
 Aryan peoples. Dietrich, no less than Beowulf or Siegfried, 
 was originally a god of light. 
 
 The noblest epic of the Dietrich cycle is Alpharts Tod ; Alpharts 
 no other poem of this group shows so much of the tragic Tod ' 
 dignity of the Nibelungenlied. Although probably written 
 in the second half of the thirteenth century, we may think of 
 it as an episode in the great unwritten Dietrich epic. Alphart 
 is a young hero in Dietrich's army who, in spite of warn- 
 ings, sets out from Verona to watch Ermanarich's movements. 
 After much brave fighting against unfair odds, he falls by 
 reason of his own generosity, being killed by the treachery of 
 Witege, whose life he has spared. In Dietrichs Flucht^ again, Dietrich: 
 we have what might have formed the beginning of the Dietrich Flucht - 
 epic. Unfortunately, however, this beginning was made too 
 late. The Austrian Spielmann he calls himself Heinrich der 
 Vogler who wrote Dietrichs Flucht and the romance of the 
 Rabenschlacht (i.e., " Ravenna-Schlacht "), which immediately The/?a^- 
 follows it, lived at the close of the thirteenth century, when schlacht - 
 the best period of the popular epic was over. The subject 
 of these epics is Dietrich's feud with Ermanarich, and the 
 treason of his own vassals Witege and Heime. Dietrich is 
 compelled to seek help from Etzel ; he marries Etzel's niece, 
 and, with the help of the Huns, makes repeated inroads into 
 Ermanarich's kingdom. At the battle of Ravenna, Dietrich's 
 combat with the traitor Witege stands in the foreground of 
 events. The latter has slain Etzel's two young sons, and Diet- 
 rich is in pursuit of him. They reach the shore of the sea ; 
 Witege seems lost, when suddenly a nixe of his own kin ap- 
 pears and carries him beneath the waves, beyond the reach 
 
 1 Goldemar is one of the few poems of its class to which the author's name is 
 attached, Albrecht von Kemenaten. Whether Albrecht also wrote other 
 poems of this group it is impossible to determine, as only a few short fragments 
 of Goldemar have been preserved.
 
 80 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 of Dietrich's vengeance. The style of both these poems is 
 wearisome and diffuse, and shows all the faults of the decay- 
 ing epic. 
 
 Besides the cycle of romances centring in Dietrich, the 
 Heldenbuch contains two stories, those of Ortnit and Wolf- 
 dietrich, which, although not immediately connected with 
 the Dietrich cycle, have certain points of contact with it. 
 Ortnit. Ortnit is a characteristic Spielmann's romance of the best 
 period, the earlier years of the thirteenth century. The hero 
 is King of Lamparten (Lombardy), and resides at Garten 
 (Garda). Like King Rother and so many other heroes of this 
 class of epic, he resolves to marry a foreign princess, and with 
 the help of his dwarf, Alberich, he succeeds in carrying her off. 
 His father-in-law takes a peculiar revenge by sending a brood 
 of dragons into Ortnit's country, Ortnit himself being killed 
 by one of these animals. The same Spielmann who wrote 
 Wolf- Ortnit was also probably the author of the version of Wolf- 
 
 dietrich. dietrich which follows it in the MSS. King Hugdietrich of 
 Constantinople with whom there may possibly be blended 
 the tradition of a Merovingian king, Theodorich has two 
 sons ; a third is born while he is away from home, and shows 
 such strength that the devil is rumoured to have been his 
 father. Hugdietrich, whose suspicions are aroused by his 
 vassal Sabene, intrusts the faithful Duke Berchtung of Meran 
 with the task of killing the child. Berchtung has not the 
 heart to take its life, but leaves it by a pool of water in the 
 forest, in the hope that it will try to pluck the water-lilies 
 growing in the pool and fall in. But the child plays happily 
 all day long, and when the beasts of the forest come down 
 to drink in the moonlight they leave it unmolested, a 
 group of wolves even sitting round it in a circle. Next day 
 Berchtung gives the child, whom he calls Wolfdietrich, to a 
 peasant to bring up. The king repents, Wolfdietrich is brought 
 back, and the evil councillor is banished ; but the king 
 has already divided his kingdom among his sons, and Wolf- 
 dietrich, who is placed under Berchtung's care, goes empty- 
 handed. After Hugdietrich's death the banished vassal Sabene 
 returns, and again raises the rumour of Wolfdietrich's super- 
 natural origin. Hugdietrich's queen is in consequence exiled, 
 and finds refuge with Berchtung, who, with his sixteen sons, 
 stands on Wolfdietrich's side in his feud with his brothers. A
 
 CHAP. IV.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 8 1 
 
 great battle takes place in which the brothers are defeated but 
 escape, while on Wolfdietrich's side none is left but Wolf- 
 dietrich himself, Duke Berchtung, and ten of his sons. The Duke 
 enemy returns with a fresh army and hems them in ; the hero 
 himself, however, succeeds in making his escape to the sons. 
 Court of King Ortnit, from whom he hopes to gain assistance. 
 But Ortnit is already dead, and it falls to Wolfdietrich 
 to take up the conflict with the dragons. Here the oldest 
 version of the story of Wolfdietrich breaks off. It is told 
 with the fresh vigour which characterises the work of the 
 earlier thirteenth century, but in the continuation, written by 
 a much later poet, the degeneration of the Spielmann's art is 
 plainly visible. Wolfdietrich succeeds in killing the dragons, 
 and becomes King of Lamparten. Then he goes out in quest 
 of his faithful vassals. Berchtung has in the mean time died, 
 and his ten sons are prisoners in Constantinople. These 
 Wolfdietrich rescues ; he takes revenge upon his enemies, and 
 ultimately retires to a monastery. Of three other versions 
 of the Wolfdietrich saga which have been preserved either 
 complete or in fragments, none can be compared with the 
 oldest. In one of these versions there is a long introduction, 
 relating Hugdietrich's love-adventures with Hildburg, who is Hugdiet- 
 kept prisoner by her father in a tower. To this tower nch " 
 Hugdietrich gains access in the disguise of a woman. 
 
 The poetic kernel of the epics of Wolfdietrich is the 
 relation of Berchtung and his sons to the hero. Clearer here 
 than ever shines the old Germanic conception of unswerv- 
 ing loyalty. Berchtung is the incorporation of this loyalty, 
 which, more than anything else, gives the tone to the whole 
 "Volksepos." If we look back on the motives that have 
 actuated all these heroes and heroines of the sagas, Siegfried 
 as well as Hagen, Kriemhild as well as Gudrun, Dietrich, and 
 Berchtung, it will be found that the first and highest place 
 always belongs to diu triuwe.
 
 82 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE COURT EPIC : HEINRICH VON VELDEKE, HARTMAN, 
 AND WOLFRAM. 
 
 A NOTEWORTHY feature of the two great epochs of German 
 literary history is the shortness of their duration : events 
 of the first magnitude crowded with confusing rapidity 
 upon one another, and, within the narrow limits of a decade, 
 masterpieces were produced such as, in other literatures, are 
 spread over generations. In Italy, for instance, Dante was 
 dead before Petrarch and Boccaccio began to write : sixty 
 years lay between the Orlando furioso and the Gerusa- 
 lemme liberata. But in Germany, all that is greatest in 
 Middle High German poetry was written at the turn of the 
 twelfth and thirteenth centuries, within the space of thirty 
 years ; when Goethe was born, the Bliitezeit of New High 
 German literature had only begun, when he died it was 
 already over. The shortness, or rather concentration, of 
 the earlier period is less easy to account for than that of 
 the modern classical period ; no law can explain why great 
 popular epics like the Nibelungenlied and Gudrun, master- 
 pieces of the Court epic like Parzival and Tristan, and 
 the finest lyrics in the whole range of medieval literature, 
 should have originated, if not simultaneously, at least within 
 a very few years of one another. Compared with this, French 
 medieval literature seems to have a long and steady record 
 behind it, and it cannot be said that the conditions in 
 Germany from the eleventh to the fourteenth century were 
 more unfavourable to literary production than in France. 
 The Court The beginnings of the Court epic in Germany have already 
 epic ' been traced in the clerical poetry of Lamprecht and Konrad, 
 
 and in the half-popular, half-courtly Tristrant of Eilhart von
 
 CHAP. V.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 83 
 
 Oberge. The traditions of the thirteenth century, ignoring 
 these beginnings, point unanimously to Heinrich von Veldeke Heinrich 
 as the founder of this class of epic : Gottfried von Strassburg 
 says of him 
 
 ' ' er impete das erste rts 
 in tiutescher zungen : 
 da von sit este ersprungen, 
 von den die bluomen kamen." 1 
 
 Although this may not be strictly in accordance with facts, 
 Heinrich von Veldeke must at least be recognised as the first 
 of the Court poets to attain a technical perfection in his art. 
 
 Like the unknown authors of Rother and Herzog Ernst, 
 Heinrich von Veldeke came from the Lower Rhineland ; his 
 family belonged to the neighbourhood of Maestricht. Edu- 
 cated probably for the Church, he was not without learning, 
 and about 1170 translated into German verses the legend Servatius, 
 of Servatius, the patron saint of Maestricht. Heinrich's ca - II7 - 
 Servatius' 2 ' does not, however, rise above the level of the 
 legendary poetry of the time. His fame as an epic poet rests 
 exclusively upon his romance of ^Eneas, the Eneit? Not Eneit, ca. 
 Virgil, but the French Roman d'Eneas, is the source of Hein- II 75' 86 - 
 rich's epic. In the hands of the French author, the ALneid had 
 already been converted into an epic of chivalry ; the scenery, 
 the costumes, and the whole atmosphere of the poem are of 
 the twelfth century ; the loves of ^Eneas and Dido, of Turnus 
 and Lavinia, these are the themes on which the gallantry of 
 the French poet loves to linger : in other words, the calm, 
 classical spirit of Virgil has disappeared behind the brilliant 
 phantasmagoria of medieval society. Out of this many-coloured 
 French romance, Heinrich von Veldeke formed his Eneit. 
 Like all the Court poets, he is anything but a faithful trans- 
 lator ; he curtails or extends his original as seems good to him, 
 and his alterations are generally improvements. The Germanic 
 spirit shows itself in the endeavour to deepen the psychology 
 of the original, to lay more emphasis upon the motives 
 which actuate the characters. Most important of all, Hein- 
 rich has succeeded in completely transplanting the French 
 
 __ i " Er impfte das erste Reis in deutscher Zunge ; davon entsprangen daim 
 Aste, von welchen die Blumen kamen " ( Tristan, 4736-39). 
 
 a Ed. P. Piper in Die hofische Epik, i (D.N.L., 4,' i [1892]), 81 ff. 
 
 3 Ed. O. Behagel, Heilbronn, 1882 ; also D.N.L., I.e., 241 ff.
 
 84 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Herbert 
 
 von 
 
 Fritzlar. 
 
 Albrecht 
 von Hal- 
 berstadt. 
 
 poem into his own literature ; it has become German 
 German in language, German in spirit and in the music of 
 its verses. 
 
 The Eneit is a book with a history. Before Heinrich had 
 finished it he gave it to his patroness, the Grafin of Cleves, 
 who was betrothed to Landgraf Ludwig III. of Thuringia. 
 At her marriage the manuscript passed into the hands of a 
 Graf Heinrich, who sent it to Thuringia, where it was re- 
 modelled in the dialect of Central Germany. To the poet 
 himself, it was lost for nine years ; at last, the great patron of 
 German medieval literature, Landgraf Herman then still 
 Saxon Pfalzgraf returned it to him that he might finish it 
 in Thuringia. Thus, although begun in the early 'seventies, 
 the Eneit was not completed until about 1186. 
 
 Towards the beginning of the thirteenth century, Heinrich 
 von Veldeke's example in acclimatising the French romance 
 of antiquity found an imitator in Herbert von Fritzlar, a 
 clerical poet of Hesse, who, also under the patronage of 
 Landgraf Herman, prepared a German version of Benoit de 
 Sainte More's Roman de Troie. This French romance is 
 drawn in the main from two sources, which the middle ages 
 regarded as authentic records of the Trojan war that of the 
 pretended Phrygian Dares, whose sympathies were with Troy, 
 and who was consequently given the preference, and that of 
 the Cretan Dictys, who was on the side of the Greeks. These 
 writings, together with a short Latin epitome of the Iliad, 
 formed the foundation for the widely spread Trojan saga of 
 pre- Renaissance literature. The Liet von Troye^- is more 
 than 18,000 lines long, and belongs to a much lower literary 
 plane than the Eneit. Herbert has not his predecessor's 
 ability to maintain the reader's interest. He curtails rather 
 than extends his original, and what he adds to it does not 
 bear witness to much poetic originality. 
 
 With Heinrich von Veldeke and Herbert von Fritzlar it 
 is usual to associate another clerical poet, Albrecht von Hal- 
 berstadt, the head of the convent school in the monastery of 
 Jechaburg, who, in 1210, translated Ovid's Metamorphoses into 
 German verse. 2 This earliest German Ovid, of which, un- 
 
 P. Pjper. Diehofische Epik, i (D.N.L., 4, I [1892]), 282 ff. 
 in D.N.L., 4, i [1892], 338 ff. 
 
 2 Ed. P. Piper in 
 Halberstadt, Quedlinburg, 1861. 
 
 Cp. K. Bartsch, Albrecht von
 
 CHAP. V.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 85 
 
 fortunately, only a very short fragment has been preserved, 
 is a direct translation from the Latin, not by way of the 
 French. There is thus more of the spirit of antiquity here 
 than in either the Emit or the Liet von Troye, but Albrecht 
 is under the influence of the literary models of his time : in 
 translating the classical images, he falls back with preference 
 upon the conventional phrases of the French epic. His 
 poetic talent was not great, and his book which also seems 
 to have been inspired by the Landgraf of Thuringia was not 
 very widely read. The subject, as may be inferred from the 
 popularity of Jorg Wickram's version (1545) of Albrecht's 
 Metamorphosen, was more to the taste of the sixteenth century 
 than of the middle ages. 
 
 To these first Court epics, which are grouped round 
 Heinrich von Veldeke, belong also two Middle German 
 poems from French sources, written about the beginning 
 of the thirteenth century namely, Athis und Prophilias, Athis vnd 
 which, to judge from the few fragments that have been pr P h * lias - 
 preserved, was possibly the work of a Spielmann, and Era- Eraclius, 
 clius, a strange medley of Christian fervour and Epicurean 
 worldliness. 1 
 
 But the master-poets who were to bring the Court epic to 
 perfection were not, like most of the poets hitherto con- 
 sidered, natives of North or Middle Germany ; they were, 
 without exception, High Germans. The first of these in point 
 of time, Hartman von Aue, was a Swabian. He belonged to Hartman 
 the lower nobility, and stood in the relation of " dienstman " 
 or vassal to a noble Herr von Aue, whose castle was probably 1215. 
 at what is now Obernau, near Rotenburg on the Neckar. 
 But the localisation of Aue, like most facts in Hartman's life, 
 is largely a matter of conjecture. Before going out into the 
 world he received a scholarly education in some monastery. 
 An unhappy love affair seems to have thrown a shadow 
 over his life, and the death of his liege lord was another 
 sorrow to him. These were perhaps the reasons for his ab- 
 juring his worldly life and joining the unfortunate crusade of 
 1196-97. He may have been born about 1170; in 1210, 
 
 1 Ed. W. Grimm, Berlin, 1846, and H. Graef (Quellen vnd Forschungtn, 50), 
 Strassburg, 1883. Heinrich von Veldeke's influence is also noticeable in the 
 romance of Moriz von Craon, edited by E. Schroder in Zwei altdeutsche 
 Rit/ermceren, Berlin, 1894. Cp. D.N.L., 2, 2, 301 ff.
 
 86 
 
 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Hartman's 
 two Buch- 
 lein. 
 
 Arthurian 
 romance. 
 
 Gottfried von Strassburg speaks of him as a living contem- 
 porary, but he was dead before I22O. 1 
 
 To the earlier years of Hartman's life belong his lyrics, which 
 will be discussed later, and the first of two longer poems of the 
 class known at that time as Biichlein, or " love epistles." In 
 his first Biichlein or Klage, the poet pours out his sorrows at 
 his lady's feet, in the form of a dialogue between body and 
 heart, modelled on the dialogues of "Soul and Body," which 
 are to be met with in the early stages of all Western litera- 
 tures. Hartman's authorship of the second " kleinez biiechel," 
 the tone of which is less restrained than that of the first, is 
 doubtful ; but if not by Hartman, it is at least by a poet 
 who was influenced by him. Of his four epic poems, Erec 
 is the earliest, and may have been written in 1191 or 1192; 
 Iwein, on the other hand, is much riper, and was probably 
 composed at least ten years later; between Erec and Iwein 
 falls Gregorius. Hartman's fourth poem, Der arme Hein- 
 rich, may possibly have been written before Iwein, but there 
 is more likelihood that it was his last work. 
 
 Erec is a landmark of importance, for, apart from the 
 crude Tristrant of Eilhart, it is the first Arthurian romance 
 in German literature. The historical origin of the legends 
 which centre in King Artus or Arthur has been traced 
 to the conflicts between Kelt and Anglo-Saxon in the sixth 
 century ; other authorities, again, incline to the view that 
 these legends originated in the remote past of the Kelts 
 of Brittany. However this may be, the Arthurian legend, as 
 it concerns us here, first appears in a romantic Latin history 
 of the twelfth century by Geoffrey of Monmouth. This history 
 was translated into French by Wace, and provided Crestien de 
 Troyes with the materials for his epics. With Crestien, the 
 Arthurian legend became the chosen theme for the poetry of 
 chivalry : in his hands all that was Keltic or purely national 
 was stripped off; King Arthur himself, instead of being an 
 active champion of knighthood, became, like Charles the Great 
 in the Carlovingian sagas, a figure in the background, a calm 
 ideal of the highest knightly life. About King Arthur gathered 
 
 1 A serviceable edition of Hartman's works is that by F. Bech, 3 vols., 3rd 
 ed., Leipzig; 1891-93. Selections, edited by P. Piper, will be found in D.N.L., 
 4, 2 [1893], i ff. Cp. A. E. Schonbach, Ober Hartmann von Aue, Graz, 1894, 
 and T. Piquet, tude sur Hartmann dAtie, Paris, 1898.
 
 CHAP. V.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 87 
 
 the young heroes of the Round Table, each of whom became 
 in his own way the centre of a story and an exemplar of 
 chivalry. The Arthurian legend, although thus Keltic in its 
 origins, was identified with the life and ideals of the twelfth 
 century ; as a channel of literary expression it was preferred 
 to the sagas of antiquity, of Charles the Great, or even to the 
 legends that sprang up round events of the more immediate 
 past ; and in Germany, to a greater degree than in France, it 
 served for the highest flights of medieval poetry. 
 
 To Crestien de Troyes, Hartman is indebted for the origi- Erec. 
 nals of his two Arthurian epics, Erec and Iwein}- Erec, a 
 young knight of the Round Table, wins the hand of Enite, 
 the daughter of a poor Graf, and in his excess of love for her 
 neglects his duties as a knight. His friends blame Enite for 
 her husband's sloth, and she is filled with sorrow. Erec, acci- 
 dentally overhearing her plaints, bids her prepare at once for 
 a journey ; he arms himself, and both set out into the world, 
 Enite, whom he has forbidden to speak a word, riding before 
 him like a common squire. In the adventures which befall 
 them, Enite, by warning her husband and thus disobeying his 
 commands, repeatedly saves his life, until at last, after the 
 most terrible fight of all, he falls insensible and his wife be- 
 lieves him dead. In heartrending tones she pours out her 
 grief to the forest, and is about to slay herself with Erec's 
 sword, when a stranger finds her and takes her, and her 
 dead husband with her, to his castle. It soon appears, how- 
 ever, that the stranger's motives are not of the purest : 
 Enite's cries awaken her husband from his swoon ; he slays 
 her persecutor and rescues her. This is, properly speaking, 
 the end of the story ; but the poet adds still another adven- 
 ture, in which Erec overcomes a knight, whose wife has made 
 him promise never to leave her side until he is vanquished in 
 single combat. 
 
 Although adhering more closely to its French original 
 than Erec, Hartman's second romance is more beautiful 
 in its language, more harmonious in style and form, and 
 finer in its psychology ; indeed, Iwein is the most perfectly 
 proportioned of all the German Arthurian epics. The hero's 
 spirit of adventure is stimulated by a story which one of his 
 
 1 Erec, ed. M. Haupt, and ed., Leipzig, 1871 ; Iwein, ed. E. Henrici, Halle, 
 1891-93-
 
 88 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 k fellow-knights relates of a magic spring in the heart of a great 
 forest. If any one pour water from this spring upon a stone 
 that lies near it, a storm arises, and the lord of the spring 
 appears to challenge the intruder. Artus proposes to under- 
 take the adventure after the lapse of a fortnight, but Iwein 
 secretly resolves to try his fortune beforehand. He success- 
 fully overcomes and slays the keeper of the spring, but finds 
 himself a prisoner between two portcullises in the latter's 
 castle. From this position he escapes with the aid of the 
 queen's maid, Lunete, who endows him with invisibility ; he 
 loves and wins the love of Laudine, the widowed queen, and 
 when Artus and his Court arrive at the spring, he is the 
 knight who successfully defends it. He entertains the Court 
 in the castle, and when they depart, Gawain warns him not 
 to forget, like Erec, the duties of knighthood in his love 
 for Laudine. But Iwein is a hero of another kind ; he leaves 
 his wife, and, in his quest of adventures, forgets his vow to 
 return to her at the end of a year. When Lunete, who has 
 been sent by Laudine in quest of him, reminds him of his vow, 
 he is so overwhelmed that he goes mad and lives for a time 
 naked in the forest. After he has been restored to health, he 
 has still other trials and adventures to go through amongst 
 them, one in which he rescues a lion, and the last and hardest 
 of all in which he overcomes Gawain before he finds his 
 queen again and is reconciled to her. 
 
 Gregorius. Hartman's legend of Gregorius, " der guote sundaere," 
 was in all probability written about the same time as his 
 religious poetry : like the latter, it bears witness to the 
 revulsion of feeling which set in with the tragic change in 
 the poet's life. Asceticism has here taken the place of the 
 careless joie de vivre of Arthurian chivalry. It is a strange 
 legend this of St Gregory, a legend which unites the Greek 
 idea of destiny, as it appears in the saga of GEdipus, with 
 the Christian belief in the power of repentance. Gregorius 
 is the child of a brother and sister and marries his own 
 mother. When he learns the terrible truth, he has himself 
 chained to a lonely rock in the sea, where for seventeen 
 years his only nourishment is the water that drops upon the 
 stone. At the end of his long penance, he is ordained Pope 
 
 Der arm, ty the voice of God ' 
 
 Heinrich. Der arme Heinrich is another example of the treatment of
 
 CHAP. V.J MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 89 
 
 the monastic legend in the style of the Court epic, but its 
 religious fervour is less ruthless than that of Gregorius. There 
 is an odour of monastic asceticism still clinging to it, but the 
 poet is clearly on the way to a more harmonious conception 
 of life. In certain respects Der arme Heinrich is the most 
 charming and delicate of all Hartman's poems ; it has none of 
 the wider issues of Iwein, but, on the other hand, it lies more 
 within the sphere of modern sympathies. An idyll rather than 
 an epic, it is the first example of that class of poetry which 
 in New High German literature culminates in Hermann und 
 Dorothea. For Der arme Heinrich, Hartman had no French 
 model. It is probable that he found the legend in some 
 Latin chronicle of the family in whose service he stood. 
 The " arme Heinrich " of the poem is a certain Heinrich 
 von Aue, who, at the height of his prosperity, is struck with 
 leprosy. There is only one remedy for the disease the 
 blood of a young girl who is ready to sacrifice herself 
 voluntarily for him. The daughter of a farmer, with whom 
 he has taken refuge, offers herself, although hardly more 
 than a child, as the sacrifice. At the last moment, how- 
 ever, when Heinrich hears the knife which is to take her 
 life being whetted, he repents : he calls to the physician 
 to stay his hand : 
 
 " ditz kind ist als6 wiinneclich. 
 zware jd enmac ich 
 stnen t6t niht gesehen. 
 gottes wille miieze an mir geschehen. 
 wir suln si wider uf Ian." z 
 
 The disease disappears by a miracle, and the girl, who has 
 thus saved Heinrich's life, ultimately becomes his wife. 
 
 The chief charm of Hartman's poetry for us is one of Hartman's 
 form, a charm of flowing narrative, 2 of vivid pictures, of deli- st y le - 
 cately balanced style. In a higher degree than any other of 
 Crestien's German imitators, Hartman has learned the French 
 
 1 " Dies Kind ist so wonniglich. Ich kann fiirwahr ihren Tod nicht sehen. 
 Gottes Wille mbge an mir geschehen. Wir sollen sie wieder auf lassen " (11. 
 1273-77). The metre of the Middle High German Court epic consists of simple 
 rhymed couplets, each of which contains four stress syllables. 
 
 2 Cp. Gottfried von Strassburg's lines on Hartman : 
 
 " Wie luter und wie reine 
 stn kristalllniu wortelin 
 beidiu sint und iemer muezen stn ! " 
 
 Tristan, 4626 ff.
 
 90 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Wolfram 
 von 
 
 Eschen- 
 bach, ca. 
 1170-1220. 
 
 Wolfram's 
 natural- 
 ness. 
 
 master's art of telling a story. Crestien's blunt, straight- 
 forward realism, however, is absent; Hartman polishes, re- 
 fines, even moralises, where Crestien is content to entertain. 
 And behind the formal beauty of his work, we look in vain 
 for much to interest us. His poetry is rich in strong con- 
 trasts and conflicts, as his own life probably was ; it bears 
 the stamp of a dualism, which is to be found more or less in 
 all medieval imaginative work. But Hartman is not a brood- 
 ing thinker like Wolfram von Eschenbach ; he does not try to 
 understand the dualism which he feels so keenly ; his aim is 
 rather to discover some golden mean between a worldly 
 life on the one side and asceticism on the other. " Modera- 
 tion," diu maze, is his watchword in all things in his 
 thoughts as in his style. Poets of this type do not mark 
 epochs in the literature of the world, but, to uncouth ages, 
 they teach the lesson of form and measured beauty. It is 
 only unfortunate that Hartman's influence upon his successors 
 was not greater than was actually the case ; for the crying evil 
 of the entire Court epic is its want of maze. 
 
 Wolfram von Eschenbach, the second of the three chief 
 poets of the Court epic, is the greatest German poet of the 
 middle ages, the greatest poet in modern European litera- 
 ture before the dawn of the Renaissance. Of his life 
 we know nothing except what he himself tells us. He 
 may have been born about 1170 and he died about 1220. 
 Parzival was composed in the same decade that saw the 
 production of Hartman's and Gottfried's masterpieces, of 
 Walther's finest lyrics, the first decade of the twelfth century, 
 the most brilliant in the history of medieval literature. Wolf- 
 ram takes his name from the little Bavarian town of Eschen- 
 bach, which lies several miles to the south-east of Ansbach ; 
 here he was probably born, and he may also have been a 
 vassal in the service of a Graf von Wertheim, who had posses- 
 sions in the neighbourhood. He was not a learned poet like 
 Hartman ; he boasts that he could neither read nor write ; 
 but this is certainly not to be taken too strictly, for his liter- 
 ary knowledge was wide. The comparative illiterateness on 
 Wolfram's part may, however, explain the peculiarly natural 
 tone of his verse : he seems less trammelled by literary con- 
 ventions than the ordinary Court poet. He has little of Hart- 
 man's moderation, and his fondness for mysticism and obscurity
 
 CHAP. V.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 91 
 
 brought upon him the displeasure of his contemporary, Gott- 
 fried von Strassburg. 1 His verses re-echo the fresh, clear 
 notes of the great national epics, which, as we have seen, 
 were most alive in South Germany. His own communings 
 with nature, and his love for the forest, for its birds, its sun- 
 shine, and its gloomy depths, have passed over into his poetry 
 irrespective of all canons of a courtly art ; his sturdy humour 
 is always ready to burst the boundaries of a polite irony. 
 
 Like so many of his contemporaries, Wolfram von Eschen- 
 bach enjoyed the protection of the Landgraf Herman of 
 Thuringia ; he was repeatedly a guest of this generous patron 
 in the Wartburg at Eisenach, and there is ground for believ- 
 ing that at least the sixth and seventh books of Parzival were 
 composed in the Wartburg shortly after the summer of 1203. 
 It was, moreover, at the Landgraf's suggestion that Wolfram 
 undertook his Willehalm ; he was still engaged on this poem 
 when Herman died in 1217, and was himself overtaken by 
 death before he had had time to finish it. He lies buried 
 in the Frauenkirche of Eschenbach. 2 
 
 The sources of Wolfram's Parzival are wrapped in a 
 mystery which it is hopeless to try to pierce. Only one The 
 version of the story is known to which he could have had 
 access namely, Crestien de Troyes' Perceval le Gallois ou le 
 Conte del Graal ; and this poem Wolfram has undoubtedly 
 followed closely ; but it was not his only source. From 
 Crestien we learn nothing of Gahmuret, Parzival's father, 
 whose adventures fill the first two books of the German epic, 
 and the contents of the last three of the sixteen books are 
 also not to be found in the unfinished French romance. 
 Moreover, Wolfram differs in many points of detail from 
 Crestien. The German poet himself cites as his authority a 
 certain Provencal singer, Kyot (Guiot), whose version he 
 considers more correct than Crestien's, but no mention of 
 this Kyot is to be found in either French or German sources. 
 
 The Parzival saga, which is, at bottom, akin to the tales 
 
 1 Tristan, 4636 ff. 
 
 2 The editio princeps of Wolfram is that by K. Lachmann, 5th ed., Berlin, 
 1891 ; a convenient edition of Parzival and Titurel by K. Bartsch, 3 vols., 
 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1875-77 ; these epics have also been edited by E. Martin, I, 
 Halle, 1900. In D.N.L. Wolfram is edited by P. Piper (5, 1-4 [1890-93]). 
 Cp. San Marte, Leben and Dichten Wolfram -von Eschenbachs, 3rd. ed., 
 Halle, 1886. Of modern German translations of Parzival the best are by 
 G. Botticher, Berlin, 1895, and W. Hertz, Stuttgart, 1898.
 
 92 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Parzival's 
 father. 
 
 Parzival in 
 the forest. 
 
 of simpletons in folklore, was not originally part of the 
 Arthurian cycle, but seems at an early date to have become 
 associated with it. Crestien had already caught a glimpse 
 of the deeper significance of the fool who, in his very guile- 
 lessness, discovers the Gral, but it remained for the German 
 poet to invest the story with its full spiritual meaning. Wolf- 
 ram is inferior to Crestien in the art of story-telling, but he is 
 the greater poet. Parzival is more than an enthralling epic 
 of chivalry ; it is the history of a human soul which passes 
 through life and its temptations, untarnished by zwivel, by 
 vacillation of character. Wolfram's hero is, to quote the 
 opening lines of the poem, no " magpie " hero, half white, half 
 black : his soul is spotless ; he is the exemplar of what to 
 Wolfram, as to the poets of the popular epic, was the highest 
 virtue, diu triuwe. 
 
 The first two books of the epic are occupied with the 
 history of Parzival's father, Gahmuret of Anjou, who, like 
 so many brave souls in the age of the Crusades, seeks his 
 fortune in the East. Coming to the Moorish country of 
 Zazamanc, he wins the hand of its queen, Belakane, but 
 before their son Feirefiz is born, Gahmuret's restless spirit 
 has driven him out once more in quest of adventure. At a 
 great tournament in France, the prize, Queen Herzeloyde of 
 Waleis (Valois), falls to him ; he annuls his marriage with the 
 heathen Mooress and Herzeloyde becomes his wife. But even 
 yet he cannot rest ; he goes out again into the world, and 
 falls in battle, in the service of the Caliph of Bagdad. Shortly 
 after the news of Gahmuret's death has reached Herzeloyde, 
 their son Parzival is born, and, to preserve him from the 
 temptations which had proved so fatal to his father, Herze- 
 loyde withdraws from her Court, into the solitude of a forest. 
 Here young Parzival grows up, shorn of all the glory and 
 ignorant of all the ceremony that surrounds a king's son : 
 
 " Bogen unde bolzelin 
 die sneit er mit sin selhes hant, 
 und sch6z vil vogele, die er vant. 
 swenne ab er den vogel erschfiz, 
 des schal von sange e was s6 gr6z, 
 s6 weinde er unde roufte sich, 
 an sin bar kert' er gerich. 
 sin lip was klar unde fier : 
 (if dem plan am rivier
 
 CHAP. V.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 93 
 
 twuog er sich alle morgen. 
 er'n kunde niht gesorgen, 
 ez enwsere ob im der vogelsanc, 
 die siie/e in sin herze dranc : 
 daz erstracte im siniu briistelin. 
 al weinde er lief zer kiinegin. 
 s6 sprach sie ' wer hat dir getan ? 
 du wser' bin uz uf den plan.' 
 er'n kunde es ir gesagen niht, 
 als kinden lihte noch geschiht." 1 
 
 From his mother's lips he learns that though God " is 
 brighter than the day, yet His countenance is as the counten- 
 ances of men." To Him Parzival must turn in time of need, 
 for He is always ready with His help. One day, wandering 
 farther than usual from home, he meets three knights clad in 
 armour ; remembering his mother's words, he thinks each of 
 them must be a god and falls on his knees before them. 
 From them he acquires the knowledge his mother would fain 
 have kept from him namely, what knighthood is, and that 
 this knighthood comes from King Artus (Arthur). He can- Parzival 
 not rest until he has reached the Court of Artus and become f^o^e* 
 a knight ; but his mother dresses him in a fool's dress, in the world, 
 hope that he may be laughed at and frightened home again 
 to her. Thus ends this idyll of the forest, and Parzival 
 sallies out into the world, in all* the foolishness of perfect 
 innocence. 
 
 A tragic fate now begins to envelop Parzival's life. Un- 
 known to him, the parting with his mother has broken her 
 heart ; in naive and childlike obedience to the advice she 
 has given him, he robs a great lady of ring and brooch, and 
 thereby unconsciously brings upon the lady the hardest of 
 trials. In conflict with the Red Knight, Ither, he kills him 
 with his gabylof, in guileless ignorance of the laws of chivalry, 
 which forbid the use of this weapon. From Artus's camp, Parzival 
 before Nantes, he sallies forth once more and reaches the 
 
 castle. 
 
 1 " Bogen und kleine Bolzen, [die] schnitt er mil eigner Hand und schoss 
 viel V8gel, die er fand. Wenn er aber den Vogel erschossen hatte, dessen 
 Gesanges Schall vorher so laut war, so weinte er und raufte sich (das 
 Haar) ; an seinem Haare liess er seine Rache aus. Sein Leib war schon und 
 stattlich ; auf dem Plan am Bache wusch er sich alle Morgen. Er wusste 
 nichts von Sorgen, es ware denn der Vogelgesang iiber ihm, der suss in sein 
 Herz drang ; das dehnte ihm sein Briistlein aus. [All] weinend lief er zur 
 Konigin. Da sprach sie: 'Wer hat dir (etwas) gethan? Du bist hinaus 
 (gegangen) auf den Plan.' Er konnte es ihr nicht sagen, wie es Kindern 
 leicht noch (jetzt) geschieht" (118, 4-22).
 
 94 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Condwir- 
 amurs. 
 
 castle of the old knight Gurnemanz of Graharz, who receives 
 him hospitably, and teaches him the wisdom of life and the 
 laws of knighthood. Once more he sets out, still innocent of 
 wrong, but no longer a simpleton, and by his first knightly 
 deed wins the heart and hand of the beautiful young queen 
 Condwiramurs, who becomes his wife. The yearning to see 
 his mother, of whose death he does not learn till later, is the 
 occasion for Parzival's next journey. Towards evening on the 
 first day he arrives at a lake, and inquires of some fishers 
 where he may find a night's lodging. The most distinguished 
 among the fishers directs Parzival to a castle in the neigh- 
 bourhood, where he will himself be his host. Here he is well 
 ' received and led into a hall where sit four hundred knights ; 
 his host, beside whom he is placed, suffers from a wound that 
 will not heal, and is no other than King Anfortas, the King 
 The Gral. of the Gral. The mystic ceremony of the Gral, a precious 
 stone of wondrous power, 1 is now gone through before him ; 
 Parzival sees the bleeding spear borne through the hall, and 
 hears the wailing and groaning of the knights at its sight ; and 
 through a half-open door he catches a glimpse of King Titurel, 
 old and ashen pale. But he sees and hears all this in silence ; 
 no question as to why Anfortas has to suffer, or what this 
 mystic ceremony means, crosses his lips, for Gurnemanz has 
 taught him not to be over-curious. Next morning, when he 
 wakens, he finds the company of the previous evening gone, 
 and wanders out again into the forest ; too late he learns that 
 he has been in the castle of Munsalvasche, the castle of the 
 Gral. Not, however, until he has reached the camp of Artus, 
 and been received with all honours at the Round Table, does 
 he learns how serious has been his omission to ask Anfortas 
 why he suffered. The sorceress Cundrie, the ill-favoured mes- 
 senger of the Gral, suddenly appears and curses Parzival for 
 his lack of sympathy. His guilt now rises before him in all 
 its blackness : dishonoured and imbittered, he leaves Artus's 
 table to seek the Gral and repair his fatal omission. In 
 
 1 The Gral of the saga was originally a vessel which was always full : in a 
 later, religious version, it became identified with the cup from which Christ 
 drank at the Last Supper and in which Joseph of Arimathea received His 
 blood when He was nailed on the cross. To Crestien and Wolfram, it is a 
 precious stone with miraculous powers of supplying meat and drink ; but once 
 a year, on Good Friday, these powers need to be renewed by a dove from 
 heaven. 
 
 Cundrie.
 
 CHAP. V.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 95 
 
 his despair he again asks the childish question he had Parzival's 
 put to his mother in the forest, "We, waz ist got? Were des P air - 
 He mighty, He would not have brought such shame 
 upon me ! I have served Him since I have known the 
 meaning of His mercy ; now I shall serve Him no longer. 
 If He hateth me, I will bear it ! " 1 And so for five long 
 years Parzival wanders through the world, at war with God, 
 at war with himself, doubting, fighting, seeking, above all, 
 filled with a deep longing for the Oral, whose glories he 
 has culpably forfeited, and for the beloved wife, whom he 
 will not see until the Gral is found again. But his manly 
 courage is still untarnished, his heart is still strong, his life 
 free from all taint of valsch or zwivel. 
 
 Meanwhile Wolfram's romance centres in the Arthurian Gawan's 
 knight Gawan, and Parzival falls into the background. After adventure s- 
 many adventures and trials, Gawan wins the love of the proud 
 beauty Orgeluse, who had brought upon Anfortas his un- 
 happy fate, and whom Parzival, constant in his love for 
 Condwiramurs, alone withstands. Gawan then successfully 
 undergoes the adventures of the Magic Bed in Clinschor's 
 castle, and sets free the women whom Clinschor had kept 
 as prisoners. These adventures savour of the crasser ele- 
 ments of the popular epics, but the books in which they 
 are contained (7-8, 10-12) are not devoid of poetic charm; 
 the childish Obilot and the haughty Orgeluse, for instance, 
 are two of the most interesting portraits in all Wolfram's 
 gallery of women, while the brave Gawan himself is a sym- 
 pathetic figure, and serves, if unintentionally, as an artistic 
 foil to the pure, unworldly Parzival. 
 
 One Good Friday morning, when the ground is covered 
 with a thin coating of snow, Parzival meets some pilgrims in 
 the forest, an old knight with his wife and daughters. The 
 knight reproaches Parzival for bearing arms on so holy a day ; 
 but Parzival knows nothing of holy days, for he has long been 
 at enmity with God. The old man begs him to seek out a 
 hermit who lives in the forest, and to unbosom himself of his 
 load of sin. Repentance begins at last to steal into Parzival's 
 soul ; he lets his horse wander whither it will, saying, if God 
 be really so mighty, He will guide it. The horse brings him 
 to the hermit, who turns out to be Trevrizent, brother of Trevrizent. 
 
 i 332, i ff.
 
 96 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Parzival as 
 King of 
 the Gral. 
 
 Wolfram's 
 Titurel. 
 
 Anfortas and Herzeloyde, Parzival's own uncle. With the 
 simple words 
 
 "her, nu gebet mir rat : 
 ich bin ein man der sUnde hat," a 
 
 he presents himself to Trevrizent. For fifteen days Parzival 
 shares the hermit's cell, confesses everything to him, and 
 learns from him the path he must follow if he will again find 
 the Gral, whose mysteries Trevrizent first fully reveals to him. 
 Before Cundrie seeks him out once more, this time that he 
 may ask the question of sympathy and himself become King 
 of the Gral, he has two battles to fight ; in the first of these 
 he overcomes Gawan, and in the second his own half-brother 
 Feirefiz. With the reunion of Parzival to Condwiramurs and 
 their two sons, of whom the elder, Loherangrin (Lohengrin), 
 is to succeed him as King of the Gral, the poem closes. 
 
 Parzival is the greatest achievement of purely medieval 
 literature ; it is the crown of that vast body of poetry which 
 began, we might say, with the crude Latin Ruodlieb by the 
 unknown Bavarian poet of the eleventh century, spread over 
 every land in Europe, and gradually disappeared before 
 the Renaissance. No other epic of chivalry presents so 
 varied a picture or is so rich in living creations, in men and 
 women who, after the lapse of all but seven centuries, are still 
 humanly interesting ; none bears so distinctly the stamp of its 
 creator's individuality as Parzival ; above all, none can com- 
 pare with it in the far - reaching spirituality of its ideas. 
 Parzival is in many ways greater than the middle ages 
 believed it to be ; it suggests problems of which even its 
 creator did not and could not know anything. What to 
 Wolfram was a romance of human suffering and sympathy, 
 becomes to the modern mind a tragedy of doubt and spiritual 
 revolt. 
 
 Beside Parzival^ Wolfram's other poetry is thrown unwar- 
 rantably into the shade. Yet, were Parzival lost, Wolfram 
 would still take high rank on account of Titurel and Wille- 
 halm; for these poems, too, bear the unmistakable mark of his 
 genius and personality. Titurel is the misleading title given 
 to a number of fragments written in a strophic metre, obvi- 
 ously suggested by that of the popular epics ; the main theme 
 
 1 456, 29 f.
 
 CHAP. V.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 97 
 
 of the fragments is the love-story of Schionatulander and 
 Sigune, figures which appeared episodically in Parzival. 
 Wolfram here devotes all the delicacy of his art to painting 
 the awakening of love, a passion which plays but a subordinate 
 part in Parzival. The beauty of the Titurel fragments lies in 
 their pristine freshness ; they might be compared with the cool- 
 ness of the morning before the noonday glare of Gottfried's 
 Tristan. It is difficult, however, to see how an epic could 
 have been made out of Titurel, unless by introducing, as a 
 later poet did, all manner of irrelevant episodes. The subject 
 might lead us to infer that it had been written in the poet's 
 youth, but as it stands, it belongs without question to a period 
 subsequent to Parzival. 
 
 Willehalm, Wolfram's version of the French Bataille (TAles- wiile- 
 chans, is a more important work. Markgraf Willehalm von halm > 
 Oransch has carried off and married Gyburg, the wife of a 
 heathen king. With a large army of Saracens this king defeats 
 the Christian army at Aleschans and lays siege to Willehalm's 
 castle. Ultimately Willehalm escapes to the French king, 
 who supplies him with a fresh army, and the Saracens are 
 at last driven back. This epic affords the opportunity, 
 missing in the case of Parzival, of comparing Wolfram's work 
 with its French original, and such a comparison throws an 
 interesting light upon his art. In general, Wolfram's con- 
 ception of life is more humane, more chivalrous, than that of 
 the French Bataille d* Aleschans ; his Christian heroes are 
 never fanatics for their faith ; the Saracens are not spurned 
 because they do not happen to have been baptised. Gyburg, 
 the heroine of the poem, is the most finely delineated of 
 Wolfram's women ; strong in love, brave even to heroism, 
 wise and tender, she inspires her husband Willehalm, more 
 even than his faith, to heroic deeds. This poem shows 
 Wolfram's attitude towards a stormier, more actual life than 
 that depicted in Parzival ' ; but, none the less, it is dominated 
 by the same calm and conciliatory ideal of knightly courtesy as 
 was the greater epic. The problem, which in Erec and Iwein 
 ended in discord, is solved ; love and knighthood are re- 
 conciled. Willehalm, which Wolfram left unfinished, was 
 extended by Ulrich von dem Tiirlin, who, about 1270, pro- 
 vided the poem with nearly 10,000 verses of introduction. 
 Another Ulrich, Ulrich von Turheim, supplied a continuation 
 
 G
 
 98 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Ulrich von 
 Tiirheim's 
 Renne- 
 wart, ca. 
 1250. 
 
 of 36,400 verses in which the story of the young hero Renne- 
 wart is carried to a conclusion. The date of Rennewart is 
 approximately the middle of the century. 1 
 
 The greatness of Wolfram's poetry is to be sought less in its 
 literary art than in the spirit which inspires it : it reflects on 
 almost every page the untarnished nobility of the man. No- 
 where in the history of literature is to be found a nature 
 stronger, truer, more sincere than that of Wolfram von 
 Eschenbach. No one saw deeper into the heart of the 
 world, none was ever less blinded by its "falseness." He 
 came nearer than any other medieval poet a solution of the 
 problems and conflicts of human life ; in Wolfram's calm, 
 wise soul, the bitter dissension which had divided Europe 
 since the rise of the spiritual power in the tenth century 
 has no place. Thus the spiritual significance of his poetry is 
 that it effected for the first time a reconciliation between 
 " Frau Welt " and the Church ; knighthood here reaches its 
 highest ideal in the service of God. 
 
 1 Cp. P. Piper, Wolfram von Eschenbach, 3 (D.N.L., 5, i [1890]), 318 ff.
 
 99 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG ; THE DECAY OF THE 
 COURT EPIC. 
 
 WHEN we turn from Parzival to the Tristan of Gottfried von 
 Strassburg, it is not difficult to understand why Wolfram 
 should have been branded by his brother-poet as an unclear 
 thinker and a poor stylist : there is no greater contrast to be 
 found in medieval literature than that between the poetic 
 mysticism of Parzival and the lucidity and naturalism of 
 Tristan. At the present time it is easy to realise that ^ d . 
 Wolfram possesses more than Gottfried of that esprit allemand 
 which has always made for greatness in Northern literatures ; 
 but Wolfram's strong individuality made it impossible for him 
 to adapt himself to the essentially French canons by which the 
 German Court epic was dominated. Thus for the culmination 
 of the Court epic in its narrower sense we must look rather to 
 Gottfried : it was he who carried to its highest point of develop- 
 ment the form of romance which had been introduced by 
 Heinrich von Veldeke and perfected by Hartman von Aue. 
 In comparison with Parzival, Tristan is less Germanic, but it 
 is more in accordance with the literary ideal of chivalry. 
 
 None of the greater German poets is so completely unknown Gottfried 
 to us as Gottfried of Strassburg. His life-history is, as far as ^ Strass- 
 facts are concerned, a blank, and his work throws little light 
 upon his character and personality; even for the most im- 
 portant fact of all namely, that the poet of Tristan actually 
 was Gottfried von Strassburg we are dependent upon second- 
 hand evidence. We can infer, however, that Gottfried was what 
 the age called a learned man, as he was versed both in Latin 
 and French. He was also familiar with court-life, but he did 
 not himself belong, like Hartman, Wolfram, and Walther, to the
 
 IOO MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Tristan's 
 childhood. 
 
 Tristan 
 
 and 
 
 Morold. 
 
 nobility ; he is entitled " Meister," never " Herr " Gottfried by 
 his contemporaries. As to the date of Tristan, there is a 
 celebrated passage in the eighth book, where Gottfried breaks 
 his narrative to give his opinions of the poets of his time, and 
 from this passage it is possible to infer that the epic was 
 written about the year izio. 1 
 
 Riwalin of Parmenia, Tristan's father, comes to the Court 
 of King Marke of Kurnewal (Cornwall), where he wins the 
 love of the king's sister Blanscheflur. She escapes secretly 
 with him, and they are married in Parmenia. Shortly after- 
 wards Riwalin falls in battle, and Blanscheflur dies, broken- 
 hearted, at the birth of her child. The young hero whose 
 entry into the world has been so tragic is adopted by Riwalin's 
 faithful marshal Rual, and brought up as his own son. Tristan 
 is not, like Parzival, an inexperienced simpleton who has to 
 learn the lessons of life ; he is from the first a prodigy, and at 
 the age of fourteen is versed in the accomplishments of chivalry. 
 Carried off by Norse merchants, he is landed on the coast of 
 Kurnewal, and finds his way to King Marke's castle of Tintajoel 
 (Tintagel), where he astonishes the Court by his attainments. 
 Here, after a search of four years, his foster-father finds him, 
 and the true story of his parentage is disclosed, not only to 
 King Marke but to Tristan himself. King Marke adopts 
 him as his heir, and a festival is held at which the young 
 man goes through the ceremony of the " Schwertleite " that 
 is to say, is raised to the rank of a knight. Tristan goes back 
 to Parmenia, takes vengeance upon his father's murderer, re- 
 conquers the country, and leaves it to Rual and his sons, he 
 himself returning to his uncle. Meanwhile the tribute imposed 
 upon King Marke's land by King Gurmun of Ireland and his 
 brother-in-law Morold has become intolerable, but no one has 
 the courage to face Morold in single combat, and this is the only 
 hope of freeing Kurnewal from the Irish yoke. When Tristan 
 arrives, he at once accepts Morold's challenge, and the battle 
 is fought on a small island. Tristan returns victorious, but 
 with a wound which, as the dying Morold has told him, none 
 but his sister, the Irish queen, can heal. Morold's body is 
 
 1 Editions of Gottfried's Tristan by R. Bechstein, 2 vols., 3rd ed., Leipzig, 
 1890-91, and W. Golther in D.N.L., 4, 2, i and 2 [1889]. The best transla- 
 tions into modern German are by H. Kurz, 3rd ed., Stuttgart, 1877, and W. 
 Hertz, 2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1894.
 
 CHAP. VI.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. IOI 
 
 brought back to Ireland, and the queen preserves a splinter of 
 Tristan's sword which she finds in her brother's wound. 
 
 Under the name Tantris, and disguised as a Spielmann, Tristan in 
 Tristan comes to Develin (Dublin), the capital of Ireland, Ireland - 
 where he wins the interest of the young princess Isold for his 
 art ; in return for the instruction which he gives her in music 
 and languages, her mother heals his wound. Then, on the 
 plea that he has left a beloved wife at home, he returns 
 to Kurnewal. The nobles of the land grow jealous of the 
 favour which Tristan enjoys at King Marke's Court, and, 
 in the hopes of preventing Tristan being Marke's successor, 
 persuade the king to marry. The young Isold, of whose Isold, 
 beauty Tristan has brought back favourable reports, is chosen 
 as the king's bride, and Tristan returns to Ireland as an 
 envoy. Isold, however, discovers in Tristan the Tantris of 
 former days ; she loves him, but her love changes suddenly 
 to hatred when she discovers, by means of the sword-splinter 
 which her mother has preserved, that Tristan slew her uncle. 
 She is on the point of killing him with his own sword when 
 the queen intervenes. A reconciliation is brought about by 
 Isold's attendant, Brangane. Tristan explains his mission, 
 and Isold's father consents to her becoming Marke's bride. 
 On the voyage to Kurnewal, Isold still regards her uncle's 
 murderer with hatred, until an unhappy accident changes 
 this hatred to the fiercest passion: she and Tristan drink, The"Mhi- 
 in mistake for wine, a love-potion which Isold's mother has netrank - 
 intrusted to Brangaene in order to ensure a happy union 
 between her daughter and King Marke : 
 
 " Nu daz diu maget unde der man, 
 Is&t unde Tristan, 
 den tranc getrunken beide, sa 
 was ouch der werlde unmuoze da 
 Minn', aller herzen lagaerin, 
 und sleich z'ir beider herzen in. 
 e si's ie wurden gewar, 
 do stiez si ir sigevanen dar 
 und z6ch si beide in ir gewalt : 
 si wurden ein und einvalt, 
 die zwei und zwivalt waren ; 
 si zwei en waren do niht me 
 widerwertic under in : 
 Is6te haz der was d& bin. 
 diu siienrerinne Minne 
 diu haete ir beider sinne
 
 102 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 von hazze als& gereinet, 
 
 mit liebe als6 vereinet, 
 
 daz ietweder dem andern was 
 
 durchluter alse ein spiegelglas. 
 
 si haeten beide ein herze : 
 
 ir swsere was sin smerze, 
 
 sin smerze was ir swaere ; 
 
 si waren beide einbaere 
 
 an liebe unde an leide 
 
 und halen sich doch beide, 
 
 und tete daz zwivel unde scham : 
 
 si schamte sich, er tete alsam ; 
 
 si zwivelte an im, er an ir. 
 
 swie blint ir beider herzen gir 
 
 an einem willen woere, 
 
 in was doch beiden swaere 
 
 der urhap unde der begin : 
 
 daz hal ir willen under in." 1 
 
 The passion thus suddenly called into existence grows every 
 day fiercer as the lovers approach their journey's end, sweep- 
 ing away all Tristan's honour and Isold's sense of shame. 
 At length the ship reaches Kurnewal, and the wedding of 
 King Marke and Isold takes place shortly afterwards. With 
 Brangaene's aid, Tristan and Isold's love is kept a secret from 
 the king. Fearful of discovery, Isold even plots Brangaene's 
 death, but repents before the deed is carried out. 
 
 One adventure now follows another in which the lovers 
 deceive the king : his suspicions are awakened time after time, 
 only to be allayed by Isold's cunning. She even under- 
 goes the crucial medieval test of truth-telling : she takes an 
 oath which, through a quibble, is not untrue, and corroborates 
 it by carrying red-hot iron in her naked hand; whereupon 
 the poet reflects upon the power of Christ to withstand deceit, 
 in terms which later ages have pronounced blasphemous. It 
 
 l " Nun da die Jungfrau und der Mann, Isold und Tristan, beide den Trank 
 getrunken, war sogleich auch der Welt Unruhe da, Minne, aller Herzen Nach- 
 stellerin, und schlich zu ihrer beider Herzen hinein. Ehe sic es [je] gewahr 
 wurden, stiess sie ihre Siegesfahne dorthin und zog sie beide in ihre Gewalt : 
 sie wurden eins und einig, die ehedem zwei und zweifach waren. Die zwei 
 waren nun einander nicht mehr widerwartig ; Isolds Hass, der war dahin. 
 Die SUhnerin Minne, die hatte ihrer beider Sinne von Hasse so gereinigt, 
 mit Liebe so vereinet, dass jeder dem andern durch und durch klar war wie 
 ein Spiegelglas. Sie hatten beide Ein Herz ; ihr Kummer war sein Schmerz, 
 sein Schmerz war ihr Kummer. Sie waren beide gleich an Freude und an 
 Leid und verhehlten (es) sich doch beide, und das that (der) Zweifel und (die) 
 Scham ; sie schamte sich, er that das gleiche ; sie zweifelte an ihm, er an ihr. 
 Wie blind ihrer beider Herzensbegierde in Einem Willen (auch) war, (so) war 
 ihnen beiden doch der Anfang und der Beginn schwer ; das (dieser Umstand) 
 verhehlte ihren Willen vor einander" (xvi. 11,711-11,744).
 
 CHAP. VI.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 103 
 
 is, however, hardly allowable to judge Gottfried by modern 
 criteria of religion and morality ; he is not to be censured be- 
 cause, in those adventures in which the whole beauty of his art 
 is displayed, he has no thought for the tragic retribution which 
 a modern reader, from his less nai've standpoint, holds neces- 
 sary. Gottfried has here doubtless followed his French model, 
 and neither a French nor a German poet would at that time 
 have regarded the " Minnetrank " as necessarily involving 
 tragic consequences. Ultimately Tristan and Isold are ban- 
 ished, and the poet once more unfolds all his wealth of 
 poetic imagery in describing their life in the " Minnegrotte." The"Min- 
 Another reconciliation and another discovery take place, and ne s rotte - 
 this time Tristan has to flee. At the Court of the Duke of 
 Arundel, whose service he has entered in the hope of thereby 
 forgetting Isold, he meets another Isold, " Isold of the White Isold of 
 Hands," daughter of the duke. For her there awakens in 
 Tristan's heart a new passion, with which it would seem as if 
 his love for the "blond Isold" of Kurnewal were mingled. 
 Here, however, Gottfried's poem breaks off, and we are obliged 
 to turn to his continuators, Ulrich von Tiirheim, who wrote in Ulrichvon 
 Swabia about 1240, and Heinrich von Freiberg, whose more Ta r h ^ 
 
 mid Hein- 
 
 successful version was written about 1300,! for the conclusion rich von 
 of the poem. Tristan marries the white-handed Isold, but Freiberg, 
 still loves the other and ultimately returns to Kurnewal. After 
 a fresh series of love adventures, we find him once more with 
 his wife : he is wounded by a poisoned spear. Only the blond 
 Isold can bring healing, and he sends a messenger across the 
 sea to fetch her. If she is on the returning ship, it is to bear 
 a white sail : if not, a black one. The ship bringing her 
 comes in sight, but Tristan's wife deceives him, telling him 
 that the sail is black, not white. When the blond Isold 
 arrives, she finds her lover already dead, and she, too, dies of 
 grief. King Marke at last learns the secret of the fatal potion, 
 and has the bodies brought back to Kurnewal ; on Tristan's 
 grave he plants a rose and on Isold's a rose, and, as they grow, 
 they intertwine. 
 
 Tristan was Gottfried's last work, but it may be doubted if it 
 was his only one. There is no trace of the unpractised hand 
 in Tristan ; from the first line onwards, it is the work of a poet 
 
 1 Heinrich von Freiberg's continuation has been edited by R. Bechstein, 
 Leipzig, 1877. Cp. D.N.L., 4, 3, 166 ff.
 
 IO4 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Sources of 
 Gottfried's 
 Tristan. 
 
 Gottfried's 
 style. 
 
 whose art was mature. On the other hand, we are not able to 
 claim Gottfried's authorship for anything else but a couple of 
 lyrics, and it is even uncertain if they are his. The sources of 
 Tristan are wrapped almost as completely in mystery as those 
 of Parzival. The saga makes the impression of being more 
 primitive than the ordinary romance of chivalry ; it has some- 
 thing of the grandiose simplicity of the early Germanic myths. 
 It may possibly be of Keltic origin, but it is only loosely con- 
 nected with the cycles of Arthurian romance. In any case, 
 Tristan received the form in which we know it in France, and 
 from France Gottfried borrowed his original. But here again 
 we meet with difficulties. Crestien von Troyes wrote a 7m- 
 tan, which might possibly Crestien's poem is lost have been 
 Gottfried's source, were it not that the German poet expressly 
 cites as his authority a certain Thomas von Britanje. This 
 Thomas is not so mysterious a person as Wolfram's Kyot, 
 for some fragments have been preserved of an old French 
 Tristan, and in one of these a jongleur named Thomas is 
 mentioned as the author. Unfortunately, however, the French 
 fragments begin where Gottfried has left off, and a comparison 
 of the French and German versions is hence impossible. 
 
 It is no easy matter, in the case of so impersonal a poet as 
 Gottfried, to form a just estimate of his poetic talent : it is 
 even open to question if Gottfried has done more than merely 
 translate his original. The general composition of the poem, 
 the simplicity of motive which carries us back to a period 
 before the existence of chivalry, the fineness of characterisa- 
 tion, even the background to the events for Gottfried 
 assuredly never saw the sea, which is almost as immediately 
 present in Tristan as in Gudrun all this Gottfried probably 
 found ready to his hand in the French original. 
 
 His style, however, is his own it is a direct development 
 of that of Hartman ; but his resources were greater, and he 
 reveals a finer sense for rhythm than did any of his prede- 
 cessors. He is conscious of the monotony of the rhymed 
 couplet, and occasionally breaks it with iambic strophes, which 
 give lyric colouring to the poem. Of all the poets of the 
 Court epic, Gottfried von Strassburg had the greatest mastery 
 over rhyme and language. But, like all masters of language, 
 he falls into mannerisms. He loves antitheses and repetitions ; 
 he is fond of playing upon words. The effect is pleasing
 
 CHAP. VI.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. IO5 
 
 in him, but it is the beginning of decay in Middle High 
 German verse. Elements of degeneration, too, are to be 
 noticed in Gottfried's fondness for allegory, a fondness which 
 in the later Court epic assumes extraordinary dimensions. 
 
 The real greatness of the German Tristan lies in its con- Gottfried 
 ception and description of love. In Gottfried's power of real- a * a P 061 
 ising the most delicate manifestations of passion, in the con- 
 vincing truth with which he paints its effects, he has no rival 
 in medieval literature. And, in all probability, it is here that 
 his deviations from the French original were greatest. In the 
 story of Tristan's parents, which, unlike most introductions, is 
 poetically on a level with the rest of the epic, we have a fore- 
 taste of the poet's ability to describe " Frau Minne's " might ; 
 and this foretaste helps us to appreciate the wide range a.nd 
 variety of his art in the great moments of Tristan and Isold's 
 story. No other poet before the Renaissance celebrated love 
 in such glowing tones ; never was a great passion so magnifi- 
 cently described as in the scenes of the " Minnetrank " 
 and the " Minnegrotte." One of the secrets of Gottfried's 
 mastery as a love-poet is his unrelenting earnestness ; indeed, 
 the earnestness that lies over Tristan merges almost into 
 melancholy. No gleam of humour relieves the tragedy of the 
 story, no touch of frivolity : Tristan is the most serious of all 
 the Court epics. We may possibly be doing Gottfried's lost 
 model an injustice in giving the German poet credit for 
 those elements in Tristan which entitle it to be regarded 
 as great poetry ; but the warmth and the heartfelt sincerity of 
 the German epic are foreign to the French temperament as 
 far, at least, as that temperament is expressed in French 
 medieval literature. Gottfried's conception of love is essenti 
 ally Germanic ; it is the love of Romeo and Juliet, the 
 love that inspires Goethe's lyrics and the poetry of German 
 Romanticism. 
 
 The Court epic in its later development stands entirely The later 
 under the influence of Hartman, Wolfram, and Gottfried, but Court e P ic - 
 it never again came within measurable distance of Iwein, of 
 Parzival, or Tristan ; the later romances are rarely more than 
 tedious and uninspired imitations. It is thus impossible in a 
 general history to discuss the epic poetry of this period with a 
 completeness proportionate to its bulk, or to do it the justice 
 it deserves as the staple imaginative food of a nation for almost
 
 106 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 The in- 
 fluence of 
 Hartman. 
 
 Ulrich vcm 
 
 Zatzik- 
 
 hoven. 
 
 Wirnt von 
 Graven - 
 berg. 
 
 "The 
 Strieker's ' 
 Daniel. 
 
 Heinrich 
 von dem 
 Turlin. 
 
 two hundred years. For many writers, to whom the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth centuries looked up as poets of the first rank, 
 a few words of mention must suffice. 
 
 Upon contemporaries of the three great poets, the influence 
 of Hartman is the most noticeable : he was the easiest to imi- 
 tate, and consequently the first to be imitated. A clerical poet 
 of the Thurgau in Northern Switzerland, Ulrich von Zatzik- 
 hoven, wrote about 1195 a Lanzelet^- which is to some extent 
 modelled on Hartman's Erec. The poem, however, has no 
 great poetic merit, and combines the crudeness and rough 
 popular tone of the epic before Hartman, with that extravagant 
 delight in fairy lore which was one of the earliest signs of 
 decay in the Arthurian romance. . 
 
 Among the minor poets of the classical decade of Middle 
 High German poetry, Wirnt von Gravenberg, a Bavarian 
 nobleman, takes the first place. In his Wigalois? written 
 probably between 1202 and 1205, he describes the adven- 
 tures of Gawein's son, Wigalois, the name being a German 
 corruption of Guy or Guinglain le Galois. Wirnt's original, 
 which he treated with a greater freedom and originality than 
 his contemporaries allowed themselves, was the French epic 
 Li bel inconnit) by Renauld de Beaujeu. The German 
 romance is disfigured by the extravagance of its incidents 
 and its didactic tone, features, however, which by no means 
 detracted from its popularity; but Wirnt's imagination, not- 
 withstanding its lack of discipline, is unquestionably the 
 imagination of a poet. Daniel von dem bliihenden Thai* is 
 the title of an epic by "the Strieker" a poet of whom 
 more will presently be said in which are woven together a 
 series of elaborate adventures, mainly imitated from older 
 German romances : in it, moreover, Gottfried von Strassburg's 
 influence is to be traced for the first time. 
 
 The author of Diu Krone (i.e., "the crown of all adven- 
 tures "), a planless Arthurian romance of some 30,000 verses, 
 drawn from many sources, was the Carinthian poet, Heinrich 
 von dem Turlin, who wrote shortly after Hartman's death, 
 but probably not later than 1220. The hero of this epic is 
 
 1 Ed. K. A. Hahn, Frankfort, 1845 ; cp. P. Piper, Die hofiiche Epik, 2 
 (D.N.L., 4, i, 2 [1893]), 163 ff. 
 
 2 Ed. F. Pfeiffer, Leipzig, 1847; D.N.L., I.e., 199 ff. Cp. F. Saran, in 
 Paul and Braune's Beitnige, 21 (1896), 253 ff. 
 
 3 Ed. G. Rosenhagen, Breslau, 1894; cp. D.N.L., 4, i, 3 [1895], 86 ff.
 
 CHAP. VI.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. IO/ 
 
 Gawein (Gawan) ; it is Gawein, not Parzival, who asks the 
 question in the castle of the Gral ; and as soon as the words 
 have crossed his lips, the castle and all its wonders disappear. 
 The poet of Diu Krone shares the literary tastes of the 
 Spielleute ; he delights more in the rough humour of Kei, the 
 comic figure at Arthur's table, than in the finer issues of the 
 story. Besides writing Diu Krone, Heinrich von dem Tiirlin 
 was also the author of Der Mantel, the hero of which, to judge 
 from the fragment that has come down to us, was Lancelot. 1 
 
 Among the poets of a later age who stood in Hartman's "The,, 
 shadow, the chief is " the Pleier," a native of Salzburg or r eier> 
 Styria, who between 1260 and 1290 wrote three epics of 
 no marked individuality, Garel von dem bluJitnden Thai, of 
 which the Strieker's Daniel was obviously the model, Tan- 
 darcis, and Meleranz? Konrad von Stoffel imitated Iwein 
 in his Gauriel von Muntabel or "the Knight with the Goat." 3 
 Finally, mention must be made of Wigamur ? a tasteless medley Wigamur. 
 of adventures by an unknown poet who was either himself 
 a Spielmann or had, at least, learned his art from Spielleute. 
 
 The influence of Wolfram von Eschenbach has left its mark Wolfram's 
 on the so-called Jiingere Titurelf which a Bavarian poet, mfluence - 
 Albrecht von Scharfenberg, who wrote about 1270, built upon DerjUn- 
 the unfinished fragments of Wolfram's TitureL The love-story 8 f e f 1 ^ 
 which Wolfram had begun is in this lengthy epic extended 1270.' 
 into a poetic history of the Gral, from the time of Christ to 
 " Prester John," who is identified with Parzival. In the thir- 
 teenth and fourteenth centuries, Der Jiingere Titiirel was not 
 only believed to be by Wolfram von Eschenbach, but, still 
 stranger, regarded as his greatest work. The inevitable com- 
 parison with Parzival is apt, however, to blind us to the merits 
 of the poem. Albrecht imitates and accentuates his master's 
 mannerisms of thought and style absurdly enough, in his efforts 
 to attain an air of significance, but he has a keen sense for the 
 romantic element in poetry : the description of the Temple of 
 
 1 Diu Krone, ed. G. H. F. Scholl, Stuttgart, 1852 ; Der Mantel, ed. O. 
 Warnatsch, Breslau, 1883. Cp. D.N.L., 4, i, 2, 242 ff. 
 
 2 The three poems have been edited respectively by M. Walz, Freiburg, 
 1892 ; by F. Khull, Graz, 1885 ; and by K. Bartsch, Stuttgart, 1861. Cp. 
 D.N.L., 4, i, 2, 302 ff. 
 
 3 Eel. F. Khull, Graz, 1885; D.N.L., I.e., 388 ff. 
 
 * D.N.L., I.e., 560 ff. Cp. G. Sarrazin, Wigamur (Quellen und Forsch- 
 ungen, 35), Strassburg, 1879. 
 
 6 Ed. K. A. Hahn, Quedlinburg, 1842 ; D.N.L., I.e., 452 ff.
 
 108 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 the Gral, for instance, is no unworthy example of the heights to 
 which the medieval imagination could rise. To a later date 
 Lohengrin, belongs Lohengrin by an unnamed Bavarian poet : it relates an 
 episode in the famous " Wartburgkrieg," of which something 
 has to be said in a later chapter. Wolfram is here made to 
 describe the adventures of Parzival's son in the wars of 
 Heinrich I. against the heathens, and to tell how, as the 
 Knight of the Swan, Lohengrin championed Elsam, daughter 
 of a Duke of Brabant. 1 
 
 The blending of history with Arthurian romance, which we 
 meet with in Lohengrin, is one of the most significant changes 
 that came over the Court epic in the second half of the 
 thirteenth century : it marks the transition from epic to 
 rhyme chronicle. Ulrich von Eschenbach, the author of 
 one of the most popular Middle High German romances 
 of Alexander the Great, the Alexander, written in the last 
 quarter of the century, introduced historical elements into 
 a Bohemian romance, Wilhelm von Wenden (ca. 12 go). 2 The 
 hero of Berthold von Holle's Krane (ca. 1255), again, is a 
 Hungarian prince. 3 In the Livlandische Reimchronik and the 
 Weltchronik of Jans Enikel, 4 a native of Vienna to mention 
 only two of the numerous works of this class written at the 
 close of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth 
 centuries the transition from epic to chronicle is already 
 accomplished. 
 
 The literary movement of the later thirteenth century 
 clearly favoured a closer touch with actual life than is to be 
 found in the masterpieces of the Arthurian epic. The intro- 
 duction of historical events and personages in the epic was 
 one manifestation of this tendency ; another was the fondness 
 of the later poets for treating stories of peasant life, in the 
 manner of the Court epic. In the earlier half of the thirteenth 
 century we find a forerunner of this realism in the Spielmann 
 who is known by the name of " Der Strieker." Although 
 not perhaps an Austrian by birth, "the Strieker" wrote in 
 
 i Ed. H. Ruckert, Quedlinburg, 1858 ; D.N.L., 4, i, 3, 56 ff. 
 
 1 Both poems have been edited by W. Toischer (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 183), 
 1888, and Prag, 1876 ; D.N.L., 4, i, 3, 40 ff. 
 
 8 Ed. K. Bartsch, Niirnberg, 1858 ; Berthold is also the author of an epic, 
 Demantin, ed. K. Bartsch (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 123), 1875. Cp. D.N.L., I.e., i ff. 
 
 4 Ed. P. Strauch (for the Monumenta germanica), Hanover, 1891-1900 ; 
 D.N.L., 4, i, 3, 658 ff. 
 
 Ulrich von 
 Eschen- 
 bach. 
 
 Berthold 
 von Holle. 
 
 Jans 
 Enikel. 
 
 "The 
 Strieker."
 
 CHAP. VI. MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. IOQ 
 
 Austria. His chief importance is that, with his Pfaffe Amis, 
 he gave higher literary life to a type of romance which is to 
 German literature what the picaresque romance is to that of 
 Spain. Amis, who is closely allied to Morolf, stands at the 
 head of a long line of clever, witty rascals, the heroes of 
 countless "Schwanke" and comic adventures: he is the 
 Middle High German forerunner of Eulenspiegel. Besides 
 being the author of Pfaffe Amis, " the Strieker " wrote an 
 Arthurian romance which has already been mentioned, an 
 epic, Karl virtually a version of Konrad's Rolandslied 
 and a number of " Bispel " or parables, which are akin to 
 the didactic fables in favour in the sixteenth century. 1 
 
 The conflict between the literary ideals of chivalry and the 
 newly awakened realism is most marked in the poetry of Ulrich 
 von Liechtenstein. 2 Born probably about 1200, Ulrich von 
 Liechtenstein belonged to a noble Styrian family ; late in 
 life in 1255 he wrote his Frauendienst^ in which, with 
 a desire to be entertaining rather than strictly truthful, he 
 described his own fantastic adventures as knight and lover. 
 Reflected in the essentially unromantic temperament of a poet 
 like Ulrich, the chivalry he describes becomes artificial and 
 meaningless ; Frauendienst leaves behind it an impression 
 which might be compared with that produced by daylight on 
 the scenery of a theatre. The numerous lyrics and " Biichlein " 
 in the style of Hartman, which are embedded in this Dichtung 
 und Wahrheit of the thirteenth century, are the most valuable 
 part of the work. In the Frauenbuch, written a couple of years 
 later, Ulrich returns to the same theme ; but this time there is 
 some bitterness in his retrospect. An epoch in German 
 social history was clearly passing away. 
 
 On the whole, the most pleasing example of the germinating 
 realism in Middle High German poetry is the short peasant 
 romance of Meier Helmbreht, by Wernher der Gartensere, a 
 poet of Upper Bavaria. 3 If we except certain elements in the 
 
 1 Der Pfaffe Amis, in H. Lambel, Ertdhlungen und Schwanke, and ed., 
 Leipzig, 1883, i ff.; Karl has been edited by K. Bartsch, Quedlinburg, 1857. 
 Cp. D.N.L., 4, i, 3, 86 ff., also 2, 2, 113 ff. 
 
 2 Ed. K. Lachmann, Berlin, 1841 ; the Frauendienst has also been edited 
 by R. Bechstein, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1888 ; D.N.L., 4, i, 3, 420 ff. Cp. R. 
 Becker, Wahrheit und Dichtung in Ulrichs von Liechtenstein Frauendienst, 
 Halle, 1888. 
 
 3 Ed. H. Lambel, I.e., 131 ff., and F. Keinz, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1887 ; 
 D.N.L., 4, i, 2, 398 ff. 
 
 Der Pfaffe 
 Amis. 
 
 Ulrich von 
 Liechten- 
 stein, ca. 
 1200-76. 
 
 Wernher's 
 Meier 
 Helm- 
 breht, ca. 
 1240.
 
 1 10 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Latin Ruodlieb of the eleventh century, Meier Helmbreht is 
 the earliest specimen of the peasant romance to be found in 
 European literature. It is the tragic story of a peasant who, 
 discontented with his station, enters the service of a robber- 
 knight. After a year he returns to his family, but gives 
 himself such airs that they at first do not recognise him. 
 He persuades his sister to marry one of his freebooting com- 
 panions, but the company is surprised by officers of the law, 
 and nine are executed. Helmbreht himself escapes, but only 
 with the loss of his sight, and of a hand and foot. His father 
 turns him away from his door, and the peasants who had 
 suffered at his hands hang him on a tree. Meier Helmbreht^ 
 which was written between 1234 and 1250, is not to be com- 
 pared with the great Court epics. Its principal charm lies 
 in the freshness and actuality of its descriptions ; the details 
 of everyday life have an interest for its author which con- 
 trasts strongly with the aristocratic indifference of the poets 
 of the beginning of the century. 
 
 It was only to be expected that, as a more naturalistic con- 
 ception of literature came into favour, the art of Gottfried von 
 Strassburg should be better appreciated and more frequently 
 
 Konrad imitated. As far back as 1220, Konrad Fleck, a Swiss poet, 
 eck> had shown himself a faithful disciple of Gottfried in More 
 und Blanschftur?- in which one of the great love sagas of 
 the middle ages is retold with no small poetic ability ; and 
 the two greatest poets of the later time Rudolf von Ems 
 and Konrad von Wurzburg stand completely in Gottfried's 
 shadow. 
 
 Rudolf von Rudolf, the older of these two poets, takes his name from 
 Ems, near Chur in Switzerland, where he was vassal (dienst- 
 man) to a Graf von Montfort. His poetic genius was by no 
 means proportionate to the quantity of poetry which he left 
 behind him: he belongs rather to the chroniclers than to the 
 poets. He sat, it is true, at Gottfried's feet, but he had not 
 talent enough to assimilate what he learned from Gottfried : 
 thus the latter's influence upon his poetry is limited to ex- 
 ternal matters of style and form. Rudolf von Ems was one 
 of the learned poets of Middle High German literature: in 
 other words, he was able to seek themes for his poetry in 
 
 1 Ed. E. Sommer, Quedlinburg, 1846, and W. Golther in D.N.L., 4, 3 
 [1889], 233 ff.
 
 CHAP. VI.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. Ill 
 
 Latin sources. The story of JDer gate Gerhard, for instance, Der gute 
 
 the earliest and best of his works, is taken from a Latin Gerhard - 
 chronicle. The hero is a merchant of Cologne who under- 
 goes various romantic adventures and temptations without 
 
 losing the integrity of his character. Barlaam und Josaphat, Barlaam 
 
 again, is a version of an old Buddhistic legend, which found u . nd '., . 
 
 , T - & !. . Josaphat. 
 
 its way m a similar guise into most Western literatures : it 
 tells how the wealthy and magnificent Prince Josaphat be- 
 comes a convert to the asceticism of the hermit Barlaam. 
 This poem of Rudolf's seems to have been widely read, 
 although a theological asceticism which recalls the literature 
 of the previous century hangs heavy upon it. These two 
 romances were probably written between 1225 and 1230. 
 
 In Wilhelm von Orlens Rudolf abandons the religious legend Wilhelm 
 for the romance of chivalry. This is a poem of tedious length, 
 describing the adventures of Wilhelm, in whom it is difficult 
 to recognise the Norman Conqueror, and the Princess Amelie 
 of England. Rudolf had more opportunities for displaying his 
 learning in his two long chronicle romances the Geschichte 
 Alexanders des Grossen and the Weltchronik neither of which 
 he lived to finish. For both works he read widely in the 
 monkish literature of the age. The Weltchronik follows the Welt- 
 history of the world down only to the time of Solomon ; but chrontk - 
 the poet is liberal with digressions which, however worthless 
 from a poetic point of view, often throw an interesting light 
 upon medieval ideas of history and geography. After Rudolfs 
 death, which probably took place about 1254, the Weltchronik 
 did not suffer from lack of continuators. Both in Rudolf's 
 original version and in innumerable versions by other hands, 
 it enjoyed great popularity, and was one of the chief sources 
 from which following generations drew their knowledge of the 
 Bible. 1 
 
 A more genuine poet than Rudolf von Ems was Konrad Konrad 
 von Wiir/burg, whose earliest poems were written not long 
 after the former's death. Konrad is the greatest poet of the 1287." 
 last generation of Middle High German writers, the only one 
 who can in any way be compared with the master-poets of the 
 first decade of the century. In all probability a native of 
 
 1 Der gute Gerhard has been edited by M. Haupt, Leipzig, 1840 ; Barlaam 
 und Josaphat by F. Pfeiffer, Leipzig, 1843. Rudolfs other poems are either 
 unpublished or not yet critically edited. Cp. D.N.L., 4, i, 3, 543 ff.
 
 112 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Legends. 
 
 Der Welt 
 Lohn. 
 
 Die 
 
 goldene 
 Schmiede. 
 
 The Herte 
 mare. 
 
 Wiirzburg, he seems to have spent some time in Strassburg, 
 and finally to have settled in Basle, where he died in 1287. 
 Although he never came so completely under clerical influence 
 as Rudolf von Ems, Konrad von Wiirzburg has also left a 
 number of legends of a religious nature. To this class belong 
 Alexius, Silvester, and Pantaleon * poems which were written 
 for patrons in Basle. In Der Welt Lohn (Der werlte Ion) he 
 introduces Herr Wirnt von Gravenberg in person, and tells 
 how this poet was converted from his worldly way of life by 
 means of "Frau Welt," who appeared to him as a beautiful 
 woman ; when, however, she turned her back, he saw that she 
 was a monster of loathsomeness. Die goldene Schmiede is a lyric 
 romance in honour of the Virgin, in which the " Marienlyrik " 
 of the century reappears as a fantastic and extravagant allegory. 
 Konrad did not, however, produce his best work until he had 
 entirely abandoned religious poetry. Kaiser Otte mit dem Barte 
 is a vividly narrated historical anecdote, and the Herzem&re 
 one of the best-constructed of all the shorter Middle High 
 German romances. It tells of a knight who, at his mistress's 
 command, leaves her and crosses the sea to Jerusalem, where 
 he dies of a broken heart His last request is that his heart 
 may be brought to the mistress to whom in life it belonged. 
 The lady's husband obtains the heart, and has it cooked and 
 served up to her. When she learns what she has eaten, she 
 declares that after such noble food she will never eat again ; 
 and she, too, dies of a broken heart. It is in a poem such as 
 this that Konrad has an opportunity of displaying what he 
 learned from his master, and this influence is even still 
 more apparent in the finest of all his shorter romances, 
 Engelhard. Engelhard?" The fundamental motive of Engelhard is not, 
 however, love but friendship ; it is a version of the medieval 
 saga of Amicus and Amelias which found its way in some form 
 or other into all European literatures. 
 
 Konrad's two longest poems, which unfortunately show the 
 formlessness and lack of proportion of the decadent epic, are 
 
 1 Silvester has been edited by W. Grimm, Gottingen, 1841 ; the other two 
 poems by M. Haupt in his Zeitschrift, 3(1845) and 6 (1848). Cp. D.N.L., 
 4, i, 3, 267 ff. 
 
 2 Otte and the Herzemare are edited in H. Lambel's Erxdhlungen vnd 
 Schwdnke, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1883; Der werlte Ion by F. Roth, Frankfort, 
 1843 ; Die goldene Schmiede by W. Grimm, Berlin, 1840 ; and Engelhart by 
 M. Haupt, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1890. Cp. D.N.L., 4, i, 3, 176 ff.
 
 CHAP. VI.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 113 
 
 Partonopier und Meliur^ and the Trojanerkrieg? Meliur, in Partono- 
 
 the first of these, is an invisible fairy whose love Partonopier ^ r ," n ^ 
 : J ., Meliur. 
 
 enjoys ; but he is not permitted to see her until three years 
 
 have passed. Following evil counsel, he breaks this injunction, 
 and brings down the wrath of the fairy upon his head. As a 
 consequence of his misdeed, he is obliged to wander through 
 the world and undergo innumerable adventures before he ob- 
 tains a reconciliation with her. Partonopier und Meliur was 
 originally a French romance which Konrad, himself unfamiliar 
 with French, was obliged to have translated for him. In his 
 hands it became an epic of some 19,000 verses. But this is 
 little more than one-third the length of the Trojanerkrieg^ Der Tro- 
 which is the longest epic in Middle High German literature. J anerkrie S- 
 The basis of the Trojanerkrieg is, naturally, Benoit's Roman 
 de Troie, which had already been translated by Herbert von 
 Fritzlar. Konrad, however, was far from being content with 
 the materials Benoit afforded him. " Ich wil," he says 
 
 " ich wil ein msere tihten, 
 daz alien mseren ist ein her. 
 als in daz wilde tobende mer, 
 vil manic wazzer diuzet, 
 sus rinnet unde fliuzet 
 vil msere in diz getihte gr&z." 1 
 
 In other words, this epic is a disorderly collection of all that 
 the middle ages knew about or associated with the Trojan 
 war. The poet died before his poem was finished, and some 
 unknown hand, which, however, had little of Konrad's cunning, 
 wrote the final 10,000 verses. On the whole, the Trojaner- 
 krieg must be regarded as Konrad von Wiirzburg's magnum 
 opus, and that not merely on account of its length : tedious, 
 uninspired, as any one who tries to read it nowadays will find 
 it, this epic unrolls a wide panorama of the life, the customs, 
 and ideas of the thirteenth century. It admittedly contains 
 only one drop of poetry to oceans of prose, it is formless as 
 almost no other Court epic is formless, but it is the work of a 
 
 1 Ed. K. Bartsch, Vienna, 1870; D.N.L., I.e., 279 ff. 
 
 3 Ed. A. von Keller (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 44), 1858; notes edited by K. 
 Bartsch in vol. 133 of the same series, Stuttgart, 1878. Cp. D.N.L., I.e., 
 311 ff. 
 
 3 " Ich will eine Mare dichten, die alien Maren ein Meister ist. Wie 
 in das wilde, tobende Meer viel [manches] Wasser rauscht, so rinnen und 
 fliessen viele Maren in dieses grosse Gedicht" (11. 234-239). 
 
 U
 
 114 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 poet who possessed both imagination and individuality. For 
 the last time in the history of German literature we here find 
 that love of clear, broad contrasts, that simple ethics which 
 admits neither of doubting nor questioning, and that childish 
 idealism, which give the medieval mind its characteristic 
 stamp : here for the last time the courtly graces of chivalry 
 are a dominant force in poetry. 
 
 The end of And so, under the mild Indian summer represented by 
 the Court Konrad von Wiirzburg, a great literary period, one might 
 almost say an entire literature, passes to its end. Heinrich 
 von Freiberg, who completed Gottfried's Tristan^ Heinrich 
 von Neuenstadt, 1 who, about 1300, wrote a lengthy Apollonius 
 von Tyrus, a story akin to the pleasing Mai und Beaflor'* 
 of a few decades earlier, Herrant von Wildonie, 3 and the 
 unknown Swiss author of Reinfried von Braunschweig? a 
 romance of the age of Heinrich the Lion these may be 
 regarded as the last representatives of the Court epic. 
 
 1 J. Strobl, Heinrich von Neuenstadt, Vienna, 1875 ; D.N.L., 4, i, 3, 374 ff. 
 
 2 Ed. F. Pfeiffer, Leipzig, 1848; D.N.L., 4, i, 2, 369 ff. 
 
 3 Cp. D.N.L., 4, i, 3, 410 ff. 
 
 * Ed. K. Bartsch (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 109), 1871 ; D.N.L., 4, i, 3, 344 ff.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE MINNESANG. 
 
 AT Whitsuntide in the year 1184, Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa 
 held at Mainz the most imposing festival Germany had ever 
 seen. The flower of German chivalry princes, knights, and 
 ladies flocked in thousands to the Rhineland in response to 
 the Emperor's invitation, and among the foreign guests every 
 nation of Western Europe was represented. With a pomp 
 and splendour and colour only possible in the age of chiv- 
 alry, Barbarossa's two sons, Heinrich and Friedrich, went 
 through the ceremony of the " Schwertleite," that is to say, 
 were raised to the rank of knights. The Mainz festival is an 
 outstanding event in German history, for from it may be said 
 to date the nationalisation of chivalry in Germany : before this 
 time only a French fashion affected by the German nobility, 
 chivalry now became a German institution. And on literature 
 also the festival at Mainz acted as a stimulus. By facilitating 
 intercourse with France, it gave a powerful impetus to that 
 poetry of knighthood which, as we have seen, formed the 
 higher stratum in the literature of the thirteenth century. And 
 no form of literature responded more quickly to this stimulus 
 than the Court Lyric or Minnesang. 
 
 The German Minnesang l is based essentially upon a social 
 convention ; it gives literary expression to what the German 
 poets called " Frauendienst," a more or less formal worship 
 
 1 The two chief collections of the Minnesang are the Weingartner MS. in 
 Stuttgart (D), -edited by F. Pfeiffer and F. Fellner (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 5), 1843, 
 and the great Manessische or Heidelberg MS. (C). The latter, which is at 
 present being edited by F. Pfaff (Heidelberg, 1898 ff.), is the most beautiful 
 of all the old German MSS. Besides Lachmann and Haupt's Des Minnesangs 
 Friikling, and F. PfafTs Der Minnesang des 12. bis 14. Jahrhunderts, already 
 quoted, a convenient selection of the Minnesang is K. Bartsch's Deutsche 
 Liederdichter des 12. -14. Jahrkunderts, 4th ed., Berlin, 1901.
 
 Il6 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Minnesang of womanhood. The theme of the Minnesingers' poetry is 
 " mmne >" a word which expresses a much more comprehensive 
 idea than the modern " Liebe " ; to the knight of the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries " minne " stood for an entire code of 
 social conventions which regulated the relations of the courtly 
 lover to his lady. There is thus, at the outset, a marked differ- 
 ence in the interpretation of the word "love" on the part of 
 the Provengal Troubadours and the German Minnesingers. 
 To the Romance poets, love was a purely personal affair, 
 and illicit attachments were usually given the preference. 
 The German mind, on the other hand, spiritualised the senti- 
 ment ; the Minnesinger's love for his mistress widened into 
 an all-embracing reverence for womanhood; "minne" was 
 an ideal attachment, a chivalric devotion to a woman, closely 
 akin to " triuwe," which, as we have seen, was the highest 
 virtue which the German knight could lay at the feet of his 
 liege lord. In other words, the Germanic poet took love more 
 seriously than the light-hearted southern singer ; it became a 
 guiding force in his higher moral life. This spirit is expressed 
 by the greatest of the Minnesingers in two lines 
 
 " Swer guotes wibes minne hat, 
 der schamt sich aller missetat," 1 
 
 lines which form a parallel to Goethe's 
 
 " Willst du genau erfahren, was sich zieint, 
 So frage nur bei edlen Frauen an." 
 
 Thus, below the conventions of the Minnesang, lay a fund 
 of noble and genuine lyric feeling. Absurd as the Minnedienst 
 eventually became, 2 it was in its prime one of the main outlets 
 for the spiritual aspiration of the middle ages. Moreover, to 
 the difference between the Romance and Germanic conceptions 
 of love is mainly due the fact that the German medieval lyric 
 was the most national of all forms of Middle High German 
 poetry. Romance influence notwithstanding, the German 
 Minnesang remained always in the best sense German. 
 
 The earliest of the great Middle High German epic poets, 
 Heinrich von Veldeke, was himself present at the Whitsuntide 
 
 1 " Wer gutes Weibes Minne hat, der schamt sich jedes unrechten Thuns " 
 ( Walther von der Vogelweide, ed. Lachmann and MiilLenhoff, 93). 
 
 2 See, for example, Ulrich von Liechtenstein's Frattendienst (above, p. 109), 
 and O. Lyon, Minne- und Ateistersang, Leipzig, 1883, 53 ff.
 
 CHAP. VII.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 1 1/ 
 
 festival in Mainz, and it is no accident that he should have Heinrich 
 been the pioneer of the new epoch in the lyric as well as in ^eke as 
 the epic. With Heinrich von Veldeke the Minnesang comes lyric poet 
 immediately under the influence of the French lyric. The 
 poet of the Eneit reveals himself, in more than fifty lyric 
 strophes which have come down to us, as a naive, light- 
 hearted singer, a characteristic Rhinelander, who delighted, 
 like the less polished Austrian singers, in the coming of 
 spring, in birds and flowers. But from France he learned 
 a more varied repertory of melodies, and from France, too, 
 came the new tones with which, here as well as in his epic, 
 he sang the praises of Frau Minne : 
 
 " Von minne kumet uns allez guot : 
 diu minne machet reinen muot. 
 waz solte ich sunder minne dan ? " 1 
 
 One of the representative German Minnesingers before Friedrich 
 Walther von der Vogelweide was Friedrich von Hausen Y n 
 (Husen), 2 a native of the Middle Rhine district; a number 
 of other singers, whose lyrics are preserved in the great 
 Lieder MSS. notably Heinrich von Rugge, Ulrich von 
 Gutenberg, and Bernger von Horheim seem to have come 
 under his influence. Friedrich von Hausen is an excellent 
 type of the noble Minnesinger of his time. He stood in 
 more or less intimate relations with Barbarossa and his sons, 
 and to his example we possibly owe the song which appears 
 in the Lieder MSS. under the name of the elder of these two 
 sons, Kaiser Heinrich VI. He accompanied one or other 
 of them to Italy and France, and in 1190 met his death in 
 Asia Minor in battle with the Turks. The Provencal element 
 is strong in Friedrich's poetry; but in addition to ProvenQal 
 graces and that characteristically Provencal fondness for dally- 
 ing with a word, as seen in the above-quoted lines from 
 Heinrich von Veldeke, Friedrich von Hausen speaks a plain, 
 straightforward language, which brings the reader into touch 
 with the man. And yet, of all his checkered life, it may be 
 said that only one motive has passed over into his songs 
 the yearning of the wanderer for his beloved at home. The 
 
 1 "Von Minne kommt uns alles Gute ; die Minne macht reines Gemut. 
 Was sollte ich ohne Minne thun?" Heinrich von Veldeke's lyrics will be 
 found in Minnesangs Friihling, 56 ff. Cp. D.N.L. , 4, i, I [1892], 65 ff. 
 
 2 Minnesangf Friihling, 42 ff. ; D.N.L., 8, I, 17 ff.
 
 Il8 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Albrecht 
 von Jo- 
 hannsdorf. 
 
 Rudolf von 
 Fenis. 
 
 Heinrich 
 
 von 
 
 Morungen. 
 
 following are the opening lines of one of his finest songs, 
 written in 1189, before his departure upon that crusade from 
 which he did not return : 
 
 " Min herze und min lip diu wellent scheiden, 
 diu mit ein ander varnt nu mange ztt. 
 der lip wil gerne vehten an die heiden : 
 s6 hat iedoch das herze erwelt ein wip 
 vor al der werlt." 1 
 
 In Bavaria, Albrecht von Johannsdorf, who, like Friedrich von 
 Hausen, followed Barbarossa on the crusade of 1189, struck a 
 more primitive, Germanic note than his brother-poet of the 
 Rhineland, while in the extreme south-east, near Neuchatel in 
 Switzerland, Graf Rudolf von Fenis sang love-songs which 
 are all but directly translated from the Provencal. 2 
 
 A greater, if less immediately influential, poet than Friedrich 
 von Hausen was the Thuringian, Heinrich von Morungen, 
 who spent the last part of his life in Leipzig. The themes of 
 his poetry are, it is true, not more varied than Friedrich's, 
 and the influence of the Troubadours is quite as strong, 
 but he has a wider range of expression and more originality. 
 Heinrich von Morungen's verses have a strong individual 
 stamp ; his language and similes often strangely modern 
 are occasionally lit up by a humour that reminds us of 
 Wolfram von Eschenbach. As a specimen of his lyric, a 
 strophe may be quoted from the "Tagelied" in which 
 two lovers alternately express their affection, each verse 
 closing . with the same refrain : 
 
 " Owe, sol aber mir iemer me 1 
 geliuhten'dur die naht 
 noch wizer danne ein sne 
 ir lip vil wol geslaht ? 
 der trouc diu ougen mfn. 
 ich wande, ez solde stn 
 des liehten manen schtn. 
 d6tageteez." 3 
 
 It was, however, neither Heinrich von Morungen nor Fried- 
 
 1 " Mem Herz und mein Leib, die wollen scheiden, die mit einander fhhren 
 lange Zeit. Der Leib will gern mit den Heiden kampfen ; es hat jedoch das 
 Herz ein Weib erwahlt vor aller Welt " (Minnesangs Frithling, 47). 
 
 1 Minuesangs Friihling, 80 ff. Cp. also K. Bartsch, Die Schweizer Minne- 
 sanger, Frauenfeld, 1886, i ff. 
 
 3 " O weh ! Soil mir je wieder [mehr] leuchten durch die Nacht, noch weisser 
 als [ein] Schnee, ihr Leib so schon gestaltet? Der betrog die Augen mein. 
 Ich wahnte, es ware des liehten Mondes Schein. Da tagte es " (Minnesangs 
 /'ruhling, 143).
 
 CHAP. VII.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 1 19 
 
 rich von Hausen, but a less gifted singer, who took the lead- 
 ing position among the German Minnesingers before Walther 
 von der Vogelweide namely, Reinmar von Hagenau. 1 By Reinmar 
 birth an Alsatian, Reinmar seems, early in life, to have found a Ha enau 
 home at the Viennese Court ; his lyrics show all the character- ca. 1160-' 
 istics of the Austrian Minnesang, and the Provencal elements I2IO> 
 are more Germanised than in the poetry of the Rhenish 
 singers. At the same time, Reinmar's lyric was essentially a 
 Court lyric ; if it avoided the formalities of the Troubadour 
 poetry, it fell into others ; the artificiality of the life in which 
 the poet moved left its mark upon all his songs. Of the early 
 Minnesingers, he is the most unrelievedly elegiac ; his one 
 theme is disappointed, unrequited affection. Love he only 
 saw, as he himself tells us, " in bleicher varwe," and this 
 " pale hue " gives his poetry a monotony. Thus although, 
 after Walther, Reinmar has left the largest quantity of lyric 
 poetry behind him, it does not leave an impression upon us 
 proportionate to its mass. But he possesses a special claim 
 upon our interest from the fact that under him Walther von 
 der Vogelweide learnt his art, and when Reinmar died about 
 1 2 10, Walther sang his praises in a noble panegyric. 
 
 Only one other of the poets of the " Minnesang's Spring- Hartman 
 time" calls for notice here, Hartman von Aue. The same vonAue - 
 " crystalline " poetry is to be found in Hartman's songs as in 
 his epics, and while the personal note is naturally clearer and 
 fuller, there is the same striving to reconcile the contradic- 
 tions of life as is to be found in his longer, more objective 
 poems. Hartman's elegy on the death of his liege lord is the 
 most heartfelt expression of sorrow in the early Minnesang : 
 
 " Sit mich der t&t beroubet hat 
 des herren min, 
 
 swie nil diu werlt nach im gestat, 
 daz laze ich sin. 
 der frdide min den besten teil 
 hat er dS hin, 
 
 und schiiefe ich nii der sele heil, 
 daz waere ein sin. " a 
 
 1 Minnesangs Friihling, 150 ff. ; D.N.L., 8, i, 63 ff. Cp. K. Burdach, 
 Reinmar der alte und Walther von der Vogelweide, Leipzig, 1880. 
 
 a " Seit mich der Tod des Herren mein beraubt hat, wie nun die Welt nach 
 ihm bestehen mag. das lasse ich sein (i.e., darum ktimmere ich micht nicht). 
 Der Freude mein den besten Teil hat er dahin (i.e., der beste Teil meiner 
 Freude ist mit ihm verloren gegangen) ; besorgte ich nun der Seele Heil, das 
 ware verntinftig " (Minnesangs Friihling, 210).
 
 120 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Walther 
 von der 
 Vogel- 
 weide, ca. 
 1170-1228. 
 
 Walther 
 in Vienna. 
 
 This is altogether a higher, manlier type of elegy than 
 Reinmar's had been ; there breathes from Hartman's religious 
 verse a pious trust in God, which is not common in the lyric 
 of the early thirteenth century. 
 
 The " spring-time " of the Minnesang passes into summer 
 with the appearance of the greatest lyric poet of the middle 
 ages, Walther von der Vogelweide. 1 Data for Walther's life 
 are as rare as for the life of any other of the Middle High 
 German poets, but the fact that much of his verse is political 
 that is to say, stands in relation to the historical events of 
 the time furnishes certain clues. The year and locality of 
 Walther's birth are alike unknown. Beyond the name 
 " Vogelweide," which was probably the title of some modest 
 castle, we have no facts which might help us to identify his 
 birthplace or home. For a time, the claims of the Southern 
 Tyrol were regarded as strongest, but, in the light of recent 
 investigations, several other places would seem to have an 
 equal claim to this distinction. One thing alone is certain : 
 Walther was a South German ; he spoke and wrote the 
 Bavarian dialect that is, the dialect of Bavaria and Austria. 
 Born about the year 1170, he was of noble family, as his 
 title " Herr " implies ; but he was poor so poor that he was 
 obliged to make a profession of his art. 
 
 At an early age Walther von der Vogelweide came to 
 Vienna, to the Court of Duke Leopold V., and here his 
 talents attracted the attention of Reinmar von Hagenau, who 
 was some ten years his senior; the gentle, almost effeminate 
 melancholy of Reinmar's Minnesang finds an echo in the 
 young poet's earlier lyrics. Soon, however, a fresher, more 
 youthful exuberance makes its appearance, and Walther's lyrics 
 become careless and light-hearted. A number of poems from 
 this first period have even been grouped together as referring 
 to a serious love episode in Walther's life. There is, it is true, 
 a personal note in these songs, but the poet's feelings are still 
 half-hidden by the phrases of the " Minnedienst." His love 
 would seem to have met with response, but secrecy and self- 
 denial were necessary, if he were not to lose his mistress. 
 
 1 Ed. by K. Lachmann and K. Miillenhoff, 6th ed., Berlin, 1891 ; by W. 
 Wilmanns. 2nd ed.. Halle, 1883; by F. Pfeiffer, 6th ed. (by K. Bartsch), 
 Leipzig, 1880; and in D.N.L., by F. Pfaff (8, 2 [1895]). Cp. W. Wilmanns, 
 Leben vnd Dichten Walthers von der Vogelweide, Bonn, 1882 ; A. E. Schbn- 
 bach, Walther von der Vogelweide (Fiihrende Geisfer, i), 2nd ed., Dresden, 
 1895; and K. Burdach, Walther von der Vogelweide, i, Leipzig, 1900.
 
 CHAP. VII.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 121 
 
 To this cycle of songs belong probably the beautiful strophes 
 which open : 
 
 " Der rife tet den kleinen vogelen we, 
 daz sie niht ensungen. 
 nfl h6rt ichs aber wiinneclfch als e, 
 nu ist diu heide entsprungen. 
 da sach ich bluomen striten wider den kle, 
 weder ir lenger wsere. 
 miner frouwen seite ich disiu msere." l 
 
 But Walther's love if this personal interpretation of his lyrics 
 is justified ended tragically. A doubt arose as to whether 
 his lady really loved him ; then strangers came between them, 
 and at last the poor singer, with the unscelikeit in his heart, 
 turned his back upon Vienna and wandered out into the 
 world. This was in 1198. 
 
 For the next ten or twelve years Walther was a " fahrender Walther 
 Sanger," wandering from castle to castle, and dependent upon as "Jjp 1 " 
 the generosity of ever-changing patrons. His repertory was Sanger," 
 made up not only of his own songs, to which he composed "9 8 - c a. 
 the melodies himself, but also of the songs of others, perhaps 
 even of the popular romances of the " Heldensage." Thus 
 he became a Spielmann, but being of noble birth and a 
 Minnesinger, he was a more honoured guest than the ordinary 
 singer of this class. He was often entertained for weeks and 
 months at a time in some friendly castle, and often, too, 
 during these long periods, a love adventure would spring up 
 between the singer and some lady of high degree. In the 
 songs which belong to this, the second period of Walther's life, 
 he is a master of the courtly Minnesang. It is not known when 
 or where these songs were composed, nor in whose honour 
 they were sung, but doubtless many a personal experience is 
 reflected in them. We hear, for instance, in one of these : 
 
 " Swa ein edeliu schcene frouwe reine, 
 wol gekleidet unde wol gebunden, 
 dur kurzewile zuo vil liuten gat, 
 hoveltchen h&hgemuot, niht eine, 
 urnbe sehende ein wenic under stunden 
 alsam der sunne gegen den sternen stat." * 
 
 1 "Der Reif that den kleinen Vogeln weh, so dass sie nicht sangen. Nun 
 horte ich sie wieder lieblich wie friiher ; nun steht die Haide im frischen Griin. 
 Da sah ich Blumen streiten gegen den Klee, wer von ihnen beiden langer 
 ware. Meiner Dame sagte ich diese Mare " (ed. Lachmann, 114). 
 
 2 "Wie eine edle, schone, reine Frau, wohl gekleidet und wohl gebunden 
 (i.e., in festlicher Kleidung und mil schon aufgebundenem Haar) zur Kurzweil
 
 122 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 An event fraught with tragic consequences for the Holy 
 Roman empire happened in the autumn of 1197. Kaiser 
 Heinrich VI., Barbarossa's son, whose strong hand had terror- 
 ised his composite empire into subjection, died unexpectedly 
 at Messina, and for a time the wildest confusion seemed 
 imminent. In the north two rivals came forward for the 
 vacant throne Philipp, Duke of Swabia, and Graf Otto of 
 Poitou ; while in the south the new Pope, Innocent III., 
 showed that he was capable of a wider political activity than 
 the affairs of Italy afforded him. The empire was on the 
 His politi- brink of civil war. It was at this point that Walther von 
 cai poetry. ^ eT Vogelweide began to employ his art in the interests of 
 politics : his earliest political " Spriiche " were composed on 
 behalf of the Duke of Swabia. 
 
 Walther's political poetry is unduly overshadowed by his 
 unpolitical lyric ; for he is even greater as a political poet than 
 as a Minnesinger in the strict sense of that word. He was 
 not the first German poet to draw political events into the 
 sphere of poetry for that we should have to go back to the 
 unknown poet of De Heinrico but he was the first of the 
 Minnesingers to write political verse. This side of Walther's 
 work is obviously a direct development of that " Spruch " 
 poetry which, as has already been pointed out, was one of the 
 most elementary forms of the Spielmann's lyric. But, just as 
 the national epic of the Nibelungenlied sprang from the union 
 of the indigenous Spielmann's poetry with the art of the more 
 polished singers of the Arthurian epic, so in Walther's hands 
 the patriotic German "Lied" arose from the fusion of the old 
 Germanic " Spruch " poetry with the art of the Minnesang. 
 Walther von der Vogelweide may thus be regarded as the 
 founder of that national and patriotic song in which the 
 German literature of later centuries is so rich. 
 
 Walther's political "Spriiche" follow, sometimes despon- 
 dently, but more often in a tone of solemn warning, the 
 wavering fortunes of the Swabian pretender, who ultimately 
 (1204), in spite of the Pope, gained the upper hand in the 
 German empire. Four years later, however, another heavy 
 blow fell upon the nation : Philipp was murdered by Otto of 
 
 zu vielen Leuten (i.e., in eine grosse Gesellschaft) geht, hofgemass und in 
 freudiger Stimmung, nicht allcin, (sich) umsehend ein wenig von Zeit zu Zeit, 
 gleichwie die Sonne gegeniiber den Sternen steht " (ed. Lachmann, 46).
 
 CHAP. VII.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 123 
 
 Wittelshach. How this catastrophe affected Walther is not 
 known, for he ceased to write of Philipp as soon as the latter's 
 prosperity once set in. Probably the oldest of his " Spriiche " 
 is the famous one which opens with the lines 
 
 " Ich saz {if eime steine, 
 und dahte bein mit beine ; 
 dar uf sast' ich den ellenbogen ; 
 ich hete in mine hant gesmogen 
 daz kinne und ein min wange," 1 
 
 lines which were obviously in the minds of the illustrators of 
 the two great " Lieder " MSS., for both depict the poet in the 
 attitude he describes. In another Spruch, Walther makes a 
 stirring appeal to his nation, which closes with the words 
 
 " S6 we dir, tiuschiu zunge, 
 wie stet din ordenunge, 
 daz nfl diu mucke ir kiinec hat, 
 und daz din ere als6 zergat ! 
 bekera dich, bekere ! 
 die cirkel sint ze here, 
 die armen ktinege dringent dich." 3 
 
 But the best idea of the poetic heights to which Walther's 
 political lyric could rise is to be obtained from the jubilant 
 patriotic song which he wrote, probably in Vienna, about 
 1203. The following are two of the five strophes: 
 
 " Ich han lande vil gesehen 
 unde nam der besten gerne war : 
 libel miieze mir geschehen, 
 kiinde ich ie min herze bringen dar, 
 daz im wol gevallen 
 wolde fremeder site. 
 
 nu was hulfe mich, ob ich unrehte strite? 
 tiuschiu zuht gat vor in alien. 
 
 Von der Elbe unz an den Rin 
 und her wider unz an der Ungerlant 
 sd mugen wol die besten sin, 
 die ich in der werlte han erkant. 
 
 1 "Ich sass auf einem Steine und deckte Bein mit Beine ; darauf setzte ich 
 den Ellbogen ; ich hatte in meine Hand geschmiegt das Kinn und eine meiner 
 Wangen " (ed. Lachmann, 8). 
 
 2 "So wen dir, deutsche Zunge (i.e., deutsches Volk), wie steht deine Ord- 
 nung, dass [nun] die Mucke ihren Konig hat, und dass deine Ehre so zergeht ! 
 O kehre dich um, kehre urn ! Die Zirkel (i.e. , Fiirstcnkronen) sind zu stolz, die 
 armen Konige (i.e., die Bewerber um den deutschen Thron) bedrangen dich" 
 (I.e., 9).
 
 124 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 kan ich rehte schouwen 
 
 guot geliz und lip, 
 
 sam mir got, s6 swiiere ich wol daz hie diu wtp 
 
 bezzer sint danne ander frouwen." 1 
 
 In Thu- In his wanderings Walther was frequently a guest at the 
 
 ringia. hospitable Court of the Landgraf of Thuringia; here, too, it 
 will be remembered, he came into personal touch with Wolf- 
 ram von Eschenbach, who was not without influence upon 
 Walther's poetic style. In 1212, when Otto IV., the Guelf 
 Emperor who succeeded the murdered Philipp, returned from 
 Italy under the ban of the Pope, Walther again became a 
 political singer. The action of the Pope, to whom Walther 
 maintained the bitterest antagonism, was alone sufficient to 
 make the poet an active partisan of the new Emperor. Walther 
 remained faithful to Otto's cause as long as he could, although 
 he received but scant reward or even thanks for his pains. 
 When, however, the empire reverted once more to the dynasty 
 of the Staufens, and the young Friedrich II. assumed the reins 
 of government, Walther found in him a worthier as well as a 
 more grateful patron. Friedrich's generosity enabled the poet 
 to pass his last days free from want. In 1227 the inevitable 
 rupture between Friedrich and the Pope took place, and 
 Walther once more took up his pen to do battle against 
 Rome. He begged the Emperor to undertake the crusade 
 which the Pope had forbidden, and two songs, which are 
 among the last he wrote, might suggest the inference that he 
 had himself taken part in Friedrich's crusade of 1228. This, 
 however, is improbable. From 1228 on, all traces of Walther's 
 life are lost, but it is not likely that he lived to greet the 
 Emperor on his return from the Holy Land. According 
 to tradition, he passed his last years in Wiirzburg, and lies 
 buried there. 
 
 Through all these years, the political events of which are 
 thus fitfully reflected in Walther's Spruch poetry, the poet's 
 
 1 "Ich habe Lander viel gesehen und die besten gern beobachtet ; iibel 
 miisse mir geschehen, kbnnte ich je mein Herz dazu bringen, dass ihm fremde 
 Sitten wohl gefallen sollten. Nun was hiilfe es mir, wenn ich unrecht stritte 
 (i.e., eine falsche Behauptung verfbchte)? Deutsche Zucht geht ihnen alien 
 vor. Von der Elbe bis zum Rhein und wieder zuriick zum Ungarland mbgen 
 wohl die besten sein, die ich in der Welt kennen gelernt habe. Kann ich recht 
 schnrten (i.e., verstehe ich mien auf) gutes Benehmen und Sein, mochte ich 
 wohl schworen, so (wahr) mir Gott (helfe), dass hier die Weiber besscr sind, als 
 anderswo die Frauen " (ed. Lachmann, 56 f.)
 
 CHAP. VII.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 125 
 
 own life seems to have been a happy one. To this period 
 belong the ripest and most beautiful of his love-songs. In 
 these poems Walther has freed himself from the shackles of 
 the Court Minnesang; the Provencal conventions of the 
 " Minnedienst " have disappeared. With verses like 
 
 "Mich duhte daz mir nie 
 lieber wurde, danne mir ze muote was. 
 die bluomen vielen ie 
 von dem bourne bi uns nider an daz gras. 
 seht, d6 muost' ich von froiden lachen. 
 do ich s6 wunnecliche 
 was in troume riche, 
 do taget ez und muos ich wachen," 1 
 
 or with the well-known Under der linden, the pearl of Walther's 
 lyric, he has won for himself a place among the greatest lyric 
 poets in the literature of the world : 
 
 " Under der linden 
 an der heide, 
 da unser zweier bette was, 
 da mugent ir vinden 
 sch6ne beide 
 
 gebrochen bluomen unde gras. 
 vor dem walde in einem tal, 
 tandaradei ! 
 
 schone sane diu nahtegal. 
 
 Ich kam gegangen 
 zuo der ouwe : 
 d6 was min friedel komen . 
 da wart ich enpfangen, 
 here frouwe ! 
 
 daz ich bin sselic iemer me. 
 kuste er mich? wol tusentstunt : 
 tandaradei ! 
 
 seht, wie rot mir ist der munt." 2 
 
 But besides love lyrics and political " Spriiche," Walther also 
 
 1 " Mich dauchte, dass ich nie in freudigerer Stimmung war, als mir (damals) 
 zu Mute war ; die Blumen fielen fortwahrend von dem Baume bei uns nieder 
 auf das Gras. Seht, da musste ich aus Freude lachen, da ich so wonniglich 
 war, im Traume reich ; da tagt es und ich muss erwachen " (ed. Lach- 
 mann, 75). 
 
 2 " Unter der Linde auf der Haide, wo unser beider Belt war, da konnt ihr 
 finden schon gebrochen sowohl Blumen wie Gras. Vor dem Wald in einem 
 Thai, tandaradei ! Schon sang die Nachtigall. Ich kam gegangen zu der 
 Aue, dahin war mein Liebster schon gekommen. Da ward ich empfangen, 
 hohe Frau ! dass ich fur immer [mehr] selig bin. Kiisste er mich ? Wohl 
 tausend mal ; tandaradei ! Seht, wie rot ist mir der Mund " (ed. Lach- 
 nuuni, 39).
 
 126 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 The wrote a " Leich " of greater length, which reflects the simple 
 
 "Leich. piety of medieval Christianity, and an elegiac retrospect upon 
 
 his own life, the deepest and most spiritual of all his poems. 
 
 The latter opens with the noble lines : 
 
 "Owe war sint verswunden alliu miniu jar I 
 ist mir mtn leben getroumet oder ist ez war? 
 daz ich ie wande daz iht wsere, was daz iht ? 
 dar nach han ich geslafeu und enweiz es niht 
 nil bin ich erwachet, und ist mir unbekant 
 daz mir hie vor was kiindic als min ander hant. 
 liut unde lant, da ich von kinde bin erzogen, 
 die sint mir fremde worden, reht' als ez si gelogen. " ' 
 
 Waither's Walther gave the note to the " flock of nightingales " of the 
 ayric n '' ' German Minnesang as no other poet of his time ; he is the 
 poet. master to whom all look up. It is thus important to under- 
 
 stand wherein his greatness consisted. As a Minnesinger in the 
 strict sense of that word that is to say, as a Minnesinger on 
 the model of the Provenal poets he occupies by no means 
 an isolated position among his contemporaries ; it is, indeed, 
 open to question if in this respect he may be placed much 
 above Heinrich von Morungen ; and there are notes in Wol- 
 fram von Eschenbach's handful of lyric poetry which lay 
 beyond Waither's reach. Again, as a singer of rural delights 
 and uncourtly sentiments, there was among his successors one 
 poet, at least, who was not unworthy to stand beside him. 
 But Walther was something more than a great singer in one 
 particular form of the lyric : he was great in all ; none could 
 compare with him in the breadth of his poetic range; none 
 has left so considerable a body of lyric poetry. He began, as 
 we have seen, by gathering up the threads of the German 
 Minnesang, as it existed before him ; but he mastered the 
 half-Provengal art of his predecessors only to destroy it. Like 
 Klopstock and Goethe nearly six centuries later, he national- 
 ised the lyric : in place of an aristocratic art, imitating foreign 
 models, the Minnesang became in his hands an expression for 
 the lyric aspiration of the German people. 
 
 1 " O weh, wphin sind verschwunden alle meinc Jahre I Ist mir mein Leben 
 getraumt, oder ist es wahr ? Das (von dem) ich je glaubte, dass es etwas ware, 
 war das (wirklich) etwas? Danach habe ich geschlafen und weiss es nicht. 
 Nun bin ich erwacht, und (es) ist mir unbekannt, was mir zuvor kund war wie 
 meine andere Hand (i.e., wie der einen Hand die andere). Leute und Land, 
 wo ich von Kind auf erzogen bin. die sind mir fremd geworden, gerade als 
 waren sie erlogen " (ed. Lachmann, 124),
 
 CHAP. VII.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. I2/ 
 
 Walther's influence upon both the Minnesang and the later 
 Meistergesang was far-reaching ; until the Renaissance began 
 to make itself felt in Germany, no singer was more warmly 
 appreciated than he. It was Hugo von Trimberg who, at the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century, wrote the often-quoted 
 lines 
 
 " Her Walther von der Vogelweide, 
 wer des vergsesse, der tset' mir leide." ' 
 
 Even in modern times, Walther von der Vogelweide still en- 
 joys something of his old prestige ; of all medieval poets, none 
 possesses so real an interest for the modern reader as he. 
 Not only is he great enough as a lyric poet to rise above the 
 conditions imposed upon him by his time, but his best lyrics 
 are in such intimate touch with nature, they have broken so 
 completely with all purely literary traditions, that he speaks 
 to the modern world almost as a contemporary. None of the 
 great singers of the middle ages or the Renaissance neither 
 Petrarch nor Ronsard appeals to us to-day as does Walther 
 von der Vogelweide. 
 
 Among his contemporaries there is only one who Wolfram 
 was in the fullest sense his peer, the Bavarian, Wolfram ]^ hea . 
 von Eschenbach. Wolfram's spacious genius, however, was bach, 
 cramped by the narrow confines of the Minnesang; he has 
 left only eight songs, of which most are in the form of 
 " Tagelieder." To him life was not so simple as to the 
 majority of his fellow-singers and his songs are less na'ive, 
 but they reveal an imaginative depth and dramatic force as 
 when the watcher on the tower proclaims to the sleeping 
 lovers the coming of the sun in the words 
 
 " Sine klawen durh die wolken sint geslagen, 
 er stiget fif mil gr6zer kraft " 2 
 
 which was new to the German lyric. 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide left no school behind him in the Walther's 
 ordinary acceptance of that word, but the German Minnesang contem - 
 which came after him is deep in his debt. Among his con- 
 temporaries, Ulrich von Singenberg, " der Truhsaeze (Truchsess) 
 
 1 " Wer dessen vergasse, der thate mir leid " (Der Rentier, 1218 f.) 
 
 2 " Seine Klauen durch die Wolken sind geschlagen ; er steigt auf mit 
 grosser Kraft" (K. Bartsch, Deutsche Liederdichter, 3rd ed., 98).
 
 128 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Neidhart 
 von Reuen- 
 thal, ca. 
 1180-1250. 
 
 von Sant Gallen," seems to have come into more or less 
 intimate personal touch with him, and his verse l shows a 
 close imitation of Walther's style. The Tyrolese nobleman, 
 Leuthold von Savene (Saben), again, was a more original 
 genius ; he followed, but by no means slavishly, in his master's 
 footsteps as a poet of nature. 2 In general, the German lyric 
 after Walther falls into two clearly marked groups : on the 
 one hand, the conservative, aristocratic Court Minnesang ; on 
 the other, the freer, more untrammelled lyric of nature, songs 
 inspired by the life of the people. While Walther stands at 
 the head of both these lines of development, the noble-born 
 singers who remained faithful to the Minnesang, like the 
 Swabian, Hiltbold von Schwangau, 3 preferred to take as their 
 model Heinrich von Morungen. 
 
 The future of the German lyric did not, however, lie in the 
 hands of the aristocratic singers of courtly love : not Walther 
 the Minnesinger, but Walther the master of the national lyric, 
 the Walther who had raised the songs of the people to a great 
 art, was the master from whom the next generation learned its 
 most profitable lesson. The greatest poet among the epigoni 
 of the German Minnesang, the Bavarian nobleman Neidhart 
 von Reuenthal (Riuwental), was not so much a Court singer in 
 the strict sense of the word as a master in the art of popular 
 song. With Neidhart, who was born probably about 1180 
 and lived till the middle of the next century, begins a new de- 
 velopment of the lyric, a development of special importance for 
 the subsequent history of the "Volkslied." Neidhart is the 
 master of the " hofische Dorfpoesie " that is to say, " village 
 poetry under court influence," or, more shortly, of the peasant 
 lyric. He will have nothing to do with noble ladies : he goes 
 out among the peasants, joins in their dance under the village 
 linden, or, if it be winter, in the great " Bauernstube." With 
 a naive, often childish pride, he describes his various con- 
 quests of village beauties. Here, for instance, is a conversa- 
 tion between mother and daughter in one of Neidhart's earlier 
 poems. May has come and filled the woods with foliage, and 
 the girl longs to join the dancers, but her mother refuses to 
 allow her. She begs to be allowed to go : 
 
 1 K. Bartsch, I.e., 129 ff. ; D.N.L., 8, i, 121 ff. 
 a K. Bartsch, I.e., 126 ff. ; D.N.L.. I.e., 118 ff. 
 K. Bartsch, I.e., 68 ff. ; D.N.L., I.e., 81 ft
 
 CHAP. VII.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 1 29 
 
 " Den ich iu wil nennen, 
 den muget ir wol erkennen. 
 ze dem s6 wil ich gahen. 
 er ist genant von Riuwental : den wil ich umbevahen. 
 
 Ez gruonet an den esten 
 daz alles mohten bresten 
 die bourne zuo der erden. 
 nft wizzet, liebiu muoter min, ich volge dem knaben warden. 
 
 Liebiu muoter here, 
 nach mir s6 klaget er sere, 
 sol ich im des niht danken ? 
 er spricht daz ich diu schcenest si von Beiern unz in Vranken." 1 
 
 This is the form of the majority of these songs. They 
 usually open with a picture of the season ; if it be spring, 
 the poet describes the woods or the meadows in their fresh 
 beauty, or the music of the birds : 
 
 " Nu ist vil gar zergangen 
 der winder kalt, 
 mit loube wol bevangen 
 der griiene wait, 
 wunnecllch, 
 
 in sliezer stimme lobeltch, 
 vr6 singent aber die vogele, lobent den meien. 
 sam tuo wir den reien." 2 
 
 Then follows a short romance or love adventure, graphically 
 narrated in a sprightly dance measure. The winter songs 
 are more serious. The dances in the "Bauernhof" do not 
 always pass off so merrily as those under the linden; the 
 rough peasants, whom Neidhart is always ready to satirise, 
 dispute with him the possession of the village beauty, and 
 the dance ends in blows. While in all this a healthy and 
 pleasing revolt against the artificial formality of the Court 
 poetry is to be recognised, there is, at the same time, an 
 element of degeneration in Neidhart's lyric. Walther von der 
 
 1 " Der, den ich euch nennen will, den konnt ihr erkennen. Zu dem will ich 
 [also] eilen ; er ist genannt von Riuwental ; den will ich umfangen. Es griint 
 an den Asten, dass alle die Baume davon zur Erde niederbrechen konnten. 
 Nun wisset, Hebe Mutter mein, ich folge dem teueren Jiingling. Liebe, hohe 
 Mutter, nach mir klagt er so sehr. Soil ich ihm nicht dafiir danken? Er 
 sagt, dass ich die schonste sei von Baiern bis nach Franken " (Die Lieder 
 Neidhart s von Reuenthal, ed. F. Keinz, Leipzig, 1889, 18). Cp. K. Bartsch, 
 I.e., 103 ff. 
 
 2 " Nun ist ganzlich vergangen der Winter kalt, mit Laub wohl bedeckt der 
 griine Wald. Lieblich, mit siisser Stimme feierlich, froh singen wiederum die 
 Vogel, loben den Mai. Ebenso tanzen (/*'/., thun) wir den Reigen " (I.e., 45). 
 
 I
 
 I3O MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 Neidhart's 
 influence. 
 
 The Tan- 
 hauser. 
 
 Steinmar. 
 
 Vogelweide, who did not look upon it with favour, shows a 
 delicacy in his songs of "niederer Minne" which is not to 
 be found here. The fabric of Neidhart's poetry is a little 
 coarse, and, charming as are his vignettes of summer and 
 winter, the imagery he uses is not original. Thus Neidhart 
 von Reuenthal does not occupy a place in the front rank 
 of the Minnesingers ; he is not even to be compared with 
 the singers of the early Minnesang, such as Heinrich von 
 Morungen or Reinmar von Hagenau ; but he was the most 
 gifted lyric poet of his time, and his poetry left its mark 
 upon the German Volkslied for at least two centuries. 
 
 His influence is particularly noticeable on a group of 
 Swabian Minnesingers who wrote about the middle of the 
 thirteenth century : in the poetry of Burkart von Hohenfels, 
 Ulrich von Winterstetten, and, most gifted of the three, 
 Gottfried von Neifen, there is an attempt to combine the 
 courtly Minnesang with the later peasant poetry. 1 Another 
 poet, to whom Neidhart served as model, was " the Tan- 
 hauser " (Tanhuser), a singer of some individuality. 2 Al- 
 though of noble family, the Tanhauser evidently led the 
 life of a Spielmann. He, too, shows a preference for dance 
 measures, but he seems to have come under Romance in- 
 fluence. He imitates the French "Pastourel," a form of 
 poetry which was more or less analogous to the German 
 peasant lyric. But the Tanhauser remains essentially a Spiel- 
 mann, delighting in rough humour and witty satire, even when 
 the shafts of his satire are directed against himself. The 
 ceremonial Minnedienst fares badly at his hands : his songs 
 proclaim more plainly than the insincerities of Ulrich von 
 Liechtenstein that the day of the Minnedienst is past. 
 Another satirist of the Minnesang is the poet known as 
 Herr Steinmar, probably Steinmar von Klingenau in the 
 Thurgau, who lived in- the second half of the thirteenth 
 century. In Steinmar's verses, 3 just as in the Tanhauser's, 
 what appears to be satire is often merely a reflection of the 
 change that was rapidly coming over social life. Steinmar 
 is a " Bauerndichter," but he looks upon life from a purely 
 democratic standpoint, adapting his poetic ideals to the solid 
 
 1 K. Bartsch. I.e., 148 ff., 155 ff., 161 ff. ; D.N.L., i.e., 143 ff. 
 
 2 K. Bartsch, I.e., 193 ff. ; D.N.L., I.e., 185 ff. 
 9 K. Bartsch, I.e., 239 ff. ; D.N.L., I.e., 222 ff.
 
 CHAP. VII.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 131 
 
 comforts of the burgher's life, and singing the glories of 
 autumn instead of spring. 
 
 At the beginning of the fourteenth century we meet once 
 more, and for the last time in the history of the German 
 lyric, with a Minnesinger of the old type. This was Meister 
 Johannes Hadlaub (Hadloub), a citizen of Zurich, and friend Johannes 
 of Riidiger Manesse and his son, the first collectors of Hadlaub - 
 German Minnelieder. As a poet, Hadlaub is content to 
 imitate; he depicts his shy, retiring love for a noble lady, 
 and the Minnedienst in which it expressed itself, in verses 
 that are constant echoes of the older Minnesang. 1 The 
 incongruities that strike us in Ulrich von Liechtenstein's 
 poetry are still more conspicuous in the lyrics of this plain 
 Zurich burgher of more than a generation later. Hadlaub 
 also, it may be noted, wrote peasant lyrics ; but it is doubt- 
 ful if there was even as much sincerity behind his rustic 
 sentiments as behind his love poetry. 
 
 As a " Spruchdichter," Walther von der Vogelweide's most 
 important successor was Reinmar von Zweter. 2 This poet Reinmar 
 was born on the Rhine about 1200, like his master learned n 
 his art in Austria, and lived until after the middle of the 
 century. His " Spriiche " afford a motley commentary upon 
 the life of his time : the burning questions of the day serve 
 as materials for satiric or didactic treatment. There is even 
 a slight flavour of the satire of a later age in Reinmar's 
 attacks on erring monks, on drunkenness and gambling; 
 but it is only a foretaste. In politics, Reinmar took up 
 the war against the Pope where Walther had left it; but 
 nothing demonstrates more clearly how inferior a poet 
 Reinmar was than do these political " Spriiche." On the 
 modern reader his poetry leaves, as a whole, an impression 
 of monotony, for it is almost exclusively in one form, or, 
 to use the technical expression, in one "tone." 
 
 Although the " Spruchdichtung " was one of the few 
 forms of Middle High German poetry which lived on until 
 the age of the Reformation, it did not escape the universal 
 process of decay that set in between the close of the one 
 epoch and the beginning of the next. As an example of the 
 
 i K. Bartsch, I.e., 268 ff. ; D.N.L., I.e., 250 ff. 
 
 a Ed. G. Roethe, Leipzig, 1887; K. Bartsch, I.e., 173 ff., and D.N.L., I.e., 
 i66ff.
 
 132 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 medieval Spruchdichtung in its period of decay, one poet 
 "The ( must suffice the so-called "Marner," 1 a Swabian, who was 
 Marner. murdered as an old man about the year 1270. The Marner 
 was a learned poet, who could write Latin verses as well as 
 German, and in his Spriiche, which form the greater part of 
 his verse, he displays wide theological and scientific know- 
 ledge. Compared with Reinmar von Zweter, his range is 
 varied ; but the variety is too often attained by sacrificing 
 poetry to learning. In the Marner's poetry the tendency 
 to point a moral has obtained the upper hand, and, unfor- 
 Later tunately for the German Spruch, his example was only too 
 dichter. faithfully imitated in the following centuries. Didacticism 
 is the disturbing element, not only in the lyrics of minor 
 poets, such as Meister Boppe, Rumezland and Regenbogen, 2 
 but also in the most famous of all Heinrich von Meissen, 
 "the Frauenlob." Heinrich von Meissen belongs, however, 
 to the succeeding age and to a new race of poets ; he is not 
 a Minnesinger, but the first of the Meistersingers. 
 
 1 K. Bartsch, I.e., 179 ff. 
 
 3 K. Bartsch, I.e., 220, 226, 283.
 
 133 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DIDACTIC POETRY AND PROSE. 
 
 AN unconscious and unexpressed belief in " art for art's sake " 
 is apparent in the best decades of Middle High German liter- 
 ature as in all great literary periods. The unreflecting singers 
 who sang their own love-songs or told their tales of chivalry 
 did not consider too carefully means and ends ; they only 
 thought of how they could communicate to their hearers or 
 readers the pleasure they themselves felt. But as reflection 
 gradually took the place of naivete', and the didactic spirit 
 began to assert itself, the unreasoning idealism of the old 
 art disappeared. The encroachment of this spirit upon 
 Middle High German poetry was one of the earliest indi- 
 cations of its decay. Didacticism was, however, more than 
 a purely literary or intellectual phenomenon; it was associ- 
 ated with a change that was coming over the whole structure 
 of medieval society namely, that brought about by the rise 
 of the middle classes. The high-minded, aristocratic knight 
 had to give place to the practical burgher, whose life was 
 made up of petty interests and cares, with whom even religion 
 assumed a sternly practical and moral aspect. 
 
 Among the early literature of this didactic nature may be 
 noted a Tugendlehre, a collection of moral apothegms from 
 the Latin classics, translated into German by a Thuringian 
 churchman, Wernher von Elmdorf, and a German version of 
 the distichs which, in the middle ages, passed for Cato's in- 
 struction of his son : for centuries these Disticha Catonis en- 
 joyed popularity as a school-book. More important than 
 either of these works is the so-called Winsbeke^ written 
 
 1 Ed. M. Haupt, Leipzig, 1845 ; Didaktik aus der Zeit der Kreutsiige, be- 
 arbeitet von H. Hildebrand (D.N.L., 9 [1888]), 151 ff. 
 
 The did- 
 actic spirit 
 and the 
 rise of the 
 middle 
 classes. 
 
 Wernher 
 
 von 
 
 Elmdorf. 
 
 The Dis- 
 ticha 
 Catonis. 
 Der 
 Wimbcke.
 
 134 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 by a Herr von Windesbach, in Bavaria, about the beginning 
 of the thirteenth century. A father here instructs his son 
 a favourite form of moral text-book, of which the Disticha 
 Catonis was the model in the virtues and duties of knight- 
 hood. But Der Winsbeke is, at the same time, a poem of 
 genuine worth, and stands on a higher level than the later 
 didactic literature of the age. The author has escaped the 
 levelling influence of clerical or middle-class ideas, and still 
 regards the ideals of knighthood with sympathy ; his poem is 
 thus inspired with the same whole-hearted faith in these ideals 
 which we find in the Arthurian epic. The following is a 
 characteristic strophe : 
 
 " Sun, wilt du erzenie nemen, 
 ich wil dich leren einen tranc : 
 lat dirz diu sselde wol gezemen, 
 du wirdest selten tugende kranc, 
 din leben si kurz od ez si lane, 
 leg in din herze ein reinez vvip 
 mit stseter liebe sunder wane." 1 
 
 It might be said that after Ulrich von Liechtenstein's Frauen- 
 dienst, Der Winsbeke forms the best commentary on the 
 knightly life of the thirteenth century. A companion poem 
 a mother's instruction to her daughter by a later and a 
 Diu Wins- much inferior hand, is appended to the Winsbeke under the 
 title Diu Winsbekin. 
 
 The religious element, which is absent from the Winsbeke^ 
 is particularly strong in Der welsche Gas/, z a poem of some 
 15,000 verses written by Thomasin von Zirclaere, whose family 
 in Italian, Cerchiari had its seat in the neighbourhood of 
 Udine, in north-eastern Italy. Thomasin was a canon in the 
 cathedral of Aquileja. The title of the work, which was 
 written in 1215, implies that it was sent by its Italian author 
 into German lands as a "guest." In Der welsche Cast the 
 religious and moralising spirit asserts itself, but chivalry is not 
 yet dethroned. Although didactic, there is nothing biirgerlich 
 in its tone; the lower classes do not exist for the author, 
 except to be kept in their place. He still sees in the 
 
 1 "Sohn, willst du Arznei nehmen, (so) will ich dich einen Trank lehren ; 
 lasst die Gliicksgottin dir es angemessen sein, (so) wirst du selten schwach an 
 Tugend (i.e., Tiichtigkeit) (sein), sei dein Leben kurz oder sei es lang. Lege 
 in dein Herz ein reines Weib mit steter Liebe ohne Wanken " (14). 
 
 2 Ed. H. Ruckert, Quedlinburg, 1852 ; selections in D.N.L., 9, 120 ff. Cp. 
 A. E. Schbnbach, Die Anfdnge des deutschen Minnesanges, Graz, 1898, 35 ff. 
 
 bekin. 
 
 Thomasin 
 von Zir- 
 cleere's 
 Wehcher 
 Cast, 
 1215.
 
 CHAP. VIII.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 135 
 
 Arthurian epics the ideal text -books for the youth of the 
 time, but they have only worth for him in so far as they 
 are edifying : to their poetic beauties he is blind. In the 
 eyes of this clerical Lombard, the root of all the evil in the 
 world is unstcete, " lack of character," while its converse, state, 
 is the source of all virtues. To do justice and act generously 
 are the cardinal virtues of the noble knight Thomasin is 
 not a violent champion of his party, but his strictly clerical 
 point of view is apparent from his defence of Innocent III., 
 the Pope against whom Walther von der Vogelweide launched 
 his bitterest diatribes. He endeavours to persuade Friedrich 
 II. to undertake a crusade, and would gladly see all heretics 
 treated as they were treated by Duke Leopold of Austria : 
 
 " der die ketzer sieden kan . . . 
 er wil niht daz der valant 
 zebreche sin zende zehant, 
 swenner si ezze, da von heizet er 
 si sieden unde braten ser." * 
 
 The middle-class spirit, from which both the Winsbeke and 
 the Welsche Gast were free, set in with full force in the next 
 work that has to be considered, Freidank's Bescheidenheit? the Freidank's 
 most popular didactic work of the thirteenth and fourteenth ff//^^*" 
 centuries. Freidank (Vridanc) this was obviously not the 1215-30. 
 author's real name was a wandering Spielmann, but of his 
 life little more is known than that he took part in the crusade 
 of 1229. His work may have been begun in 1215 or 1216, 
 but was not completed until after his return from the East. 
 Bescheidenheit the Middle High German word means 
 " wisdom," or, more accurately, the wisdom that comes from 
 experience belongs to the category of " Spruch " poetry. 
 Freidank writes pithy, epigrammatic verses, which resemble in 
 form the strophes attributed to the Spervogel, and some of 
 Walther von der Vogelweide's political poems. There is 
 nothing courtly or chivalric in his work; it is popular, de- 
 mocratic, coarsely witty ; many of the epigrammatic couplets 
 might have come direct from the lips of the people, and 
 
 1 " Der die Ketzer sieden kann. . . . Er will nicht, dass der Teufel seine 
 Zahne sogleich zerbreche, wenn er sie esse, darum heisst er sie sieden und 
 braten sehr" (12,683 ff-) 
 
 2 Ed. H. E. Bezzenberger, Halle, 1872, and F. Sandross, Berlin, 1877. Cp. 
 D.N.L., 9, 251 ff.
 
 136 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 have passed into popular proverbs. Freidank is the first 
 forerunner of the middle-class poetry of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury ; in his attitude towards Pope and Church there is even 
 something of the spirit of the Reformation. Not that his 
 religious ideas differed materially from those of his time 
 with all his wit, his poetry is distinctly pious in tone; to 
 trust and serve God is in his eyes the beginning of all 
 " Bescheidenheit " but his sympathies are with the Kaiser, 
 and he is not blind to the Pope's failings. After all, the 
 Pope is but a man, and 
 
 " Zwei swert in einer scheide 
 verderbent lihte beide, 
 als der babst des riches gert 
 so verderbent beidiu swert. "1 
 
 In his attitude towards the monks, Freidank is still more 
 outspoken. He sees them, in spite of his unquestioning 
 religious faith, with the eyes of the common people ; he 
 does not attempt to conceal their weaknesses, but he treats 
 them, on the whole, with an easy-going indulgence. Once 
 in this connection he reminds us 
 
 " Ich weiz wol daz ein horwic hant 
 selten vveschet wiz gewant. 
 Wem mac der luter wazzer geben, 
 den man siht in der hulvve sweben ? 
 Swer ramie si der wasche sich 
 und wasche danne ouch mich. " 2 
 
 But there is nothing in his verses of the virulence of the 
 next century. Freidank is not a satirist ; he is, in the main, 
 content with the world as he finds it. His verses repre- 
 sent, as those of no other poet of his century, the ordinary 
 outlook of the German people ; they are a proof that the 
 literary ideals of the higher classes were mainly confined to 
 those classes. If we except the strophes Von minne unde 
 wiben, it may be said that the ideas of chivalry had practically 
 no influence on Freidank. 
 
 * "Zwei Schwerter in einer Scheide verderben leicht beide (einander) ; wenn 
 der Papst nach dem Reiche begierig ist, so verderben beide Schwerter" (152, 
 12 ff.) 
 
 2 ' ' Ich weiss wohl, dass eine schmutzige Hand ein weisses Gewand selten 
 (rein) wiischt. Wem kann der lauteres Wasser geben, den man in der Pflitze 
 schwimmen sieht? Wer russig ist, der wasche (erst) sich und wasche dann 
 auch mich " (70, 6 ff. )
 
 CHAP. VIII.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 137 
 
 To a much later date, to the period between 1283 and Seifried 
 1299, belong several satiric poems written in Lower Austria, Helblin 8- 
 which, with all the realism of the later thirteenth century, paint 
 the social change of the age : on the one hand, the degener- 
 ation of the knight into a freebooter ; on the other, the new 
 ideal of womanhood as the virtuous " Hausfrau." The form 
 which the unknown author of these satires prefers is the 
 familiar one of question and answer, and he seems to have 
 intended that at least the longest of his poems should bear 
 the title Der kleine Lucidarius, the Lucidarius being a popular 
 encyclopaedic work in Latin which had served him as model. 
 All the satires have, however, been edited under the name of 
 Seifried Helbling, 1 a title applicable, strictly speaking, only 
 to one of the poems, which purports to be a letter from 
 a Spielmann of that name. 
 
 The didactic and satirical movement in Middle High 
 German literature may be said to culminate in Der Rentier, 
 by Hugo von Trimberg, 2 who was a schoolmaster in Teuer- Hugo von 
 stadt, a village on the outskirts of Bamberg. Der Renner Trimberg. 
 was written at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth er 
 
 . Renner, ca. 
 
 centuries, when the author was comparatively advanced in i 30 o. 
 life; it seems to have been completed about 1300, but 
 additions were made to it until as late as 1313. It was 
 not Hugo von Trimberg's only work ; besides Latin poems 
 which show great learning, he wrote seven other Ger- 
 man poems, although the title of only one of these, Der 
 Sammler, has come down to us. In the Renner, it is 
 evident that the age of knighthood is past; the middle-class 
 spirit of this plain -minded although learned schoolmaster 
 makes short work of the heroes of chivalry. The great epics 
 of a hundred years before are, in his estimation, only a collec- 
 tion of lies. His own poem is based so far as it can be 
 said to. have a plan at all upon the allegory of a pear-tree 
 laden with ripe fruit. The tree is Adam and Eve, the fruit 
 mankind ; the wind comes, the wind symbolising selfishness 
 and self-assertion, and shakes down the pears ; they fall into 
 the thorns of arrogance, the well of avarice, and the grass of 
 
 1 Seifried Helbling, ed. J. SeemUller, Halle, 1886. Cp. D.N.L., 9, 195 ff. 
 
 z Ed. by the Bamberg Historische Verein, 1833-36. Cp. Lehrhafte Litter- 
 atur des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, herausg. von F. Vetter (D.N.L., 12, i 
 [1888]), 256 ff. On Hugo's life, see K. Janicke in the Germania, a (1857), 
 363 ff.
 
 The Fran- 
 ciscans. 
 
 David of 
 Augsburg, 
 died 1272. 
 
 138 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 repentance. The book is divided into parts, each of which 
 is devoted to a principal vice or sin. But there is only the 
 shadow of a plan, for Hugo von Trimberg is not concerned 
 about artistic considerations of form. His book is a veritable 
 "Renner," and in another sense from that intended by its 
 author; 1 it "runs" through the whole range of human life. 
 The writer's attitude towards the Court epic suggests that of 
 a later Protestantism towards worldly amusements, but he 
 does not preach asceticism. On the contrary, he takes 
 pleasure in seeing people innocently happy and has a large 
 fund of honest, homely humour which prevents him from 
 losing himself in religious didacticism. As a poet, he has 
 not the ability or standing of Freidank, from whom he bor- 
 rows freely, but the popular and straightforward way in which 
 he tells his story gives interest to his verse in spite of its 
 mediocrity. 
 
 Another factor which helped to disintegrate the higher 
 social life of the thirteenth century was the rise of the 
 Franciscan order of monks. With them passed over Europe 
 another of those waves of asceticism by which the religious 
 life of the middle ages was from time to time rejuvenated. 
 The Franciscans preached the renunciation of worldly treasures, 
 and the return to a simple life virtues which were naturally 
 not in harmony with the social ideals of chivalry ; but their 
 doctrines received on this account a warmer welcome from 
 the common people, and from the inhabitants of the towns. 
 The hearty, popular tone in which these monks advocated 
 their principles, the practical, and at the same time not un- 
 poetic, form of their sermons, appealed to the hearts of the 
 middle classes. To two Franciscan monks of Bavaria we 
 owe the best specimens of German prose in the thirteenth 
 century. David of Augsburg, who died in 1272, not only 
 preached in German his German sermons are lost but 
 wrote several German tracts, 2 filled with the glowing enthusi- 
 asm for mysticism which was to be so important an element 
 in the intellectual life of the coming centuries, and his scholar, 
 
 1 The title is explained by the lines : 
 
 " Renner ist ditz buoch genant, 
 wanne ez sol rennen durch di lant." 
 
 2 F. Pfeiffer, Deutsche Mystiker des 13. Jahrhunderfs, Leipzig, 1845, r, 
 309 ff.
 
 CHAP. VIII.] MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 139 
 
 Berthold of Regensburg (ca. I22O-72), 1 was the greatest Bertholdof 
 German preacher of the middle ages. From 1250 onwards, R e g ens - 
 Berthold wandered from one end of South Germany to the 120-272. 
 other, addressing, mostly in the open air, audiences that num- 
 bered many thousands. His language has all the qualities 
 of a good popular prose ; it is direct, dramatic, sincere ; 
 but Berthold had also at his command a wealth of imagery 
 which, occasionally, recalls the poetry of the popular epics. 
 It is still possible, in reading these sermons, to realise the 
 persuasive energy of this preacher in the wilderness, who 
 thundered against the vices of the rich and called sinners to 
 repentance, until his hearers threw themselves at his feet. 
 
 Of other prose in this epoch there is not much to say. Other 
 About 1220 Eike von Repkow, an Anhalt knight, wrote, in P rose - 
 Low German, a code of Saxon law, the so-called Spigel 
 der Saxen or Sachsenspiegel, a book not without a certain 
 literary interest. It was widely used, and called forth many 
 High German imitations, the most important being the Land- 
 und Lehnrechtsbuch or Schwabenspiegel, which in its oldest from 
 was probably written about 1260. From Low Germany came 
 also the first German prose chronicle, the Sachsenchronik, 
 written about 1237. 
 
 The chief characteristic of Middle High German litera- 
 ture, regarded as a whole, is its simplicity : no other period 
 is so free from complex developments. This simplicity was 
 not attained, as to some extent in the Old High German 
 period, by the sifting process of an imperfect tradition ; the 
 conditions of German life in the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries were not favourable to a complicated literary activity, 
 and literature was restricted, as a natural consequence, to 
 certain well-defined channels. Except for the utilitarian 
 writings of preachers and lawgivers, prose virtually did not 
 exist, and apart from the ecclesiastical performances referred 
 to at the close of Part I., there was no drama. Thus only 
 three main categories of verse romance, lyric, and satire 
 are left, and each of these falls again into two divisions, 
 corresponding to the two literary classes, namely, the Spiel- 
 leute and the Court poets. On the one hand, the Spielmann 
 drew upon the popular sagas and traditions for his romances ; 
 he retold, in the humorous, careless way peculiar to him, the 
 
 1 Ed. F. Pfeiffer and J. Strobl, 2 vols., Vienna, 1862-80.
 
 140 MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PART II. 
 
 stories of the Germanic past. The Court singer, on the other 
 hand, preferred the romances of the Arthurian cycle, which, 
 early in the twelfth century, had received an aristocratic stamp 
 in France. The German national epic itself, as represented 
 by the Nibelungenlied and Gudrun, had arisen, as we have 
 seen, under the influence which the tastes of the higher 
 classes exerted on the Spielleute. The clerical poets, who 
 had played the chief, and, indeed, only role in the pre- 
 ceding period, ceased, after the beginning of the period, to be 
 a factor in Middle High German poetry. In the lyric, the 
 same two divisions may be observed, but they are less clearly 
 marked. The aristocratic Minnesang, like the aristocratic 
 romance, owed much to France, but it became, in a far higher 
 degree than the Court epic, a national form of poetic art. 
 Almost from the beginning, its position in the lyric poetry 
 of the age was similar to that which the Nibelungenlied occu- 
 pied in the epic, and to find a specific Spielmann's lyric, 
 or its equivalent, we are obliged to turn to the songs of 
 the Goliards and to the Spruch poetry. The Spruch of 
 the Spielmann contained the germ of the later national 
 and patriotic song, just as the Spielmann's epics contained 
 the germ of the national epic. And in the Spruch poetry, 
 too, the satire of the age whether aristrocratic like Der 
 Winsbeke, or popular like Bescheidenheit found its most 
 congenial outlet. The satirical attempts of the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth centuries were, however, insignificant compared 
 with the satire of the following age, the age that culminated in 
 the Protestant Reformation. 

 
 PART III. 
 
 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE 
 1350-1700
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DECAY OF ROMANCE. SATIRE AND BEAST FABLE. 
 
 FROM the close of the fourteenth century to the beginning of 
 the eighteenth, the classical language of the Middle High 
 German Court poets was passing by gradual stages into the 
 modern classical German of Lessing and Goethe. The period 
 we have now to consider is thus, as far as language is con- 
 cerned, a Transition Period, and the same designation might 
 possibly be adopted for the literature of the period. But 
 the literary activity in Germany between 1350 and 1700 was 
 so extraordinarily varied and complicated that it is not easy 
 to bring it under a general title of this nature. Moreover, 
 to describe as a Transition Period more than three cen- 
 turies of a nation's literary history, centuries which included 
 events of such far-reaching importance as the Reformation 
 and the Renaissance, is to set an unduly low value upon 
 the literary activity, or upon, what is hardly less important, 
 the dynamic forces at work behind the literature of the age. 
 The word " Transition " is, however, strictly applicable to 
 two stages in the literature of this period, the first of which 
 lies between the end of the Middle High German period and 
 the age of the Reformation, the second between the Reforma- 
 tion and the beginnings of modern German classical literature. 
 In the present chapter, we have to turn our attention to the 
 earlier of these stages. 
 
 With the close of the Crusades, chivalry lost its ideal Social 
 background and the orders of knighthood were deprived 
 of much of their prestige. But the disappearance of the 
 crusader was only one of many causes which hastened the 
 decay of chivalry. The invention of gunpowder changed
 
 144 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 The 
 middle- 
 class spirit 
 in litera- 
 ture. 
 
 the methods of warfare, and made the knight of the old 
 stamp in great measure superfluous. The issue of battles 
 depended more on masses of foot-soldiers than on the valour 
 of individuals. At the same time, as a consequence of the 
 increasing stability in political affairs a stability which was 
 mainly due to the humanising influence of the knightly classes 
 the medieval towns rose in power and importance; com- 
 merce became a factor of greater weight than it had ever 
 been before, and, by virtue of their wealth, the merchant 
 citizens became rivals of the nobility. Thus the knightly 
 classes, who had formerly represented all that was noble 
 and courtly in human bearing and intercourse, were soon 
 forced to struggle sordidly for their existence, and it was 
 little wonder that the lower members of this class should 
 have degenerated into avowed freebooters. 
 
 When we consider the effects of this social change upon 
 literature, it must be admitted that it was no change for 
 the better. The finer graces of chivalry had no counterpart 
 in the towns, where life was honest and straightforward, but, 
 as yet, without polish or culture. Indeed, the social gulf 
 between the nobility and the people in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries was so great, that when literature passed 
 over from the one to the other, it had, as it were, to go 
 back again to its beginnings. The sense of beauty and the 
 feeling for rhythm which had been laboriously attained by 
 the higher classes at the opening of the twelfth century, 
 disappeared as completely as if they had never existed. 
 Literature became once more crude and naive, formless 
 and unmusical. The middle classes, it is true, still loved 
 the old stories of chivalry and prowess, just as when in 
 earlier days they sat at the feet of the knightly singer, but 
 now that they themselves had become the tellers of these 
 stories, the narrative alone remained ; all the qualities that 
 made such stories art were gone. Their place was taken by 
 unimaginative simplicity, a jingling doggerel or lumbering prose, 
 and not rarely a coarse humour. Instead of the unworldly 
 ideals of the knight, we find the utilitarian didacticism which 
 is apparently inseparable from the middle -class mind in all 
 times. This is the general characteristic of the first stage 
 in the transition from the middle ages to modern times; it 
 is a transition from the literature of chivalry to that of the
 
 CH. I.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 145 
 
 burgher, a shifting of the literary centre of gravity from the 
 nobility to the middle classes. It is not a great epoch, but 
 for the literary student it is an epoch of importance. In 
 these comparatively "dark" centuries are to be traced the 
 sources of modern German literature. 
 
 The romance of chivalry died hard. Almost as late as the Romances 
 Reformation, attempts were made to keep the old traditions of chlvalr y- 
 alive and, especially, to preserve the great art of Wolfram 
 von Eschenbach. Between 1331 and 1336, two Alsatians, 
 Glaus Wisse and Philipp Colin, supplemented Wolfram's 
 Parzival with a poem which is more than twice the length 
 of Parzival itself, 1 and, in 1400, Hans von Biihel, another 
 Alsatian, wrote a long epic based on the Middle High German 
 Mai und Beqftor, entitled Die Konigstochter von Frankreich? 
 Many favourite stories of the thirteenth century were told 
 anew in the fourteenth and fifteenth : we possess, for instance, 
 from this period a Trojanischer Krieg, an Alexander der 
 Grosse, and the so-called Karlmeinet? a collection of sagas 
 of which Charles the Great forms the centre, all in rhymed 
 verses. But in vain, about 1450, did Puterich von Reicherts- 
 hausen (1400-69) hold up Parzival as the ideal of noble man- 
 hood; and when, towards 1490, in his Buck der Abenteuer, uirich 
 Ulrich Fiietrer, a poet and painter of Munich, made another Fuetrer. 
 vigorous attempt to revive the Arthurian sagas, the result 
 was almost ludicrous. The ideals of chivalry were clearly 
 incompatible with the sober everyday life of the German 
 burgher. 
 
 As a consequence of the more spiritual trend in the- Mysticism 
 ology, to which we shall return in a subsequent chapter, a jj d 
 a strain of poetic mysticism made its appearance, which 
 may be regarded as a starting-point for the theological 
 and didactic literature of the sixteenth century. Heinrich 
 von Hesler's poetic paraphrase of the Apocalypse, Thilo von 
 Culm's book Von den sieben Siegeln, and the various versions 
 of the Speculum humance salvationis are typical of this new 
 movement. An allegory of the chess figures, De moribus 
 hominum et offidis nobilium super ludo Scacorum (ca. 1300), by 
 
 1 Ed. K. Schorbach, Strassburg, 1888. 
 
 2 Ed. T. Mersdorf, Oldenburg, 1867. ,. 
 
 3 Ed. A. von Keller (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 45), 1858. Cp. K. Bartsch, Uber 
 Karlmeinet, Niirnberg, 1861. 
 
 K
 
 146 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. in. 
 
 Herman 
 von Sach- 
 senheim, 
 died 1458. 
 
 Maximilian 
 I., 1459- 
 1519- 
 
 Jacobus de Cessolis in German, Das Schachbuch l enjoyed 
 even greater popularity in Germany than in Southern Europe. 
 A similar mystic and allegorical tendency is noticeable in 
 purely secular literature; in fact, we find in the German 
 poetry of this age a parallel development to that which in 
 France had culminated in the Roman de la Rose. From the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century onwards, the "love 
 allegory" appears more frequently in narrative poetry. The 
 earliest poem of this distinctly allegorical nature is Der 
 Minne Lehre? written at the close of the thirteenth century 
 by Heinzelein of Constance ; the best, in spite of its com- 
 plicated allegory, is Die Jagd, by a Bavarian nobleman, 
 Hadamar von Laber. 3 An important poet of this group was 
 the Swabian, Herman von Sachsenheim, whose home was also 
 Constance, where he died in 1458. Des Spiegels Abenteuer 
 and Die Morin (1453),* by this writer, are elaborate allegories, 
 in which the apparatus of the Arthurian epic often contrasts 
 incongruously with the popular tone and humorous satire. 
 Die Morin takes the form a favourite one with the alle- 
 gorical poets of a trial. The "Mooress" is a servant of 
 Venus and Tanhauser ; she accuses the author of the poem 
 of inconstancy in love, and the trial takes place in the 
 Venusberg with the result that he is acquitted. Herman 
 von Sachsenheim's allegory is occasionally tedious, but Die 
 Morin is, on the whole, one of the most readable German 
 poems of the fifteenth century. 
 
 On the boundary-line between the middle ages and modern 
 times stands the romantic figure of the Emperor Maximilian I. 
 (1459-1519). Although Maximilian was in sympathy with 
 the social and political changes of the new age, and had more 
 than a catholic tolerance for humanism and the Renaissance, 
 his heart was with the old epics of chivalry, and he caused 
 magnificent manuscripts of them to be prepared. The " last 
 of the knights," he was also the last great patron of medieval 
 literature. With his name are associated two semi-historical 
 
 1 Cp. F. Vetter, I^hrhafte Litteratur des 14. vnd 15. Jahrhundcrts, i 
 (D.N.L., 12, r [1888]), 91 ff. 
 
 3 Ed. F. Pfeiffer, Leipzig, 1852. Cp. P. Piper, Hofische Epik, 3 (D.N.L., 4, 
 i, 3), 518 ff. 
 
 8 Ed. J. A. Schmeller (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 20), 1850. 
 
 4 Ed. E. Martin (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 137), 1878. Cp. F. Vetter, I.e., i, 
 163 ff.
 
 CH. I.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 147 
 
 romances. The first of these, Der Weiss Kunig (I5I2), 1 is Der Weiss 
 in prose and virtually a chronicle of events in his own life f""* ff ' 
 and in the life of his father, Kaiser Friedrich III. ; the 
 second, the more famous Teuerdank (Tewrdannck ; printed 
 in Niirnberg, 15 ly), 2 although also a kind of biography of the 
 emperor, is in verse and in the form of an allegorical romance. 
 Neither of these books was Maximilian's unaided work, but 
 their construction at least was due to him. Teuerdank Teuerdank, 
 is an epic of chivalrous adventure, in which the virtuous I5I7> 
 hero, from whom it takes its name, successfully overcomes 
 all manner of trials and temptations. The ludicrously 
 realistic nature of many of these adventures as, for in- 
 stance, when a villainous Captain Unfalo attempts the hero's 
 life by inducing him to ascend a broken stair, to walk on a 
 rotten piece of scaffolding, or approach a loaded cannon with 
 a light shows how far romance had degenerated since the 
 time of Parzival and Tristan. The verses, which are crude 
 and unpoetic, were probably the work of the emperor's scribe, 
 Melchior Pfintzing, a native of Niirnberg. Teuerdank has 
 almost no value as literature, but it enjoyed considerable 
 popularity until as late as the end of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. In the history of the present period it is a landmark 
 of importance, for it is the very last poem that was modelled 
 on the Court epic. 
 
 With the fifteenth century began for Germany the age of Prose 
 prose : here, as in France, the medieval verse epic had to romances - 
 make way for the prose romance, and so strong was the 
 current of the time that even the very classes to whom we 
 owe the epic of chivalry assisted in bringing about the 
 change. The daughter of a Duke of Lorraine, Grafin 
 Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbriicken, is the author of one of 
 these prose romances, Loher vnd Mailer (1407), which is 
 based on a French original ; and thirty years later, the same 
 lady again translated a French epic into German prose 
 namely, Hug Schapeler- (1437), the subject of which is 
 the love adventures of Hugo Capet. Besides stories of 
 chivalry, the national epics were told again and again in 
 
 1 Ed. A. Schultz, Vienna, 1891. 
 
 2 Ed. K. Goedeke (Deutsche Dichter des 16. Jahrh., 10), Leipzig, 1878. Cp. 
 E. Wolff, Reinke de Vos vnd satirisch-didaktisc/u Dichtung (D.N.L., 19 
 [1893]), 213 ff.
 
 148 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. ill. 
 
 prose, and many of them in the form of " Volksbiicher " are 
 still widely read. Occasionally, as in the Lied vom hiirnen 
 o Sey fried?- one of these sagas was recast in rough strophes, 
 while in the so-called Dresdener Heldenbuch (1472), which 
 was compiled by Kaspar von der Ron, a native of Miinnerstadt 
 in Franconia, the Middle High German Heldenbuch was 
 denuded of its poetic dignity, and rewritten in the doggerel 
 of the century. But prose was and remained the favourite 
 vehicle of expression. 
 Comic ro- While the epic had thus to yield to the prose romance, 
 
 mancesand jj. j s no j surprising that another genre of Middle High German 
 anecdotes. . V. * p 
 
 poetry gained, rather than lost in favour, as the higher epic 
 
 deteriorated. This was the comic, satiric poetry descriptive of 
 peasant life, the beginnings of which are to be found in Meier 
 Helmbrecht, and in the poetry of Neidhart von Reuenthal. 
 An application of the peasant epic, which commended itself 
 to the writers of the fourteenth century, was as a satire of 
 the decaying Court poetry ; and it is in this form that the 
 comic epic first appears in German literature. In the four- 
 teenth century, a Swabian poet wrote a short poem on 
 the marriage of a peasant girl, and in the first half of 
 the following one, Heinrich Wittenweiler, a Swiss, parodied 
 the whole apparatus of chivalry in Der Ring? a grotesque 
 description of a rural wedding. 
 
 The short, comic anecdote was, however, more to the taste 
 of the time, and more, too, within the power of the writers 
 of the time, than were sustained epic narratives. The 
 Strieker's Pfaffe Amis found many imitators in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries; more especially from the close of 
 the fifteenth onwards, this " Schwankdichtung " plays a large 
 role in the literary production of Germany. To the last 
 quarter of this century belongs a notable collection of 
 anecdotes, which purports to be the work of the Middle 
 High German "Dorf" poet, who reappears here as 
 " Neidhart Fuchs " ; and, similar to them, are the merry 
 adventures of the Pfaffe von Kalenberg. The Pfaffe von 
 
 von Kalen- Kalenberg is spirited and amusing, but strikes a coarser note 
 
 1 Ed. W. Golther (Neudrucke deutscher Litteraturwerke des 16. und 17. 
 SaArA., No. 81, 82). Halle, 1889. Cp. P. Piper in Die Nibelungen, i (D.N.L., 
 6, 2 [1889]), 143 ff. 
 
 2 Ed. L. Bechstein (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 23), 1851 ; cp. F. Vetter, Lekrhafte 
 Litteratur des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, i, 415 ff.
 
 CH. I.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 149 
 
 than its Middle High German prototype, Amis. The author, 
 Philipp Frankfurter, was a native of Vienna. More than a 
 generation later, Georg or, as he called himself, Achilles 
 Jason Widmann published, as a continuation of the Pfaffe 
 von Kalenberg, a collection of witty anecdotes under the 
 title Histori Peter Lewen. And the traditionary Spielmann's Histori 
 heroes, such as Solomon's witty adversary Morolf or Markolf, ^^ n 
 still remained popular favourites. 1 But all these " Schwanke " ca. 1550. 
 were thrown into the shade by the stories that collected round 
 the prince of rogues, Till Eulenspiegel. Sly in the guise Till Euien- 
 of honesty, witty while pretending to be only stupid, Eulen- sp'^ 1 - 
 spiegel, who would seem to have been a real figure of the 
 fourteenth century, has become one of the favourite rascals 
 of the German imagination. A veritable Reineke Fuchs in 
 human guise, he loves nothing better than misunderstandings, 
 he delights in mischief purely for mischief's sake, and his 
 favourite butt is always the townsfolk. The original, un- 
 doubtedly Low German collection of Eulenspiegel's ad- 
 ventures, which dates from 1483, is lost, but there exist 
 innumerable High German versions the oldest, printed at 
 Strassburg in 1515, under the title Ein Kurtzweilig lesen 
 von Dyl Ulenspiegel geboren vss dem land zu Brunsswick 2 
 and translations of Eulenspiegel were made into half-a-dozen 
 European tongues. 
 
 In these centuries, too, floods of oriental stories, facetia Anecdotal 
 and anecdotes, spread over Germany from the south, the first "'terature. 
 result, as far as literature was concerned, of the Italian Renais- 
 sance. But in the hands of the translators, the coarseness 
 of these stories became more coarse, and the wit gave 
 place to buffoonery. From the fifteenth century, we possess 
 two poetic versions of the collection of Eastern "novelle" 
 known as Die Sieben Weisen Meister, and the Gesta 
 Romanorum found in this age new translators and new 
 admirers. Even the Church saw that it might with ad- 
 vantage employ this popular class of literature in the form of 
 parable and fable. In 1522, a Franciscan monk, Johannes 
 Pauli, published a semi-religious, semi-didactic collection of 
 
 1 Selections from these collections of Schwanke, edited by F. Bobertag, 
 Narrenbuch (D.N.L., n [1885]). 
 
 a Ed. H. Knust, Neudrucke, 55, 56, Halle, 1885. Cp. F. Bobertag, Volks- 
 liicher des 16. Jahrhunderts (D.N.L., 25 [1887]), i ff.
 
 I5O EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 J. Pauli's 
 Schimpf 
 vnd Ernst, 
 1522. 
 
 The Beast 
 Fable. 
 
 Ulrich 
 Boner's 
 Edelstein, 
 1349- 
 
 H. Stain- 
 howel, 
 1412 ca. 
 1482. 
 
 B. Waldis, 
 ca. 1490- 
 I5S6. 
 
 anecdotes and adventures under the title Schimpf (i.e., Scherz) 
 vnd Ernst)- Pauli is an excellent story-teller, above all, witty 
 and brief, and, even when most didactic, knows how to 
 maintain the reader's interest. Schimpf vnd Ernst enjoyed 
 enormous popularity and was reprinted upwards of thirty 
 times. To the Rollwagenbiichlein of Jorg Wickram (1555), 
 and the Wendunmuth of H. W. Kirchhoff (1563), in which 
 the anecdotal literature of the period is to be seen at its best, 
 we shall return in a later chapter. 
 
 Still another form of literary narrative, one which had lain 
 dormant throughout the Middle High German period, came 
 into prominence in these centuries. This was the Beast Fable. 
 About 1349, at the very beginning of the period we are con- 
 sidering, a Dominican monk of Bern, Ulrich Boner, translated 
 a hundred Latin fables into fresh, humorous verse, pointed with 
 obvious morals, and to these he gave the title of De r Edelstein? 
 The popularity of Boner's fables is evident from the fact 
 that the Edelstein was the first German book to be printed 
 (1461). From the fifteenth century until late in the 
 eighteenth, the interest which the German people took in 
 ^Esop's fables showed no sign of diminishing. Heinrich 
 Stainhowel of Ulm (1412-82 or 83), who also translated 
 Boccaccio's Griseldis (ca. 1471) and De daris mulieribus 
 (1473), made a Latin collection of ./Esopian beast stories 
 from various sources, accompanying them by a translation into 
 German prose. This Esopus^ was printed at Ulm between 
 1475 an d 1480, and remained a favourite book for two 
 centuries. Of more importance from a literary standpoint is a 
 famous collection of fables, the Esopus, Gantz New gemacht vnd 
 in Reimen gefasst, mit sampt Hundert Newer Fabeln (i548), 4 
 made in the following century by Burkard Waldis (ca. 1490- 
 1556 or 57). Waldis, by birth a Hessian, was a Franciscan 
 monk in Riga, who became a convert to Lutheranism. His 
 fables are consequently tinged with the anti-Catholic polemics 
 of the age, but they are vividly told, and were a valuable 
 
 1 Ed. H. Oesterley (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 85), 1866 ; F. Bobertag, Vierhundcrt 
 Schwdnke des 16. Jahrhunderts (D.N.L., 24 [1888]), I ff. 
 
 2 Ed. F. Pfeiffer, Leipzig, 1844. Cp. F. Vetter, I.e., i, 7 ff. 
 
 8 Ed. H. Oesterley (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 117), 1873 ; the De Claris mulieribus, 
 ed. K. Drescher, in the same series, 205, 1895. Cp. F'. Vetter, I.e., i, 87 ff. 
 
 4 Ed. J. Tittmann, 2 vols. (Deutsche Dichter des 16. Jahrh., 16, 17), Leipzig, 
 1882 ; cp. E. Wolff, I.e., 273 ff.
 
 CH. I.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 151 
 
 mine for the fable-writers of the eighteenth century. More 
 satirical and polemical are the fables which form the Buck 
 von der Tugent vnd Weiss keif (1550) by Erasmus Alberus (ca. E. Alberus, 
 ! 500-53).! 'fioo-S. 
 
 The Beast Epic proper, however, was kept alive, not in 
 High German, but in Low German lands. About the middle 
 of the thirteenth century, Willem, an East Flemish poet, made 
 an admirable version of that part of the French Roman de 
 Renart which describes how the Lion held his court. The Willem's 
 Fox " Reinaert " is condemned to die, but obtains a respite by ^ l y rt 
 promising to show the Lion hidden treasure, and is set wholly C a. 1250. 
 at liberty on condition that he makes a pilgrimage to Rome. 
 The Bear and the Wolf provide Reinaert with pouch and shoes 
 made from their skins, and the rascal of course escapes scot- 
 free. In a second Flemish, or rather West Flemish, version, 2 
 written about 1375, the story is remodelled and extended. 
 In both these versions the satiric and didactic spirit which 
 seems to be inseparable from the Beast epic in all its forms 
 is present, but it first takes a prominent part in a version 
 from the fifteenth century by Hinrik van Alkmar. This writer Hinrik van 
 divided the story into books and chapters, providing each with Alkmar - 
 a prose commentary in which the moral and religious bearings 
 of the poem were set forth. Only a few fragments of 
 Hinrik's version have reached us, but an unknown Low Saxon 
 poet made a translation of it, which was printed under the 
 title Reynke de Vos? at Liibeck in 1498. 
 
 Reynke de Vos is the most famous literary work the Low Reynke de 
 German peoples have produced : its witty, incisive humour Vo3y I498< 
 and sly satire, the naturalness of its diction, the skill with 
 which the various animals are characterised, above all, the 
 human interest of Reynke's adventures, have made it one of 
 the most popular German books of all times, and, thanks 
 to Goethe, this popularity is hardly less widespread now 
 than it was in the sixteenth century. Its literary influence 
 on the satire of the Reformation age was especially great, and 
 spread far beyond the limits of Germany. As in the earlier 
 Flemish versions of the story, Reynke de Vos opens with the 
 
 1 Ed. W. Braune (Neudrucke, No. 104-107), Halle, 1892 ; E. Wolff, I.e., 
 
 347 ff- 
 
 2 Ed. E. Martin, Paderborn, 1874. 
 
 3 Ed. K. Schroder, Leipzig, 1872; F. Prien, Halle, 1887; E. Wolff in 
 D.N.L., 19 [1893].
 
 152 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Lion holding court ; the various animals bring forward their 
 accusations against the absent Fox. Brun the Bear is de- 
 spatched by the king to Malepertus, Reynke's castle, with 
 orders to summon the culprit before the court. Reynke, 
 however, knows Brun's partiality for honey, and induces him 
 to put his snout into a tree trunk that has been wedged 
 apart. Withdrawing the wedge, he leaves Brun to the mercy 
 of the peasant, from whom the bear only escapes with 
 his life. Hyntze the Cat is now sent as envoy. The sly 
 Fox soon wins Hyntze's confidence, but objects to set out 
 at once ; he says 
 
 " ' Men, neve, ik wyl wol myt yu ghan 
 Morgen in dem dagheschyn ; 
 Desse rad duncket my de beste syn. ' 
 
 Hyntze antworde up de word : 
 ' Neen, gha wy nu rechte vord 
 To hovewert, vnder vns beyden. 
 De maen schynet lychte an der heyden, 
 De ween is gud, de lucht is klar.'" 
 
 " But if I remain overnight with you," says Hyntze, " what 
 will you give me to eat ? " To this Reynke replies with sly 
 humour 
 
 " ' Spyse gheyt hir gantz rynge to : 
 Ik wyl yu gheven, nu gy hir blyven, 
 Gude versche honnichschyven, 
 Soethe vnde gud, des syd bericht.' 
 
 ' Der ath ick al myn daghe nicht,' 
 Sprak Hyntze, ' hebbe gi nicht anders in dem husz ? 
 Ghevet my doch eyne vette musz, 
 Dar mede byn ik best vorwart ; 
 Men honnich wert wol vor my ghespart.'" 1 
 
 Reynke is willing to supply his guest with a mouse, and 
 takes him to the house of the neighbouring priest, who 
 has laid a trap for Reynke. The cat is, of course, caught 
 in the trap, and only escapes as did his predecessor Brun. 
 
 i " ' Aber, Neffe, ich will gem mit euch gehen, morgen in dem Tageslicht ; 
 dieser Rat d'unkt mich der beste zu sein.' Hyntze antwortete auf diese Worte : 
 1 Nein, gehen wir gerade jetzt fort nach dem Hofe zusammen. Der Mond scheint 
 licht auf der Haide, der Weg ist gut, die Luft ist klar ' " (11. 986-993). . . . 
 ' ' ' Speise ist hier ganz diirftig vorhanden ; ich will euch geben, da ihr hier bleibt, 
 gute, frische Honigscheiben, suss und gut, dessen seid belehrt." 'Davonass 
 ich alle meine Tage nicht,' sprach Hyntze, 'habt ihr nichts anderes in dem 
 Hause ? Gebt mir doch eine fette Maus ; damit bin ich am besten versorgt, 
 aber Honig wird wohl. was mich anbetrifft, gespart' " (11. 1002-10).
 
 CH. I.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 153 
 
 Finally Grymbart the Badger, who is friendly to Reynke, 
 fetches him to the court. He is tried and condemned to 
 death, but, as in the older versions, escapes by telling the king 
 of a hidden treasure. In order that he may not need to 
 accompany the king on his search for the treasure, Reynke 
 proposes to go to Rome : 
 
 " Wente Reynke, he wyl morgen vro 
 Staff vnde rentzel nemen an 
 Vnde to deme pawes to Rome ghan ; 
 Van dannen wyl he over dat meet 
 Vnde kumpt ock nicht wedder heer, 
 Er dan dat he heft vulle afflat 
 Van alle der sundichlyken daet. " l 
 
 Lampe the Hare and Bellyn the Ram accompany him, and 
 the trio ultimately reach Malepertus ; Lampe is invited into 
 the castle and serves Reynke and his family for supper. The 
 Fox then packs Lampe's head in his wallet and sends it 
 back to the king with the Ram as an important letter. This 
 is practically the close of the first book of the poem. 
 The remaining three books, which are much shorter, are in- 
 ferior in poetic interest ; the didactic element assumes greater 
 proportions, and the fact that the general outline of the narra- 
 tive is the same as in the first books, suggests that the story 
 was extended to satisfy the popular craving for a continuation. 
 But even the later parts of Reynke de Vos only foreshadow 
 the didactic satire which ran riot in this age. Four years 
 earlier, in 1494, the most famous German poem of its time 
 had appeared, namely, Das Narren schyff, by Sebastian Brant. 2 Brant's 
 
 The idea upon which this work is based is of frequent 
 
 ^ i-i. r ^u * j u i 
 
 occurrence in the literature of the time, and was obviously 
 
 suggested by the masquerades of the carnival ; all the fools 
 typical of human vices and follies are assembled in a ship 
 bound for " Narragonien," but the ship, being also steered 
 by fools, drifts aimlessly on the sea : 
 
 " Die gantz welt lebt in vinstrer nacht 
 Vnd dut in siinden blint verharren. 
 All strassen, gassen, sindt voll narren, 
 
 1 " Denn Reynke, er will morgen friih Stab und Ranzen nehmen [an], und ru 
 dem Papst nach Rom gehen. Von dannen will er iiber das Meer undlcommt 
 auch nicht wieder her, eher als [dass] er vb'lligen Ablass von all den siindlichen 
 Thaten hat" (11. 2602-8). 
 
 2 Ed. F. Zarncke, Leipzig, 1854 ; K. Goedeke (Deutsche Dichter des 16. 
 Jahrh., 7), Leipzig, 1872; F. Bobertag in D.N.L., 16 [1889].
 
 154 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Die nut dann mit dorheit umbgan, 
 Wellen doch nit den namen ban. 
 Des hab ich gdacht zu diser friist, 
 Wie ich der narren schiff vff riist." l 
 
 But Brant does not carry out his plan consistently or sys- 
 tematically, nor does he introduce to any extent stories or 
 anecdotes ; his main purpose is direct ridicule of human 
 follies as they presented themselves to him in the life of his 
 time. His book is an orderless collection of short satires 
 written in blunt, rhymed verse, occasionally with an osten- 
 tatious display of learning. From fools of crime and arrogance 
 to rioters and spendthrifts, from meddlers and busybodies to 
 the fools who cling with perverse self-confidence to their own 
 ignorance, Brant's Narrenschiff includes every type of folly 
 that the fifteenth century had to show. He gives a faithful 
 picture of that moral perversity which, in the age of the 
 Reformation, was the inevitable consequence of the clashing 
 of the old world and the new. 
 
 Sebastian Sebastian Brant was born in Strassburg in 1457 or perhaps 
 u^y-i' i 1458, and educated at the University of Basle, from which, in 
 1489, he received the degree of doctor utriusque juris. In 
 1501 he returned to Strassburg on account of the separation 
 of Basle from the German empire, and here he remained as 
 town-clerk until his death in 1521. Brant not only grew 
 up in the school of the humanists, but stood in Strassburg 
 on the most intimate footing with them ; his own earliest 
 literary attempts were Latin poems. Neither these, nor his 
 translations from the Latin (Cato, 1498), have much import- 
 ance for literary history ; but it is worth noting that he made 
 a new version of Freidank's Bescheidenheit. He is now, how- 
 ever, only remembered by the Narrenschiff. He was not 
 a man of progress ; he had no thought of reforming either 
 learning or religion. He saw the weaknesses of the scholastic 
 methods of instruction and satirised them, but he suggested 
 nothing better in their place ; he dealt vigorous blows at 
 the abuses in the monasteries and among the priests, but 
 remained to the end a faithful servant of the Church. Like 
 so many men of superior culture in all ages, Brant preferred 
 to look backwards to a golden age rather than forwards into 
 
 1 Vorrede, 11. 8 ff. (11. n f., " Die nur mit Thorheit umgehen, wollen doch 
 nicht den Namen (eines Narren) haben " ; des (1. 13), " deshalb "}.
 
 CH. I.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 155 
 
 P. Suchen- 
 wirth - 
 
 the new epoch on the brink of which he unconsciously stood. 
 Nevertheless, he, too, like his humanistic friends, prepared the 
 way for the Reformation. 
 
 Less to Renaissance influence than to the abiding influence 
 of medieval tradition is to be ascribed the continued vitality 
 of the "Spruch" poetry. " Reimsprecher " formed acknow- "Spruche. 
 ledged guilds in the towns, and the poet who could recite 
 an appropriate verse upon a public occasion stood higher in 
 favour than his brother-poet who aimed at better things. 
 The best representative of this literary genre was an Austrian, 
 Peter Suchenwirth, 1 who, in the second half of the four- 
 teenth century, was well known for his poems in honour of 
 princes and noblemen. Suchenwirth belonged to the class 
 of " Wappendichter," that is to say, poets familiar with 
 heraldry, who wrote poetic descriptions of the arms of the 
 nobility. In his verses, as in so much else that has been 
 reviewed in this chapter, the transition of the age is vividly 
 reflected, the passing of knighthood and the rise of the 
 middle classes. 
 
 The kind of extempore verse-making in which Suchenwirt ex- 
 celled was also cultivated in Niirnberg in the fifteenth century. 
 Here the particular representatives were Hans Rosenpliit, Hans 
 known as "the Schnepperer," who flourished about 1460, and 
 Hans Folz, who lived some fifty years later. In the hands 
 of these writers the extempore " Spruch " is fused with the 
 anecdote or " Schwank " ; with them begins that light, half- 
 moralising method of relating all manner of anecdotes, stories, 
 events of the day, which reached its highest point in the time 
 of Hans Sachs. Rosenpliit and Folz were predecessors of 
 Sachs, not only as Schwankdichter, but also as dramatists, 
 for to them we owe, as will be seen in a later chapter, some 
 of the earliest " Fastnachtssoiele " or Shrovetide Plays. 
 
 1 Ed. A. Primisser, Vienna, 1827. Cp. F. Bobertag, Ertcihlen.de Dichlungen 
 des spdteren Mittelalters (D.N.L., 10 [1887]), 95 ff. ; and F. Vetter, I.e., i, 
 313 & 
 
 Hans F 
 ca. 1510.
 
 1 5 6 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MEISTERGESANG AND VOLKSLIED. 
 
 and 
 
 Meister- 
 
 gesang. 
 
 Minnesang BETWEEN Minnesang and Meistergesang no hard and fast 
 line can be drawn ; the one passed slowly and gradually 
 into the other, the chief Minnesingers, and, above all, Walther 
 von der Vogelweide, being the acknowledged masters of the 
 Meistersingers. Nor does the encroachment of the middle- 
 class spirit aid materially in establishing a boundary between 
 the two forms of poetry, for, as has been seen, this spirit 
 is to be found in the best period of the Middle High 
 German Minnesang ; on the other hand, after the Meister- 
 gesang was firmly established, there were still singers of 
 noble birth who kept alive the early traditions. At the 
 turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we meet 
 with two noblemen, both of whom have left a large quan- 
 tity of lyric poetry, which may be regarded as representing 
 the last stage of the decaying Minnesang : Graf Hugo von 
 Montfort (1357-1423) and Oswald von Wolkenstein (1367- 
 
 1445)- 
 
 In the poetry of Hugo von Montfort, 1 whose castle was 
 situated near Bregenz in the Vorarlberg, the singleness of 
 purpose which implies a fixed literary creed is missing; at 
 one time we find him singing the praises of chivalry with 
 the fervour of an old Minnesinger, at another his worldly 
 life fills him with abject remorse. But through all his verse 
 there runs a strain of melancholy, which makes his person- 
 ality of interest to us even if what he has to say shows little 
 originality. Much more important than Hugo von Montfort 
 
 1 Ed. J. E. Wackernell, Innsbruck, 1881 ; cp. D.N.L., 8, i, 267 ff., and 12, 
 i, 280 ff. 
 
 Hugo von 
 Montfort, 
 I3S7-I443-
 
 CH. ii.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 157 
 
 is Oswald von Wolkenstein, 1 a Tyrolese by birth, who lived Oswald 
 a wild, adventurous life. As a lad of ten years of age, he had woiken- 
 his first taste of war in the campaign of Albrecht III. of stein, 1367- 
 Austria against the Prussians, and for fifteen years he wandered I 'MS- 
 about the world, serving many masters and fighting in many 
 lands, from Russia to Spain, from Scotland to Persia. At 
 the age of twenty-five he returned to the Tyrol, but there was 
 little rest for him here; he fell in love, and, in compliance 
 with his lady's wish, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. 
 Hereupon followed more adventures, including imprison- 
 ment, and he was without any settled home until com- 
 paratively late in life. Oswald von Wolkenstein's poetry is 
 as varied as was his career. There was no form of Middle 
 High German lyric at which he did not try his hand ; at 
 one moment he pours out his love-sorrows in the strains 
 of the Minnesang, at another he sinks to the coarsest tones 
 of the degenerate " Dorfpoesie." Lines like the following 
 are a pleasing echo of the Minnesang of the thirteenth 
 century : 
 
 " O wunikltcher wolgezierter may, 
 dein suess geschray 
 pringt freuden mangerlay, 
 besunderlich wo zway 
 an ainem schcenen ray 
 sich miitiklich verhendelt ban. 
 
 Griin ist der wald, perg, ow, gevild und tal ; 
 die nachtigal 
 und aller voglin schal 
 man hceret ane zal 
 erklingen uberal." 2 
 
 Oswald von Wolkenstein was a man of wide knowledge ; 
 he knew many languages and had no small musical talent 
 He composed the melodies to his own songs, and in the 
 use of rhymes and strophic forms shows an ingenuity which 
 even the Meistersingers did not surpass ; and again, he 
 could not resist occasionally indulging, like the later Minne- 
 
 1 Ed. B. Weber, Innsbruck, 1847 ; translations into modern German by J. 
 Schrott, Stuttgart, 1886, and L. Passarge (in Reclam's Univ. J3M., 2830, 
 2840), Leipzig, 1891 ; cp. D.N.L., 8, i, 273 ff. 
 
 2 " O lieblicher, wohlgeschmiickter Mai, dein susses Geschrei bringt Freuden 
 mancherlei, besonders wo zwei in einem schonen Reigen sich mil gutem Mute . 
 bei den Handen fassen. Griin ist der Wald, Berg, Aue, Feld und Thai ; die 
 Nachtigall und aller Voglein Schall, zahllos hort man (sie) iiberall erklingen " 
 (B. Weber's edition, 203, but cp. variants).
 
 158 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 The 
 
 Meister- 
 
 gesang. 
 
 Singing 
 Contests. 
 
 Der Wart- 
 burgkrieg, 
 ca. 1300. 
 
 singers, in a display of learning and scientific lore. But 
 his talent, although comprehensive, was deficient in delicacy ; 
 it is indeed a dramatic rather than a lyric talent, as may be 
 seen in the preference he shows for the more dramatic forms 
 of the lyric, such as the " Tagelied." In more cultured 
 times he would possibly have found a truer outlet for his 
 genius in the drama. 
 
 The general characteristics of the German Meistergesang 
 are clearly discernible in its earliest stages. It was, in 
 the narrower sense of the word, an art, an artificial affair 
 of laws and rules, and, being such, it could only be acquired 
 by a special training : thus the Meistergesang was from the 
 first associated with schools. The Meistersingers would have 
 nothing to say to poets who, like the early representatives of 
 the Middle High German lyric, were content to express them- 
 selves in simple measures. The day of an unshackled lyric 
 poetry was clearly past. A pedantic display of learning, a 
 love of incongruous imagery, complicated and often un- 
 poetic strophic forms, a tendency to be guided by precedents 
 handed down from earlier singers, and lastly, a highly developed 
 combative spirit, a fondness for disputing and wrangling over 
 unessential points these characteristics cling to the Meister- 
 gesang throughout its entire history. 
 
 An essential feature in the schools of the Meistersingers 
 was the Singing Contest. One poet was pitted, as it were, 
 against another, and the competition decided by a judge, 
 the so-called " Merker." Or, without even the excuse of a 
 contest, one singer would attack his brother singer in the 
 most defiant fashion and often in the most scurrilous 
 language; the singer attacked replied, and so the fight pro- 
 ceeded. The oldest literary example of such a " Singing 
 Contest" is the poem on the Wartburgkrieg^ which dates 
 from about 1300, if it is not still older. The chief 
 Minnesingers are represented as being assembled at the 
 Court of the Landgraf Herman of Thuringia. A certain 
 Heinrich von Ofterdingen challenges all comers by singing 
 the praises of the Duke of Austria ; he is prepared to defend 
 him against any three other princes. Hereupon Walther 
 von der Vogelweide praises the King of France ; Reinmar 
 von Zweter, "the Schreiber," and Wolfram von Eschenbach 
 i Ed. K. Simrock, Stuttgart, 1858.
 
 CH. II.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 159 
 
 champion the Landgraf of Thuringia. Heinrich von Ofter- 
 dingen is induced by Walther to compare his hero to the 
 sun, whereupon the defenders of the Landgraf, with whom 
 Walther now ranges himself, triumphantly prove that the 
 day, to which they compare their hero, is greater than the 
 sun. The remainder of the poem is taken up with a " riddle 
 contest " between Wolfram and the magician, Klingsor von 
 Ungerland, who, it will be remembered, was one of the 
 figures in Wolfram's ParzivaL 
 
 The last of the Minnesingers, and, more particularly, those 
 that belonged to the burgher classes in the towns, were as 
 we have already seen the founders of the Meistergesang ; 
 and as such may be regarded "the Marner," "the Frauen- 
 lob," the North German Meistersinger Regenbogen, and the 
 learned Heinrich von Miiglin, 1 who seems to have lived mainly 
 at the Court of Charles IV. in Prague. The most important 
 of these was Heinrich von Meissen, known as " the Frauenlob." Heinrich 
 He flourished about the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth ^- ssen 
 century, and, like the Spielleute, wandered from Court to Court, (Frauen- 
 and from one end of Germany to the other. In his poetry we *^' ca> g 
 find the same characteristics as in that of the Marner. He 
 loses no opportunity of displaying his learning ; scholasticism, 
 symbolism, and mysticism are mingled with his verses to a 
 degree that often makes them incomprehensible ; while 
 astronomy, mathematics, and natural science are laid under 
 tribute for his imagery. At other times his poetry suffers 
 from an excessive ingenuity of form ; he was the inventor of 
 many new " tones " or melodies, which were accepted by his 
 successors as models. On the whole, the Frauenlob is at his 
 best when he sings the praises of homely virtues, above all, of 
 friendship and chaste love ; but the stamp of a decaying age 
 is on the main body of his verse. 2 His name he probably 
 owes to a " Leich " which he wrote in honour of the Virgin j 
 and an old legend tells us that he was borne to his grave 
 in the Cathedral of Mainz by women. 
 
 In the fifteenth century, the chief representatives of the 
 
 1 K. Bartsch, Deutsche Liederdichter, 179, 247, 283, 286 ; the Meistersingers 
 themselves regarded their guild as having sprung from twelve founders 
 amongst whom were Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogel- 
 weide. 
 
 2 Ed. L. Ettmuller, Quedlinburg, 1843. Cp. K. Bartsch, Deutsche Liedtr- 
 dichter, 247 ff., and D.N.L., 8, i, 234 ff.
 
 160 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Meistergesang were Muscatblut, whose lyrics have a theo- 
 logical tinge, and Michael Beheim (1416 ca. I480). 1 The 
 latter began life as a weaver, ultimately turning soldier 
 and wandering Meistersinger ; his verses have little real 
 poetic inspiration, but they bear the stamp of the poet's 
 extraordinarily varied experiences. The great age of the 
 German Meistergesang was the sixteenth century, when the 
 The singing schools and guilds had reached their highest point 
 
 schulen " ^ development. There is a tradition to the effect that 
 the first of these schools was founded by Heinrich von 
 Meissen in Mainz ; however this may be, they are to be met 
 with in the towns of the Rhineland as early as the close of the 
 fifteenth century, and from the Rhineland they spread rapidly 
 over South Germany. Early in the sixteenth century there 
 was a school at Freiburg in the Breisgau, with marked religious 
 and scholastic tendencies ; a little later, other famous ones 
 sprang up in Augsburg and Ulm, and in Niirnberg, Hans 
 Folz, who came from Worms, established a school which, 
 under Hans Sachs, soon became the most important of all. 
 The aspirant to honours in these poetic and musical societies 
 had first to place himself as " Schiller " under the tuition of 
 a " Meister," who taught him the elaborate code of laws 
 inscribed in the "Tabulatur." This learned, the scholar 
 became, according to the Niirnberg nomenclature, a " Schul- 
 freund." The next acquirement was to be able to sing at 
 least four acknowledged " tones " or melodies, which entitled 
 him to the rank of "Singer." A still higher honour, that 
 of " Dichter," was attained by the composition of a new text 
 to one of these tones, while the rank of " Meister " was only 
 conferred on a poet who had invented a new tone. In the 
 later schools the tones were designated by extraordinarily 
 fantastic names. While, for instance, the early Meistersingers 
 were content with simple terms like the Marners Hofton, 
 the Bliithenton Frauenlobs, their successors in the sixteenth 
 century described a new melody as a Vielfrassweis, Gestreiftsa- 
 franblumleinweis, Schwarztintenweis, or the like. 2 
 
 1 Beheim's Buck von den Wienern (1462-65), ed. T. G. von Karajan, Vienna, 
 1843 ; cp. F. Bobertag, Ersahlende Dichtungen des spdteren Mittelalters 
 (D.N.L., 10), 277 ff. 
 
 2 Cp. O. Lyon, Minne- und Afeistersang, Leipzig, 1882, 385 ff. ; Adam 
 Puschmann's Grundlicher Bericht des deutschen Meistergesangs susamt der 
 Tabulatur, &c. (1571), is reprinted as No. 73 of the Neudrucke, Halle, 1888.
 
 CH. II.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. l6l 
 
 The art of the Meistersingers was not favourable to the 
 growth of genius, and when, as in the case of Hans Sachs, 
 a real poet was nurtured in their school, it was virtually in 
 spite of the training he received. The artistic barrenness of 
 the Singing Schools and the lack of individual genius in their 
 members were the real reasons of that slavery to tradition 
 which hampered the development of the Meistergesang : it was 
 the absence of inspiration, rather than any conscious respect 
 for tradition, which made the Meistersingers go back to the 
 founders of the guild for the laws and models of their poetry. 
 At the same time, the indirect importance of the Meistergesang 
 for the intellectual movement of the period cannot be over- 
 looked. It represents, more perfectly than any other literary 
 phenomenon, the awakening of the burgher classes to an in- 
 terest in literature. From the soil provided by these literary 
 guilds sprang, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter, the 
 most promising growths of a new national literature ; the 
 schools created, above all, the conditions necessary for the 
 development of the drama. The greatest of the Meistersingers, 
 Hans Sachs, was not only a Meistersinger, but also the repre- 
 sentative German dramatist of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Outside the Meistergesang flowed a great stream of primitive The 
 poetry which, even in the darkest ages of German literature, Volkslied - 
 had never wholly ceased the Volkslied. 1 And now, under 
 the invigorating influence of the emancipated burgher classes, 
 and of that spiritual freedom which preceded and accompanied 
 the Reformation, the Volkslied entered upon a new stage of 
 its history. Although, in all periods, one of the purest and 
 least artificial forms in which the literary genius of the German 
 people has expressed itself, the Volkslied seems in these par- 
 ticular centuries to have come, as never before or since, 
 straight from the heart of the nation. 
 
 The most characteristic form of Volkslied in the period Historical 
 immediately preceding the Reformation was, perhaps, the a ' 
 historical ballad. Comparatively few historical Volkslieder 
 have come down to us from the thirteenth century, but in the 
 
 1 L. Uhland, Alte hock- und nicderdevtsche Volkslieder (1844-45), 3rd ed., 
 4 vols., Stuttgart, 1893 ; F. M. Bohme, Altdeutsches Liederbuch, Leipzig, 
 1877 ; R. von Liliencron, Die historischcn Volkslieder der Deutschen vom 13. 
 bis mm 16. Jahrh., 4 vols. and supplement, Leipzig, 1865-69; also the same 
 editor's Deutsches Leben int Volkslied urn 1530 (D.IST.L., 13 [1885]). Cp. the 
 bibliography of the Volkslied by J. Meier in Paul is Grundriss, a, i, 750 ff. 
 
 L
 
 162 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they become more numerous. 
 They are obviously a direct development of the Spriiche, by 
 means of which the Spielleute provided the nation with news 
 of current events in the middle ages. A spirited lay of this' 
 time tells of the famous battle of Sempach in Switzerland in 
 1386 ; another relates the battle of Nafels, where the Austrians 
 were defeated by the Swiss in 1388 ; while from the following 
 century we possess a number of Swiss ballads celebrating the 
 national struggle with Charles the Bold. The historical Lied 
 was not, however, restricted to Switzerland or South Germany. 
 Two notorious pirates of the North Sea, Godeke Michael and 
 Stortebecker, who, about 1400, harassed the commerce of the 
 Hanse towns, until Hamburg ultimately took energetic steps 
 towards their repression, were the subject of a long poem ; 
 another celebrated the achievements of Burggraf Friedrich 
 Hohenzollern in the Mark of Brandenburg, at the beginning 
 of the fifteenth century ; while the Council of Constance, held 
 in the second decade of that same century, was the theme of 
 a long, almost epic, narrative of more than eighteen hundred ' 
 lines. From the most trivial adventure of merely local interest 
 to events of European importance, the news of the day was 
 thrown into easy, pregnant verses, the more vivid because 
 expressed in the terse speech of the people. 
 
 Ballads on Nor were the stories of the heroic age forgotten : they 
 popular now reappear in ballad -form, and occasionally represent a 
 more primitive stage in the development of the saga than 
 did the epics of the Middle High German period. Koning 
 Ermenrikes Dod is the theme of a Low German Volkslied, 
 and the lay of Hildebrant reappears in a version which avoids 
 the tragic conclusion of the original : here, after a fierce 
 conflict, father and son are reconciled. New sagas gradu- 
 ally formed round the memory of the poets of the thirteenth 
 century. "Der edele Moringer" and Gottfried von Neifen 
 are the chief figures in a romantic ballad of this period, and 
 the poet Danhuser or Tanhauser becomes the hero of the 
 Venusberg saga. In the Horselberg, near Eisenach, Frau 
 Venus holds her court, at the entrance of which the "getreue 
 Eckart" keeps watch. Ritter Tanhauser has yielded to her 
 allurements, and, now seized with remorse, makes a pilgrimage 
 to Rome to obtain absolution from the Pope. "Ach bapst,' 1 
 he says
 
 CH. II.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 163 
 
 " ' Ach bapst, lieber herre mein ! 
 ich klag euch hie mein sUnde 
 die ich mein tag begangen hab 
 als ich euch will verkunden. 
 
 Ich bin gewesen auch ain jar 
 
 bei Venus ainer frawen, 
 
 nun wolt ich beicht und bliss empfahn 
 
 ob ich mocht gott anschawen.' 
 
 Der bapst het ain steblin in seiner hand 
 und das was also durre : 
 ' als wenig das steblin gronen mag 
 kumstu zu gottes hulde.' " 1 
 
 The miracle happens, the staff becomes green, but too late to 
 save the repentant sinner : he has returned to the Venusberg. 
 
 Love poetry, unhampered by rules or literary traditions, L O VC 
 also sprang up anew in this period. The influence of son g s - 
 the Minnesang is, it is true, occasionally noticeable in these 
 love-songs of the people, but the artless, natural tone of the 
 Volkslied predominates. There is nothing of the artificial 
 varnish of either Court poetry or Meistergesang in verses 
 like 
 
 " Ach Elslein, liebes Elselein, 
 
 wie gern war ich bei dir ! 
 
 so sein zwei tiefe wasser 
 
 wol zwischen dir und mir. 
 
 Hoflf', zeit werd es wol enden, 
 hoff, gliick werd kummen drein, 
 sich in als guts verwenden, 
 herzliebstes Elselein ! " 
 or again 
 
 " Dort hoch auf jenem berge 
 da get ein miilerad, 
 das malet nichts denn liebe, 
 die nacht biss an den tag ; 
 
 die mlile ist zerbrochen, 
 
 die liebe hat ein end, 
 
 so gsegen dich got, mein feines lieb ! 
 
 iez far ich ins ellend. " 2 
 
 The conflicts of storm and sunshine, of summer and winter, also 
 reappear in the Volkslied ; the childlike delight in the coming 
 of spring recalls the " Minnesangs Friihling " ; and here, too, 
 as in the Minnesang, are to be found songs of longing, of 
 
 1 L. Uhland, I.e., 2, 126 f. (steblin, "Stablein"; gronen, "grilnen") 
 a L. Uhland, I.e., i, 73 and 63 (ins ellend, " in das Fremde ).
 
 164 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 parting, "Tagelieder" and " Tanzlieder." Intimately asso- 
 Drinking dated with the songs of the seasons were drinking songs 
 and social songs. Hans Rosenpliit, the Niirnberg Schwank- 
 dichter, wrote a book of " Weingriisse " and " Weinsegen." l 
 A song like 
 
 "Den liebsten bulen, den ich ban, 
 der ist mit reifen bunden 
 und hat ein holzes rocklein an 
 frischt kranken und gesundcn : 
 
 Sein nam heisst Wein, schenk dapfer ein ! 
 so wird die stimm bass klingen ; 
 ein starken trunk in einem funk 
 wil ich meim brudern bringen " 2 
 
 reappears in several forms, and echoes through the crude 
 anacreontic poetry of this period. " Landsknechte " sing of 
 a free, careless life, and students glory in their " Burschen- 
 leben": 
 
 ' ' Du freies bursenleben ! 
 
 ich lob dich fur den gral, 
 
 got hat dir macht gegeben 
 
 trauren zu widerstreben 
 
 frisch wesen liberal." 3 
 
 The The religious lyric naturally shared in the revival of popular 
 
 religious song. Oswald von Wolkenstein and Michael Beheim left 
 Lied. many hymns and religious poems, and biblical themes were 
 
 favoured by the Meistersingers. 4 But the "geistliche Lied" 
 or hymn had, from the earliest times, been a recognised 
 form of the German Volkslied. The crusaders had their 
 marching songs full of devout trust in God; sailors as well 
 as soldiers had always expressed their faith in the Higher 
 Power that guarded them, in terse vernacular verse which 
 borrowed little from the Church hymn-book. At an early 
 date, parts of the liturgy had been translated into the ver- 
 nacular, or German verses had been substituted for the 
 original text : from such versions of the Kyrie eleison arose, 
 for instance, the so-called " Leisen." In the fourteenth cen- 
 
 1 Ed. M. Haupt in Altdeutsche Blatter, i, Leipzig, 1836, 401 ff. 
 
 2 L. Uhland, I.e., a, 15 f. (bass, "besser"; funk, "Schluck"). 
 
 3 L. Uhland, I.e., a, 78 (gral, "Gral," i.e., "der Ehre Hochstes"). 
 
 4 P. Wackernagel, Das deutscht Kirchenlied (5 vols., Leipzig, 1863-77), a, 
 478 ff., 666 ff.
 
 CH. II.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 165 
 
 tury a monk, Herman or Johannes of Salzburg, had by 
 this means helped to popularise the old Church poetry; and 
 in the monasteries, the mystic trend in theology expressed 
 itself now, as at the beginning of the Middle High German 
 period, in a revival of " Marienlieder." Another favourite 
 form of spiritual song consisted of religious parodies of 
 familiar Volkslieder. " Der liebste bule, den ich han," 
 became a devout expression of the soul's love for Jesus; 
 "Es stet ein lind in jenem Tal" became "Es stet ein lind 
 in himelrich." The most fertile composer of such hymns 
 was Heinrich von Laufenberg, a monk of Freiburg in the Heinrich 
 Breisgau, who died in 1460: besides these religious Lieder n 
 he has also left two long allegorical poems, Der Spiegel des berg. 
 menschlichen Heils (1437) and Das Buck von den Figuren 
 (1441), in which the mystic tendencies of the fifteenth 
 century find characteristic expression. 
 
 The majority of the Volkslieder in the centuries preceding 
 the Reformation were handed down by oral tradition. Only 
 rarely as when in 1471 Klara Hatzlerin, 1 a nun of Augsburg, 
 made a collection of them were they committed to writing. 
 The Volkslied of these centuries was thus not confined to 
 any particular class ; all classes and professions had a share 
 in modelling the verses or the melodies of the songs : they 
 were, as Herder first set forth centuries later in his Von 
 deutscher Art und Kunst, the voice of the whole nation. As 
 one generation of poets after another has felt, the Volkslied 
 is the spring to which the German lyric must turn, to 
 cleanse itself from the dust of a purely literary or bookish 
 tradition. 
 
 1 Ed. C. Haltaus, Quedlinburg, 1840.
 
 166 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MYSTICISM AND HUMANISM ; THE REFORMATION. 
 
 THE fourteenth and fifteenth centuries present certain points 
 of resemblance to the tenth and eleventh, in so far as they 
 were both periods of depression and of unconscious prepara- 
 tion for the future. The wave of religious fervour which 
 swept across Europe, as a result of the monastic reforms of 
 the tenth century, may be compared with the deepening 
 of religious life due to the Dominicans and Franciscans of 
 the pre-Reformation centuries. And like the earlier move- 
 ment, this later religious revival, which took the form of 
 mysticism, spread from Western Germany. Traces of mysti- 
 cism are to be found, as we have already seen, in the 
 sermons of the thirteenth century, in those of David of Augs- 
 burg and Berthold of Regensburg, but the line of German 
 mystics proper commences with the Dominican Eckhart (ca. 
 1 2 60-13 2 y), 1 who, in the early years of the fourteenth 
 century, preached in Strassburg where he was probably born 
 and in Cologne ; in Eckhart's footsteps followed Heinrich 
 Seuse or Suso (1295-1366) and Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300- 
 6i). 2 Meister Eckhart, the most gifted and original of all 
 the German mystics, established once and for all the philo- 
 sophical basis for mysticism : in his writings is to be 
 found that anxious searching into the relations of the soul 
 with God, that conception of God's oneness with the uni 
 verse, which runs through the whole later development of the 
 Hemrich movement in Germany. Heinrich Seuse, who was a Swiss, 
 1295-1366. represented the fervid and poetic side of mysticism : he ap- 
 
 1 F. Pfeiffer, Deutsche Mystiker des 14. Jahrhunderts, 2, Leipzig, 1857. Cp. 
 F. Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter, Leipzig, 1874-93, 
 i, 309 ff. 
 
 a For Seuse and Tauler, cp. F. Preger, I.e., a, 309 ff. and 3, 3 fl 
 
 Meister 
 Eckhart, 
 ca. 1260- 
 1327.
 
 CH. III.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 167 
 
 pealed to the imagination rather than to the purely religious 
 sentiments of his hearers. The Strassburg preacher Tauler, 
 on the other hand, was a mystic of a manlier type. He, too, Johannes 
 
 preached the complete union of the soul with God, but he Taule J. ca. 
 
 . , , , r . 130061. 
 
 avoided Eckhart s pantheism. He was essentially of a prac- 
 tical nature and had little faith in outward ceremonies ; he 
 believed that the path to the higher religious life led only 
 through personal conversion and the communion of the soul 
 with God. For centuries, Tauler's sermons were favourite 
 religious books with the German people. 
 
 Mysticism, in so far as it was a revival of religious indi- 
 vidualism, was thus a forerunner of the Reformation. The 
 history of literature is, however, more intimately concerned 
 with another aspect of the movement, an aspect in which 
 the aims of Protestantism were no less distinctly foreshadowed. 
 To the mystics we owe the first complete German Bible, a The first 
 translation of the Vulgate, which was printed at Strassburg S^j man 
 in 1466. Until this translation was superseded, a generation 1466. 
 later, by Luther's work, it was reprinted no less than thirteen 
 times. And, in addition to the printed version, there existed 
 several manuscript translations of the whole Bible, or part 
 of it, the majority of which are also to be ascribed to the 
 influence of this religious movement. 
 
 In the fifteenth century mysticism had lost something of 
 its unworldly enthusiasm, and in its place had appeared a 
 practical religious spirit, but a spirit that was even less 
 tolerant of abuses and superficial thinking. The representative 
 preacher of this century as Tauler had been of the pre- 
 ceding one was Johann Geiler of Kaisersberg (I445-I5IO). 1 j h a nn 
 The scene of Geiler's activity was again Strassburg. Like his Geiler of 
 contemporary and friend, Sebastian Brant, Geiler had re- berg^i^s- 
 ceived the best part of his education from the humanists, 1510. 
 and this to some extent explains the difference between 
 him and his predecessors. Geiler was more of a satirist ; 
 there is less mysticism in his sermons and more practical 
 common-sense. He, too, like Tauler, preached the necessity 
 of an essentially personal relationship between the soul and 
 God, but his eyes were more open to ecclesiastical abuses. 
 
 1 L. Dacheux, Jean Geiler de Kaisersberg, un reformateur catholique d la fin 
 du XVe siecle, Paris, 1876. Selections from his writings, ed. by P. de Lorenzi, 
 4 vols., Treves, 1881-83.
 
 168 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Human- 
 ism. 
 
 Transla- 
 tions from 
 Latin and 
 Italian. 
 
 The litera- 
 ture of 
 humanism. 
 
 The most famous collection of his sermons, Das Narren- 
 schiff(\$\\> in Latin; translated nine years later by J. Pauli), 
 takes the form of a spiritual exegesis of Brant's poem. 
 On the religious life of his time Geiler's influence was hardly 
 less widespread than that of Tauler. 
 
 But mysticism was not the only sign of the times. Another 
 factor in the life of these centuries had an equally important 
 share in preparing the ground for the Reformation namely, 
 humanism, which began, as far as Germany was concerned, with 
 the foundation of the University of Prague in 1 347. The chief 
 importance of humanism for Germany lay in the fact that it 
 gave the national life a cosmopolitan character. The use of 
 the Latin tongue, the intercourse between German scholars and 
 the leading Italian humanists, rapidly widened the intellec- 
 tual horizon of Northern Europe. The translation of Latin 
 and Italian literature received a fresh impetus. Between 
 1461 and 1478 Niklas von Wyl, Chancellor of Wiirtemberg, 
 produced Translationen of Enea Silvio, Poggio, Petrarch, and 
 other humanists ; : and shortly after the middle of the century 
 a certain Arigo, who, with considerable probability, has been 
 identified as Heinrich Leubing of Niirnberg (ca. 1 400-7 2), 2 
 translated Boccaccio's Decamerone and another Italian book, 
 Fiore di Virtfi {B lumen der Tugend). Albrecht von Eyb 
 (1420-75), a native of Franconia, who had studied in Italy, 
 wrote in good popular German a still readable Ehestandsbuch 
 (i472) 3 on the theme, "ob eim manne sei zu nemen ein 
 elich weibe oder nit," and a Spiegel der Sitten (1474 ; printed 
 1511), which is inspired by the liberal ideas of the Italian 
 Renaissance. The same writer also translated the Menaechmi 
 and Bacchides of Plautus, which he appended to the Sitten- 
 spiegel. But, with the humanists as with the monks of earlier 
 centuries, Terence was the more popular of the Roman drama- 
 tists; the first complete German Terence appeared in 1499, 
 and translations of other Latin and Greek classics were not 
 long in following. 
 
 The original humanistic literature of the fourteenth and 
 
 1 Ed. A. von Keller (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 57), 1861. 
 
 2 Cp. K. Drescher, Arigo, eine Untersuchung (Quellen und Forschungen, 86), 
 Strassburg, 1900. The Decameron , ed. A. von Keller (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 51), 
 1860. 
 
 8 Ed. M. Herrmann, Berlin, 1890. Cp. M. Herrmann, A. von F.yb and die 
 Fruhzeit des deutschen Humanismus, Berlin, 1893.
 
 CH. III.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 169 
 
 fifteenth centuries, however, was and remained Latin Latin 
 not only in language but in spirit. This makes it even less 
 appropriate, in a history of German literature, to discuss the 
 humanists than it was to take account of the Latin poets of 
 the Ottonian Renaissance, where often only the language was 
 foreign. The humanists, from their earliest representatives, 
 Peter Luder, who died about 1474, and Konrad Celtes 
 (1459-1508) onwards, took a pride in holding aloof from the 
 vernacular literature. Thus as a literary influence, humanism 
 had its dark side ; it saddled the German tongue with a pre- 
 judice which did not disappear until late in the eighteenth 
 century. On the other hand, German scholarship and Ger- 
 man universities rose upon the tide of humanistic cosmo- 
 politism, and were soon in a position to rival successfully 
 those of Italy and France. And although the spirit of the 
 humanistic literature was Latin, the humanists themselves 
 were by no means devoid of patriotism ; the Alsatian, Jakob 
 Wimpfeling (1450-1528), wrote an Epitoma rerum Germanic- 
 arum usque ad nostra tempora (1505), which may be regarded 
 as the first historical work produced in Germany, and Konrad 
 Celtes, Wilibald Pirckheimer, Franciscus Irenicus, and Konrad 
 Peutinger, all occupied themselves at one time or another 
 with the past history of their country. 
 
 In northern Europe, the humanistic movement reached its 
 culmination at the beginning of the sixteenth century, in 
 Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) and his hardly 
 
 less famous contemporary, Johannes Reuchlin of Pforzheim 
 
 / \ i T> I.L c r 4.u 
 
 (1455-1 522). x Both men were in a measure forerunners 01 the 
 
 Reformation, but they were essentially scholars, not reformers. 
 They fought against the abuses of Catholicism, but with the 
 weapons of philosophy and learning; their satire was purely 
 intellectual. The Enchiridion militis christiani ("Manual of 
 the Christian Soldier," 1509) and Morice Encomium ("Praise 
 of Folly," 1509) of Erasmus were world-famous books, but 
 they are written from the superior standpoint of the scholar : 
 they did not come, as it were, from the heart of the nation 
 like the writings of Luther a few years later. The foundation 
 
 1 Cp. E. Emerton, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, New York, 1899; L. 
 Geiger, Johann Reuchlin, Leipzig, 1871. The Epistolce obscurorum virorum 
 are edited by E. Bucking in the supplement to his edition of Hutten, 2 vols., 
 Leipzig, 1864-70. 
 
 j. Wim- 
 P felin > 
 
 D. Eras- 
 mus > I 4 66 - 
 J 53 6 and 
 j. Reuch- 
 
 lin > MSS-
 
 I7O EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 The 
 
 Epistolte 
 obscurorum 
 virorum, 
 
 Martin 
 Luther, 
 1483-1546. 
 
 of a direct, face-to-face knowledge of the Bible was first laid 
 by Erasmus in his edition of the Greek Testament, to which 
 he appended a Latin translation (1516), and by Reuchlin 
 who, in 1506 and 1518, published handbooks for the study 
 of Hebrew. Reuchlin's Hebrew grammar was the occasion of 
 one of the bitterest theological conflicts of pre-Reformation 
 times. He was accused of undue sympathy for the Jews, and 
 the theological world rose in arms against him. The humanists, 
 however, took his part, and it was soon evident that they 
 possessed the more effective weapons. In 1514 Reuchlin was 
 able to publish the Epistolce clarorum virorum^ in which the 
 greatest men of his time expressed their sympathy with his 
 cause; and in the following year appeared, as an ostensible 
 reply, the first series of the anonymous Epistolce obscurorum 
 virorum (1515-17). The clerical party was at first baffled 
 by this remarkable collection of letters from all manner of 
 fantastically named Churchmen ; in appearance it was an 
 attack upon their opponents. But soon it became evident 
 to every one that the letters were in reality a humanistic satire 
 upon the Church party. The Epistola obscurorum virorum 
 are, indeed, one of the most bitter and powerful satires in the 
 literature of these centuries, and they won the first battle in the 
 cause of the Reformation. The authorship is still a matter 
 of uncertainty, but a certain Johann Jager (Crotus Rubianus ; 
 ca. 1480-1540) of Dornheim seems to have had the chief 
 share in the book, and a considerable number of letters were 
 contributed by Ulrich von Hutten. 
 
 On the 3ist of October 1517 a monk of Wittenberg 
 nailed upon the door of the Schlosskirche in that town ninety- 
 five Thesen wider den Ablass. The hour had come at last 
 and the man. What mysticism and humanism had failed to 
 achieve, was conceived and carried out by Martin Luther. 1 
 Born of poor parents in the little Thuringian town of Eisleben, 
 on the loth of November 1483, Luther had been educated 
 in the school of the humanists, and from mysticism he had 
 learned that the soul may hold direct intercourse with God. 
 
 1 A standard edition of Luther's works, of which 18 vols. have appeared, is 
 being published at Weimar, 1883 ff. ; selections of literary interest edited by 
 K. Goedeke (Deutsche Dichter des 16. Jahrh., 18), Leipzig, 1883, and E. Wolff 
 (D.N.L., 15 [1892]). Cp. J. Kostlin, Martin Luther, sein Leben -und seine 
 Schriften, 4th ed., 2 vols., Berlin, 1889 ; T. Kolde, Martin Luther, 2 vols., 
 Gotha, 1884-93.
 
 CH. III.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 171 
 
 But his broad virile humanity shrank from learned subtleties 
 and scholastic exclusiveness, and, unlike the mystics, he was 
 not dreamer enough to be satisfied with a spiritual kingdom 
 within while abuses raged without. 
 
 In 1512, after a journey to Rome, Luther was made Doctor Luther in 
 of Theology in the University of Wittenberg, and in 1517, as 
 we have seen, commenced his attack on the abuse of in- 
 dulgences. Repentance, he proclaimed, was an inward pro- 
 cess of the soul, and could not be sold by the Church. Three 
 years later followed his flaming appeal An den Christlichen 
 Adel deutscher Nation : von des Christlichen standes besserung, 
 the Latin tract De captivitate Babylonica ecclesia (" The 
 Babylonian Captivity of the Church"), and finally as a 
 reply to the excommunication of the Pope Von der Freyheyt 
 eyniss Christen menschen)- These are the three great docu- 
 ments of the Protestant Reformation. Firmly established on 
 the rock of the Bible, Luther thunders forth his attack upon 
 the sovereignty of the Papacy, his insistence on the supremacy 
 of the German Kaiser, his triumphant demand that the Bible, 
 and the Bible alone, shall be law to every Christian. He 
 calls for a new Council to reform the abuses of the Church, to 
 sweep from German soil the network of hypocrisy and vice 
 in which foreigners had entangled the nation's spiritual life. 
 He will have no more vows and no monastic prisons ; no 
 more festivals for saints, no pious pilgrimages; no further 
 inquisitional measures against heretics. Education, above all 
 things, is to be reformed; in place of religious orders, free 
 Christian schools are to be founded, and the scholastic 
 methods swept away with the cobwebs of the old theology. 
 There have perhaps been loftier and grander schemes of 
 human reform both before and after Luther, but never did 
 a scheme so magnificently practical, a scheme that was 
 realisable to the last letter, spring from the brain of a single 
 man. Luther was, above all things, a man of supreme 
 common-sense ; he looked the world straight in the face, saw 
 life in all its littleness as well as greatness, but never lost 
 faith in its possibilities. His sincerity, too, was unimpeach- 
 able; in his nature, as in that of the ideal knights of the 
 middle ages, there was no room for valsch. 
 
 1 Reprints of An den Christlichen Adel and Von der Freyheyt eyniss Christen 
 menschen in the Halle Neudrucke, 4 (2nd ed., 1897) and 18 (1879).
 
 172 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 The time was, indeed, ripe, but the greatness of Luther's 
 work must not on that account be underestimated. It is not 
 to be forgotten that in these, the first battles of the Reforma- 
 tion, Luther fought single-handed ; his scheme of reform was 
 conceived and carried out by himself alone. On the heels 
 of his first appeal followed tract upon tract, in which he laid 
 down, with the unbending conviction of a dictator, the tenets 
 of the new faith. He stood amidst the storms that raged 
 round his head, like the hero of an old Germanic epic, until 
 the culminating-point was reached in the supreme moment at 
 the Council of Worms, when he refused before Emperor and 
 Empire to recant his faith : " Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht 
 anders. Gott helfe mir ! Amen." This was on the 1 8th of 
 April 1521. Then followed some months of concealment 
 in the Wartburg as "Junker Georg," a willing prisoner of 
 the Saxon Elector. In these months Luther began his 
 Luther's greatest literary work, the translation of the Bible into 
 Bible, 1522- G erm an. The New Testament appeared in 1522, the whole 
 Bible in 1534. In 1522 he was able to return to Witten- 
 berg, where, with increased zeal, he continued the work of 
 the Reformation. In 1525 he married a former nun, 
 Katharina von Bora, and for the next twenty years lived 
 mainly in Wittenberg, engaged with restless, unwearied 
 activity in the organisation of the new faith and the new 
 Church. His death took place during a visit to his native 
 town, in 1546. 
 
 The importance of Luther's Bible cannot be too highly 
 estimated, either as the text-book of Reformed Christianity 
 or as a literary monument. His original works hardly bear, 
 one might say, so strong an impress of his magnificent 
 personality as this German Bible. For it was, above all 
 things, a German Bible. Although he went back to the 
 original Hebrew and Greek texts, Luther made no slavish 
 translation ; he gave the German people a truer " Volksbuch " 
 than did his scholarly predecessors, who, in their transla- 
 tions of the Vulgate, aimed at closer accuracy. The language 
 of Luther's Bible is German living, whole-hearted, humorous, 
 German ; it is written as few books have been written, in 
 the unadulterated language of the people. Just as the Old 
 Saxon singer of the Heliand adapted the story of Christ to 
 the life and ideas of the ninth century, so, no less, has
 
 CH. in.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 173 
 
 Luther Germanised his translation. He has rendered the 
 concrete Hebrew poetry and lucid Greek narrative by the 
 pithy language and the proverbial phrases of the peasant's 
 home. 
 
 " Ich weis wol," writes Luther in his Letter Vom Dolmetschen 
 (1530), "was fur kunst, vleis, vernunfft, verstand zum guten Dol- 
 metscher gehoret. . . . Man mus nicht die buchstaben in der 
 Lateinischen sprachen fragen, wie man sol Deudsch reden, Sondern 
 man mus die Mutter im hause, die Kinder auff der gassen, den ge- 
 meinen Man auffdem marckt drumb fragen, vnd denselbigen auff das 
 Maul sehen, wie sie reden, vnd darnach dolmetschen, So verstehen 
 sie es denn vnd mercken, das man Deudsch mit jnen redet. . . . 
 So wil ich auch sagen, Du holdselige Maria, du liebe Maria, Vnd 
 lasse sie [i.e., die Papisten] sagen, Du vol gnaclen Maria. Wer 
 Deudsch kan, der weis wol, welch ein hertzlich fein wort das ist, 
 Die liebe Maria, der liebe Gott, der liebe Keiser, der liebe Fiirst, 
 der liebe Man, das liebe Kind. Vnd ich weis nicht, ob man das 
 wort liebe, auch so hertzlich vnd gnugsam in Lateinischer oder 
 andern sprachen reden miige, das also dringe vnd klinge ins hertz, 
 durch alle sinne, wie es thut in vnser Sprache." * 
 
 He was able, however, to cope with his original in more 
 than language; he himself had felt the wrath of Jehovah, 
 and the holy faith in Christ's mission glowed in his heart 
 no less fiercely than in the hearts of the first disciples. 
 The Bible was thus for him not merely a historical record 
 of his faith ; it was, from first word to last, the living 
 Word of God. In interpreting it, he did not feel the 
 necessity of putting himself in the position of a Jew or 
 an early Christian ; he regarded it as a book appealing 
 directly and immediately to the German burgher of the 
 sixteenth century. It is here that the secret of Luther's 
 genius as a translator lies. One might say, indeed, that 
 his Bible is the final triumph of the modern middle-class 
 spirit over the aristocratic spirit of medieval literature. 
 
 Thus, in the best sense, Luther's translation of the Bible is a The Ian- 
 work of creative genius, the greatest German book produced f^er's 
 within a period extending over at least three centuries. No Bible, 
 other work has played so important a role in the history of 
 the language as this Bible, for it gave the nation a normal 
 language in place of the many dialects that had been in 
 use for literary purposes during the preceding centuries. 
 
 1 Jena edition of Luther's Bticher vnd Schti/ten, 5 (1557), 162 ff.
 
 174 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. ill. 
 
 " Ich hab," said Luther in one of his Tischreden^ " keine 
 gewisse, sonderliche, eigene Sprach im Teutschen, sondern 
 brauche der gemeinen Teutschen Sprach, dass mich beyde, 
 Ober und Niderlander verstehen mogen." l Luther's German 
 was virtually the language of the Saxon " Kanzlei " or 
 Chancery. Even before his translation, the various German 
 States in their communications with one another had felt 
 the need of a uniform dialect, and the Chancery of Vienna 
 had attempted a linguistic compromise with the Chanceries 
 of North Germany. But, as a consequence of Luther's 
 favouring the official language of the Electorate of Saxony, 
 that dialect soon gained the upper hand and became the 
 literary language of the German-speaking world. 
 
 Luther caught the popular tone as perfectly in his verse 
 
 as in his prose; he not only gave Protestant Germany its 
 
 Geistiiche Bible, but also its evangelical hymn-book. His Geistliche 
 
 fc2^ r ' Lieder, of which the first collection appeared in 1524, are in 
 
 the best sense popular ; their straightforward, simple language, 
 
 their intense earnestness and heart-felt piety, make them 
 
 masterpieces of hymnal poetry. Hymns such as 
 
 " Vom himel hoch da kom ich her, 
 ich bring euch gute newe mehr, 
 Der guten mehr bring ich so viel, 
 davon ich singen vnd sagen wil. 
 
 Euch ist ein kindlein heut geborn, 
 von einer jungfraw auserkorn, 
 Ein kindelein so zart vnd fein : 
 Das sol ewr freud vnd wonne sein," 
 
 or the magnificent paean of Reformation 
 
 " Ein feste burg ist vnser Gott, 
 ein gute wehr vnd waffen, 
 Er hilfft vnns frey aus aller not, 
 die vns ytzt hat betroffen. 
 
 Der alt bose feind 
 mit ernst ers ytzt meint, 
 gros macht vnd viel list 
 sein grausam riistung ist, 
 auff erd ist nicht seins gleichen." 2 
 
 are the inspired utterances of a true poet, but they are, at the 
 same time, the spiritual Volkslieder of the nation. Although 
 
 1 Tischreden, Kap. 69. 
 
 a P. Wackernagel, Das deutsche Kirchenlied, 3, 20 and 23.
 
 CH. Hi.] EARLY .NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 175 
 
 between the appearance of the Geistlichen Lieder in 1524 and 
 the end of the sixteenth century, a vast literature of Church 
 song sprang up under Luther's inspiration, the peculiar excel- 
 lence of his hymns was never surpassed. Other hymn-writers 
 caught the tone of the Volkslied as he had done, many of 
 them wrote more musical verses, but the general tendency of 
 the later Protestant hymn was towards a less simple expres- 
 sion of faith, towards a glorification of dogmatic principles. 
 
 The great Reformer is seen from another and more per- 
 sonal side in the intimacy of his letters, and especially in 
 his Tischreden (collected 1566). Again, it is Luther's magni- 
 ficent personality that here confronts us. Straightforward, 
 honest simplicity, that combination of naivete" of mind with 
 strength of will and indomitable conviction, which is to be 
 observed in so many of the leading geniuses of the Germanic 
 races these are the characteristics that speak out of every 
 page of the Tischreden. There are times, it must be ad- 
 mitted, when Luther's bluntness offends, when we have more 
 sympathy for the calm, philosophic ideals of the humanists 
 than for the doctrines of this iconoclast who broke down 
 the old faith with barbaric ruthlessness. Even Luther's 
 theological principles and dogmas smack sometimes more of 
 medieval thraldom and intolerance than of the freedom we 
 now associate with Protestantism. But, when we consider the 
 issues at stake and the conditions of the age, it is clear that 
 the only possible champion was a man like Luther : without 
 his strong, brutal doggedness, the Reformation would have 
 been no more lasting in its effects than had been the many 
 would-be Reformations before it. 
 
 Of his fellow - fighters only one has a place in the Ulrich von 
 history of literature, the Franconian knight Ulrich von Hutten 
 (I488-I523). 1 In some respects Hutten may be said to have 
 supplemented Luther's work. A popular reformer he was 
 not ; he is rather to be described as a combination of 
 humanist and Protestant. But what he lacked as a religious 
 fighter he made up for as a patriot : while Luther fought for 
 religious reform, Hutten dreamed of intellectual and political 
 freedom. Moreover, it was not until Luther questioned 
 
 1 Cp. D. Strauss, Ulrich von Hutten, 2 vols. 4th ed. , Bonn, 1878 ; Hutten's 
 works are edited by E. Booking, 7 vols., Leipzig, 1859-70. Selections from his 
 Deutsche Schriften, ed. G. Balke (D.N.L., 17, a [1891]), 201 ff.
 
 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 the supremacy of Rome that Hutten realised they had 
 anything in common, that the causes for which they were 
 fighting were but two sides of the same thing. Hutten's 
 literary work his best writings are in Latin is of a less 
 simple and popular kind than Luther's ; it has the polish of 
 the scholarly humanist and betrays the writer who had 
 been exclusively schooled in Latin culture. When, however, 
 His he writes verse, he forgets that he is a humanist ; his German 
 
 writings. poems, such as the Clag vnd vormanung gegen dem ilbermiissigen 
 vnchrist lichen gewalt des Bapsts zu Rom, vnd der vngeistlichen 
 geistlichen (1521), the well-known Lied(\$2\) 
 
 " Ich habs gewagt mit sinnen 
 vnd trag des noch kain rew, 
 mag ich nit dran gewinnen, 
 noch muss man spiiren trew " 1 
 
 and the verses scattered through his German prose works, are 
 written in a thoroughly popular style and in a rhythm that sug- 
 gests the Volkslied. Of Hutten's various theological writings, 
 which were either originally written in German or translated by 
 himself from his own Latin originals, the most important are 
 the four dialogues entitled Feber das Erst, Feber das Ander, 
 Wadiscus oder die Romische Dreyfaltigkeyt, and Die An- 
 schawenden, which together form the Gesprdch biichlin pub- 
 lished at Strassburg in 1521. 
 
 While Luther saw his dreams realised, Ulrich von Hutten 
 was a disappointed man. He had set his heart upon a 
 national uprising against the Pope, headed by a free knight 
 like Franz von Sickingen ; but it soon became clear that little 
 was to be hoped for in this direction. Broken in health, 
 Hutten was forced to flee before his enemies ; Zwingli offered 
 him a refuge on the island of Ufnau in the Lake of Zurich, 
 and here he died in 1523. If we except Hutten and perhaps 
 P. Melan- Melanchthon (Philipp Schwarzerd, 1497-1560) also, like 
 i hth "'6o Hutten, a link between humanism and Protestantism 
 the German humanists held aloof from the Reforma- 
 tion. To assume a conservative attitude in questions of 
 reform lay in the nature of humanism ; and it shrank 
 from the coarseness inevitable in a movement which affected 
 not merely the educated and cultured classes, but all ranks 
 
 1 P. Wackernagel, I.e., 3, 386 (sinnen, "Absicht und Uberlegung ").
 
 CH. ill.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 177 
 
 of the nation. The scholars and poets of the time not- 
 withstanding the liberal nature of their personal views were 
 indeed often more inclined to side with Luther's enemies, 
 and it is significant that one of the most gifted of these, 
 the Catholic monk Thomas Murner, had been educated by 
 the humanists. 
 
 Murner was probably born at Oberehnheim in Alsace, in Thomas 
 1475; h' s youth was spent in Strassburg, where in 1491 Murner 
 he became a Franciscan monk. Unsettled years followed, 
 when we find him either as student or as teacher in 
 several of the chief European universities. He died in his 
 native village in 1537. Attention was first drawn to Murner 
 by his attack on Wimpfeling's Germania (1501), to which 
 he opposed a Germania nova (I502), 1 claiming Alsace for 
 France, instead of, as Wimpfeling had done, for Germany. 
 But neither this book nor his translation of Vergilij dryzehen 
 Aeneadischen Biicher (1515) gave Murner an opportunity to 
 be satirical, and it was in satire that his genius first revealed 
 itself. As a preacher, he had early gained a reputation 
 for that ironical, witty style of pulpit-oratory which Geiler 
 cultivated, but his more immediate model was Sebastian 
 Brant. The influence of both Geiler and Brant may be 
 traced in the two satires Die Narren beschweerung and Die 
 Schelmen zunfft (1512), and in the allegory Ein andechtig 
 geistliche Badenfart (i5i4), 2 the works with which Murner 
 began his career. The similarity of these poems to Brant's 
 Narrenschiff is not to be overlooked ; and Murner's method 
 is, in its general lines, identical with Brant's. But while the 
 latter never forgot that he was a scholar, Murner struck the 
 coarsest popular note; Brant had some sense of literary 
 dignity ; Murner had none. On the other hand, Murner's 
 verses came more spontaneously ; his thrusts never missed 
 their mark, and left wounds behind them that rankled. 
 
 In his next writings, Die Millie von Schwyndelssheym vnd 
 Gredt Miillerin Jarzeit (1515) and Die Geuchmat (isig), 3 m l * tt ~ 
 
 1 Both works edited together by K. Schmidt, Geneva, 1875. Cp. E. Martin's 
 translation of Wimpfeling's Germania, Strassburg, 1885. 
 
 3 The Badenfart ed. E. Martin, Strassburg, 1887 ; the other two satires in 
 the Neudrucke, 85 and 119-124, Halle, 1890-94; Die Narrenbeschworung, also 
 edited by K. Goedeke (Deutsche Dichter des 16. Jahrh., u), Leipzig, 1879. 
 Cp. G. Balke, I.e., 17, i ff. and 59 ff. 
 
 3 Edited respectively by P. Albrecht (Strassburger Studien, 2, i), 1883, and 
 W. Uhl, Leipzig, 1896. 
 
 M
 
 178 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Murner goes further in unscrupulousness, in coarseness, and 
 vulgarity. Here, again, his theme is the favourite butt of 
 satire in the age of the Reformation, the "Narr," and in 
 the Geuchmat the "fools' meadow" he expends all his 
 bitterness upon the " fool of love." These poems are 
 hardly readable to-day, but, in judging them, allowance 
 must be made for the virile age in which they were written. 
 There is never a smile behind the mask of this misogynous 
 monk ; no class of society, not even his own order, escapes 
 the bitterness of his gall. In fact, as a satirist of monkish 
 corruption, Murner was of more assistance to the cause 
 of the Reformation than even Brant had been. But he was 
 of too negative a nature to see good in anything that 
 savoured of reform ; he wholly mistrusted any change that 
 went beyond the removal of abuses within the Church, and 
 his own sympathies were too deeply rooted in the old regime 
 for him to look with favour on the new. Above all, he 
 resented interference on the part of the laity. In the 
 earliest stages of the Reformation he was at one with the 
 Reformers, but they soon seemed to him to out-step reason- 
 able limits ; he made almost pathetic appeals to them to 
 leave, if not the saints, at least the Virgin, untouched ; he 
 championed the Catholic hierarchy as one might imagine a 
 knight of the fifteenth century championing the sinking 
 world of chivalry. But before long he saw that such appeals 
 were of little avail, and he took up his old weapon again. In 
 1522 he produced the wittiest and bitterest of all his satires, 
 Vondem Von dem grossen Lutherischen Narren wie in doctor Murner 
 ^"/ n . beschworen hat. 1 Although gross as only Murner could be, 
 schen and unscrupulous in his personalities against Luther and his 
 
 Narren, fellow-fighters, Murner is here once more master of his art. 
 The "grosse Narr" whom he conjures up is the Refor- 
 mation, and the Narr contains within him a multitude of 
 lesser Narren who, under Luther's leadership, attack Christi- 
 anity and plunder Church and monastery. Ultimately, 
 Murner who is represented in the woodcuts accompanying 
 the poem as a cat ("der Murner") in a monk's cowl 
 succeeds in staying the work of destruction, and Luther 
 attempts to win him over to his side by giving him his 
 daughter in marriage. Murner, however, discovers that she 
 
 1 Reprinted in D.N.L., 17, 2, i ff.
 
 CH. HI.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 179 
 
 has a loathsome disease, and turns her out of his house. 
 Luther, mortally insulted by this affront, dies, and with him 
 dies the great fool, the Reformation. Never has a national 
 movement been attacked with such venom as in Von dent 
 grossen Lutherischen Narren ; if it had lain in the power of 
 any man to make the Reformation ridiculous, that man was 
 Murner. 
 
 On the Protestant side, there was no writer whose genius 
 could in any way be compared with Murner's. The Swiss 
 dramatist, Niklaus Manuel (1484-1530), who will be discussed 
 in the following chapter, was, as a satirist, perhaps the most 
 gifted, but he was not in a position to play an effective role 
 in the religious conflicts of the time. On the other hand, 
 Erasmus Alberus (ca. 1500-53), who was born at Sprend- Erasmus 
 lingen, near Frankfort, was an intimate friend of Luther and Alberus > 
 
 Cel * 
 
 Melanchthon and shared in their hottest battles. His most 53 i 
 important work, Der Barfiisser Munche Eulenspiegel vnd 
 Alcoran, a satire on the Catholic worship of saints, appeared, 
 with a preface by Luther, in 1542, and the collection of 
 satirical fables, Das Buck von der Tugent vnd Wehsheit 
 which has been already referred to in 1550. These were, 
 on the whole, the sharpest literary weapons which the re- 
 formers had at their command.
 
 i8o 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE REFORMATION DRAMA. 
 
 THROUGHOUT the middle ages, the drama, as we have seen, 
 was merely an adjunct of the Church, an extension of 
 the ritual, in which the imagination had more or less play. 
 But, with every succeeding century, the Mysteries grew in 
 elaboration and importance; secular elements were introduced, 
 and the language of the people gradually took the place of 
 Latin. It was not, however, until nearly the close of the 
 sixteenth century that the German religious dramas of this 
 class reached the highest point of their development in 
 the elaborate "Osterspiele," performed in the Weinmarkt of 
 Lucerne. 1 The beginnings of a serious drama of a more secular 
 Tkeophilus nature are to be seen in the Low German play Tkeophilus 
 ^ ^ e f urteentn century, and the Spiel von Fraw Jutten, 
 written in 1480 by Theodor Schernberk, a priest of Miilhausen. 2 
 Both dramas are forerunners of the Reformation Faust ; both 
 represent the tragedy of man's temptation by the evil powers, 
 and his fall. Theophilus sells his soul to the devil in 
 order to attain worldly distinction ; " Frau Jutta of England " 
 is tempted by the powers of evil to pass herself off as a man. 
 She studies in Paris, and in Rome rises to high ecclesiastical 
 honours, being ultimately chosen Pope under the name of 
 Johannes VIII.; but the devils who have tempted her also bring 
 about her fall; her sex is discovered, and she only escapes 
 perdition by taking upon herself the shame of the world. The 
 
 1 Cp. F. Leibing, Die Inscenierung des sweitdgigen Luzerner Osterspieles 
 vom Jahre 1583 durch Renwart Cysat, Elberfeld, 1869. 
 
 2 Theophilus, ed. Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Hannover, 1853-54 ; Fraw 
 Jutten in A. von Keller's Fastnachtspielc aus dent 15'. Jahrh. 2, 900 ff.
 
 CH. IV.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. iSl 
 
 earliest stages of a purely secular comedy are to be found 
 in the rough " Fastnachtsspiele " or Shrovetide plays which The "Fas- 
 became popular in Niirnberg in the latter part of the fifteenth 
 century. The " Fastnachtsspiel," like the " Narren " literature 
 of the age, was a natural outcome of the amusements of the 
 carnival. The wearing of a mask was, in itself, the first step 
 towards dramatic representation, and in the "Schembartlauf" 
 (i.e., "Maskenlauf"), organised every year by the butchers and 
 cutlers of Niirnberg, from about the middle of the fourteenth 
 century to the time of Hans Sachs, there were many dramatic 
 elements ; amongst other things, the " Schembartlaufer " re- 
 presented symbolically the conflict of spring and winter, a 
 conflict to which the drama in all literatures seems ultimately 
 to lead back. The next step, namely, to accompany these 
 representations by dialogue, or to perform comic scenes of 
 everyday life, was the more easy, for such scenes had already 
 been introduced, as episodes, in the religious drama. In 
 this way arose the Fastnachtsspiel, which, in its earliest stages, 
 as cultivated by Hans Rosenpliit and Hans Folz, was little 
 more than a comic dialogue. 1 
 
 Although the drama had thus, at the beginning of the Influence 
 sixteenth century, only begun to emerge as a literary form, no for^atton 
 branch of literature responded more quickly to the stimulus on the 
 of the Reformation ; under its influence, dramatic literature drama - 
 developed with an extraordinary energy, as if to make up for 
 the centuries in which it had lain dormant. There was at 
 this epoch every promise that Germany would soon produce 
 a national drama not inferior to that of Spain or England; 
 but in the following centuries, the age when this promise 
 might have been realised, the land was devastated by a 
 catastrophe hardly less appalling and demoralising than 
 the migrations of early Germanic times the Thirty Years' 
 War. The novel, the satire, the lyric such literary forms 
 were possible amidst the political confusion of the seven- 
 teenth century, even if they could not flourish ; but the 
 drama cannot exist in an era of social disintegration, and the 
 dramatic beginnings of the sixteenth century, instead of 
 being a prelude to something better, received a check which 
 made further development impossible for a time. 
 
 1 A. von Keller, Fastnachtspiele aus dem 15. Jahrh. (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 28-30, 
 46), 1853-58.
 
 182 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 The Reformation drama l was not, however, an actual pro- 
 duct of the Reformation. The medium from which it sprang 
 was formed, on the one hand, by humanism, and on the 
 other, by the free burgher spirit. In other words, although 
 the drama of this period drew its chief nourishment from 
 the Reformation, in its first stages it was a product of causes 
 similar to those which brought about the Reformation, and 
 not an immediate result of the Reformation itself. The in- 
 fluence which the humanists exerted on the drama was, in the 
 The Latin first instance, due to their revival of Latin comedy. Terence, 
 
 school whose works had been read steadily throughout the middle 
 comedy. ... J . , . . 
 
 ages, became still more popular, the performance of his 
 
 pieces being a favourite method of instruction in Latin. 
 Even public performances were instituted by the schools, 
 on which occasions, prologues in German acquainted the 
 audience with the subject of the plays. And, as has already 
 been noted, a complete translation of Terence was pub- 
 lished in 1499. Plautus stood in almost as high favour 
 as Terence, and from Plautus to original plays in imitation 
 of the Latin comedy, the step was a small one. In 1470, 
 Wimpfeling's Stylpho? the first School Comedy by a German, 
 was produced at Heidelberg; in 1498, Reuchlin published 
 his Scenica Progymnasmata or Jfenno, a witty Latin farce, 
 the most effective scene of which is taken from the French 
 farce of Maitre Pathelin ; and three years later, Konrad 
 Celtes, who had himself written a Ludus Diana (1500), 
 brought to light the imitations of Terence by Hrotsuith 
 of Gandersheim. Thus was laid the basis of a Latin 
 School Comedy, which not only afforded the humanistic 
 circles of the sixteenth century an outlet for their purely 
 literary aspirations, but also affected materially the develop- 
 
 The Refor- men t o f the national drama. 3 
 
 drama in Switzerland was the focus of the Reformation drama in 
 
 Switzer- the narrower sense of the word ; here were produced the 
 land. 
 
 1 Schauspiele aus dem 16. Jahrhundert, ed. J. Tittmann (Deutsche Dichter 
 des 16. Jahrh., 2, 3), Leipzig, 1868 ; Das Drama der Reformationszeit, ed. R. 
 Froning (D.N.L., 22 [1895]). Cp. J. Minor's bibliographical Einleitung in 
 das Drama des 16. Jahrh., in the Neudrucke, Nos. 79, 80, Halle, 1889, and R. 
 Genee. Lehr- und Wanderjahre des deutschen Schauspiels, Berlin, 1882. 
 
 2 Ed. H. Holstein, Berlin, 1892. 
 
 3 On the Latin School Comedy in Germany, see C. H. Herford, The Literary 
 Relations of England and Germany in the idth Century, Cambridge, 1886, 
 70 ff.
 
 CH. IV.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 183 
 
 earliest Biblical dramas as distinguished from formless mystery 
 plays. In Basle, in the years 1515 and 1516, Pamphilus 
 Gengenbach, 1 a printer and Meistersinger of Niirnbe'rg, P. Gengen- 
 adapted the Fastnachtsspiel, which had been flourishing in bach * 
 Niirnberg for at least a generation, to moral and religious 
 ends. In Die Gouchmat he satirises, as his opponent Murner 
 a year or two after, the " fools of love " ; in Der Nollhart 
 (1517), again, he throws into dialogue form the prophecies 
 of a hermit ; but both pieces are rather satires in the 
 interests of the Reformation than actual dramas. An 
 important representative of the Swiss Protestant comedy 
 is Niklaus Manuel (1484-1 53o), 2 a native of Berne, dis- N.Manuel, 
 tinguished not only as a poet, but as a soldier and a I 4 8 4-i53- 
 painter. At Shrovetide of the year 1 5 2 2 a play of Manuel's 
 was performed "darinn die warheit in schimpffs wyss (i.e., 
 scherzweise) vom Pabst vnd siner priesterschafft gemeldet 
 wiirt"; it is an effective satire on the ambition and worldly 
 splendour of the Pope and his servants, contrasted with the 
 simple life of Christ and His disciples. Manuel here attempts 
 something more ambitious than a Fastnachtsspiel ; with the 
 latter he incorporates the more elaborate effects of the later 
 Swiss Mystery. He draws his figures with a rough but sure 
 hand ; his language is gross, but it is the forcible and humor- 
 ous grossness of the peasants' speech, and, when he likes, 
 no anti-Reformation satirist is more bitter or ruthless than 
 he. In 1525 Manuel produced the admirable Fastnachtsspiel, 
 Der Ablasskriimer^ and in 1526, Barbali, a protest against 
 nunneries. His best satire, and, after Murner's, the best of 
 the Reformation period, is, however, the Dialogue, Von der 
 Messz kranckheit vnd jrem letsten willen, which appeared in 
 1528. 
 
 The drama of the Reformation was not long restricted to The Para- 
 Switzerland. In 1527 a Parabell vam vorlorn Szohn? written Mfvam 
 
 ** ' ' vorlorn 
 
 in a Low German dialect by Burkard Waldis, who has been Szohn by 
 noticed above as a fable-writer, was performed in Riga, and ^ Waldis i 
 two years later a Dutch humanist, Guilielmus Gnaphaeus 
 (1493-1568), produced a Latin drama, Acolastusf on the 
 
 1 Ed. K. Goedeke, Hannover, 1856. Cp. R. Froning, I.e., i ff. 
 
 2 Ed. J. Baechtold, Frauenfeld, 1878. Cp. J. Tittmann, I.e., i, i ff. ; R. 
 Froning, I.e., 13 ff. 
 
 3 Ed. G. Milchsack (Neudrucke, 30), Halle, 1881. Cp. Froning, /.<:.. 31 ff. 
 
 4 Ed. J. Bolte, Berlin, 1890.
 
 184 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Sixt Birck, 
 I50I-54. 
 
 P. Rebhun, 
 ca. 1500-46. 
 Susanna, 
 1535- 
 
 Die 
 
 Hochzeit 
 su Cana, 
 1538. 
 
 same theme. Waldis's piece is an obvious imitation of 
 the humanistic comedy ; it is planned on the model of 
 Terence, and divided into acts, which are separated from 
 one another by hymns. The tone of the play is popular, 
 and, like its author's fables, it bears the imprint of his 
 Lutheran principles. From about 1530 onwards, the new 
 Biblical drama made rapid strides. The Latin Acolastus was 
 translated into German verse in Switzerland ; a schoolmaster 
 of Augsburg, Sixt Birck (Xystus Betulius, 1501-54) produced 
 at Basle in 1532 a comedy on Susanna, and Johann Kolross, 
 a native of Basle, followed with what might be described as a 
 Morality, the Spil von Fiinfferley betrachtnussen (i 532). 1 Both 
 these plays betray, in their strophic choruses, the influence of 
 the School Comedy. Poetically, the best drama of the 
 sixteenth century on the subject of Susanna was not Birck's, 
 but that by the Saxon pastor, Paul Rebhun (ca. i5oo-46). 2 
 Rebhun's Susanna, which shows that its author was familiar 
 with his predecessor's work, is, in the first instance, remark- 
 able for its ambitious versification. In this piece, Rebhun 
 has attempted to adapt to German requirements the Latin 
 metres which the humanist poets delighted in imitating. 
 Each of his characters speaks, as the author himself boasts, 
 in a different measure, with the result that the play is a 
 kind of metrical mosaic. In a second and much inferior 
 piece, Die Hochzeit zu Cana (1538), Rebhun carries out the 
 same plan, but he was obviously in advance of his time ; 
 it was not until after Opitz had appeared that the German 
 people took a serious interest in questions of metric. The 
 taste of the public is evident from the fact that an 
 adaptor converted Rebhun's ingenious metres into the simple 
 rhymed couplets known later as " Knittelverse," the prevail- 
 ing type of German verse in the sixteenth century. But in 
 other respects this Susanna, which was publicly performed 
 in 1535, is a remarkable drama. The sense of form, 
 which shows itself in the verse, is also to be observed in 
 the disposition and plan of the play as a whole ; it is 
 one of the best-constructed German plays of the sixteenth 
 century. In addition to this, there is a pleasing freshness 
 
 1 Both dramas are reprinted in J. Baechtold's Schweizerische Schauspiele des 
 16. Jahrh. (3 vols., Zurich, 1890-93), i, 57 ff. and 2, i ff. 
 
 2 Ed. H. Palm (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 49), 1859; the Susanna by J. Tittmann, 
 I.e., i, 25 ff. ; and R. Froning, I.e., 101 ff.
 
 CH. IV.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 185 
 
 in the author's method of adapting the Biblical story to 
 the ordinary conditions of German life, which lends interest 
 to Susanna apart from its technical merits. A Schb'ne vnd B. Krflger's 
 lustige newe Action Von dem Anfang vnd Ende der Welf, ^"{ a ^ de 
 darin die gantze Historia vnsers Herrn vnd Heylands Jhesu der Welt, 
 Christi begriffen (isSo), 1 by Bartholomaeus Kriiger, is, as I S 8 - 
 its title implies, more of a return to the mystery - play 
 than an advance on the part of the Reformation drama. 
 
 From the School Comedy the German dramatists thus ac- 
 quired a sense of form ; in return, the Latin writers borrowed 
 ideas from the vernacular drama; the Latin comedy, too, 
 was placed at the service of the Reformation. Thomas T. Kirch- 
 Kirchmayer, or, with his Latin name, Naogeorgus (1511-63), my y er > 
 infused into his many Latin dramas Pammachius (1538), 
 Incendia (1541), and, best of all, Mercator (1540) which 
 were all sooner or later translated into German, 2 the 
 controversial virulence of a reformer : there is, on the 
 whole, more polemic in his pieces than dramatic genius. 
 The master of the humanistic drama of Protestantism was 
 the unhappy Philipp Nikodemus Frischlin (i547-9o). 3 A p. N. 
 native of Wiirtemberg, Frischlin became Professor of Poetry Frischlin. 
 in Tubingen in 1568. The envy of his colleagues, his un- 
 regulated life and his attacks on the nobility ultimately 
 rendered his position insecure. In 1582, he exchanged his 
 academic chair for the rectorship of a school at Laibach, 
 in Carniola, where, however, he only remained for a short 
 time. He returned to Wurtemberg, but his unbridled 
 satirical talents were once more disastrous to him. He 
 attacked the Duke of Wiirtemberg's councillors in a scur- 
 rilous pamphlet, the consequence of which was that in 
 1590 he was made prisoner and thrown into the castle of 
 Hohenurach. A few months later he lost his life in an 
 attempt to escape from this prison. Frischlin has left nine His 
 plays, two of which are described as tragedies, the others as 
 comedies, though the reason for the distinction is not clear. 
 Amongst the latter are a Rebecca (1576), a Susanna (1577) 
 
 1 Reprinted by J. Tittmann, I.e., 2, i ff. 
 
 2 A German version of Pammachius in R. Froning, I.e., 183 ff. ; the original 
 has been edited by J. Bolte and E. Schmidt, Berlin, 1891. 
 
 3 Cp. F. D. Strauss, N. Frischlins Leben vnd Schriften, Frankfort, 1856 ; 
 Strauss also edited Frischlin's Deutsche Dichlungen (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 41), 
 1857-
 
 1 86 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 on which the influence of both Birck and Rebhun is noticeable 
 and a play based on a German subject, Hildegardis magna 
 (1579), the Hildegard here being Charles the Great's Swabian 
 wife ; but all these pieces are in Latin. A second comedy 
 from German history, Fraw Wendelgard (1579), has as its 
 heroine a daughter of Kaiser Heinrich I., and is written in 
 German. During his imprisonment, Frischlin planned a 
 series of Biblical plays in the vernacular ; like Hrotsuith of 
 Gandersheim, he had the intention of superseding the Latin 
 Terence with a "Terentius Christianus." To this group of 
 plays belong Ruth and Die Hochzeit zu Cana. For his ex- 
 ceptional satirical powers, Frischlin found better scope in 
 pieces of more actual interest, such as the Priscianus vapulans 
 (1578), in which the barbarous Latin of the middle ages is 
 satirised, &a& Julius Ctzsar Redivivus (begun in 1572, but not 
 finished until 1584). In the latter play, which is an in- 
 teresting testimony to Frischlin's patriotism, Julius Caesar and 
 Cicero are represented as returning to the upper world ; the 
 inventions of printing and gunpowder fill them with wonder, 
 and they extol the German humanists at the expense of 
 those of Italy. Phasma (1580), again, parts of which are in 
 German, is a comedy of Frischlin's own time, its subject 
 being the conflicts of the various Protestant sects. The 
 composition of these dramas is often loose and careless, but 
 this defect is counterbalanced by a fineness of character- 
 drawing which is not common in the " bookish " drama of 
 the humanists. Besides plays, Frischlin has left a couple of 
 epics, a volume of elegies and odes, besides two learned 
 philological works on Latin grammar, but all these are in 
 Latin. In general, he gives the impression of having written 
 easily. His German writings met with discouraging contempt 
 on the part of his colleagues and friends, but even had this 
 not been so, he would have remained a Latin poet and a 
 humanist ; his literary horizon was, after all, no wider than 
 that of other humanists in the sixteenth century, and his 
 influence upon the development of the German drama was 
 hardly proportionate to his dramatic gifts. 
 Hans The chief dramatist of this epoch was not, however, a 
 
 h -% 6 humanist, but a simple and comparatively unlearned cobbler 
 of Niirnberg. The son of a Niirnberg tailor, Hans Sachs 
 was born on the 5th of November 1494; he enjoyed a
 
 CH. IV.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 1 87 
 
 fair education for his time, mastered Latin and made at 
 least a beginning to the study of Greek. In 1509 he 
 was apprenticed to his trade. Although he seems soon 
 to have forgotten his classical acquirements after leaving 
 school, he retained an interest in literature, and especially 
 in that burgher poetry which had been revived in Niirnberg 
 in the fifteenth century by men like Rosenpliit and Folz. 
 Sachs was initiated into the art of the Meistergesang by 
 a weaver, Lienhard Nunnenpeck, and made such rapid 
 progress that in the course of his " Wanderjahre " (1511-16) 
 he gained a reputation for his verses. In 1516 he re- 
 turned to his native town, and three years later married. 
 Shoemaking was the business of his life, poetry the occu- 
 pation of his leisure hours. But for more than fifty years, 
 during which time he was the acknowledged leader of the 
 Ntirnberg Meistersingers, his productiveness in verse-writing 
 was inexhaustible, with the result that few poets in the history 
 of literature have left behind them such an enormous quantity 
 of verse. In 1567 he made an inventory of his own 
 works, and at that time they extended to sixteen volumes 
 of " Gesangbiicher," containing 4275 " Meistergesange," and 
 eighteen volumes of " Spruchbiicher," containing 1773 poems, 
 of which more than two hundred were plays. 1 He died on 
 the i Qth of January 1576. 
 
 As soon as Hans Sachs returned to Niirnberg from his As Meister- 
 " Wanderjahre " he became an active member of the " Sing- sin s er> 
 schule" there. He came home laden not only with fresh 
 experiences, but with wider literary ideas than the Niirnberg 
 Meistersingers dreamed of, and he at once set about raising 
 the Meistergesang out of its traditional groove. Heir of the 
 great activity in translation which, as we have seen, came in 
 the train of humanism and the Renaissance, Sachs plunged 
 his hands into the stores of anecdote and story that lay at 
 his door; Arigo's translation of Boccaccio's Decamerone was 
 the first of the many sources from which the materials of his 
 
 1 Ed. A. von Keller and E. Gotze for the Stuttg. Litt. Ver., in 23 vols., 1870- 
 96 ; the Fasinachtsspiele have also been edited by E. Gbtze, 7 vols., in the 
 Halle Neudrucke, 1880-87, tne Fabeln und Schwdnke in the same series and by 
 the same editor (3 vols. have appeared), Halle, 1893-1900. Editions of selec- 
 tions by K. Goedeke and J. Tittmann in Deutsche Dichter des 16. Jahrk., 4-6, 
 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1883-85, and B. Arnold in D.N.L., 20, 21 [1885]. Cp. R. 
 Gene, Hans Sachs und seine Zeit, Leipzig, 1894, and C. Schweitzer, Etude svr 
 la vie et les ceuvres de Hans SafAs, Paris, 1887.
 
 188 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 poetry were derived. If only on this account, Sachs is to be 
 regarded as a forerunner of the Renaissance in Germany, 
 but his work also bears testimony to the active interest he 
 took in the spiritual movement of his time and country. 
 Indeed, his vigorous Protestantism threatened, at the begin- 
 ning, to bring him into conflict with his fellow-townsmen. 
 Die In Die Wittembergisch Nachtigall (1523) he greeted the 
 
 Reformation with enthusiasm : 
 
 gall i?23. " Wach auff ! es nahent gen dem tag ! 
 
 Ich hor singen im griinen hag 
 Ein wunigkliche nachtigall, 
 Ir stim durchklinget berg vnd thai. 
 Die nacht neigt sich gen Occident, 
 Der tag geht auff von orient, 
 Die rotpriinstige morgenrot 
 Hier durch die triiben wolcken got. 
 Darauss die liechte sonn thut blicken." 1 
 
 While the Pope as lion, the priests as wolves, beset the Christ- 
 ian herd by the moonlight of false doctrine, the nightingale 
 of Wittemberg, Luther, sings loud and clear, proclaiming the 
 dawn of a new day to the world. This " Reimrede " was 
 soon on all lips, and aided materially in the work of the 
 Reformation. Hardly less far-reaching in its effects was a 
 prose Disputation zwischen einem Chorherren vnd einem 
 Dialogues. Schuhmacher? which Sachs wrote in the following year. The 
 form of this dialogue suggests the humanistic methods of 
 attack, but it is distinguished from them by the genial humour 
 with which the two disputants are characterised ; Sachs's satire 
 is without bitterness. 
 
 It is not, however, as a furtherer of the Reformation that 
 Hans Sachs takes his place in the literary movement of his 
 time. Nor is it as a Meistersinger in the narrower sense of 
 that word, although beyond question he was the greatest 
 Meistersinger of the sixteenth century; indeed, whether we 
 turn to his Meisterlieder, his religious poetry, his parables, 
 or his fables, it must be admitted that he is without a rival 
 among his contemporaries. But as a Meistersinger, he only 
 followed with more success lines which other Meistersingers 
 also followed or learned to follow. To find Hans Sachs as 
 a pioneer, and virtually as a creator of new literary forms, 
 
 1 B. Arnold's edition, i, in. 
 
 2 Ed. R. Kohler, Vier Dialoge von Ham Sachs, Weimar, 1858.
 
 CH. IV.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 189 
 
 we must turn to his "Schwanke" and his dramas. As a As 
 " Schwankdichter," a teller of short, witty anecdotes in verse, 
 always pointed with a moral, Hans Sachs is unsurpassed. The 
 Schwank was one of the favourite forms of poetry at the time 
 of the Reformation, but in Sachs's hands the manner of telling 
 the anecdote became for the first time as interesting as the 
 anecdote itself. He loved stories loved them indiscrimin- 
 ately. His delight in them was akin to that of a child, and 
 he was never weary of re-telling them in his homely but 
 hearty " Knittelverse." Through everything he writes, shines 
 his own genial personality; humour is never absent, and 
 the bitterness of a Brant or a Murner was foreign to his 
 nature. Schwanke such as Der Eiszapfen (1536), Sankt 
 Peter mit der Geiss (i 555), Sankt Peter mit den Landsknechten 
 (1556), Der Bauer mit dem bodenlosen Sack (1563), are genu- 
 ine masterpieces, even judged by modern criteria of verse- 
 narrative. The majority of Sachs's stories were drawn from 
 his wide reading, but he does not always restrict him- 
 self to subjects of which he has read or heard ; his fables 
 and allegories show that he had considerable powers of in- 
 vention. A favourite allegorical figure with him, for in- 
 stance, is the dream, which he employs effectively in the 
 poems directed against Niirnberg's enemy, the cruel Markgraf 
 Albrecht von Brandenburg. 
 
 More important than his " Schwanke " were Sachs's dramas. His Fast- 
 He found the " Fastnachtsspiel " or Shrovetide play in the 
 rude, primitive condition in which the earlier Niirnberg poets 
 Rosenpliit and Folz had left it ; he eliminated the coarseness, 
 for which he substituted his own kindly humour. The Fast- 
 nachtsspiel did not certainly become very dramatic in his 
 hands, but it must be remembered that this type of play 
 never altogether lost its original character of dialogue rather 
 than action ; the Fastnachtsspiel, as Sachs conceived it, is 
 virtually only a Schwank in dialogue form. Nowhere, how- 
 ever, does his ability to draw the people of the world in 
 which he lived show to better advantage than in these 
 plays, for their dramatic nature imposed on the poet the 
 necessity of drawing his characters clearly and with bold 
 strokes. In this power of portraiture, this ability to 
 pick out the essentials of character, Sachs's poetic genius 
 reveals itself, more than anywhere else. His knights and
 
 I9O EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 priests, peasants and rogues, jealous husbands and greedy 
 merchants, deceitful women and lazy servants, are no less 
 representative literary types of their time than were the 
 figures which the German dramatists of the early eighteenth 
 century adapted from Moliere and Holberg. The best of 
 Hans Sachs's Fastnachtsspiele, such as Der farend Schuler im 
 Paradeiss (1550), Fraw Warheit wil niemand herbergen (1550), 
 Das heiss Eysen (1551), Der Baur im Fegfeuer (1552), are 
 interesting enough still to be read with pleasure, and even to 
 be performed. 
 
 Sachs's As a dramatist on a more ambitious scale, Hans Sachs was 
 
 dramas not so successful. From his standpoint, a tragedy or comedy 
 only differed from a Fastnachtsspiel in so far as it was longer 
 and its plot more complicated ; it was also possible to divide 
 it roughly into parts which, following the humanists, he 
 designated "Actus." Of the true nature of the drama, of 
 the elementary requirements of dramatic construction, he 
 knew nothing. His choice of subjects for dramatic treat- 
 ment was no less catholic than in the case of the 
 Schwanke ; he dramatised the most difficult subjects with- 
 out knowing that they were difficult. The Bible, the 
 Greek classics, the Latin dramatists, and even a German 
 saga such as that of Siegfried (Der hornen Sewfriedt, 1557), 
 were equally acceptable to him, and he told all his stories in 
 the same manner. That the personages of remote ages differed 
 in any way from those who were familiar to him in every- 
 day life, that kings and queens should behave or speak other- 
 wise than the ordinary burgher of Niirnberg, is a fact of which 
 he took no account. Even God Himself, who is introduced 
 into the Comedie Die vngleichen Kinder Eva wie sie Gott der 
 Herr anredt (1553), is represented as an ordinary kindly 
 priest. " Adam vnnd Eva," says the stage direction at the 
 beginning of the third act, "geen ein, vnd Abel selb sechst, 
 Kain auch selb sechst." 
 
 "Adam spricht: 
 Eva, ist das hauss auch gezirt, 
 Auff das, wenn der Herr kummen wirt, 
 Das es als schon vnd liistig ste, 
 Wie ich dir hab befolhen ee ? 
 
 Eva spricht : 
 
 Alle ding war schon zu bereyt 
 Za nechten vmb die vesperzeit.
 
 CH. IV.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 19! 
 
 Adam spricht : 
 
 Ir kinderlein, ich sich den Herrn 
 Mit seinen Engeln kummen von ferrn. 
 Nun stelt euch in die ordnung fein 
 Vnd bald der Herre dritt herein, 
 Neygt euch vnd bietet im die hend ! 
 Schaw zu, wie stelt sich an dem end 
 Der Kain vnd sein galgenrott 
 Sam wollen sie fliehen vor Gott ! 
 
 Der Herr geet ein mit zweyen Engeln, geyd den segen vnd spricht : 
 Der fried sey euch, ir kinderlein ! " J 
 
 The technique of Hans Sachs's dramas is virtually that of His 
 the mystery-plays ; his heroes are born, live, and die, wander dra 
 from one part of the world to another, in the course of a 
 few hundred lines. The action is assisted, where neces- 
 sary, by the "Ehrenhold," or herald, who also speaks the 
 prologue and epilogue. No attempt is made to preserve 
 unity of time or place, and the unity of action is almost as 
 loosely complied with. German dramatists had yet to learn 
 that to make actors recite rhymed dialogue was hardly even 
 the beginning of a national drama ; and, as will be seen in 
 the following chapter, their first lesson in the practical side 
 of dramatic art came, towards the close of the century, from 
 England. 
 
 Hans Sachs represents only one aspect of the intellectual 
 and artistic life which made Niirnberg, at the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century, the perfect type of a free German 
 " Reichsstadt." Besides Meistersingers and chroniclers, 
 Niirnberg numbered among its citizens eminent humanists 
 like Wilibald Pirckheimer (1470-1530), sculptors like Adam 
 Kraft (1440-1507) and Peter Vischer (ca. 1455-1529), and 
 above all, Germany's greatest artist, Albrecht Diirer (1471- 
 1528). Where the drama failed, art, in Diirer's hands, suc- 
 ceeded ; not in literature, but in Diirer's many-sided activity, 
 is to be found the fullest expression of the nation's awaken- 
 ing under the stimulus of the Reformation. 
 
 i Edition by Keller and Gotze, i (Stuttg. Litt Ver., 102), 64 f.
 
 192 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SATIRE AND DRAMA IN THE LATER SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 WHILE the foundations of a German Volksdrama were being 
 laid by Hans Sachs in Nurnberg, the novel was gradually being 
 evolved from the medieval romance of chivalry in Western 
 Germany. It must, however, be borne in mind that the 
 fiction of this period was not a pure form of literary art ; it 
 succeeded no more than other forms of literature, in disso- 
 ciating itself from satire and didacticism ; and thus the word 
 novel is hardly to be understood in its modern significance. 
 The fiction of the Reformation period, such as it was, com- 
 j. Wick- mences with the Alsatian Jorg Wickram (died ca. I560), 1 who, 
 ca^sao 1 ^ e Hans Sachs, was both Meistersinger and dramatist : besides 
 novels, he wrote Fastnachtsspiele and Biblical tragedies Der 
 verlorne Sun (1540), Tobias (1551) on the model of the 
 Swiss dramatists. His first attempt at narrative fiction was 
 probably an adaptation of a French novel of adventure, 
 Ritter Galmy vss Schottland (1539), which appeared anony- 
 mously. A more independent work is the didactic romance, 
 Der fungen Knaben Spiegel (1554), in which the evangelical 
 burgher's love of moralising is clearly evident : in the 
 Irr Reitend Pilger (1556), again, the author's moral inten- 
 tion is reinforced by satire. In the Knabenspiegel, and still 
 more in the less didactic Goldtfaden (1557) stories in which 
 the peasant or citizen takes the place of the knight, and the 
 practical virtues of the middle class are brought into the fore- 
 ground Wickram introduces in fiction the new social ideas 
 which had already manifested themselves in verse and satire. 
 
 1 Cp. W. Scherer, Die Anfdnge des deutschen Prosaromans und JiJrg Wick- 
 ram von Colmar (Quellen und Forschungen, 21), Strassburg, 1877.
 
 CH. v.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 193 
 
 If not the first modern novelist, he is at least the first repre- 
 sentative of that fiction which lay between medieval romance, 
 on the one hand, and the modern social novel, as created 
 by Richardson, on the other. Wickram was a keen observer 
 of the life around him, and knew how to describe it ; but his 
 novels like almost all the literature of the century have 
 little unity : they fall asunder in disconnected episodes and 
 "Schwanke." Thus the most satisfactory of his books is not a 
 novel, but the collection of anecdotes and witty tales which 
 he published in 1555 under the title Das Rollwagen biichlein}- Das Roii- 
 This is a "Biichlein, darinn vil guter schwenck vnd Historien ^ g ff. 
 begriffen werden, so man in schiffen vnd auff den rollwegen I555 . 
 [i.e., stage-coaches], des-sgleichen in scherheiisern vnnd bad- 
 stuben, zu langweiligen zeiten erzellen mag," in other words, 
 a book of entertainment for the use of travellers. The best 
 testimony to the popularity of the Rollwagenbiichlein is that 
 a large number of imitations appeared in the course of the 
 next few years. The most popular of these were J. Frey's 
 Garten gesellschafft (1556), M. Montanus's Wegkurtzer (1557), 
 M. Lindener's Katzipori (1558) and Rastbilchlein (1558), V. 
 Schumann's Nachtbiichlein (1559), and H. W. Kirchhoff's 
 Wendvnmuth (1565-1603); but, with the possible exception 
 of the last mentioned, none can be compared with Wickram's 
 collection. 
 
 Bartholomeus Ringwaldt (1530 or i53i-99), 2 an evangelical B. Ring- 
 pastor who was born in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, was more of a waldt - ^ 
 
 *53O*99 
 
 satirist than Wickram. This writer's trewer Eckart (1588), a 
 half-didactic, half-satiric poem in rhyming couplets, the hero 
 of which visits heaven and hell, became a veritable Volksbuch, 
 and a longer poem, Die lauter Warheit (1585), although 
 obtrusively didactic, was hardly less popular. Ringwaldt 
 is to be seen at his best in the dramatic satire Specu- 
 lum mundi (1590), where the dissoluteness of the country 
 nobility is subjected to the lash. His Church hymns, again, 
 have at least one essential feature in common with the religious 
 poetry of the Reformation ; they catch admirably the tone of 
 the Volkslied. Without touching a high level, his work 
 throws an interesting light on the life and temper of the 
 
 1 Ed. H. Kurz, Deutsche Bibliothek, 7, Leipzig, 1865. 
 
 - Selections from Ringwaldt in E. Wolff's Reinke de Vos vnd satirisck- 
 didaktische Dichtung (D.N.L., 19 [1893]), 471 ff. 
 
 N
 
 194 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 G. Rollen- 
 
 hagen, 
 
 1542-1609. 
 
 Der 
 
 Frosck- 
 
 meuseler, 
 
 1595- 
 
 Johann 
 Fischart, 
 ca. 1550- 
 90. 
 
 Grobianus, 
 1549, IBS*- 
 
 later sixteenth century in Germany. A more gifted writer 
 than Ringwaldt was Georg Rollenhagen, who was born near 
 Berlin in 1542 and died in 1609. Rollenhagen, by profession 
 preacher and pedagogue, began with elaborate school-dramas 
 based on older Biblical plays. It was not until 1595 that 
 he published the work by which he is now alone remem- 
 bered, the Froschme useler : der Frosch vnd Meuse ivunderbare 
 Hoffhaltunge?- a version of the Battle of the Frogs and 
 Mice (Batrachomyomachia). The Greek poem was a parody 
 on the Homeric epic; but Rollenhagen, who had learned 
 the comic possibilities of the beast allegory from Reinke 
 de Vos, uses the story as a vehicle for his own views on the 
 social, political, and especially the religious movement of the 
 age. The Froschmeuseler is less a beast epic than a didactic 
 satire in the interests of the Reformation. The most pleasing 
 side of Rollenhagen's work is the sympathetic interest which 
 he takes in the animal world; but he, too, lacked the sus- 
 taining power which is indispensable to a long work, and in 
 spite of its promising beginning, his epic ultimately breaks 
 up into a series of loosely connected episodes. 
 
 The master of German satire in the later sixteenth century, 
 the heir ot Brant and Murner, was the Alsatian, Johann 
 Fischart. 2 Fischart " der Mentzer " i.e., the Mainzer, a 
 cognomen which his father also bore was probably born in 
 Strassburg between 1545 and 1550. He received a good 
 humanistic education in Worms with Kaspar Scheidt (died 
 1565), to whom he seems to have been related. Scheidt, 
 it may be mentioned, was the translator of the Grobianus, 
 that famous Latin satire on the " drunkenness, viciousness, 
 and coarseness of the age, which F. Dedekind (ca. 1525-98) 
 built up round " Sankt Grobianus," Brant's type of the 
 "grobe Narr." Dedekind's satire appeared in 1549, Scheidt's 
 translation 3 in 1551. Fischart spent several years in travel 
 and study, visiting France, Holland, England, and Italy, and 
 
 1 Ed. K. Goedeke, 2 vols. (Deutsche Dichter, 8, 9), Leipzig, 1876. Cp. 
 D.N.L., 19, 395 ff. 
 
 3 Selected works, ed. K. Goedeke (Deutsche Dichter, 15), Leipzig, 1880; A. 
 Hauffen in D.N.L., 18, 1-3 [1892-95]. Cp. E. Schmidt's article on Fischart 
 in \\\Q Allg. deutsche Biographic, 7 (1878), 31 ff., and P. Besson, Etude sur 
 J. Fischart, Paris, 1889. 
 
 3 Ed. G. Milchsack (Neudrucke 34, 35), Halle, 1882. Cp. A. Hauffen, 
 Kaspar Scheldt, der Lehrer Fiscftarts (Quellen vnd Forschungen, 66), Strass- 
 burg, 1889.
 
 CH. v.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 195 
 
 acquiring a rich fund of knowledge and experience which 
 later found its way in promiscuous profusion into his books. 
 In 1574 he graduated as doctor juris in Basle, and between 
 
 1575 and 1581 all his most important works were published 
 in Strassburg, where his brother-in-law, Jobin, had established 
 a printing-press. In 1581 he became an advocate in Speyer, 
 two years later Amtmann or district judge in Forbach near 
 Saarbriicken. His death took place in 1590 or 1591. 
 
 Fischart began his career in 1570 as a champion of 
 the Reformation, by writing satires on the Catholics. Of 
 these, the most important are a German version of a Dutch 
 Calvinistic satire by Philipp Marnix, which was published in 
 1579 under the title, Binenkorb des hey I. romischen Imen- DerBinen- 
 schwarms, and the Wunderlichst vnerhortest Legend vnd Be- 
 schreibung des Abgefiihrten, quartirten, gevierlen und viereckech- 
 ten vierhornigen Htitleins \der Jesuileri\, which appeared a year hutiein, 
 later : the latter is a scathing satire on the Jesuits, based on I58o< 
 a French model. Fischart himself was a pious and sturdy 
 Protestant, with leanings towards Calvinism ; but he was by no 
 means intolerant on questions of dogma. He followed the 
 steady advance of Protestantism with warm interest, and hailed 
 with exultation the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. l^n 
 1578 he published his Philosophisch Ehzuchtbuchlin^ which is Das 
 made up of two small treatises of Plutarch's, a dialogue by ft*^**' 
 Erasmus, and other fragments, and is one of the most pleasing i 57 8. 
 books of its kind produced in the century of the Refor- 
 mation. As a poet, Fischart is seen to best advantage in 
 the epic poem, Das gliickhafft Schiff von Zurich (1576), Dasgiuck- 
 which as regards form, at least, is without a rival in the 
 literature of the sixteenth century. In the summer of 
 
 1576 a number of Zurich citizens made in a single day 
 the voyage to Strassburg by way of Limmat, Aare, and 
 Rhine, in order to attend a shooting - festival. The bonds 
 of neighbourly feeling were symbolised by a basin of " Hirse- 
 brei " (millet porridge), which, cooked in the morning before 
 the voyagers left Zurich, still retained its warmth when the 
 "gliickhafft Schiff" arrived in the harbour of Strassburg at 
 nightfall. Fischart's style, notwithstanding an occasional 
 display of learning, has neither the dryness of a mere 
 imitation nor the coarseness of the popular literature of 
 the day. His model was the classical epic; the rivers, the
 
 196 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. in. 
 
 Eulen- 
 spiegel 
 Reimens- 
 weiss, 1572. 
 
 Floh Hax, 
 1573- 
 
 landscape, the sun itself, all play a role in the eventful 
 voyage : 
 
 " Die Sonn het auch jr freiid damit, 
 
 Das so dapffer das Schiff fortschritt 
 Vnd schin so hell inn dRuder rinnen, 
 Das sie von fern wie Spiegel schinen. 
 
 Das Gestad schertzt auch mit dem Schiff, 
 
 Wann das wasser dem land zulieff, 
 Dann es gab einen widerthon 
 Gleich wie die Rhuder thaten gon. 
 
 Ein Flut die ander trib so gschwind, 
 
 Das sie eim vnderm gsicht verschwind. 
 Ja der Rein wurf auch auff klein wallen, 
 Die dantzten vmb das schif zu gsellen. 
 
 Inn summa, alles freiidig war, 
 
 Die Schiffart zu vollbringen gar." * 
 
 The buoyant exultation with which this voyage was greeted 
 by Fischart was not without a certain political significance, 
 and twelve years later, Strassburg, Zurich, and Berne entered 
 into a formal alliance which he celebrated in " poetischen 
 Gluckwiinschungen ." 
 
 It was probably the fault of the age in which Fischart 
 lived .that a satirical intention so often lay behind his 
 humour. In general, his outlook upon life was optimistic, 
 and although he reviled the abuses of the time, he did not 
 doubt that the cause of Protestantism would triumph and was 
 triumphing. Amongst his earliest works, there is a poetic 
 version of Eulenspiegel Eulenspiegel Reimensweiss (1572) in 
 which the satire of the original is allowed to fall into the 
 background. His own additions, which increased the original 
 " Schwanke " to some three times their bulk, weakened, how- 
 ever, instead of improving the work. He was more success- 
 ful with the burlesque epic Floh Haz, Weiber Traz (1573), in 
 which, with coarse but genuine humour, the flea is made 
 to complain of the injustice of his lot. 2 
 
 Masterly as was Fischart's command of verse, his importance 
 is to be sought rather in his prose works. Here he learned 
 his art from a congenial master, Frangois Rabelais. The in- 
 fluence of Rabelais is first noticeable on Fischart's witty 
 parody of weather prognostication, Aller Practik Grossmutter, 
 written in 1572, and on the translation from the Latin of two 
 
 1 A. Hauffen's edition, i, 144 (11. 387 ff.) (Schin inn dRuder rinnen, "schien 
 in die Furchen der Ruder"; gon, "gehen" ; zu gsellen, "als Gefahrten.") 
 
 2 With the exception of the Binenkorb, the works mentioned above will be 
 found in A. Hauffen's edition. (Haz, " Hetze" ; Traz, "Trotz.")
 
 CH. V.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 197 
 
 ironical eulogies on gout, Podagrammisch Trostbiichlin (1577). 
 But his masterpiece is unquestionably the translation of the 
 first book of Rabelais's great comic romance, to which he 
 gave the title Affenteurliche vnd Vngeheurliche Geschichtschrift Die Ge- 
 or, in the second edition, Affentheurlich Naupengeheurliche sc hicktkiit- 
 Geschichtklitterung Vom Leben rhaten vnd Thaten der for i 57S . 
 langen weilen Vollenwolbeschraiten Helden vnd Herrn Grand- 
 gusier, Gargantoa vnd Pantagruel (i575). x The most inter- 
 esting feature of this work is the remarkable way in which 
 Fischart has Germanised the French novel ; as he himself 
 says, it is " auf den Teutschen Meridian visirt." Rabelais is 
 assimilated as never original was assimilated by a translator 
 before, even the proper names being rendered by German 
 equivalents. Indeed, Fischart hardly translates ; he uses his 
 author merely as a channel through which to express his 
 own ideas and consequently the German Gargantua has ex- 
 panded to some three times the size of the original. He 
 finds an opportunity in this book for displaying both his 
 wide humanistic culture and his intimate knowledge of the 
 German people. The two main currents of German life in 
 the sixteenth century, as represented by the learned humanist 
 on the one side and the Protestant "Volk" on the other, 
 seem here to run side by side. From an artistic point of 
 view, the originality of the Geschichtklitterung is not to 
 its advantage. The style of the book is clumsy and un- 
 wieldy, and the humour is weakened by persistent exaggera- 
 tion. Every idea in the original is extended and contorted 
 until it is almost past recognition ; where Rabelais is content 
 with one epithet, the German writer has a dozen. As a coiner 
 of comic words, Fischart has the talent of an Aristophanes, 
 although here, too, his love of exaggeration leads him into 
 tasteless extremes, and the heaping up of attributes and 
 metaphors, which is to be traced in all the humorous prose 
 of the sixteenth century, begins to lose its effectiveness in 
 Fischart's hands. The old vice of formlessness, which clings 
 to the literature of this epoch, a vice to which Fischart once 
 in the Gliickhafft Schiffrose superior, sets in again here 
 in full force. 
 
 1 Ed. A. Alsleben in the Neudrucke, 65-71, Halle, 1887 (the title might be 
 modernised, " Abenteuerliche schrullenhaft-geheuerliche Geschichtskladde " 
 &c. ) ; Aller Practik Grossmutter (a " Practik " was a kind of calendar), in the 
 same series, 2, Halle, 1876 ; the Podagrammisch Trostbiichlein in A. Hauffen. 
 I.e., 3, i ff.
 
 198 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Transla- 
 tion of 
 A madis dt 
 Gaula, 
 I572- 
 
 The Volks- 
 buch of 
 D. Johann 
 Faust, 
 1587- 
 
 For a writer of such originality, Fischart was remarkably 
 dependent upon others not merely for the materials of his 
 books, but even for the books themselves : he invariably 
 preferred translating an old work to creating a new one. At 
 the same time, much of his literary work was obviously not a 
 matter of choice, but of necessity. This was undoubtedly the 
 case with his translation of the sixth book of the French 
 romance, Amadis de Gaula (AmtuKs aus Frankreich ; 1572). 
 The five earlier books had appeared before this date, and 
 so popular was the romance in Germany, that down to the 
 close of the eighteenth century eighteen more books were 
 added by various hands. Another translation of Fischart's 
 would also seem to have been undertaken for his brother- 
 in-law and not on his own initiative that of Jean Bodin's 
 De Magorum Dczmonomania (1581). It is, at least, difficult 
 to reconcile the suppression of witches which this book 
 preaches, with Fischart's own Protestant tolerance. But to 
 judge from his version of a Middle High German poem, 
 Ritter Peter von Stauffenberg (I588), 1 he was probably, 
 after all, not above the belief in devils and witches, 
 which neither humanism nor the Reformation had power 
 to eradicate. 
 
 With regard to its faith, its superstition, its knowledge and 
 aspiration, the age of the Reformation is best reflected in a 
 Volksbuch by an unknown author, published by Johann Spies 
 in Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1587 namely, the Historia von 
 D, Johann Fausten, dem weitbeschreyten Zauberer vnd Schwartz- 
 kunstler? The traditions which had gradually formed them- 
 selves round this typical figure of the sixteenth century 
 here take form for the first time. The Faust of the 
 Volksbuch, like so many dreamers of the time, hopes to 
 obtain by means of alchemy, astrology, and magic, rest from 
 the desires and longings that torture him ; so completely, 
 indeed, was Faust associated with all that was considered 
 daring in thought or invention, that, at an early date, the 
 popular imagination identified him with the printer Fust. 
 And this Faust, in the words of the Volksbuch, "name an 
 sich Adlers Fliigel, wolte alle Griind am Himmel vnd Erden 
 
 1 Ed. A. Hauffen, I.e., i, 263 ff. 
 
 2 Ed. W. Braune (Neudrucke, 7, 8), Halle, 1878. Cp. E. Schmidt, Charak- 
 teristiken, Berlin, 1886, i ff.
 
 CH. V.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 199 
 
 erforschen, dann sein Fxirwitz, Freyheit vnd Leichtfertigkeit 
 stache vnnd reitzte ihn also." He makes a pact with the 
 devil, who opens up to him new worlds of unlimited sensual 
 enjoyment ; he travels far and wide, to Italy, to the East, 
 conjures up the most beautiful women of all lands, amongst 
 them Helen of Troy, who lives with him a year and bears 
 him a son ; until at last the twenty-four years for which he 
 had stipulated elapse, and he is carried off in triumph to hell. 
 Thus, it might be said, the evangelical spirit of Protestant 
 theology avenged itself on the genii of knowledge and inquiry, 
 which it had itself set free. Two centuries of intellectual 
 evolution had still to pass before a new humanism and a 
 new philosophy of life were able to vanquish the narrow 
 standpoint of Lutheran Protestantism ; it was almost the end 
 of the eighteenth century before Goethe discovered that the 
 longings and ambitions which bring about the tragedy in 
 Faust's life do not merit damnation, but belong to the most 
 precious attributes of humanity. 
 
 Towards the close of the sixteenth century the German New 
 drama entered upon or, at least, gave promise of entering 
 upon a new stage of its history. From the last years of nings. 
 this century to the middle of th,e following one, Germany was 
 repeatedly visited by companies of strolling English players, 
 the so-called "Englischen Comodianten." These actors The"Eng- 
 brought with them not only the theatrical effects of the J^^" 
 Elizabethan theatre, but also the highly developed histrionic dianten." 
 art of the English stage ; and above all, they brought the 
 comic personage of the English drama, the clown, or " Pickel- 
 hering," as he soon came to be called in Germany. On their 
 first visits to the Continent, the "Englischen Comodianten" 
 played only in English, and, in the serious parts of their 
 dramas, had to depend upon their pantomimic abilities to 
 attract the public. But the music and costumes, the blood- 
 curdling scenes and buffoonery with which the plays were 
 liberally furnished, made up for the disadvantages of the 
 foreign tongue, and, at an early date, the comic roles were 
 either played entirely in German, or interspersed with as 
 much broken German as the actor could command. Soon 
 these English troupes found German imitators, and thus the 
 German theatre, as an institution, may be said to have begun 
 with troupes of strolling actors who, to commend their perfor-
 
 200 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 mances, described themselves as " English." The repertories 
 of these companies consisted in the main of translations, or 
 rather of mangled stage-versions of popular English dramas. 
 The plays were in prose and constructed solely with a view 
 to crass effect ; they are devoid of literary worth and have 
 no value, except that they opened a new horizon to the 
 German drama. Two volumes, containing eighteen dramas 
 and a few comic interludes, were published in 1620 and 
 1630, under the titles Englische Comodien imd Tragodien 
 and Liebeskampff oder cinder Theil der Englischen Comodien 
 vnd Tragodien}- 
 
 The Thirty Years' War was largely responsible for the fact 
 
 that the initiative of the English actors met with so little 
 
 encouragement. An immediate influence of their art on the 
 
 German drama is only to be found in three authors, Landgraf 
 
 Moriz von Hessen, Herzog Heinrich Julius von Braunschweig 
 
 at both of whose Courts English actors were maintained 
 
 from 1592 on and Jakob Ayrer, a notary of Niirnberg. 
 
 Landgraf Landgraf Moriz of Hesse (1572-1632) is credited with a 
 
 Hesse V n num b er of original plays, but none has been preserved ; a 
 
 1572-1632. dozen plays by the Duke of Brunswick (1564-1613), however, 
 
 Duke were published in 1593 and I594- 2 Duke Heinrich Julius 
 
 TuUusof stan ds completely under the influence of his players; his 
 
 Brunswick, dramas are full of the horrors which the English actors 
 
 1564-1613. delighted in ; indeed, the tragedies Titus Andronicus and Von 
 
 einem vngerathenen Sohn exceed in this respect anything 
 
 to be found in the collections of Englische Comodien und 
 
 Tragodien, Music and dances form a large part of the 
 
 entertainment, and the clown retains a name of English 
 
 origin, " Johan Bouset." The humorous interludes are more 
 
 refined than those in the Englischen Comodien^ but not very 
 
 original ; the Duke of Brunswick usually creates his humorous 
 
 effects by making the clown speak " Plattdeutsch." The 
 
 construction of the plays is only a helpless imitation of 
 
 their models ; their subjects and the Duke, it may be 
 
 noted, shows a preference for " gallant " themes are rarely 
 
 chosen with a view to their suitability for dramatic treatment. 
 
 1 Die Schauspiele der englischen Komodianten, ed. W. Creizenach (D.N.L., 
 23 [1889]) ; another selection is edited by J. Tittmann in Deutsche Dichter des 
 16. Jahrh., 13, Leipzig, 1880. 
 
 2 Ed. W. L. Holland (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 36). 1855 ; selections by J. Tittmann 
 in Deutsche Dichter des 16. Jahrh., 14, Leipzig, 1880.
 
 CH. v.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 2OI 
 
 The best side of the Duke of Brunswick's work is his skill 
 in characterising his personages; Vincentius Ladislaus, for 
 instance, in the play of that name, is an excellent specimen 
 of the favourite Renaissance type, the boasting soldier, re- 
 garded in the light of grotesque caricature. But Heinrich 
 Julius is, after all, almost as far as Hans Sachs from a true 
 understanding of the nature of the drama and of dramatic 
 construction. 
 
 A much more important dramatist is Jakob Ayrer (died Jakob 
 1605), in whose seventy odd pieces sixty-six were published Ayrer, died 
 in 1618 under the title Opus Thaatricum^an attempt is l6 S< 
 made to ingraft on the indigenous drama of Hans Sachs the 
 art of the "Englischen Comodianten," with which, since 1593, 
 the citizens of Niirnberg had had repeated opportunity of 
 making themselves acquainted. In the essentials of his 
 literary art, Ayrer is Sachs's successor : he adopts the rhymed 
 couplets of his master; he employs the same broad, un- 
 dramatic method of unrolling his story, and even in his 
 choice of themes he follows to a large extent Sachs's example. 
 But he is more ambitious, his serious dramas being invariably 
 longer, and he shows a preference for subjects which can be 
 extended over whole cycles of plays. Livy's Romische Historien 
 der Stadt Rom, from Romulus to Tarquinius Superbus are for 
 instance, the theme of a cycle of five pieces ; the Comedid von 
 Valentino vnd Vrso is divided into four plays, Die Schone 
 Melusina into two, while the Heldenbuch is spread over three 
 long dramas Vom Hueg Diterichen, Von dem Keiser Ottnit 
 and Vom Wolff Dieterichen. What Ayrer learned from his 
 English models, on the other hand, was mainly of a technical 
 nature. He had a sharper eye for stage effects than Hans 
 Sachs; he borrowed from the "Comodianten" their sensa- 
 tionalism ; like them, he made the most of scenes of blood- 
 shed and murder, and in his later dramas, at least, he adopted 
 the improvements of the stage introduced by the English 
 guests. The most satisfactory of Ayrer's longer pieces are 
 the Comedia von der schonen Phoenicia and the Comedia von der 
 schonen Sidea, both of which were probably written after 1600 
 The plot of the latter, it is worth noting, bears a strong 
 resemblance to Shakespeare's Tempest, a fact which would
 
 2O2 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 seem to imply that both pieces had the same source. The 
 comic element is less genuine and spontaneous in Ayrer's 
 plays than in the Fastnachtsspiele of Hans Sachs ; he intro- 
 duced clowns on the English model, but usually made them 
 personages of the play, not merely jesters whose duty it was 
 to entertain the audience between the acts. 
 
 Ayrer's The most interesting and original of Ayrer's dramatic works 
 
 ^'"S;, are not the longer dramas, or even the " Fastnachtsspiele," 
 but his "Singspiele." Although not perhaps the actual in- 
 ventor of the German " Singspiel," Ayrer was the first to 
 make it a popular form of dramatic art. The themes of 
 these plays are the same humorous anecdotes which did 
 service for the Niirnberg " Fastnachtsspiele," with the differ- 
 ence that the dialogue is here interspersed with songs set to 
 popular melodies. 
 
 Ayrer was on the right road towards the realisation of a 
 German national drama. His work shows an unquestionable 
 advance upon that of his predecessor, Hans Sachs an 
 advance, not in dramatic construction or characterisation, 
 but in the practical quality of stage-effectiveness. But his 
 talent was not strong enough to give the drama a literary 
 stamp. His plays did not any more than those of the 
 wandering actors whose repertory he imitated rise above the 
 level of ephemeral productions intended to amuse the public 
 of his day.
 
 203 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 THE Renaissance, which spread from Italy to France in the 
 sixteenth century and attained its maturity in the great century 
 of Louis XIV., was essentially a Latin movement ; it is the 
 supreme expression of the Latin spirit in art and literature. 
 But it was too momentous an upheaval in the intellectual life 
 of Europe to remain restricted to the Latin races, and, sooner 
 or later, it spread to Germanic and Slavonic lands. Here, 
 however, that inner harmony between the spirit of the Renais- 
 sance and the national temperament, which existed in Italy, 
 in France, and in Spain, was absent, and, in consequence, it 
 remained in the north of Europe even in Sweden, where it 
 found most favourable soil essentially a foreign movement. 
 From it, however, the non-Latin races obtained their models of 
 literary form and style. In Germany, the Renaissance cannot The Re- 
 be said to have set in before the first years of the seventeenth p a ^sanc 
 
 .in Ger- 
 
 century, and what good effects it might have had were, in ma ny. 
 
 great measure, thwarted by the Thirty Years' War. Thus for 
 the intellectual life of the German people as a whole this 
 movement had, and could have, but little importance, and 
 the lessons which German poetry might have learned from it 
 had practically all to be learned over again at the beginning 
 of the eighteenth century. 
 
 The humanists were naturally the pioneers of the Renais- 
 sance in Germany ; they were the true cosmopolites in the age 
 of the Reformation, and, through their activity, the channels 
 between Germany and Italy were kept open. We have 
 already seen how they had assisted the spread of Romance 
 literature north of the Alps, and how under their stimulus
 
 2O4 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Paul 
 
 Schede, 
 
 1539-1602. 
 
 J. W. 
 
 Zincgref, 
 1591-1635. 
 
 G. R. 
 
 Weckher- 
 lin, 1584- 
 1653. 
 
 Latin, Italian, and French works were translated. These trans- 
 lations formed the groundwork for the German Renaissance. 
 No town has a better claim to be regarded as the birthplace 
 of the new movement than Heidelberg ; here, in this focus of 
 humanistic activity, the early Latin comedies of Wimpfeling 
 and Reuchlin had been produced ; here Konrad Celtes had 
 founded his Latin society, the "Sodalitas litteraria Rhenana"; 
 and here, too, stands the noblest monument of Renaissance 
 art that Germany possesses, the Castle of Heidelberg. 
 
 In 1586 the learned Paul Schede, or, to call him by his 
 Latin name, Paulus Melissus (1539-1602), settled as librarian 
 in Heidelberg. Fourteen years earlier, Schede had published 
 a translation of the Psalms on the model of Clement Marot, 1 
 and had thus opened up the channel through which the litera- 
 ture of the French Renaissance found its way into Germany. 
 Round him, in the last years of the sixteenth century, 
 gathered a group of scholarly writers who looked with no 
 unfriendly eye on the rise of a vernacular poetry. The most 
 gifted of the Heidelberg poets, and their spokesman, was a 
 writer of the younger generation, Julius Wilhelm Zincgref 
 (1591-1635). In 1624, as a supplement to his edition of 
 the poems of Martin Opitz, Zincgref published an Anhang 
 underschiedlicher aussgesuchter Gedichten? namely, an anthology 
 of verse by members of the Heidelberg circle; but better 
 than any of the poems in this collection are two stirring war 
 poems of Zincgref 's own, Vermanung zur Dapfferkeit (1625) 
 and Soldaten Lob (1632). His most popular book was 
 his Scharpfsinnige kluge Spriich or Apothegmata (1626), a 
 collection of anecdotes and " Spriiche " which reflect a 
 healthy understanding of the German people. Associated 
 with the Heidelberg group of poets was Georg Rodolf 
 Weckherlin, who was born in Stuttgart in 1584. Like so 
 many of the leading thinkers and poets of the seventeenth 
 century, Weckherlin was a widely travelled man, and he had 
 lived so long in England that he had practically become 
 an Englishman. In 1644 he was appointed "Secretary for 
 Foreign Tongues " to the English Government, a position 
 which he held until the establishment of the Commonwealth, 
 when he was succeeded by no less a poet than John Milton. 
 
 i Ed. M. H. Jellinek (Neudrvcke, 144-148), Halle, 1896. 
 - Neudrucke, 15, Halle, 1879.
 
 CH. VI.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 2O5 
 
 He died in London in 1653. Of all the pioneers of the 
 German Renaissance, Weckherlin had the clearest aims ; he 
 saw what the Renaissance had meant for France and England, 
 and he set about the task of introducing it in his own land. 
 He was, for instance, the first German poet, or one of the 
 first, to write Sonnets and Alexandrines. From his Oden und 
 Gesdnge (1618-19), with their Horatian grace and rhythm, 
 dates the new era in German poetry. He was not only, as 
 he himself insisted in the preface to his collected Gaistliche 
 und Weltliche Gedichte (I64I) 1 a forerunner of Opitz, a 
 fact which the later members of Opitz's school refused to 
 acknowledge but he had also a far more genuine feeling for 
 poetry than the majority of them. 
 
 Small as was the little band of pioneers in Heidelberg, their 
 work had something of the buoyant freshness of the early 
 Renaissance in Italy and France. They are too insignificant 
 to be compared with the French "Pleiade," but the posi- 
 tion they occupy in literary history is analogous to that of 
 the French poets. And the Messiah whom they hoped Martin 
 for was not long in coming. On the iyth of June 1619, plt fj 6 
 Martin Opitz, a young Silesian who had been born in 
 Bunzlau in the end of 1597, matriculated as a student of 
 the University. Even before he came to Heidelberg, Opitz 
 had discussed, in a Latin essay, Aristarchus, sive de contemptu Aris- 
 linguae Teutonicae (1617), how German poetry might be re- 
 vived, and had exercised himself in what to the whole seven- 
 teenth century was a most vital form of poetic composition, 
 the flattery of those in high places. His stay in Heidel- 
 berg was short, but its effects are noticeable in the verses he 
 wrote at this time, which show the influence of Zincgref. To 
 avoid the war and the plague, Opitz fled in 1620 to Holland, 
 where he discovered his ideal poet in the person of the 
 Dutch scholar, Daniel Heinsius. In 1621 he was again at 
 home in Silesia, but, a few months later, accepted a pro- 
 fessorship in the gymnasium of Weissenburg (Karlsburg) in 
 Transylvania. Here he devoted his leisure to an ambitious 
 work on the antiquities of Transylvania, which was not 
 completed, but the materials collected for it were utilised 
 
 1 Ed. H. Fischer (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 199, 200), 1894-95 a selection by K. 
 Goedeke in Deutsche Dichler des 17. Jahrh., 5, Leipzig, 1873. Cp. Allg. 
 deutsche Biographic, 41 (1896), 375 ff.
 
 206 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Zlatna, 
 1623. 
 
 Lob des 
 Krieges- 
 gottes, 
 1628. 
 
 Trost 
 
 Gedichte, 
 
 1633- 
 
 poetically in the epic Zlatna, oder von Rhue des Gemiites (1623). 
 In 1625, we find Opitz in Vienna, where his poetic fame had 
 preceded him ; he was solemnly crowned with laurel by the 
 Emperor Ferdinand II., and, in 1628, ennobled under the 
 title Opitz von Boberfeld. The patron who had been instru- 
 mental in obtaining for Opitz the second of these honours 
 was no other than the bitter enemy of Protestantism, Graf 
 Hannibal von Dohna, whose attempts to catholicise Silesia 
 with the sword have made him one of the notorious figures of 
 the Thirty Years' War. Opitz became his secretary, and wrote 
 for him the Lob des Kriegesgottes (1628), besides translating a 
 Latin work by the Jesuit, M. Becanus, against the Reforma- 
 tion. Dohna also procured Opitz the means for a journey to 
 Paris, where the poet made the acquaintance of Hugo Grotius. 
 When, in 1632, Dohna was compelled to flee from Breslau, 
 Opitz found it politic to seek a new patron, and turned to 
 the son of the Danish king, Prince Ulrich of Holstein, to 
 whom he dedicated his best work, the Trost Gedichte in 
 Widenvertigkeit des Kriegs (1633), which had been written 
 some twelve years before in Jutland. The former Secretary of 
 Graf Dohna now made no concealment of his sympathies in 
 the religious struggle of the time; the spirit of these Trost- 
 gedichte is undisguisedly Protestant. The form of the work is 
 that of an epic in four books. " Ich wil," he says 
 
 1 ' Ich wil die Pierinnen, 
 
 Die nie nach teutscher Art noch haben reden konnen, 
 Sampt ihrem Helicon mit dieser meiner Hand 
 Versetzen biss hieher in unser Vatterland. 
 Es wird inkunfftig noch die Balm, so ich gebrochen, 
 Der, so geschickter ist, nach mir zu bessern suchen." 1 
 
 His next step was to win by means of a personal eulogy 
 the ear of King Wladislaus of Poland. In the latter's service, 
 he settled in Danzig, where he returned to his antiquarian 
 studies, editing, besides other work, the Annolied. In 1639, 
 while giving alms to a beggar in the street, he was infected 
 with the plague, and within three days was dead. 
 
 The collection of Opitz's Deutsche Poemata 2 contains, 
 
 1 H. Oesterley's edition of Opitz (D. N.L., 27), 271. 
 
 2 Selections ed. byj. Tittmann in Deutsche Dichterdes 17. Jahrh., i, Leipzig, 
 1869, and by H. Oesterley in D.N.L., 27 [1889]. Cp. on Opitz H. Palm, 
 Beitrdge zur Geschichte der deutsclien Literatur des 16. ttnd 17. Jahrfi., Breslau, 
 1877, 129 ff.
 
 CH. VI.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 207 
 
 besides the poems that have already been mentioned, ver- 
 sions of the Psalms, of some Prophets, and " Lobgesange " on 
 Christ's birth and passion. As a contribution to dramatic 
 literature, he translated Seneca's Trojanerinnen (1625) and Transla- 
 Sophocles' Antigone (1636); he also made the version of senecaand 
 Rinuccini's mythological opera Dafne, which, with Heinrich Sophocles. 
 Schiitz's music, was the first Italian opera to be performed 
 in Germany (1627). Finally, with translations of Barclay's 
 political novel, Argents (1626), and of Sir Philip Sidney's 
 Arcadia (1629), he contributed his share to the development 
 of German fiction. With the latter work, the doors were 
 thrown open to the pastoral poetry of the Renaissance ; and, 
 in 1630, Opitz followed up his translations with an original 
 Schafferey von der Nimfen Hercine, which is partly in prose Die Nimfe 
 and partly in verse. The scene of this interesting adaptation 
 of the Italian pastoral to the scenery and fairy-lore of the 
 North is laid in the Riesengebirge. 
 
 By no canon of criticism can Opitz's poetry be given a high 
 place in literary history : in order, however, to appreciate Opitz 
 fairly, we must view him, not from a modern standpoint, but 
 from that of his own century. A writer who, for a hundred 
 years, was accepted by his countrymen as their representative 
 poet, must have some genius. The bulk of his verse was 
 written, it is true, according to mechanical rules, but it is not 
 all uninspired : some of it will even bear comparison with 
 that of such genuine poets as Dach and Fleming. He has 
 been called "the father of German poetry," and not unjustly, 
 for he was first to carry into practice those principles of form 
 and style without which poetry would not have reached the 
 classical perfection of the later eighteenth century. 
 
 Like the pioneers of the Renaissance in other lands, Das Buck 
 Opitz led the way not only by practice but by precept. %"fe n 
 The Buck von der deutschen Poeterey (I624), 1 to which Poetcrcy, 
 his Aristarchus had been a preliminary study, is the most 
 important German book of the seventeenth century. Not 
 that this ars poetica of Opitz's was any more original 
 than his poetry; but it was the right book at the right 
 moment, and, for more than a hundred years until the ap- 
 
 1 Neudrucke, i, 2nd ed., Halle, 1882 ; also edited together with the Aris- 
 tarchus by G. Witkowski, Leipzig, 1888. Cp. K. Borinski, Die Pottik der 
 Renaissance, Berlin, 1886, 56 ft'.
 
 208 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 pearance of Gottsched's Critische Dicktkunst it remained the 
 accepted literary canon of German poetry. No work could be 
 more of a compilation than the Buck von der deutschen Poeterey: 
 in almost every sentence the author betrays his indebtedness 
 to earlier theorists, to Horace, Scaliger, Ronsard, the French 
 " Pleiade," and the Dutch poet Heinsius and even in Ger- 
 many itself Opitz was not without forerunners. He borrowed, 
 for instance, from a Sinnreiches poetisches Biichlein (1616) by 
 Ernst Schwabe von der Heyde, a writer who stood in touch 
 with the older Heidelberg circle, but as the Biichlein is 
 lost, it is not known to what extent. 1 Original or not, how- 
 ever, the Buck von der deutschen Poeterey contained many 
 healthy lessons for the literature of its day : it set up in place 
 of the meaningless syllable-counting which had come down 
 from the Meistersingers, genuine principles of versification ; it 
 combated the use and abuse of Latin words in the language, 
 and insisted upon the creation of one normal High German 
 form of literary speech. The different species of poetical 
 composition are enumerated and described, while the art of 
 poetry as a whole is regarded as an imitation of nature : 
 
 " Man soil auch wissen, das die gantze Poeterey im nachaffen 
 der Natur bestehe, vnd die dinge nicht so sehr beschreibe wie sie 
 sein, als wie sie etwan sein kondten oder solten. Es sehen aber 
 die menschen nicht alleine die sachen gerne, welche an sich selber 
 eine ergetzung haben . . . sondern sie horen auch die dinge mit 
 lust erzehlen, welche sie doch zue sehen nicht begehren. . . . 
 Dienet also dieses alles zue vberredung vnd vnterricht auch erget- 
 zung der Leute ; welches der Poeterey vornemster zweck 1st." 2 
 
 But Opitz also fell into errors which none of the theorists 
 of the Renaissance was able to avoid : he set up as the 
 principles of poetic art, certain rules which had been 
 arrived at by analysing the masterpieces of poetry, and 
 required no more of a poet than a careful observance 
 of these rules. Thus the scholar well versed in Latin and 
 Greek literature, and consequently familiar with the best 
 models, was the true poet, 3 and had but to imitate Homer, 
 Virgil, or Horace to be able himself to rival them. 
 
 Opitz's triumph, however, was complete ; not Boileau him- 
 
 1 Cp. P. Schultze in Archivfiir Liiteraturgeschichte, 14 (1886), 241 ft 
 
 2 G. Witkowski's edition, 138 f. 
 Ibid., 147.
 
 CH. VI.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 2Op 
 
 self, in the following generation, won over the literary (lite 
 of his nation so completely as Opitz with his Buck von der 
 deutschen Poeterey. Single-handed, he inaugurated a literary 
 revolution such as no German before or after him achieved ; 
 he was the greatest innovator in the history of German 
 letters. The literature of his country, such as it was in 
 the seventeenth century, was brought by him under the 
 sway of the Latin Renaissance. 
 
 The principal agencies for the dissemination of Opitz's 
 reforms were the numerous literary societies which sprang 
 up in the first half of the century. They, too, were a 
 result of the Latin Renaissance, being modelled on the 
 Florentine " Accademia della Crusca " or " Bran " Academy, 
 which received its name on the fantastic ground that it was 
 formed to purify the Italian language from barbarisms, as 
 flour is purified from bran. The first of these German 
 societies, the " Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft," or, as it was The 
 called later on, "die Gesellschaft des Palmenordens," 1 was !'?" 
 
 , . . ... , , . /- T bringende 
 
 called into existence in 1617, under the auspices of Prince Geseii- 
 
 Ludwig of Anhalt. Its childishly fantastic organisation, schaft," 
 ... . ..... ,* . . founded 
 
 which seems incompatible with serious or scientific aims, was !6i 7 . 
 
 also taken over from the Florentine model. Each of the 
 members of the Italian Academy assumed a name associated 
 with the business of grinding or baking, and, in the same 
 way, the members of the " Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft " 
 assumed names which stood in some fanciful connection with 
 the " fructifying " object of the society : Prince Ludwig, for 
 instance, was "der Ernahrende"; others were " der Helffende," 
 "der Unverdrossene," "der Grade," "der Wohlriechende," 
 and so on, and each member was supplied with a coat of 
 arms corresponding to his assumed title. The arms of the 
 society consisted of a cocoanut palm with the motto, "Alles 
 zu Nutzen." Under this playful guise, the " Fruchtbringende 
 Gesellschaft " set about purifying and ennobling the " hoch- 
 teutsche Sprache." Insignificant as were the scholarly results 
 of its activity, it must at least be said to the credit of the 
 " Palmenorden " that one of its members, Justus Georg 
 Schottelius ("der Suchende," 1612-76), was the author of 
 the best grammatical work of the seventeenth century, the 
 Ausfiihrliche Arbeit von der teutschen Haubt Sprache (1663). 
 
 1 F. W. Barthold, Die frucktbringende Gesellschaft) Berlin, 1848. 
 O
 
 2IO EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [FT. III. 
 
 Other 
 societies 
 
 "Der 
 
 gekronte 
 
 Blumen- 
 
 orden," 
 
 founded 
 
 1644. 
 
 G. P. Hars- 
 dorffer, 
 1607-58. 
 
 The 
 Konigs- 
 berg poets. 
 
 Societies similar to the " Palmenorden " sprang up, one 
 in Strassburg, another in Hamburg, the latter founded by 
 Philipp von Zesen (1619-89), who exceeded all bounds in 
 his naive attempt to Germanise foreign words on the basis 
 of impossible etymologies : he even went so far as to invent 
 German equivalents for the proper names of antiquity. It was 
 not long, however, before Zesen's " teutschgesinnte Genossen- 
 schaft " the members of which took the names of flowers 
 found a rival in the " Elbschwanenorden " of the Hamburg 
 laureate, Johann Rist. The most famous of all these 
 societies was " Der gekronte Blumenorden," of Niirnberg, or 
 "die Gesellschaft der Schafer an der Pegnitz," which was 
 founded in 1644 by Georg Philipp Harsdorffer (1607-58) 
 and Johann Klaj or Clajus (1616-56). The "Pegnitz Shep- 
 herds " devoted more attention to literature than the " Pal- 
 menorden" had done. Harsdorffer, 1 himself a graduate of 
 the older society, is an example of the absurdity to which 
 the entire movement led. He is credited with no less than 
 forty-seven volumes of poetry, of which the most famous is 
 the Poetische Trickier, die Teutsche Dicht- und Reimkunst, ohne 
 Behuf der lateinischen Sprache^ in seeks Stunden einzugiessen, or 
 more shortly, Der Niirnberger Trickier (1647-53). This work 
 is a kind of ars poetica, which, as may be inferred from the 
 title, carries the principles of Opitz, in all seriousness, to 
 absurdity. Another work of Harsdorffer's, Frauenzimmer 
 Gesprech-Spiele (1641-49), an encyclopedia for ladies in 
 dialogue-form, was also a widely read book in its day. His 
 partner, Klaj, who was a pastor, attempted to reform the 
 Passion Plays on Opitzian lines, but with still more ridiculous 
 results. The best that can be said of these literary societies 
 is that they created an interest among the upper classes 
 for German poetry. After all, they were symptoms of literary 
 impotence, and not, like the equally fantastic "Gelehrten- 
 republik" of Klopstock in the next century, an exuberance 
 of literary strength. 
 
 In Konigsberg, a group of poets, who endeavoured to put 
 Opitz's reforms into practice, occupy a more prominent place 
 in the literature of the century than the " Pegnitz Shepherds " ; 
 
 1 Cp. Festschrift ur ztp-jdhrigen Jubelfeier des Pegnesischen Blumenordens, 
 Nurnberg, 1894 (contains a monograph on Harsdorffer by T. Bischoff). Cp. 
 K. Borinski, I.e., 181 if.
 
 CH. VI.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 211 
 
 with Opitz, the vital movement in German literature had 
 clearly passed to the north. The leading poet we might 
 say the only poet of this circle was Simon Dach (I605-59), 1 Simon 
 a native of Memel. Dach's life was in itself not more of a I ^ 5 ch> 
 struggle than the lives of others among his contemporaries, 
 but to his yielding, unenergetic character it seemed one long 
 tragedy. Death and resignation are the constant themes of 
 his religious poetry, and even in the " Tanzlieder " and 
 " Hochzeitsgedichte," the dominant tone is elegiac. But 
 Dach had the true lyric inspiration ; his feeling for rhythm 
 and metre stood him in better stead than any theories. 
 The greater number of his poems he was Professor of 
 Poetry in Konigsberg from 1639 on were written to order, 
 to celebrate weddings, deaths, and the like, but they do 
 not suffer from this disadvantage. His finest verses, as 
 those, for instance, beginning with the following strophe, were 
 occasional : 
 
 " Jetzt schlaffen Berg' und Felder 
 
 Mil Reiff und Schnee verdeckt, 
 
 Auch haben sich die Walder 
 
 In ihr weiss Kleid versteckt ; 
 
 Die Strome stehn geschlossen 
 
 Und sind in stiller Ruh, 
 
 Die lieblich sonst geflossen 
 
 Mit Lauffen ab und zu ; " 2 
 
 and the well-known poem, Anke von Tharau, which Herder 
 included in his collection of Volkslieder, was written for the 
 wedding of an East Prussian pastor's daughter. 
 
 A poet of a very different stamp was the Saxon, Paul P. Fle- 
 Fleming. 3 While Dach was resigned and melancholy, the 
 latter was full of vigour. Fleming, it has been well said, 
 is the poet of life, Dach the singer of death ; Fleming writes 
 in a major-key, Dach in a minor one. 4 Born at Hartenstein 
 
 1 Ed. H. Oesterley (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 130), 1876 ; also by the same editor in 
 Deutsche Dichter des 17. Jahrh., 9, Leipzig, 1876, and in D.N. L. ( 30 [1883]. 
 This last-mentioned volume also contains specimens of the lyrics of Dach s 
 Konigsberg friends, R. Roberthin (1600-48), H. Albert (1604-51), &c., also of 
 his successor in the Konigsberg chair of poetry, Johann Roling (1634-79). Cp. 
 Neudrucke, 44-48, Halle, 1883-84. 
 
 2 H. Oesterley's edition (D.N.L., 30), 129. 
 
 3 Ed. J. M. Lappenberg (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 73, 82, 83), 1863-65 ; selections by 
 J. Tittmann (Deutsche Dichter des 17. Jahrh., 2), Leipzig, 1870, and H. Oester- 
 ley in D.N.L., 28 [1885]. A translation of Ausgewdhlte latcinische Gedichte 
 von P. Fleming,, by C. Kirchner, Halle, 1901. 
 
 4 H. Oesterley, I.e., 10.
 
 212 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 in 1609, Fleming's life was full of adventure and strange 
 experiences. He began by studying medicine in Leipzig, 
 but soon discovered his poetic talent. Had it not, how- 
 ever, been for the influence of Opitz, he would probably have 
 only written Latin verses ; as it is, Latin poems make up 
 more than a third of his writings. He had hardly finished 
 his university career when the war compelled him to leave 
 Leipzig ; the town was plundered and the plague broke 
 out. Fleming took the opportunity of accompanying his 
 A. Olea- friend Adam Olearius (1603-71) on a journey to Russia and 
 nus, 1603- persi^ The journey lasted six years and the travellers pene- 
 trated into the unknown East as far as Ispahan. Olearius 
 described the journey in his Beschreibung der netven Orien- 
 talischen Reise (1647),* while Fleming celebrated the dangers 
 and adventures they came through, in verse. Although 
 Fleming himself was little influenced by the Oriental litera- 
 ture for which Olearius endeavoured to create a taste by 
 translations, the novelty of his experiences gave a piquant 
 flavour to his poetry. After his return, Fleming resolved 
 to settle in Reval as a physician. He went to Leyden 
 to study, but as he was on the way back, he died suddenly 
 in Hamburg on the 2nd of April 1640. His Geist- und 
 Weltliche Poemata were first collected and published after his 
 death. 
 
 In technical respects, Fleming was an unconditional follower 
 of his master Opitz, and, like all the poets of Opitz's school, 
 he relied much on foreign models. Occasionally, an echo 
 is to be heard in his verse of the Volkslied and the Minne- 
 sang that parallelism of human life with nature which is 
 so characteristic of the German lyric but it is only for a 
 moment ; he always returns with preference to the more 
 familiar forms and imagery of classical poetry. Fleming 
 remained a poet of the Renaissance, but he was raised above 
 the flock of Opitz's disciples by the fact that his poems, 
 although clothed in artificial forms, always spring from actual 
 experiences and feelings. Manly and sincere by nature, 
 Fleming was also not the poet to spend his life in the 
 quest for liberal patrons ; and on his deathbed in Ham- 
 burg, showed that he was conscious of not having lived 
 in vain : 
 
 * Cp. D.N.L., 28, 229 ff.
 
 CH. VI.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 213 
 
 " Ich war an Kunst und Gut und Stande gross und reich, 
 des Gliickes lieber Sohn, von Eltern guter Ehren, 
 frei, meine, kunte mich aus meinen Mitteln nahren, 
 mein Schall floh liber weit, kein Landsman sang mir gleich, 
 
 von Reisen hochgepreist, fiir keiner Miihe bleich, 
 jung, wachsam, unbesorgt. Man wird mich nennen horen, 
 bis dass die letzte Glut diss Alles wird verstbren." x 
 
 The drama, in which Opitz was aware of his own short- J. Rist, 
 comings, was still without a representative. Johann Rist l6 7 -6 7- 
 (i6o7-67), 2 the founder of the Hamburg "Elbschwanenorden," 
 and a lyric poet who, with more concentration, might have 
 rivalled Dach and Fleming, had, it is true, written plays, 
 but they were hardly in accordance with Opitz's standard of 
 good taste. The dialogue, for instance, was in prose, and 
 comic episodes were introduced in which the peasants spoke 
 " Plattdeutsch." As Rist's dramatic work is for the most part 
 lost, we are unable to say whether he wrote much or little, 
 but, in any case, his plays seem to have been more akin to 
 the Nurnberg Fastnachtsspiel than to the drama of the Latin 
 Renaissance. The real dramatist who filled the vacant place 
 in the literature of the seventeenth century was Gryphius. 
 
 Andreas Gryphius 3 originally Greif was born at Glogau, A. Gry- 
 in Silesia, in 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, and he 
 died in 1664, a hundred years after the English poet was 
 born. Early orphaned, his youth was an unhappy one, but 
 his poetic talent overcame all obstacles, and, before the age 
 of seventeen, he had written an epic in Latin hexameters on 
 Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocents (Herodis furia et 
 Rachelis lacrymte, 1634). A noble patron, Pfalzgraf Georg 
 von Schonborn, seems to have provided him with the means 
 of studying at the University of Leyden. In Holland 
 he spent six years, studying and teaching ; here also he 
 became familiar with the dramas of the leading Dutch 
 dramatists, Hooft and Vondel. A journey to France and 
 Italy followed, in the course of which he wrote a Latin 
 epic on the Passion, Olivetum (1646), which he solemnly pre- 
 
 1 H. Oesterley's edition (D.N.L., 28), 98. 
 
 8 Dichtungen, herausg. von K. Goedeke und E. Goetze (Deutsche Dichter 
 des 17. Jahrh., 15), Leipzig, 188=5. 
 
 8 Ed. H. Palm (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 138, 162, 171), 1879-83, also a selection by 
 the same editor in D.'N.L., 29 [1883], and by J. Tittmann, in Deutsche Dichter 
 des 17. Jahrh., 4 and 14, Leipzig, 1870-80. Cp. L. G. Wysocki, Andreas Gry- 
 phius et la tragedie alltmande au XVII siecle, Paris, 1893.
 
 214 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. ill. 
 
 Son- undt 
 Feyrtags- 
 Sonnete, 
 1639. 
 
 Kirchhoffs- 
 Gedancken, 
 1656. 
 
 His 
 tragedies. 
 
 Cardenio 
 vnd 
 Celinde, 
 ca. 1648. 
 
 sented to the Republic of Venice. In the following year, 
 1647, he returned to Silesia, married, and settled down to a 
 quiet life; in 1650 he was made Syndic of the principality of 
 Glogau, a position which he held until his death. 
 
 Andreas Gryphius is an excellent type of the Germanic poet, 
 and, under more favourable conditions, might have taken a 
 high place in the national literature. In his religious lyric 
 he appears as an earnest thinker, inclined to brood over 
 the tragic aspects of life. The Son- undt Feyrtags-Sonnete 
 (1639), written in Holland, have all the passionate fervour 
 of Luther's hymns, and show what a serious matter 
 Protestantism was to him. The spirit of these lyrics is 
 wholly German, only the form is of the Renaissance ; but 
 just in that form Gryphius shows himself a master : he 
 handles the sonnet with as much ease as the familiar metre 
 of the Volkslied. In the later Oden, and especially in the 
 Thrdnen iiber das Leiden Jesu Christi (1652), and Kirchhoffs- 
 Gedancken (1656), his religious earnestness gives place to 
 melancholy. 
 
 It was only natural in a century so rich in religious 
 poetry as the seventeenth, that Gryphius should owe his 
 reputation less to his hymns than to his other work. As a 
 dramatist, he was virtually without a rival. His first tragedy 
 had for its subject the Byzantine Emperor Leo Armenius 
 (1646, published 1650); and it was followed by Catharina 
 von Georgien, the tragedy of a Christian martyr in Persia. 
 In Ermordete Majestat ; oder Carolus Stuardus, Konig von 
 Gross-Britannien (first published 1657, but written in 1649), 
 Gryphius had the courage to dramatise an event that had only 
 just taken place, namely, the trial and execution of Charles I. 
 of England. He was fond of sanguinary themes, and loved 
 to thrill his audience with the terrors of the supernatural : 
 in Carolus Stuardus^ for instance, the chorus, which ' was 
 introduced in accordance with the dramatic theories of the 
 Renaissance, is made up of the murdered kings of England, 
 who appear as ghosts. The most characteristic of all 
 his tragedies, however, is Cardenio vnd Celinde (ca. 1648). 
 The choice of this subject, which the author himself feared 
 was almost too humble for the purposes of tragedy, points 
 to the abiding influence of the " Englischen Comodianten." 
 Like so many of the pieces in the repertories of these
 
 CH. VI.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 actors, Cardenio vnd Celinde is based upon an Italian novel, 
 but Gryphius's dramatisation shows very modest stagecraft 
 compared with that of his English models. Cardenio is a 
 Spanish student of Bologna, who, from disappointed love for 
 the virtuous Olympia, resolves to murder her husband ; he 
 is loved by Celinde, who determines to keep him faithful 
 to her by means of magic. The theme of the drama proper 
 is to show how, by the interposition of supernatural powers, 
 Celinde is cured of her passion and Cardenio of his evil 
 intentions. Now and then, there is a touch of real tragic 
 poetry in this first German " biirgerliche Schauspiel," but 
 the fact that at least three of the five " Abhandelungen " 
 or acts consist merely of narrative monologues, shows how 
 rudimentary was the poet's idea of dramatic construction. 
 As a drama, Cardenio vnd Celinde is, after all, little in 
 advance of the work of Hans Sachs. From the tragedy of 
 the Renaissance, as Gryphius found it in Vondel, his Dutch 
 model, he had gained no more than a few technical hints 
 and a taste for the supernatural. 
 
 Contrary to what might be expected of so sombre-minded His 
 a poet, Gryphius is to be seen to more advantage in his comedies - 
 comedies than in his tragedies. In the " Schimpfspiel," 
 Absurda comica, oder Herr Peter Squentz, and in its com- 
 panion " Scherzspiel," Horribilicribrifax, he displays a fresh 
 original humour which is in strange contrast to the 
 melancholy tone of the Kirchhoffs-Gedancken. These plays, 
 both of which were written before 1650, although not 
 published until long after, are unquestionably the best 
 German dramas of the seventeenth century. Herr Peter 
 Squentz is a version of the comic episodes in the Midsummer 
 Nighfs Dream with which Gryphius had become familiar 
 either through performances of English actors, or, what 
 is more likely, through a Dutch version. The better of 
 the plays is the second, which was probably also based on 
 an earlier model : its hero a bragging soldier was a favour- 
 ite type with the dramatists of the Renaissance. Gryphius 
 appears here as a master of that witty caricature which was 
 first developed by the Italians in their commedia delf arte. 
 It is greatly to the advantage of both these comedies that 
 they are written not in the stilted Alexandrines of the 
 tragedies, but in prose. In other plays, such as the
 
 2l6 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 "Gesangs- und Scherz-Spiele," Das verliebte Gespenst and 
 Die geliebte Dornrose (1660), adaptations respectively of a 
 French and Dutch original, the lyric element predominates 
 and weakens the dramatic effect. On the whole, Gryphius is 
 at his best in Horribilicribrifax ; it is in this farce, rather 
 than in his ambitious tragedies, that he takes an honourable 
 place in the history of the German drama.
 
 217 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RELIGIOUS POETRY; EPIGRAM AND SATIRE. 
 
 ALTHOUGH almost all the poets who accepted Opitz's theories 
 wrote verses on religious themes, it was only exceptionally, 
 as in the case of Fleming and Gryphius, that the religious 
 feeling was deep or genuine enough to conceal the mechanism 
 of the poet's art. The most gifted religious poet of Silesia at 
 this time had little sympathy for the ideals of the first Silesian 
 School, and held aloof from Opitz and his friends. Johann 
 Scheffler, or, to give him the name by which he is best 
 known, Angelus Silesius (1624 - 77), was a physician in Angelus 
 Breslau, who, to the consternation of his family and fellow- Silesius, 
 citizens, went over in 1653 to the Catholic faith, and, eight 
 years later, became a priest. His recantation of Protestantism 
 was rooted in a revival of that mysticism which, as we have 
 seen, had been a forerunner of the Reformation in the 
 fifteenth century. The virile common-sense of Luther's Pro- 
 testantism had not been favourable to the self-abnegating spirit 
 of mysticism, and this spirit played a subordinate part in the 
 life of the sixteenth century. But as soon as Lutheranism 
 began to stiffen into a system of dogmas, mysticism again 
 came into favour. In 1612 Jakob Bdhme (1575-1624), a j. Bohme 
 shoemaker of Gorlitz, published his first book, Aurora, oder I 5 
 Morgenrothe im Aufgang, which preached a strange mystic phil- 
 osophy, and exerted an influence which had not spent itself 
 at the close of the eighteenth century. Bohme's ideas found 
 an enthusiastic advocate in his fellow-countryman, Abraham 
 von Franckenberg (1593-1652), and from Franckenberg, as 
 well as directly from Bohme and Tauler, Silesius drew his 
 inspiration, thus becoming unconsciously the first messenger 
 of a new epoch in German poetry. The writings of Silesius
 
 2l8 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Der 
 
 Cherubi- 
 nische 
 Wanders- 
 
 matin, 
 1657- 
 
 Friedrich 
 von Spec, 
 1591-1635. 
 
 consist of two volumes of poetry, both published in 1657, 
 Heilige Seelenlust, oder Geistliche Hirten-Lieder der in jhren 
 Jesum verliebten Psyche and Geistreiche Sinn- und Schlussreime, 
 the latter in its second edition (1674) known as Der Cherubi- 
 nische Wander -smann. 1 The former of these collections is 
 written under the influence of the pastoral poetry of the 
 Renaissance ; Psyche, the soul, is a shepherdess who sighs for 
 her beloved shepherd, Jesus, and leaves her friends and 
 her flock to follow Him. But the mystic earnestness and 
 sincerity of Silesius prevent his verse from degenerating 
 into the triviality of the religious pastoral. He is at his 
 best in the theosophic "Spriiche" of the Cherubinische 
 Wandersmann ; with wonderful poetic depth and that clear 
 vision for the spiritual relations of things to be found in 
 all mystic poetry, he pours out the yearning of his soul for 
 union with God. His conception of the universe takes the 
 form of an all-embracing pantheism, which does not shrink 
 from such startling expression as 
 
 " Ich weiss, dass ohne mich Gott nicht ein Nu kan leben, 
 Werd' ich zu nicht, Er muss von Noth den Geist autfgeben. 
 
 Dass Gott so seelig ist und Lebet, ohn Verlangen, 
 Hat Er so wol von mir, als ich von Ihm empfangen. 
 
 Ich bin so gross als Gott : Er ist als ich so klein ; 
 Er kan nicht iiber mich, ich unter Ihm nicht seyn." 2 
 
 The typical representative of religious pastoral poetry at 
 this time was an older poet than Silesius, namely the 
 Rhinelander, Friedrich von Spec (1591-1635). Although a 
 Catholic and a Jesuit, Spee seems to have been a man of 
 wider sympathies than his fellows. He did his utmost to 
 destroy the superstition which condemned alleged witches to 
 the stake, and, indeed, his whole life was embittered by the 
 fact that, as professor in Wiirzburg, he had within two years 
 to prepare, as their confessor, more than two hundred of these 
 "witches" for their fate. He died of fever caught in the 
 hospital of Treves. while nursing the sick and wounded. In 
 the year before his death he collected his religious poetry for 
 
 i Ed. G. Ellinger (Neudrvcke, 135-138), Halle, 1895. Cp. E. Wolff, Das 
 deutsche Kirchenlied des 16. und 17. Jahrh. (D.N.L., 31 [1894]), 471 ff. 
 a Book i, 8-10 (G. Ellinger's edition, 15).
 
 CH. VII.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 2IQ 
 
 publication under the title, Trutz-Nachtigal, oder Geistlichs- Trvtx- 
 Poetisch Lust-Waldlein (I649). 1 " Trutz-Nachtigal," says the JJfJJj^ 
 poet in his preface, " wird diss Biichlein genandt, weiln es 
 trutz alien Nachtigalen suss, vnd lieblich singet, vnnd zwar 
 aufrichtig Poetisch : also dass es sich auch wol bey sehr 
 guten Lateinischen vnnd anderen Poeten dorfft horen lassen." 
 Spec's poetry has little of the poetic mysticism which 
 makes the Cherubinische Wandersmann still interesting to a 
 modern reader; his lyric is essentially of the seventeenth 
 century. But through his tasteless confusion of Christianity 
 and antique mythology breathes a humane religious spirit 
 which is at least sincere ; and verses like the following, from 
 a Liebgesang der Gesfons Jesu, reveal an appreciation for 
 nature which calls to mind the awakening of the nature- 
 sense in German poetry a century later : 
 
 " Der trube winter ist fiirbey, 
 
 Die Kranich widerkehren ; 
 Nun reget sich der Vogelschrey, 
 
 Die Nester sich vermehren ; 
 Laub mit gemach 
 
 Nun schleicht an tag ; 
 Die blumlein sich nun melden. 
 Wie Schlanglein krumb 
 Gehn lachlend umb 
 Die bachlein kiihl in Walden. " 2 
 
 Although Spec was not familiar with the work or theories 
 of Opitz when he wrote his own poetry, his ars poetica was 
 obviously in complete accordance with the Buck -von der 
 deutschen Poeterey ; he, too, independently of Opitz, had come 
 under the stimulus of the new ideals of the Renaissance. A 
 hardly less gifted lyric poet than Spee was another Jesuit, j. Balde, 
 Jakob Balde (1604-88), Court preacher in Munich, but Balde l6 4-88. 
 was only at home when he wrote in Latin ; his German poems 
 have little merit 
 
 The national religious lyric in these centuries was a pro- 
 duct of Protestantism. . Since Luther, there had been no lack The 
 of evangelical hymn-writers, but it was late in the seventeenth P rotestant 
 
 ' . . hymn. 
 
 century before religious poetry reached its highest develop- 
 ment. The greatest German hymn-writer was Paul Gerhardt 
 
 1 Ed. G. Balke (Deutsche Dichter des 17. Jahrh., 13), Leipzig, 1879. Cp. E. 
 Wolff, I.e., 225 ff. 
 
 2 E. Wolff, l.c., 252.
 
 22O EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 P. Ger- (I607-76). 1 A native of Grafenhainichen, near Bitterfeld, Ger- 
 ^6o7 l '6 hardt studied at Wittenberg ; he was then for a time Diakonus 
 of the Church of St Nicolai in Berlin, but being unable to re- 
 concile himself to the efforts made by the Kurfiirst of Branden- 
 burg to reconcile the Lutheran and Reformed Church, he 
 had, in consequence, to resign his charge. He spent the last 
 seven years of his life as preacher in Liibben on the Spree. 
 Gerhardt belonged to the old school of Protestant preacher- 
 poets, of whom Luther himself was the model ; that is to say, 
 he was, in the first place, a Churchman and only in the second 
 a poet. Some of his hymns appeared in print as early as 
 1648, but the first collected edition was that of 1667, which 
 bore the title Geistliche Andachten. There is nothing that sug- 
 gests the Renaissance in Gerhardt's poetry ; his hymns are 
 what Luther's had been, Volkslieder. The artificial graces of 
 Spec and the mystic spirituality of Silesius are alike absent : 
 he is content to express in the simplest language the unre- 
 flecting optimism of the German Protestant " Volk." Earnest 
 religious conviction and unwavering faith breathe from hymns 
 like Befiehl du deine Wege ; the full-sounding speech of the 
 German Bible, again, re-echoes in the magnificent hymn, 
 based on the Latin, Salve, caput cruentatum (" O sacred Head, 
 surrounded By crown of piercing thorn ! "), by Bernhard of 
 Clairvaux 
 
 " O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden, 
 
 Voll Schmerz und voller Hohu ! 
 
 O Haupt zu Spott gebunden 
 
 Mit einer Dornenkron ! 
 
 O Haupt, sonst schon gezieret 
 
 Mit hochster Ehr und Zier, 
 
 Itzt aber hoch schimpfieret : 
 
 Gegriisset seyst du mir ! " 
 
 Still another and more peaceful side of Gerhardt's religious 
 lyric is to be seen in a poem like 
 
 " Nun ruhen alle Walder, 
 Vieh, Menschen, Stadt und Felder, 
 Es schlaft die ganze Welt : 
 Ihr aber, meine Sinnen, 
 Auf, auf, ihr sollt beginnen, 
 Was eurem Schopfer wolgefallt." * 
 
 1 Ed. K. Goede,ke (Deutsche Dichter, 12), Leipzig, 1877 ; also in Reclam's 
 Universal-Bibliothek, No. 1741-43, Leipzig, 1884, and E. Wolff, I.e., 127 ff. 
 a E. Wolff, I.e., 135, 139.
 
 CH. VII.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 221 
 
 Gerhardt was not a pioneer in religious song as Luther 
 had been, but his poetic gifts were finer and more har- 
 monious. His verses are not combative or defiant; that 
 rugged independence of character which stamped everything 
 the Reformer wrote is not to be found in them, but they 
 flow more easily than did the strong if sometimes unmusical 
 lines of Luther. And Gerhardt did not stand alone. The 
 names of many poet-preachers in this age might be cited, 
 not a few of whom wrote hymns which were at once accepted 
 by the people the ultimate test of such poetry as the ex- 
 pression of their religious feeling. From the Reformation to 
 the first quarter of the eighteenth century, at least, the purest 
 expression of the German lyric is to be found in the hymn. 
 
 Satire, the most virile form of literature in the sixteenth 
 century, plays a comparatively small role in the seventeenth ; 
 or rather, it might be said to have assumed a new form 
 made popular by the Renaissance, that of the Epigram. 
 Friedrich von Logau, Germany's most gifted epigrammatist, Friedrich 
 was one of those neglected geniuses who are not appreciated v n L g au . 
 at their full worth until generations after they are dead; 
 his reputation virtually dates from 1759, when Ramler and 
 Lessing unearthed and published his epigrams. 1 Born at 
 Brockut, near Nimptsch in Silesia, in 1605, Logau studied 
 jurisprudence and obtained a position in the service of the 
 Duke of Liegnitz. In 1648 he was elected a member of 
 the " Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft " under the name " Der 
 Verkleinernde," and he died at Liegnitz in 1655. In 1638 
 he published the first sample of his epigrams, Erstes Hundert 
 Teutscher Reimen-Sprilche ; but it was not until the year before 
 his death that the chief collection followed, under the title, 
 Salomons von Golaw (an obvious anagram) Deutscher. Sinn- 
 Getichte Drey Tausend (i654). 2 Not all of these three thou- 
 sand epigrams and Spriiche were original, but even when 
 borrowed from Latin and other sources, Logau put his 
 own stamp upon them before they left his hands. Their 
 author makes the impression of having been a wise observer 
 of his time, and it was no small merit to see things clearly 
 
 1 See G. E. Lessing's Samtliche Schriften, ed. K. Lachmann, 3rd ed. by F. 
 Muncker, Stuttgart, 1886-1900, 7, 125 ff. 
 
 2 Ed. G. Eitner (Stuttg. Litt. Ver., 113), 1872 ; also a selection by the same 
 editor in Deutsche Dichter des 17. Jakrh., 3. Leipzig. 1870, and by H. Oesterley 
 inD.N.L.,28^885], '35 &
 
 222 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 in the age of the Thirty Years' War. After the endless blood 
 that had been shed over the rival claims of religions, Logau 
 doubted whether Christ would find credence if He returned 
 to earth. Opitz he praised as a German Virgil, but he had 
 no faith in writing poetry by rule, and held aloof from the 
 Opitzian school He was a good patriot, and ridiculed 
 mercilessly the aping of French customs and the contempt 
 for the German language, which, a hundred years later, were 
 still the butt of satire. 
 
 " Diener tragen in gemein ihrer Herren Lieverey ; 
 Soils dann seyn, dass Frankreich Herr, Deutschland aber Diener sey ? 
 Freyes Deutschland scham dich doch dieser schnoden Knechterey ! " 
 
 Or, again : 
 
 " Wer nicht Frantzosisch kan, 
 1st kein geriihmter Mann ; 
 Drum mussen wir verdammen, 
 Von denen wir entstammen, 
 Bey denen Hertz und Mund 
 Alleine deutsch gekunt." 
 
 In the same way, a favourite theme of Logau's satire is the 
 " alamodischen " (a la mode) customs, language, and dress of 
 the higher society of the seventeenth century : 
 
 " Alamode-Kleider, Alamode-Sinnen ; 
 Wie sichs wandelt aussen, wandelt sichs auch innen." 1 
 
 By nature Logau was earnest rather than brillant ; he avoided 
 superficial witticism, and meant what he said as seriously as 
 the most bitter satirist. But what more than anything else 
 entitles him to the first place among German epigrammatists 
 is his enormous variety : he writes three thousand epigrams 
 without leaving the impression that he has unnecessarily re- 
 peated himself, or ridden any one type of epigram to death. 
 On the whole, he was one of the sanest and manliest figures 
 in the literary history of his time. 
 
 J. Laurem. Another satirist of the a la mode was Johann Lauremberg 
 berg, 1590- (1590-1658), a native of Rostock, who, under the name 
 " Hans Willmsen L. Rost," wrote in the Plattdeutsch dialect 
 of his home, Veer Schertz Gedichte, in Nedderdiidisch gerimet 
 (i652), 2 which were so popular that they were soon trans- 
 lated into High German. Lauremberg was actuated by 
 
 1 H. Oesterley's edition, 162, 176, 190. 
 
 a Ed. W. Braune (Neudrucke, 16, 17), Halle, 1879.
 
 CH. VII.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 223 
 
 what might be termed a patriotic motive, in writing in Low 
 German ; the language in which Reinke de Vos was written, 
 seemed to him as literary as the High German dialect which 
 Opitz and his friends favoured. This Low German satirist 
 possessed a kindliness and easy-going Saxon humour, which 
 suggest a comparison with the tamer if more polished 
 Rabener of a later date. In any case, he was much superior 
 to the satirists of Opitz's school, of whom only one, the 
 Low German pastor, Joachim Rachel (1618-69), ' s worthy j. Rachel, 
 of mention. Rachel, originally a disciple of Lauremberg's, l6l8 ' 6 9- 
 began by writing under his influence simple, hearty Volks- 
 lieder in his native dialect ; but with the six Satirischen 
 Gedichte, which he published in 1664, he became the repre- 
 sentative satirist of Opitz's school. He was not, like his first 
 master, troubled with patriotic considerations, and saw shrewdly 
 enough that High German was the sure road to success. 
 
 An interesting comparison of North and South German, 
 of Protestant and Catholic, is afforded by two remarkable 
 preachers of the seventeenth century Johann Balthasar j. B. 
 Schupp or Schuppius (1610-61), a native of Giessen, and 
 Ulrich Megerle, better known as Abraham a Santa Clara 
 (1644-1709), the name he assumed as monk. Santa Clara, 
 who was born near Messkirch, in southern Baden, rose to be 
 court-preacher in Vienna ; Schupp was pastor of the church 
 of St Jacobi in Hamburg. As a young man, the latter 
 studied philosophy in Giessen and Marburg, and he left the 
 university with no high opinion of the scholastic methods of 
 teaching, or of student life. He had also wandered, on foot, 
 through the greater part of Northern Europe, and mingled 
 with all classes of men, and in his Freund in der Noht 
 (I657) 1 he gave his son the benefit of his own experience 
 in the form of good advice. 
 
 " Ich bin kein gelahrter Mann," he tells his son. "Allein, ich 
 kenne die Welt. Ich hab aber gar zu viel Lehr-geld ausgeben, 
 biss ich die Welt hab kennen lernen. Darum bespiegele dich in 
 meinem Exempel, und lerne von mir die Welt kennen. Und wann 
 ich horen werde, dass du wissest einen Unterscheid zu machen, 
 zwischen einem Freund, und einem Complement-macher, so will 
 ich viel von dir halten."* 
 
 1 Ed. W. Braune (Neudruckc, 9), Halle, 1878. 
 J W. Braune's edition, 25.
 
 224 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 In 1635 Schupp was appointed Professor of History and 
 Rhetoric in Marburg, and, fourteen years later, was called 
 to Hamburg. It was not long, however, before the Hamburg 
 clergy scented a wolf in sheep's clothing ; they accused him 
 of introducing satire, jests, and comic anecdotes into his 
 sermons, but Schupp, who had much of Luther's fighting 
 spirit, soon proved himself more than equal to them. His 
 writings (first collected, 1663) are written in a vigorous 
 popular style, which, in its lack of restraint, sometimes re- 
 minds us of Fischart ; for Opitz and the poets of the Renais- 
 sance he had nothing but scorn. His satire, like Logau's, is 
 serious rather than witty, and his standpoint is invariably 
 one of personal experience and conviction. As a preacher, 
 Schupp is seen to most advantage in his powerful impeach- 
 ment of Hamburg, the Catechismuspredigt vom dritten Gebot 
 oder Gedenk daran Hamburg (1656). 
 
 Abraham Abraham a Santa Clara was a man of a different stamp. 
 Ciara ta ^ e ^ a ^ not ^ e ^ earmn g an d experience, the wide human 
 1644-1709. sympathy of his North German brother, but he had more 
 genius, and a brilliant and incisive wit. And in matters of 
 religion, Catholic monk and Protestant preacher naturally 
 stood at opposite poles. Santa Clara's faith sat lightly on his 
 shoulders; he introduced the coarsest anecdotes and witti- 
 cisms in his sermons ; he was ruthless as to the weapons with 
 which he attacked his enemies, and delighted in scurrilous 
 personalities ; but he had the art of clothing everything in a 
 light, interesting, and attractive form, which appealed strongly 
 to the South German Catholic. In 1679 Vienna was visited 
 by the plague, and Santa Clara was obliged to suspend for a 
 time his activity as a preacher. He employed his leisure in 
 writing tracts which were published under characteristic titles, 
 such as MerKs Wien I (1680), Losch Wien ! (1680). The 
 second siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683 was the occa- 
 sion of a powerful appeal to his fellow-citizens, Auf, auf ihr 
 Christen! (i68o), a a tract which Schiller took as his model 
 for the sermon of the Capuchin monk in Wallensteiris Lager. 
 Again, in the Grosse Todten Bruderschafft (1681), the medi- 
 eval " Dance of Death " is made the basis of a satire. Santa 
 
 1 Ed. A. Sauer ( Wiener Neudrucke, i), 1883.
 
 CH. VII.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 225 
 
 Clara's chief work, however, is Judas der Ertzschelm (I686), 1 Judas der 
 which contains the essence of his sermons. fcheim 
 
 Judas der Ertzschelm is partly a novel, partly a collection of 1686. 
 homilies. Each section of the book begins with a short 
 narration, which is followed by what is practically a sermon. 
 The individual parts have little connection with one another, 
 except in so far as the romance itself provides a thread. For 
 the story of Judas, Santa Clara was mainly indebted to the 
 Legenda aurea by Jacobus a Voragine, and, in the German 
 writer's hands, it bears considerable resemblance to the 
 romances of the later seventeenth century. The mother of 
 Judas, Ciboria, learns in a dream that the son she will give 
 birth to will be a villain ; so she puts the child in a basket 
 and throws it into the sea. The basket ultimately reaches 
 the island of Iscariot, and the child is adopted by the queen 
 of that island. When Judas grows up, he returns to Jeru- 
 salem, after having murdered the rightful heir to the throne 
 of Iscariot. In Jerusalem, he unwittingly kills his father and 
 marries his mother. When he learns what he has done, he 
 is filled with repentance and becomes a disciple of Christ. 
 The part he now plays is enlivened by incidents of a similarly 
 romantic nature, and at the close of the book, the soul of 
 Judas is condemned to occupy a place in the lowest quarter 
 of hell, beside Lucifer himself. The sermons in Judas der 
 Ertzschelm are, however, more important than its story; 
 Geiler's irony seems here to be mingled with the full-blooded 
 satire of Murner, while the whole is expressed with Fischart's 
 fantastic love of epithets. Santa Clara's work stands thus in 
 a direct line with the characteristically South German literature 
 of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 
 i Ed. F. Bobertag, in D.N.L., 4o[i883]. Cp. T. G. von Karajan, Abraham 
 a Santa Clara, Vienna, 1867, and W. Scherer, Vortrage und Aufsdlze, Berlin, 
 1874, 147 ff.
 
 226 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE NOVEL IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 THE most important form of German literature in the second 
 half of the seventeenth century was unquestionably the novel. 
 In the preceding centuries, there had existed prose versions of 
 medieval romances and innumerable collections of anecdotes ; 
 but, with the possible exception of the novels of Jorg Wickram, 
 fiction, in the modern sense of the word, was unknown. Now, 
 however, with the help of Spanish and French models, the 
 German novel began to assert itself as an independent literary 
 genre; in other words, it ceased to be merely a form of 
 satire or didactic literature. At the same time, fiction was 
 more early freed from didactic elements than from satire, 
 and even the greatest novel of the century, Simplicissimus^ is 
 often satirical in intention. The beginning of what might be 
 described as the transition from satire to novel under Spanish 
 influence is to be seen in the work of an Alsatian, Hans 
 H. M. Michael Moscherosch (1601-69). 
 
 Mosche- Moscherosch, whose family was of Spanish origin, studied 
 
 1601-69. law in Strassburg, took his degree as doctor juris in Geneva, 
 and spent some time in France. He then received an ap- 
 pointment in a small village near Metz, and subsequently at 
 Finstingen on the Saar. For twelve years he was exposed 
 to all the horrors of the war, plundered by both parties, 
 exposed to the plague, and reduced almost to starvation. 
 Finally he sought refuge in Strassburg, where he was appointed 
 secretary to the town. And here he published his chief 
 C p^, hte , work, Wunderliche vnd warhafftige Gesichte Philanders von 
 von Sitte- Sittewald^ of which the first complete edition appeared in 
 
 wald, 1642- 
 
 43. J A selection ed. F. Bobertag, in D. N.L., 32 [1884]. For this chapter, cp. F. 
 
 Bobertag, Geschichte des Romans in Deutsckland, i, 2, Berlin, 1876-84.
 
 CH. VIII.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 22/ 
 
 1642 and 1643. At least half of these "Visions" are direct 
 imitations of a collection of " Dreams " (Suenos) by the Spanish 
 writer, Francisco de Quevedo, which, however, Moscherosch 
 only knew in a French translation. Moscherosch treated his 
 original as Fischart had treated Rabelais; he made it a re- 
 ceptacle for his own ideas and observations, and the condition 
 of his country gave him more opportunity for satire than 
 Quevedo had found in Spain. In the first of the visions 
 (Schergen-Teuffel\ Philander is shown the futility of justice ; 
 in the second (Welt-Wesen\ he sees the vanity and hypocrisy 
 of the world; while the favc&^Venus-Narren) is a satire on 
 the " fools of love." The most powerful and imaginative of 
 the visions is that in which Philander finds himself in hell, 
 and sees his contemporaries as Hollen-Kinder. In A la mode 
 KehrauS) German slavery to things foreign which, as we have 
 seen, had been the favourite butt of satirists all through 
 the century, is once more attacked, and Soldaten-Leben, in 
 which Moscherosch obviously draws from his own experi- 
 ences, gives a repellently realistic picture of the demoralisa- 
 tion of the land during the Thirty Years' War. Moscherosch 
 is less of a novelist than his Spanish original ; his hero's 
 adventures only interest him in so far as they afford him 
 an opportunity for satire. As far as originality is concerned, 
 the Gesichte Philanders cannot be compared with Fischart's 
 Gargantua, but it suffers from the same formlessness and 
 contempt of style ; Moscherosch falls into those literary vices 
 of exaggeration and pedantic phraseology which he satirises. 
 But the pictures he calls up are vivid, and the occasional 
 verses scattered through the book are in the vigorous style 
 of the Volkslied. 
 
 To the Thirty Years' War was due one significant book, 
 Simplicius Simplidssimus^ a romance which may be said to 
 form the link between the Middle High German epic and 
 the modern novel. The author of Simplicissimus was a writer 
 of many pseudonyms ; his real name, however, seems to have 
 been Johann Jakob Christoffel, to which he himself added j. j. Chris- 
 von Grimmelshausen. He was born about 1624 at Gelnhausen J?^ 1 vo " 
 in Hesse, and as a boy of ten was carried off by soldiers hausen, 
 and had his first taste of the war. He fought now on the ca - l62 4' 
 one side, now on the other. In 1646 he is known to 7 ' 
 have been in Offenburg, where he went over to the Catholic
 
 228 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Der Aben- 
 
 theurliche 
 
 Simpli- 
 
 cissimus, 
 
 1669. 
 
 Church, and the last years of his life were spent as bailiff 
 (" Schultheiss ") in Renchen on the border of the Black 
 Forest, where he died in 1676. Before writing Simplicis- 
 sitnus, Grimmelshausen experimented with Traumgesichte 
 similar to those of Moscherosch, and tried his hand at 
 translating a French novel, Der fliegende Wandersmann nach 
 dent Monde (1659). Under the influence of the early Spanish 
 picaresque romances which had been translated into German 
 early in the century, 1 he discovered his vocation and became 
 the creator of the German " Schelmenroman." Der Aben- 
 theurliche Simplicissimus Teutsch, Das ist : Die Beschreibung 
 dess Lebens eines seltzamen Vaganten, genant Melchior Sternfels 
 von fuchshaim, wo und welcher gestalt Er nemlich in diese 
 Welt kommen, was er darinn gesehen, gelernet, erfahren und 
 aussgestanden, auch warumb, er solche wieder freywillig quittirt* 
 was printed at Montbeliard in 1669. 
 
 In the story of Simplicius Simplicissimus's youth there 
 is an unconscious echo of Wolfram's Parzival, Of good 
 birth, the boy is brought up in the Spessart by a peasant, 
 whom he believes to be his father. He is a simple child 
 who plays a "Sackpfeife" or bagpipe, and herds his flock 
 in happy innocence. His first glimpse of the world of 
 men comes to him, as it came to Parzival, from soldiers 
 not, however, courteous knights, but rough cuirassiers who 
 fall upon the village, burn and pillage all they can find, and 
 carry off Simplicissimus, who clings to his bagpipe as his 
 most precious possession. Like Parzival again, he comes 
 to a hermit in the forest, who, as he only discovers long 
 afterwards, is his own father, and for two years he sits at 
 the hermit's feet, learning wisdom from him. The hermit 
 dies, and Simplicius once more falls into the hands of 
 soldiers. He is brought to the Governor of Hanau, who 
 learns that he is his own nephew, and makes him his page. 
 
 1 Mendoza's Lasarillo de Tonnes (1554)1 the earliest picaresque romance, 
 was translated into German in 1617, but there had appeared, four years earlier, 
 a translation of Aleman's Guzman de Alfarache (1599), by Agidius Albertinus. 
 On Albertinus (1560-1620), who was secretary to Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, 
 and translated extensively from the Spanish, cp. R. von Liliencron in D.N.L., 
 26 [1883]. A translation of part of Don Quixote appeared in 1625, the first 
 complete one in 1683. Cp. A. Schneider, Spaniens Anteil an der deutschen 
 Litteralur des 16. und 17. Jahrh., Strassburg, 1898. 
 
 2 Ed. J. Tittmann (Deutsche Dichter, 7, 8), 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1877; R. 
 Kogel in the Neudrucke, 19-25, Halle, 1880. The edition in D.N.L. is by F. 
 Bobertag, 33-34 [1882].
 
 CH. VIII.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 229 
 
 But Simplicius is ill adapted for a life of this kind ; he is. only 
 laughed at, and an attempt is even made to convert him into 
 a court fool by unhinging his mind. One day he is carried 
 off by Croats and experiences all the terrors of the war. 
 Gradually, however, he accommodates himself to their wild 
 mode of life ; he becomes a thief and an adventurer. In two 
 comrades, Olivier and Herzbruder, he finds his good and his 
 bad angel, and the fortune of war, in which the lawless 
 soldiers of the time had more faith than in King or Kaiser, 
 favours him. He falls into the hands of the Swedes, but is 
 well treated ; he discovers a large treasure, and is inveigled into 
 an unhappy marriage. In the course of further adventures he 
 finds his way to Cologne and Paris, where he flourishes as 
 " beau alman " i.e., beau allemand. Meanwhile, however, he 
 has lost all his wealth, and has no option but to become a 
 soldier again. His old comrade Olivier tempts him to 
 join him in a life of open brigandage ; Herzbruder leads 
 him back to his true self. His wife is dead, and he 
 longs for a peaceful life. He buys a farm and marries 
 again, but this marriage is also unhappy, and he seeks 
 consolation in his love for adventure ; he goes out once 
 more into the world, penetrating as far as Asia. After three 
 years he returns to his foster father in the Spessart and settles 
 down among his long-forgotten books to a life of meditation 
 and repentance. 
 
 That, in rough outlines, is the story of this Parzival of the 
 seventeenth century. But it is not easy to convey an idea of 
 the vivid realism and hearty popular tone of the book ; and 
 behind the author's mask there is always an earnest face, 
 earnest without the harshness of the satirist. Subsequently, 
 Grimmelshausen was tempted to provide Simplirissimus with a 
 Continuatio oder Schluss desselben, in which the hero's earlier 
 adventures were surpassed ; but only the close of this continu- 
 ation, where Simplicius retires from the world to a lonely 
 island, is in harmony with the original work. Grimmelshausen 
 himself had higher literary ambitions than to be merely the 
 author of a popular " Schelmenroman." Simplicissimus was 
 not refined enough to win him recognition in polite circles, and 
 he attempted a gallant novel in the fashionable style of the 
 time ; but realising that his strength did not lie in writing of 
 this kind, he returned to the popular, homely style of his chief
 
 230 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Other 
 writings. 
 
 C. Weise. 
 1642-1708. 
 
 novel. His other Simplidanische Schriften?- such as Trutz 
 Simplex, oder Lebensbeschreibung der Ertzbetriigerin und Land- 
 stbrtzerin Courasche (ca. 1669), Der seltzame Springinsfeld 
 (1670), and Das wunderbarliche Vogel-Nest (1672), are also 
 stories of the war, and may be regarded as forming a supple- 
 ment to Simplicissimus. 
 
 Grimmelshausen is the one novelist of genius in his 
 century ; the others do not rise above mediocrity. Christian 
 Weise, 2 for instance (1642-1708), rector of the Gymnasium at 
 Zittau, wrote between 1670 and 1678, while professor in 
 Weissenfels, several satirical novels {Die drey iirgsten Ertz- 
 Narren, 1672, and Die drey Kliigsten Leute in der gantzen 
 Welt, 1675), which, with allowance for the wide gap that separ- 
 ates them from Simplicissimus, add to the picture which 
 that work gives of the period. Weise is not naturalistic as 
 Grimmelshausen is ; he always writes with a view to improving 
 his readers. If he is satirical, it is in a pointedly didactic 
 way, never humorously and unconsciously. As a poet, how- 
 ever, he appears in a much more favourable light. His 
 Uberfliissige Gedanken der griinenden Jugend (1668), written in 
 his student days in Leipzig, are, notwithstanding the fact that 
 he looked up to Opitz as his master, strongly reminiscent of 
 the Volkslied. Weise is best remembered by his plays ; he 
 was the most prolific dramatist of the century, being credited 
 with no less than fifty- four pieces, of which, however, only 
 about half have been published. As characteristic examples 
 of his work may be mentioned, Bduerischer Machiavellus, in 
 einem Lustspiel vorgestellt (1679), the Trauerspiel von dem 
 Neapolitanischen Hauptrebellen Masaniello (1682), and the 
 Komodie von der bbsen Katharina (1705), the last a long 
 and tedious version of the Taming of the Shrew. Weise's 
 ideas of dramatic construction were rudimentary ; his plays 
 were, in a literal sense, school dramas, being performed only 
 by scholars, and they are no more theatrical than the Latin 
 School Comedies. But, compared with the stilted Alex- 
 andrines of Gryphius and the bombast of Lohenstein, his 
 
 l Simplidanische Schriflen, ed. J. Tittmann (Deutsche Dichter, 10, n), 
 Leipzig, 1877 ; also in D.N.L, ed. F. Bobertag, 35 [1883]. 
 
 a Cp. L. Fulda in D.N.L., 39 ; Weise's Die drey argsten Erlz-Narren in der 
 gantzen Welt (1672) is edited by W. Braune in the Neudrucke, 12-14, Halle, 
 1878. Cp. H. Palm, Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen LUteratur des 16. 
 und 17. Jakrh., Breslau, 1877, i ff.
 
 CH. VIII.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 231 
 
 straightforward, natural prose shallow and trivial as are the 
 
 ideas it expresses was an advance. A more brilliant satirical 
 
 writer was Christian Reuter (born 1665), the author of Schel- C. Reiner's 
 
 muffskys warhafftige Curiose und sehr gefdhrliche Reisebeschrei- 
 
 bung Zu Wasser und Lande (i6^6), 1 an admirable forerunner 1696. 
 
 of the braggart romance which attained its classic form in the 
 
 Reisen des Freyherrn von Miinchhausen (1786). 
 
 The modern novel of adventure, foreshadowed in Simpli- The 
 cissimus, was a creation of the eighteenth century, and dates gonaden " 
 from the appearance of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in 
 1719. This novel was at once translated into German, and 
 called forth an enormous number of imitations. There was 
 a teutscher Robinson, a franzosischer Robinson, an italienischer 
 Robinson, and every country in Germany Saxony, Silesia, 
 Thuringia, Swabia had its own Robinson. In 1723 ap- 
 peared a gets flicker Robinson; in 1732, a medizinischer 
 Robinson ; even a Jungfer Robinson (1723) and a bb'hmische 
 Robinsonin (1753) are included in the list. The best and 
 most important was the Wunderlichen Fata einiger See- Insel Fel- 
 fahrer, absonderlich Alberti Julii, eines gebohrnen Sachsens 
 und seiner auf der Insel Felsenburg errichteten Colonien, 
 by J. G. Schnabel, which appeared in four volumes between 
 1731 and I743- 2 The confusion of the Thirty Years' War 
 compels the hero, Albertus Julius, to seek a new home in 
 unknown seas; he is ultimately shipwrecked on the island 
 of Felsenburg, where he establishes an ideal state. Chrono- 
 logically, the " Robinsonaden " belong to the eighteenth, and 
 even to the nineteenth century, for one of the most successful 
 imitations of De Foe's novel, Der Schweizerische Robinson oder 
 der schiffbrtichige Schweizer-Prediger und seine Familie, by J. R. 
 Wyss, appeared in Zurich as late as 1812-27. But in the 
 general evolution of European literature, Robinson Crusoe and 
 its imitations are rooted in the seventeenth century. They 
 are the first virile expression of the modern spirit of adven- 
 ture, and give voice for the first time to that repugnance to 
 civilisation and desire for a return to nature which Rousseau 
 made a turning-point in the history of European thought. 
 
 1 See Neudrucke 57-59, 90, 91, Halle, 1885-90. Cp. F. Zarncke, Christian 
 Reuter, Leipzig, 1884, and D.N.L., 35, xvi ff. 
 
 2 Cp. A. Kippenberg, Robinsonaden in Deutschland bis sur Insel Felsen- c 
 burg, Hannover, 1892, and H. Ullrich, Robinson und Robinsonaden, \, Weimar, 
 i8q8.
 
 232 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 Philipp von 
 
 Zesen, 
 
 1619-89. 
 
 Other 
 novelists. 
 
 H. A. von 
 
 Ziegler's 
 
 Asiatische 
 
 Banise, 
 
 1688. 
 
 The novel of gallant adventures, the dominant type of 
 European fiction in the seventeenth century, found as eager 
 a public in Germany as the "Schelmenromane." Among 
 the translators of French novels of this class, Philipp von 
 Zesen, who has already been mentioned as the founder of 
 a linguistic society in Hamburg, showed the most original 
 talent; he also wrote novels of his own Die adriatische 
 Rosemund (I645), 1 Assenat (1670), Simson, eine Helden- und 
 Liebes-Geschicht (1679) which were no less widely read than 
 the imported stories. Another voluminous scribbler of the 
 time, E. W. Happel (1647-90), wrote, in a lumbering style, 
 romances of this class, in which descriptions of different 
 parts of the globe are a prominent feature. He was also 
 the author of nine pseudo-historical novels. A Duke of 
 Brunswick, Anton Ulrich (1633-1714), wrote a Durchleuchtige 
 Syrerinn Aramena (1669-73), an d a learned novel on the 
 Romische Octavia (1677), which also belong to the class of 
 would-be historical romance. Most popular of all, however, 
 was Des Christlichen Teutschen Gross-Fursten Herkules und der 
 Bohmischen Koniglichen Fraulein Valiska Wunder-Geschichte 
 (1659-60), by A. H. Bucholtz (1607-71). 
 
 The best of these "gallant" novels, if only because the 
 simplest and most skilfully constructed, was the Asiatische 
 Banise oder blutiges dock mutiges Pegu (i688), 2 by Heinrich 
 Anshelm von Ziegler (1653-97). The fact that the scene 
 of this romance was laid in the distant East, and that an 
 attempt was made to give tropical colouring to the scenes, lent 
 piquancy to the plot, and some of the characters, especially 
 the villainous Chaumigrem, are vigorously drawn and remained 
 popular types until late in the eighteenth century. The style 
 is bombastic, but not always so absurd as in the curse with 
 which the novel opens : 
 
 " Blitz, donner und hagel, als die rachenden werckzeuge des 
 gerechten himmels, zerschmettere den pracht deiner gold- 
 bedeckten thiirme, und die rache der Cotter verzehre alle 
 besitzer der stadt : welche den untergang des Koniglichen 
 hauses befdrdert, . . . Wolten die Cotter ! es konten meine 
 augen zu donner-schwangern wolcken, und diese meine thranen 
 zu grausamen siind-fluthen werden : Ich wolte mit tausend keulen, 
 
 i Ed. M. Jellinek (Neudrucke, 160-163). Halle, 1899. 
 a Ed. F. Bobertag, in D.N.L., 37 [1883].
 
 CH. VIII.] EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. 233 
 
 als ein feuer-vverck rechtmassigen zorns, nach dem hertzen des 
 vermaledeyten blut-hundes werffen, und dessen gewiss nicht 
 verfehlen." 
 
 A more marked decadence is to be seen in the work of two 
 writers of the so-called Second- Silesian School, from whom 
 Ziegler had learned Christian Hofmann von Hofmanns- c. H. von 
 waldau (1617-79) and Daniel Casper von Lohenstein (1635- ^^u nns " 
 83). Hoffman nswaldau l grew up under the influence of 1617-79. 
 Opitz, travelled widely, and from Italy brought back the 
 decadent literary art of Guarini and Marino; in 1678, he 
 translated the former's Pastor fido. The concetti of Marino, 
 and the estilo culto of the Spaniard Gongora, were the sources 
 of a disease of style which left deep traces on all the chief 
 European literatures in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies ; in England this affected elegance appeared as Euphu- 
 ism, in France it was cultivated by the precieuses of the Hotel 
 Rambouillet. In Germany both Hofmannswaldau and Lohen- 
 stein looked up to Marino as an unsurpassable poet, but 
 the popularity of the " liebliche Schreibart " was chiefly due 
 to Hofmannswaldau. His most characteristic work is the 
 Heldenbriefe (1680), a collection of love-epistles in verse 
 and prose, which gained for him the title of the German 
 Ovid. Another publication, Herrn von Hofmannswaldau und 
 anderer Deatschen auserlesene Gedichte, only contains, it may 
 be noted, a few poems by Hofmannswaldau. The first volume 
 of this work, which appeared in 1695, edited by B. Neukirch, 
 touched, beyond question, the lowest level to which the Ger- 
 man lyric ever sank. 
 
 Hofmannswaldau's disciple, Lohenstein, 2 was the dramatist D. C. von 
 of the Second Silesian School. Gryphius was naturally the ^^ ei y 6 
 model that lay nearest Lohenstein's hand, and by his fifteenth 83. 
 year he had written a tragedy, Ibrahim Bassa (first published 
 in 1685), which, in accumulation of horror and excess, left 
 Gryphius far behind. The further he advanced, the more 
 Lohenstein revelled in blood, incest, and cruelty. He adapted 
 even themes like Cleopatra (1661) and Sophonisbe (published 
 *i68o) to his purposes, but the plots of tragedies such as 
 Epicharis (1665) and Agrippina (1665) were more congenial 
 
 1 Selections ed. F. Bobertag, in D.N.L., 36 [1885], i ff. Cp. J. Ettlinger, 
 C, Hofman von Hofmanswaldau, Halle, 1891. 
 
 2 Cleopatra, ed. F. Bobertag, in D.N.L., 36, in ff., a selection from 
 Arminius und Thussnelda in D.N.L., 37, 462 ff.
 
 234 EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN LITERATURE. [PT. III. 
 
 to him. The novel which Lohenstein published in 1689-90 
 Arminius, under the title Grossmiithiger Feldherr Arminius, oder Herr- 
 1689-90. mann als ein tapferer Beschirmer der deutschen Freiheit nebst 
 seiner durchlauchtigsten Thussnelda in einer sinnreichen Staats-, 
 Liebes- und Helden-Geschichte . . . vorgestellet, is by no means 
 so lacking in good taste as his dramas. It is long, tedious, 
 and learned ; it is didactic and persistently patriotic ; but the 
 narrative is written with skill and events are vividly described. 
 The author is at his best when he is carried away by his 
 interest in what he has to tell, and forgets the rules of his ars 
 poetica. On the whole, Lohenstein's talents show to much 
 more advantage in his novel than in his plays, and had he 
 been born in a more auspicious age, he might have produced 
 work of permanent worth. 
 
 The faint light of the German Renaissance had thus 
 flickered out before the seventeenth century reached its 
 close. Intellectually, it was certainly not a glorious century 
 in Germany's development, yet there had been many elements 
 of promise in it. What might have happened had the 
 nation been spared the desolation of the Thirty Years' War, 
 it would be difficult to say, but it is certain that the political 
 conditions produced by the war retarded the growth of 
 German literature by at least fifty years. The main fact is 
 that the German people fell into a slavish imitation of the 
 customs and ideas of the Romance nations. That this period 
 of imitation lasted so long was, in general, due to the un- 
 toward political conditions ; but there was also, perhaps, 
 another reason : the Germans of the seventeenth century were 
 more anxious to imitate than to learn ; they overlooked the 
 fact that they were only in a backward state of development 
 compared with the other nations of Europe. The conse- 
 quence was that until nearly the middle of the succeeding 
 century, German thought and German literature suffered 
 under the disadvantages of an inward pride and an excessive 
 self-esteem.
 
 PART IV. 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 RATIONALISM AND ENGLISH INFLUENCE. 
 
 AT the close of the seventeenth century none, even among the 
 smaller nationalities of Europe, was intellectually so insignifi- 
 cant as that which spoke the German tongue. Renaissance 
 and Reformation had brought glory to France and England ; 
 to Germany they had, as we have seen, brought only the 
 veriest beginnings of a national literature, and these be- 
 ginnings were soon swept away by the storms of the Thirty 
 Years' War. The year 1700 found France still full of pride The 
 in her grand stick, and England looking forward rather eighteenth 
 than back. Rationalism, the logical development of that 
 empiricism first taught by Bacon, had found able champions 
 in Locke and the English Deists, and was established before 
 long as the philosophic faith of France. Again, the eigh- 
 teenth century was still young when individualism, a move- 
 ment of even more far-reaching consequences for the history 
 of literature, originated in England ; and on the individualism 
 of English thinkers and writers, Rousseau set the stamp of 
 cosmopolitanism. Compared with such vigorous intellectual 
 activity in England and France, all that Germany had to 
 show until past the middle of the eighteenth century was 
 as nothing; her literature had hardly vigour enough to 
 imitate with success not to speak of rivalling the pro- 
 ductions of her neighbours. 
 
 And yet this nation, which, in 1 700, lay thus prostrate, 
 possessed undreamt - of germs of spiritual vitality. With 
 phenomenal rapidity, Germany passed through a period of 
 rationalism, then assimilated the best ideas of English and 
 French individualism, and, before the century had reached
 
 238 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 its close, produced a philosophy and a literature not un- 
 worthy to be placed beside the best of modern Europe. 
 The helpless Germany of 1700 had, in 1800, become a 
 leading intellectual power. No nation was ever more in 
 debt than was Germany to France and England for nearly 
 three-quarters of the eighteenth century ; none repaid a debt 
 more generously than Germany hers in the last quarter of 
 that century. 
 
 The first indication of a revival of intellectual life before the 
 period under consideration began, was a breath of Cartesian- 
 ism which, coming from Holland, agitated slightly the surface 
 of the stagnant Lutheran theology. Then Spinoza's philo- 
 sophy, which left, however, deeper traces behind it, passed 
 over Germany, and, finally, as a kind of protest against the 
 strictness of Protestant orthodoxy, a wave of that Pietism 
 Pietism. with which, a generation earlier, Jakob Bohme had infused 
 new vigour into religious life. The chief representative of 
 German Pietism at the close of the seventeenth century was 
 p. j. an Alsatian, Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1 705), x whose Pia 
 
 Spener, Desideria (1675) formed the basis for the revival. But 
 
 l6"?^-I7O t v 
 
 German Pietism, unlike English Puritanism, with which it 
 may, in many respects, be compared, was not a militant 
 faith ; its watchword was renunciation, its thoughts were 
 fixed on the millennium ; its meekness was little adapted 
 to stir the nation to intellectual achievement The hymns 
 and religious poetry of Spener himself, of Joachim Neander 
 (1650-80), of Gerhard Tersteegen (1697-1769), of the prolific 
 Graf von Zinzendorf (1700-60), strike an intensely personal 
 note : they have often the sweetness of love-poetry, but their 
 spirit is essentially passive. The only work of real import- 
 ance called forth by Pietism was the Unpartheyische Kirchen- 
 und Ketzerhistorie (1698-1700) by Gottfried Arnold (1666- 
 1714), a book which, even in Goethe's youth, had not 
 wholly lost its interest. In the universities, the chief repre- 
 sentative of the movement was Spener's chief scholar, A. 
 H. Francke (1663-1727), who, as professor in Halle from 
 1692 onwards, exerted a far-reaching influence on German 
 educational methods. 
 
 The chief German pioneer of intellectual progress in the 
 period under consideration was Samuel Pufendorf (1632-94), 
 
 1 A. Ritschl, GeschichU des Pietismus, 3 vols., Bonn, 1880-86, 2, 95 ff.
 
 CHAP. I.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 239 
 
 who built up his system of " natural law " upon the ideas 
 of Hugo Grotius and Hobbes. And it was as a disciple of 
 Pufendorf that Christian Thomasius (1665-1728), the first C. Thoma- 
 German rationalist, began his career as a teacher in the * IU 2 S l665 " 
 University of Leipzig. Filled with the ideals of the new 
 humanism, Thomasius endeavoured to bring the universities 
 into closer touch with the national life : this was the object 
 he had in view when, in 1687-88, he delivered in Leipzig 
 the first course of lectures in the German tongue that had 
 ever been held in a university. Besides lecturing in Ger- 
 man, he also wrote in German, and, in 1688 and 1689, 
 published the first German monthly journal, Scherz- und 
 ernsthafte, -verniinftige und einfdltige Gedanken ilber allerhand 
 lustige und niitzliche Biicher und Fragen, a forerunner of the 
 voluminous literature which, twenty-five or thirty years later, 
 was modelled on the English Spectator. 
 
 A more universal genius than Thomasius, and, in the 
 history of philosophy, a vastly more important figure, is Gott- 
 fried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 - I7I6), 1 the first of the great G.w. 
 German thinkers. Leibniz, who, like Thomasius, was a native 
 of Leipzig, shared the latter's humanistic ideals, and his philo- 
 sophic system (Nouveaux Essais sur Ventendement humain, 
 1704; Essais de Thtodicte sur la bontt de >ieu, la libertt de 
 I homme et rorigine du mal, 1710; Monadologie, 1714) was, in 
 its conciliating optimism, more akin to the idealism of Plato 
 than to the English philosophy of Locke. He endeavoured 
 to bridge over the dualism in the universe which Descartes' 
 philosophy had accentuated, to establish a harmony between 
 matter and spirit. To effect this harmony, he set up the 
 hypothesis that the ultimate constituents of matter were what 
 he called " monads," that is, ideal atoms endowed with 
 spiritual potentiality. But besides being a metaphysician, 
 Leibniz had spacious plans for the advancement of Ger- 
 man culture and learning ; it was through his influence that 
 the Berlin Academy was founded in 1700, and although he 
 himself wrote for the most part in Latin and French, he 
 advocated, in his Unvorgreiffliche Gedanken^ betreffend die 
 Ausiibung und Verbesserung der Teutschen Sprache (1697), the 
 
 1 The philosophical writings of Leibniz are best edited by C. J. Gerhardt, 
 7 vols., Berlin, 1875-90. Cp. K. Fischer, Leibniz und seine Schule, 3rd ed., 
 Heidelberg, 1890.
 
 240 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 C. von 
 Wolff, 
 1679-1754. 
 
 use of the German language. It cannot be said that his 
 philosophy had any immediate effect on the development of 
 German letters, but he quickened the intellectual life of his 
 time, and deepened and spiritualised the rationalism of English 
 and French thinkers. In the writings of Germany's representa- 
 tive rationalist at the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
 Christian von Wolff .(1679 - 1754), tne influence of Leibniz 
 is conspicuous. With Wolff, who was professor in Halle, 
 the work which Thomasius had begun was carried another 
 step forward ; the new philosophy crystallised in Wolff's 
 hands into a kind of modern scholasticism, and under this 
 form triumphed over the orthodox theology. From Halle, 
 rationalism spread rapidly through all the German uni- 
 versities. 
 
 As the seventeenth century drew to its close, Germany 
 was gradually coming into closer touch with both France 
 and England. The efforts of the first Silesian school to 
 create a literature modelled on that of the French Renais- 
 sance, had, as has been shown, soon degenerated into the 
 bombast of the second school. But at the close of the 
 seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, 
 the attempt was again made to stay the deterioration 01 
 German poetry by re - establishing relations with French 
 literature. The younger writers of this time had before 
 them, instead of the French Renaissance, to which Opitz 
 looked for his models, the most brilliant epoch in all 
 French literature ; but this advantage availed them little. 
 Opponents The literary achievements of these opponents of the second 
 Silesian school were even more mediocre than the poetry 
 of the first school. Rudolf von Canitz (1654-99), Benjamin 
 Neukirch (1665 -1729), J Johann von Besser (1654-1729), 
 J. V. Pietsch (1690-1733) whom Gottsched eulogised as 
 the first poet of the age and J. U. von Konig (1688- 
 1744), with their tedious odes, written according to the 
 letter of Boileau's Art pottique> and their epics, deserts 
 without an oasis of poetry, hardly deserve to be called 
 poets at all. The most that can be said of them is 
 that they had sufficient taste to prevent them falling into 
 the absurd extravagance of their immediate predecessors. 
 
 of the 
 second 
 Silesian 
 school. 
 
 1 A selection from Canitz and Neukirch in Die Gegner der zweiten schle- 
 sischen Schule, ed. L. Fulda, 2 (D.N.L., 39 [1883]), 383-504.
 
 CHAP. I.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 24! 
 
 Historically their chief interest for us is that they formed 
 the literary milieu in which Gottsched grew up. Among 
 them, however, was one genuine poet, Johann Christian 
 Giinther, 1 who was born at Striegau in Silesia in 1695. Un- j. c. Gtin- 
 happy love affairs, thwarted ambitions and dissipation, which ther > l6 9S- 
 brought him into bitter conflict with his father, made up 
 Giinther's life, and he died in 1723, before he had completed 
 his twenty-eighth year ; the first collection of his Gedichte 
 appeared in 1724. Giinther was too much a child of his age 
 not to respect Boileau, but his own tragic experiences taught 
 him the best part of his art. From the Volkslied, too which 
 at this very time rose to Print Eugen der edle Ritter he 
 learned to be simple, although he might perhaps have learned 
 still more. Notwithstanding the unfavourable conditions 
 under which he lived and wrote, verses came from his pen 
 which, in depth and purity of lyrical feeling, had not been 
 surpassed in the previous century by Dach or Fleming. 
 
 " Will ich dich doch gerne meiden, 
 Gieb mir nur noch einen Kuss, 
 Eh ich sonst das letzte leiden 
 Und den Ring zerbrechen muss. 
 Fiihle doch die starken Triebe 
 Und des Herzens bange Qual ! 
 Also bitter schmeckt die Liebe 
 So ein schones Henkermahl." 2 
 
 In lines like these, Giinther found again the thread of the 
 German love-lyric, which had been lost since the decay of 
 the Minnesang; he is the most gifted lyric poet in modern 
 German literature before the appearance of Klopstock. 
 
 In the last quarter of the seventeenth century the first 
 permanent German opera-house had been established in 
 Hamburg. It was conducted with much tasteless and sense- 
 less extravagance, but it produced the operas of musicians 
 like R. Keiser (1674-1739) and G. F. Handel (1685-1759), 
 and formed a centre for poets of the school of Hofmanns- 
 waldau, who were employed in the preparation and trans- 
 lation of opera texts. But the position of these poets in 
 Hamburg was by no means secure, and their bitterest critic, 
 
 1 Ed. L. Fulda, I.e., i (D.N.L., 38 [1883]); also by J. Tittmann in Deutsche 
 Dichter des 17. Jahrh., 6, Leipzig, 1874, and by B. Litzmann in Reclam's 
 Universal-Bibliothek, 1295-96. 
 
 2 D.N.L., 38, 211.
 
 242 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 C. Wer- 
 
 nigke, 
 
 1661-1725. 
 
 B. H. 
 
 Brockes, 
 
 1680-1747. 
 
 F. von 
 
 Hagedorn, 
 
 1708-54. 
 
 Christian Wernigke (I66I-I725) 1 an epigrammatist with 
 something of the genius of Logau, had little difficulty in 
 making them appear ridiculous. The literary storms which 
 Wernigke raised cleared the air, and in Hamburg, which, 
 being in close touch with England, was readily influenced by 
 English ideas, were born two poets who played an important 
 part in the evolution of modern literature, Barthold Heinrich 
 Brockes and Friedrich von Hagedorn. Brockes (1680- 1747)2 
 began by translating Marino's epic, La strage degli innocenti 
 (Bethlehemitischer Kinder-Morel, 1715), then imitated French 
 models. Being, however, a passionate lover of nature, he 
 soon fell under the spell of English nature-poetry, such as 
 Pope's Pastorals and Windsor Forest, and in this way was 
 the first writer of his century to establish close relations be- 
 tween English and German literature. In 1740 he translated 
 Pope's Essay on Man, and in 1745 Thomson's Seasons. His 
 original poetry is collected under the fantastic title Irdisches 
 Vergniigen in Gott (9 parts), the first part of which appeared 
 in 1721, the last in 1748. With this work, of which religion 
 and nature form the two poles, begins that stream of didactic 
 German verse which reached its culmination about a quarter 
 of a century later in Klopstock's Messias. 
 
 The poetry of Friedrich von Hagedorn (i 708-54) 3 stands 
 on a much higher plane than that of Brockes. He, too, 
 was strongly influenced by English literature, having spent 
 three years in London as secretary to the Danish embassy 
 before settling down in 1731 in his native town. But Prior 
 and Gay, rather than Pope and Thomson, were his masters, 
 and Lafontaine's Fables was his favourite reading. Hagedorn 
 was essentially a social poet ; unlike Brockes, he had no 
 sympathy with religious enthusiasts ; melancholy had no 
 attraction for him, love no sentiment : 
 
 " Sollt' auch ich durch Gram und Leid 
 Meinen Leib verzehren 
 Und des Lebens Frohlichkeit, 
 Weil ich leb', entbehren ? 
 Freunde, nein 1 es stehet fest, 
 Meiner Jugend Uberrest 
 Soil mir Lust gewahren. 
 
 i Cp. L. Fulda, I.e., 2, 505 ff. 
 a Cp. L. Fulda, I.e., 2, 273 ff. 
 
 3 In Anakrcontiker und preussisch - patriotische Lyriker, ed. F. Muncker 
 (D.N.L., 45 [1894]), i ff.
 
 CHAP. I.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 243 
 
 Quellen tausendfacher Lust : 
 Jugend ! Schdnheit ! Liebe ! 
 Ihr erweckt in meiner Brust 
 Schmeichelhafte Triebe. 
 Kein Genuss ergriibelt sich ; 
 Ich weiss g'nug, indem ich mich 
 Im Empfinden iibe." * 
 
 Hagedorn cannot be called an Anacreontic poet in the 
 narrow sense of the word, for his ideal was rather Horace 
 than Anacreon. Nor is his poetry limited to love-songs 
 and drinking-songs ; after the Oden und Lieder (of which col- 
 lections were published in 1742, 1744, and 1752) the most 
 popular of all his works were the Fabeln und Erzdhlungen 
 (1738). The Moralischen Gedichte^ published twelve years 
 later, form a continuation of this collection, and to these 
 were added, in 1753, Epigrammatische Gedichte. With his 
 delicate self-restraint and his feeling for form and rhythm, 
 Hagedorn stands apart from the other poets of his time; 
 indeed, there is something almost un-German in his character 
 as a poet : he might be regarded as a forerunner of Wie- 
 land, and one of a long line of writers whose unconscious 
 mission in the economy of German letters it is to counter- 
 balance the national tendency to revel in feelings and 
 emotions. However this may be, he gave the dominant 
 tone to the German lyric from Gottsched's defeat to the 
 love-songs of the Sesenheimer Liederbuch, and even Klop- 
 stock did not escape his influence. 
 
 The Swiss writer Albrecht von Haller (i 708-7 7), 2 whose A. von 
 name is usually mentioned with Hagedorn's, is, as a poet, Ha " er > 
 more akin to Brockes ; he had all Brockes's religious enthusi- 
 asm for nature. Poetry, however, had but a small share in 
 the life of this remarkable man, who, besides writing verses, 
 was the first anatomist and physiologist of his century. 
 His literary reputation rests upon the Versuch Schweizerischer 
 Gedichte (1732), the second edition of which (1734) contained 
 his two most famous poems, Die Alpen, the literary fruit of 
 a tour made in 1728, and Uber den Ursprung des Ubels. 
 Haller's verse has little of the grace and smoothness of 
 Hagedorn's, but his poetic imagination was cast in a grander 
 mould; he felt more deeply. He describes the Alps, if 
 
 1 D.N.L., 45, 128. 
 
 a Gedichte, ed. L. Hirzel, Frauenfeld, 1882 : selections (ed. A. Frey) in 
 D.N.L., 41, i [1884].
 
 244 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 K. F. 
 
 Drollinger, 
 
 1688-1742. 
 
 " Mora- 
 lische 
 Wochen- 
 schriften." 
 
 not with the enthusiasm of the later generation which sat at 
 Rousseau's feet, at least with a sense of the moral effect 
 of beautiful scenery, and with something of that melancholy 
 which runs through English nature-poetry in the eighteenth 
 century. But his verse is not all in a contemplative or 
 didactic vein ; he could also at times be satirical, and there 
 is more genuine passion in a poem like Doris (1730) than 
 in any poetry of the time except Giinther's. In his old 
 age Haller turned to the novel ( Usong, 1771), which he em- 
 ployed mainly as a channel for his political views. A poet 
 who may be regarded as a forerunner of Haller is Karl. 
 Friedrich Drollinger (born at Durlach in 1688, died in 
 1742), whose Gedichte were not collected until 1743. 
 Drollinger belongs, properly speaking, to the school of Canitz 
 and Besser, but he had more poetic inspiration than they, 
 and, under the influence of Pope and Brockes, his imagination 
 succeeded at times in freeing itself from the shackles which 
 lay so heavily on the majority of his contemporaries. 
 
 Hardly less important than the new spirit manifest in the 
 poetry of these writers was another result of English influence, 
 namely, the weekly journal on the model of the Tatler, 
 Spectator, and Guardian. In 1713 there had appeared in 
 Hamburg a periodical called Der Verniinfftler, which con- 
 sisted mainly of extracts translated from the English. This 
 was the first German imitation of the English weeklies, and 
 in a very few years these " Moralischen Wochenschriften," as 
 they were called, had won a popularity which surpassed even 
 that of the English weeklies in England ; before the close of 
 the eighteenth century more than five hundred of them were 
 published in Germany. In the following chapter we shall see 
 how important these papers were in the literary battles of the 
 next few decades ; it is enough to mention here, as the best 
 of them, the Discourse der Maler, published by Bodmer 
 and Breitinger in 1721, and Der Patriot, which appeared 
 in Hamburg from 1724 to 1726. These journals were 
 inferior to their English models as literature, but they had, if 
 anything, a deeper and more far-reaching influence on the 
 nation. They were not merely the literary amusement of the 
 leisured classes as the English weeklies had been ; they were 
 at the same time organs for the moral and literary education 
 of the people as a whole.
 
 245 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LEIPZIG AND ZURICH AS LITERARY CENTRES. 
 
 IF any particular year is to be chosen as the starting-point 
 for modern German literature and for the literary historian 
 such " boundary dates " have an importance which may be 
 compared with that of hypotheses for the scientist this year 
 is 1740. In 1740 Frederick the Great became King of 
 Prussia; in 1740 Maria Theresa ascended the Austrian 
 throne, and both were rulers of significance for the political 
 future of the German-speaking peoples. In this same year 
 took place the great controversy between Gottsched and his 
 Leipzig friends on the one side, and the two Swiss literary 
 reformers Bodmer and Breitinger on the other. From this 
 controversy the Swiss party, the representatives of the 
 modern spirit in literature and criticism, came out victorious, 
 and between their victory and the publication of Herder's 
 Fragmente in 1767 lies the first epoch in the development 
 of German classical literature. 
 
 Johann Christoph Gottsched, 1 who was born in the vicinity J. C. Gott- 
 of Konigsberg in 1700, is one of those tragic figures which 
 are to be found in all literatures ; he was a man whose 
 ambitions outstripped his abilities. From theology, which 
 was his original study at the university in Konigsberg, he 
 turned to literature and aesthetics, ultimately becoming him- 
 self a " Privatdocent " or lecturer in the university. His 
 duties had hardly begun when he was obliged to leave 
 Konigsberg to escape a danger to which his tall stature 
 exposed him, that of being forcibly enrolled amongst the 
 
 1 Cp. G. Waniek, Gottsched und die deutsche Litteratur seiner Zeit, Leipzig, 
 1897 ; J. Crtiger, Gottsched, Bodmer und Breitinger (D.N.L., 42 [1884]).
 
 246 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Gottsched's 
 
 Critische 
 
 Dicht- 
 
 kunst, 
 
 1730. 
 
 His 
 
 dramatic 
 
 reforms. 
 
 king's grenadiers. This was in 1724. Gottsched turned 
 his steps to Leipzig, which already had the reputation of 
 being the intellectual metropolis of Germany ; its university, 
 its periodical fairs, its large share of the German book trade, 
 combined in the eighteenth century to make this town the 
 most important in Northern Europe. In Leipzig Gottsched 
 soon made a name for himself; he was elected a member 
 of the " Deutschiibende Gesellschaft," and, a few years later, 
 became, as the " senior " of this society, a power in the world 
 of letters. Throwing himself without reserve into the rising 
 tide of humanitarian rationalism, he worked zealously for 
 the spread of its ideas. In 1725 he began the publication 
 of a paper on the model of the Spectator, entitled Die 
 verniinftigen Tadlerinnen. But it was not successful, and in 
 1727 gave place to Der Biedermann, which met with even 
 less favour. 
 
 Gottsched's first important work was his Versuch einer 
 Critischen Dichtkunst vor die Deutschen (1730), which super- 
 seded Opitz's Buck von der deutschen Poeterey, and gave the 
 deathblow to what still remained of the second Silesian 
 school. This treatise is based essentially upon Boileau's Art 
 pottique, and subjects literature to a similar artificial classifi- 
 cation : it sets up canons of good taste and discusses the 
 respective parts which reason and imagination play in poetic 
 composition. But Gottsched had also learned from the 
 English movement to lay emphasis upon moral principles in 
 literature, and, above all, to recognise the claims of nature. 
 Poetry was not, he insisted, a purely mechanical art of 
 writing verse, as the older " Poetics " had taught ; it was an 
 "imitation of nature." He made the mistake, however, of 
 trying to reconcile this idea with what he had learnt from 
 Boileau ; he invented fresh rules, and these rules naturally 
 led back to the mechanical methods of writing verse which 
 he was endeavouring to avoid. The watchword "nature" 
 was not in itself sufficient to effect a reform in literature ; 
 and in essentials Gottsched's work was no advance upon its 
 French model. 
 
 The branch of literature which derived most benefit 
 from his reforms was the drama. He found drama and 
 theatre divorced, and united them again. In conjunction 
 with the troupe of actors at whose head stood Johann
 
 CHAP. II.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 247 
 
 Neuber and his more talented wife, Karoline (1697-1 760), x Karoline 
 Gottsched established the masterpieces of the French classical 
 drama on the German stage; he abolished bombast and 
 buffoonery, and forbade the actors to take liberties with the 
 texts they had to speak. The theatre was thus at once made 
 attractive to the educated classes. It is true, as Lessing 
 said, that Gottsched had no understanding for what was 
 good in the popular drama ; his attempt to create a 
 German drama on French lines was little in conformity with 
 the national spirit. But it is doubtful if a reform of any 
 other kind would at this period have been effective. It was 
 time enough in the next generation for the German drama, 
 with the help of English models, to find a natural course 
 of development ; in Gottsched's time it was chiefly important 
 that the theatre, which had hitherto had little to do with 
 literature, should be brought into touch with it, and the 
 direct means of attaining this end was to imitate the most 
 polished nation in Europe. Gottsched, however, was at one 
 with the English in many things : he claimed with them that 
 the drama must be " recht wahrscheinlich," and the costumes 
 historically correct ; even his adherence to the unities was in 
 keeping with his realism. 
 
 The reformed theatre could not subsist without plays, and 
 Gottsched and his friends set to work to provide it with a 
 repertory which consisted, for the most part, of translations. 
 Thus arose the Deutsche Schaubiihne nach den Regeln der The 
 alien Griechen und Romer eingerichtet (6 vols., 1740-45). 
 One of the most capable contributors to this collection of buhne, 
 plays was Gottsched's wife, Luise Adelgunde (/<? Kulmus, I 74-45- 
 1713-62), to whom the translation of the comedies was 
 mainly intrusted ; her two or three original pieces z show a 
 dramatic talent to which her husband's famous tragedy Der 
 sterbende Cato, produced in 1731, cannot pretend. Der Derster- 
 sterbende Cato is essentially a translation of J. Deschamps' bende Cato > 
 Caton tfUtique (1715), but the end is adapted from Addison's 
 play on the same subject, which was more to Gottsched's 
 liking. Only about one-tenth of the whole is original. The 
 sententiousness of the play and one or two effective scenes 
 
 1 Cp. F. J. von Reden-Esbeck, Karoline Neuber und ihre Zeitgenossen, 
 Leipzig, 1 88 1. 
 
 2 Das Testament, in J. Crtiger, I.e., 249 ff. Cp. P. Schlenther, Frau Gottsched 
 und die burgerliche Kombdie, Berlin, 1886.
 
 248 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 J. J. Brei- 
 
 linger, 
 
 1701-76. 
 
 caught the taste of the time, and for the next twenty years 
 Der sterbende Cato was the most popular tragedy on the 
 German stage. 
 
 The success of his theatrical reforms, the prosperity of the 
 "German Society" under his presidentship, and the establish- 
 ment of a new literary journal, the Beytrcige zur critischen 
 Historic der deutschen Sprache, Poesie und Beredtsamkeit 
 (1732-44), had gradually brought Gottsched's authority to 
 a culmination. This was about 1738, when the first 
 mutterings of the coming storm were beginning to make 
 themselves heard. The leaders of the Swiss revolt against 
 Gottsched, with which a new movement in German literature 
 J. Bodmer, was inaugurated, were two professors of Zurich, Jakob Bodmer 
 1698-1783. ^698-1783) and Johann Jakob Breitinger (1701-76). They 
 were scholars rather than men of letters, but they had both 
 more understanding for poetry than Gottsched. Their joint 
 activity began in 1721, when they edited the Discourse der 
 Mahler?- which, as we have seen, was one of the first German 
 weeklies in imitation of the Spectator. In this journal the 
 tendency to favour English in preference to French literature is 
 unmistakable. Bodmer, who, as far as literature is concerned, 
 was the more important writer, published in 1732 a prose 
 translation of Paradise Lost, which awakened the suspicions 
 of Gottsched. It was not, however, until six years later that 
 serious differences began to arise between Leipzig and Zurich, 
 and with the appearance of Breitinger's Critische Dichtkunst 
 (1739) and Bodmer's Critische Abhandlung von dem IVunder- 
 baren in der Poesie (1740), the storm finally broke. 
 
 Bodmer began the preface which he wrote to Breitinger's 
 Critische Dichtkunst with the words, " Ein gewisser Kunst- 
 richter hat angemercket, dass die Natur vor der Kunst 
 gewesen, dass die besten Schriften nicht von den Regeln ent- 
 standen seyn, sondern hingegen die Regeln von den Schriften 
 hergeholet worden." 2 Here was one of the vital differences 
 between Gottsched and the Swiss party : Gottsched's object 
 
 1 Ed. T. Vetter, i, Frauenfeld, 1891 ; a selection by J. Criiger, I.e., i ff. 
 On Bodmer, cp. also the Denkschrift zu seinem aoo. Gcburtstag, Zurich, 1900. 
 
 3 The " Kunstrichter " is the Abb6 Du Bos (1670-1742), against whom 
 Bodmer's preface is in part directed, but he and Breitinger were substantially 
 in agreement with the statement quoted. Cp. F. Braitmaier, Geschicfite der 
 poetischen Theorie und Kritik von den Diskursen der Maler bis auf Lessing, 
 Leipzig, 1888, i, 156 f., and K. Servaes, Die Poetik Gottscheds und der Sckweizer 
 (Quellen und Forschungen, 60), Strassburg, 1887.
 
 CHAP. II.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 249 
 
 was to reform literature from without by imposing upon it rules 
 invented by Aristotle and the French theorists ; his opponents, 
 on the other hand, endeavoured to reform it from within, by 
 studying the nature of poetic creation, by investigating how 
 poetry arose in the soul of the poet, and by analysing the 
 impression it left upon the reader. The advance made by 
 Bodmer and Breitinger was that they laid chief stress upon 
 the imagination ; their poetic creed afforded more room for 
 feeling, for enthusiasm, for genius. Gottsched, for his part, 
 clung doggedly to the principle that poetry must be a 
 product of reason acting in conscious recognition of certain 
 laws. Neither the Critische Dichtkunst nor the Abhandlung 
 von dem Wunderbaren was written in a spirit of direct polemic 
 against Gottsched, but the latter's vanity was hurt to find that 
 principles should be defended which were in antagonism to his 
 own, and he responded to the challenge with considerable 
 bitterness. In Bodmer's next pamphlet, Betrachtungen iiber die 
 poetischen Gemdlde der Dichter (1741), the Swiss critic showed 
 that he, too, could be bitter. The controversy was then taken 
 up by the henchmen on both sides; satire, invective, every 
 weapon of literary warfare was called into requisition, and the 
 battle raged fiercely in the periodical literature of the time. 
 
 Gottsched's defeat was inevitable : one might say it was Gottsched's 
 due as much to the rapidly advancing spirit of the age as to defeat - 
 the attacks of his adversaries. In the course of the next few 
 years all his friends fell away from him ; Neuber's troupe 
 ridiculed him on the stage in 1741 as "der Tadler," and in 
 1748 the first three cantos of Klopstock's Messias the best 
 exemplification of the Swiss theories of poetry appeared 
 in the Bremer Beytrdge, the organ of a group of writers 
 who had once been Gottsched's faithful followers. There 
 is not a more piteous incident in the history of literary criti- 
 cism than that of Gottsched's setting up in 1751 the tedious 
 epic Hermann oder das befreyte Deutschland^ by his disciple 
 C. O. von Schonaich (1725-1807), as the crowning achieve- 
 ment of German literature. Although for the last twenty 
 years of his life he lived until the end of 1766, the year 
 after Goethe came to study in Leipzig Gottsched saw his 
 reputation dwindling away, he was not idle. In 1748 he 
 published a Grundlegung einer deutschen Sprachkunst^ which 
 did more solid service for German prose and the spread of
 
 250 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 The 
 Bremer 
 Beytrage, 
 1744-48. 
 
 J.E. 
 
 Schlegel, 
 
 1719-49. 
 
 a correct High German than his Critische Dichtkunst had 
 done for German poetry ; he studied, collected, and trans- 
 lated monuments of old German literature, and, under the 
 title Nothiger Vorrath zur Geschichte der deutschen dramati- 
 schen Dichtkunst (1757-65), he published a collection of 
 old German dramas, which is still a valuable mine for the 
 literary historian. 
 
 The attacks of his Swiss adversaries had not disconcerted 
 Gottsched as much as might have been expected, but it 
 went to his heart when a number of friends in Leipzig, 
 writers who had learned their art at his feet, began to fall 
 away. These younger men grew dissatisfied with the official 
 organ of the party, the Belustigungen des Verstandes und 
 Witzes, which had appeared since 1741 under the editorship 
 of J. J. Schwabe (1714-84), and they resolved to found a new 
 journal upon more liberal lines : thus arose the Neue Bey- 
 trdge zum Vergnugen des Verstandes und Witzes y usually called, 
 from the fact that it was published in Bremen, the Bremer 
 Beytrdge (1744-48). The actual founders of the Beytrage?- 
 K. C. Gartner (1712-91), J. A. Cramer (1723-88), and J. 
 Adolf Schlegel (1721-93), father of the two brothers Schlegel 
 who were to play so important a part in the literature of the 
 next generation, were men of small poetic talent. But Adolf 
 Schlegel's brother, Johann Elias Schlegel (1719-49), was a 
 writer of some genius, and the ablest dramatist that the 
 Leipzig school produced. His tragedies, Herrmann (1743) 
 and Canut (1747), his comedies, Die stumme Schonheit (1747) 
 and Der Triumph der guten Frauen (1748), are among the 
 best that were to be seen on the German stage before Lessing. 
 Instead of imitating the French tragedy, like Gottsched, 
 Elias Schlegel went to the Greeks for his models ; and in 
 his theoretical writings, 2 of which the chief is Gedanken zur 
 Aufnahme des ddnischen Theaters (1747), he paved the way 
 for Lessing. He also wrote with appreciation of Shakespeare, 
 whose Julius Casar had shortly before (1741) been translated 
 into German by K. W. von Borck, the Prussian Ambassador 
 in London. In Denmark, whither he had gone in 1743 as 
 
 1 Bremer Beitrager, edited by F. Muncker, 2 vols. (D.N.L., 43, 44 [1899]); 
 selections from Cramer and J. E. Schlegel, 2, 63 ff. and 101 ff. 
 
 3 /. E. Schlegels dsthetische vnd dramaturgische Schriften, ed. J. von 
 Antoniewicz (Deutsche Litteraturdenkmale des 18. und 19. Jahrh., 26), Heil- 
 bronn, 1887.
 
 CHAP. II.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 251 
 
 secretary to the Saxon embassy, Schlegel came into personal 
 touch with the Moliere of the North, Ludwig Holberg. 
 About this time, it may be noted, Holberg's comedies were 
 even more popular on the German stage than Moliere's, and 
 his influence is conspicuous on an excellent comedy of Ham- 
 burg life, Der Bookesbeutel (1742), by Hinrich Borkenstein, 1 DerBookes- 
 which, in its rough humour and satire, throws the drama of * eute i, 
 
 1742. 
 
 the Saxon school completely into the shade. Hamburg still 
 remained the gate by which English literature found its way 
 into Germany : J. A. Ebert, a Hamburg contributor to the 
 renter Beytrdge (1723-95), translated, in 1751, Young's 
 Night Thoughts^ a poem which had a widespread influence 
 on the literature of the following decades. J. F. W. Zacharia J. F. w. 
 (1726-77), another poet of this group, is best remembered Zacharia, 
 by his comic epic Der Renommiste (1744)^ an imitation of 
 Boileau's Lutrin and Pope's Rape of the Lock. The " Renom- 
 mist " is a swaggering student who comes from the outer 
 darkness of Jena to Leipzig, the metropolis of fashion and 
 good taste ; his experiences and adventures give a good idea 
 of life in Leipzig before the middle of the eighteenth century. 
 
 One of the most gifted of the " Bremer Beitrager " was G. W. 
 
 Gottlieb Wilhelm Rabener, born at Wachau near Leipzig in Rabener 
 
 * 1714-71. 
 1714, and educated at the school of St Afra in Meissen. 
 
 Almost all the best intellect of Saxony at this time passed 
 through one or other of the three great " Fiirstenschulen " 
 founded at the Reformation from the wealth of demolished 
 monasteries in Meissen, Pforta, and Grimma. Adolf and 
 Elias Schlegel, and, a little later, Klopstock, were educated at 
 Pforta ; Cramer came from Grimma, and Gartner, Rabener, 
 Gellert, and Lessing from Meissen. Rabener did not make 
 a profession of literature, but only devoted his leisure to it : 
 he was an inspector of revenues in Dresden, where he died 
 in 1771. His satires are probably the least bitter that were 
 ever written ; satire in his eyes was little more than good- 
 natured irony. In the preface ( Vorbericht vom Misbrauche 
 der Satire) to his Sammlung satirischer Schriften (i75i-55), 3 
 Rabener states his principles : 
 
 1 Reprinted in the Litteraturdenkmale, 56, 57, Leipzig, 1896. 
 
 2 Cp. F, Muncker, I.e., 2, 243 ff. 
 
 3 A selection ed. A. Holder in Hendel's Bibliothek der Gesamtlitteratvr ties 
 In- und Auslandes, No. 217-219. Cp. Muncker, I.e., 2, i ff.
 
 252 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 C. L. 
 
 Liscow, 
 1701-60. 
 
 A. G. 
 
 Kastner, 
 1719-1800. 
 
 C. F. 
 
 Gellert, 
 1715-69. 
 
 " Wer den Namen eines Satirenschreibers verdienen will, dessen 
 Herz muss redlich seyn. Er muss die Tugend, die er andre lehrt, 
 fur den einzigen Grund des wahren Gliicks halten. Das ehrwiir- 
 dige der Religion muss seine ganze Seele erfullen. Nach der 
 Religion muss ihm der Thron des Fursten, und das Ansehen der 
 Obern das Heiligste seyn. . . . Er muss die Welt und das gantze 
 Hertz der Menschen, aber vor alien Dingen muss er sich selbst 
 kennen. Er muss liebreich seyn, wenn er bitter ist" (p. 9 ff.) 
 
 The satire inspired by such a spirit can obviously not rise 
 far above the commonplace interests of provincial life; at 
 the same time, Rabener was probably shrewd enough to 
 recognise that it would not have been politic to touch on 
 public affairs in the Saxony of Graf Briihl. His work is 
 characterised by a kindly ironical humour which makes it 
 more readable to-day than any other production of the 
 Saxon school, Gellert's Fables excepted. He did not at- 
 tempt to express himself in verse, but his prose is excellent 
 and compares favourably with that of a considerably later age. 
 
 Although Rabener was too good-natured to give much cause 
 for offence, there were two of his contemporaries who were less 
 scrupulous. C. L. Liscow (1701-60), who published in 1739 
 a Sammlung satyr ischer und ernsthafter Schriften^ has bitter- 
 ness enough at his command, but his satire often loses its 
 point by being diffuse ; moreover, his attacks are for the 
 most part directed against obscure literati, and soon ceased 
 to have an actual interest. A. G. Kastner (i7i9-i8oo), 2 
 Professor of Mathematics in Gottingen, yielded to the 
 temptation, which Gottsched's school encouraged, of writing 
 poetry on mathematical principles, but he stands out as the 
 most brilliant epigrammatist not excepting Lessing of his 
 time; his witty and stinging verses are forerunners of the 
 Xenien. Kastner's Vermischte Schriften appeared in two 
 volumes in 1755 and 1772. 
 
 The most popular writer of the Leipzig circle, and perhaps 
 the most universally popular in the history of German letters, 
 was Christian Fiirchtegott Gellert. Gellert was born near 
 Freiberg in Saxony in 1715, and died in Leipzig in 1769. 
 His success as a student in Leipzig was sufficient to justify 
 a university career ; in 1745 he became " Privatdocent," and 
 
 1 Cp. F. Muncker, I.e., 2, 49 ff. ; selections by A. Holder, Halle, 1901. 
 
 2 J. Minor, b'abeldichter, Satiriker und Popularphilosophen des 18. Jahr- 
 hunderls (D.N.L., 73 [1884]), 83
 
 CHAP. II.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 253 
 
 in 1751 Professor of Philosophy in the University of Leipzig. 
 The enthusiasm of his students knew no bounds, his lectures 
 being sometimes attended by an audience of four hundred ; 
 and outside the university his popularity was even greater. 
 Gellert was essentially a man of the people and beloved by 
 the people ; he had no higher ambition than that all classes 
 should be able to appreciate his writings. 
 
 " Mein grosster Ehrgeiz," he wrote in one of his letters, " besteht 
 darinn, dass ich den Verniinftigen dienen und gefallen will, und 
 nicht den Gelehrten im engen Verstande. Ein kluges Frauen- 
 zimmer gilt mir mehr, als eine gelehrte Zeitung und der niedrigste 
 Mann von gesundem Verstande ist mir wiirdig genug, seine 
 Aufmerksamkeit zu suchen, sein Vergntigen zu befdrdern, und ihm 
 in einem leicht zu behaltenden Ausdrucke gute Wahrheiten zu 
 sagen, und edle Empfindungen in seiner Seele rege zu machen." l 
 
 This was the secret of his popularity ; it also explains his 
 poetry. In Gellert's eyes, literature had only a right to exist 
 in so far as it furthered moral ends, and he wrote accordingly. 
 His comedies, of which Das Loos in der Lotterie (1747) is the 
 best, and his pastorals are in the style of Gottsched's school ; 
 the character-drawing occasionally shows some skill, but the 
 dialogue is unnatural and the plots are completely without 
 dramatic significance. More important is Gellert's only 
 novel, Leben der Schwedischen Grdfinn von G * * * (1747-48), 
 which may be regarded as the first social novel in German 
 literature. It is a remarkable blending of the type of novel Grqfinn, 
 cultivated by Lohenstein that is to say, the final stage in *747-4 8 - 
 the decay of medieval romance with the character novel of 
 modern literature. Gellert's professed model was Pamela, 
 but he preferred the adventures and coincidences, the 
 heartrending experiences and immoralities of the older 
 fiction to Richardson's simplicity. From the English novelist, 
 for whom he had unlimited admiration, Gellert at least learned 
 to make commonplace men and women interesting, and it 
 is needless to say that the moralising tone of Richardson 
 appealed strongly to him ; the sententious preaching of the 
 Schwedische Grdfinn forms a ludicrous contrast to the im- 
 proprieties of the narrative. As a letter -writer, Gellert ex- 
 erted a more lasting influence than as a novelist. In 1751 
 he published a collection of letters (Briefe, nebst einer 
 1 Quoted by J. A. Cramer, Gellerts Leben, Leipzig, 1774, 57.
 
 254 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 praktischen Abhandlung von dem guten Geschmacke in Briefen) 
 which remained recognised models of epistolary style for more 
 than twenty years. 
 
 His reputation now rests mainly upon his popular Fabeln 
 
 Fabelnund und Erzdhlungen (1746, I748), 1 in which the verses, although 
 wanting in the higher qualities of poetic writing, charm by 
 
 1746, 1748. their simplicity. The naive manner in which Gellert tells 
 his stories, cloaks the mediocrity of his poetic talent ; in- 
 deed, he succeeds by his very artlessness where a greater 
 poet might have failed. The sources of his fables are 
 extremely varied, Hagedorn and Lafontaine being obviously 
 the models. But Gellert must at least be given credit for 
 originality ; even in well - worn anecdotes he has an eye 
 for didactic possibilities which escaped his predecessors, 
 and his point of view is invariably his own. Hardly less 
 popular in their day than the Fabeln und Erzahlungen were 
 the Geistlichen Oden und Lieder (1757), but the absence of 
 real poetic inspiration naturally makes itself more felt in 
 verses of this nature. The Fables remain Gellert's chief work, 
 and, together with Rabener's satires, they may be said to 
 have been the most genuinely " home-grown " products of the 
 Saxon school. The eighteenth century was the golden age 
 of the fable in European literature, and Gellert at once 
 became the model for his contemporaries and successors. 
 His chief follower was M. G. Lichtwer (1719-83), whose 
 jfcsopische Fabeln appeared in 1748, and are hardly inferior 
 to those of his master. Independently of Gellert, a Swiss 
 writer, J. L. Meyer von Knonau (1705-85), published in 1744 
 a collection of Neue Fabeln, which show a close observation 
 of nature; while in the Fabeln (1783) of the Alsatian G. K. 
 Pfeffel (1736-1809), this literary genre begins to show traces 
 of decay. 2 
 
 The contributors to the Bremer Beitrage were not re- 
 formers ; they only put into practice the better elements 
 in Gottsched's reforms, avoiding his extremes. They sought 
 their models, with preference, in French literature, and success 
 meant to them a close imitation of those models, or, as in 
 the case of Rabener and Gellert, it was won in byways which 
 
 1 F. Muncker, I.e., i ; also ed. by K. Biedermann in the Bibl. d. deutschen 
 Nationallitt. des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, 30, Leipzig, 1871. 
 
 2 Cp. J. Minor, Fabeldichter (D.N.L., 73 [1884]); K. Goedeke, Grundrisz 
 xur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtvng, 2nd ed. , 4, 44 ff.
 
 CHAP. II.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 255 
 
 were of little consequence for the future development of 
 German literature. Their poetry was, in general, inspired 
 by reason rather than imagination ; they knew nothing of that 
 fervid enthusiasm for nature which breathes from Haller's 
 Swiss poems. Under these circumstances it is not difficult 
 to see that the publication of an epic such as the Messias, 
 the first three cantos of which appeared in the Bremer 
 Beytrdge in the spring of 1748, must necessarily have been 
 disastrous to the journal. With Klopstock's appearance 
 German literature took a sudden leap forward, and the 
 " Bremer Beitrager " seemed overnight to have been left 
 behind.
 
 256 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I. J. Pyra, 
 
 I7IS-44, 
 and S. G. 
 Lange, 
 1711-81. 
 
 THE PRUSSIAN POETS J KLOPSTOCK. 
 
 DURING the first half of the eighteenth century, the University 
 of Halle was the centre from which emanated almost every 
 new movement in German thought. At its foundation in 
 1694, it was the fountain-head of German Pietism; in 1707, 
 Christian von Wolff made it the focus of German rationalism, 
 and again, between 1735 and 1740, A. G. Baumgarten 
 (1714-62), Wolff's disciple, taught in Halle, and, under the 
 stimulus of Breitinger's poetic theories, laid the foundation 
 of a new philosophic science, aesthetics. His work on this 
 subject, ALsthetica, did not, it is true, begin to appear 
 until 1750, when Baumgarten had exchanged his chair in 
 Halle for one in Frankfort -on -the -Oder; but in his lectures 
 at Halle he naturally favoured the Swiss party rather than 
 Gottsched. It is thus not surprising that the younger literary 
 talents of the university should also have been partisans of 
 Bodmer and Breitinger. 
 
 I. J. Pyra (1715-44) and S. G. Lange (1711-81), who were 
 both students in Halle in 1737, came forward with Freund- 
 schaftliche Lieder^ which they wrote together, as champions of 
 a rhymeless poetry in antique metres, and were thus direct 
 forerunners of Klopstock. A year or two later, it was again 
 three students of Halle, Gleim, Uz, and Gotz, who laid the 
 foundations of the Anacreontic or Prussian school of poetry. 
 Anacreontic poetry is a specifically eighteenth-century type 
 of literature, and appeals as little as the fable to modern 
 tastes. Hagedorn had been the first to naturalise it in Ger- 
 many, and in the hands of the Prussian school it became 
 for a time the most characteristic form of the lyric. As 
 
 1 Ed. A. Sauer (Litteraturdcnkmale, 22), Heilbronn, 1885.
 
 CHAP. III.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 257 
 
 long as the German lyric was restricted to imitations of 
 Anacreon, there was naturally little room for the poetry of 
 feeling which Giinther had awakened to new life ; moreover, 
 the main source of poetic inspiration in this age was neither 
 sentiment nor nature, but the majestic figure of Frederick the 
 Great. 
 
 J. W. L. Gleim, 1 born in 1719, was a native of Thuringia. J. W. L. 
 After a few years, first as a student in Halle and then in ^J 
 Berlin, he settled in Halberstadt as secretary to the cathe- 
 dral chapter, later on becoming canon, and here he re- 
 mained until the close of his long life in 1803. As a poet, 
 Gleim did not rise above mediocrity, but he stood on an 
 intimate footing with the entire literary world, from Ewald 
 von Kleist to Heinrich von Kleist, and thus his reputation 
 was assured, irrespective of his talents. " Vater Gleim " 
 was always ready with assistance for all who turned to him, 
 and no one weighed too carefully his uninspired verses. 
 His first publication, Versuch in scherzhaften Liedern (1744), 
 was the beginning of endless Anacreontic imitations, and the 
 famous Preussischen Kriegslieder von einem Grenadier (1758) 
 made his reputation once and for all. The best thing about 
 these war-songs, which nowadays give an impression of 
 monotony, was their patriotic enthusiasm ; and this enthusi- 
 asm commended them to a public which had no thoughts for 
 their merits as poetry. Gleim was virtually the poet of the 
 Preussischen Kriegslieder and nothing else; his Fabeln (1756) 
 could not compare with Gellert's, and his oriental epic, 
 Halladat) oder das rothe Buck (1774), was hardly more 
 successful than were his imitations of the Minnesingers. 
 
 A sincerer and more gifted poet than Gleim was Johann J. P. Uz, 
 Peter Uz (if2o-g6), 2 born in Ansbach, the second of I 7 2 -9 6 - 
 the group of Anacreontic poets. In Uz's Lyrische Gedichte 
 (1749) the German Anacreontic is to be seen at its best. 
 Like Hagedorn, Uz had studied the lyric of other lands 
 industriously; he had learned not only from Horace, but 
 from the French poets. There is thus a Latin polish on 
 his verses, which balances the inevitable triviality of his 
 
 1 Anakreontiker vnd preursisc h - patrioti sc ht Lyriker, ed. F. Muncker, i 
 (D.N.L., 45, i [1894]), 177 ff. ; the Preussischen Kriegslieder are edited by A. 
 Sauer in the Littcraturdenkm., 4, Heilbronn, 1882. 
 
 a Sdmtliche Poetische Werke, ed. A. Sauer (Litteraturdenkm., 33-38), Stutt- 
 gart, 1890. Cp. F. Muncker, I.e., 2, 3 ff. 
 
 R
 
 258 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 themes. In his philosophic poems, of which Theodicte 
 (1755) is, on the whole, the most characteristic, Uz might 
 be claimed as a direct predecessor of Schiller. Der Sieg des 
 Liebesgottes (1755), on the other hand, is a comic epic in 
 which the poet follows, not unsuccessfully, in Zacharia's foot- 
 J. N. Gotz, steps. J. N. Gotz (1721-81), a native of Worms, was the 
 1721-81. ] east gift e( j o f the c i rc i e an d essentially a writer of "occa- 
 sional " verses. His familiarity with Latin and French 
 literature was no less extensive than that of his friend Uz, 
 but he wrote easily and brought the frivolous and insincere 
 side of the Anacreontic into prominence. 
 
 It seems almost incongruous to include the unhappy 
 E. c. von Prussian officer, Ewald Christian von Kleist (I7I5-59), 1 
 m ^ e 8 rou P f Anacreontic singers ; Kleist's heartfelt 
 poetry is no less strange in such surroundings than was 
 the poet himself in the military society of Potsdam. It was, 
 however, through Gleim's influence and friendship that Kleist 
 became a poet, Gleim being thus the link between the literary 
 movement, which originated in Halle, and the poets of 
 the Prussian capital. Ewald von Kleist is the most modern 
 poet of the Frederician age ; he is filled with a passionate 
 love for nature, and a melancholy lies upon his poetry 
 which was alien to the spirit of the " Aufklarung." Der 
 Der Friihling, the fragment of a descriptive poem suggested by 
 
 1749. tnSt Thomson's Seasons which Brockes had translated four years 
 earlier appeared in 1749, and laid the foundation of Kleist's 
 fame. The charm of his poetry lies in the warmth with 
 which nature's beauties are described ; spring appears to the 
 poet as a new revelation. 
 
 " Empfang mich, schattichter Hain, voll holier griiner Gewolbe ! 
 Empfang mich ! Fiille mil Ruh* und holder Wehmuth die Seele ! 
 Ftihr mich in Gangen voll Nacht zum glanzenden Throne der Tugend, 
 Der um sich die Schatten erhellt ! Lehr mich den Widerhall reizen 
 Zum Ruhm verjiingter Natur ! Und Ihr, Ihr lachenden Wiesen, 
 Ihr holde Thaler voll Rosen, von lauten Bachen durchirret, 
 Mit Euren Diiften will ich in mich Zufriedenheit ziehen 
 Und, wenn Aurora Euch weckt, mit ihren Strahlen sie trinken." 2 
 
 These are the opening lines of a poem which may be re- 
 garded as filling the gap between the older nature-poetry of 
 
 1 Werke, ed. A. Sauer, 3 vols., Berlin [1881-82]. Cp. F. Muncker, I.e., 2, 
 103 ff. 
 
 2 From the edition of 1756 (A. Sauer. i, 206 f.)
 
 CHAP. III.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 259 
 
 Brockes and Haller, and the fervid poetry of Klop- 
 stock and the writers who came after him. The happiest 
 years of Kleist's life were 1757 and 1758, when he came 
 into touch with the literary circles of Leipzig, and, above 
 all, was Lessing's intimate friend. To these years belong 
 the fine Ode an die Preussische Armee (1757), and the short 
 epic, Cissides und Paches (1759), the most polished of all 
 Kleist's poems. " Der edle Tod fiirs Vaterland," which he 
 himself had wished at the close of this poem, was not long 
 in coming; on August 12, 1759, he was severely wounded 
 in the battle of Kunersdorf. He fell into the hands of 
 the enemy, and assistance came too late to save him ; his 
 death took place on the 2 4th of August. 
 
 Although also, strictly speaking, no Anacreontic poet, Karl K. W. 
 Wilhelm Ramler (i 725-98) l was more akin than Kleist 
 to the school of Gleim and Uz. Ramler's verses are the 
 complete embodiment of the rationalistic classicism of 
 Frederick the Great and Voltaire. Had Frederick appointed 
 a German Court poet, his choice would undoubtedly have 
 fallen upon this " German Horace," who, for more than 
 thirty years, was the acknowledged leader of poetic taste 
 in Berlin. Ramler's verses (Lyrische Gedichte, 1772), with 
 their pedantic metrical correctness, were purely intellectual 
 exercises ; the imagination had nothing to do with them. 
 The pomp of the Roman ode and the graceful insincerities 
 of Horatian love -poetry are here clothed in German garb, 
 but they leave the reader cold; indeed, Ramler is a poet 
 only by virtue of what he borrows from his masters. The 
 last writer of the Prussian group to be mentioned is Anna A. L. 
 Luisa Karsch, or, according to the custom of the time, 
 Karschin (17 22-9 1), 2 one of the few German women of the 
 eighteenth century who made a serious profession of literature. 
 Frau Karsch became known about 1760, when she attracted 
 attention by verses in the patriotic style then fashionable. A 
 collection of her Auserlesene Gedichte appeared in 1763. She 
 possessed considerable fluency of expression, but little origi- 
 nality; her verse is mainly a mechanical reiteration of the 
 classical style and metres of her male contemporaries. In 
 a less artificial age, and amidst favourable surroundings, it 
 
 1 Cp. F. Muncker, I.e., 2, 199 ff. 
 
 2 Ibid., 2, 285 ff.
 
 26o 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Frederick 
 the Great, 
 1712-86. 
 
 F. G. 
 
 Klopstock, 
 1724-1803. 
 
 is possible that this "German Sappho," as she called her- 
 self, might have found a form of expression more congenial 
 to her talents than the Horatian ode ; Gleim and Ramler 
 were kindly patrons, but there was little likelihood of a writer 
 of genius learning anything in their school. 
 
 These, then, were the chief poets of the Frederician age : 
 no great poets certainly, but poets who reflected more or 
 less faithfully the Prussian spirit at the zenith of eighteenth- 
 century rationalism. Frederick the Great took little interest 
 in German literature his De la literature allemande (lySo) 1 
 shows a complete misunderstanding of the literary movement 
 of his time but, as a ruler, he unconsciously created the 
 conditions for a truer national literature than the Prussian 
 poets dreamed of. In the Frederick of the Seven Years' War 
 the German people discovered a national hero ; the cannon 
 of Rossbach awakened the nation to a pride and self- 
 confidence which swept away the servitude to French models, 
 and furthered the interests of literature to a greater extent than 
 Gottsched's battle with the Swiss. Thus the debt of German 
 literature to Frederick the Great was by no means confined 
 to the war-songs of Gleim and the classic homage of Ramler. 
 " Der erste wahre und hohere eigentliche Lebensgehalt," wrote 
 Goethe in Dichtung und Wahrheit, "kam durch Friedrich den 
 Grossen und die Thaten des siebenjahrigen Krieges in die 
 deutsche Poesie." 2 
 
 The genius of Klopstock was to the criticism of his time 
 what the acorn, to which Goethe in Wilhelm Meister compared 
 Hamlet, was to the costly jar. Since the early years of the 
 century, the Germans, as we have seen, had been more 
 busily engaged in theorising about what their literature 
 ought to be than in producing literature. The importance 
 of Klopstock's Messias is that it was the first actual creation 
 in modern German literature ; and when Cantos I.-III. of 
 this epic appeared in the spring of 1748, they shattered 
 the fabric of Gottsched's poetics, and reduced even the 
 theories of the Swiss, who had helped to put the young 
 poet on the right path, to a mere beating of the air. 
 Klopstock was the first German poet of the eighteenth 
 century who was in the best sense "born, not made," and, 
 
 1 Reprinted in the Litteraturdenkm., 16, Heilbronn, 1883. 
 3 Werke (Weimar edition), 27, 104.
 
 CHAP. III.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 26l 
 
 with his advent, the age of theorising came abruptly to an 
 end. 
 
 Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's native place was the old- Kiop- 
 world town of Quedlinburg, where he was born on the 2nd of j? f cks 
 July I724. 1 It is characteristic of Klopstock's poetic genius 
 that the Messias was conceived and in great part planned 
 while he was still a schoolboy ; at Schulpforta, where he had 
 been sent to school in 1739, the study of Homer, the Bible, 
 and, above all, of Milton's Paradise Lost, in Bodmer's trans- 
 lation (1732), inspired him with the ambition to give his 
 own people a great Christian epic. In 1745 Klopstock went 
 to Jena to study theology, and here the first three cantos 
 of the Messias were completed in prose ; in the following 
 year, in Leipzig, the prose was converted into hexameters, 
 and in 1748 the three cantos were published in the Bremer 
 Beytrdge. The first volume of the Messias, containing 
 Cantos I.-V., appeared in 1751; the second, in 1756, with 
 five more cantos. The third volume (Cantos XI. -XV.) was 
 not published until 1769; the fourth and last (Cantos XVI.- 
 XX.) in 1773, the year of the publication of Gb'tz von 
 Berlichingen. 
 
 In May 1748 Klopstock obtained a tutorship in Langen- 
 salza, where an unhappy passion for his cousin, Marie Sophie 
 Schmidt, the " Fanny " of his Odes, threw a shadow over his 
 life. His reputation, however, was rapidly spreading, and in 
 the summer of 1750 he accepted a pressing and generous 
 invitation from Bodmer, the first and most enthusiastic admirer Klopstock 
 of his epic, to visit him in Zurich. The visit was a dis- 
 appointment on both sides, a disappointment for which Klop- 
 stock was mainly to blame. Bodmer did not approve of the 
 readiness with which the young poet gave himself up to 
 worldly enjoyments in Zurich ; his tastes were little in har- 
 mony with Bodmer's ideal of a " Messiasdichter," and a 
 coolness sprang up between the two men which resulted in 
 all but a complete breach. After Klopstock had spent nearly 
 seven months in Switzerland, a prospect, held out to him 
 since his epic had made him famous, was realised : the King 
 of Denmark, Frederick V., invited him to make Copenhagen invitation 
 his home and to complete the Messias there. On his journey * c P en - 
 
 1 F. Muncker, F. G. Klopstock, Stuttgart, 1888 ; Werke, ed. R. Hamel, 4 
 vols. in D.N.L., 46-48 [1884].
 
 262 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 northward he spent some time in Hamburg, where he made 
 the acquaintance of Meta or Margareta Moller, the " Cidli " 
 of the Odes, who, in 1754, became his wife. His happiness, 
 however, was of short duration ; four years later Meta died, 
 and Klopstock's life again became unsettled. Copenhagen 
 virtually remained his home until 1770, when political changes 
 loosened his ties to Denmark ; he then retired to Hamburg, 
 without, however, losing his Danish pension. He died in 
 1803, and was buried in Ottensen, near Hamburg, with great 
 pomp and circumstance. 
 
 Der The Messias is a poem of nearly twenty thousand verses, 
 
 Messias, distributed over twenty cantos. Its theme, as set forth in the 
 opening verses, is Christ's redemption of mankind : 
 
 " Sing, unsterbliche Seele, der siindigen Menschen Erlosung, 
 Die der Messias auf Erden in seiner Menschheit vollendet, 
 Und durch die er Adams Geschlechte die Liebe der Gottheit 
 Mit dem Blute des heiligen Bundes von neuem geschenkt hat. 
 Also geschah des Ewigen Wille. Vergebens erhub sich 
 Satan wider den gottlichen Sohn ; umsonst stand Judaa 
 Wider ihn auf; er that's, und vollbrachte die grosse Versohnung." * 
 
 Klopstock takes up the narrative of the New Testament at the 
 point where Christ ascends the Mount of Olives this he 
 regards as the beginning of Christ's sufferings for the redemp- 
 tion of the race and closes with Christ taking His seat 
 on the right hand of God. But the Gospel narrative between 
 these two limits gives but a small idea of the contents of the 
 Messias. Klopstock, like his model, Milton, does not restrict 
 himself to the events that pass upon earth ; they, indeed, only 
 form a small part of the poem. Hosts of angels and devils 
 are marshalled before us, even the Trinity itself appears. The 
 poet penetrates, as it were, below the surface of the New 
 Testament, and attempts, after the manner of the classic 
 epic, to give every action and event a spiritual significance. 
 And yet, of all the religious poems of the world, the Messias 
 is unquestionably the most monotonous and difficult to 
 read. The fault lay not so much in the subject although 
 the section of Christ's life to which Klopstock restricted 
 himself was too meagre for so long an epic but in the 
 poet himself. Klopstock's genius was lyric rather than epic ; 
 he misunderstood, or perhaps never tried to understand, 
 
 1 Text of 1748 (R. Hamel's edition, i, 5).
 
 CHAP. III.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 263 
 
 the conditions of the religious epic. He did not see that 
 the method of Homer and Milton, the method which, with 
 unconscious art, the 'medieval poets followed, was the only 
 possible one ; the superhuman figures of a religious faith have 
 to be humanised, the spiritual to be materialised, to bring them 
 within human comprehension and sympathies. Klopstock 
 recoiled with the sensitiveness of that Pietism which forms 
 the background of his poem from such anthropomorphism ; 
 he sought to avoid it by drawing his superhuman figures 
 in vague indefinite outlines. But without humanly interesting 
 characters, dramatic action or movement is naturally im- 
 possible. It is this " divine inaction " of its personages that 
 makes it so difficult to follow the thread of the Messias. Klop- 
 stock describes " feelings " for us, not actions ; he swims in a 
 sea of lyric sentiment, and forgets even the first duty of an epic 
 poet, to describe something that happens. The line 
 
 "Also fliesse mein Lied voll Empfindung und seliger Einfalt" 1 
 
 might serve as a motto for the whole poem. 
 
 To the modern reader, the most attractive side of the 
 Messias is the grandiose flights of imagination which create 
 for the earlier cantos so spacious an atmosphere. The 
 awe-inspiring aspects of nature the roll of the thunder, 
 the majesty of the mountains, the eternities and infinities 
 here play a great part, and reveal an imaginative power 
 possessed by no other poet of the first half of the eighteenth 
 century. But the heaven -scaling enthusiasm of the earlier 
 cantos soon died out, and the more careful style of the latter 
 part of the poem seems nowadays but a poor substitute 
 for it. In the first three cantos is to be found the most 
 subtle essence of Klopstock's poetry. The fourth contains 
 some fine poetry, notably the description of the Last 
 Supper, but is tediously long. Perhaps the ripest cantos of 
 all are the three which follow, although the first poetic glow 
 is missing. From Canto VIII. onwards the inequalities 
 are more noticeable, and few readers have now patience to 
 read the second half of the poem at all. 
 
 Long before the Messias was concluded, it was left behind in 
 the rapidly advancing movement of German literature. A new 
 generation had arisen the "Sturmer und Dranger" who 
 
 1 Canto 4, 1. 1071 (i.e., i, 215).
 
 264 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 cared little for the passive sentimentality of Klopstock, and 
 demanded instead the fierce action and plastic figures of the 
 theatre ; Shakespeare, not Milton, was the master to whom 
 they looked up. Thus the wild enthusiasm that greeted 
 Klopstock's epic at the middle of the century had, in less than 
 twenty years, completely cooled. The public that remained 
 faithful to the old poet consisted, for the most part, of 
 sentimental readers who feared lest he should be too hard- 
 hearted to pardon his contrite devil, Abbadona, at the Last 
 Judgment. To realise the epoch-making nature of the 
 Messias, it must be remembered that it was, for its time, the 
 first German epic; in 1748 Germany knew nothing of her 
 older epic literature the Heliand and the Nibelungenlied, 
 Parzival and Tristan. We must look into the tedious poetry 
 that preceded the Messias, into C. H. Postel's Grosser Witte- 
 kind (1724) and the Alexandrine epics already referred to, by 
 Besser, Konig, Pietsch, and Triller, to understand how great 
 an innovator Klopstock really was. But the Messias came too 
 late, or rather German literature advanced too rapidly to allow 
 of it creating a school; the imitations of the epic were of 
 little value. Bodmer was the most industrious of Klopstock's 
 followers, and his Noah (1750-52) the first of a long series of 
 epics of this class, each of which was inferior to its prede- 
 cessor. Both Lavater and Wieland, to mention two other 
 writers, whom we shall meet with later on, wrote Biblical 
 epics in their youth. 
 
 Although the Messias has now virtually passed into the 
 limbo of unread books, Klopstock's lyric poetry still retains 
 its hold upon our interest. Klopstock wrote lyrics all his life 
 long, and for the most part in the rhymeless and antique 
 measures which Pyra and Lange, it will be remembered, intro- 
 duced into modern German poetry. Klopstock first collected 
 Oden, 1771. and published his lyrics under the generic title of Oden in 
 1771. These Odes, of which the complete collection embraces 
 no less than 229 poems, 1 show essentially the same general 
 development that is to be observed in the Messias ; the early 
 ones, those to his Leipzig friends and to " Fanny," are filled 
 with the same spirit as the first three cantos of the 
 epic. An intense religious fervour permeates them all, and 
 
 1 Ed. F. Muncker and J. Pawel, Stuttgart, 1889 ; in Hamel's edition, vol. 3 
 (D.N.L., 47).
 
 CHAP, ill.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 265 
 
 even overflows into the love poetry. Later comes the calmer 
 
 verse dedicated to Meta ("Cidli"), which in turn gives place 
 
 to poetry inspired by the Germanic past, and, later still, 
 
 to odes expressing the poet's disappointed hopes in the 
 
 French Revolution. In 1758, and again in 1769, Klopstock, 
 
 it may be noted, published two volumes of Geistliche Lieder, 
 
 but they are much inferior to the Odes. His supreme import- Klopstock 
 
 ance for the development of German poetry is to be sought as ^^ 
 
 in his lyric poetry; notwithstanding his un-German metres, 
 
 it was he who freed the lyric from the false classicism 
 
 of the Prussian poets, and led it back to the true national 
 
 form which was to reach perfection in Goethe. In poems 
 
 of which Die friihen Grdber (1764) may be taken as a 
 
 specimen, Klopstock discovered again the spring of German 
 
 lyric feeling : 
 
 " Willkommen, o silberner Mond, 
 Schoner, stiller Gefahrt der Nacht ! 
 Du entfliehst? Eile nicht, bleib, Gedankenfreund ! 
 Sehet, er bleibt, das Gewdlk wallte nur bin. 
 
 Des Mayes Erwachen ist nur 
 Schoner noch, wie die Sommernacht, 
 Wenn ihm Thau, hell wie Licht, aus der Locke trauft, 
 Und zu dem Hugel herauf rothlich er komt. 
 
 Ihr Edleren, ach es bewachst 
 Eure Maale schon ernstes Moos ! 
 O wie war gliicklich ich, als ich noch mit euch 
 Sahe sich rothen den Tag, schimmern die Nacht." J 
 
 Comparing Klopstock with Milton, Herder once remarked 
 that a single ode by the German poet outweighed the whole 
 lyric literature of Britain. Such a judgment, strange as it 
 may seem to-day, is, at least, a testimony to the esteem in 
 which Klopstock was held by his contemporaries. 
 
 Passing over the dream of a literary commonwealth em- 
 bodied in Klopstock's Deutsche Gelehrtenrepublik (1774), one 
 of the best of the many quixoteries of eighteenth-century 
 literature, we have still to consider a side of his activity 
 which appealed as strongly to his contemporaries as did the 
 Messias. Klopstock wrote six dramas of which three were on Klop- 
 Biblical themes : Der Tod Adams (1757), which was translated 
 into the chief European tongues, Salomo (1764) and David 
 1 Hamel's edition, 3, IIQ,
 
 266 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 (1772); the others were what their author called "Bardiete" 
 a word suggested by the barditus of Tacitus and 
 form a trilogy on the national hero Hermann or Arminius. 
 Hermanns Schlacht appeared in 1769, Hermann und die 
 Fiirsten in 1784, and Hermanns Tod in 1787. These dramas, 
 which are written in prose interspersed with "bardic" songs 
 and choruses, possess much lyric beauty, but are in no sense 
 dramatic. They came upon the crest of a literary move- 
 ment which found its way to Germany from England, where 
 Macpherson's Ossian had revealed the charm that lay in 
 primitive literature. The first German translation of Ossian 
 appeared in 1764, and kindled an enthusiasm which was 
 even more abiding in its influence than was the Ossian-fever 
 in England, for it awakened the German people to a serious 
 interest in their own past. 
 
 In this " bardic " movement three other poets are associated 
 
 with Klopstock : Michael Denis (1729-1800), K. F. Kretsch- 
 
 H. W. von mann (1738-1809), and H. W. von Gerstenberg (1737- 
 
 SyTysj- l82 3)- 1 The first and > at tne same time > the last of these 
 1823! " bards " was Gerstenberg : the first because with the Gedicht 
 
 eines Skalden (1766), a poem inspired by Ossian, he intro- 
 duced bardic poetry to German literature; the last, because 
 he represents the transition from Klopstock to the " Sturm und 
 Drang." Gerstenberg was a more gifted poet than either 
 Denis or Kretschmann, but he is now chiefly remembered by 
 his gruesome tragedy, Ugolino (1768), in which the passivity 
 of Klopstock had already given place to the drastic theatrical 
 effects of the younger writers. To this tragedy, as well as 
 K. F. to Gerstenberg's critical activity, we shall return. Kretsch- 
 
 Kretsch- mann, the noisiest and most tasteless of the group, was but 
 1738-1809. meagrely gifted. His Gesang Rhingulfs des JBarden, Als 
 Varus geschlagen war (1768), which was enthusiastically 
 received on its appearance, might serve as a typical specimen 
 M. Denis, of this whole class of poetry. Denis, the chief Austrian 
 1729-1800. representative of the "bards," made his reputation as a 
 translator of Ossian (1768-69), and in 1772 published a 
 collection of his own poems under the title Lieder Sineds 
 des Barden (the anagram in "Sined" being obvious). His 
 
 1 Klopstocks Hermanns Schlacht und das Bardenwesen des 18. JaArA., ed. by 
 R. Hamel (Klopstocks Werke, 4, D.N.L., 48 [1884]). On Denis, cp. P. von 
 Hofmann-Wellenhof, M. Denis, Innsbruck, 1881.
 
 CHAP. III.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 26? 
 
 services in popularising North German literature in Austria 
 were, however, more lasting and important than his own 
 contributions to German poetry. On the whole, the "bardic" 
 movement was a well-meaning revolt against the artificial 
 classicism of the Prussian school of lyric poets, but, as even 
 contemporaries recognised, it was on too narrow a basis to 
 become genuinely national. Within a very few years it had 
 either been identified with the "Sturm und Drang," or its 
 ideas had been appropriated by the members of the Gottingen 
 " Dichterbund." 
 
 A writer who stands somewhat apart from the feverish 
 development of German literature in the eighteenth century 
 was Salomon Gessner (I730-88). 1 He was one of those S. Gessner, 
 gentle, retiring writers who, while harking back to the literary z 73o-88. 
 ideals of the Renaissance, shared at the same time the love 
 for nature of his age : Gessner's Idyllen was the most popular 
 German book in Europe before the appearance of Werther. 
 Born in Zurich in 1730, he came to Berlin at the age of 
 nineteen to learn the trade of a bookseller, but art and litera- 
 ture were more to his taste. He began by writing verses in 
 the style of the Anacreontic school, but, following Ramler's 
 suggestion, tried prose and found in it a congenial mode of 
 expression.' The famous Idyllen (1756 and 1772), the pas- 
 toral romance, Daphnis (1754), and even his epic on the 
 Tod Abels (1758), are written, not, as might be expected, 
 in verse, but in a delicately balanced prose. Artificial in 
 the extreme is the rococco world of sighing shepherds and 
 coy shepherdesses, but the power which the " Swiss Theoc- 
 ritus" possessed of conveying to his readers his own warm 
 love for nature was, at least, genuine ; the tentative descriptive 
 poetry of Brockes and Haller was here raised to a higher plane. 
 
 1 Ed. A. Frey in D.N.L., 41 [1884]. Cp. H. Wolfflin, Salomon Gessner, 
 Frauenfeld, 1889.
 
 268 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 G. E. IN the autumn of 1746, after a promising school career at 
 
 Lessing, t ^ e Fiirstenschule of St Afra in Meissen, Gotthold Ephraim 
 Lessing l became a student of the University of Leipzig. He 
 was in his eighteenth year, having been born at Kamenz, 
 in the Oberlausitz in Saxony, on the 22nd of January 1729. 
 Leipzig, as he found it, was essentially the Leipzig of the 
 "Bremer Beitrager." Gottsched, it is true, was no longer 
 the unquestioned dictator of German literature, but the first 
 cantos of the Messias had not yet appeared. Although 
 Lessing did not belong to the coterie which contributed to 
 the Beitrcige his chief friends were Kastner the epigram- 
 matist, and a journalist, C. Mylius his early literary work 
 was exclusively influenced by the Saxon school. The centre 
 of his interests was not the university, but, to the consterna- 
 tion of his family his father was a pastor the theatre. 
 He was on friendly terms with the actors of Frau Neuberin's 
 Early company, and in the beginning of 1748 his first play, Der 
 
 dramas. junge Gelehrte, which throws an interesting light on his own 
 personality at this time, was publicly produced by them. 
 The best drama of his student years is the comedy Der 
 Misogyn (1748), originally in one act, but at a later date 
 revised and extended to three ; it is, however, wholly in the 
 style and tone of the comedy of the time. 
 
 Meanwhile, in his studies, Lessing turned from theology 
 to medicine, but in 1748 his university career came to an 
 
 1 E. Schmidt, Lessing ; Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Schriften, 2 vols., 
 2nd ed., Berlin, 1899; Samtliche Schriften, edited by K. Lachmann, 3rd ed. 
 by F. Muncker, 15 vols., Stuttgart, 1886-1900. In D.N.L., edited by R. 
 Boxberger and H. Bliimner, vols. 58-71 [1883-90].
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 269 
 
 abrupt close. His theatrical friends found themselves in 
 difficulties and left Leipzig suddenly, and, as Lessing had 
 become surety for part of their debts, he too was obliged to 
 make his escape. In November he settled in Berlin, where, Lessing in 
 with the exception of the winter of 1751-52, which he spent 1Serlm ' 
 in Wittenberg, he remained until 1755. ^ n Berlin, Lessing's 
 interest in the theatre was unabated, but the original plays 
 written at this time show little advance upon what he had 
 already done. Two alone still possess some interest, Der 
 Freygeist (1749), which treats a theme that lay near to 
 Lessing's heart namely, that a freethinker need not be a 
 villain and Die Juden (1749), a forerunner of Nathan der 
 Weise. His lesser poetical attempts, which were published 
 in 1751, under the title Kleinigkeiten, are not, with the ex- 
 ception of some of the epigrams, conspicuously original. 
 
 In conjunction with Mylius, who had become editor of the First 
 Berlinische privilegirte Zeitung, Lessing planned a quarterly ^"[^.L 
 journal with the title Beytrdge zur Historic und Aufnahme 1749-55.' 
 des Theaters (1750). The plan, however, was on too vast 
 a scale to be successful; only four parts appeared, the chief 
 contents of which were a Leben des Plautus, and a translation 
 and criticism of the Captivi, all by Lessing himself. In the 
 preface to these Beytrdge dated October, 1749 Lessing 
 first stated his opinion that the future of the German national 
 theatre lay in an imitation of the English rather than of the 
 French drama. His best critical writing during this period 
 appeared in the Berlinische privilegirte Zeitung, and in a 
 monthly supplement of this paper, Das Neueste aus dem 
 Reiche des Witzes, which was written exclusively by Lessing 
 from April to December, 1751. In these book - reviews, 
 which cover the entire field of literature, Lessing's genius 
 first reveals itself. His attitude towards the literature of 
 his time is strictly impartial; he belongs to no school. His 
 judgments are clear and decisive, and expressed with a terse- 
 ness and directness hitherto unknown in German literary 
 criticism. In 1753, Lessing, feeling his position as a man 
 of letters assured, began to publish a collected edition of 
 his Schrifften (6 vols., 1753-55). In the second of these 
 volumes he had criticised briefly a translation of Horace 
 by S. G. Lange, who has been already mentioned as joint- 
 author with Pyra of the Freundschaftlichen Lieder. Lange
 
 270 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Vade 
 
 Mecum fur 
 S. G. 
 Lange, 
 1754- 
 
 Moses 
 Mendels- 
 sohn, 1729- 
 86. 
 
 C. F. 
 
 Nicolai, 
 
 Lessing's 
 
 Rettungen, 
 
 1753-54- 
 
 resented Lessing's criticism, and contemptuously described 
 his works, owing to the small size of the volumes, as 
 " Vademecums." Lessing promptly replied with an anni- 
 hilating Vade Mecum fiir den Hrn. Sam. Gotth. Lange (1754), 
 in which he submitted the translation to a searching criticism 
 and completely destroyed Lange's small literary prestige as 
 the head of the older Halle school. 
 
 The last part of Lessing's residence in Berlin was one 
 of the brightest periods in his life ; his work met with en- 
 couraging success, and in these years he made two of his 
 warmest friendships, with Mendelssohn and Nicolai. Moses 
 Mendelssohn (1729-86), who had fought his way with heroic 
 perseverance from a humble rank to a position of respect 
 and influence in the intellectual life of the capital, is best 
 remembered by his Phadon (1767),* a popular treatise in the 
 form of conversations on the immortality of the soul, but two 
 years earlier he had published a volume of letters Uber die 
 Empfindung. In the essay entitled Pope ein Metaphysiker I 
 (1755), which he wrote in conjunction with Lessing, the line 
 of argument is obviously Lessing's, not Mendelssohn's. C. F. 
 Nicolai (i733-i8u) 2 was a bookseller of Berlin, and, in his 
 earlier years, as Lessing's friend and ally, he exerted a healthy 
 influence on the development of literature ; he also wrote 
 a novel, the celebrated Sebaldus Nothanker (1773), which, 
 although not so much a story as a rationalistic tract against 
 orthodoxy, gives an admirable picture of the time, and his 
 Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und die Schweiz 
 (1783), which in a subsequent edition was extended to twelve 
 volumes, has a similar interest. Later, as the chief rep- 
 resentative of rationalism in literature, Nicolai parodied 
 Werther, was the butt of many of Goethe and Schiller's 
 Xenten, and fought tooth and nail against the young Roman- 
 tic school. In company with these two friends, Lessing 
 began in 1759 the Brief e die neueste Litteratur betreffend^ 
 a review to which we shall return shortly. But before 
 this date he had opened the series of his writings on 
 theological subjects with a volume of Rettungen (1753-54) 
 vindications of thinkers whose reputations had suffered 
 
 1 J. Minor, Fabeldichter, Satiriker und Popularphilosophen. des 18. Jahrh. 
 (D.N.L., 73 [1884]), 211 ff. 
 
 2 J. Minor, Lessing s Jugcndfreunde (D.N.L., 72 [1883]), 275 ff.
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 2/1 
 
 under the bigotry of theologians and, under the influence 
 of Voltaire, with whom he had come into personal contact 
 a year or two before, he became a zealous partisan in the 
 chief intellectual conflict of his time, that between orthodoxy 
 and rationalism. 
 
 In 1755 Lessing again came forward as a dramatist, this 
 time with a work which occupies almost as prominent a posi- 
 tion in the history of the German drama as the Messias in Ger- 
 man poetry ; Miss Sara Sampson, ein biirgerliches Trauerspiel, Miss Sara 
 gave the deathblow to the dramatic theories of Gottsched's 
 school, and laid the foundation of a national drama. This 
 play was a practical illustration of Lessing's assertion that the 
 salvation of the drama was only to be effected by shaking 
 off the trammels of French classicism and imitating 'the freer, 
 more natural style of the English drama. The " biirgerliche 
 Trauerspiel " itself, the tragedy of common life, was an English 
 growth, and it was George Lillo's Merchant of London (1731), 
 the most popular English play of this class, which suggested 
 to Lessing the form and outline of Miss Sara Sampson. In 
 another English source, Richardson's Clarissa (1748), he 
 found a model for his heroine and the tearful sentimentality 
 which appealed to the taste of the time. The plot of Miss 
 Sara Sampson, which was produced at Frankfort - on - the- 
 Oder on the loth of July 1755, before an audience bathed 
 in tears, is briefly as follows. Sara has eloped with her 
 lover Mellefont Lessing borrows the names of all his char- 
 acters from Congreve or Richardson and they are living 
 together at an inn, where Marwood, a former mistress of 
 Mellefont's, discovers them. She informs Sara's father of 
 his daughter's hiding-place and induces Mellefont to grant 
 her an interview with Sara. Under a false name, Marwood 
 endeavours to enlist Sara's sympathy on her own behalf and 
 to turn her against her lover. When she hears that Sampson 
 is willing to forgive his daughter, she again visits Sara and 
 poisons her. Sara dies at her father's feet and Mellefont stabs 
 himself with a dagger which he has wrested from Marwood. 
 The sentiment of Miss Sara Sampson is in the highest degree 
 lachrymose, its dialogue often tedious, and its character-drawing 
 crude ; in less than twenty years it was out of date. But it 
 was the forerunner of Emilia Galotti and Kabale und Liebe> 
 and the first of those plays of social life and social problems
 
 272 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Die Thea- 
 traliiche 
 Bibliothek, 
 1754-58. 
 
 Again in 
 Leipzig. 
 
 J. F. von 
 Cronegk, 
 I73I-58. 
 
 T. W. von 
 Bra we, 
 1738-58. 
 
 C. F. 
 
 Weisse, 
 1726-1804. 
 
 which, since the end of the eighteenth century, have formed 
 a constant element in the dramatic literature of Northern 
 Europe. 
 
 The theoretical background of Miss Sara Sampson is to be 
 found in the Theatralische Bibliothek (1754-58). This, 
 Lessing's second dramatic review, was hardly more successful 
 than its predecessor, but its contents were attractive. It 
 opened with a tre.itise, Von dem lueinerlichen oder ruhrenden 
 Lustspiele, discussed Thomson, Dryden, Destouches, Seneca, 
 and neglected neither the Spanish nor the Italian drama. 
 Lessing, however, had not yet realised the greatness of 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Between the production of Miss Sara Sampson and the 
 summer of 1758 Lessing was mainly in Leipzig, where 
 Ewald von Kleist and he became warm friends ; he had 
 also the prospect of seeing Europe as travelling companion 
 to a young man of wealth, but the Seven Years' War 
 broke out before the travellers had got very far and necessi- 
 tated a speedy return. In Leipzig the drama was again 
 the centre of his interests, but none of his own plans 
 ripened until later. Although the playwrights whom Lessing 
 found there were not likely to throw the author of Miss 
 Sara Sampson into the shade, they were, none the less, 
 more gifted than the " Bremer Beitrager " of his student 
 days. J. F. von Cronegk (1731-58), the author of a prize 
 tragedy Codrus and an unfinished Olint und Sophronia, 
 belonged to the classical school of Gottsched, but his verse is 
 of a higher order. Lessing himself hoped much from J. W. 
 von Brawe (1738-58), a scholar of his own, who, although 
 he died when he was only twenty, left two plays of remark- 
 able promise, Der JFreygeist, a " biirgerliches Trauerspiel," 
 and Brutus, one of the earliest plays in the rhymeless iambics 
 of the German classical drama. C. F. Weisse (1726-1804), 
 again, had been a fellow-student of Lessing's at the University, 
 and together they had translated French tragedies for Frau 
 Neuberin. Weisse had considerable talent as a writer for 
 the stage, but he preferred to exercise it in those easy com- 
 promises that lead to popular success ; his literary ideals were 
 neither high nor stable. His most frequently played tragedies, 
 Richard III. (1759) and Romeo und Julie (1767), are adapta- 
 tions from Shakespeare. Weisse had more success with
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 273 
 
 another form of dramatic literature he was virtually the 
 creator of the modern German "Singspiel." Die Jagd (1770) 
 and Die Liebe auf dem Lande (1768), for which J. A. Hiller 
 (1728-1804) composed the music, were long favourite pieces 
 on the German stage. 1 
 
 After Kleist's death, Leipzig lost its attraction for Lessing, 
 and in May, 1758, he returned to the old friends in Berlin. 
 The principal event of his third period of residence here 
 was his share in the Briefe die neueste Litter atur betreffend Die 
 (1759-65). This was virtually a literary periodical in the ^gf e at 
 form of letters addressed to a fictitious officer who was as- 1759-65. 
 sumed to have been wounded in the war. In the early 
 numbers, the three friends, Nicolai, Mendelssohn, and Lessing 
 contributed the entire contents; when Lessing's connection 
 with the review ceased he wrote, in all, fifty-four letters 
 his place was taken by Thomas Abbt, to whom we shall 
 return in a subsequent chapter. Lessing r s contributions to 
 the Litteraturbriefe form one of the monuments of eigh- 
 teenth-century criticism ; here is concentrated all that was 
 best in the aesthetic theories of that century the revolt 
 against classicism and the return to the antique, the effort 
 to be natural and true, the striving towards law and method. 
 Lessing's criticisms cover most of the important publications 
 of the day : Wieland and Klopstock are admirably judged ; 
 the historical tragedy, the wretched quality of translations, 
 the pretensions of the theologians of Copenhagen headed 
 by Cramer, are discussed with clearness and logical precision. 
 Above all, Shakespeare is defended against the accusation 
 of barbarism brought against him by the " classical " critics, 
 and in one of the most brilliant paradoxes in the history of 
 criticism, Lessing boldly asserts that Shakespeare more faith- 
 fully observed the Aristotelian laws than Corneille and Racine. 
 He saw more promise for the German drama in the popular 
 pieces which Gottsched would have banished, than in imita- 
 tions of French classics ; and as a proof, he quoted the frag- 
 ment of a drama by himself on the subject of Faust (1759), 
 which gives noble expression to the ideals of the " Aufklarung." 
 
 1 On Weisse, Cronegk and Bra we, with selections from their writings, cp. T. 
 Minor, Lessings J ugendfreunde (D.N.L., 72 [1883]) ; on Brawe see also A. 
 Sauer's monograph in Quellen und Forschungen 30, Strassburg, 1878, and on 
 Weisse, J. Minor, C. !'. Weisse und seine Beziehungen xurdeutschen Litteratur 
 des 18. Jahrh,, Innsbruck, 1880. 
 
 S
 
 274 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IY. 
 
 Fabeln, 
 
 Philotas, 
 
 1759- 
 
 J.J. 
 
 Winckel- 
 mann, 
 1717-68. 
 
 Die Kuml 
 des Alter- 
 thums, 
 1764. 
 
 Lessing's Literary Letters, although their spirit is purely of 
 the eighteenth century, are, in the essentials of method, the 
 foundation of modern criticism. Here, for the first time, an 
 attempt is made to criticise reasonably and scientifically, to 
 keep the judgment free from the tyranny of tradition on 
 the one hand, and from empiricism on the other. In these 
 letters is to be found the justification for Macaulay's claim 
 that Lessing was "the first critic in Europe." 
 
 The Literary Letters did not occupy all Lessing's attention 
 at this time. In collaboration with Ramler, he edited Logau's 
 Epigrams ; he also translated Diderot's dramatic works, 
 published a collection of prose Fabeln (1759) of his own, 
 introduced by an essay on the Fable, and completed Philotas 
 (1759), a tragic dramatic episode in one act, inspired by 
 the war. In the autumn of 1760 he left Berlin once more, 
 having accepted the remunerative position of secretary to 
 General Tauentzien, the governor of Breslau. Here (1760-65) 
 his two next important works, the Laokoon and Minna von 
 Barnhelm, were in great part written. 
 
 In the Laokoon, Lessing is associated with another of the 
 master-minds of the eighteenth century, Johann Joachim 
 Winckelmann. 1 The son of a poor shoemaker, Winckelmann 
 was born at Stendal in the Mark of Brandenburg on December 
 9, 1717. With a heroism and singleness of purpose, which is 
 to be seen in so many men of the eighteenth century, he 
 made his way first to Dresden, and, in 1755, to Rome; in 
 1768, he was assassinated in Trieste. Although an intel- 
 lectual force of the first order, Winckelmann had strangely 
 little in common with the leading spirits of his century. Not 
 merely his interests, but even his temperament and character, 
 were different from theirs ; indeed, the secret of his ability 
 to see antique art with the eyes of its creators lay, perhaps, 
 in the fact that he was himself something of a Greek. 
 His master-work, the Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums 
 (1764), one of the most potent books of the eighteenth 
 century, laid the foundation of the history of art, regarded 
 as a branch of knowledge. According to modern ideas, 
 Winckelmann's creed was a somewhat narrow one, his de- 
 
 1 K. Justi, Winckelmann, sein Leben, seine Werke and seine Zeitgenossen, 3 
 vols., and ed., Leipzig, 1898. A convenient reprint of the Gedanken iiber die 
 Nac hahmung will be found in the Litteraturdenkm., 20, Heilbronn, 1885.
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 275 
 
 preciation of the Renaissance masters unjust, but no one 
 in the history of any art or science achieved so much single- 
 handed ; he has been well compared with old navigators 
 who discovered unknown continents. While still in Dresden, 
 Winckelmann declared war against the rococo, and in his 
 first work, Gedancken iiber die Nachahmung der Griechischen 
 Wercke in der Mahlerey und Bildhauer-Kunst (1754), he 
 wrote the famous words which, like a magic key, opened the 
 world of ancient art to the eighteenth century : 
 
 " Das allgemeine vorziigliche Kennzeichen der Griechischen 
 Meisterstiicke ist eine edle Einfalt, und eine stille Grosse, so wohl 
 in der Stellung als im Ausdruck. So wie die Tiefe des Meers 
 allezeit ruhig bleibt, die Oberflache mag no'ch so wiiten, eben so 
 zeiget der Ausdruck in den Figuren der Griechen bey alien Leiden- 
 schaften eine grosse und gesetzte Seele." 1 
 
 This statement forms the nucleus of Lessing's Laokoon : oder Der Lao- 
 iiber die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie (i"j66), z only the koon ' I76 
 first part of which was ever completed. Winckelmann had 
 compared unfavourably the agonising cries in Virgil's descrip- 
 tion of Laokoon and his sons with the silent suffering of the 
 plastic figures ; Lessing pointed out that the aim of Virgil, as of 
 the unknown sculptor of the Laokoon the aim of Sophocles, 
 whose Philoktetes is also not a silent sufferer was "beauty," 
 and that the difference between their manner of expressing 
 pain was an inevitable consequence of the nature of their 
 art. The sculptor who appeals solely to the eye is obliged 
 to express a feeling or sentiment by other means than the 
 poet who appeals to the mind through the ear : the medium 
 of the one artist is space, in which everything can be said at 
 once ; the other has to express himself in time, that is to say, 
 one thought follows the other. The supreme importance 
 of Lessing's treatise, which at bottom is a supplement to, 
 rather than a contradiction of, Winckelmann's work, is that 
 it swept away the confused ideas that existed as to the 
 proper province of poetry. Owing to too literal an interpre- 
 tation of Horace's " ut pictura poesis," descriptive poetry 
 which aimed solely at doing what the painter could do far 
 better, had long been rampant in European literature ; Lessing 
 gave such poetry its deathblow. Many of the ideas of the 
 
 1 Reprint, 24. 
 
 a Ed. H. Bliimner. 2nd ed., Berlin, 1880.
 
 2/6 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Laokoon, it is true, have lost their force beside the more 
 catholic aesthetics of Romanticism, but, by denning the 
 boundaries of the various arts, Lessing introduced a new 
 principle into aesthetics which influenced the whole later 
 development of the science. 
 
 Lessing's position as a critic was now established beyond 
 question, and, shortly after the Laokoon, he published another 
 work which at once placed him at the head of the dramatic 
 Minna von writers of his time. Minna von Barnhelm, the first masterpiece 
 ffarnkeim, o f Q erman comedy, was written chiefly in Breslau in 1763, 
 but did not appear until 1767, in the new edition of Lessing's 
 works. " If," wrote Lessing to Ramler, " it is not better than 
 all my former dramatic pieces, I am firmly resolved to have 
 nothing more to do with the theatre," 1 and his confidence 
 in his new work was certainly not misplaced. Minna von 
 Barnhelm, although, like all Lessing's creative work, open 
 to the criticism of being deficient in originality, is, none the 
 less, a masterpiece of eighteenth-century comedy. Lessing 
 had not the inventive faculty of the born poet ; his motives, 
 his situations, and characters are reminiscent of his vast 
 reading in the dramatic literature of Europe. Shakespeare, 
 Farquhar, Moliere, and Goldoni have all contributed to the 
 plot and motives of Minna von Barnhelm ; but what is best 
 about the drama is its close touch with the events and ideas 
 of the time. It is, as Goethe said, " die wahrste Ausgeburt 
 des siebenjahrigen Krieges, die erste, aus dem bedeutenden 
 Leben gegriffene Theaterproduction, von specifisch tempor- 
 arem Gehalt." 2 The characters of the play, whatever may 
 have been their models, are themselves living and actual. 
 Major von Tellheim, the Prussian officer with the extra- 
 ordinarily keen sense of honour, was undoubtedly modelled 
 on Lessing's friend Kleist, and Just and Werner are not 
 less convincing portraits of the men who fought under 
 Frederick the Great. Tellheim has been dismissed at the 
 close of the war under circumstances which unjustly reflect 
 upon his good name ; his sense of honour forbids him to 
 hold Minna von Barnhekn, a Saxon heiress, to her engage- 
 ment with him. She, however, accompanied by her maid 
 Franziska and her uncle, who does not appear until the 
 
 1 Letter of August 20, 1764. 
 
 2 Dlchtung und IVahrheit, 7 ( Werke 27, 107).
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 2/7 
 
 close of the drama, comes to Berlin and alights at the 
 same inn where Tellheim has taken up his quarters. In- 
 deed, she is the unwitting cause of Tellheim being turned 
 out of his rooms by the avaricious innkeeper, who prefers 
 the new guests to a disbanded officer of uncertain means. 
 Indignant at the treatment to which he is subjected, Tellheim 
 moves to another inn, leaving the landlord a ring as payment 
 of his debt. The landlord shows the ring to Minna, who at 
 once recognises it and advances the required sum upon it. 
 She arranges a meeting with Tellheim without, of course, re- 
 vealing her name. The major is taken by surprise, but is not 
 to be moved from his intention ; in vain Minna endeavours 
 to show him that his ideas of honour are exaggerated : 
 
 " V. Tellheim. Horen Sie, mein Fraulein. Sie nennen mich 
 Tellheim ; der Name trift ein. Aber Sie meynen, ich sey cler 
 Tellheim, den Sie in Ihrem Vaterlande gekannt haben ; der 
 bliihende Mann, voller Anspriiche, voller Ruhmbegierde ; der 
 seines ganzen Korpers, seiner ganzen Seele machtig war ; vor dem 
 die Schranken der Ehre und des Gliickes eroffnet standen : der 
 Ihres Herzens und Ihrer Hand, wann er schon ihrer noch nicht 
 wiirdig war, taglich wiirdiger zu warden hoffen durfte. Dieser 
 Tellheim bin ich eben so wenig, als ich mein Vater bin. Beide 
 sind gewesen. Ich bin Tellheim, der verabschiedete, der an seiner 
 Ehre gekrankte, der Kriippel, der Bettler. Jenem, mein Fraulein, 
 versprachen Sie Sich ; wollen Sie diesem Wort halten ? 
 
 "Das Fraulein. Das klingt sehr tragisch ! Doch, mein Herr, 
 bis ich jenen wieder finde, in die Tellheims bin ich nun einmal 
 vernarret, dieser wird mir schon aus der Noth helfen miissen. 
 Deine Hand, lieber Bettler ! (indent sie ihn bey der Hand ergreiff). 
 
 " V. Tellheim (der die andere Hand mit dem Hute vor das 
 Gesicht schlagt^ und sich von ihr abwendcf). Das ist zu viel ! 
 Wo bin ich ? Lassen Sie mich, Fraulein ! Ihre Giite foltert 
 mich ! Lassen Sie mich." J 
 
 Minna has recourse to strategy. She bids her maid dis- 
 close to Tellheim that her engagement with him, a Prussian 
 officer, has led to her being disinherited by her uncle. This 
 sweeps all Tellheim's pride away and brings him to Minna's 
 feet at once ; but it is now her turn to stand upon her 
 dignity. She refuses to be a burden to him and returns 
 him his ring. A letter arrives from the king exonerating 
 Tellheim from blame and reinstating him in his position; 
 but still Minna vows she will not take back the ring she 
 
 1 Act 2, sc. ( Werke, ed. K. Lachmann and F. Muncker, 2, 205).
 
 278 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 C. W. von 
 
 Gluck, 
 
 1714-87. 
 
 Die Ham- 
 burgische 
 Drama- 
 turgic, 
 1767-68. 
 
 has returned to him. Ultimately Tellheim recognises in it 
 his own ring which he had given to the landlord. Such, 
 in outline, is the plot of Minna -von Barnhelm, one of the 
 very few comedies of the eighteenth century which still have 
 power to interest a modern audience. 
 
 Had Lessing completed his Laokoon, he would probably 
 have devoted considerable space to the drama ; he might per- 
 haps even have paved the way for a right understanding of the 
 nature of ancient tragedy, and have suggested the possibility 
 which Herder discovered a few years later of a revival of 
 Greek ideals in the modern music-drama. It is significant 
 that just at this time a German musician, C. W. von Gluck 
 (1714-87), had taken the first steps towards such a revival. 
 Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice was produced at Vienna in 
 1762, his Alceste with its famous preface in 1767, and his 
 two operas on the subject of Iphigenia in 1774 and 1779. 
 While it is open to doubt whether Lessing would have dis- 
 cussed the music-drama, it may at least be assumed that 
 much of what was intended for the Laokoon passed over 
 into the Hamburgische Dramaturgic (1767-68). 
 
 In 1767, a number of wealthy Hamburg citizens resolved 
 to establish in that city a German National Theatre, and 
 Lessing accepted the appointment of critic and literary ad- 
 viser. From the beginning, however, the theatre was little 
 better than a failure, and after about eighteen months it was 
 compelled to close its doors ; but the Hamburg experiment 
 occupies an honourable place in the history of the German 
 drama as the first attempt to nationalise the theatre. And 
 to Lessing's connection with it we owe the Hamburgische 
 Dramaturgic}- His first intention was to write a running 
 commentary upon the work of the theatre, criticising both 
 plays and actors ; but it soon became clear that his position 
 as salaried official made it difficult for him honestly to ex- 
 press his opinion on such points, and his criticism was thus 
 ultimately limited to literary and dramaturgic questions. The 
 Hamburgische Dramaturgic may be regarded as a continuation 
 of what Lessing had begun in his two earlier dramatic peri- 
 odicals ; here he denies emphatically, and with the enthusiasm 
 
 1 Ed. F. Schroter and R. Thiele, 2 vols., Halle, 1877-78 ; cp. W. Cosack, 
 Materialien zu Lessings Hamburgischer Dramaturgie, and ed., Paderborn, 
 1891.
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 2/9 
 
 of a reformer rather than with the unbiassed calm of a critic, 
 that the French classical tragedy is dramatic poetry of the 
 first order; he opens the eyes of his countrymen to the 
 greatness of Shakespeare, and grasps, as no one before him 
 had done, the true meaning of Aristotle's Poetics. 
 
 After the ill-success of the Hamburg theatre, Lessing never 
 again took an active interest in the fortunes of the German 
 stage. Towards the end of 1771, however, he took up 
 a play, which, intended for the theatre in Hamburg, had 
 been partly written there. This was Emilia Galotti (1772), Emilia 
 a modern version of the story of Virginia, to which Lessing Gal ui> 
 had been attracted in earlier years. Like Miss Sara Sampson, I772 ' 
 Emilia Galotti is a " biirgerliches Trauerspiel " ; but while 
 the former was still tentative, and essentially English, the 
 new drama is, in the best sense, a national German tragedy, 
 even although the scene is laid at an Italian Court. The 
 Prince of Guastalla loves the daughter of Odoardo Galotti, 
 but learns that she is on the point of marrying a Count 
 Appiani. The prince's chamberlain, Marinelli, conceives a 
 plot by means of which the marriage may be frustrated ; 
 he causes the carriage containing Count Appiani, Emilia, 
 and her mother to be waylaid near a country residence of 
 the prince. The count is shot and Emilia carried to the 
 castle on the pretence that she is being rescued. Her father, 
 however, learns the prince's designs from Orsina, a forsaken 
 mistress of the latter, and, rather than leave his daughter to 
 the prince's mercy, stabs her. The weak point of Emilia 
 Galotti is its denouement ; it is questionable, indeed, if any 
 dramatist could justify the murder of Virginia in the eyes 
 of a modern audience, and Lessing was certainly not able 
 to do so. Apart from this, Emilia Galotti is an admirable 
 tragedy ; its construction is masterly, and two at least of its 
 characters, Marinelli and Orsina, take rank with the best in 
 German dramatic literature. Of all Lessing's work, it had 
 most influence upon the subsequent development of the 
 drama, being, as we shall see, in some measure a forerunner 
 of the " Sturm und Drang." 
 
 Lessing ceased, after the production of Emilia Galotti, it 
 might be said, to be an active factor in the literary move- 
 ment. It was given to him no more than to his pre- 
 decessors to keep pace with the rapid growth of German
 
 280 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Briefe 
 
 antiqua- 
 
 rischen 
 
 Inhalts, 
 
 1768. 
 
 schichteund 
 Litteratur^ 
 1773-81. 
 
 The con- 
 troversy 
 withGoeze. 
 
 literature in the eighteenth century ; but he never ceased to 
 fight for that spiritual freedom which always . seemed to him 
 the end and aim of the "education of humanity." While 
 in Hamburg, he had become involved in a conflict with a 
 professor of the University of Halle, C. A. Klotz, who had 
 a reputation as an authority on antiquarian questions. This 
 resulted in two volumes of Briefe antiquarischen Inhalts 
 (1768), which, in 1769, were followed by the beautiful 
 study on Wie die Alien den Tod gebildet. In 1770, Lessing 
 accepted the position of Court librarian in Brunswick, and 
 with the exception of a journey to Vienna, Rome, and Naples 
 in 1775, Wolfenbiittel remained his home for the rest of his 
 life. In 1777, he married Eva Konig, the widow of one 
 of his Hamburg friends, but she died in little more than a 
 year. In the beginning of 1778 his own health broke 
 down, and he survived his wife only three years, dying in 
 Brunswick on the 1 5th of February, 1781. The last years of 
 his life were embittered by incessant theological controversy. 
 In 1773, he issued the first volume of his contributions 
 Zur Geschichte und Litteratur, in which, in the spirit of the 
 Rettungen of earlier years, he brought to light unknown or 
 unjustly forgotten treasures of the library under his care. In 
 the third and fourth volumes of this work, Lessing pub- 
 lished a series of fragments by a writer whose name, H. S. 
 Reimarus (1694-1768), was not disclosed for nearly forty 
 years. The fragments discussed religious questions in a 
 rationalistic spirit, and Lessing soon openly avowed his 
 sympathy for the unnamed champion of intellectual freedom. 
 The hostility of the German theological world was again 
 awakened, and J. M. Goeze, the chief pastor of Hamburg, 
 came forward to vindicate the cause of orthodoxy against the 
 freethinking playwright. Lessing's share in the fierce conflict 
 which raged round him is, in many ways, the most remarkable 
 achievement of his whole life, for he had to fight single- 
 handed, rationalist and theologian being alike embittered 
 against him. The writings called forth by this controversy 
 in 1778 Eine Duplik, Eine Parabel, Axiomata, and the 
 Anti-Goeze 1 have never been surpassed in the literature of 
 theological controversy. Amongst the other prose works of 
 
 1 Werkt, 13 ; Goeze's share in the controversy has been published by E. 
 Schmidt (Litteratvrdenkmale, 43-45, Leipzig, 1893).
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 28 1 
 
 Lessing's last years, the most important are Ernst und Falk : 
 Gespr ache fur Freymaurer(\*ll'&\ and the hundred paragraphs 
 on Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, which appeared 
 complete in 1780. 
 
 But before his life closed he turned once more to his first 
 love, the drama. In 1779, Nathan der Weise was published, Nathan der 
 a play which clothes in poetic form the ideas underlying all Weise, 
 Lessing's controversial writings. But it would be unjust to 
 regard Nathan as nothing more than a " Tendenzdrama." 
 The nucleus of the plot was a fable which Lessing found in 
 the Decamerone of Boccaccio. In the third act Nathan relates 
 how a certain man possessed a ring of magic power, which 
 rendered all who believed in its virtue pleasing to God and 
 man. This man had three sons whom he loved equally well, 
 and, being unwilling to enrich one at the expense of the 
 others, caused two other rings to be made exactly like the first. 
 The sons, after their father's death, dispute as to which of them 
 possesses the true ring just as Christian, Jew, and Moham- 
 medan disputed regarding the possession of the true religion 
 and the judge advises each of them to believe that his ring 
 is the genuine one, and to act accordingly. Turning now 
 to Saladin, who has summoned him to an audience, Nathan 
 points the moral of his tale 
 
 " Mein Rath ist aber der : ihr nehmt 
 Die Sache vollig wie sie liegt. Hat von 
 Euch jeder seinen Ring von seinem Vater : 
 So glaube jeder sicher seinen Ring 
 Den echten. Moglich ; dass der Vater nun 
 Die Tyranney des Einen Rings nicht langer 
 In seinem Hause dulden wollen ! Und gewiss ; 
 Dass er euch alle drey geliebt, und gleich 
 Geliebt : indem er zwey nicht driicken mogen, 
 Um einen zu bestinstigen. Wohlan ! 
 Es eifre jeder seiner unbestochnen 
 Von Vorurtheilen freyen Liebe nach ! 
 Es strebe von euch jeder um die Wette, 
 Die Kraft des Steins in seinem Ring' an Tag 
 Zu legen ! komme dieser Kraft mit Sanftmuth, 
 Mit herzlicher Vertraglichkeit, mit Wohlthun 
 Mit innigster Ergebenheit in Gott, 
 Zu HiilP ! " * 
 
 The three types of religion are represented in the play by 
 the Mohammedan Saladin, Nathan the Jew, and a young 
 
 1 Act 3, sc. 7 ( Werke, 3, 94 f.)
 
 282 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Templar ; Recha, the adopted daughter of the Jew, ultimately 
 proves to be a Christian and the Templar's sister. The 
 characters are brought almost artificially into relations with 
 one another; there is little plot, and what there is turns 
 upon improbabilities. Written in the rhymeless iambics of 
 the German classic drama, 1 Nathan der Weise is less a play 
 for the stage than a dramatic poem ; its worth lies in its 
 ideas, its lofty humanity and wise tolerance. Such a poem 
 could only have been produced by a man who, himself a 
 " soldier in the Liberation War of humanity," had been 
 chastened by suffering and had learned the bitter lessons 
 of life. 
 
 Thus, from whatever side Lessing's activity is regarded, 
 we find that it sums up all that was best in the movement of 
 the century. In this writer, the revolt against the artificial 
 classicism of the later Renaissance and the return to the true 
 antique celebrated triumphs; in his criticism of literature 
 and art, he expressed the ripest judgments of the eighteenth 
 century ; while as a creative artist he laid, single-handed, the 
 foundations of the modern German drama. He broke the 
 yoke of that intellectual tyranny which, at the beginning of 
 the eighteenth century, had once more lain heavy on the land 
 of Luther, and thus prepared the way for the founder of 
 modern thought, Immanuel Kant. Lessing is the supreme 
 representative of the intellectual life and ideals of the German 
 " Auf klarung," but he may also be said to mark the end of 
 a period. Before his career had reached its close, a new 
 epoch in intellectual history had begun, that which, in after 
 years, was known as "Sturm und Drang." 
 
 1 Cp. note on p. 337.
 
 28 3 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 WIELAND; MINOR PROSE WRITERS. 
 
 THE writings of Wieland stand somewhat apart from the 
 literature of his time. He is an anomaly in German letters, 
 but one on which much depended. Like Hagedorn in the 
 generation before him, like Heinse a little later, and like a . 
 number of writers of the nineteenth century, from Holderlin 
 down to C. F. Meyer and Friedrich Nietzsche in our own 
 day, he was the representative of an un-German, a Latin, 
 element in the literature. It was largely due to him that 
 the turbulent spirit of the new movement did not outstep all 
 bounds ; he helped to counterbalance, not only the moral- 
 ising sentimentality, which, between 1750 and 1760, came in 
 Richardson's train, but also the extravagant nature-worship 
 of Rousseau which swept across Germany some years after- 
 wards. Wieland's work formed the antidote to the overween- 
 ing nationalism of the " Sturm und Drang " a nationalism 
 which, unchecked, might have debarred German classical 
 literature from taking its place among the great literatures 
 of the world. 
 
 Christoph Martin Wieland 1 was born in the village of Ober- c. M. Wie- 
 holzheim, near Biberach in Wiirtemberg, on the $th of Sept- 1 i *" d 1733 ~ 
 ember, 1733, and grew up under pietistic influences and in the 
 literary atmosphere which had been created by Richardson and 
 Klopstock. This, too, is the atmosphere of his own early literary 
 productions (Anti-Ovid^ 1752; Der gepryfte Abraham, 1753). 
 In October, 1752, he accepted an invitation from Bodmer to 
 visit Zurich. After spending some six or seven months under in Zurich. 
 
 1 Wieland's Werke, edited by H. Dilntrer, 40 vols.. Berlin, 1879-82. 
 Selections by F. Muncker, 6 vols., Stuttgart, 1889, and H. Prohle, in D.N.L., 
 51-56 [1883-87]. A critical biography of Wieland has yet to be written. Cp. 
 the article in the Allgem. deutsche Biographic, 42 [1897], by M. Koch.
 
 284 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Transla- 
 tion of 
 Shake- 
 speare, 
 1762-66. 
 
 Don 
 
 Sylvia von 
 Jfosalva, 
 1764. 
 
 Bodmer's hospitable roof, he obtained a tutorship in Zurich, and 
 remained there for the next five years. From Zurich he went 
 to Berne, where he became intimate with Rousseau's friend, 
 Julie de Bondeli, and, in 1760, received the appointment 
 of " Kanzleidirektor " in what was virtually his native town, 
 Biberach. The patronage extended to Wieland by a Graf 
 von Stadion, whose seat, Warthausen, was in the neighbour- 
 hood of Biberach, seems to have been one reason of the 
 change that came over him about this time. Graf von 
 Stadion, whose own literary culture was chiefly French, 
 admired his verses, and introduced him to a world of ideas 
 very different from that in which he had lived in Zurich. 
 The English deists and the French encyclopedists, who 
 were well represented in the Graf's library, began to take the 
 place of Klopstock in Wieland's affections ; he discovered 
 that his true affinities were not Richardson and Young, 
 but Gay and Prior, Ariosto, Cervantes, and Voltaire. The 
 Germanic past, in which Klopstock had once awakened his 
 interest, was forgotten for the world of Greek antiquity which 
 remained his favourite study for the rest of his life. To 
 Voltaire, Wieland also owed his first acquaintance with 
 Shakespeare, whose works at once roused his enthusiasm ; 
 and between 1762 and 1766, he published a translation of 
 twenty -two of Shakespeare's dramas. Although in prose 
 and only tolerably adequate, this translation of Wieland's 
 first made the German people acquainted with Shakespeare. 
 In 1775-77, it was superseded by the more complete version 
 by J. J. Eschenburg, which, twenty years later, had to yield in 
 turn to that of A. W. Schlegel. 
 
 Wieland not only broke with his youthful pietism, but went 
 to the opposite extreme ; he looked back on his enthusiasm 
 for the Messias with a sneer, and his poetry became frivolous 
 and cynical. The first result of his conversion was a novel 
 which takes a prominent place in the evolution of German 
 fiction, Der Sieg der Natur iiber die Schwiirmerey oder die 
 Abentkeuer des Don Sylvio von Rosalva (1764). Wieland's 
 model was Don Quixote ; Don Sylvio believes in the exist- 
 ence of fairies and goes out into the world to discover 
 them. His adventures, the earlier ones at least, are described 
 with great charm, and the language of the book perhaps 
 the most important thing about it is much superior to
 
 CHAP. V.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 285 
 
 the German prose that was written at the middle of the 
 eighteenth century. From the Romance literatures he loved, 
 Wieland had learned the lesson of style. 
 
 The Geschichte des Agathon (1766-67), VVieland's next 
 novel, established his fame. Like so much of his work, T 7 66 - 6 7- 
 Agathon has a Greek background, but the author's concep- 
 tions of the antique never advanced far beyond the somewhat 
 superficial views in vogue before Winckelmann. His Greek 
 novels are only Greek in costume and scenery, and some- 
 times not even that ; in other respects, they are saturated with 
 the rationalism of the eighteenth century. Agathon, a beauti- 
 ful Athenian youth, who has been brought up in the tenets 
 of Plato's philosophy, is carried off by pirates to Smyrna, 
 where the Epicurean, Hippias, endeavours to convert him to 
 materialism. Although proof against Hippias's teaching, he 
 falls under the spell of the hetaira Danae. Fleeing from 
 her, he comes to the Court of Dionysius of Sicily, where 
 he learns something of political life, but his political ex- 
 periments involve him in difficulties, and he is thrown into 
 prison. He is ultimately set free by the Pythagorean 
 Archytas, who initiates him into the true wisdom namely, 
 that rationalistic hedonism which formed Wieland's personal 
 creed. The Geschichte des Agathon fulfilled the promise of 
 Don Sylvia ; it was received with enthusiasm, and even 
 Lessing welcomed it in his Hamburgische Dramaturgic as 
 " der erste und einzige Roman fur den denkenden Kopf, von 
 klassischem Geschmacke." In technique, however, it stands 
 on the same level as the older fiction; the plot depends on 
 improbabilities and coincidences, and the lengthy discussions 
 on the nature of virtue make it still essentially a " moral " 
 novel of the Richardsonian type. Nevertheless, Wieland 
 first gave German fiction that psychological character which 
 it has never since lost. 
 
 " Wir haben uns," he says at the beginning of the ninth 
 chapter of Book xii., "zum Gesetz gemacht, die Leser dieser Ge- 
 schichte nicht bloss mit den Begebenheiten und Thaten unsers 
 Helden zu unterhalten, sondern ihnen auch von dem, was bey den 
 wichtigern Abschnitten seines Lebens in seinem Innern verging, 
 alles mitzutheilen, was die Quellen, woraus wir schopfen, uns davon 
 an die Hand geben." l 
 
 l Werke. 3, 72.
 
 286 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Here is to be found the importance of Agathon for the de- 
 velopment of fiction ; it is the first conspicuously psychologi- 
 cal novel, and, as such, the forerunner of Wilhelm Meister. 
 
 Between 1769 and 1772, Wieland was Professor of Philo- 
 sophy at the University of Erfurt. In the last-mentioned 
 year he published a strange book which contains much 
 serious theorising on political government, in a fantastic 
 Der Goldne framework suggested by the Arabian Nights, This work, Der 
 Goldne Spiegel oder die Konige von Scheschian, decided Wie- 
 land's future ; it attracted the attention of the Duchess Amalie 
 of Weimar, and, on its recommendation, she invited Wieland 
 to be tutor to her two sons, Karl August and Constantin. 
 With the exception of a few years in the neighbouring village 
 of Ossmannstadt, where he had purchased an estate, Wieland 
 spent the remainder of his life in Weimar, dying there in 
 1813. 
 
 Die Abde- His next prose work, Die Abderiten, appeared in 1774, the 
 riten, 1774. year j n w hj c h Goethe's Werther took the world by storm. 
 Of all Wieland's prose works, Die Abderiten, eine sehr wahr- 
 scheinliche Geschichte, is the most attractive to the modern 
 reader, but it interests now principally as a satire. The 
 doings of the inhabitants of ancient Abdera, who were 
 famed for their excessive stupidity, give Wieland an oppor- 
 tunity for satirising the German provincial life of his time. 
 The Abderites build, for instance, a beautiful fountain, but 
 neglect to furnish it with water; they purchase a Venus by 
 Praxiteles, but place it on so high a pedestal that it cannot 
 be seen. Even Demokritos himself, the laughing philosopher, 
 who was a native of Abdera, is not spared by the gossiping 
 citizens. More amusing and successful is the description of 
 the theatre of the town', which was added to the later 
 edition (1777) of the novel, after the author had had ex- 
 periences of his own in producing Rosamund (published 1778) 
 at Mannheim. The Abderites believe that a performance of 
 the Andromeda of Euripides, which has been given in their 
 theatre, cannot be surpassed. A stranger in the audience 
 ventures to laugh at it, and only escapes the wrath of the 
 insulted populace by revealing himself to be the author of the 
 play, and by showing them how it ought to be performed. A 
 still more amusing episode is that of the ass's shadow. A 
 dentist hires an ass to carry him to a neighbouring town. He
 
 CHAP. V.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 287 
 
 has to cross a treeless plain, and as the day is hot, he dis- 
 mounts, to rest in the shadow of the ass. The driver of the 
 ass objects, on the ground that the ass and not its shadow 
 has been hired. A lawsuit ensues, and the whole town is 
 divided into two parties, the " Asses " and the " Shadows " ; 
 excitement runs high, and ultimately the affair is brought to a 
 conclusion by the slaughter of the unoffending ass. The book 
 closes with the traditional act of Abderite folly : the inhabi- 
 tants abandon their town to the sacred frogs of Latona, because 
 they hold it impious to kill them. In the Abderiten, Wieland's 
 style has already lost its conciseness, and inclines to those 
 long and unwieldy sentences for which Goethe and Schiller 
 satirised him in one of the Xenien)- In Aristipp und Aristipp, 
 einige seiner Zeitgenossen (1800-2), which is rather a didactic I 30 " 2 * 
 treatise than a novel, the faults of his style and method 
 are still more accentuated : for the last twenty -five years 
 of his life he was no longer in touch with the movement of 
 German literature, and devoted himself mainly to translating 
 from Greek and Latin. 
 
 Die Abderiten appeared in the Teutsche Merkur, a review Der 
 which Wieland edited and published from 1773 to 1789. 
 Modelled on the famous Mercure de France^ this was prac- 1773-89.' 
 tically the first modern review devoted to belles lettres in 
 Germany, and helped largely to mould public opinion and 
 taste in Germany and Austria. Most of Wieland's own 
 literary work, from 1773 onwards, first appeared in its pages, 
 and its critical and political articles show how carefully he 
 followed the progress of events in Europe, political as well 
 as literary. 
 
 Wieland's earliest attempts at tales in verse (Cotnische Verse 
 Erzahlungen, 1765) were, as we* have seen, disfigured by romances - 
 lapses into frivolous sensuality and cynicism ; but the 
 coarser elements gradually disappeared, and in poems like 
 Musarion, oder die Philosophic der Grazien (1768) suggested 
 by Prior's Alma and the unfinished Idris (1768), which 
 is plainly inspired by Ariosto, the play of Wieland's grace- 
 ful fancy had full scope. In the course of the next ten 
 or twelve years he wrote a large number of romantic tales 
 
 1 Zum Geburtstag (No. 363) : 
 
 " M5ge dein Lebensfadfn sich spinnen, wie in der Prosa 
 Dein Periode, bey dem leider die Lacbesis schlaft."
 
 288 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 in the light ironical tone of Ariosto. Of these, Gandalin, oder 
 Liebe um Liebe (1776) and Die Wiinsche oder Pervonte (1778) 
 are the most ambitious ; Geron, der Adelich is the most 
 serious. Almost all these stories come either from Romance 
 or, preferably, from oriental sources, the Arabian Nights being 
 one of Wieland's favourite books. In 1780, the finest of all 
 his romances in verse, Oberon, was published. If posterity 
 has been slow to subscribe to Goethe's enthusiastic judgment 
 Oberon, of Oberon^ the reason is that the fantastic medievalism of 
 1780. Wieland's "Ritt in's alte romantische Land" has little in- 
 
 terest for the modern reader. The adventures of Huon of 
 Bordeaux, who, to expiate an unwitting crime, must go to 
 Bagdad, enter the Caliph's hall, kiss the Caliph's daughter 
 and claim her as his bride, besides carrying off four molar 
 teeth and a handful of hair from her father's beard, cannot 
 nowadays be taken seriously, nor do we care to know how 
 Oberon aids Huon to accomplish his purpose, how the latter 
 breaks his vow and brings upon himself and his bride Rezia 
 " unspeakable sufferings." Indeed, Wieland himself does not 
 take his story very seriously, and even in the most tragic scenes 
 his natural gaiety does not forsake him. A stanza like the 
 following, in which the poet's thoughts revert to his native 
 village, will, at least, give an idea of the metrical form of the 
 epic : 
 
 " Du kleiner Ort, wo ich das erste Licht gesogen, 
 Den ersten Schmerz, die erste Lust empfand, 
 Sey immerhin unscheinbar, unhekannt, 
 Mein Herz bleiht ewig doch vor alien dir gewogen, 
 Fiihlt iiberall nach dir sich heimlich hingezogen, 
 Fiihlt selbst im Paradies sich doch aus dir verbannt ; 
 O mochte wenigstens mich nicht die Ahnung triigen, 
 Bey meinen Vatern einst in deinem Schooss zu liegen ! " 2 
 
 Oberon contains Wieland's best poetry, and it was his 
 last work of importance : with the possible exception of 
 Die Abderiten, it is the only book of his with which the 
 modern reader has any familiarity. Although his long 
 life was devoted exclusively to writing, he was not one of 
 those authors who build for posterity. The great bulk of 
 
 1 " Sein Oberon wird so lang Poesie Poesie, Gold Gold, und Crystall Cry- 
 stall bleiben wird, als ein Meisterstiick poetischer Kunst geliebt und bewun- 
 dert werden." Letter to Lavater, Julys, 1780 (Briefe, 4, 253). Oberon, edited by 
 R. Kohler, forms the ninth volume of the Bibl. der deutschen Nationallitteralur, 
 Leipzig, 1868. 
 
 8 Canto 4, stanza 22 ( Werke, 5, 50).
 
 CHAP, v.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 289 
 
 his work was of his time and for his time, but, none the less, 
 it forms a characteristic and indispensable element in German 
 classical literature. 
 
 Wieland had comparatively few imitators ; and this was Wieiand's 
 perhaps fortunate, for the writers who drew their inspira- influence, 
 tion from him did little towards improving the standard 
 of poetry. As a direct force, he had some influence on the 
 development of the " komische Heldengedicht," a form of the 
 epic which Zacharia first naturalised in German literature. 
 The Abentheuer des frommen Helden Aeneas (I783), 1 for in- 
 stance, a travesty of Virgil in doggerel verse by J. A. 
 Blumauer (1755-98), is in Wieiand's style, while J. B. von 
 Alxinger (i 7 5 5-9 7) z also, like Blumauer, an Austrian 
 followed closely in the train of Oberon with the heroic epics 
 jDoolin von Maynz (1787) and Bliomberis (1791). The 
 most popular of all the comic epics of this time was Die K. A. Kor- 
 Jobsiade, or, with the full title of the first edition, Leben, turn's /<?- 
 Meynungen und Thaten von Hieronimus Jobs dem Kandidaten 
 (i784), 3 by K. A. Kortum (1745-1824), a doctor of Bochum, 
 near Essen. The Jobsiade is written in the straightforward, 
 unrefined style of the Volksbuch, and satirises, with an almost 
 brutal lack of charity, an unfortunate theological " candidate " 
 whose prophesied genius and success forsake him. Moritz M. A. von 
 August von Thiimmel (1738-1817),* in his comic prose epic, fhummei, 
 the famous Willhelmine (1764), was almost as much in- * 73 
 debted to the older Saxon school as to Wieland ; but in 
 his later writings the influence of Wieland predominates. 
 Thiimmers masterpiece, however, is the Reise in die mittdg- 
 lichen Provinzen von Frankreich (10 vols., 1791-1805), the 
 most original of the many German imitations of Sterne's 
 Sentimental Journey. 
 
 The modern German novel in its earliest stages owed The novel, 
 everything, as has beery seen, to England. Gellert's Schwe- 
 dische Grdfin was the starting-point, and, until Rousseau's 
 Nouvelle Htloise (translated 1761) suggested to Goethe the 
 
 1 Edited by E. Grisebach, in the Bibl. der deutschen Nationallitt., 35, 
 Leipzig, 1872. Cp. F. Bobertag, in D.N.L., 141 [1886], 297 ff. 
 a Cp. D.N.L., 57 [z888], ed. H. Prohle, 5 ff. 
 
 3 Ed. F. Bobertag, in D.N.L., 140 [1883]. 
 
 4 Cp. Erzdhlende Prosa der klassisc hen Periode, ed. F. Bobertag, i (D.N.L., 
 136 [1886]), 3 ff. Wilhelmine has also been edited by R. Rosenbaum for the 
 Litteraturdenkmale, 48, Leipzig, 1894. 
 
 T
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 J.T. 
 
 Hermes, 
 
 1738-1821. 
 
 S. von 
 
 Laroche, 
 
 1730-1807. 
 
 J. K. A. 
 
 Musaus, 
 
 A. yon 
 
 Knigge, 
 
 1752-96. 
 
 plan of Werther, the works of Richardson, and, in a less 
 degree, of Fielding, were the favoured models. 1 A typical 
 novelist of the period of English imitation was J. T. Hermes 
 (1738-1821), a North German clergyman, who wrote a 
 Geschichte der Miss Fanny IVilkes, so gut als aus dem 
 Englischen iibersetzt (1766) and Sophiens Reise von Memel 
 nach Sachscn (1769-73). The most readable German story 
 of this class is the Geschichte des Fraulcins von Sternheim 
 (1771), by Wieland's friend, Sophie von Laroche (1730- 
 1807). Frdulein von Sternheim is written, like its English 
 models, in letters, but it also forms a transition to the fiction 
 of the succeeding period ; by the side of sermons on morality 
 and virtue in the manner of Richardson, passion begins to 
 assert its rights. J. K. A. Musaus (1735-87) is now only 
 remembered by his Volksmdhrchen der Deutschen (i 782-86), 2 
 pleasing versions of popular fairy tales, which, however, cannot 
 belie the fact that they were written in an unbelieving age 
 of rationalism. He began his career as a satirist of the 
 Richardsonian novel, and his Grandison der Zweite (1760- 
 62) later remodelled as Der deutsche Grandison was, like 
 Wieland's first novel, an imitation of Don Quixote. Nicolai's 
 Sebaldus Nothanker (1773-76) has already been mentioned, 
 and A. von Knigge (17 5 2-96) was practically the last writer 
 of eminence who took Richardson as his model. His Roman 
 meines Lebens appeared in 1781-82, and was followed by 
 several similar romances, the best of which is Die Reise nach 
 Braunschweig (i792). 3 More popular than Knigge's novels 
 was his Uber den Umgang mit Menschen (1788), a practical 
 treatise on the rules of social intercourse in the period 
 before the French Revolution. The Austrian novelist, A. 
 G. Meissner (1753-1807), author of a classical novel, 
 Alcibiades (1781-88), and of a voluminous collection of 
 anecdotes and sketches (Skizzen, 14 vols., 1778-96), had 
 something of Wieland's temperament, while the Saxon, A. F. 
 E. Langbein (1757-1835), a talented versifier, at least shared 
 the latter's taste for witty and frivolous themes. 
 
 The pedagogic and humanistic ideals of the eighteenth 
 
 1 Cp. E. Schmidt, Richardson, Rousseau und Goethe, Jena, 1875. 
 
 2 Ed. M. Muller in the Bibl. der deutschen Nationallitt., 3, 4, Leipzig, 1868. 
 Cp. D.N.L.,57, 153 ff- 
 
 On Knigge, cp. D.N.L., 136, 197 ff. Uter den Umgang mit Menschen 
 will be found in Reclam's Univ. Bibl., No. 1138-40.
 
 CHAP. V.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 2QI 
 
 century, which had been first embodied in the moralising 
 weekly journals, thus passed over into the fiction of the time. 
 It was not, however, long before the novel sought to free 
 itself from such utilitarian aims, and the didactic tendencies 
 so deeply ingrained in the intellectual life of the century had 
 to find another outlet. The heritage of the weekly journals, Popular 
 refused by the novelists, now fell to a class of writers P hll .~ 
 known in Germany as " Popularphilosophen." Towards the writings, 
 end of the eighteenth century, a voluminous literature arose, 
 which aimed at presenting the philosophic ideas and educa- 
 tional schemes of the time in a popular and attractive form. 
 Such works, although outside the province of a literary 
 history, cannot be altogether ignored ; for they were often 
 the channels by which ideas of far-reaching importance found 
 their way into poetry. Moreover, several popular philo- 
 sophers of this period assisted materially in moulding German 
 prose. 
 
 Of the older group of " Popularphilosophen," J. G. Zimmer- J. G. Zim- 
 mann (17 28-95) l unquestionably deserves the first place. 
 Although by birth a Swiss, he spent the latter part of 
 his life in Hanover, where he was physician to the King of 
 England. His reputation rests upon two remarkable books, 
 Betrachtungen iiber die Einsamkeit (1756; subsequently en- 
 larged, 1784-85) and Von dem Nationalstolzc (1758), which 
 must be numbered among the most suggestive prose works of 
 the eighteenth century. Besides a warm sympathy for the 
 ideas of Rousseau, they show wide reading and a ripeness of 
 judgment, which formed a marked contrast to the unbalanced 
 enthusiasm of the "Geniezeit." As he grew old, Zimmer- 
 mann became a bitter opponenj of the rationalistic philosophy, 
 and thus helped to further the interests of Romanticism. 
 To two writers who are usually associated with Zimmermann, 
 Thomas Abbt and Justus Moser, we shall return in the next 
 chapter. 
 
 G. C. Lichtenberg (i 742-99) 2 belongs to a younger genera- G. C. Lich- 
 tion than Zimmermann. From 1769 on, he was Professor of 
 Physics in Gottingen and took a prominent position among 
 the scientists of his time. But his talents were as many-sided 
 
 1 In Fabeldichter, Saliriker und Popularphilosophen, ed. J. Minor (D.N.L., 
 73 [1884]), 331 ff. Cp. R. Ischer, /. G. '/.immermann, Berne, 1893. 
 
 2 Lichtenberg's Vermischte Srhriften, 8 vols., Gottingen, 1844-46; a selec- 
 tion, edited by F. Bobertag, in D.N.L., 141 [1886].
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 as his interests. In the course of two visits to England in 
 1769 and 1774 (Brief e aus England, 1776 and 1778), he 
 came into touch with the English scientific and literary world, 
 and was particularly attracted by the English theatre, where 
 Garrick's star was then in the ascendancy. As a humourist 
 and satirist, his genius was of a high order ; indeed, no writer 
 has a better claim than he to be called the greatest satirist 
 of modern German literature. Had he chosen, Lichtenberg 
 might have been a German Swift, but instead, his powers were 
 frittered away in trivial and ephemeral work, and almost the 
 only book by which he is now remembered is a masterly 
 commentary on Hogarth, the Ausfiihrliche Erklarung der 
 Hogarthischen Kupferstiche (1794-99). 
 
 T. G. von Hardly another minor writer of this age can boast of 
 1741^06 so l astm g a popularity as T. G. von Hippel (1741-96). 
 Personally, Hippel was one of those problematic natures in 
 which the nineteenth century takes a more sympathetic interest 
 than his own contemporaries could possibly have taken, and 
 something of the contrasts and contradictions of his life 
 and personality have passed over into his writings. Uber 
 die Ehe (1774), his best-known book, is a strange apologia 
 for marriage by one who was himself unmarried ; even his 
 novels, of which Lebenslaufe nach aufsteigender Linie (1778) 
 is mainly autobiographical, are still readable at the present 
 day. 1 
 
 The strong pedagogic interests of the age that produced 
 Rousseau's Emile (1762) were represented in Germany by 
 J. B. Basedow (1723-90) and J. H. Pestalozzi (1746-1827) 
 the latter, a native of Zurich. Pestalozzi's Lienhard und 
 Gertrud (1781) remains one ,of the classics of educational 
 science. Popular philosophers in the stricter sense of the 
 word were Christian Garve (1742-98), whose teaching smacks 
 of the homely ethics of Gellert, and J. J. Engel (1741-1802), 
 who was also the author of a popular novel, Herr Lorenz 
 Stark, ein Charaktergemdlde (i795). 2 
 
 1 Cp. D.N.L., 141, 195 ff. A modernised version of the Lebenslaufe, by A. 
 von Ottingen, has reached a third edition, Leipzig, 1892. Uber die Ehe, edited 
 by E. Brenning, in the Bibl. der deutschen. Nationallitt., 36, Leipzig, 1872. 
 
 a Cp. F. Bobiertag, Erzdhlende Prosa. der klassischen Periode, i (D.N.L., 
 *3 6 )i 317 ff-I also in Reclam's Univ. Bibl., No. 216.
 
 293 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HERDER; THE GOTTINGEN BUND. 
 
 THE line that separates the age of Rationalism from the 
 new movement which began in Germany as "Sturm und 
 Drang," might be said to pass between Lessing's Littera- 
 turbriefe and the Fragmente of Herder. Lessing, as we 
 have already seen, is the representative writer of the " Auf- 
 klarung." With Herder, on the other hand, the new epoch 
 opens ; he is the gatekeeper of the nineteenth century. As 
 a maker of literature, a poet, he does not, it is true, take 
 rank beside the masters of German poetry ; but as a spiritual 
 force and intellectual innovator, he is second to none. The 
 whole fabric of German thought and literature at the close 
 of the eighteenth century would have been lacking in stability 
 without the broad and solid basis afforded by his work. 
 
 Johann Friedrich Herder, 1 an East Prussian, was born 
 in the village of Morungen on August 25, 1744. His 
 childhood was embittered by privations, his school-life was 
 one long tyranny. He was able, however, to attend the 
 university, where he began by studying medicine, but soon 
 found theology more to his taste. It is significant that the 
 first influence under which he fell was that of Immanuel Kant, 
 who laid in the young student's mind the foundation of the 
 method, by means of which he revolutionised at a later date 
 the science of history. In Konigsberg he also came into 
 immediate personal relations with J. G. Hamann (1730-88), 
 
 1 R. Haym, Herder nnch seinem Leben un f seine n Werken, 2 vols., Berlin, 
 1877-85 ; E. Kiihnemann, Herders Leden, Munich, 1895. The standard edi- 
 tion ot Herder's Sdmmtliche Werke is that edited by B. Suphan, 32 vols., 
 Berlin, 1877 ff. A selection (10 vols.) in D.N.L., 74-78 [1885-94], ed. by H. 
 Meyer, H. Lambel, and E. Kiihnemann. 
 
 Lessing 
 
 and 
 
 Herder. 
 
 J. F. 
 
 Herder, 
 1744-1803. 
 
 J. G. 
 
 Hamann, 
 1730-88.
 
 2 9 4 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 the " Magus im Norden." l Hamann was a strange way- 
 ward genius, who, after an aimless, penurious youth, became 
 suddenly aware of the true meaning of the Bible, while on 
 a visit to London in 1758. Returning to Konigsberg, his 
 native town, he began to read and study with untiring zeal. 
 His writings the chief of which are Sokratische Denkwiirdig- 
 keiten (1759), and Kreuzziige des Philologen (1762) are all 
 fragmentary and full of strange, often startling, ideas in 
 aphoristic form. His fervid enthusiasm, his championship of 
 genius, his insistence on a man facing life and its tasks with 
 his whole collective energy, and not acting by halves, made 
 his sybilline utterances popular with the new generation of 
 " Stiirmer und Dranger." To Hamann, Herder owed his 
 acquaintance with English literature, especially Ossian and 
 Shakespeare, and with Hamann's aid he succeeded in obtain- 
 ing a position in the "Domschule" in Riga. Here he spent 
 five years (1764-69) of unremitting work. 
 
 Herder's In 1767, the third year of his residence in Riga, the 
 
 Fragmente, p ra gmente iiber die neuere deutsche Litteratur were pub- 
 lished anonymously as " Beilagen " or supplements to the 
 Litteratur brief e. Lessing's share in this latter publication 
 had come to an end as early as 1760, but the journal 
 continued to appear until the middle of 1765, owing 
 mainly to the co-operation of a new writer, Thomas Abbt 
 (1738-66), who is now only remembered as the author 
 of two books, Vom Tode fiirs Vaterland (1761) and Vom 
 Verdiemte (1765). Abbt may be regarded as the connecting- 
 link between Lessing and Herder ; it was his warm enthusi- 
 asm, rather than Lessing's cold, critical genius, that attracted 
 Herder in the Litter aturbriefe. Abbt was a pioneer in the 
 study of history on principles of organic development, a 
 study which Herder and Justus Moser first illustrated prac- 
 tically. The standpoint of the Fragmente is not essentially 
 different from that of the Litteraturbriefe, except perhaps 
 with regard to Klopstock, whom Herder champions more 
 warmly ; but the two publications follow opposite methods. 
 The Litteraturbriefe were in the first place critical ; they had 
 little to say of general theories or ideas. Herder's Frag- 
 
 T. Abbt, 
 
 1738-66. 
 
 1 Cp. J. Claassen, Hamanns Leben und Werkc, Giitersloh, 1885, and J. 
 Minor, J. G. Hamann in seiner Bedeutung fitr die Sturm- ttnd Drangperiode, 
 Frankfort, 1881.
 
 CHAP. VI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 295 
 
 mente, on the other hand, begin with the exposition of ideas, 
 and only criticise by the way ; they are leavened with a spirit 
 of enthusiasm, and betray in every line the personality of their 
 author. The germs of many of Herder's chief opinions are to 
 be found in the Fragmente his ideas on language, for instance, 
 on the relation of his own to other literatures, on the " Volks- 
 lied." His next work, Kritische Wdlder (1769) the title Kritische 
 being an imitation of Quintilian's "sylvae" is of a more 
 polemical nature. In the first " Waldchen," which discusses 
 Lessing's Laokoon, Herder's instinctive antagonism to his pre- 
 decessor is more marked than in the Fragmente, while the 
 second and third volumes are occupied with the antiquarian 
 Klotz, who raised Lessing's ire. 
 
 In the summer of 1769, Herder was able to leave Riga, Herder's 
 the provincialism of which had begun to weigh heavily ^^f/ 1 
 upon him ; he proceeded by sea to Nantes and spent nearly 1769. 
 five months in France. The most interesting work of this 
 period, and, in some respects, the most interesting of all that 
 Herder wrote, is his Journal meiner Reise im Jahre 1769. It 
 is a record of the most magnificent literary, aesthetic, and 
 political dreams that ever haunted the brain of man, and 
 through them all runs the fundamental idea of Herder's 
 intellectual life, the conception of the human race and 
 human culture as a product of historical evolution. Herder's 
 writings can be described as at best only a collection of 
 fragments, but a certain plan is behind them all; they are 
 fragments of one great work on the evolution of mankind ; 
 to make this evolution of human history clear was the 
 aim of Herder's life. At the end of his visit to France, 
 he was appointed travelling-tutor to the son of the Prince- 
 bishop of Liibeck ; but this appointment came to an 
 end hardly a year later in Strassburg, where Herder arrived in Strass- 
 with his pupil in September, 1770. Relieved of his duties, 
 he took the opportunity of placing himself under the hands 
 of an eye -specialist in Strassburg he suffered from a 
 growth in one of the lachrymal glands before settling 
 down as pastor in the little town of Biickeburg. The winter 
 which he spent in Strassburg (1770-71) was of importance, 
 for from it may be said to date the origin of the movement 
 known as the " Sturm und Drang." During these months in 
 Strassburg, Goethe sat at Herder's feet and learned the new
 
 296 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 yon 
 
 deutscher 
 Art und 
 Kunst, 
 1773- 
 
 J. Moser, 
 1720-94. 
 
 Volkslie- 
 der, 1778- 
 79- 
 
 faith from his lips. Herder opened the young poet's eyes 
 to the greatness of Shakespeare, revealed to him the treasures 
 of national poetry in the songs of the people, and endowed 
 the traceries of the Gothic cathedral above their heads with 
 a new meaning and -a new gospel. In this momentous 
 period and the few years that immediately followed, Herder 
 was a force of the first magnitude in German literature, a 
 force that it is impossible to overestimate. Of his writings 
 at this time the most important were a prize essay, Uber 
 den Ursprung der Sprache (1772), and his contributions 
 to Von deutscher Art und Kunst (I773). 1 The latter work, 
 in which Goethe and Moser also had a share, may be 
 regarded as the manifesto of the German " Sturm und Drang." 
 Justus Moser (1720-94), a native of Westphalia, who spent 
 a considerable part of his life in London, was another 
 pioneer of the coming time ; his Osnabrtickische Geschichte, 
 which began to appear in 1765, was the earliest historical work 
 written from the modern standpoint of organic development. 
 He stimulated even in a higher degree than Klopstock the 
 interest of the German people in their own past ; he realised 
 what Abbt had not lived to complete. Moser's Patriotische 
 Phantasien (1774) 2 were richer in ideas for the political well- 
 being and progress of the nation than any other book of 
 this eventful time. 
 
 In 1778 and 1779, Herder published a collection of popular 
 songs and ballads of many nations, entitled Volkslieder? 
 This work opened the eyes of the German people to the 
 poetic worth of the Volkslied ; and it was, at the same time, 
 characteristic of the new standpoint which Herder held with 
 regard to criticism. While a critic of the older generation, 
 like Lessing, set, for instance, less value on a popular ballad 
 than on an epigram, Herder gave the Volkslied its true place 
 in literary history. In the songs which he took over from 
 foreign literatures, he proved himself an admirable translator, 
 but he lacked the creative faculty of the poet ; his original 
 poems, his lyric dramas, of which Brutus (1774) was written 
 in these years, are reminiscent of Klopstock. Of the prose 
 
 1 Werke, 5. A convenient reprint of Von deutscher Art und Kunst, ed. H. 
 Lambel, in the Litteraturdenkmale, 40, 41, Stuttgart, 1892. 
 
 2 Ed. R. Zollner, in the .#//. der deuischen Nationalist., 32, 33, Leipzig, 1871. 
 
 3 Werke, 25 ; the title Stimmtn der Volker was given to the collection by 
 J. von Miiller, the first editor of Herder's works.
 
 CHAP. VI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 297 
 
 writings of this period, the most noteworthy is a book which 
 appeared in 1774, under the title Auch eine Philosophic der 
 Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit. .A better example 
 could hardly be found of the peculiarly germinating qualities 
 of Herder's thought and no thinker of the eighteenth century 
 scattered so many suggestive ideas abroad as he than this 
 little book. Many of the ideas here set forth reappear in the 
 literature and philosophy of the Romantic movement in the 
 following generation. To 1774 belongs also the first part 
 of the Alteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts, a work, how- 
 ever, which is too immediately a product of the " Sturm und 
 Drang " to have had permanent worth. Herder's theological 
 writings, such as the Provinzialblatter an Prediger (1774) and 
 the Brief e, das Studium der Theologie betreffend (1780-81), 
 carry into the field of religion the passionate battle which, 
 in literature, he waged against the spirit of the " Aufklarung." 
 In 1776, he accepted an invitation to Weimar as general Call to 
 superintendent or chief pastor. This welcome release from Weimar - 
 Biickeburg he owed to his old pupil Goethe. And in 
 Weimar he wrote his most important book, Ideen zur Phil- 
 osophic der Geschichte der Menschheit, which was published ideen zur 
 in four parts between 1784 and I7QI. 1 This is, at least, an p ^ los - 
 
 i i ( i , TT -i P hte 
 
 approach to the comprehensive treatise which Herder always 
 dreamed of writing; it contains the fullest statement of his 
 views on the subject of historical evolution. But the im- 
 portance of the Ideen extends beyond the individual writer ; 
 the work forms, we might even say, an intellectual bridge 
 between the two centuries. Herder's conception of the 
 history of humanity was, on the one hand, like that of 
 Lessing, of Rousseau, and of all the leading thinkers of the 
 eighteenth century, a pedagogic one ; he conceived the human 
 race as undergoing a process of education towards an ideal 
 humanism. But he went a step further ; he regarded this 
 educative process from the standpoint of historical evolution, 
 and herein lies his claim to be regarded as one of the 
 founders of modern historical science. 
 
 Before the publication of the Ideen, perhaps even before 
 he received the call to Weimar, Herder had ceased to be an 
 active power in the world of letters ; certainly from about 
 
 1 Werke, 13, 14 ; a convenient edition by J. Schmidt in Bibl. der deutschen 
 Nationallitt., 23-25, Leipzig, 1869, and in D.N.L., 77 (3 vols.)
 
 298 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Antagon- 
 ism to 
 Kant. 
 
 Der Cid, 
 1805. 
 
 The"G6t- 
 tinger 
 Dichter- 
 bund." 
 
 H. C. Boie, 
 1744-1806, 
 F. W. 
 Cotter, 
 1746 97. 
 
 1780 on, he fell rapidly behind the intellectual movement. 
 His later philosophical writings are filled with a petty spirit 
 of antagonism towards his first teacher, Kant, for whose 
 development he had neither understanding nor sympathy ; 
 even his relations with Goethe and Schiller were strained for 
 a time. But in the last year or two of his life he died in 
 Weimar on the i8th of December, 1803 he asserted himself 
 once more with a work of genuine poetry, a translation of the 
 Spanish " Volkslieder " which centre in the Cid Campeador. 
 Der Cid: nach Spanischen Romanzen bcsungen (iSc^) 1 is 
 Herder's finest poetic achievement and one of the abiding 
 treasures of German ballad literature. 
 
 Before passing on to consider the movement which is 
 most immediately associated with Herder's work, the " Sturm 
 und Drang," we must first turn to a group of writers who 
 stood somewhat apart from the main stream, namely, the 
 members of the " Gottinger Hain " or " Bund." The word 
 " Hain " at once suggests an affinity with the " bards " who 
 looked up to Klopstock as their master, 2 and it is, indeed, 
 as a development of the school of Klopstock that the 
 Gottingen poets are to be regarded 
 
 The "Gottinger Hain" was founded in 1772, but the 
 Gottinger Musenalmanach, which ultimately became the organ 
 of the " Hain," had begun to appear nearly three years earlier. 
 A French Almanac des Muses, which had been published 
 annually since 1765, served as model for the first Gottinger 
 Musenalmanach fur das Jahr I77O, 3 and its founders, H. C. 
 Boie (1744-1806) and F. W. Cotter (1746-97),* had un- 
 doubtedly something similar in view. Gotter, in particular, 
 had pronounced Gallic tastes, and his dramas are, for the 
 most part, adaptations from the French. His connection with 
 the Almanack did not, however, last long; in 1775, Voss 
 edited it, then, for three years, Gockingk, who in turn gave 
 place to Burger. With this publication virtually begins a new 
 
 1 Ed. J. Schmidt in Bibl. der deutschen Nationallitt., 15, Leipzig, 1868 ; in 
 D.N.L., 75. 
 
 2 Cp. Klopstock's ode, Der Htigel und der Hain ( Werke, ed. R. Hamel, 3, 
 HO)- 
 
 3 Reprints of the Gottinger Almanack from 1770 to 1772, edited by C. 
 Redlich, will be found in the Litter aturdenkmale, No. 49 f., 52 f., 64 f., 
 Stuttgart, 1894-97. 
 
 Cp. K. Weinhold, H. C. Boie, Halle, 1868, and R. Schlosser, F. W. 
 Cotter, Hamburg, 1895.
 
 CHAP. VI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 299 
 
 chapter in the history of the German lyric ; the first Gottinger 
 Almanack was the forerunner of many others, which, until well 
 into the next century, formed the favourite receptacle for 
 original poetry. The consecration of the " Gottinger Bund," 
 which originated in the meetings of several gifted young 
 students, to whom Boie acted as mentor, took place on the 
 1 2th of September, 1772. Voss, Holty, the brothers Miller, 
 and two others, had gone out in the evening to a village in 
 the neighbourhood of Gottingen, probably Weende. 
 
 " Der Abend war ausserordentlich heiter," wrote Voss to a 
 friend, " und der Mond voll. Wir iiberliessen uns ganz den Emp- 
 findungen der schb'nen Natur. Wir assen in einer Bauerhiitte eine 
 Milch, und begaben uns darauf ins freie Feld. Hier fanden wir 
 einen kleinen Eichengrund, und sogleich fiel uns alien ein ; den 
 Bund der Freundschaft unter diesen heiligen Baumen zu schworen. 
 Wir umkranzten die Hiite mit Eichenlaub, legten sie unter den 
 Baum, fassten uns alle bei den Handen, tanzten so um den ein- 
 geschlossenen Stamm herum, riefen den Mond und die Sterne 
 zu Zeugen unseres Bundes an, und versprachen uns eine ewige 
 Freundschaft." 1 
 
 Johann Heinrich Voss (i 751-1826) 2 was not the most j. H. Voss, 
 inspired of this little group, but he was the representative poet i7 
 and the chief of the " Bund." After a youth of extreme priva- 
 tion he was a native of Mecklenburg he attracted Boie's 
 attention by some verses sent to the Almanack, and the 
 latter made it possible for him to study at the University of 
 Gottingen. Here Voss devoted himself zealously to classical 
 philology and to poetry. In 1776, he retired to Wandsbeck, 
 where he lived a couple of years on the scanty income 
 brought in by literary work. From 1782 to 1802, he was a 
 schoolmaster in Eutin ; in 1802, we find him in Jena, and 
 in 1805, he was appointed professor in Heidelberg, where 
 he died in 1826. Voss's literary work does not cover a 
 wide range, and the bulk of it rarely rises above a certain 
 homely mediocrity. Voss had, in fact, too much common- 
 sense to be a great poet ; he never lost touch with the 
 prosaic realities of daily life. In later years, this essenti- 
 ally unpoetic side of his nature, combined with a boorish- 
 ness of manner which he never lost, brought him into dis- 
 
 1 Bricfevon J. H. Voss, edited by A. Voss, Leipzig, 1840, i, 91 f. 
 a Der Gottinger Dichterbund, herausg. von A. Sauer, i (D.N.L., 49 [1887]). 
 Cp. W. Herbst, /. H. Voss, avols., Leipzig, 1872-76.
 
 300 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 agreeable conflict with the younger Heidelberg Romanticists. 
 Apart from his leadership of the " Gottinger Dichterbund," 
 Voss owes his place in German literature to his translations 
 from the Greek and Latin, and to his Idylls above all, to 
 the finest of them, Luise, which served Goethe as a model 
 for Hermann und Dorothea. 
 
 Voss's The version of Homers Odussee, which Voss published 
 
 Homer, j n ^gi, 1 is one of the masterpieces of German translation; 
 although unequal, and occasionally disfigured by harsh and 
 un-German constructions, it remains, in essentials, the most 
 perfect rendering of Homer into a modern tongue. It is, 
 indeed, surprising that this Mecklenburg peasant, with his 
 homely ideas of poetry and life, should have been able to 
 convey, not merely the meaning, but the spirit, the primitive 
 harmony and almost the music, of the Homeric epic in his 
 translation. In Voss's translation, Homer became almost as 
 complete a possession of the German people as Shakespeare 
 in that of Schlegel. The version of the Iliad did not appear 
 for twelve years after that of the Odyssey (1793), and, owing 
 to the translator's striving after philological accuracy, is de- 
 ficient in the freshness that characterised the latter. The 
 same fault disfigures more or less all Voss's later classic trans- 
 lations, as well as the second edition of the Odyssey (1793). 
 His final work was a version of Shakespeare, in which he was 
 assisted by his sons (9 vols., 1818-39). 
 
 His When we turn to Voss's Idyllen 2 (first collected edition in 
 
 Idyllen. the Qtfafa^ I7 85), it is difficult to realise that little over 
 twenty years had elapsed since Gessner's last volume of Neue 
 Idyllen found admiring readers. Between the sentimental and 
 artificial shepherds and shepherdesses of Gessner and the in- 
 tensely realistic figures of Voss, at least a century would seem 
 to have intervened. In the idylls of the two poets, it is not 
 the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which touch, but the 
 seventeenth and nineteenth. In less than a generation, the 
 word " Idyll " had undergone a complete change of meaning ; 
 a new spirit was abroad, a spirit that sought to base literature 
 once more upon the realities of life, and, instead of the con- 
 ventional figures of the Renaissance pastoral, Voss, whose 
 
 1 Cp. the edition by M. Bernays, Stuttgart, 1881. 
 
 2 Edited by K. Goedeke (Bib 1. der deutschen Nalionallitt., 26). Leipzig, 
 1869.
 
 CHAP. VI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 301 
 
 model was the Idylls of Theocritus, gives us villagers, country 
 schoolmasters, and pastors. The homely world of the German 
 social novel is here embellished by a poetry that is hardly less 
 homely. Luise, ein Idndliches Gedicht in drey Idyllen (1784), Luise, 
 is Voss's most popular work. The subject of the poem is the I784> 
 courtship and wedding of Luise and a young pastor, but this 
 forms only the thread which holds the various scenes together. 
 These scenes are painted with both truth and humour, and 
 give a faithful picture of life in a country parsonage, at a 
 time when rationalism was still a dominant force in religious 
 thought. But one misses here, as in all Voss's writings, 
 poetic tact ; his striving after realistic simplicity and his love 
 of detail often lead him into absurdities, and even his humour 
 is not always in good taste. None the less, by associating the 
 idyll with the Greek epic, he became the creator of a new 
 genre in German poetry ; as Schiller said, 1 he not only en- 
 riched the literature, but also widened it. His other idylls 
 have been unduly overshadowed by Luise> but one, at least, 
 Der siebzigste Geburtstag, which appeared in the Almanack 
 for 1781, is worthy of a place beside it. 
 
 The most gifted lyric poet of the Gottingen circle was un- 
 doubtedly Ludwig H. C. Holty (i748-76), 2 whose unhappy L. H. c. 
 life was cut short by consumption at the age of twenty-eight. Ho l ty> 6 
 In the simple elegiac songs and odes which Holty wrote 
 after his association with the Bund (Gedichte, first collected, 
 1782-83), there is lyric inspiration of the highest order. But 
 it is poetry which suggests a comparison with Uz rather than 
 with Goethe. In verses, such as the following, from the poem 
 Lebenspflichten (1776): 
 
 ' ' Rosen auf den Weg gestreut, 
 Und des Harms vergessen ! 
 Eine kleine Spanne Zeit 
 Ward uns zugemessen. 
 
 Heute hiipft im Friihlingstanz 
 
 Noch der frohe Knabe; 
 Morgen weht der Todtenkranz 
 
 Schon auf seinem Grabe," 3 
 
 1 Ober naive und sentimentalische Dichtung( Werke, 10), 489. 
 
 2 Cp. A. Sauer, I.e., 2 (D.N.L., 50, i [1894]). Holly's Gedichte have also 
 been edited by K. Halm (Bibl. der deutschen Nationalist., 29), Leipzig, 1870. 
 
 3 A. Sauer's edition, 2, 112.
 
 302 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 J. M. 
 
 Miller, 
 1750-1814. 
 
 C. zu Stol- 
 berg, 1748- 
 1821. 
 F. L. zu 
 Stolberg, 
 1750-1819. 
 
 M. Clau- 
 dius, 1740- 
 1815. 
 
 an unmistakable echo is to be heard of the classic Anacre- 
 ontic. At the same time, Holty obviously belonged to a 
 generation which stood on a more intimate footing with nature 
 than did the Halle school. His lyrics were not always as 
 polished as Uz's, but the tragic melancholy that pervades them 
 was, at least, sincere. 
 
 Only one other member of the little group of poets 
 who danced round the oak-tree in September, 1772, has a 
 claim upon our attention here namely, the Swabian, J. M. 
 Miller (i 7 50-1 8 14), l who had come to Gottingen to study 
 theology. Many of the songs which Miller contributed to 
 the Almanachs his Gedichte did not appear in a collected 
 edition until 1783 became veritable Volkslieder, but he is 
 now best remembered as the author of Siegwart, a charac- 
 teristic novel of the " Sturm und Drang," to which we shall 
 return. In December, 1772, three months after the found- 
 ing of the " Hain," two new members, the brothers Christian 
 and Friedrich Leopold, Grafen zu Stolberg (,i 748 -1821 
 and I75o-i8i9), 2 joined the circle, and infused new life 
 into it by bringing it into closer relations with Klopstock. 
 Neither had much genius, but, caught up and carried 
 along by the revolutionary spirit of the time, they wrote 
 rhetorical odes against tyrants, and sang paeons in honour of 
 their fatherland. A volume of Gedichte by both brothers 
 appeared in 1779. Their talents, however, show to most 
 advantage in their translations from the Greek. Amongst 
 other things, Christian made a German version of Sofokles 
 (1787), while Friedrich, whose literary work is the more 
 voluminous and important, translated the Ilias (1778), Auser- 
 lesene Gesprdche des Platon (1796-97), and as late as 1806 
 Die Gedichte von Ossian. 
 
 Besides these poets of the Gottingen " Hain," a few other 
 writers have to be considered, who, although not actually 
 members of the Bund, belonged to the same group ; they 
 are Claudius, Gockingk, and, most famous of all, Burger. 
 Matthias Claudius (1740-1815), a native of Holstein, was the 
 oldest of the three ; simple, unassuming, and pious, he is 
 an excellent example of the literary man as produced by the 
 homely provincialism of German life in the eighteenth century. 
 
 1 Cp. A. Sauer, I.e., 2 (D.N.L., 50, i [1894]), 117 ff. 
 
 2 Cp. A. Sauer, I.e., 3 (D.N.L., 50, 2 [1896] ), i ff.
 
 CHAP. VI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 303 
 
 For more than four years, under the pseudonym "Asmus," 
 Claudius edited Der Wandsbecker Bothe (1771-75), and, in the 
 literary criticism which he contributed to it, revealed a good, 
 if somewhat unimaginative, common-sense, tempered always 
 by a genial humour ; he was fond of posing as the champion 
 of the people against both philosopher and scholar. The 
 " Wandsbeck Messenger," as he called himself after his paper, 
 is one of the lovable personalities of German literature. He 
 was not an inspired poet, but he contributed to the store 
 of German " Volkslieder " a number of hearty, popular songs, 
 such as the Rheinweinlied ("Bekranzt mit Laub den lieben 
 vollen Becher"), and the familiar Abendlied: 
 
 '* Der Mond ist aufgegangen, 
 Die goldnen Sternlein prangen 
 
 Am Himmel hell und klar ; 
 Der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget, 
 Und aus den Wiesen steiget 
 
 Der weisse Nebel wunderbar." 1 
 
 His writings embracing, besides poems, a miscellaneous col- 
 lection of sketches and anecdotes were published under the 
 fantastic title, Asmus omnia sua secum portans, oder Sdmmtliche 
 Werke des Wandsbecker Bothen (1775, 1790- 1812 ). 2 
 
 The intimate personal relation in which Leopold F. G. von L. F. G 
 Gockingk (i 748-1828)3 stood to the Gottingen circle has J 
 made it difficult to measure his poetry by the proper standard. 1828*. 
 As a matter of fact, his verses ought rather to be compared 
 with those of Wieland and the older Anacreontic rhymers, to 
 whom he is in many respects akin, than with the poetry of his 
 friends in Gottingen ; on the other hand, he is in closer touch 
 with life and reality than the generation which had not come 
 under Klopstock's influence. Gockingk's reputation rests on 
 his Lieder zweier Liebenden (1777) and his Episteln (first 
 collected in the Gedichte, 1780-82). The passionate earnest- 
 ness of the new literature is not to be found in these poems, 
 but they show a remarkable command of verse and a clever 
 satirical talent. It may at least be said of Gockingk that no 
 other German writer has handled the " Epistle," as a literary 
 form, so dexterously as he. 
 
 1 A. Sauer's edition, 284 f., 293 f. 
 
 2 Edited by C. Redlich, 12th ed., Gotha, 1882. Cp. W. Herbst, M. 
 Claudius, Gotha, 1878, and A. Sauer, I.e., 3, 193 ff. 
 
 3 A selection of his poetry, edited by J. Minor, in D.N.L., 73 [1884], 115 ff.
 
 304 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 The Gottinger Musenalmanach for 1774, which was pub- 
 lished in the previous autumn, contained a poem which has 
 exerted a more widespread influence than any other short 
 poem in the literature of the world. This was the ballad 
 Burger's of Lenore which had been suggested to G. A. Burger by a 
 Lenore, LQW Q erman Volkslied, similar to the Scottish ballad of 
 Sweet William's Ghost in Percy's Reliques. The background 
 of the ballad is the Seven Years' War; Wilhelm, Lenore's 
 lover, has fallen in the battle of Prague, and she, despair- 
 ing of his return, rebels against God's Providence. In the 
 night, a ghostly rider comes to her in the guise of her 
 lover and bids her mount behind him. 
 
 " Und als sie sassen, hop ! hop ! hop ! 
 Ging's fort im sausenden Galopp, 
 Dass Ross und Reiter schnoben, 
 Und Kies und Funken stoben. . . . 
 
 Wie flogen rechts, wie flogen links 
 Die Hiigel, Baum' und Hecken ! 
 Wie flogen links, und rechts, und links, 
 Die Dorfer, Stadt' und Flecken ! 
 Graut Liebchen auch? Der Mond scheint hell ! 
 Hurrah ! die Todten reiten schnell ! 
 Graut Liebchen auch vor Todten ? 
 Ach ! lass sie ruhn, die Todten ? " 1 
 
 When the goal of the wild ride is reached, Lenore's com- 
 panion discloses himself as Death in person a skeleton 
 with hook and hour-glass. The spirits, dancing in the 
 moonlight, point the moral : 
 
 " Geduld ! Geduld ! Wenn's Herz auch bricht I 
 Mit Gott im Himmel hadre nicht ! " 
 
 Like wildfire, this wonderful ballad swept across Europe, 
 from Scotland to Poland and Russia, from Scandinavia to 
 Italy. The eerie tramp of the ghostly horse which carries 
 Lenore to her doom re-echoed in every literature, and to 
 many a young sensitive soul was the poetic revelation of a 
 new world. No production of the German "Sturm und 
 Drang" not even Goethe's Werther, which appeared a few 
 months later was more stimulating in its effects on other 
 literatures than Burger's Lenore; this ballad did more than 
 
 1 A. Sauer's edition, 175 ff. ; the text of the lines quoted is, however, that of 
 the Almanack, 321 ff.
 
 CHAP. VI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 305 
 
 any other single work towards calling the Romantic movement 
 to life in Europe. 1 
 
 Gottfried August Burger was born on the last night of the G. A. Btir- 
 year 1747, at Molmerswende, near Halberstadt, and died at & er > *747- 
 Gottingen in 1794. His biography describes one of those 
 unbalanced, unhappy lives which, from this time on, become 
 so frequent in German annals : his passionate temperament 
 ill adapted him for the quiet regular life which circum- 
 stances demanded of him. His first serious mistake was 
 his marriage, in 1774, to a lady with whose sister the 
 " Molly " of his songs he was already passionately in 
 love. For a time, indeed, he carried on a kind of double 
 marriage with both sisters in the unrestrained manner of the 
 " Geniezeit." His wife died in 1784, and with an exultation 
 which found expression four years later in Das hohe Lied von 
 der Einzigen, he greeted the possibility of being able to marry 
 Molly. But his happiness was short-lived ; within a few 
 months Molly, too, died. Some years later, he married 
 again, but his third marriage was even a more miserable one 
 than the first, and in two years ended in a divorce. Apart 
 from these domestic miseries, Burger was condemned to a 
 life of poverty, first as an official in a small village, then as 
 an unsalaried teacher in the University of Gottingen ; and for 
 a man of his nature, straitened circumstances were not com- 
 patible with happiness. Of his other ballads, Die Weiber Other 
 von Weinsberg (1775), Lenardo und B 'landing (1776), Das ballads - 
 Lied vom braven Mann (1777), are good examples of his 
 powers; after Lenore, however, Der wilde Jciger (1778) 
 unquestionably takes first place. Herder had pointed out the 
 rich spring of ballad poetry in Bishop Percy's Reliques, and 
 Burger, by following in Herder's footsteps, created the German 
 Romantic ballad. His best poems are either direct trans- 
 lations from the English, or like Lenore itself imitations 
 of the Percy Ballads. To this group belong, Der Bruder 
 Graurock und die Pilgerin (i777)> Des Pfarrers Tochter von 
 Taubenheim (1781), and Der Kaiser und der Abt (1784). 
 The love-songs to Molly and Das Bliimchen Wunderhold 
 reveal another side of Burger's poetic genius, while his sonnets 
 
 1 Cp. E. Schmidt, Ckarakterisliken, Berlin, 1886, 199 ff.; editions of Btirger's 
 Gedichie, by A. Sauer (D.N.L., 78 [1884]) and E. Grisebach, a vols., Berlin, 
 1889. The most recent work on Biirger is by W. von Wurzbach, Leipzig, 
 1900. 
 
 U
 
 306 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 and other experiments in the metrical forms of Romance 
 literatures had a direct influence on the poetry of the 
 Romantic School : A. W. Schlegel was proud to claim that, 
 as a student in Gottingen, he had sat at Burger's feet. 
 Burger, it may also be mentioned, translated from the English 
 the Wunderbaren Reisen zu Wasser und Lande des Freyherrn 
 von Miinchhausen (1786), the famous "Volksbuch," which R. 
 E. Raspe had published in England a year earlier. 
 
 There is perhaps more truth in the severe criticism of 
 Burger, which Schiller wrote in I79I, 1 than the critic's 
 pointedly moral attitude towards the poet's weaknesses makes 
 us willing to admit. The lack of balance, the defective 
 moral principle in Burger's life, sapped to a large extent the 
 vitality of his poetry. Standing as he did, on the threshold 
 of Romanticism, his career might have been a warning to his 
 successors : he was an example of a principle, which was 
 deeply engrained in all the Romantic writers, namely, that 
 a man's poetry must be at one with his life, and that great 
 poetry can only be the expression of a great life. 
 
 1 Sdmmtliche Schriften, ed. K. Goedeke, 6, 314 ff.
 
 307 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 "STURM UND DRANG"; GOETHE'S YOUTH. 
 
 THE phenomenon known as "Sturm und Drang" is by no "Sturm 
 means restricted to the literature of Germany. There is a d 
 period of " Sturm und Drang " in all literatures, as there is, 
 to a greater or less degree, in the life of every individual. 
 There was a " Sturm und Drang " in Italy and France when 
 the light of the Renaissance first broke on these countries ; 
 there was a "Sturm und Drang" behind the "mighty line" 
 of Marlowe and his contemporaries, in the French literary 
 movement of 1830, and in German literature at the close 
 of the nineteenth century; while, turning to single works, 
 this spirit is as evident in Titus Andronicus or Childe Harold 
 as in Werther or Die Rduber. " Sturm und Drang " is only 
 another expression for youthful vigour. But it would be 
 impossible, in English, French, or Italian literature, to point 
 to a movement of this character so widespread and universal 
 as the "Sturm und Drang" in German literature at the dawn 
 of the classical epoch. The " Geniezeit " the phrase " Sturm 
 und Drang" was not employed until a later date was in 
 truth a period of genius : not only were its leaders Herder, 
 Goethe, Schiller men of unquestionable eminence, but even 
 the minor writers of the time were poets to whose gifts 
 the word genius is more applicable than talent. Genius, 
 however, was only one factor in the German "Sturm und 
 Drang " ; a second was the work of Jean Jacques Rousseau 
 (1712-78), whose ideas gave the movement its peculiar char- 
 acter and tendency. Perhaps in no age has the thought of 
 one man affected a literature so powerfully and universally 
 as did that of Rousseau at this time; not even the dis- 
 covery of classical antiquity at the Renaissance, or the re-birth
 
 308 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 J. W. von 
 
 Goethe, 
 
 1749-1832. 
 
 of individualism in our own time, can be compared with the 
 enthusiasm for Rousseau which found voice in the "Sturm 
 und Drang." 
 
 The " Geniezeit " practically begins with the publication of 
 Herder's Fragmente, in 1767, and closes with the appear- 
 ance of Don Carlos, in 1787; but these are its utmost 
 limits. It is perhaps best conceived under the figure of an 
 ellipse, the two poles of which are formed by Go'tz von 
 Berlichingen (1773) and Die Rduber (1781). Goethe, above 
 all, gave the movement its stamp ; his magnificent personality 
 dominated it completely and made it an epoch in the literary 
 evolution of Europe. 
 
 Johann Wolfgang Goethe 1 was born in Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main on the 28th of August, 1 749. His father, Johann Caspar 
 Goethe, since 1742 " kaiserlicher Rat," had received a good 
 education as a jurist, and had visited Italy, from which he 
 brought back tastes that influenced his whole life. But he 
 was stern, pedantic, and inaccessible, and little real sympathy 
 existed between him and his children. Of these, Wolfgang 
 was the eldest, and only one other child, Cornelie, survived 
 Childhood, the age of childhood. The poet's mother, Katharina Elisabeth 
 Textor, who was herself but seventeen when he was born, and 
 of a bright, happy nature, was the real companion of his early 
 years ; from her he inherited the better part of his poetic 
 genius. No childhood could have been sunnier than that 
 which young Goethe passed in the patrician house in the 
 " Grosse Hirschgraben," with its huge stairs, roomy attics, 
 and quiet corners, its view over the gardens of the town. 
 The boy's literary instincts were first awakened by the stories 
 of the Old Testament, and his imagination was stimulated by 
 the pomp of a " Kaiserkronung " in the Frankfort " Romer," 
 or town-hall. A marionette theatre and the performances 
 of French players turned his interests in the direction of the 
 drama. During the French occupation of Frankfort, in 1759, 
 Count Thoranc, the " Konigslieutenant," was quartered upon 
 
 1 Of recent biographies of Goethe the best are by R. M. Meyer, 3 vols., 2nd 
 ed., Berlin, 1899, and A. Bielschowsky, i, and ed., Munich, 1900. The 
 standard edition of the poet's works is that published under the auspices of the 
 Weimar Court (Weimar, 1887, ff.); of this edition, 57 vols., besides 35 of 
 Letters and Diaries, have appeared (1901). A critical edition by K. Heine- 
 mann is also in course of publication, Leipzig, 1901 ff. In D.N.L. , Goethe's 
 works, edited by H. Duntzer, K. J. Schroer, R. Steiner, G. Witkowski, 
 embrace vols. 82-117
 
 CHAP. VII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 309 
 
 Goethe's father : the Count was a man of artistic tastes, 
 and, to Wolfgang's delight, gathered round him the artists 
 of the town, bringing life and stir into the old house. To 
 the enthusiasm which the early cantos of the Messias 
 awakened in the boy, and partly also to the pietism of a 
 distant relative of his mother's, Susanna von Klettenbevg 
 the " schone Seele " of Wilhelm Meister we owe the earliest 
 poem which was included in Goethe's works, Poetische 
 Gedanken iiber die Hollenfahrt Chris ti (1763). 
 
 In 1764, the first romantic episode in the young poet's 
 life occurred, an episode which is surrounded with perhaps 
 too bright a halo of poetry in Dichtung itnd Wahrheit. 
 But the Frankfort Gretchen, the heroine of this romance, 
 regarded Wolfgang merely as a boy and not as a lover ; an 
 illness brought the affair to a conclusion, and, as soon as 
 he recovered, his father sent him to the university. In 
 October, 1765, Goethe matriculated at the University of Goethe in 
 Leipzig. Leipzig, as he found it, was not very different from ^j 
 what it had been nineteen years earlier when Lessing came to 
 study there ; it had become, if anything, more metropolitan, 
 and made even the son of a leading Frankfort citizen seem 
 provincial in dress and speech. In the literary world Gellert 
 was still the chief star, and he had a certain influence on 
 Goethe's prose style in these years. Gottsched, on the other 
 hand, had sunk considerably lower in popular estimation 
 than in Lessing's time. To Goethe, as to Lessing, the 
 theatre and not the university was the chief source of 
 attraction, and it was not long before he, too, was busy 
 with dramatic plans. 
 
 The " Schaferspiel " Die Laune des Verliebten^ written in Die Laune 
 1767 and 1768, is a reflection of Goethe's relations to Anna ^^J r " 
 Katharina Schonkopf, daughter of a Leipzig wine-merchant 1768. 
 It is a slight play in one act, which shows how, by a friend's 
 intervention, a jealous lover is cured of his jealousy : it is 
 written in tripping Alexandrines, and is at least as good as the 
 pastoral plays of the Saxon school. More interesting than Die 
 Laune des Verliebten is a small MS. volume of lyrics inspired 
 by Kathchen Schonkopf, which was discovered and published 
 as recently as I896. 1 These poems are essentially juvenile 
 the collection bears the title Annette and give little Annette. 
 
 1 Werkc (Weimar edition), 37, n ff.
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Neue 
 
 Lieder, 
 
 1769. 
 
 Die M it- 
 
 Return to 
 Frankfort. 
 
 promise of the future master. But before Goethe left Leipzig 
 he had taken the first step towards publicity by publishing 
 a volume of Neue Lieder (1769), which had been written 
 mainly in 1768 and 1769. In these songs his hand has 
 become surer, his touch finer; but the gallantry of the 
 "klein Paris" is still uppermost, the poet's real feelings are 
 still veiled in polite insincerities. 
 
 The second of Goethe's dramas, Die Mitschuldigen, although 
 it did not receive its present form until his return to Frankfort 
 in 1769, belongs also to the Leipzig period. It is a more 
 ambitious play than its predecessor, but, like it, does not 
 venture beyond the domain of the Saxon comedy. Sugges- 
 tions from Moliere, the half-frivolous, half-moralising tone of 
 Wieland, together with the young poet's own experience of 
 the problematic side of life, formed his materials ; but he has 
 not succeeded in combining these varied elements in a har- 
 monious and convincing whole. 
 
 The most characteristic of Goethe's writings during his 
 life in, Leipzig were his letters to his friends : l here we 
 find best exemplified the poet's clearness and intuition, his 
 power of calling up a picture with a few strokes of the 
 pen, and of giving life to ideas. But the strain of the last 
 months of his life in Leipzig had been too much for him : 
 the excitement and dissipation of student-life, in which he 
 endeavoured to stifle his sorrows, ended with the bursting 
 of a blood-vessel in the lungs, and he lay long ill at home. 
 As he gradually recovered, Frankfort, compared with the 
 free, stimulating life of Leipzig, seemed oppressive in its 
 provincialism : he sought consolation in literature for the 
 friends he had left behind him in Lessing, Shakespeare, 
 and Rousseau. The pietism that had influenced him before 
 he left home now returned with redoubled force ; his letters 
 became religious in tone, and he devoted himself to magic 
 and alchemy. His father proposed that he should com- 
 plete his studies, not in Leipzig, but in Strassburg, and on 
 the 2nd of April, 1770, he arrived in the Alsatian capital, 
 
 1 Although now superseded by the Weimar edition, the collection of 
 Goethe's early writings and letters published by M. Bernays, under the title 
 Der junge Goethe (3 vols., Leipzig, 1875), is still valuable for the survey it 
 affords of the poet's life and work between 1764 and 1776. Cp. also W. 
 Scherer, A us Goethes Friihzeit (Quellen und Forschungen, 34), Strassburg 
 1879, and R. Weissenfels, Goethe im Sturm und Drang, i, Halle, 1894.
 
 CHAP. VII.]' THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 311 
 
 the university of which, French rule notwithstanding, was 
 essentially German. 
 
 In Strassburg, Goethe discovered his genius ; under the Goethe in 
 shadow of the Strassburg Minster, he became a poet. It 
 was his good fortune to make congenial acquaintances at 
 once; at the table at which he dined he found an inter- 
 esting company, presided over by an actuary, Salzmann. 
 To this circle belonged J. H. Jung-Stilling (1740-1817), an J.H. Jung- 
 older student, who, after a youth of the severest privations, 
 had ultimately been able to realise the wish of his heart 
 and study medicine. His autobiography, of which the first 
 part was published by Goethe in 1777, under the title 
 Heinrich Stillings Jugend?- was accepted as a veritable 
 " Volksbuch," and is still interesting for the remarkable 
 tone of pietistic resignation which pervades it. Goethe's 
 studies in Strassburg ranged from law, which he was obliged 
 to study, to anatomy, from alchemy to poetry. But in the 
 autumn of his first year, he made a new acquaintance who 
 was to mean more to him than any other of this eventful 
 time. Herder the Herder whose Fragmente had found a Herder, 
 passionate response in so many young hearts arrived in 
 Strassburg, and Goethe fell completely under his spell. 
 Herder brought clearness and order into the young poet's 
 thoughts and studies ; he taught him his own stimulating 
 ideas of historical evolution, opened his eyes to the beauties 
 of Gothic architecture and to the greatness of Shakespeare ; 
 he revealed to him the heart of the people in its songs. 
 
 Close upon this friendship followed another important 
 event in Goethe's life, his love for Friederike Brion, daughter Friederike 
 of the pastor in Sesenheim, an Alsatian village about twenty Brion> 
 miles to the north of Strassburg. As described in Dichtung 
 und Wahrheit, there is no more charming idyll in the history 
 of modern literature ; and the lyrics to Friederike are proof 
 enough that, in his autobiography, Goethe did not unduly 
 veil the truth in poetry. The songs which this country 
 girl inspired, placed Goethe in the front rank of lyric poets ; , 
 since Walther von der Vogelweide, no notes so deep and 
 pure had been struck in German poetry. In his Sesen- The Sesen. 
 heim Lieder Goethe first completely freed the lyric from heiml y ncs - 
 
 1 Cp. F. Bobertag, Ersahlende Prosa der klassischen Periode, 2 (D.N.L., 
 137 [1886]), 3 ff.
 
 312 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 the formalism of the Renaissance. Verses like the following 
 (Mit einem gemahlten Band) mark an epoch in the history 
 of modern poetry : 
 
 " Sieht mit Rosen sich umgeben 
 Sie, wie eine Rose Jung. 
 Einen Kuss ! geliebtes Leben, 
 Und ich bin belohnt genung. 
 
 Madchen das wie ich empfindet, 
 Reich mir deine liebe Hand. 
 Und das Band, das uns verbindet, 
 1 Sey kein schwaches Rosenband." 1 
 
 To the Sesenheim idyll, the only issue possible was a tragic 
 one, and before many months were over, Goethe felt that 
 the inevitable separation had to come. The gulf that lay 
 between the son of a leading Frankfort citizen and the 
 simple villager, who even lost some of her charm for him 
 against the background of Strassburg's streets, was too wide 
 ever to be bridged. The separation broke Friederike's heart 
 and plunged Goethe in despair ; it sent him wandering 
 through storm and rain in restless agony, a mood that is 
 reflected in his Wandrers Sturmlied, But his sorrow taught 
 him to see deep enough into the human heart to paint a 
 Marie, a Gretchen, a Werther, and it was now that the 
 great figures of Gotz and Faust took possession of him. 
 In August, 1771, seventeen months after his arrival, Goethe 
 left Strassburg as " licentiate of law," a degree which allowed 
 him to use the title " Doctor." 
 
 On his return to Frankfort began his initiation into the 
 business of an advocate, but he also found time for social 
 intercourse and gaiety. Among his many friends, J. H. 
 Merck, in Darmstadt (1741-91), seems to have had most 
 authority over him at this time. A man of ripe practical 
 sense, Merck was always ready, after the manner of a 
 Mephistopheles or a Carlos, to keep the enthusiasm of the 
 young poet in check and to- lead him back to the path 
 Goethe in of prudence. In May, 1772, Goethe went for four months 
 Wetziar, to \Vetzlar, the seat of the Imperial Law Courts, in order to 
 learn the routine of his profession. Here he soon made a 
 new circle of friends, of whom the chief were F. W. Goiter 
 and J. C. Kestner : here, too, he once more fell in love, 
 
 1 Werfce, i, 74 (but cp. i, 386).
 
 CHAP. VII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 313 
 
 and his passion for Charlotte Buff left furrows on his soul 
 almost as deep as those he had received in Sesenheim, the 
 conflict being further complicated by the fact that Charlotte 
 was already betrothed to his friend Kestner. But, although 
 Goethe was brought to the verge of suicide, he remained 
 faithful to his friend and Charlotte to her betrothed. A 
 journey up the Rhine and a visit to Frau Sophie von 
 Laroche helped to obliterate his grief, and, once in Frankfort 
 again, he devoted himself zealously to literary work. His 
 critical contributions to the Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen 
 ( I 77 2 '73)> 1 i which the signal for the literary revolution 
 was first clearly sounded, and the glowing panegyric on the 
 builder of the Strassburg Minster, Erwin von Steinbach, 
 which appeared in November, 1772, under the title Von Vondeut- 
 deutscher Baukunst, were the immediate results of Herder's scher Bait- 
 teaching. But Goethe's great achievement, the work which i 772 .' 
 made him the chief poet of Germany and the leader of the 
 "Sturm und Drang," was Gotz von Berlichingen. 
 
 In its first form, Geschichte Gottfriedens von Berlichingen Got* von 
 mit der eisernen Hand, dramatisirt (not published until 1832), ?* r ^ A ~ 
 was written in the autumn of 1771 ; in 1773, however, Goethe 1771-73. 
 completely revised it and gave it a more compact dramatic 
 form, in other words made a play out of what had only been 
 a dramatised chronicle. And in this form under the title 
 Gotz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand : ein Schauspiel, 
 it appeared in I773- 2 Based upon the hero's own Lebens- 
 Beschreibung, which was written about the middle of the 
 sixteenth century, and printed at Niirnberg in 1731, Goethe's 
 Gotz von Berlichingen is a historical drama of the Reformation 
 period, but a drama appealing immediately to the poet's own 
 contemporaries. The rough knight with the hand of iron, 
 enemy of prince and priest alike, but friend of the op- 
 pressed, the champion of freedom, was an ideal that went 
 straight to the heart of the time, and the young Germany of the 
 "Sturm und Drang" greeted Gotz with stormy acclamation. 
 But, at the same time, Goethe wove into the story his own life 
 in Strassburg ; he pictured himself in the wavering Weisslingen, 
 
 1 Werke, 37, 191 ff. Von deutscher Baukunst in the same volume, 137 ff. 
 A reprint of the Frankfurter gelehrte Anteigen vom Jahre 1772, by W. Scherer 
 and B. Seuffert (Litter at urdenkmale, 7, 8), Stuttgart, 1883. 
 
 Werke, 39, i ff., and 8, i ff. A reprint of Gotz von Berlichingen's Lebctts- 
 beschreibung, by A. Bieling, appeared at Halle in 1886.
 
 314 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 and Friederike in Gotz von Berlichingen's sister, Maria. 
 Adalbert von Weisslingen was Gotz's playmate at school, but 
 their ways have separated ; Gotz lives as a free nobleman to 
 whom might is right, in his castle on the Jaxt; Weisslingen 
 has entered the service of the Bishop of Bamberg, and is 
 on the highway to become a Court favourite. When the 
 drama opens, Gotz has seized the opportunity of a feud 
 with the Bishop to take Weisslingen prisoner. In Jaxthausen, 
 Weisslingen sees Maria and loves her, and Gotz's noble be- 
 haviour and chivalrous treatment of him wins his heart. He 
 resolves to leave the Court and join Gotz, but returning to 
 Bamberg to put his affairs in order, yields once more to the 
 allurements of the Court party ; he breaks his word to Gotz, 
 his troth to Maria. A heartless Court beauty, Adelheid von 
 Walldorf, becomes his wife. Ultimately, Gotz, who has put 
 himself at the head of the peasants' revolt, is taken prisoner, 
 and condemned to die by Weisslingen's hand. Maria comes 
 to the latter and implores him by their love to save her 
 brother's life; he tears the sentence of death, but himself 
 dies poisoned by the hand of Adelheid, his wife. Adelheid 
 is condemned to death by the Holy Vehm, and Gotz suc- 
 cumbs to his wounds in the hands of his enemies, with 
 the words " Es lebe die Freyheit ! " upon his lips. Such is 
 in brief the contents of the stormy tragedy which opened a 
 new era in German literature. The style of the drama is 
 in complete harmony with its spirit ; no dramatic unities 
 shackle its progress ; the scenes change with a restlessness 
 which it would be difficult to parallel in the Elizabethan 
 drama. An exuberance of genius breathes through Gotz ; 
 its figures are picturesquely grouped and varied, and drawn 
 with a marvellous sureness of touch. It may, of course, be 
 objected that the life in their veins is that of the "Sturm 
 und' Drang " of the eighteenth century and not of the age 
 of the Reformation ; their language bold, straightforward, 
 even to grossness is only the poet's conception of the 
 tongue that was spoken in the sixteenth century; while 
 Gotz himself, from a historical point of view, is idealised 
 beyond recognition. But the tragedy is naturally not to 
 be judged as a realistic drama according to modern canons ; 
 it is the creation of a poet a poet's commentary on, and 
 interpretation of, life.
 
 r 
 
 CHAP. VII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 315 
 
 Gotz von Berlichingen was followed, in the autumn of 1774, 
 by another work which was even more widely popular, Die Die Leiden 
 Leiden des jungen Werthers. As Gotz had been a reflection ^Irthers 
 of Goethe's Strassburg life, so Werther reflects his life in 1774. 
 Wetzlar, but more faithfully and directly, for the sub- 
 ject of Werther is not historical. In Werthers Leiden the 
 " letter-novel " of the eighteenth century entered upon a 
 new lease of life, but its immediate model was rather La 
 nouvelle Heloise than the novels of Richardson. 1 The basis 
 of fact upon which Werther is built up was, in the first in- 
 stance, of course, Goethe's love for Charlotte Buff in Wetzlar ; 
 several traits were also suggested by a passing interest in 
 Maximiliane Brentano, daughter of Frau Laroche, and finally 
 the suicide of a young colleague, Jerusalem by name, pro- 
 vided the novel with a conclusion. No book ever seized 
 all hearts so powerfully as this simple story of unhappy love 
 and suicide ; over no book have so many tears been shed 
 as over Werther. Its popularity is often accounted for by 
 the fact that Goethe wrote for a morbidly sentimental age, 
 but this explanation is unjust to the poet. It is hardly 
 possible, for instance, that a man like Napoleon could have 
 read Werther seven times had it been nothing but a senti- 
 mental love-story ; and, if it appealed only to a passing 
 fashion, it would have long ceased to be interesting. But 
 this is manifestly not the case. The greatness of Werther lies 
 in the faithful picture it gives of a human soul ; Goethe never 
 drew a more living man than Werther, and it is only necessary 
 to compare him with a typical hero of eighteenth -century 
 fiction, such as Rousseau's Saint-Preux, to realise where the 
 consummate skill of the German poet lay. This gentle youth 
 in the blue coat, yellow waistcoat, and top-boots, with his love 
 for nature and his faith in Homer and Ossian, this tender, 
 sensitive nature, which breaks under an overpowering passion, 
 is one of the most convincing portraits to be found in the 
 literature of the eighteenth century. 
 
 The appearance of Werther was the signal for an outburst 
 of sentimental literature by no means restricted to the Ger- 
 man language; all Europe was infected with the "Werther 
 fever." 2 Parodies, such as Nicolai's Freuden des jungen 
 
 1 Cp. E. Schmidt, Richardson, Rousseau und Goethe, Jena, 1875, 126 ff. 
 
 2 Cp. J. W. Appell, Werther und seine Zeit, 4th ed., Oldenburg. 1896.
 
 316 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Werthers (1775), were incapable of stemming the flood, the 
 effects of which were felt for long afterwards in German 
 fiction. The best novel written under the influence of 
 Wertker was Siegwart, eine Klostergeschichte (1776), by the 
 Swabian, J. M. Miller (1750-1814), who, it will be re- 
 membered, was one of the more prominent members of the 
 " Gottinger Bund." In Siegwart, moonlight and lachrymose 
 sentiment play, especially at the close, a considerable role, 
 but the book is, after all, essentially an " educational " 
 novel, for which the author's early life afforded materials ; 
 also, like the older educational novel, it is pointedly didactic 
 in spirit. One of Goethe's friends, F. H. Jacobi (1743- 
 1819), also followed in his footsteps with two books, Aus 
 Eduard All-wills Papier en (1775) and Woldemar (1777-79), 
 both of which found many readers ; but, on the whole, their 
 individual stamp was not sufficient to distinguish them from the 
 ordinary sentimental literature of the time. More important 
 is the influence which Jacobi in his turn exerted upon Goethe 
 by drawing his attention to Spinoza, in whom the poet 
 found refuge from the extremes of rationalism on the one 
 side and Moravianism on the other. Jacobi's philosophic 
 writings, such as his Briefe iiber die Lehre des Spinoza 
 (1785), have more weight than his novels, which were, 
 after all, merely philosophical treatises, clothed in senti- 
 mental garb. His elder brother, Johann Georg Jacobi 
 (1740-1814), stands,, as a lyric poet, intermediate between 
 the older Anacreontic poetry of Gleim and the lyric of 
 Goethe. 
 
 Among the many new friends which the eventful year 1774 
 perhaps the most eventful in the poet's whole life brought 
 Goethe, was the Zurich pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741- 
 1801). Lavater was in his day a spiritual force of wide- 
 reaching authority ; his fervid individualistic ideas on religion 
 appealed strongly to his contemporaries. As a poet, he had, 
 as we have seen, written dreary Biblical epics on the model of 
 the JMcssias, as well as hymns inspired by Klopstock's Odes ; 
 but these were soon forgotten. His memory is kept alive 
 solely by one remarkable work which, like Klopstock's 
 Gelehrtenrepublik, bears witness to the unbalanced spirit of 
 the " Sturm und Drang." This was the Physiognomischen 
 Fragmente zur Beforderung der Menschenkenntniss und Men-
 
 CHAP. VII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 317 
 
 sckenliebe (1775-78) to which Goethe himself contributed 
 a few sketches a fervid and totally unscientific forerunner 
 of Gall's " Phrenology." 
 
 At the beginning of 1775, Goethe was once more in- 
 volved in a great passion, this time for Lili Schonemann, a Lili 
 rich banker's daughter in Frankfort. Although the atmos- Sch o ne - 
 
 , . maim. 
 
 phere of the Schonemann household was unsympathetic to 
 the poet, who disliked the restraint of society, he engaged 
 himself to Lili, and the " neue Liebe, neues Leben " 
 brought in its train a burst of matchless lyric poetry ; but 
 as the year went on, he himself felt the force of the 
 words he placed in the mouth of Ferdinand, the hero of 
 Stella, " Ich muss fort in die freie Welt." An excursion 
 to the St Gotthard with the two brothers Stolberg in the 
 following summer cooled his affection for Lili, and when, 
 at the close of the year, Karl August took him to Weimar, 
 on a visit which ultimately proved to be for life, the 
 engagement was broken without tragic consequences on 
 either side. 
 
 The period between Goethe's return from Strassburg, in 
 August, 1771, and his departure for Weimar, in November, 
 1775, was thus filled with the most varied and engrossing 
 experiences for the young poet ; and yet, notwithstanding 
 the many distractions, he was busily engaged with literary 
 work and plans. To these years belong more than half-a- 
 dozen dramatic satires, in which Goethe enforced his own Dramatic 
 healthy, if still somewhat juvenile, views of literature. In satires. 
 Goiter, Helden und Wieland (1774), he sallied forth against 
 Wieland and the latter's superficial and untrue pictures of 
 the ancient Greek world ; in Hansivursts Hochzeit and the 
 Fastnachtsspiel vom Pater Brey other affectations of the 
 time were satirised. The exaggerated Rousseauism which 
 had followed in the train of Herder's teaching is the subject 
 of Satyros oder der vergotterte Waldteufel, while in the Jahr- 
 marktsfest zu Plundersiveilern the " Sturm und Drang " of 
 the time is held up to ridicule. Lastly, DCS Kiinstlers Erde- 
 wallen and Des Kiinstlers Vergotterung (afterwards remodelled 
 as Kiinstlers Apotheose), are serious pleas for the honour of 
 the artist's calling. 
 
 More ambitious are Clavigo (1774) and Stella (1776), both 
 "biirgerliche " dramas of the type which Lessing had perfected
 
 3 1 8 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Clavigo, in Emilia Galotli. Clavigo, which came, it might be said, 
 1 77^ red-hot from the poet's brain in the course of a few days, is a 
 
 variation of the story of Weisslingen in Gotz von Berlichingen ; 
 and also reflects the Sesenheim tragedy. In the young 
 Spaniard Clavigo, who, incited by his ambitions, abandons 
 Marie de Beaumarchais and ultimately falls at the hand of 
 her brother, Goethe once again dealt out that poetic justice 
 to himself which, in actual life, he had escaped. In the 
 compactness of its dramatic construction, Clavigo is a marked 
 advance upon Gotz, but its most admirable feature is the 
 figure of Don Carlos, Clavigo's friend and mentor, the man 
 of the world. If Clavigo still harks back to Strassburg, 
 Stella, Stella, ein Schauspiel fitr Liebende, written in the spring of 
 I 77S- i775i is clearly an echo of Goethe's engagement to Lili 
 
 Schonemann ; while the name of the heroine and the subject, 
 the love of one man for two women, suggest Swift's biography 
 as a source. Ferdinand is too weak a hero to hold the play 
 together ; and the mere fact that it was possible to substitute 
 a tragic denouement for the original and for its time so 
 characteristic ending in which Ferdinand took both wives 
 to his bosom, showed that the plan was without true dramatic 
 "necessity." Notwithstanding the psychological insight that 
 distinguishes it, Stella is not one of the poet's masterpieces ; 
 and its origin is explained by Goethe's own words, "wenn 
 ich jetzt nicht Dramas schriebe, ich ging zu Grund." 1 Two 
 " Singspiele," which were subsequently remodelled, were also 
 first written at this time, namely, Erwin und Elmire (1775) 
 and Claudine von Villa Bella (1776). 
 
 Even more significant than the finished plays was the series 
 Fragments, of magnificent fragments which Goethe dashed off in inspired 
 moments during these years. A great philosophic tragedy 
 on Sokrates (end of 1771) was planned, a religious tragedy 
 on the subject of Mahomet, an epic on the theme of Der 
 ewige Jude. To the year 1773 belongs the beginning of a 
 drama on Prometheus, which breaks off with the noble mono- 
 logue : 
 
 " Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus, 
 Mit Wolkendunst, 
 Und ube, dem Knaben gleich, 
 Der Disteln kopft, 
 
 1 Letter to Auguste von Stolberg, March 1775 (Briefe, 2, 242).
 
 CHAP. VII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 319 
 
 An Eichen dich und Bergeshohn ; 
 
 Musst mir meine Erde 
 
 Doch lassen stehn, 
 
 Und meine Hiitte, die du nicht gebaut, 
 
 Und meinen Herd, 
 
 Um dessen Gluth 
 
 Du mich beneidest." 1 
 
 But all these fragments sink into insignificance beside the Faust, 
 tragedy of Faust, which had already received its earliest form I775> 
 before Goethe went to Weimar. With this work, which had 
 occupied Goethe's attention since his student-days in Strass- 
 burg, the first period of his life culminates. As recently 
 as 1887, a MS. copy of Faust was discovered in the form 
 in which the poet brought it to Weimar the so-called 
 " Gochhausen'sche Abschrift." 2 This play of 1775 is essen- 
 tially the Faust of the " Sturm und Drang," and might be 
 said to represent the highest point which this movement in 
 German literature reached. There is nothing in it of the 
 calm philosophic spirit of the completed masterpiece ; Goethe 
 is not yet able to rise superior to his hero, as he does in the 
 completed "First Part" (1808), and even to some extent in 
 the published fragment of 1790. He is here one with 
 Faust, and the drama is, in the most literal sense, a confes- 
 sion. He, too, had known the unsatisfied craving for new 
 experiences, on the one hand, and the hatred of what 
 Schiller called the " tintenklecksende Seculum " on the other ; 
 to him life was still full of contradictions and inexplicable 
 problems. 
 
 The opening monologue reflects in its hearty " Knittel- 
 verse," which recall the drama of Hans Sachs, the attitude 
 of the " Sturm und Drang " towards knowledge and learning. 
 The apostrophe to the moon 
 
 ' ' Ach konnt ich doch auf Berges Hohn 
 In deinem lieben Lichte gehn, 
 Um Bergeshohl mit Geistern schweben, 
 Auf Wiesen in deinem Dammer weben, 
 Von all dem Wissensqualm entladen 
 In deinem Thau gesund mich baden ! " 3 
 
 expresses the longing of the age to find in nature what it 
 
 1 Werke, 39, 213. 
 
 2 Goethes Faust in urspriinglicher Gestalt, edited by E. Schmidt, 5th ed., 
 Weimar, 1901 ; also in the Werke, 39, 217 ff. 
 
 3 Werke, 39, 220.
 
 320 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 could not obtain from books. Here, too, in response 
 to Faust's conjuration, the Erdgeist appears " in widerlicher 
 Gestalt " 
 
 " In Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm 
 Wall ich auf und ab, 
 Webe bin und her ! 
 Geburt und Grab, 
 Ein ewges Meer, 
 Ein wechselnd Leben ! 
 
 So schaffich am sausenden Webstul der Zeit 
 Und wiircke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid." l 
 
 The first scene of the drama closes with the dialogue between 
 Faust and his " Famulus," Wagner ; the next is that between 
 Mephistopheles and the Scholar, or, as the old text has it, 
 the " Student," a scene in which the young " Sturmer und 
 Dranger " has an opportunity of pouring out his scorn of 
 academic pedantry. There is, however, as yet no indication 
 how Faust and Mephistopheles are to be brought together. 
 " Auerbachs Keller " is a reminiscence of Leipzig, blended 
 with later academic experiences, and, in its earliest form, 
 leaves a fresher and more actual impression than that which 
 the final version makes upon the reader ; Faust, for in- 
 stance, is not the calm onlooker of the more philosophic 
 play; it is he and not Mephistopheles who bores the table 
 and supplies the students with wine from the holes. The 
 scene that bears the title "Strasse" opens the "Gretchen" 
 
 The tragedy, and is followed, as in the completed drama, by 
 
 that which plays in Gretchen's " kleinem reinlichem Zimmer." 
 
 tragedy. Gretchen's naive delight in the discovered ornaments and 
 the ballad of " Der Konig in Thule " are, in their oldest 
 form, if less polished, not on that account the less sincere 
 and heartfelt ; and the whole of this tragedy, with its 
 fine pathos, the simple beauty of its love scenes, and, as 
 a foil, the coarse but naively popular episodes in which 
 Marthe takes part, was all already written in Frankfort. 
 Here, too, is the wonderful prose scene, " Triiber Tag," 
 followed by the unforgettable picture of Faust and Mephis- 
 topheles rushing past the gallows on black horses, and, 
 above all, the scene in Gretchen's prison, a scene that seeks 
 its like in dramatic literature ; and all this came directly 
 
 1 Werke, 39, 224 L
 
 CHAP. VII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 321 
 
 out of the brain of this poet of twenty-five, in his period 
 of "Sturm und Drang." 
 
 Still another of Goethe's dramas, Egmont (1788), belongs Egmont, 
 in its essentials to this period of his life. He began to I 77S- 88 - 
 write Egmont as early as 1775; and it was then planned 
 as a tragedy of the type of Gotz, enunciating the same 
 principles of freedom and revolt. But before Goethe left 
 Frankfort for Weimar, he had only sketched out the play 
 as far as the third act; in 1778 and 1779, and again in 
 1781, new scenes were added; while the finishing touches 
 were not put to the drama until the summer of 1787, when 
 he was in Italy. In Egmont, Goethe has stretched the 
 limits of dramatic form to the utmost ; no other of his 
 dramas, not even Tasso, is so deficient in progressive action. 
 The "great" Graf Egmont, the leader of the revolt of the 
 Netherlands against Spanish tyranny, is warned of the danger 
 he runs in remaining in Brussels ; he pays no attention to 
 the warnings, is taken prisoner by the Duke of Alba, and 
 executed such is the slight plot upon which rests Egmonfs 
 claim to be regarded as a drama ; all else in the play is 
 episodic, and only serves to complete the picture of Egmont 
 himself. The admirable " Volksscenen " are introduced to 
 show how he was regarded by the populace of Brussels ; 
 Margarete von Parma, Machiavell and Oranien are only 
 foils to bring his political position into prominence ; 
 Clarchen exists to let us see him in love ; the various scenes 
 are loosely thrown together without connection or construc- 
 tion. And yet, notwithstanding these shortcomings, Egmont 
 remains one of Goethe's most impressive works. The hero 
 himself, who has but little in common with the historical 
 Egmont, is a masterpiece of dramatic characterisation ; he is 
 another Weisslingen, another Ferdinand, another Faust ; he 
 is again the " Sturmer und Dranger " with " two souls in 
 his breast." Like these characters, Egmont is, to use 
 Goethe's own expression, "damonisch," but the tragic dis- 
 cord in Weisslingen's or Faust's life has in Egmont's given 
 place to a calmer, more cheerful outlook upon the world. 
 He is not, to the same extent, at war with existence ; he 
 wins the affection of all who come in contact with him ; his 
 tragic fate is his own trusting heart. But even to a greater 
 extent than to the principal figure, the tragedy owes its 
 
 x
 
 $22 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 " Clar- 
 chen." 
 
 popularity to Clarchen. Like Gretchen, Clarchen bears 
 witness to that faculty of laying bare a woman's soul which 
 Goethe possessed in so remarkable a degree : the love-scenes 
 between Egmont and Clarchen are among the truest he ever 
 wrote. Egmont's " Geliebte " is not merely a replica of 
 Gretchen ; she bears indeed something of the same relation 
 to Gretchen that Egmont bears to Faust : she is less tragic, 
 and has still that light-hearted " Lebenslust " which Gretchen 
 had lost if she ever possessed it before Faust knew her. 
 She is less naive and more self-conscious than Gretchen ; and 
 occasionally, as in her wonderful song, " Freudvoll und leid- 
 voll, Gedankenvoll sein," there is a suggestion of that romantic 
 poetry which forms a halo round Mignon. 
 
 Thus, although defective as a drama, Egmont is justified by 
 its characters ; it appeals to us by its broad human sympathy, 
 the broader because the turbulence of Gotz and Clavigo has 
 subsided. It forms the transition in Goethe's work from the 
 " Sturm und Drang " to the maturity of his life in Weimar, 
 from Gotz to Iphigenie,
 
 323 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE MINOR "STtiRMER UNO DRANGER " ; SCHILLER'S 
 EARLY YEARS. 
 
 To Goethe's immediate circle of friends in Strassburg and 
 
 Frankfort belonged three men Lenz, Klinger, and Wagner 
 
 who may be regarded as typical representatives of the 
 
 movement of " Sturm und Drang." Like Goethe himself 
 
 at this time, all three were pre-eminently dramatists ; their 
 
 work was an immediate continuation of what H. W. von H. W. von 
 
 Gerstenberg (1737-1823), whose name has already been ^f r rste "~ 
 
 mentioned, had begun. Gerstenberg may be said to have 1823! 
 
 ushered in the movement with what remained its best work 
 
 of criticism, the Briefe iiber Merkwiirdigkeiten der Litteratur 
 
 (1766- 70);! and in the tragedy, Ugolino (1768), in which 
 
 Dante's story of the death of Count Ugolino and his sons 
 
 by starvation is extended over five harrowing acts, he had 
 
 put his own theories into practice. But Gerstenberg is in 
 
 closer sympathy with Klopstock than Goethe ; he was, after 
 
 all, only a herald of the " Sturm und Drang." 
 
 Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz 2 was born in Livonia, in j. M. R. 
 1751; at the age of twenty, he found his way, like Herder, to Lenz 1 75 I - 
 Strassburg as a travelling tutor, and became an enthusiastic 9 
 member of the group of "Sturmer und Dranger" who had 
 gathered round Salzmann. He was seized with the ambition 
 of being recognised as Goethe's equal, and to attain this end, 
 not only sacrificed his own originality by trying to write like 
 Goethe, but also imitated closely Goethe's manner of life. 
 
 1 Ed. A. von Weilen (Litteraturdenkm. , 29, 30), Heilbronn, 1889; Ugolino 
 will be found in D.N.L., 48, 191 ff. 
 
 2 Lenz's Gesammelte Sc hriften were first edited by L. Tieck, Berlin, 1828; 
 a selection by A. Sauer in Sturmer und Drdnger, a (D.N.L., 80 [1883]). Cp. 
 E. Schmidt, Lent und Klinger, Berlin, 1878.
 
 324 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Der Hof- 
 meister, 
 
 I774- 
 
 Die So Ida- 
 ten, 1776. 
 
 Anmcr- 
 
 kungen 
 
 iibers 
 
 Theater, 
 
 1774- 
 
 In Strassburg, for instance, he hoped to succeed his friend 
 in Friederike's affection ; and in Weimar, which he visited 
 in 1776, the Duke called him Goethe's ape. His eccen- 
 tricities were a source of amusement to Weimar" society, until 
 a tactless lampoon on Goethe, Frau von Stein, and the Court, 
 compelled him to make a hasty retreat. In later years he was 
 for a time insane, and. in 1792, died in extreme poverty near 
 Moscow. 
 
 In Strassburg, Lenz gained a reputation as an admirer of 
 Shakespeare, but in his own plays the only feature that recalls 
 the English dramatist is the restless change of scene. He 
 served his dramatic apprenticeship by adapting five of Plautus's 
 comedies to the German stage (17 74). These pieces are in 
 the spirit of Holberg, and the dialogue, especially that of the 
 comic scenes, shows a considerable advance on the old 
 comedy of the Saxon School. Lenz's talent appears to most 
 advantage in the two dramas, Der Hofmeister, oder Vortheile 
 der Privaterziehung (1774), and Die Soldaten (1776): the 
 former of these is a modern version of the story of Abelard 
 and Heloise, and exemplifies the danger of employing private 
 tutors in good families where there are daughters ; the second 
 has also a "purpose," its theme being that the soldier is 
 an enemy of society. Both plays belong to the category of 
 " biirgerliche Schauspiele " ; in both, the crude sentimentality 
 of the German drama of a generation earlier and the moral- 
 ising tone of Diderot are combined with the daring realism of 
 the " Sturm und Drang." The combination is not altogether 
 successful, but Lenz's realism is fresh and robust, his char- 
 acter-drawing always admirable, and his comic scenes are 
 genuinely comic. Der neue Menoza (1774) is a satirical 
 drama inspired by Rousseau, on the vices of civilisation, 
 and Die Freunde machen den Philosophen (1776), which 
 suffers under its exaggeratedly " Shakespearian " technique, 
 closes with a scene similar to the last scene of Goethe's 
 Stella, where the hero, it will be remembered, is left with two 
 wives. 
 
 The theoretical basis of Lenz's dramatic work is to be 
 found in the Anmerkungen iibers Theater (i 77 4), which were 
 accompanied by a translation of the greater part of Love's 
 Labour's Lost, under the title Amor vincit omnia. These 
 " notes," which reveal an unexpected critical talent, give an ex-
 
 CHAP. VIII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 325 
 
 cellent summary of the dramaturgic principles of the " Sturm 
 und Drang." Lenz heartily agrees with Lessing in his con- 
 tempt for the pseudo-classic drama of the French, but, unlike 
 Lessing, has little respect for Aristotle. He despises all 
 unities, except that of character ; a drama is to consist merely 
 of interesting " characters," and the theatre to become what 
 Goethe called a " Raritatenkasten." 
 
 The recent publication of Lenz's collected Gedichte^ has Lenz's 
 led to a better appreciation of his remarkable lyric talent, 
 In his songs, he stands in a closer relation to his model than 
 in either his dramas or his prose, and it is still a matter of 
 uncertainty whether certain lyrics of the Sesenheimer Lieder- 
 buch were written by Lenz or Goethe. Lenz's Liebe auf dem 
 Lande, the subject of which is Friederike Brion, is one of the 
 most beautiful poems of the time : 
 
 " Denn immer, immer, immer doch 
 Schwebt ihr das Bild an Wanden noch 
 Von einem Menschen, welcher kam 
 Und ihr als Kind das Herze nahm. 
 Fast ausgeloscht ist sein Gesicht, 
 Doch seiner Worte Kraft noch nicht, 
 Und jener Stunden Seligkeit, 
 Ach jener Traume Wirklichkeit, 
 Die angeboren jedermann, 
 Kein Mensch sich wirklich machen kann." 2 
 
 Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger (i752-i83i), 3 like F. M. von 
 Goethe, a native of Frankfort, was, on the whole, the manliest 
 and best-balanced dramatist of the " Sturm und Drang." He 
 was not so highly gifted as Lenz, nor does his work show the 
 same variety in lyric talent, for instance, he was wholly 
 deficient but as a young man he was no less unbridled and 
 extravagant than his friends, and none of them fell so com- 
 pletely under the influence of Rousseau as he. Beneath 
 his extravagance, however, there lay a foundation of common- 
 sense which was absent in the character of men like Lenz. 
 Klinger's life falls into two halves, the division being formed 
 by the year 1780, when he entered the Russian military 
 service. In his earlier years he was for a time attached, as 
 
 1 Ed. K. Weinhold, Stuttgart, 1891. 
 
 2 K. Weinhold, I.e.. 150; D.N.L., 80, 233. 
 
 * Cp. M. Rieger, Klinger in der Sturm- und Drangpfriode, Darmstadt, 
 1880 ; and E. Schmidt, I.e., 62 ff. A selection from his works in A. Sauer's 
 Sturmer und Drdngtr, I (D.N.L., 79 [1883]).
 
 326 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 warr, 1776. 
 
 Die Zwil- 
 linge, 1776. 
 
 playwright, to a theatrical company, and his work was ex- 
 clusively dramatic ; during the period of his life in Russia, to 
 which we shall return in the following chapter, he wrote 
 mainly novels. 
 
 Klinger's career began with Otto (1775), a " Ritterdrama," 
 written on the model of Gotz von Berlichingen ; it was followed 
 by Das leidende Weib (1775), on which the influence of Lenz 
 is conspicuous. In the next year appeared the dramas, Die 
 
 Der Wirr- neue Arria, Simsone Grisaldo, and, most notable of all, Der 
 Wirrwarr oder Sturm und Drang, the play which gave its 
 name to the movement. Klinger's Sturm und Drang is char- 
 acteristic of the age in more than title : its subject it is a 
 love-story similar to that of Romeo and Juliet, with the American 
 War of Independence as a background ; its ebullient enthusi- 
 asm and unbridled passion ; its language, broken by paren- 
 theses and marks of exclamation, all this is the very essence 
 of the " Geniezeit." But even Sturm und Drang was not so 
 stormy as another of Klinger's tragedies, Die Zwillinge (1776), 
 ^g mos j. characteristic of these " Explosionen des jugendlichen 
 Geistes und Unmuthes," as in after years their author called 
 them. This is a grim tragedy of fraternal hatred, and 
 from first word to last the action sweeps irresistibly along, 
 heedless of psychological truth or probability. The villainous 
 Guelfo kills his twin-brother Fernando, not merely because 
 the latter is his successful rival in love, but also because 
 Fernando is determined to assert his rights as eldest born, 
 and Guelfo is stabbed by his own father. The double 
 motive for the tragic catastrophe of Klinger's Zwillinge in- 
 duced the actor Schroder to bestow the prize he had offered 
 for the best German drama, upon it rather than on another 
 tragedy which treated a similar theme and had been written 
 
 J. A. Leise- for the same competition, Jttlius von Tarent (1774, printed 
 I776), 1 by J. A. Leisewitz. Leisewitz (1752-1806) was one 
 of the stronger dramatic talents of his age, but he gave 
 himself up less spontaneously to the spirit of the "Sturm 
 und Drang" than either Lenz or Klinger. He had begun 
 to write under the auspices of the Gottingen Bund, and his 
 tragedy his only work of importance shows that he had 
 learnt his art in Lessing's school rather than in Goethe's. 
 Julius von Tarent is a powerful play on the love of two 
 
 1 Cp. D.N.L.. 79, 317 ff.; Litteraturdenkm. , 32 (1889). 
 
 witzs 
 Julius von 
 Tarent, 
 1776.
 
 CHAP. VIII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 327 
 
 brothers for the same woman, and Leisewitz spares no pains to 
 make the dark side of his tragedy as terrifying as possible ; 
 but he has more restraint than Klinger ; his dramatic effects 
 are not so impulsive. This tragedy is the immediate fore- 
 runner of Schiller's Rauber, the last outstanding creation of 
 the " Sturm und Drang." 
 
 The oldest of the " Goetheaner," Heinrich Leopold Wagner H. L. 
 (I747-79), 1 a native of Strassburg, has least claim upon our Wagner, 
 attention. His tragedies, Die Reue nach der That (1775) 
 and Die Kindermorderinn (1776), belong to the category of 
 "biirgerliche Trauerspiele " ; they discuss social problems, and 
 help to fill the gap between Emilia Galotti and Kabale und 
 Liebe. The " Kindermorderin " is a butcher's daughter who 
 is seduced by an officer ; she flees from her parents, who both 
 subsequently die ; finally, in despair, she kills her child and 
 is executed. The difference of social caste, a motive that 
 recurs again and again in the drama of the " Sturm und 
 Drang," forms the basis of Die Kindermorderinn; but Wagner's 
 treatment of the theme is crude and revolting, and the play 
 reads like a criminal report in dramatic form. The resem- 
 blance of the plot to that of the " Gretchen tragedy " in Faust 
 is not accidental, Goethe having himself told Wagner of the 
 subject in Frankfort. A more pleasing example of Wagner's 
 genius is his Prometheus, Deukalion und seine Recensenten 
 (1775), a witty harlequinade in " Knittel verse " in defence 
 of Goethe and Werther. 
 
 Friedrich Miiller (i749-i825), 2 or, as he preferred to be 
 called, " Mahler Miiller," did not, like Lenz and Klinger, Maler 
 begin as a " Sturmer und Dranger " ; he stands between the Muiier, 
 quiet, old-world sentimentalism of Gessner and the virile 
 and tumultuous literature of the "Geniezeit." His earliest 
 poems were inspired by Gessner's Idylls; in the Schaaf- 
 Schur eine Pfdlzische Idylle (1775), on the other hand, he 
 abandons the rococo style of the Swiss poet for the realism 
 of the age that produced Litise and Der Hofmeister. Muller's 
 passive temperament was easily impressed by outside influ- 
 ences; his lyric drama Niobe (1778) bears witness to his 
 admiration for Klopstock, and even the triviality of the 
 
 1 E. Schmidt, H, L. Wagner, Jena, 1875; A. Sauer in D.N.L., 80, 275 ff. 
 A reprint of Die Kindermorderin in the Litteraturdenkm. , 13, Heilbronn, 188^. 
 
 2 A. Sauer, Stitnner and Dranger, 3 (D.N.L., 81 [1883]). Cp. B. Seuffert, 
 Maler Miiller, Berlin, 1877.
 
 328 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 anacreontic rhymers has left traces on his poetry. In later 
 life from 1778 on he lived mainly in Rome Maler Miiller 
 came into touch with the Romantic School. 
 
 Of the favourite themes of this age, none had a greater 
 fascination for the "Stiirmer und Dranger" than that of the 
 magician who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for super- 
 human powers. Like Goethe, and like Klinger in one of his 
 later novels, Miiller, too, was attracted by the saga of Faust ; 
 in 1776, he dedicated his Situationen aus Fausts Leben to 
 " Shakespeares Geist," and two years after, published the 
 first part of Fausts Leben dramatisirt. Miiller's Faust only 
 resembles Goethe's in so far as it was also the goblet into 
 which the author poured his own dreams and aspirations. The 
 Ingolstadt professor of Muller's tragedy is again the typical 
 " Ubermensch " of the " Sturm und Drang," but he is neither 
 idealist nor hero ; Miiller describes him in his preface as 
 
 "ein Kerl, der alle seine Kraft gefuhlt, gefiihlt den Ziigel, den 
 Gliick und Schicksal ihm anhielt, den er gern zerbrechen wollt, 
 und Mittel und Wege sucht Muth genug hat alles nieder zu 
 werfen, was in Weg trat und ihn verhindern will. Warme genug 
 in seinem Busen tragt, sich in Liebe an einen Teufel zu hangen, 
 der ihm offen und vertraulich entgegen tritt." 1 
 
 A better-constructed drama, Goto und Genoveva, which was 
 written in 1781, but not published until 1811, serves admir- 
 ably, if compared with Tieck's romantic play on the same 
 subject, to show the difference between the unbalanced 
 enthusiasm of the " Sturm und Drang " and the more mature 
 and passive spirit of Romanticism. Goto und Genoveva 
 belongs essentially to the category of " Ritterdramen." 
 
 The minor dramatists of the "Geniezeit" were seriously 
 handicapped. Their early work had been unduly over- 
 shadowed by Gotz von Berlichingen, and they had hardly 
 begun to win an independent position for themselves when 
 Die Rduber appeared, and they were once more forced into 
 the background. Johann Friedrich Schiller, 2 the second child 
 
 1 Reprint by B. Seuffert (Litteraturdenkm. , 3), Heilbronn, 1881, 8. Besides 
 the Fausts of Goethe, Maler Miiller, and Graf Soden (referred to below), 
 the theme was in this period made the subject of dramatic treatment by P. 
 Weidmann (Johann Faust, 1775), A. W. Schreil>er (Scenen aus Fausts Leben, 
 1792), J. F. Schink (Johann Faust, 1804), and K. Schone (1809). 
 
 a The two chief biographies of Schiller, by J. Minor (i, 2 ; Berlin, 1890) and 
 R. Weltrich (r, Stuttgart, 1885-99), are still far from completion. Cp. also
 
 CHAP. VIII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 329 
 
 of an army-surgeon in Wiirtemberg, was born at Marbach on 
 the loth of November, 1759 ; he was four years old when the 
 family removed to Lorch, and seven when they settled in 
 Ludwigsburg. In Schiller's childhood, the halo of poetry 
 which surrounded Goethe's is missing, and anything idyllic 
 or beautiful in it soon came to an end ; beyond a talent for 
 writing Latin verses, and a period of religious enthusiasm 
 which culminated in his confirmation in the spring of 1772, 
 there was also nothing remarkable about his schooldays. 
 Theology, as was not unnatural in a boy of his temperament, 
 was his favourite study, but Duke Karl Eugen of Wiirtemberg, 
 whose tyranny threw its shadow on all Schiller's youth, decreed 
 otherwise ; he claimed the promising scholar for his new 
 school in the " Solitude " near Ludwigsburg. A protest from 
 Schiller's father made it clear that the latter had either to 
 resign his son to the Duke's will or himself make shift for 
 his bread; and so, in the beginning of 1773, Schiller became As"Karis- 
 a " Karlsschiiler," destined to be formed into a jurist by a schuler -" 
 process of military drill. The only bright points in this 
 school-life in the " Solitude " were the passionate friendships 
 Schiller formed. His enforced studies were hateful to him in 
 the extreme, and it was a slight change for the better when, in 
 November, 1775, the school was transferred to Stuttgart and a 
 medical faculty instituted, which he was allowed to join. 
 
 In the "Solitude" at Ludwigsburg, Schiller worshipped 
 the Messias as the ne plus ultra of poetry ; in Stuttgart 
 his poetic horizon rapidly widened. Surreptitiously he found 
 opportunities of reading the most popular dramas of the 
 day Gotz, Die Zwillinge, Julius von Tarent and himself 
 began to plan a drama similar to these, with Cosmo di 
 Medici as hero. Werther, too, made a deep impression 
 upon him, and his projected Student von Nassau would 
 probably have been a romance on the same lines. In the 
 meantime, however, Die Rauber the plot of which had been 
 suggested to him by a short story by C. F. D. Schubart 
 
 those by J. Palleske, i3th ed., Stuttgart, 1891, O. Brahm (not completed, 
 Berlin, 1888-92), and O. Harnack (in Geisteshelden, 28, 29), Berlin, 1898. A 
 "historisch-kritische" edition of Schiller's works, edited by K. Goedeke, 
 appeared at Stuttgart in 17 volumes l>etween 1867 and 1876; in D.N.L., 
 Schiller is edited by R. Boxberger and A. Birlinger, and occupies vols. 118-129 
 (13 vols. [1882-90]). A critical edition of Schiller's Briefe, in 7 vols., is edited 
 by F. Jonas, Stuttgart, 1892-96.
 
 330 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 was taking shape. All through 1780, Schiller worked at it, 
 and when, in December of that year, he left the Academy, 
 entitled to practise as a doctor, the drama was virtually 
 finished. 
 
 Die Rtiuber (1781) is the great revolutionary drama of 
 German literature, the one genuinely political tragedy of the 
 " Sturm und Drang." It does not, like Gotz, play in a remote 
 age, but so far as it has any historical character at all 
 during the Seven Years' War. The subject, a tragedy 
 of two brothers, was one of the favourite themes of the 
 "Sturm und Drang." Karl Moor, endowed with all the 
 qualities the age admired, but estranged from father and 
 home by the machinations of his brother Franz, becomes 
 the leader of a robber-band in the Bohemian forests. Like 
 another Gotz, he punishes vice and arrogance and assists the 
 needy and the oppressed; he is an "edler Rauber." But 
 he is seized with a longing to see his home again, where, 
 meanwhile, Franz has imprisoned their father in a tower, with 
 the intent of slowly starving him to death, and has attempted 
 without success to win for himself his brother's betrothed, 
 Amalia. Karl rescues his father, only to see him die, while 
 Franz eludes the robbers whom Karl has sent to capture 
 him, by killing himself. A reward is on the robber's head, 
 and he recalls a poor man who stands in need of assistance. 
 Thus he voluntarily " appeases the laws he has offended and 
 restores the order of the world," which, as he now realises, 
 he has helped to destroy rather than to uphold. 
 
 The poet himself may not have been responsible for the 
 motto, " In tirannos," attached to the second edition of the 
 tragedy, but these words express its spirit. Die Rtiuber is, we 
 might say, a direct challenge to the political tyranny that 
 loomed so large on Schiller's own horizon at this time. 
 When the young Bohemian nobleman, Kosinsky, under the 
 pressure of wrong and outrage, joins Moor's robber-band, or 
 when Karl Moor himself denounces with burning eloquence 
 the tyranny of State and ruler, of Church and social usage, 
 of civilisation itself, Schiller speaks straight from his own 
 rebellious heart. 
 
 "Das Gesez," he cries, "hat zum Schneckengang verdorben, 
 was Adlerflug gcworden ware. Das Gesez hat noch keinen gros- 
 sen Mann gebildet, aber die Freyheit briitet Kolosse und Ex-
 
 CHAP. VIII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 331 
 
 tremitaten aus. . . . Stelle mich vor ein Heer Kerls wie ich, und 
 aus Deutschland soil eine Republik warden, gegen die Rom und 
 Sparta Nonnenkloster sein sollen." 
 
 Or again in the scene with the Pater at the close of the second 
 act: 
 
 " Da donnern sie Sanfftmuth und Duldung aus ihren Wolken, 
 und bringen dern Gott der Liebe Menschenopfer, wie einem feuer- 
 armigen Moloch predigen Liebe des Nachsten, und fluchen den 
 achtzigjahrigen Blinden von ihren Thiiren hinweg: stiirmen wider 
 den Geiz, und haben Peru um goldner Spangen willen entvolkert 
 und die Heyden wie Zugvieh vor ihre Wagen gespannt. . . . O iiber 
 euch Pharisaer, each Falschmiinzer der Wahrheit, euch AfTen der 
 Gottheit ! " * 
 
 JE)ie Rauber, published privately and anonymously in 1781, 
 was received with an enthusiasm which soon made a second 
 edition necessary. The first performance, for which Schiller 
 had prepared a special version, took place at Mannheim in 
 the beginning of 1782, and met with equally great success, 
 the only shadow on the happiness of the young poet who was 
 present being that he had to some extent outgrown his work. 
 He had by this time definitely resolved to devote himself to 
 literature ; he was not only the anonymous author of the 
 Rauber> but had also published a lyric Anthologie auf das Jahr Anthologie 
 1782, which, however, shows rather the crudity and unripeness au f dai 
 of the beginner than the genius to which the tragedy bears 
 witness. Schiller's position in Stuttgart was meanwhile be- 
 coming more and more untenable. The Duke was firm in his 
 determination that, whatever reputation the poet might gain, 
 he should remain army-surgeon in Wiirtemberg and nothing 
 more. Schiller had before him a warning example in the fate 
 of his fellow-countryman, the poet and musician C. F. D. 
 Schubart ( 1 739-9 1), 2 who, in 1777, was lured by Duke Karl C. F. D. 
 Eugen into Wiirtemberg, arrested, and thrown into the castle Schubart 
 of Hohenasperg. His crime, for which he atoned with ten 
 years' imprisonment in this fortress, was the revolutionary tone 
 of his review, the Deutsche Chronik (begun in 1 774), aggravated 
 by some tactless personal attacks on the Duke. As a poet, 
 Schubart's sympathies were with Klopstock and the Gottingen 
 
 1 Sammtliche Schriften, 2, 30 and 104. 
 
 a Cp. A. Sauer, Sturmer und Dranger, 3 (D.N.L., 81 f l88 3])> 2 9 l ff - A 
 complete edition of Schubart's Gedichfe in Reclam's Universal-Bibliothek, No. 
 1821-1824, ed. G. Hauff, Leipzig, 1884.
 
 332 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 School. Die Fiirstengruft (1779 or 1780), his most famous 
 poem, written in prison, is a philippic against tyrants which 
 recalls the odes of Voss and Stolberg : 
 
 " Da liegen sie, die stolzen Fiirstentriimmer, 
 
 Ehmals die Gotzen ihrer Welt ! 
 Da liegen sie, vom furchterlichen Schimmer 
 Des blassen Tags erhellt ! " 1 
 
 The poet is seen, however, in a more advantageous light 
 in some of his Gedichte aus dem Kerker (1785-86) Der 
 Gefangene, for instance and in the fine song in praise of 
 colonisation, Das Kaplied (1787). 
 
 Buoyed by the hopes he placed in Dalberg, the intendant 
 of the Mannheim Court Theatre, where Die Rduber had 
 been produced, Schiller at last resolved upon flight; and his 
 plan was successfully carried out on the evening of the 2znd 
 of September, 1782. But in Mannheim, bitter disappoint- 
 ments awaited him ; almost a year elapsed before he received 
 the appointment he coveted of " Theatre poet " in that town. 
 Ready as Dalberg had been to welcome the young army- 
 official from Wiirtemberg who wrote Die Rauber, he was 
 naturally little inclined to extend the same favour to Schiller 
 the deserter. The young man's position was for a time 
 desperate, until, thanks to the good-hearted Henriette von 
 Wolzogen, mother of one of his fellow-students, he found a 
 place of refuge in the secluded Thuringian village of Bauer- 
 bach. Here he arranged the stage version of his second play, 
 Fiesco it was already written before he made his escape from 
 Stuttgart and finished his third tragedy, Louise Millerin, or, 
 as Iffland rechristened it, Kabale und Liebe. 
 
 Die Verschworung des Fiesko (Fiesco) zu Genua (1783) is 
 a more ambitious effort than Die Riiuber ; but poetically 
 it falls short of the latter, the author being obviously less in 
 sympathy with the subject. In turning to the story of Fiesco 
 di Lavagna's conspiracy against the great house of Doria in 
 Genoa, Schiller was attacking a theme which lay as yet 
 beyond his powers : Fiesco is not only the tragedy of an 
 individual, but also of a state. At the same time, he un- 
 rolled in this play a succession of interesting scenes, and 
 the dramatis persona are a marked advance upon those of 
 
 1 A. Sauer, I.e., 3, 375.
 
 CHAP. VIII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 333 
 
 Die Rtiuber. The women, it is true, are still the conven- 
 tional puppets whose acquaintance Schiller had made only 
 in books, but none of them is quite so colourless as Amalia. 
 On the other hand, a remarkable power of dramatic char- 
 acterisation is to be seen in figures like Fiesco himself, 
 the noble republican Verrina, and, above all, in the Moor, 
 Fiesco's tool. It is these characters, the human, if not the 
 political, interest of the intrigue, and the crisp, epigrammatic 
 sometimes, too epigrammatic language which give Schiller's 
 first historical drama the place it still holds upon the national 
 stage. 
 
 While in Fiesco Schiller aimed at creating a political tragedy 
 on the Shakespearian lines of the " Sturm und Drang," he 
 returned, in his next play, Kabale und Liebe (1784), to the Kabale 
 "biirgerliche Trauerspiel" which, since Emilia Galotti, had Liebe ^ 
 attained such popularity on the German stage. Kabale und 
 Liebe and Emilia Galotti are typical of two distinct epochs of 
 German literature. Emilia, clear, concise, well balanced, 
 well constructed, belongs wholly to the century of the 
 " Auf klarung " ; it is the poetry of an age of prose. Kabale 
 und Liebe, on the other hand, throbs with new poetic life and 
 kindles the reader's imagination. Emilia presents us with 
 an unchanging picture of certain aspects of Court life, while 
 Schiller's tragedy calls up before our minds the entire milieu 
 of a petty German Court. In Lessing, all lies on the printed 
 page : Schiller suggests a many-coloured relief. Kabale und 
 Liebe is fhe best " tragedy of common life " in the literature 
 of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Like Emilia Galotti, Schiller's drama plays in a provincial 
 "Residenz," and the petty intrigues of the Court form the 
 background of the action. Ferdinand, son of the President 
 von Walter, an official who by dubious methods has obtained 
 complete control of the affairs of the little State, loves the 
 daughter of a musician, Miller. The President will naturally 
 hear nothing of a marriage, intending instead to marry his 
 son to Lady Milford, a cast-off mistress of the reigning Duke. 
 The attempt to separate the lovers by straightforward means 
 fails, and the President, following the counsel of his secretary, 
 Wurm, has recourse to deceit. Louise, in the belief that her 
 father's life depends on her sacrifice, is forced to write, at 
 Wurm's dictation, a letter in which she appears to be carry-
 
 334 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 ing on an intrigue with a Court official, Marshal von Kalb. 
 This letter is played into Ferdinand's hands, and Louise's 
 oath prevents an explanation until she has drunk the poisoned 
 lemonade which her lover has prepared for her and for him- 
 self. The President and his secretary arrive in time to 
 see the results of their intrigue, and, as the drama closes, 
 they are handed over to justice for their earlier mis- 
 demeanours. 
 
 In some measure Kabale und Liebe is, like its two prede- 
 cessors, a political tragedy ; it, too, bids tyranny defiance and 
 breathes revolution. But the politics of the drama are over- 
 shadowed by its purely poetic strength. Its kernel is neither, 
 as in Die Rauber, an open revolt against tyranny, nor, as in 
 Fiesco, a conspiracy ; Kabale und Liebe is essentially a love 
 story, and Ferdinand and Louise stand, like Romeo and 
 Juliet, in the foreground of the action. Ferdinand is not 
 always a convincing lover, but he has enough in him of the 
 youthful enthusiasm of Karl Moor to awaken our sympathy ; 
 he is still human and individual, and contrasts favourably with 
 the conventional types of youth, the Maxes and Mortimers, 
 who appear in the dramas of Schiller's riper years. The 
 other male characters of the play are admirably drawn, and 
 although none of them is as interesting as the Moor in Fiesco, 
 they are all more clearly focussed than the figures in the 
 earlier play. The two fathers, Miller the musician and the 
 President, are admirably contrasted ; Wurm is modelled on 
 Lessing's Marinelli, and Kalb is Schiller's most successful 
 experiment in satirical caricature. But the greatest advance is 
 to be seen in the two women, Louise and Lady Milford. The 
 latter is one of the best female portraits Schiller ever drew ; 
 she is a more sympathetic creation more of a tragic heroine 
 than her prototype, Grafin Orsini, although occasionally 
 the young poet shows his limitations by emphasising the 
 aristocrat in Lady Milford rather than the woman. Louise, 
 when compared with Goethe's or Lenz's heroines, is con- 
 ventional and theatrical, but she is involved in a conflict of 
 such overpowering interest that the reader is ready to over- 
 look her lack of simplicity in thought and speech. 
 
 Even after all three dramas * had found warm recognition 
 
 1 Cp. on Schiller's early dramas, A. Kontz, Lei drames de la jeunesse de 
 Schiller, Paris, 1899.
 
 CHAP. VIII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 335 
 
 throughout Germany Kabale und Liebe was produced in 
 Frankfort and Mannheim about three months after Fiesco 
 Schiller's position changed little for the better. His con- 
 nection with the Mannheim theatre lasted only for a year, 
 and, when this was over, he was at the mercy of creditors. 
 As a final resource he turned to journalism, and in the spring 
 of 1785, the first number of Die Rheinische Thalia appeared, Die Rhei- 
 a periodical which he succeeded in keeping alive under vary- n ^ s ^ ia 
 ing fortunes as Die Thalia (1785-91) and Die neue Thalia, 1785. 
 down to 1793. In June 1784, he received a friendly letter 
 from four young admirers of his poetry in Leipzig, C. F. 
 Korner, who remained through life his closest friend, L. 
 Huber, and their jiancees, the sisters Minna and Dora Stock, 
 and, nine months later, he accepted an invitation a welcome 
 solution to his difficulties to visit them. While still in 
 Mannheim, Schiller experienced the first and probably the 
 only great passion of his life, the object of which was the 
 brilliant Charlotte von Kalb, wife of a French officer. Some Charlotte 
 idea of the intensity of the poet's feelings may be obtained von Kalb- 
 from their reflection in the love of Don Carlos for Elisabeth, 
 or in the poems entitled Freigeisterei der Leidenschaft (Der 
 Kampf) and Resignation : 
 
 " Nein langer langer werd ich diesen Kampf nicht kampfen, 
 
 den Riesenkampf der Pflicht. 
 
 Kannst du des Herzens Flammentrieb nicht dampfen, 
 so fodre, Tugend, dieses Opfer nicht. 
 
 Geschworen hab ichs, ja, ich habs geschworen, 
 
 mich selbst ?.u bandijjen. 
 Hier ist dein Kranz. Er sey auf ewig mir verloren, 
 
 nimm ihn zurilck und lass mich siindigen." * 
 
 1 Schriften, 4, 23.
 
 336 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SCHILLER'S SECOND PERIOD. END OF THE 
 "STURM UND DRANG." 
 
 IN April 1785, Schiller accepted the invitation of his un- 
 known friends in Leipzig. The chief of them, Korner, had 
 already gone to Dresden as " Oberkonsistorialrat," but the 
 poet received a hearty welcome from the others, and spent 
 the summer months in the village of Gohlis near Leipzig. In 
 the autumn, he followed Korner to Dresden. The chief event 
 of the summer was Korner's marriage, for which Schiller wrote 
 a poem of many strophes. But the change which came over 
 the poet's life is better expressed in the jubilant paeon, An die 
 Freude (1785), written about the same time. 
 
 " Freude, schoner Gdtterfiinken, 
 
 Tochter aus Elisium, 
 Wir betreten feuertrunken 
 
 Himmlische, dein Heiligthum. 
 Deine Zauber binden wieder, 
 
 Was die Mode streng getheilt ; 
 Alle Menschen werden Briider, 
 
 Wo dein sanfter Flugel weilt. 
 
 Seid umschlungen, Millionen ! 
 
 Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt ! 
 
 Briider iiberm Sternenzelt 
 Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen." 1 
 
 This passionate hymn to joy and friendship not only, like the 
 odes of Klopstock and Uz, recalls the antique in form and 
 measure ; its ideas, too, have more of the dithyrambic fervour 
 of Pindar than of the Germanic enthusiasm of Schiller's 
 predecessors ; it is a union of Greek ideals with the great- 
 hearted humanitarianism of the eighteenth century. 
 
 During the quiet, peaceful months which Schiller spent in 
 
 1 Sc/triffen, 4, i ; the text quoted is that of the Gedichte (1803), 2, 121.
 
 CHAP. IX.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 337 
 
 Dresden and its neighbourhood, he was mainly occupied with 
 contributions to the Thalia and with his next drama, Don 
 Carlos. For the Thalia he wrote two short stories, Verbrecher 
 aus Infamie (1787) and the Geisterseher (1789), both conces- Der Geis- 
 sions to the prevalent taste of the time rather than creations f * r * eAer t 
 which add to the poet's repute. Der Geisterseher is well-con- 
 structed, and contains many pages of admirable description, 
 but it is overweighted with crass and sensational magic effects 
 suggested by the career of Cagliostro by means of which 
 a young prince is made a convert to Catholicism. 
 
 Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien, or, as it was entitled in Don Car- 
 the early editions, Dom Carlos (1787), is a work of very Ios >*7 z 7- 
 different calibre. With this tragedy, Schiller won for him- 
 self a new domain of his art and enormously increased his 
 fame as a dramatic poet ; in form and style, it is a com- 
 plete break with the three prose dramas that preceded it. 
 The poet had also, it is true, begun Don Carlos in prose, 
 but he ultimately wrote it in the iambic blank verse which 
 Lessing had established on the German stage with Nathan 
 der Weise. 1 Although Don Carlos thus opens the series 
 of Schiller's dramas in verse, the ideas contained in it are 
 still juvenile and reminiscent of the "Sturm und Drang"; 
 a wider gulf divides it from Wallenstein than from Fiesco or 
 even Die Rduber. The plot of Don Carlos, a plot to which 
 the English dramatist, Otway, had been drawn more than a 
 hundred years before Schiller, centres in the love of the 
 Spanish heir-apparent, Don Carlos, for his stepmother Eliza- 
 beth. The king is led by his confessor Domingo and the 
 cruel Duke of Alba to suspect his son ; Princess Eboli, a 
 lady of the Court, who is herself passionately in love with 
 Carlos, is the means of this suspicion becoming a certainty. 
 Meanwhile, Carlos's attempts to stifle his feelings by devoting 
 himself to an active political life are baffled by the circum- 
 stances which hedge in a king's son ; a tragic issue to his 
 passion is the only possible one, and his father surprises him 
 
 1 As early as the seventeenth century, attempts had been made to adapt 
 English blank verse to German requirements. Gottsched regarded it favour- 
 ably, but Bodmer, as was to be expected, was its chief advocate. J. E. 
 Schlegel, Wieland, Klopstock, Brawe, Weisse, and Gotter, all wrote dramas 
 in iambic verse before Lessing's Nathan, and even Goethe had experimented 
 with it in his youth (Be/sazar, 1765). Cp. A. Sauer, Ober den fiinffusrigen 
 Jambus vor Lessings Nathan, Vienna, 1878. 
 
 Y
 
 338 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 in a stolen interview with the queen, and delivers him into the 
 hands of the Grand Inquisitor. In the matter of construction, 
 this drama is inferior to its predecessors. The characters, 
 too, are more shadowy than those of the early works ; they 
 seem to suffer from the restraint caused by the adoption of 
 verse. Don Carlos is a play of intrigue and misunderstand- 
 ings ; there is a lack of tragic dignity in the decisive moments 
 of Don Carlos's fate, and the poet does not always give his 
 intrigue the semblance of probability. The most serious defect 
 in it, however, is its lack of unity. Originally planned while 
 the poet was engrossed by his passion for Charlotte von Kalb, 
 it was to have been only a " domestic tragedy in a royal 
 house," and in this spirit the first three acts were written and 
 published in the Rheinische Thalia in I785. 1 But when 
 Schiller, in the contentment of his Dresden life, revised these 
 acts and wrote the remaining two, his interest in his hero 
 had grown cold ; another character of the play took a more 
 prominent place in the foreground, namely, the friend of Don 
 Carlos, the Maltese knight, Marquis Posa. The domestic 
 tragedy was converted into a tragedy of political principles, 
 love intrigue gave place to a flaming plea for freedom, and 
 Marquis Posa, who wins the king's favour by his avowal that 
 he cannot be a " Fiirstendiener," became the real hero of 
 the play. In the scene between Posa and Philipp in the 
 third act is concentrated some of the noblest political 
 thought of the eighteenth century ; Posa's cosmopolitan 
 idealism points out the way that was leading to the French 
 Revolution. " Sie wollen," he tells the king : 
 
 " Sie wollen 
 
 Allein in ganz Europa sich dem Rade 
 Des Weltverhangnisses, das unaufhaltsam 
 In vollem Laufe rollt, entgegen werfen? 
 Mit Menschenarm in seine Speichen fallen ? 
 Sie werden nicht ! Schon flohen Tausende 
 Aus Ihren Landern froh und arm. Der Burger, 
 Den Sie verloren fiir den Glauben, war 
 Ihr edelster . . . 
 
 O, konnte die Beredsamkeit von alien 
 Den Tausenden, die dieser grosser Stunde 
 Theilhaftig sind, auf meinen Lippen schweben, 
 Den Strahl den ich in diesen Augen merke, 
 Zur Flamme zu erheben ! . . . 
 
 1 Reprinted in the Schriften, 5, i, i ft ; in its final form, 5, a, 142 ff.
 
 CHAP. IX.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 339 
 
 Alle Konige 
 
 Europens huldigen dem Span'sclien Namen. 
 Gehn Sie Europens Kdnigen voran. 
 Ein Federzug von dieser Hand, und neu 
 Erschaffen wird die Erde. Geben Sie 
 Gedankenfreyheit." l 
 
 With the completion of Don Carlos, Schiller's " Lehrjahre " 
 reached their close ; about the same time, the poet came into 
 touch with the Weimar circle, to which, since the day in 
 Darmstadt in 1784, when he read the first act of Don Carlos 
 before the Duke of Weimar, it had been his ambition to 
 belong. In the summer of 1787, he paid his first visit to 
 Weimar. Only, however, disappointments were in store for schillerin 
 him here : Goethe was in Italy, the Duke absent ; Herder Weimar, 
 and Wieland received him politely but without enthusiasm. 
 Schiller withdrew into himself, and spent his time in sup- 
 plementing deficiencies in his knowledge. He began by 
 throwing himself ardently into the study of history. In 
 the winter of 1787-88 and the ensuing summer, he wrote 
 the Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande y of Historical 
 which the first and only volume it was originally planned wntin g s ' 
 in six appeared in the autumn of 1788. This was followed 
 in 1791-93 by a second large historical work, the Geschichte 
 des dreissigjdJirigen Krieges, as well as a number of shorter 
 historical studies and investigations. Schiller's qualities as a 
 historian are, as might be expected, in the first instance, 
 literary he treated the writing of history as an art, and gave 
 German historians a lesson in style. But he did not possess 
 the judicial mind or the scientific method of the born his- 
 torian, and ideas rather than facts mark the course of his 
 histories. The interest of the poet in Don Carlos led him 
 to write the history of the Netherlands, a similar interest 
 in Wallenstein attracted him to the Thirty Years' War. 
 Regarded as history, the second of these works is the 
 least successful. Schiller did not understand the compli- 
 cated national problems of the Thirty Years' War; he was 
 content to look upon it as a duel between two religious 
 principles, and, as soon as the representative leaders, Wallen- 
 stein and Tilly, disappeared, the war lost its interest for 
 him. Sympathetic ideas and great personalities were what 
 
 1 Schriflen, 5, 2, 313 ff.
 
 340 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Professor 
 in Jena. 
 
 he sought in history; when he found them, he expended 
 upon them all the wealth of his poetic imagination and full- 
 sounding rhetoric. Thus, even allowing for the change that 
 has come over the spirit of history in the nineteenth century, 
 Schiller does not occupy a high place as historian. The 
 representative German writer of this class at the end of the 
 eighteenth century was Johannes von Miiller (1752-1809), 
 whose chief work, the Geschichte schweizerischer Eidgenossen- 
 schaft (1786-1808), is still recognised as a masterpiece of 
 historical writing. 
 
 It was chiefly due to the Geschichte des Abfalls der ver- 
 einigten Niederlande that Schiller obtained, through Goethe's 
 mediation, the vacant professorship of History in the 
 University of Jena. In May, 1789, he held his first lecture 
 in the university; in February of the following year, he 
 married Charlotte von Lengefeld, a relative of his former 
 benefactress, Frau von Wolzogen. Schiller's acquaintance 
 with Charlotte dated from December, 1787, and, in Rudolstadt 
 in the following summer, this acquaintance ripened into love. 
 His marriage helped him to 'forget his disappointments in 
 Weimar, for, in 1790, he was still not a recognised member 
 of the literary circle there. Between Goethe and him there 
 seemed to be a feeling of mutual distrust. Schiller worked 
 himself into the belief that he actually hated Goethe, while 
 in reality he only envied him his good fortune. Goethe, on 
 his part, could not free himself from the disagreeable im- 
 pression he had received from Schiller's work on his return 
 from Italy. The criticism of Burger's poetry which Schiller 
 wrote in 1791, for the Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung 
 a criticism in which his antagonism to the principles of the 
 Romantic School may already be detected gave Goethe a 
 higher opinion of his abilities ; and the noble verses on Die 
 
 Die Cotter Gotter Griechenlands (1788) convinced him that Schiller was 
 a poet of no mean order. This poem bears witness to 
 the ardour with which Schiller had devoted himself to the 
 study of Greek literature opened up to him by Voss's 
 Homer. In 1789, he translated the Iphigenia in Aulis of 
 Euripides, and his Greek interests explain to some extent his 
 antipathy to Burger ; they, too, lie behind that wonderful con- 
 
 Die Kitnsi- fession of faith, Die Kilnstler (1789), a poem which contains 
 the germs of all Schiller's theorising on aesthetic questions. 
 
 Griechen- 
 
 lands, 
 
 1788. 
 
 Ur t 1789.
 
 CHAP. IX.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 34! 
 
 In the routine of professional duties he was, meanwhile, gradu- 
 ally losing his enthusiasm for history ; his thoughts turned to 
 philosophy, a subject which had engrossed him in earlier life, 
 and he fell under the spell of Immanuel Kant, whose work 
 had just given a mighty impetus to German metaphysics. 
 
 To understand what Schiller's dramas meant for German 
 literature, it is necessary to consider the condition of dramatic 
 literature in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Since 
 the failure of Lessing's attempt to create a National Theatre 
 in Hamburg, the German theatre as an institution had 
 gained in stability, and this stability was chiefly due to 
 Friedrich Ludwig Schroder (I744-I8I6), 1 the leading Ger- F. L. 
 man actor of the eighteenth century. Schroder succeeded f 
 where Lessing's friends had failed, in giving Hamburg a 
 permanent " Schauspielhaus " ; he may, indeed, be regarded as 
 the creator of the modern German stage. During the period 
 of his directorship in Hamburg, he laid down the lines on 
 which the state and municipal theatres of Germany are still 
 conducted ; it was he, for instance, who set Shakespeare's plays 
 at the head of the classical repertory, a place which they have 
 never ceased to occupy. But Schroder's theatre suffered 
 from the want of a living dramatic literature. Lessing's 
 dramas, although the best before the "Sturm und Drang," 
 were, as we have seen, difficult to imitate with success, 
 being deficient in that peculiar germinative quality which 
 inspired poetic work, however crude, never lacks. Thus the 
 repertory of the German theatres before the appearance of 
 Goethe and Schiller's masterpieces consisted chiefly of in- 
 different " biirgerliche Tragodien " varied by sentimental and 
 lachrymose adaptations from the English and French. 
 Schroder himself provided the stage with a large number of 
 such adaptations, the best of which were Der Ring (1783), 
 a version of Farquhar's Constant Couple, Der Vetter in 
 Lissabon (1784), and, most effective of all, Das Portrat der 
 Mutter (1786). 
 
 The first town to follow Hamburg's example in establish- 
 ing a theatre on a permanent basis was Mannheim, where, ? >eMann- 
 in 1779, the " Nationaltheater " was inaugurated under the theatre. 
 
 1 Cp. B. Litzmann, F. L. Schroder (two vols. have appeared), Hamburg, 
 1890-94. Cp. A. Hauffen, Das Drama der klassischen Periode, 2, i (D.N.L., 
 139. i [1891]), 85 ff.
 
 342 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 The"Rit- 
 terdrama.' 
 
 direction of W. H. von Dalberg, and in Mannheim the first 
 performance of Schiller's Rduber had taken place. Here, too, 
 Der deutsche Hausvater^ by Otto Heinrich von Gemmingen 
 (1755-1836), a companion piece to Diderot's Pere de famille 
 (1758), was produced, in 1780. Der deutsche Hausvater, 
 which had considerable influence upon the subsequent de- 
 velopment of the German "biirgerliche Tragodie," is similar 
 in plot to Kabale und Liebe, but has little literary value. 
 The importance of the theatre in Mannheim for the history 
 of the drama is mainly due to the fact that at this time the 
 ablest member of its staff was August Wilhelm IfBand (1759- 
 i8i4). 2 Iffland had served his apprenticeship under the 
 actor Konrad Ekhof (1720-78), and in Mannheim rose rapidly 
 to be the first actor of his time. Although not a pioneer 
 as Schroder had been, he was, beyond question, the chief 
 force in the theatrical world, at the zenith of German 
 classical literature. Under his direction, from 1796 until his 
 death in 1814, the Prussian National Theatre in Berlin was 
 the most important institution of its kind in North Germany. 
 Iffland had, moreover, a finer literary talent than Schroder, and 
 among the sixty-five plays that he has left, several, such as 
 Die Jager (1785), Die Hagestolzen (1791), and Der Spieler 
 (1796), are by no means contemptible as literature. Most 
 of his pieces, however, are disfigured by a somewhat tearful 
 sentimentality and a blatant insistence on morality, but they 
 were effective on the stage, afforded excellent roles, and gave 
 a true picture of the life and manners of the time. 
 
 The dramatic work of Schroder and Iffland represented a 
 similar stratum in the drama to that formed by the " family 
 novel " which continued to be the favourite nutriment of the 
 reading public in fiction. But in the last quarter of the 
 eighteenth century there existed a still lower form of the 
 drama, the so-called " Ritterdrama," into which the historical 
 tragedy of the "Sturm und Drang" had degenerated. This 
 class of play maintained a place on the German stage until 
 well into the nineteenth century, and was analogous to 
 the " Schauerromane " or " tales of terror," which formed so 
 large a proportion of the fiction of this period. The " Ritter- 
 
 1 Cp. A. Hauffen, I.e., i ff. 
 
 2 Cp. A. Hauffen, I.e., 189 ff. Iffland's Meine theatralische Laujbahn has 
 been reprinted by H. Holstein in the Litteraturdenkm., 24, Heilbronn, 1886.
 
 CHAP. IX.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 343 
 
 drama " followed closely in the wake of Gotz von Berlichingen^ 
 but it is obvious that the imitation of Goethe's tragedy was 
 a wholly superficial one ; the rattle of armour, the dungeon 
 and Holy Vehm, the rough mediaevalism of word and deed 
 these were the features which the " Ritterdrama " had in 
 common with its model. It is significant for the degenerate 
 character of these " plays of chivalry " that the first, Klinger's 
 Otto (1775), should never have been surpassed. Such 
 literary pretensions as the authors of the " Ritterdramen " 
 had, were annulled by the absence of character - drawing, 
 and by the blood-curdling sensationalism in which they 
 dealt. Apart from Klinger, the two leading playwrights of 
 this class are Graf J. A. von Torring (1753-1826), whose 
 popular Agnes Bernauerin was played in 1780, and Joseph 
 Marius Babo (1756-1822), the author of Otto von Wittels- 
 bach, published in 1782. Both plays, it may also be noted, 
 were produced in Munich, where the "Ritterdrama" was 
 warmly encouraged. Another South German dramatist, Graf 
 F. J. H. von Soden (1754-1831), whose chief interest, how- 
 ever, was political economy, was the author of a chivalric 
 tragedy, Ignez de Castro (1784) and a " Volksdrama" on the 
 subject of Doktor Faust (i 797). x 
 
 Of the Germanic races, the Austrians would seem to The drama 
 possess most natural talent for the drama ; the theatre is In Austria - 
 a more universally popular institution in Vienna than in 
 any other German-speaking capital. Since the beginning 
 of the eighteenth century, the Viennese "Volksth eater" has 
 never lacked popular actors: J. A. Stranitzky (1676-1727) 
 naturalised the Italian commedia dell' arte in Vienna, and his 
 successor, Gottfried Prehauser (1699-1769), made the "Hans- 
 wurst" the typical comic character on the Viennese stage. 
 The serious history of the Austrian theatre begins, however, in 
 1776, when Joseph II. practically founded the "Hofburg- TheHof- 
 
 theater," the most important of all German theatres. 2 For a b , ur s- 
 
 . . ,%. . . . theater, 
 
 time, it is true, the Viennese theatre depended mainly upon 
 
 North German dramatists ; Austria's contributions to German 
 dramatic literature, at the close of the eighteenth century, 
 
 1 Cp. O. Brahm, Das deutsche Ritterdrama des 18. Jahrhunderts (Quellen 
 vnd Forschungen, 40), Strassburg, 1880. Specimens will be found in A. 
 Hauffen's Das Drama der klassischen Penode, i (D.N.L., 138 [1891]); 
 Klinger's Otto is reprinted in Litteraturdenkm. , i, Heilbronn, 1881. 
 
 2 Cp. R. Lothar, Das Weiner Burgtheater, Leipzig, 1899.
 
 344 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 consisted of little more than imitations of Minna von Barn- 
 helm, and family tragedies in the manner of Iffland. The 
 name of only one dramatist need be mentioned here, Cor- 
 nelius Hermann von Ayrenhoff (1733-1819), an Austrian 
 officer of high rank, who cultivated the French Alexandrine 
 tragedy in Austria, and may be regarded as a belated 
 follower of Gottsched. One of his comedies, Der Postzug, 
 oder die nobeln Passionen (1769), which was warmly admired 
 by Frederick the Great, was. long a favourite on the German 
 stage. In the lyric drama, however, Austria, or, at least, 
 Vienna, began, at an early date, to lead the way. Gluck's 
 Alceste, as has been already remarked, had been produced in 
 Vienna in 1767, and in 1782, Wolfgang Gottlieb (or Amade) 
 Mozart (1756-91), a native of Salzburg, ushered in a new 
 period in the history of the German "Singspiel" with Die 
 Entfiihrung aus dem Serail. But the Viennese dramatists 
 were not able to satisfy Mozart's requirements, and for his 
 two next operas, Die Hochzeit des Figaro (1786) and Don 
 Juan (Don Giovanni, 1787), he turned to the Italian, Da 
 Ponte, for his texts. The former of these is an adaptation of 
 the famous comedy by Beaumarchais, La Follc Journte, while 
 Don Juan is a more original version of the theme which 
 Moliere had dramatised in Le Festin de Pierre ; but Mozart's 
 last masterpiece, Die Zauberflote (1791), was again a German 
 " Singspiel." With an almost childlike naivete, he poured his 
 noblest music into a loosely constructed Viennese "Posse," 
 whose chief merit in his eyes was that it mirrored his own 
 enthusiasm for the ideals of the "Aufldarung." 
 
 Before the appearance of Don Carlos in 1787, the "Sturm 
 und Drang " had wellnigh spent itself. A strange, anomalous 
 genius has still, however, to be mentioned, a genius in whom 
 were mingled the light grace of Wieland and the stormy 
 intoxication of the " Geniezeit " ; this was the Thuringian, 
 Johann Jakob Heinse (I749-I803), 1 who, in 1787, after three 
 years' residence in Rome, published his most popular novel, 
 Ardinghello, oder die gluckseligen Inseln. The hero of this 
 romance is the typical heaven-stormer of the age ; Ardinghello 
 is an artist and a dreamer, who ultimately founds on Grecian 
 
 1 Heinse's Sammtliche Werke, ed. H. Laube, 10 vols., Leipzig, 1838 ; a new 
 edition by C. Schuddekopf has begun to appear, Berlin, 1901. Cp. F. 
 Bobertag, Erzahlende Prosa der klassischen Periode, i (D.N.L., 136, i 
 [1886]), 52 ff.
 
 CHAP. IX.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 345 
 
 isles a realm as free as the " Thelema " of Rabelais. The 
 plot of Ardinghello is in its way as extravagant as the early 
 dramas of the "Sturm und Drang," and the love-adventures 
 are described in a tone of southern sensualism, but the book 
 has a particular interest in so far as it throws its shadow on 
 the succeeding literary period; Ardinghello is a forerunner, 
 although not, of course, in the same degree as Wilhelm 
 Meistcr, of the art-novels of the Romanticists. In Heinse's 
 second novel, Hildegard von Hohenthal (1795), tne on ty 
 other of his books which had much success, music takes 
 the place which painting occupied in Ardinghello, As musical 
 criticism, especially in its fine estimate of Gluck, Hildegard 
 von Hohenthal has a certain value; as literature, it is dis- 
 figured, even more than its predecessor, by lack of restraint. 
 
 The representative novelist of the close of the " Sturm und 
 Drang " was Maximilian Klinger, 1 who has already been dis- M. Klin- 
 cussed as one of the leaders of the literary revolution. The |f r>s , 
 work of his second period, free as it is from the unbalanced period, 
 turbulence of his early life, shows an almost classic dignity. 
 Two dramas in prose, Medea in Korinth and Medea auf 
 dem Kaukasos (1791), which belong to these years, deserve 
 a place among the best modern plays on Greek subjects; 
 but his most solid and lasting achievement is the cycle 
 of nine novels which he sketched out in 1790. It was 
 his intention to make these novels a receptacle for all 
 he himself had ever thought or experienced, for his own 
 philosophy of life. The cycle opens with Fausts Leben, 
 Thaten und Hollenfahrt (1791), which was followed by the 
 Geschichte Giafars des Barmeciden (1792) and the Geschichte 
 Raphaels de Aquillas (1793). The struggle of the heroes of 
 the "Sturm und Drang" against an untoward fate is here 
 fought out anew, but the tragedy is no longer purely personal ; 
 it has, as it were, become typical of the history of the race 
 and stands against a background of philosophical pessimism. 
 Reisen vor der Siindflttth (1795) and Sahir (i 798) are of the 
 nature of political satires, while in Der Faust der Morgenldnder 
 (1797) the conflict between the ideal and the real, which is 
 to be found in all Klinger's work, is treated in a more con- 
 ciliatory spirit than in the opening novel. The last three 
 
 1 M. Rieger, Klinger in seiner Reife, Darmstadt, 1896. Cp. A. Sauer, 
 Stiirmervnd Drdnger, i (D.N.L., 79 [1883]), where Fausts Leben is reprinted.
 
 346 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 works of the series, the Geschichte eines Teutschen der neusten 
 Zeit (1798), Der Weltmann und der Dichter (1798), and the 
 collection of aphorisms entitled Betrachtungen und Gedanken 
 iiber verschiedene Gegenstiinde der Welt und der Litteratur 
 (1803-1805), are also the ripest; they are on themes taken 
 from Klinger's own time, and in them he approaches as near 
 as any of the classical writers to a harmonious solution of the 
 problems which the " Sturm und Drang " had awakened in the 
 German mind. 
 
 Less ambitious than the "art-novels" of Heinse or Klinger's 
 philosophical romances, Anton Reiser, ein psyehologischer Roman 
 (i785), 1 by Karl Philipp Moritz (1757-93), demands special 
 attention in a history of German fiction at the close of the 
 "Sturm und Drang." This novel stands in the direct line 
 between Agathon and Wilhelm Meister. It is an unpre- 
 tentious story, mainly autobiographical, like Jung-Stilling's 
 Jugend ; yet before Wilhelm Meister, no book of the eigh- 
 teenth century painted with such convincing truth a young 
 man's initiation into the trials of life. The theory of the 
 modern psychological novel is implied in the few words of 
 preface with which the book opens : 
 
 " Wer den Lauf der menschlichen Dinge kennt, und weiss, wie 
 dasjenige oft im Fortgange des Lebens sehr wichtig werden kann, 
 was anfanglich klein und unbedeutend schien, der wird sich an die 
 anscheinende Geringfiigigkeit mancher Umstande, die hier erzahlt 
 werden, nicht stossen. Auch wird man in einem Buche, welches 
 vorziiglich die innere Geschichte des Menschen schildern soil, keine 
 grosse Mannigfaltigkeit der Charaktere erwarten : denn es soil die 
 vorstellende Kraft nicht vertheilen, sondern sie zusammendrangen, 
 und den Blick der Seele in sich selber scharfen." 
 
 Anton Reiser is born in extreme poverty, and, beginning life 
 as a hatmaker's apprentice in Brunswick, has to fight his 
 way through all manner of hardships ; the dream of his life 
 is to win a name for himself on the stage, but, once suc- 
 cess is within sight, he is bitterly disappointed with what 
 he had regarded as the ideal world of Shakespeare and 
 Goethe. This is practically the thread of narrative on 
 which the novel hangs, but the importance of the book 
 lies, not in its story, but in its keen observation and fine 
 
 1 Ed. L. Geiger, Litter aturdenkm. , 23, Heiibronn, 1886. Cp. F. Bobertag, 
 l.c., 165 ff.
 
 CHAP. IX.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 347 
 
 insight. The restless spirit of the "Sturm und Drang" is 
 still present, but now and again we are reminded of that 
 new world which Goethe's broad humanitarianism had 
 revealed to his contemporaries. Moritz, who belonged to 
 Goethe's circle of friends in Rome, wrote also on aesthetic 
 subjects, and his Reisen eines Deutschen in England im Jahr 
 1782 (1783) and Reisen eines Deutschen in Italien in den 
 Jahren 1786 bis 1788 (1792-93) are valuable documents of 
 the time. 
 
 Johann Georg Forster (1754-94), another writer who stood j. G. 
 on the confines of the "Geniezeit," lived an extraordinarily Forster > 
 
 * 754 "94- 
 
 adventurous life. Brought up in England, he accompanied 
 his father on Cook's second voyage round the world (1772- 
 75), and on his return wrote an account of it in English (A 
 Voyage towards the South Pole and Round the World, 1777). 
 Returned to Germany, he was appointed to a professorship 
 in Kassel, which in 1784 he exchanged for a similar chair 
 in the University of Wilna in Poland ; but life in Wilna soon 
 became unendurable to him, and he was glad to return to 
 Germany in 1787. A year later he obtained a librarianship 
 in Mainz. A fiery enthusiast for freedom, a "Weltbiirger" 
 like Marquis Posa, Forster greeted the French Revolution 
 with enthusiasm ; but the horrors of the actual rising as he 
 saw them in Mainz convinced him that it was not the 
 hoped-for panacea for all social ills. He died in Paris in 
 1794. His masterpiece is the Ansichten vom Niederrhein, Ansichte 
 von Brabant, Flandern, Holland, England und JFrankreich im 
 April, Mai, Junius 1790 (I79I), 1 one of the most remarkable 
 books of travel that has ever been written. Nature and 
 people, politics and art, nothing escapes Forster's wide glance, 
 and for everything that comes under his notice he has the 
 same unflagging interest; the art of Iffland or a picture by 
 Rubens is described with no less loving care than the 
 geological structure of the Rhine valley; and, above all, the 
 book is written in so vivid and picturesque a style that it has 
 remained one of the masterpieces of German prose. 
 
 1 Ed. W. Buchner in the BibL der deutschen Nationallitt,, 13, 14, Leipzig, 
 1868.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 GOETHE'S FIRST TWENTY YEARS IN WEIMAR. 
 
 THE Goethe who has been hitherto considered, was simul- 
 taneously a child of his age and its leader ; in Leipzig, Strass- 
 burg and Frankfort, he had belonged wholly to the literary 
 movement in the midst of which he was placed ; and during 
 his last years in Frankfort, he was the acknowledged head of 
 the " Sturm und Drang." From his twenty-seventh year 
 onwards, Goethe was by no means so intimately bound up 
 with the epoch ; for the first fifteen years at least of his life 
 in Weimar, he held entirely aloof from literary schools and 
 movements. His personal development had been so rapid 
 as to outstrip his time, and, after his return from Italy, his 
 attitude to literature was even antagonistic. We have now 
 to turn to the history of Goethe's life and work between his 
 arrival in Weimar in the end of 1775, and the beginning of 
 his friendship with Schiller in 1794. 
 
 As far as poety was concerned, the first years which 
 Goethe spent in Weimar present a marked contrast to the 
 period which preceded them : his best energies were for a 
 time directed to other channels. Duke Karl August, with 
 a clearness of judgment remarkable in so young a man it 
 must not be forgotten that while Goethe was six-and-twenty 
 when he went to Weimar, his sovereign was only a youth of 
 eighteen saw that the poet whom he had called to his Court 
 was more than a man of letters ; and in spite of the opposi- 
 tion of his elders, he gave him one responsible position 
 after another in the government of the Duchy. And the 
 first month or two of unsettled life over, Goethe showed 
 that the Duke's confidence in him was not misplaced. He 
 threw himself zealously into his new duties, and poetry was
 
 CHAP. X.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 349 
 
 neglected. For the development of Goethe's mind these 
 years were of undeniable value ; in fulfilling the daily duties 
 of his official position, he passed through a school of char- 
 acter, a process of humanitarian education which infinitely 
 widened his horizon. He learned to know men, not only 
 through the coloured glass of literature, but face to face 
 in everyday life. His official interest in forestry, in agri- 
 culture, in the mines at Ilmenau, first drew his attention to 
 botany and mineralogy, and many of the lessons that were 
 subsequently embodied in Wilhelm Meister^ such as the 
 necessity of self-control and self-abnegation in the service of 
 one's fellow-men, Goethe learned as a servant of the Weimar 
 State. Indeed, it might almost be said that the distance 
 which from this time on separated Goethe from his con- 
 temporaries was mainly due to the balance of character which 
 political responsibility gave him. In his immediate circle 
 Wieland stood somewhat apart literature was but indiffer- 
 ently represented, and chiefly in a spirit of dilettantism. The 
 literary reputation of the most talented member, Major K. 
 L. von Knebel (1744-1834), who had introduced Goethe to 
 the Duke in 1774, rested exclusively on his translations of 
 Propertius and Lucretius. During the early years in Weimar, 
 the guiding star of Goethe's life was Charlotte von Stein Charlotte 
 (1742-1827), who, although seven years his senior and the von Stein . 
 mother of several children, inspired him with a passion which 
 lasted until his journey to Italy in 1786-88. Of all the 
 women whom he loved, Frau von Stein was intellectually 
 the worthiest of him ; his love for her was the most spiritual 
 and satisfying he ever experienced. At the same time, there 
 was nothing in his relations with her of that naive irresponsi- 
 bility with which he had loved Gretchen, Friederike, or even 
 Lili ; Frau von Stein seems always to have retained something 
 of the reserve of the Court lady. Goethe's correspondence 
 with her, 1 of which only his share has been preserved, is more 
 than a collection of love-letters ; it also reflects an intellectual 
 friendship similar to that which, in the next epoch of his life, 
 appears in his correspondence with Schiller. 
 
 Frau von Stein is less directly mirrored in Goethe's poetry 
 than Friederike or Lotte ; but there was a reason for this. 
 
 1 Ed. J. Wahle, a vols., Frankfort, 1899, 1900 ; also in the Weimar edition, 
 Abt. 4, 3-9 (1888-91).
 
 350 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Goethe had now outgrown the purely subjective stage of 
 his work ; his conception of poetic creation no longer 
 admitted of a direct reproduction of his impressions and 
 experiences in his writings ; the immediate subjectivity of 
 Werther, Gotz, Clavigo gave place to the more objective 
 Lyrics of spirit of Iphigenie and Tasso, and thus, although the lyrics of 
 this period, tn j s p er j oc j re veal the poet's happiness in his new passion, 
 they are only exceptionally direct love-songs. In the whole 
 range of Goethe's poetry, the lyrics he wrote at this time have 
 never been surpassed. As an example, the poem An den 
 Mond may be cited, the opening verses of which are : 
 
 " Fullest wieder Busch und Thai 
 Still mit Nebelglanz, 
 Losest endlich auch einmal 
 Meine Seele ganz ; 
 
 Breitest iiber mein Gefild 
 Lindernd deinen Blick, 
 Wie des Freundes Auge mild 
 tiber mein Geschick." 1 
 
 The dominant note which runs through such poetry is a 
 passionate love for nature; it is characteristic also of the 
 distichs which in the collected poems bear the title Antiker 
 Form sick ndhernd, in Wonne der Wehmuth, in the Wandrers 
 Nachtlied, and that beautiful expression of man's oneness 
 with nature : 
 
 " Uber alien Gipfeln 
 1st Ruh, 
 
 In alien Wipfeln 
 Spiirest du 
 Kaum einen Hauch ; 
 Die Vogelein schweigen im Walde. 
 Warte nur, balde 
 Ruhest du auch. " 2 
 
 Although nature -poetry has played so large a part in the 
 European literature of the past hundred and fifty years, no 
 poet ever penetrated as deeply into the soul of nature as 
 Goethe during his early years in Weimar ; the contrast be- 
 tween Werther or Gotz and the calm beauty of poems like 
 
 1 Werke, i, 100. Cp. R. Kogel, Goethes lyrische Dichtungen der erslen 
 Weimaruchtn Jahre, Basle, 1896. 
 
 2 Werke, i, 98.
 
 CHAP. X.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 351 
 
 Ilmenau and the Zueigmmg is so great that it is difficult to 
 believe they are the work of a single writer. The second of 
 these opens the Gedichte in Goethe's collected writings, but it 
 was originally intended as the beginning of a religious epic, 
 Die Geheimnisse, which, begun in 1784, was to cover no less 
 wide a field than the Ewige Jude of the poet's earlier days. 
 
 In 1777, Goethe had made the Harzreisc im Winter which 
 fills a volume of his works, and, in i"779j he accompanied the tm Winter, 
 Duke of Weimar on a second Swiss journey, the account of 
 which (Briefe aus der Scfnveiz) was first published in Schiller's 
 Horen in 1796. To the same time belong also the Singspiel 
 Jery und Bdtely (1780), and the fine Gesang der Geister 
 iiber dem Wasser. The one-act drama, Die Geschivister, written Die Ge- 
 in October, 1776, a delicate study of sisterly affection which 
 gives place to a warmer love, reads more like an echo 
 of the years in Frankfort than an immediate "confession," 
 but into it Goethe undoubtedly also infused something of his 
 own relations to Frau von Stein. More important works, 
 however, were in the background. Iphigenie auf Tauris, as 
 we now know it, was not completed until 1787, when Goethe 
 was in Rome, but eight years before, the first prose version 
 of the drama was performed by amateurs in Weimar, Goethe 
 himself playing the role of Orest. In the same way Tasso, 
 too, as far as plan and conception are concerned, dates from 
 the period which preceded the poet's visit to Italy. And 
 to Tasso must be added the beginnings of Wilhelm Meister. 
 As early as 1777, Goethe had sketched out and begun a 
 romance of the theatre which was to bear the title Wilhelm 
 Meisters theatralische Sendung. 
 
 On the 2Qth of October, 1786, Goethe first set foot in Goethe in 
 Rome ; the following spring was spent in Naples and Sicily ; g ly ' * 786 
 and in the beginning of June, 1787, he was again in Rome, 
 where he remained until the 2nd of April, 1788. Goethe's 
 " italienische Reise" the volume of his works which bears 
 this title was compiled from letters and diaries in 1816 and 
 1829 made a deep incision into his Weimar life; it was an 
 event of enormous import for his intellectual development. 
 Just as Herder had brought Goethe's youth to a focus in 
 Strassburg, so the journey to Italy now seemed to introduce 
 clearness and order into his mind. The tentative experiments 
 of his first ten years in Weimar, his search after a higher ideal
 
 352 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 of beauty, that classic beauty of repose at which he had 
 aimed in his first sketches of Iphigenie and Tasso all 
 these strivings first attained their object in Italy. In Italy, 
 Goethe's life, regarded as a whole, touched its zenith; from 
 the height he here attained, he was able to look back upon 
 the turbulent years of his youth, and forward into the new 
 epoch that lay before him like a promised land. In Italy, 
 the mission of his life seems all at once to have become 
 clear to him. Under the Roman sun, his ideals of Art, 
 the art of painting, of sculpture, as well as poetry, ripened ; 
 the last vestiges of the one-sided Germanic enthusiasm which 
 had burst into dithyrambs before the Strassburg Minster or 
 a Shakespearian tragedy, disappeared, and gave place to a 
 more catholic conception of greatness in art a conception 
 which arose essentially from Winckelmann's revelation of the 
 nature of antique beauty. The art-theories of Goethe's mature 
 years and this is his true significance for the history of art 
 fulfil the promise of Winckelmann's work : in Goethe, the 
 eighteenth century's conception of beauty, which combined 
 the humane ideals of the " Auf klarung " with a classic repose, 
 reaches its fullest development. 
 
 Sckriften, But the poet's time in Italy was not entirely taken up in 
 1 7 8 7-9- studying art. In 1787, he had begun to publish the first 
 collected edition of his writings (Goethes Schriften, 8 vols., 
 1787-90), and several works had to be revised and com- 
 pleted in order that they might take their place in these 
 volumes. The smaller " Singspiele " were remodelled, and a 
 new one, Scherz, List und Racke, was added ; Iphigenie was 
 remoulded, Tasso all but finished. Plans of new classical 
 dramas, an Iphigenie auf Delphos and a Nausicaa, were 
 sketched out, but remained fragments. A few at least of 
 the magnificent Romischcn Elegien were actually written in 
 Rome, but the majority belong to the following years at 
 home. Goethe's thoughts were not, however, exclusively 
 restricted to classic grooves ; he could at times recall enough 
 of the " Gothic " spirit to complete Egmont, and, strangest 
 contrast of all, to write the scene in the " Hexenkiiche " for 
 Faust. In 1790, this drama was first published under the 
 title Faust, ein Fragment. 1 
 
 In no work of Goethe's is the poetic inspiration more 
 1 A convenient reprint in Litter aturdenkm. , 5, Heilbronn, 1882.
 
 CHAP. X.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 353 
 
 convincing than in Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787). No poem, ipkigenie 
 not even Faust y was so often written and rewritten ; as we a "f u . 
 possess it in its final form the form which it received in 1787. 
 Italy it is the most artistically perfect, the most spiritual, 
 of all the poet's writings. In none, certainly, has the dross 
 of subjectivity and on the heights where Iphigenie stands, 
 one may speak even of Goethe's subjectivity as dross been 
 so completely eliminated, or at least transmuted into poetry. 
 The poet's relations with Frau von Stein, it is true, give 
 the drama its psychological background, but they have been 
 completely transformed ; in other words, Iphigenie is the least 
 personal of Goethe's more important works. 
 
 " Heraus in cure Schatten, rege Wipfel 
 Des alten, heil'gen, dichtbelaubten Haines, 
 Wie in der Gdttinn stilles Heiligthum, 
 Tret' ich noch jetzt mit schauderndem Gefiihl, 
 Als wenn ich sie zum erstenmal betrate, 
 Und es gewohnt sich nicht mein Geist hierher. 
 So manches Jahr bewahrt mich hier verborgen 
 Ein hoher Wille, dem ich mich ergebe ; 
 Doch immer bin ich, wie im ersten, fremd. 
 Denn ach mich trennt das Meer von den Geliebten, 
 Und an dem Ufer steh' ich lange Tage, 
 Das Land der Griechen mit der Seele suchend ; 
 Und gegen meine Seufzer bringt die Welle 
 Nur dumpfe Tone brausend mir heriiber. 
 Weh dem, der fern von Eltern und Geschwistern 
 Ein einsam Leben fiihrt ! " 1 
 
 So muses Agamemnon's daughter, Iphigenie, before her temple 
 at Tauris, in the land of the Scythians, whither the goddess 
 Artemis had borne her when she was about to fall a victim 
 to her father's vow. Before the drama opens, Iphigenie has 
 already had a civilising influence upon the barbarians ; human 
 sacrifices are no longer offered to propitiate the deities. The 
 Scythian king, Thoas, demands her hand in marriage ; and he 
 persists in his demand, even when she reveals to him that she 
 is of the race so hated by the gods, the race of Tantalus. In 
 the meantime, however, two strangers have arrived at Tauris ; 
 the disappointed king sends them to her with the command 
 that the old rites are to be renewed and human sacrifices 
 are not to be withheld from the goddess. These strangers, 
 who, unrecognised by Iphigenie, are her brother Orestes and 
 his friend Pylades, are to be the first victims. Pylades tells 
 
 1 Werke, 10, 3. 
 Z
 
 354 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 her of the great events before Troy and the tragic fate of 
 her own race ; how Orestes, stained with the blood of his 
 mother, seeks, in accordance with Apollo's command, " the 
 temple of his sister," from which he must obtain the statue 
 of the goddess, if he is to escape the Furies who are in 
 pursuit of him. But Orestes, impatient of disguise, reveals 
 himself to Iphigenie 
 
 " Ich bin Orest ! und dieses schuld'ge Ilaupt 
 Senkt nach der Grube sich und sucht den Tod ; 
 In jeglicher Gestalt sey er willkommen ! " J 
 
 and learns in turn that it is his sister who stands before him. 
 The confession of his guilt relieves Orestes from his burden ; 
 the presence of his noble sister, purifying and sanctifying, frees 
 him from the phantasms of his disordered brain : 
 
 " Es 16'set sich der Fluch, mir sagt's das Herz. 
 . Die Eumeniden ziehn, ich hore sie, 
 Zum Tartarus und schlagen hinter sich 
 Die ehrnen Thore fernabdonnernd zu. 
 Die Erde dampft erquickenden Geruch 
 Und ladet mich auf ihren Flachen ein, 
 Nach Lebensfreud' und grosser That zu jagen." 2 
 
 With this scene the action reaches its culminating point. 
 The three friends have now to make good their escape with 
 the image of the goddess. But the deceit which the heroine 
 of Euripides' tragedy does not scorn to employ is impossible 
 to Goethe's high-souled, modern Iphigenie. Thoas has been 
 kind to her ; she confesses all to him, and the openness of 
 her words wins him for her friend. Thus, the dramatic knot 
 which the Greek dramatist cut forcibly by introducing Artemis 
 herself, is here untied by the moral force of the heroine's 
 character. With the Scythian king's friendly " Lebt wohl ! " 
 to the departing Greeks, the drama closes. 
 
 Calmly beautiful as Iphigenie aitf Tauris is, the charm 
 which appeals to us in it is not that of antique art. Goethe's 
 play is not a Greek tragedy ; its " stille Grosse " is not the 
 " stille Grosse " which Winckelmann discovered in the sculp- 
 ture of antiquity, but that of the century of humanitarian 
 ideals. Goethe transferred the antique saga as he found it 
 in Euripides, to his own age; he removed what was crass, 
 
 1 Werke, 10, 47. 2 Ibid., 10, 58.
 
 CHAP. X.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 355 
 
 incredible, and unmodern from it the deception and cunning 
 in which the Greek mind saw no guile, the crude solution of 
 the tragic complications by the aid of supernatural inter- 
 vention and he created characters which, to use an ex- 
 pression which he applied to them fifteen years afterwards, 
 are "verteufelt human." 
 
 Iphigenie was followed by Torquato Tasso (1790), the Torquato 
 origin of which may also be traced back to the earlier period Ta3so > 
 of Goethe's life in Weimar. Tasso is clearly a more sub- 
 jective drama than Iphigenie: the scene of the action, the 
 Court of Duke Alfonso II. of Ferrara, has many points of 
 similarity to that of Weimar, and incidents in Goethe's own 
 relations with the Duke of Weimar, with the Duchess and 
 Frau von Stein, are reflected in it. Tasso is the tragedy of a 
 sensitive poet whose failing is his lack of self-control ; hence it 
 is essentially a psychological drama with little plot or outward 
 conflict. It opens at the moment when Tasso, having finished 
 his epic, La Gerusalemme liberata, is crowned with a laurel 
 wreath by the Duke's sister, Leonore von Este. To Antonio 
 Montecatino, the Duke's Secretary of State, who has just 
 returned from Rome, this honour appears as an undeserved 
 flattery : he accuses Tasso of courting a comparison with 
 Virgil and Ariosto. Notwithstanding the Princess's attempts 
 to bring about a reconciliation, the breach between the poet 
 and the man of the world grows wider ; and ultimately Tasso 
 so far forgets himself as to draw his sword on Antonio. The 
 Duke places him under arrest, but subsequently bids Antonio 
 restore Tasso sword and freedom, and seek reconciliation 
 with the offended poet. As proof of his sincerity, Tasso asks 
 Antonio to obtain the Duke's permission for him to leave 
 Ferrara, and Antonio reluctantly consents. Unhappy at the 
 prospect of his separation from the Court, Tasso confesses 
 his love to the Princess Leonore, who naturally rejects his 
 presumptuous suit. Forsaken on every side, the poet turns to 
 Antonio, to find in this man of common-sense, his best friend. 
 The poetic charm of Tasso is even more delicate than that of 
 Iphigenie, but as a play it is inferior to the latter. The char- 
 acter of Antonio the most important for the comprehension 
 of the action is too shadowy and complicated to be convinc- 
 ing ; at times it seems as if there were really two Antonios, 
 one at the beginning of the drama and another at its close.
 
 356 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 The whole work, indeed, gives the impression of falling 
 asunder into two parts. But despite such blemishes, Tasso 
 remains one of the most subtle of Goethe's creations ; it 
 is, above all, a drama for poets, the fullest confession of 
 a poet's life of the joys and sorrows, the temptations and 
 disappointments, to which a delicately strung man of genius 
 is exposed. The whole tragedy of Tasso's soul is concen- 
 trated in his last words to Antonio : 
 
 " Hilft denn kein Beyspiel der Geschichte mehr? 
 Stellt sich kein edler Mann mir vor die Augen, 
 Der mehr gelitten, als ich jemals litt ; 
 Damit ich mich mit ihm vergleichend fasse ? 
 Nein, alles ist dahin ! Nur Eines bleibt : 
 Die Thrane hat uns die Natur verliehen, 
 Den Schrey des Schmerzens, wenn der Mann zuletzt 
 Es nicht mehr tragt Und mir noch iiber alles 
 Sie Hess im Schmerz mir Melodic und Rede, 
 Die tiefste Flille meiner Noth zu klagen : 
 Und wenn der Mensch in seiner Qual verstummt, 
 Gab mir ein Gott, zu sagen wie ich leide. . . . 
 
 Zerbrochen ist das Steuer, und es kracht 
 
 Das Schiff an alien Seiten. Berstend reisst 
 
 Der Boden unter meinen FUssen auf ! 
 
 Ich fasse dich mit beyden Armen an ! 
 
 So klammert sich der Schiffer endlich noch 
 
 Am Felsen fest, an dem er scheitern sollte." 1 
 
 When, in June 1788, Goethe returned to Weimar, it was 
 small wonder that he felt little in harmony with his sur- 
 roundings. If he had outgrown his age before he went 
 to Italy, how much more was this the case after his return? 
 The turbulence of the "Geniezeit" still agitated the surface 
 of German literature, and filled Goethe with repugnance for 
 the writings of his countrymen. Even his old friends, among 
 them Frau von Stein, whom he had once loved so passionately, 
 appeared like strangers to him in the cold, unsympathetic 
 light of the northern sky. The period immediately after his 
 return from Italy was the least productive of the poet's life, 
 and until the stimulus of Schiller's friendship began to act on 
 him in 1794, he was to a large extent estranged from litera- 
 ture. To the years between 1788 and 1794 belong the 
 Venetianischen Epigramme (1796), written in 1790 on a visit 
 to Venice, and the admirable translation of the Low German 
 
 1 Werke, 10, 243 f.
 
 CHAP. X.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 357 
 
 Beast Epic, Reineke Fuchs, which appeared in 1794. The Reineke 
 Romischen Elegien (1795), with their glow of southern passion f*^' 
 and their statuesque Italian beauty, were mainly inspired by Romiscke 
 a new love of Goethe's, Christiane Vulpius, who, to the le & en < 
 scandal of Weimar society, lived with the poet for eighteen 
 years as faithful helpmate before, in 1806, he made her his 
 wife. She is the " forest flower " in the poem Gefunden : 
 
 " Ich grub's mit alien 
 Den Wiirzlein aus, 
 Zum Garten trug ich's 
 Am hiibschen Haus. 
 
 Und pflanzt'es wieder 
 Am stillen Ort ; 
 Nun zweigt es immer 
 Und bliihtsofort." 1 
 
 In 1792, Goethe was brought rudely into touch with the 
 actualities of life. At the Duke's command, he accompanied 
 him on that disastrous campaign against the French, by means 
 of which the German princes hoped to stem the flood of 
 revolution. Goethe's account of the campaign Campagne 
 in Frankreich, 1792 was not published until 1822, when it 
 formed part of his autobiography. 
 
 Before the decisive moment arrived when Goethe recog- 
 nised in Schiller a friend who could stimulate his interest in 
 poetry, he had published in the Neue Schriften (7 vols., 
 1792-1800) the beginning of his romance, Wilhelm Meisters Wilhelm 
 Lehrjahrc. Wilhelm Meister, which, as we have seen, had ^^ e j^,. e 
 been planned in 1777, as a novel of theatrical life, occu- 1795-96. 
 pies a central position in the development of the German 
 novel. On the one hand, it is the culmination of the novel 
 of the eighteenth century which commenced with imitations of 
 Richardson ; on the other, the basis for the modern novel of 
 the Romantic School, and the direct forerunner of the auto- 
 biographical novels of modern German literature. It is thus, 
 in a higher degree than any other work of fiction, the typical 
 German novel. 
 
 Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre is not only very loosely con- 
 structed, but also its hero is not strong enough to dominate 
 and set his mark upon the whole. The novel is held 
 
 1 Werbe, i, 25.
 
 358 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 together neither by .its plot nor its characters but by an ethical 
 idea. In January, 1825, Goethe said to Eckermann : 
 
 " Es gehort dieses Werk iibrigens zu den incalculabelsten Pro- 
 ductionen, wozu mir fast selbst der Schliissel fehlt. Man sucht 
 einen Mittelpunkt, und das ist schwer und nicht einmal gut. Ich 
 sollte meinen, ein reiches mannigfaltiges Leben, das unsern Augen 
 voriibergeht, ware auch an sich etwas ohne ausgesprochene Tendenz, 
 die doch bloss fur den Begriff ist. Will man aber dergleichen 
 durchaus, so halte man sich an die Worte Friedrichs, die er am 
 Ende an unsern Helden richtet, indem er sagt : ' Du kommst mir 
 vor wie Saul, der Sohn Kis, der ausging, seines Vaters Eselinnen 
 zu suchen und ein Konigreich fand.' Hieran halte man sich. 
 Denn im Grunde scheint doch das Ganze nichts anderes sagen 
 zu wollen, als dass der Mensch trotz aller Dummheiten und Ver- 
 wirrungen, von einer hohern Hand geleitet, doch zum gliicklichen 
 Ziele gelange." l 
 
 This idea provides the thread on which the varicoloured 
 pictures of the romance are strung; it is the history of a 
 young man's apprenticeship to life. Wilhelm Meister is 
 the son of a well-to-do merchant. Brought up as Goethe 
 himself had been, his imagination nourished with poetry, 
 Wilhelm prefers the theatre to the counting-house. When 
 the novel opens, we find him in the toils of a pretty 
 actress, Marianne, who incorporates his dreams of the theatre. 
 From an actor, Melina, he learns, however, the dark side of 
 theatrical life, and soon after, discovering that Marianne has 
 been unfaithful to him, resolves to follow the advice of his 
 practically minded friend, Werner, and to make the best of 
 commercial life. He sets out on his travels as an agent for 
 his father's business. Once more, however, the theatre proves 
 too strong for him. He becomes attached to a wandering 
 theatrical company, the members of which are characterised 
 in a vividly realistic manner. Repelled rather than attracted 
 by his new friends, Wilhelm makes a new tie for himself by 
 purchasing Mignon, a child of thirteen, from a company of 
 travelling acrobats whom he finds maltreating her. Mignon 
 is the most ethereal of all Goethe's characters; she is 
 rather an unearthly embodiment of primitive feelings, of love 
 for country, and the all-absorbing sense of gratitude towards 
 a benefactor, than a creature of flesh and blood ; and with 
 her is associated the mysterious Harper, whose spiritual gaze 
 
 1 J. P. Eckermann, Gesprache mit Goethe, Leipzig, 1836-48, i, 194.
 
 CHAP. X.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 359 
 
 is fixed upon the past, and whose whole life was summed 
 up in one brief period of happiness two figures who, to- 
 gether with the wonderful lyrics that are placed on their 
 lips, were alone sufficient to endear the novel to the young 
 generation of Romantic writers growing up at Goethe's feet 
 In the meantime, Wilhelm himself becomes more and more 
 deeply involved in the undertakings of the theatrical company 
 with which he is connected. For a short time, indeed, he 
 comes in contact with more aristocratic circles in the castle 
 of a Graf who entertains the company; but here he only 
 meets with disappointments. He becomes more and more 
 confident that the ideal which he cannot find in everyday 
 life is to be found in the unreal world of the theatre ; and 
 the works of Shakespeare, with which he now makes acquaint- 
 ance, strengthen him in this conviction. The company of 
 actors whose fortunes Meister controls, undertakes to produce 
 Hamlet, and in the criticism and reflections which Goethe 
 makes his characters express on this tragedy, he laid the 
 foundation of the modern interpretation of Shakespeare. 
 Wilhelm's connection with the theatre at least teaches him 
 that his true vocation is not on the stage ; the company 
 deteriorates, and he leaves it to enter a new sphere of 
 life. In order to bridge over the transition from Wilhelm 
 Meister's theatrical experiences to those in the castle of 
 Lothario, where we next find him, Goethe has inserted a 
 book which he calls Bekenntnisse einer schonen Seele. These Bekennt- 
 " confessions " of a noble pietistic lady, who rises through 
 renunciation to a higher life, were based on some auto- SeeU. 
 biographic sketches by a friend of Goethe's youth, Fraulein 
 Katharina von Klettenberg, who, it will be remembered, had 
 had considerable influence on the poet's religious convictions 
 after he returned from Leipzig. 
 
 In Lothario's castle, Wilhelm enters upon the last stage of 
 his apprenticeship. Not that his character, which has hitherto 
 shown itself deficient in firmness and decision, is materially 
 changed; but his convictions as to man's rights and duties 
 become settled. His life, too, is given a new aim and a new 
 meaning when he discovers that Marianne has left him a son ; 
 to this son's education he intends from now on to devote him- 
 self. As a lover, Wilhelm has throughout the book appeared 
 in a most unsatisfactory light ; and here, too, at the end, he
 
 360 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 occupies an undignified position between Therese, with whom 
 he falls in love at first sight, and Natalie, who, as the " schone 
 Amazone," had already played a romantic role in his life. 
 Natalie, who turns out to be Lothario's sister, ultimately 
 becomes Wilhelm's wife, while Lothario marries Aurelie. The 
 closing chapters of the book stand in no very clear relation to 
 the whole ; the lying-in-state of the dead Mignon, in whom 
 the Harper discovers his lost daughter, and the solemn cere- 
 mony by which Wilhelm's apprenticeship is declared at an end, 
 are hardly in keeping with the realistic development of the 
 earlier parts of the work. It is difficult to agree with Schlegel 
 in regarding the two last books the whole novel is divided 
 into fifteen as an artistic culmination : on the other hand, 
 they are filled with Goethe's own philosophy of life, and 
 contain the ethical kernel of the novel. The words which the 
 four youths sing over Mignon's body 
 
 " Schreitet, schreitet ins Leben zuriick ! Nehmet den heiligen 
 Ernst mit hinaus ; denn der Ernst, der heilige, macht allein das 
 Leben zur Ewigkeit." l 
 
 contain one of the great ideas which underlie Wilhelm Meister ; 
 the gospel it preaches might be expressed in the words, "What- 
 soever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might." By 
 learning to regard life and its duties earnestly, the hero ad- 
 vances from apprentice to master. 
 
 But, before Goethe had completed Meister, he had entered 
 upon a new period in his life, the eleven years, from 1794 
 to 1805, during which he was bound by the closest ties of 
 friendship to Schiller. 
 
 i Book 8, chap. 8.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. GOETHE AND SCHILLER'S 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 AFTER Goethe had returned from Italy and Schiller had 
 settled permanently in Jena, German literature seemed, after 
 its " Storm and Stress," at last to have arrived at a period of 
 tranquillity. But the classic beauty of the one poet and the 
 noble aspirations of the other might have made little impres- 
 sion on the intellectual life of the nation as a whole, had not 
 other forces also been at work, foremost among which was 
 the philosophy of Kant. This thinker first shook the German 
 people out of their easy-going provincialism, and taught them 
 to appreciate ideals of life and thought as yet undreamt-of in 
 the philosophy of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Immanuel Kant (I724-I804), 1 the most powerful thinker 
 of the modern world, was born and died in Konigsberg; Immanuel 
 he began to teach at the university there in 1755, and in Ji^jgcM. 
 1770 was made professor. The first outstanding work in 
 which he embodied the principles of his philosophy, Kritik 
 (CritiK) der reinen Vernunft, appeared in 1781, the year of Kritik der 
 Lessing's death. This treatise laid the foundations of modern n Ver ~ 
 philosophy by destroying that dogmatism on the basis of first 1781. ' 
 principles, which had formed an essential feature in all previous 
 philosophic systems. In the place of dogmatic metaphysics, 
 Kant set up a critical philosophy; he showed that the task 
 which lay nearest to the philosopher was not to theorise on 
 the unknown and the unknowable, but to investigate the 
 
 1 Sdmmtliche Werke, ed. G. Hartenstein, 8 vols. (in chronological order), 
 Leipzig, 1867-69. Cp. K. Fischer, Immanuel Kant und seine Lehre, 4th ed., 
 Heidelberg, 1897, and F. Paulsen, Immanuel Kant, sein Leben und seine 
 Lehre, Stuttgart, 1898.
 
 362 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Kritik der 
 praktischen 
 Vemvnft) 
 1788. 
 
 Kritik der 
 Urtheils- 
 kraft, 
 1790. 
 
 nature of the human mind. The Kritik der reinen Vernunft 
 established irrefutably the fact that the universe is only known 
 and only can be known to us through the medium of our 
 senses in other words, that absolute thinking, thinking 
 without concrete ideas, is an impossibility. Setting out from 
 this principle, Kant reduced reason, to which the older 
 philosophies attributed an almost creative faculty, to its true 
 proportions as a "regulative" function of the mind: it is 
 that part of the mind through which the facts of experience 
 have to pass in order to become knowledge. The nature, 
 functions, and laws of human reason are the subject of Kant's 
 first Kritik. 
 
 In 1788, his second important treatise, Kritik der prak- 
 tischen Vernunft) appeared : it may be described as an 
 application to the will of the same analytical method that 
 had been employed in criticising " pure " reason. But in this 
 treatise Kant was obliged to go much further afield ; many 
 first principles, such as the existence of God, immortality, 
 above all, the freedom of the will, which the first Kritik had 
 admitted to be possible, but avoided proving, are in the Kritik 
 der praktischen Vernunft taken for granted, on the ground 
 that morality is inconceivable without them. Thus the 
 second Kritik^ owing to the nature of its subject, does not 
 stand on the unimpeachable, logical basis of the first, but 
 it atones for this deficiency by the convincing earnestness 
 with which the author lays down his principles. As a moral 
 teacher, Kant's influence on his nation was enormous ; his 
 insistence upon duty for duty's sake, the religious awe which 
 he inspired for the " eternal moral law " in the human 
 soul and the categorical imperative which set obedience to 
 that moral law above every other consideration, acted upon 
 the German people like a tonic. From this time on, the 
 laxities of the French encyclopedists, the Epicureanism of 
 Wieland, the aggressive individualism of the "Sturmer und 
 Dranger," lost all hold upon the higher life of the people. 
 Kant laid the foundation upon which the Germans rose to be 
 a powerful nation ; and, in this sense, it is hardly an exaggera- 
 tion to say that his philosophy was to Germany what the 
 French Revolution was to France. 
 
 The third of the Kritiken was that dealing with the 
 Urtheilskraft ; it was published in 1790, and contained Kant's
 
 CHAP. XI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 363 
 
 views on the critical functions of the mind, on the qualities 
 inherent in objects which awake our admiration or the 
 reverse ; in other words, the Kritik der Urtheilskraft is 
 Kant's chief contribution to aesthetics. In his later years 
 he occupied himself much with political philosophy, and his 
 writings on this subject betray the influence of the French 
 Revolution: only one of these, Zum ewigen Frieden (1795), 
 need be mentioned, a treatise in which the possibility of a 
 free covenant between the nations is discussed. 
 
 It was not long before the stimulus of the critical philosophy 
 showed itself in German thought. Herder, who had learned 
 so much from Kant in his youth, was, as we have seen, 
 roused to active and imbittered antagonism, while K. L. K. L. 
 Reinhold (1758-1823), from 1787 on, Professor of Philos- 
 ophy in Jena, helped to popularise the new doctrines in 
 his Briefe tiber die Kantsche Philosophic, which appeared in 
 Wieland's Teutsche Merkur in 1786 and 1787. After Rein- 
 hold left Jena for Kiel in 1794, his place was taken by 
 Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a thinker who advanced German 
 philosophy by another great stage. 
 
 None of the German poets of this age gave himself up Schiller 
 more completely to the Kantian philosophy than Schiller, and Kant - 
 whose historical writings had already revealed an occasional 
 trace of Kant's influence. In 1786 and 1788, Schiller 
 published in the Thalia a number of Philosophische Briefe 
 between two friends, that is to say, between himself and 
 his friend Korner, and in these letters the latter appears 
 as a confirmed Kantian, while the poet is still wrestling 
 with the rationalism of the age. Schiller's interest in Kant 
 had thus been stimulated by Korner, but he did not begin 
 to study the new philosophy in earnest before March, 1791. 
 The aesthetic side of Kant's philosophy attracted him first, 
 and in the winter of 1792-93, in Jena, he delivered a course 
 of lectures on this theme. He also about this time planned, 
 in the form of a dialogue, an aesthetic treatise which was to Schiller's 
 have been entitled Kallias. In the first parts of his Neve 
 Thalia (1792) he discussed the theory of tragedy accord- 
 ing to the principles of Kant's aesthetics, and in 1793, Uber 
 Anmuth und Wiirde appeared. Two years later, it was 
 followed by Schiller's most important work on aesthetics, 
 the Briefe uber die asthetische Erziehung des Menschcn, which
 
 364 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 was published in the early numbers of the Horen. These 
 letters, however, had been written a year or two earlier as 
 private letters to Schiller's patron, the Duke of Schleswig- 
 Holstein-Augustenburg, who had generously granted him a 
 pension of a thousand thalers for three years. 
 
 The problem which Schiller set himself in his aesthetic 
 writings was the investigation of the nature of Beauty per se. 
 Kant had only discussed the Beautiful in so far as it affects 
 the subject, that is to say, the mind which appreciates it. 
 Schiller asks if there is no quality in the object itself which 
 determines whether it is beautiful or not, and finds his answer 
 in Kant's quality of "self-determination" {Selbstbestimmung): 
 
 " Diese grosse Idee der Selbstbestimmung," he says, "strahlt 
 uns aus gewissen Erscheinungen der Natur zuriick, und diese 
 nennen wir Schonheit. . . . Die Freiheit in der Erscheinung ist 
 also nichts anders, als die Selbstbestimmung an einem Dinge, 
 insofern sie sich in der Anschauung offenbart." l 
 
 It was an easy matter for Schiller, who had thought so long 
 and so earnestly on the relations of art and morality, to adapt 
 to the moral life this conception, which regarded the Beautiful 
 as something defined and governed by laws, but to all appear- 
 ance free from the shackles of the law. The artistic side of 
 his nature revolted from the unrelenting severity of Kant's 
 ethics, and, while recognising the importance of Kant's stand 
 against the moral laxity of the rationalistic philosophy, he 
 believed that Kant had gone too far, and that his ethics would 
 ultimately result in an abnegation of all art and grace. In 
 place of stern categorical imperatives, Schiller, in Anmuth und 
 Wiirde, sets up as the ideal of humanity, a life of beauty and 
 dignity, which has risen, through obedience to law, to perfect 
 moral freedom. " Anmuth," grace, beauty, art, on the one 
 hand, " Wiirde," worth, dignity, sublimity on the other these 
 are the two geniuses which must lead us through life : 
 
 " Zweyerley Genien sinds, die durch das Leben dich leiten, 
 Wohl dir, wenn sie vereint helfend zur Seite dir gehn ! 
 
 Mil erheiterndem Spiel verkiirzt dir der Eine die Reise, 
 Leichter an seinem Arm werden dir Schicksal und Pflicht. 
 
 Unter Scherz und Gesprach begleitet er biss an die Kluft dich, 
 Wo an der Ewigkeit Meer schaudernd der Sterbliche steht. 
 
 1 Cp. Schiller's letters to Kbrner of Feb. 18 and 23, 1793 (F. Jonas, Schillers 
 Briefe, 3, 254 ff. ) ; also K. Berger, Die Entwicklung von Schillers Asthetik, 
 Weimar, 1894.
 
 CHAP. XI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 365 
 
 Hier empfa'ngt dich entschlossen und ernst und schweigend der 
 Andre, 
 
 Tragt mit gigantischem Arm liber die Tiefe dich bin. 
 Nimmer widme dich Einem allein. Vertraue dem ersten 
 
 Deine Wurde nicht an, nimmer dem andern dein Glilck." l 
 
 With Schiller's philosophic studies, poetry always went 
 hand in hand, and to his aesthetic speculations, his reflections 
 on the relations of art and life, of beauty and morality, we 
 owe the finest of his poems. Apart from the drama, Schiller's 
 strength as a poet lies unquestionably in the philosophic lyric. 
 Poems such as Der Genius, Der Tanz, Die Wiirde der Phiio- 
 frauen, Macht des Gesanges, Der Spaziergang reproduce in *P mc 
 ever-changing forms now light and graceful, now swept along 
 by a mighty rhetoric, or emphasised by an almost antique 
 pathos the thoughts that inspire Uber Anmut und Wiirde. 
 His highest achievements in this type of lyric are Die 
 Ideale and Das Ideal und das Leben (originally entitled Das Ideal 
 Das Reich der Schatten\ the latter perhaps the noblest of $ e % as 
 all philosophic lyrics. Schiller here gives expression to the 1795. ' 
 ideals of his own life, that rising up through the joy of sense 
 to peace of soul, that realisation of the great humanitarian 
 conception of moral freedom, of the perfect spiritualisation 
 of life; for, to him, beauty and movement, art and life, are 
 in their ultimate perfection inseparable. Not as a heaven- 
 storming Prometheus of the " Sturm und Drang," but with that 
 tranquillity of soul which is in harmony with law, Herakles, 
 the type of aspiring humanity, rises in Das Ideal und das 
 Leben to the pure realms of Olympus : 
 
 " Biss der Gott des Irrdischen entkleidet, 
 Flammend sich vom Menschen scheidet, 
 Und des Athers leichte Llifte trinkt. 
 Froh des neuen ungewohnten Schwebens 
 Fliesst er aufwarts, und des Erdenlebens 
 Schweres Traumbild sinkt und sinkt und sinkt 
 Des Olympus Harmonien empfangen 
 Den Verklarten in Kronions Saal, 
 Und die Gottin mit den Rosenwangen 
 Reicht ihm lachelnd den Pokal." 2 
 
 On sending this poem to Humboldt, Schiller wrote : " Wenn 
 Sie diesen Brief erhalten, liebster Freund, so entfernen Sie 
 
 1 Schon und Erhaben ( Werkt, n, 94). 
 
 2 Schriflen, n, 61.
 
 366 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 alles, was profan ist, und lesen in geweyhter Stille dieses 
 Gedicht." 1 And the impression left upon Humboldt did 
 not belie its author's expectations. 
 
 Of the new friends made by Schiller in Jena, none stood 
 nearer to him than Humboldt, who had settled here in the 
 K. W. von beginning of 1794, expressly on Schiller's account. Karl 
 i i 6>i8 >ldt ' Wilhelm von Humboldt (i 767-1835)2 was the elder brother 
 of the more universally known traveller and scientist, F. H. 
 Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), whose Kosmos (1845- 
 58) remains one of the masterpieces of scientific literature. 
 Wilhelm von Humboldt, a man of action rather than words, 
 was one of the makers of modern Germany ; as Prussian 
 Minister of Education, he was virtually the founder of the 
 new University of Berlin, which was inaugurated in 1810. 
 To Humboldt more than to any other, Germany owed a 
 practical realisation of the ideals of her classical poets 
 and thinkers ; he laid the basis for the higher education and 
 culture of the nation. At this time he was an invaluable 
 friend to Schiller ; he shared the poet's philosophical en- 
 thusiasms, and aided and encouraged him in his quest in 
 Greek literature for the highest form of poetry. Humboldt 
 himself translated the Agamemnon of ^Eschylus (1816), and 
 criticised Hermann und Dorothea (Asthetische Versuche, 1799) 
 with an understanding and sympathy which explain the con- 
 fidence Goethe and Schiller placed in him. His most im- 
 portant work as a critic and scholar belongs to the field of 
 comparative philology. 
 
 The German classical age is, as it were, summed up in the 
 friendship of Goethe and Schiller; and E. RietschePs noble 
 statue of the two poets, which stands in front of the Ducal 
 Theatre in Weimar, expresses admirably this supreme moment 
 in the history of literature. The obstacles that stood in the 
 way of an intimacy between the two poets have already been 
 referred to : on Goethe's side, a reluctance to appreciate 
 Schiller's good qualities ; on Schiller's, a distrust which was 
 made up half of dislike, half of jealousy. The deepest insight 
 Schiller's into Schiller's mind at this time is afforded by the last of his 
 vndsenti- ^h^c writings, Uber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung 
 
 mentalische i Cp. Briefwechsel swischen Schiller und W. von Humboldt, 2nd ed., Stutt- 
 Dichtung, gart, 1876-77 (F. Jonas, Schillers Briefe, 4, 232). For Humboldt's reply, see 
 I 795- former work, p. 83. 
 
 2 Cp. R. Haym, W. von Humboldt, Berlin, 1856.
 
 CHAP. XI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 367 
 
 which he himself characterised as a bridge from 
 philosophic theory to poetic production. 
 
 Uber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung is a study of the 
 fundamental nature of poetry. Schiller here investigates the 
 conditions of poetic production and discovers two types of 
 mind, the "naive" and the "sentimental," the latter word 
 being used in its familiar eighteenth - century sense of 
 " reflective " or " meditative." All primitive poetry, says 
 Schiller, is naive, that is to say, contains observation rather 
 than reflection ; the perfect examples of this class of poetry 
 are to be found in Greek literature, above all, in Homer. 
 But and here one sees a certain kinship of Schiller's 
 thought with that of Rousseau this naive quality is not 
 only characteristic of primitive poets, it is also a mark of 
 the highest genius, even in modern literatures. Shakespeare 
 is a naive poet, and so is Goethe. On the other hand, the 
 bulk of modern poetry is "sentimental," that is to say, the 
 modern poet prefers to reflect, to muse, to desire, instead 
 of simply observing and giving artistic form to his observa- 
 tions. Of all Schiller's aesthetic writings, Uber naive und 
 sentimentalische Dichtung had the deepest and most im- 
 mediate influence on his contemporaries. But there was 
 also a personal side to the treatise, which is important to a 
 clear understanding of Schiller's own development He had, 
 as we have seen, become a warm admirer of Greek poetry; 
 the naive poetry of the ancients clearly represented to him 
 the ideal of all poetry. The same quality of naivete, he 
 had also discerned in Goethe; but when he scrutinised 
 himself and his own genius, he found that he was com- 
 pletely devoid of naivete. The vital problem that now pre- 
 sented itself to him was, to discover reasons for the existence 
 of a poet who had not this quality; by the side of the 
 great poetry of antiquity, of a Shakespeare and a Goethe in 
 modern literature, what room was there for his own writings? 
 Following out this line of thought, he ultimately arrived at 
 the conviction that he himself fulfilled the conditions of a 
 purely modern or " sentimental " poet. 
 
 Having thus justified his work beside Goethe's, there was Friendship 
 no further obstacle on Schiller's side to a closer intimacy, 
 and the first step towards a better understanding was made 
 by him. On the i3th of June, 1794, he wrote to Goethe the
 
 368 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 letter which opens the correspondence between the two poets, 1 
 asking him to take an active part in the editorship of a new 
 
 Die Horen, journal, Die Horen (1795-97), which he was about to publish. 
 
 1795-97- Goethe agreed, and in the course of a few weeks both poets 
 had discovered a surprising agreement in their views of life 
 and poetry ; both had reason to regret that it had taken so 
 long for them to come to an understanding with each other. 
 Die Horen, however, proved little more successful than 
 Schiller's previous journals. His own contributions, such as 
 the Brief t iiber die dsthetische Erziehung des Menschen (1795), 
 and the Merkwiirdige Belagerung von Antwerpen (1795), were 
 hardly likely to make the journal popular, while Goethe's 
 contributions allowed of no comparison with Wilhelm Meister, 
 which at this time was being published as the last volumes of 
 his collected works. And what came from other contributors, 
 from Herder, Fichte, Meyer and the Schlegels, did not 
 materially raise the level of the journal. To the Horen, 
 Goethe contributed the Rbmischen Elegien (1795) an d the 
 Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten (1795), a collection 
 of stories which add nothing to his prestige as a novelist, 
 although they help us to appreciate his attitude towards 
 the French Revolution. Benvenuto Cellini (1796-97), which 
 began to appear in the sixth volume of the journal, was but a 
 translation of Cellini's own biography. 
 
 The failure of the Horen stung Goethe and Schiller to 
 retaliate on the writers of the day, whom they held responsible 
 for the bad taste of the public. Their retaliation took the 
 form of a collection of distichs, to which, in imitation of 
 
 The Martial, they gave the title, Xenien. There is hardly another 
 
 i^oo"' incident in the history of German literature which it is so diffi- 
 cult for us to understand as the " Xenienkampf," which fol- 
 lowed the publication of the Xenien in Schiller's Musenal- 
 manach for 1796. The satire of these distichs, like all purely 
 literary satire, has lost its virulence, and much which, in its 
 day, had power to sting, even to wound, now seems harmless. 
 But the Xenien were an effective protest against mediocrity ; 
 the cavilling criticism which the minor coteries of Berlin 
 and Leipzig had directed against Goethe and Schiller was, 
 
 1 Ed. W. Vollmer, 3rd ed., Stuttgart, 1881. Cp. for the following, the intro- 
 duction to my edition of Selections from the Correspondence between Schiller 
 and Goethe, Boston, 1898.
 
 CHAP. XI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 369 
 
 for a time at least, silenced ; the air was cleared, and both 
 poets felt it incumbent on them to follow up their victory 
 with " some great and worthy work of art." The immediate 
 results of this resolution were Wallenstein and Hermann und 
 Dorothea. 
 
 The plan of Wallenstein had been sketched out as early Wailen- 
 as 1791, before the Geschichte des dreissigjdhrigen Krieges was * tei *> 
 concluded. The drama is not mentioned again in Schiller's 
 correspondence until 1794, when a couple of months seem 
 to have been devoted to it. Once more, however, it was 
 thrown aside and not resumed until 1796, when, under the 
 stimulus of Goethe's encouragement, Schiller began to work 
 steadily at it. Thus the composition of Wallenstein extends 
 over the momentous period of its author's development, in 
 which he passed from utilitarian rationalism to Kantian 
 idealism. 1 More than any other of his dramas, Wallenstein 
 shows traces of the poet's intellectual growth, the transition 
 in his interests from history to philosophy, and from phil- 
 osophy to poetry. In his original plan, Schiller probably had 
 in view a tragedy similar to Don Carlos, depending merely on 
 intrigue for its interest. As it now stands, it is the most 
 monumental of all his works, and the ripest historical tragedy 
 in the literature of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Although nominally consisting of three plays, Wallenstein is 
 not a trilogy in the accepted sense of that word. In its 
 earliest form it was only one play, and it is still best regarded 
 as a tragedy in ten acts, preceded by a "Vorspiel." This 
 " Vorspiel," Wallensteins Lager, paints the " finstern Zeit- steins 
 grund " of the tragedy ; it presents a living panorama of the i'^ 9 8. ' 
 motley elements that make up the camp before Pilsen : 
 
 " In den kiihnen Schaaren, 
 Die sein Befehl gewaltig lenkt, sein Geist 
 Beseelt, wird euch sein Schattenbild begegnen. . . . 
 Denn seine Macht ist's, die sein Herz verfiihrt, 
 Sein Lager nur erklaret sein Verbrechen." 
 
 The forces which are to play so great a part in the tragedy 
 itself are here foreshadowed in the rough soldiers of Wal- 
 lenstein's army; the camp, as it is described in this finely 
 
 1 Cp. E. Kiihnemann, Die Kantischen Studien Schillers und die /Composi- 
 tion des Wallenstein, Marburg, 1889, and K. Werder, Vorlesungen liter 
 Schillers Wallenstein, Berlin, 1889. 
 
 2 A
 
 37O THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 conceived introduction, is the background, or, to use the 
 phrase of modern criticism, the milieu of the drama. And 
 against this background rises, in the two chief dramas, the 
 figure of Wallenstein : 
 
 " der Schdpfer kiihner Heere, 
 Des Lagers Abgott und der Lander Geissel, 
 Die Stutze und der Schrecken seines Kaisers, 
 Des Gluckes abentheuerlicher Sohn, 
 Der von der Zeiten Gunst emporgetragen, 
 Der Ehre hochste Staffeln rasch erstieg 
 Und ungesattigt immer weiter strebend, 
 Der unbezahmten Ehrsucht Opfer fiel. 
 Von der Partheyen Gunst und Hass verwirrt 
 Schwankt sein Charakterbild in der Geschichte, 
 Doch euren Augen soil ihn jetzt die Kunst, 
 Auch eurem_Herzen menschlich naher bringen. 
 Denn jedes Ausserste ftihrt sie, die alles 
 Begrenzt und bindet, zur Natur zuriick, 
 Sie sieht den Menschen in des Lebens Drang 
 Und walzt die grdssre Halfte seiner Schuld 
 Den ungliickseligen Gestirnen zu." 
 
 These words from the Prolog^ which Schiller wrote for the 
 first performance of Wallensteins Lager, show how the poet 
 intended his hero's character to be understood. At the 
 Die Pic- beginning of Die Piccolomini, the first of the two dramas 
 coiomim, w hich constitute the tragedy proper, Wallenstein is at the 
 highest point of his career, and his ambitions are set on the 
 crown of Bohemia and on seeing himself the chief power in 
 Germany. To attain this end, he trusts, in the first place, to 
 the army which he has himself created. But this is not 
 enough ; to turn the balance of power, he must enter into 
 an alliance with the Protestant Swedes, the enemies of his 
 emperor. Before, however, taking this traitorous step, he 
 awaits the decision of the stars. Field-Marshal Illo and Graf 
 Terzky, Wallen stein's brother-in-law, impatient of delay, endeav- 
 our to stimulate him to action. At a banquet they obtain, 
 under false pretences, the signatures of the half-intoxicated 
 generals to a document, in which the latter declare their inten- 
 tion to remain faithful to their leader, even though he prove 
 a traitor to the emperor. One of these generals, Octavio 
 Piccolomini, an Italian, and the friend in whom Wallenstein 
 places most reliance, is not blind to the treason the latter 
 meditates, but he is in no hurry to act. He possesses the 
 
 1 Sckriften, xa, 5 ff.
 
 CHAP. XI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 371 
 
 sign-manual of the emperor, which empowers him to depose 
 Wallenstein and himself assume the leadership of the forces. 
 Octavio's son, Max Piccolomini, on the other hand, clings to 
 his leader with the enthusiasm of a youthful hero-worship; 
 moreover, he loves Wallenstein's daughter, Thekla, and, in spite 
 of his father's warning, will not believe in Wallenstein's treason. 
 Even the report that the latter's envoy to the Swedes has 
 been captured and his plot discovered, does not convince the 
 younger Piccolomini. He will only believe that Wallenstein 
 is a traitor when he hears it from his own lips : 
 
 " Rein muss es bleiben zwischen mir und ihm, 
 Und eh' der Tag sich neigt, muss sich's erklaren, 
 Ob ich den Freund, ob ich den Vater soil entbehren." * 
 
 With these words, the first part of the tragedy ends. 
 
 If Die Piccolomini, regarded for itself, suffers from the fact 
 that it only leads up to events which take place in the sequel, 
 Wallensteins Tod is almost overweighted with the fulness of Wallen- 
 
 its dramatic action. In this play, Schiller reveals himself for steins Todt 
 
 . 1 799. 
 
 the first time as a tragic poet of the highest order. The net- 
 work with which Wallenstein is surrounded is closing fast 
 upon him. The documents that prove his treason are in the 
 hands of his enemies, and an interview with Wrangel, a 
 Swedish colonel, forces him to act. He throws in his lot 
 with the Swedes. On Octavio, whom he still blindly trusts, 
 he places responsibilities with which the Italian naturally 
 strengthens his own hand. Regiment after regiment breaks 
 away from him and declares anew its allegiance to the 
 emperor. Wallenstein at last stands alone, a figure of tragic 
 grandeur : 
 
 " Es ist entschieden, nun ist's gut und schnell 
 Bin ich geheilt von alien Zweifelsqualen, 
 Die Brust ist wieder frey, der Geist ist hell, 
 Nacht muss es seyn, wo Friedlands Sterne strahlen. 
 Mit zdgerndem Entschluss, mit wankendem Gemilth 
 Zog ich das Schwert, ich that's mit Widerstreben, 
 Da es in meine Wahl noch war gegeben ! 
 Nothwendigkeit ist da, der Zweifel flieht, 
 Jetzt fecht' ich fiir mein Haupt und fUr mein Leben." 2 
 
 Nemesis follows fast on Wallenstein's heels. The hardest 
 blow of all is when he learns that Max Piccolomini has 
 
 1 Act 5, sc. 3 ( Werke, 12, 198). 
 a Act 3, sc. 10 ( Werke, 12, 292).
 
 372 THE ETGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 deserted him. Escaping with the followers he still believes 
 faithful to him, Wallenstein reaches Eger, where Illo, Terzky, 
 and he are murdered by Buttler, a friend he has been too 
 blind to distrust. The tragedy closes a fine touch of irony 
 with the arrival of a messenger from the emperor, con- 
 ferring upon Octavio the title "Fiirst." 
 
 At the time Schiller was completing Wallenstein, a favourite 
 subject of discussion between himself and Goethe was, as is 
 to be seen from the correspondence of the two poets, the 
 difference between the Greek ideals of literature and those of 
 modern literature. The practical problem which each tacitly 
 set himself was how he might best combine the excellences 
 of Greek and modern poetry, and the trilogy of Wallenstein, 
 as Hettner has pointed out, 1 was Schiller's answer to this 
 problem. The tragedy of Wallenstein's life is only partially 
 due to his own fault his overweening ambition on the one 
 hand, his blindness and irresolution on the other; the poet 
 makes us at the same time share his hero's faith in the " un- 
 gliickselige Gestirne," which forms so fine a poetic motive in 
 the play. The irresistible movement of events makes the 
 catastrophe inevitable from the beginning ; for, as Schiller says 
 in the Geschichte des dreissigjdhrigen Krieges, "Wallenstein 
 fiel, nicht weil er Rebell war, sondern er rebellirte, weil er 
 fiel." 2 Masterly, above all, is the art with which Schiller 
 has moulded the historical Wallenstein properly, Waldstein 
 into a tragic hero of the first order ; our sympathies for the 
 hero are never allowed to waver, even although he stands 
 throughout the drama in the shadow of treason. With his 
 firm conviction that he is born to greatness, his belief in 
 a higher power that leads him, Wallenstein becomes in his 
 fall a tragic figure, worthy of a place beside CEdipus or Lear. 
 Goethe had undoubtedly this mastery of characterisation in 
 his mind, when he said, " Schillers Wallenstein ist so gross, 
 dass in seiner Art zum zweyten Mai nicht etwas Ahnliches 
 mehr vorhanden ist." 3 
 
 Not alone Wallenstein himself, but also the other actors in 
 the tragedy, above all, Buttler, Terzky, Illo, and Octavio, are 
 
 1 Literattirgeschichte des achtxehnten Jahrhunderts, 4th ed., Brunswick, 1894, 
 3, 3, 2, 247 ; cp., however, L. Bellermann, Schillers Dramen, Berlin, 1888-91, 
 a, 55 ff- 
 
 Werke, 8, 353. 
 
 1 J. P. Eckermann, Gesprdche mit Goethe (July 23, 1827), i, 381.
 
 CHAP. XI.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 373 
 
 a marked advance on the characters of Schiller's earlier plays ; 
 they are drawn with more delicate lines. The least con- 
 vincing of the male figures is Max Piccolomini, the youthful 
 idealist, who provides a foil to the realist, Wallenstein ; 
 the poet's art is nowhere more of the eighteenth century than 
 in these unreal embodiments of youth which, from this time 
 on, appear with little variation in all his plays. Of the 
 female figures of the drama there is little to say; the best 
 of them is Terzky's wife, in whom Schiller perfected the 
 type of heroine he had already drawn in Lady Milford and 
 the Princess Eboli. Wallenstein's daughter Thekla, on the 
 other hand, like her lover Max Piccolomini, seems a some- 
 what incongruous figure in a tragedy with such enormous 
 political issues; but, like the love episodes in the French 
 classical drama, the scenes between Max and Thekla are 
 rather a concession to the taste of the time than an integral 
 part of the whole.
 
 374 
 
 Goethe's 
 
 Hermann 
 
 und 
 
 Dorothea, 
 
 1798. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 GOETHE'S CLASSICISM; THE FIRST PART OF FAUST. 
 
 THE trilogy of Wallenstein was Schiller's practical solu- 
 tion of the problem which the two poets set themselves, 
 namely, to reconcile the literary art of the Greeks with that 
 of the modern world ; the answer which Goethe offered was 
 Hermann und Dorothea (1798; virtually October, 1797). 
 While Schiller endeavoured to combine the dramaturgic prin- 
 ciples of ancient tragedy with those of Shakespeare, Goethe, 
 in Hermann und Dorothea, aimed at creating a modern 
 epic, which should be suffused with the spirit of Homer. 
 The model for the poem was, of course, in the first instance, 
 Voss's Luise, and like Luise, Hermann und Dorothea is written 
 in those classical hexameters which Voss adapted to Ger- 
 man requirements. Goethe's epic is founded upon an inci- 
 dent said to have happened more than sixty years before 
 the poet's time, at Altmuhl, near Ottingen, in Bavaria, where 
 the son of a well-to-do family found his bride among a 
 party of emigrants from Salzburg. Goethe made use of the 
 anecdote in its general outlines, modernised it, and gave it, 
 as background, the stormy sky of the French Revolution ; the 
 scene is a German village on the right bank of the Rhine, 
 and his emigrants come from France. Hermann, son of 
 the host of the " Golden Lion," is sent by his mother with 
 linen and provisions to assist the fugitives. Overtaking 
 them, he finds Dorothea leading a bullock-cart, in which 
 lies a woman who has just given birth to a child. He at 
 once feels an instinctive admiration for Dorothea, and places 
 his provisions in her hands, confident that she will distribute 
 them wisely. Hermann's father now finds him no longer 
 unwilling to think of marriage, and expects his son to
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 375 
 
 choose a bride with a dowry, or, at least, one of higher 
 rank than a peasant. This naturally comes as a blow to the 
 young man's hopes, but his mother wins his confidence, and 
 bids him tell his father all. The host of the " Golden Lion " 
 hears of the emigrant-girl' in silence; the pastor, however, 
 takes Hermann's part, and the apothecary, who is more 
 wary, suggests that he and the pastor should first make 
 inquiries about Dorothea. Hermann's father agrees to place 
 no obstacle in the way of a marriage, should the two friends 
 be satisfied with what they hear. The accounts they bring 
 home are favourable, and Hermann awaits Dorothea at the 
 well. He cannot, however, bring himself to speak of love : 
 
 " ihr Auge blickte nicht Liebe, 
 Aber hellen Verstand, und gebot verstandig zu reden." 
 
 So he tells her that his mother wishes to have some one in 
 the house to help her and to take the place of a daughter she 
 has lost. Will Dorothea accept the position? The home- 
 less girl is glad to become, as she believes, a servant in the 
 " Golden Lion." But now she must return, for 
 
 " Die Madchen 
 
 Warden immer getadelt, die lange beym Brunnen verweilen ; 
 Und doch ist es am rinnenden Quell so lieblich zu schwatzen. 
 Also standen sie auf und schauten Beide noch einmal 
 In den Brunnen zurtick, und susses Verlangen ergriffsie. 
 
 Schweigend nahm sie darauf die beiden Kriige beym Henkel, 
 Stieg die Stufen hinan, und Hermann folgte der Lieben. 
 Einen Krug verlangt er von ihr, die Biirde zu theilen. 
 Lasst ihn, sprach sie ; es tragt sich besser die gleichere Last so. 
 Und der Herr, der kunftig befiehlt, er soil mir nicht dienen. 
 Seht mich so ernst nicht an, als ware mein Schicksal bedenklich I 
 Dienen lerne bey Zeiten das Weib nach ihrer Bestimmung ; 
 Denn durch Dienen allein gelangt sie endlich zum Herrschen, 
 Zu der verdienten Gewalt, die doch ihr im Hause gehoret. 
 Dienet die Schwester dem Bruder doch friih, sie dienet den Eltern, 
 Und ihr Leben ist immer ein ewiges Gehen und Kommen, 
 Oder ein Heben und Tragen, Bereiten und Schaffen fur Andre." l 
 
 Amidst affectionate embraces and the tears of the children, 
 Dorothea takes leave of her friends, and, as the night 
 approaches, returns with Hermann to the village. He shows 
 her his father's house lying in the moonlight and the window 
 
 * Canto 7 (" Erato "), 51 f., and 103 ff. ( Werke, 50, 346 ff.)
 
 376 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 that is to be hers, and as they make their way down the rough 
 path, her foot slips and, for a moment, she rests in his arms. 
 At length the house is reached, and Hermann's father, be- 
 lieving all to be settled, welcomes Dorothea by complimenting 
 her on her choice of his son. Dorothea is confused ; after 
 such a greeting, it is impossible for her to remain. A word 
 from Hermann, however, explains everything, and the dower- 
 less stranger is warmly received as the future mistress of the 
 "Golden Lion." 
 
 It would be difficult to find a better illustration than 
 Hermann und Dorothea of Goethe's dictum that there is 
 poetry in everything, if the poet only knows how to bring it 
 to light. Goethe has here taken a commonplace subject and 
 treated it in the Homeric manner, without for a moment 
 leaving the impression that the means used are out of pro- 
 portion to the end. Over the whole poem lies a calm, classic 
 objectivity ; the characters the Host of the Lion, the 
 apothecary, the pastor, Hermann's mother are not drawn 
 with the sharp individuality of Gotz or Werther; they are 
 not exceptions, but universal types of human life. Hermann 
 is the young German burgher who stands as an example of 
 his class ; Dorothea, the emigrant, is an embodiment of the 
 restless, unsettled life for which the French Revolution was 
 responsible, wherever its influence made itself felt. Thus, 
 although the scenes and incidents of Hermann und Dorothea 
 are provincial, we never forget the wider issues of human 
 life and society, which lie behind the poem. 1 
 
 After Hermann und Dorothea, Goethe sought other themes 
 Epic plans, that would admit of epic treatment. From the year 1797 
 date various schemes, Die Jagd> Tell, and Die Achilleis the 
 latter an attempt both to be Homeric in spirit and to meet 
 Homer on his own ground but not more than two cantos 
 were written, while the other two poems were only planned. 
 A more fruitful side of Goethe's activity, as of Schiller's, in 
 1797, was the ballad-poetry which both contributed in such 
 profusion to the Musenalmanach fur 1798. In the summer 
 of 1797 Goethe wrote two of the finest of his ballads, Der 
 Zauberlehrling and Der Gott und die Bayadere ; to this year, 
 too, belong Die Braut von Korinth and the cycle of ballads 
 known as Die Schone Mullerin, the fresh, natural tone of 
 
 1 Cp. V. Hehn, Ober Goethes Hermann und Dorothea, Stuttgart, 1893. 
 
 The "Bal 
 ladenal- 
 manach," 
 1798.
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 377 
 
 which forms a contrast to the rapidly stiffening classicism of 
 Goethe's epic and dramatic poetry. 
 
 Schiller's contributions to the " Balladenalmanach " show 
 a most striking advance on his former work : we have only, 
 indeed, to compare the lyrics and ballads he wrote at this 
 time with those he had published in the earlier Almanachs 
 for 1796 and 1797, to see how beneficial Goethe's friendship 
 had been' to the younger poet. The purely sensuous and lyric 
 mood which Goethe knew so well how to conjure up, lay, it is 
 true, beyond Schiller's reach, but the new ballads testify to a 
 remarkable plastic and dramatic power, while the metaphysical 
 has to a large extent given way to the concrete. Der 
 Taucher, Der Handschuh^ Die Burgschaft, and Der Kampf 
 mit dem Drachen are not without a moralising tendency, but 
 the narrative has now the chief place. Another group of 
 ballads which Schiller wrote in these years, stands in intimate 
 relation to his classical studies. The chief poems of this 
 group, Der Ring des Polykrates, Die Kraniche des Ibykus> 
 and Der Gang nach dem Eisenhammer, are based on the 
 Greek conception of destiny ; and in the lyric poems, such 
 as Die Begegnung, Das Ge/ieimm'ss, Die Erwartung, the 
 classical influence is also the dominant one. But the crown 
 of Schiller's non-dramatic poetry is unquestionably Das Lied Das Lied 
 von der Glocke, which was completed in September, 1799. V Q^ O ^ 
 The motto of this poem, which in successive scenes describes 1799. 
 the making of a bell, is the full-sounding inscription, " Vivos 
 voco, Mortuos plango, Fulgura frango," engraven on the 
 Minster bell at Schafifhausen. The master and his appren- 
 tices watch over the molten metal, free it from all impurities, 
 and pour it into the mould, from which the bell ultimately 
 emerges to be hoisted into the tower and to ring out " Peace " 
 to men ; and as the work proceeds, Schiller follows in reflec- 
 tion " des Lebens wechselvolles Spiel." Thus the Lied von 
 der Glocke becomes, as it were, an epitome of human life, its 
 joys and its sorrows. 
 
 The portion of Goethe's life which lay between the publica- 
 tion of Hermann und Dorothea and that of Faust in 1808, 
 was by no means so productive as were the last six years of 
 his friend's, to which we shall return in the next chapter ; but 
 what he did write was significant. With the Achilleis, he had 
 discovered that to the imitation of classical models there was
 
 378 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Goethe's 
 " Fest- 
 spiele." 
 
 Die natur- 
 liche 
 Tochter, 
 1804. 
 
 Goethe and 
 the French 
 Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 a limit which the modern poet is obliged to respect ; but the 
 " P'estspiele " which he composed for the Weimar theatre, 
 Paldophron und Neoterpe (1800), an allegory of the meeting 
 between the new time and the old, Was wir bringen (1802), 
 and the Vorspiel zur Eroffnung des Weimarischen Theaters, in 
 September, 1807, over which the figure of Napoleon throws 
 its shadow, are all cast in forbiddingly classical moulds. More 
 in accordance with the taste of the time was the historical 
 tragedy, Die natiirliche Tochter (1804), completed in the 
 spring of 1803. Goethe had found the theme in the Memoirs, 
 which were published in 1798, of Princess Stephanie Louise 
 de Bourbon-Conti, and his original intention was to write 
 a trilogy which should embody the spirit of the French 
 Revolution, as Wallenstein had expressed that of the Thirty 
 Years' War; but he did not get beyond the first drama. 
 In the Natiirliche Tochter, Eugenie's illegitimate birth throws 
 a shadow on her life; it excludes her from the position to 
 which her father's rank and her own education entitle her. 
 She is placed at the mercy of political intrigue and party 
 strife, and in the end her life is only saved by her faithful 
 Hofmeisterin, who secretly removes her from the scene of 
 her trials. Die natiirliche Tochter was intended as a pro- 
 logue to the real drama of the Revolution, which the poet 
 had in view; but before he was ready to write this sequel, 
 the Revolution had passed away, and, to some extent, Goethe's 
 own antagonism to it. Of all his more important works, 
 Die natiirliche Tochter is the most difficult to understand, 
 by reason of its uncompromising classicism ; in his striving 
 after complete objectivity, Goethe has not even named his 
 characters ; the heroine alone is an exception, the others 
 being simply " the king," " the duke," and so on. In its 
 classical smoothness the drama has not unjustly been com- 
 pared with marble; the calm impersonal tone of its poetry 
 is almost statuesque. But the comparison is only partially 
 true ; there is neither coldness nor want of colour in the 
 Natiirliche Tochter, and the chief actors at least are drawn 
 with clear if delicate lines. Moreover, Goethe was too great 
 a poet to allow purely political ideas to obscure the human 
 interest of the action. 
 
 Besides its reflection in the Natiirliche Tochter, Goethe's 
 attitude to the French Revolution is to be inferred from a
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 379 
 
 number of minor writings from the last decade of the century. 
 The subject of Der Gross-Cophta (1791), for instance, is the 
 famous diamond necklace, Cagliostro being the hero, but both 
 it arid the comedy of Der Biirgergeneral (1793) are trivial 
 satires on the ideas of the Revolution. The unfinished plays, 
 Die Aufgeregten (1793) and Das Mddchen von Oberkirch 
 (1794), treat the political movement of the age in a more 
 serious spirit, while Die Reise der Sohne Megaprazons, written 
 about the same time, is the fragment of a satirical novel. 
 From such works it is clear that Goethe regarded the French 
 Revolution neither as a just retribution for the wrongs com- 
 mitted by one class of society against the social order nor as 
 an act of liberation ; essentially an aristocrat, he saw in it 
 only the triumph of the rabble. 
 
 The most abstruse and enigmatical of Goethe's classical 
 poems is the allegorical tragedy Pandora (1810), which was Pandora, 
 written between 1806 and 1809. This fragment, for it also is l8l * 
 incomplete, contains, however, some of Goethe's finest poetry. 
 In the characters of Prometheus and Epimetheus, idealist is 
 opposed to realist as, twenty years before, Tasso had been con- 
 trasted with Antonio, but so intent is the poet on enforcing his 
 allegory that the personalities of his characters are obliterated. 
 The figures of Pandora are not living personages, but merely 
 shadowy personifications of ideas. Pandora herself is Beauty, 
 and she falls to the lot, not of the practical Prometheus, but 
 of the idealist Epimetheus; Epimetheus, however, is obliged 
 to renounce his wild passion, and to approach her in faith 
 and humility. Goethe's classicism was not restricted to his 
 poetry ; it appeared, as will be seen in the next chapter, in 
 the method in which he directed the Weimar theatre, and in 
 his writings upon art. Between 1798 and 1800, he published, Writings 
 in collaboration with the art-historian Heinrich Meyer (17 60- onart - 
 1832), who, in these years, was his most intimate friend, a 
 review, Die Propylden, the ruling idea of which was that classic 
 art, as rediscovered by Winckelmann, was the only true art. 
 Goethe's volume on Winckelmann und seine Zeit (1805) was 
 his most immediate and personal stand against the new 
 Romantic principles which had begun to revolutionise paint- 
 ing and sculpture. 
 
 But all these attempts to champion a dying aesthetic prin- 
 ciple sink into nothing beside the publication (1808) in the
 
 380 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Faust, new edition of his Werke (12 vols., Stuttgart, 1806-1808) of 
 7^7 tne First P art f F au st. We have already considered this 
 1808.' drama in the first fragmentary form which Goethe gave 
 it in Frankfort, during his period of "Sturm und Drang." 
 We have seen, too, how, in 1790, he revised and published 
 the fragment with some additional scenes, and also with some 
 unfinished scenes omitted. Now, for the first time, Faust 
 appeared as a complete poem ; since 1800, moreover, Goethe 
 had also been at work on an episode Helena which was 
 ultimately to form the poetic centre of the Second Part. The 
 First Part of Faust * benefited perhaps to a greater extent than 
 any other of his works from his friendship with Schiller. It 
 might even be said that in these years the idea of Faust as 
 a world-poem, as a tragedy mirroring the life of mankind, first 
 took clear and definite shape. Faust ceased to be the tragedy 
 of a single life and became the Divine Comedy of humanity, 
 as conceived by the eighteenth century in its highest imagina- 
 ThePro- tive flight. The charge is to be seen at once in the three 
 logues. introductory Prologues, which place the poem in an entirely 
 new perspective. Each of these poems is an example of 
 Goethe's art in its purest form. The elegiac Zueignung, 
 through which the past echoes and " murmurs with its many 
 voices," binds Faust with the poet's youth ; the Vorspiel auf 
 dem Theater modelled on the prologue to the Indian drama, 
 Sakuntala, which G. Forster translated from the English in 
 1791 with its unsurpassable characterisation of the three 
 forces in all dramatic art, here represented by the Theatre 
 Director, the Poet, and the "lustige Person," forms the link 
 between the play and the stage ; while the organ-roll of the 
 Prolog im Himmel brings the poem into touch with the 
 spiritual problems of Goethe's own life and of humanity at 
 large. Thus, what was once a puppet play, then a tragedy of 
 the "Sturm und Drang," here becomes a modern mystery, 
 in which the spectator is carried "vom Himmel durch die 
 Welt zu Holle." The Prolog im Himmel^ suggested by the 
 Hebrew poem of Job, gives the key to Faust as Goethe 
 finally conceived the drama. Mephistopheles extorts from 
 
 1 Editions by G. von Loeper, 2 vols., Berlin, 1879, and K. J. Schroer, 2 vols., 
 3rd and 4th ed., Leipzig, 1896-98. Of recent works on Goethe's Faust the most 
 important are O. Pniower's Goethes Faust, Zeugnisse und Excurse su seiner 
 Entstehungsqeschichte, Berlin, 1899, and J. Minors Goethes Faust, Entstehungs- 
 geschichte und Erkldrung, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1901.
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CElfrURY. 381 
 
 God the permission to tempt Faust from the path of earnest 
 endeavour. " Nun gut," says the Lord : 
 
 ' ' Nun gut, es sey dir Uberlassen ! 
 Zieh diesen Geist von seinem Urquell ab, 
 Und fuhr' ihn, kannst du ihn erfassen, 
 Auf deinem Wege mit herab, 
 Und steh' beschamt, wenn du bekennen musst : 
 Ein guter Mensch in seinem dunkeln Drange, 
 1st sich des rechten Weges wohl bewusst." * 
 
 The Mephistopheles that makes the wager with God is no 
 longer the traditional devil of the Volksbuch, who had been 
 sufficient for the poet's needs in his "Sturm und Drang"; 
 Mephistopheles has now become a spirit akin to the "Erd- 
 geist," and embodies the idea of negation in Goethe's cos- 
 mogony. He is "der Geist, der stets verneint," 
 
 " ein Theil von jener Kraft, 
 Die stets das Bose will und stets das Gute schafft. " a 
 
 The first scene of the drama plays in the "high-arched, 
 narrow, Gothic chamber" of the original play, and, until 
 after the scene with Wagner, the drama practically remains 
 as it was. But when his famulus has left Faust, the thought 
 of his own littleness, compared with the all-powerful "Erd- 
 geist," drives him to despair. Death alone can solve all 
 problems; he takes down the phial that will bring relief, 
 but, as the poison touches his lips, the Easter bells ring out 
 and the angels sing of the Risen Christ. Memories of 
 childhood rise before Faust; he puts the poison aside. 
 
 " Erinnrung halt mich nun mit kindlichem Gefuhle 
 Vom letzten, ernsten Schritt zuriick. 
 O ! tonet fort ihr sttssen Himmelslieder ! 
 Die Thrane quillt, die Erde hat mich wieder ! " * 
 
 And now Faust goes out into the world; we see him, accom- "Vordem 
 panied by his famulus, passing through the crowds of happy, n 
 careless townsfolk before the gates. Here, the life and the 
 sunshine bring home to him the tragedy of his own existence 
 with redoubled force. How happy, beside him, is the pedantic 
 Wagner, whose thoughts do not rise above his books. 
 
 1 Prolog im Himmel, 11. 323 ff. ( Werke, 22). 
 
 2 Studirzimmer, 11. 1335 f., 1338 (I.e., 14, 67). 
 
 3 Nacht, 11. 781 ff. (p. 43).
 
 382 THE aCHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 "Zwey Seelen wohnen, ach ! in meiner Brust, 
 Die eine will sich von der andern trennen ; 
 Die eine halt, in derber Liebeslust, 
 Sich an die Welt mit klammernden Organen ; 
 Die andre hebt gewaltsam sich vom Dust, 
 Zu den Gefilden hoher Ahnen." l 
 
 The scene closes with the appearance of the mysterious black 
 poodle which follows Faust and Wagner home. 
 
 When we see Faust again, he is in his study ; opening 
 the New Testament, he tries to find the simple faith of his 
 childhood, but for him the beginning is no longer the 
 " Word," but the " Deed." And now Mephistopheles, in the 
 guise of a wandering scholar, steps forth from behind the 
 stove; he had been the mysterious poodle of the previous 
 scene. To ingratiate himself with Faust, Mephistopheles 
 gives the latter a foretaste of his power by conjuring up 
 before him a vision of the joys of sense, for which one of 
 "the two souls" within Faust's breast yearns. Upon this 
 episode follows the magnificent scene in which Faust seals his 
 pact with Mephistopheles. Faust, the Faust who, in the bitter- 
 ness of his despair, has cursed all that is beautiful in life, 
 destroying, as the spirits that hover over him, sing 
 
 " Die schone Welt . 
 Mit machtiger Faust ; 
 Sie stiir/t, sie zerfallt ! 
 Ein Halbgott hat sie zerschlagen ! " 2 
 
 is now prepared for everything. Mephistopheles unfolds his 
 conditions : 
 
 " Ich will mich hier zu deinem Dienst verbinden, 
 Auf deinen Wink nicht rasten und nicht ruhn ; 
 Wenn wir uns drilben wieder finden, 
 So sollst du mir das Gleiche thun." 
 
 The pact. But the " driiben " troubles Faust little : Mephistopheles 
 promises to give him what no man has yet seen; he will 
 lay at his feet all that the soul can desire fine living, gold, 
 women, honour. The one condition which Faust makes 
 is that only when Mephistopheles can satisfy him, can still 
 his yearnings and blot out his ambitions, only then will he 
 fall into his tempter's power. 
 
 1 Vor dent Thor, 11. 1112 ff. (p. 57). 
 
 2 Studirzimmer, 11. 1609 ff. (p. 78).
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 383 
 
 " Werd' ich beruhigt je mich auf ein Faulbett legen, 
 So sey es gleich um mich gethan ! 
 Kannst du mich schmeichelnd je beliigen, 
 Dass ich mir selbst gefallen mag, 
 Kannst du mich mil Genuss betriigen : 
 Das sey fur mich der letzte Tag ! 
 Die Wette biet' ich ! 
 
 Mephistopheles. Top ! 
 
 Faust. Und Schlag auf Schlag ! 
 
 Werd' ich zum Augenblicke sagen : 
 Verweile doch ! du bist so schon ! 
 Dann magst du mich in Fesseln schlagen, 
 Dann will ich gern zu Grunde gehn ! 
 Dann mag die Todtenglocke schallen, 
 Dann bist du deines Dienstes frey, 
 Die Uhr mag stehn, der Zeiger fallen, 
 Es sey die Zeit fitr mich vorbey ! " 1 
 
 Thus Faust's enjoyment of Mephistopheles's service is not, 
 as in the older versions of the story, limited to a certain 
 period of years ; it depends wholly on the insatiability of 
 Faust's nature. The pact is signed with Faust's blood. 
 
 From now on, the drama is mainly the Faust we already 
 know. First comes the scene between Mephistopheles and 
 the student, then that in " Auerbach's Keller." The " Hexen- 
 kiiche," in which Faust drinks the potion which rejuvenates 
 him, and awakens his earthly desires, was written, as we have 
 seen, at Rome in 1788. The scenes where Gretchen appears 
 were least altered in the final version of the drama; only 
 that with Valentin, which, in the first sketch, was a mere 
 fragment, is here completed. The scene "Wald und Hohle," 
 where we are shown the invigorating effects of the magic 
 potion on Faust's whole nature, has already been noticed as 
 the chief addition to the first published fragment of 1790. 
 In the breathless haste with which the tragedy rushes to 
 its close, Goethe saw the necessity of some pause or break ; 
 Mephistopheles accordingly makes one more attempt to dis- 
 tract Faust and cause him to forget Gretchen, by plunging 
 him into the whirlpool of excitement on the Brocken, where 
 the witches assemble on the last night of April. This is the 
 poetic justification of the " Walpurgisnacht." But, grandiose The"Wai- 
 
 as this scene is, there is an occasional note of cynicism in P 1 "^ 1 . 5 ,", 
 
 * nacut. 
 
 it, which reminds the reader that Goethe had outgrown 
 the unfettered mood, the spirit of "Sturm und Drang," in 
 
 1 Studirximmer, 11. 1656 ff. and 1692 ff. (p. 80 ff.)
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 which he had originally conceived Faust. The satirical Inter- 
 mezzo, Oberons und Titanias goldne Ifochzeit, has no organic 
 connection with the drama, and may be left out of consider- 
 ation. The tragedy closes with the three magnificent scenes 
 of the original play, " Truber Tag," " Nacht," and " Kerker " ; 
 here the alterations are mainly alterations in form, for in the 
 earliest Faust all three scenes were in prose. But it is also 
 possible to see how Goethe's naturalism gave place to a 
 higher spirituality; the intensity of Gretchen's tragedy is 
 not lessened, but it stands out from a less actual back- 
 ground. Here, for instance, is the close of the drama, side 
 by side with that of the early Frankfort version : 
 
 URFAUST. 
 
 "Faust. DerTaggraut. O Lieb- 
 gen ! Liebgen ! 
 
 Margarets. Tag ! Es wird Tag ! 
 Der lezte Tag ! Der Hochzeit Tag ! 
 Sags niemand dass du die Nacht 
 vorher bey Gretgen warst. Mein 
 Kranzgen ! Wir sehn uns wieder ! 
 Horst du die Burger schliirpfen nur 
 liber die Gassen ! Horst du ! Kein 
 lautes Wort. Die Glocke ruft ! 
 Krack das Stabgen bricht ! Es 
 zuckt in iedem Nacken die Scharfe 
 die nach meinem zuckt ! Die Glocke 
 hor 
 
 Mephistopheks (erscheinf). Auf 
 oder ihr seyd verlohren, meine 
 Pferde schaudern, der Morgen 
 dammert auf. 
 
 Margarete. Der ! der ! Las ihn 
 schick ihn fort ! der will mich ! 
 Nein ! Nein ! Gericht Gottes 
 kom iiber mich, dein bin ich ! rette 
 mich ! Nimmer nimmermehr ! Auf 
 ewig lebe wohl. Leb wohl Ilein- 
 ricti. 
 
 ERSTER THEIL. 
 
 ' ' Faust. Der Tag graut ! Lieb- 
 chen ! Liebchen ! 
 
 Margarete. Tag ! Ja es wird Tag ! 
 
 der letzte Tag dringt herein ; 
 Mein Hochzeittag sollt' es seyn ! 
 Sag niemand dass du schon bey 
 
 Gretchen warst. 
 Weh meinem Kranze ! 
 Es ist eben geschehn ! 
 Wir werden uns wiedersehn ; 
 Aber nicht beym Tanze. 
 Die Menge drangt sich, man hdrt 
 
 sie nicht. 
 
 Der Platz, die Gassen 
 Konnen sie nicht fassen. 
 Die Glocke ruft, das Stabchen 
 
 bricht. 
 
 Wie sie mich binden und packen ! 
 Zum Blutstuhl bin ich schon entriickt. 
 Schon zuckt nach jedem Nacken 
 Die Scharfe die nach meinem ziickt. 
 Stumm liegt die Welt wie das Grab ! 
 Faust. O war' ich nie geboren ! 
 Mephistopheles(erscheintdraussen). 
 
 Auf ! oder ihr seyd verloren. 
 Unniitzes Zagen ! Zaudern und 
 
 Plaudern ! 
 
 Meine Pferde schaudern, 
 Der Morgen dammert auf. 
 
 Margarete. Was steigt aus dem 
 
 Boden herauf ? 
 
 Der ! der ! Schicke ihn fort ! 
 Was will der an dem heiligen Ort ? 
 Er will mich !
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 385 
 
 Faust (sie umfassend*). Ich lasse Faust. Du sollst leben . 
 clich nicht ! 
 
 Margarete. Gericht Gottes ! dir 
 
 hab' ich mich ubergeben ! 
 Mephistopheles (zu Faust). 
 Komm ! komm ! Ich lasse 
 dich mit ihr im Stich. 
 Margarete. Dein bin ich, Vater ! 
 
 Rette mich ! 
 
 Margarete. Ihr heiligen Engel be- Ihr Engel ! Ihr heiligen Schaaren, 
 wahret meine Seele mir grauts vor Lagert euch umher, mich zu be- 
 dir Heinrich. wahren ! 
 
 Heinrich ! Mir grant's vor dir. 
 
 Mephistopheles. Sie ist gerichtet ! Mephistopheles. Sie ist gerichtet. 
 (r verschwindet mit Faust, die 
 Thiire rasse.lt zu, man hort verhal- 
 lend. ) Heinrich ! Heinrich. 
 
 Stimme (von oben). Ist gerettet ! 
 Mephistopheles (zu Faust). Her 
 zu mir ! 
 
 [verschwindet mit Faust. 
 Stimme (von innen, verh attend). 
 Heinrich ! Heinrich ! " J 
 
 In no other of his books has Goethe made so open a con- 
 fession as in Faust ; every crisis and every epoch in his event- 
 ful life have left their marks upon it ; of all his works, it con- 
 tains most of himself. " Die bedeutende Puppenspielfabel," 
 he wrote in his autobiography in 1811 or i8i2, 2 " klang und 
 summte gar vieltonig in mir wieder. Auch ich hatte mich 
 in allem Wissen umhergetrieben und war friih genug auf die 
 Eitelkeit desselben hingewiesen worden. Ich hatte es auch 
 im Leben auf allerley Weise versucht, und war immer unbe- 
 friedigter und gequalter zuriickgekommen." The " marionette- 
 fable " haunted him all his life ; in Leipzig and Strassburg, it 
 was blended with his experiences as a student ; he made it a 
 vehicle for his longings and ambitions, his studies and his 
 passions ; at a later date, his enthusiasm for classic antiquity 
 was reflected in it, and, as we shall see in a subsequent 
 chapter, his scientific and political interests found a niche in 
 the Second Part. Thus, throughout his whole life, Faust 
 never ceased for long to engage Goethe's attention, and it is, 
 beyond question, his most universal and most grandly con- 
 ceived work. In both Iphigenie auf Tauris and Hermann 
 und Dorothea, he has created artistically more perfect poems, 
 
 1 Werke, 14, 237 f. , and 39, 318 f. 
 
 2 Dichtung und Wahrheit, Book 10 ( Wtrke, 27), 321. 
 
 2 B
 
 386 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 but neither of these can vie with Faust in wealth of pregnant 
 thoughts and width of issue. All that was best in the move- 
 ment of ideas in the eighteenth century its scepticism, its 
 humanitarianism, its longings has here crystallised into 
 poetic form. Faust is the culmination of the movement in 
 the midst of which the best part of Goethe's life was passed, 
 and it is thus fit that it should close our discussion of him 
 as a poet of the eighteenth century.
 
 387 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 SCHILLER'S LAST DRAMAS. 
 
 THE classic idealism of Goethe and Schiller is also to be seen 
 in the repertory of the Weimar theatre at the turn of the 
 eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even in the early years 
 of Goethe's directorship x the theatre was controlled by him The 
 from May, 1791 to 1817 he gave no encouragement to the -Weimar 
 crass naturalism which, as an inheritance of the " Sturm und theatre. 
 Drang," still pervaded the German stage and German acting 
 in the last decade of the eighteenth century. The art of 
 speaking verse was little cultivated, and dramas in verse were 
 not popular. The production of Wallenstein, the first practical 
 realisation of Goethe's aims as director, changed all this, and 
 paved the way for adequate representations of Iphigenie and 
 Tasso, Goethe, however, did not rest content with having 
 thus established verse on the German stage ; he went further, 
 and attempted to model the theatre on antique lines. He 
 schooled his actors in plastic movements, classic dramas were 
 revived, and he himself translated Voltaire's Mahomet (1802) 
 and Tancred (1802), both of which tragedies gave the per- 
 formers an opportunity of practising declamation. And in 
 all this he had the hearty sympathy of Schiller, whose Braut 
 von Messina was, as we shall presently see, a close imitation 
 of Greek tragedy. These efforts to remodel the modern 
 theatre on classical lines naturally met with little enough 
 favour, even in Weimar itself; but Goethe had the support 
 of the Court. The future of the German theatre, it is true, 
 
 1 Cp. E. Pasqu, Goethes Thtattrleitttng in Weimar, a vols., Leipzig, 1863; 
 C. A. H. Burkhardt, Das Repertoire ties \Veimarhchen Theaters unter Goelhes 
 Leitung, Hamburg, 1891.
 
 388 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 did not at this time lie in a slavish imitation of the antique, 
 any more than under Gottsched in the earlier part of the 
 century ; but the ideals which Goethe and Schiller kept con- 
 stantly before their public held the balance against the senti- 
 mentalism and impressionism of the plays of ordinary life, 
 to which Iffland had given so great a vogue. 
 
 These high aims, notwithstanding the taste of the public, 
 could not wholly be ignored, with the result that the dramatist 
 who stood highest in favour on the Weimar stage at this time 
 A. von was August F. F. von Kotzebue, 1 no less than eighty-eight 
 K fi tze a" e> ^ ^ s plays being included in the repertory. Kotzebue was 
 himself a native of Weimar. He was born on May 7, 1761, 
 and educated for a diplomatic career. In 1781, he was 
 sent to St Petersburg, where he rose to an important posi- 
 tion. He began by writing novels, but after the phenomenal 
 Menschen- success of the five-act drama, Menschenhass und Reue (1789), 
 hassvnd ne wro te almost exclusively for the theatre. It is no ex- 
 
 Reue. 1789. . i / ,*- i i ,n 
 
 aggeration to say that for twenty years Menschenhass und Reue 
 in England, it was familiar under the title, The Stranger 
 was the most popular play not only in Germany, but in Europe. 
 As a consequence of the imitation of later dramatists, the 
 motives and effects of this play have become so threadbare 
 that it is no longer playable ; but if we will form a fair estimate 
 of its merits, we must remember that the technique which won 
 Other for it its extraordinary success was then entirely new. Men- 
 
 P la y s - schenhass und Reue was followed by Die Indianer in England 
 
 (1789), Die Sonnen-Jungfrau (1789), and Das Kind der Liebe 
 (1790). To a later period belong Graf Benjowsky (1794), 
 Die Spanier in Peru, oder Rollrfs Tod (1795) the best of 
 Kotzebue's romantic tragedies and La Peyrouse (1797). 
 The play which longest maintained its hold on the German 
 stage, Die deutschen Kleinstadter, did not appear until 1803. 
 In 1797, Kotzebue was appointed dramatic adviser to the 
 Viennese Burgtheater, but he remained in Vienna only for a 
 couple of years. His next experiences were of an adven- 
 turous nature ; he returned to Russia, became politically im- 
 plicated, and spent four months as an exile in Siberia. In 
 1 80 1, to the discomfiture of both Goethe and Schiller, he 
 
 1 Auswahl dramatischer Werkt, 10 vols., Leipzig, 1867-68. Cp. A. Hauffen, 
 Das Drama der klassisc ken Periode, 2 (D.N.L. , 139, 2 [1891]), 2 if. ; also C. 
 Rabany, Kotxebue, sa vie et son temps, Paris, 1893.
 
 CHAP. XIII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 389 
 
 again settled in Weimar, but three years later exchanged 
 Weimar for Berlin. He was assassinated in 1819, by a 
 student named Sand, who shared the opinion then current, 
 especially in academic circles, that Kotzebue was acting as 
 a spy on behalf of the Czar. This incident, leading as it 
 did to the suppression of student clubs at the universities, 
 had far-reaching political consequences. 
 
 Kotzebue is one of the despised figures of literature, the 
 tasteless egotism of his biographical writings being largely 
 responsible for the judgment passed on him by posterity. 
 The higher ideals of poetry he held in cynical contempt, and 
 it is impossible to measure his work by any serious standard ; 
 his theatrical effects are often crude and indefensible, but the 
 favour which the public showed him was not wholly unde- 
 served. When the worst has been said of Kotzebue, he 
 remains one of the most fertile and ingenious writers for the 
 theatre that ever lived ; and he has influenced, as no other 
 playwright, the entire development of the drama down to the 
 present day. Indeed, in the evolution of modern dramatic 
 technique, his work was even a more important factor than 
 that of Scribe, a generation later. 
 
 The Ducal theatre in Weimar owes its importance for the 
 history of German literature to the fact that Schiller's master- 
 works were produced there under the author's guidance and 
 superintendence. In Wallenstein Schiller had found, as we Schiller's 
 have seen, the kind of work he was best fitted to do, and this jf 51 
 tragedy was hardly out of his hands before he had begun a 
 fresh one. Of all his dramas, Maria Stuart, which was written Maria 
 in 1799 and the first half of 1800, is the most widely popular ; 
 no other has been played so often on foreign stages. The 
 chief reason undoubtedly is that Schiller has set himself the 
 task of painting in sympathetic colours a beautiful and unfor- 
 tunate woman. But Maria Stuart is also in other respects 
 an effective tragedy : his study of the antique had taught 
 Schiller the power of irony as a dramatic motive, as well as 
 the advantage of simplicity and compactness in constructing a 
 plot. In style and method, however, this drama has too much 
 in common with the sentimental " biirgerliche Tragddie" to 
 take high rank among the poet's works. Unlike Wallenstein, 
 which, as we have seen, was a convincing political tragedy, 
 Maria Stuart has virtually no political background ; in point
 
 390 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 of fact, Schiller was only indifferently acquainted with the 
 history of the period in which his tragedy plays. This lack 
 of historical or political ballast is the most serious defect of 
 Maria Stuart. Elizabeth stands in shadow, Mary in light, 
 and the latter falls a victim to the envy of her rival. 
 The two queens meet in the garden of Fotheringay Castle, 
 in a scene which forms the climax of the drama, but they 
 meet neither as the representatives of national forces, nor as 
 in the similar situation in the Nibelungenlied, where Kriemhild 
 and Brunhild are brought face to face as types of queenly 
 scorn and queenly hate. The Queen of England appears 
 as a jealous shrew and Mary Stuart as a sentimental heroine. 
 The entire drama plays at Fotheringay Castle on the last 
 three days of Mary's life ; she is condemned before it begins, 
 and it closes with her execution. The long, final act, in 
 which she receives the consolations of her religion, and takes 
 farewell of her women, is harrowing rather than tragic ; for the 
 reader has the feeling, and this in spite of the poet's accentua- 
 tion of Mary's early sins, that she has no guilt upon her soul 
 to expiate ; her death is, in the economy of the drama, an 
 accident, not a necessity. 
 
 Die Jung- Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801), with which Schiller 
 frau von entered that magic circle of poetic medievalism which the 
 
 Orleans, . , TI 
 
 1801. Romantic movement was at this time opening up to European 
 
 literature, is in every respect a finer work. Jeanne d'Arc, a 
 peasant girl of the village of Dom Remy, has prayed to the 
 Virgin to save her land from the English, and the Virgin has 
 appeared to her in her sleep, bearing a sword and a banner. 
 " Ich bin's," she says to her 
 
 " ' Ich bin's. Steh auf, Johanna. Lass die Heerde. 
 Dich ruft der Herr zu einem anderen Geschaft ! 
 Nimm diese Fahne ! Dieses Schwert umgiirte dir ! 
 Damit vertilge meines Volkes Feinde, 
 Und ftihre deines Herren Sohn nach Rheims, 
 Und kron' ihn mit der koniglichen Krone ! ' 
 Ich aber sprach : Wie kann ich solcher That 
 Mich unterwinden, eine zarte Magri, 
 Unkundig des verderblichen Gefechts ! 
 Und sie versetzte : ' Eine reine Jungfrau 
 Vollbringt jedwedes Herrliche auf Erden, 
 Wenn sie der ird'schen Liebe widersteht. 
 Sieh mich an ! Eine keusche Magd, wie du, 
 Hab' ich den Herrn, den gottlichen, gebohren, 
 Und gbttlich bin ich selbst !' Und sie beriihrte
 
 CHAP. XIII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 39! 
 
 Mein Augenlied, und als ich aufwarts sah, 
 Da war der Himmel voll von Engelknaben, 
 Die trugen weisse Lilien in der Hand, 
 Und siisser Ton verschwebte in den Lliften." 1 
 
 Johanna leaves her home for the Court of the Dauphin at 
 Chinon, where she wins credence for her story. Clothed in 
 armour, a sword in one hand and a banner in the other, she 
 goes out into battle, carries all before her, and puts the 
 enemy to flight : the English are forced to raise the siege of 
 Orleans, and Charles VII. is crowned at Rheims. So far 
 Schiller followed history, or the story that long passed for 
 authentic. According to further traditions, Jeanne subse- 
 quently fell into the hands of the English, and was burned 
 by them as a witch in 1431. But, with a fine insight into 
 the dramatic possibilities of the theme, Schiller has brought 
 his heroine's fate into relation with her divine mission ; he 
 has made her power depend on her renunciation of earthly 
 love. She rejects, it is true, the offers of marriage made 
 to her by the French commanders Dunois and Lahire, but 
 when she overcomes in single-handed combat the young 
 English commander, Lionel, her heart softens towards him. 
 The sword which she has raised to slay him falls from her 
 hand ; her vow is broken. And when her father accuses 
 her before the Cathedral in Rheims of being in league with 
 the powers of hell, when the roll of the thunder implies 
 that Heaven sanctions his accusation, Johanna is filled with 
 the sense of her own guilt and answers nothing. It is 
 almost a relief to her to feel that her mission has been taken 
 from her. Falling into the hands of the enemy, she is 
 ready to atone for her broken vow by death ; but Lionel, 
 the man who has destroyed her power, protects her, and 
 craves her love. Johanna's only thought, however, is to save 
 her country. As the battle waxes fiercer and the French 
 are being driven back, she sinks on her knees in passionate 
 prayer to God to break her fetters, in order that she may 
 once more rescue her king ; her prayer is answered, she seizes 
 a sword and throws herself into the thick of the fray. The 
 fortune of battle changes and France is saved ; Johanna, 
 the saviour of her people, dies with the rosy light from 
 heaven upon her face, the Virgin beckoning her from amidst 
 
 1 Act i, sc. 10 ( Werke, 13, 217 ff.)
 
 392 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 the angels. With her last words, " Kurz ist der Schmerz, 
 und ewig ist die Freude ! " the drama closes. 
 Die Jung- Schiller described Die Jungfrau von Orleans as a " Roman- 
 
 ^Oriea. l ' c tra & ec ty>" an< ^ to f rm a j ust estimate of the work, the 
 a Romantic reader must place himself at the standpoint of the poet's con- 
 tragedy, temporaries ; Schiller's drama is to be compared, not with 
 his Wallenstein, but with Ludwig Tieck's Romantic play, Geno- 
 veva, which appeared in the preceding year. The spectral 
 knight who warns the Maid of her fate, and the thunder of 
 the scene before the Cathedral, are theatrical coups which 
 belong rather to a Romantic opera than a classic tragedy ; 
 the Virgin and her angels, who reveal to Johanna her divine 
 mission, and, when she dies, receive her at the gates of 
 Heaven, now seem little more than decorative accessories. 
 But such supernatural visions were in perfect harmony with 
 the spirit and beliefs of medieval Christianity, which the 
 Romanticists had resuscitated in their art and literature. On 
 the other hand, the defects of the tragedy are due to Schiller's 
 want of sympathy with the Romantic spirit ; it was not pos- 
 sible for him to be Romantic and nothing more ; he en- 
 deavoured to reconcile the medieval conceptions of life and 
 religion, of duty and guilt, with those of his own century. 
 His Maid of Orleans is never, as the Romantic poets would 
 have drawn her, a naive child of the fifteenth century ; and, 
 in the course of the drama, she undergoes a process of moral 
 regeneration which could only have been possible in the poet's 
 own time. Romantic medievalism and eighteenth-century en- 
 lightenment thus form two irreconcilable elements which have 
 made it difficult for modern criticism to appreciate at their 
 true worth the wealth of poetry and the dramatic beauties 
 that the play contains. 
 
 More than a year elapsed after the completion of Die 
 Jungfrau von Orleans before Schiller began his next drama, 
 Die Braut von Messina. But he was by no means idle ; one 
 plan after another was sketched out and thrown aside. In 
 each successive drama, he found it more difficult to satisfy 
 his ideal of a tragic conflict ; and it is obvious from the un- 
 finished fragments of this period that the Greek conception 
 of Fate, as a tragic motive, was uppermost in his mind. 
 Schiller felt that in one tragedy, at least, he must meet the 
 ancients on their own ground. Between Maria Stuart and
 
 CHAP. XIII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 393 
 
 Die Jungfrau von Orleans, he had translated Macbeth (1801); Macbeth, 
 in the winter of 1801-2, the only work he completed was a l8oi> 
 version of Gozzi's comedy, Turandot ; but in August, 1802, Turandot, 
 with Sophocles' (Edipus as his model, he began to write Die I8o2> * 
 Braut von Messina, the plan of which had occupied him 
 several years previously, as Die feindlichen Briider. 
 
 Die Braut von Messina oder die feindlichen Briider stands Die Braut 
 in the same relation to Schiller's earlier poetry as the Achilleis Me3 ' 
 or Pandora to Goethe's ; in other words, it is the culmination 1803. 
 of his classical tendencies. Die Braut von Messina is, more- 
 over, the most successful imitation of the antique that we owe 
 to either poet. The plot of the drama is briefly as follows. 
 A medieval Prince of Messina has a dream in which he sees 
 a lily growing up between two laurel trees ; suddenly the 
 lily changes to fire and destroys everything around it. An 
 Arabian gives an interpretation of this dream : the two 
 laurels are the Prince's sons, Caesar and Manuel ; the lily is 
 a daughter yet unborn, who will cause the death of them both. 
 A daughter is, in fact, subsequently born, and the Prince com- 
 mands her to be thrown into the sea; but her mother, 
 Isabella, trusting also to a dream, upon which a monk has 
 placed a more favourable interpretation, has the child secretly 
 conveyed to a monastery and there brought up. Years pass, 
 the father dies, and the two sons are at enmity with each 
 other. When the drama opens, Isabella believes the time 
 has come to test the monk's prediction that her daughter 
 
 " der Sohne streitende Gemuther 
 In heisser Liebesglut vereinen wiirde." 
 
 She tells her sons the secret of their sister's existence, and 
 learns from them that they have each chosen a bride. But 
 Isabella's happiness is short-lived. Her daughter Beatrice 
 has been carried away from the convent ; and this news is 
 followed by the terrible discovery that both sons love the 
 same woman, and that that woman is Beatrice. In blind 
 jealousy, Don Caesar kills Don Manuel, and, when he learns 
 that Beatrice is his sister, stabs himself. 
 
 " Wie die Seher verkiindet, so ist es gekommen. 
 
 Denn noch niemand entfloh dem verhangten Geschick. 
 Und wer sich vermisst, es kliiglich zu wenden, 
 Der muss es selher erbauend vollenden."
 
 394 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 The central figure of the tragedy is the mother, Isabella, a 
 figure endowed with the antique dignity of a Medea. At the 
 same time, Schiller's heroine is less statuesque than the 
 heroines of antiquity ; where the Greeks modelled, he, as a 
 modern "sentimental" poet, describes. Consequently, the 
 tragedy of Isabella's life is more vivid and moving than that 
 of a locasta or Klytemnestra ; it is not so simple. There is 
 a tone bitterer than is to be found even in Euripides, in the 
 wild mockery of Isabella's words : 
 
 " Was kiimmerts Mich noch, oh die Gotter sich 
 Als Lugner zeigen ocler sich als wahr 
 Bestatigen ? Mir habcn sie das Argste 
 Gethan Trotz biet ich ihnen, mich noch hatter 
 Zu treffen, als sie trafen. . . . 
 
 Alles diess 
 
 Erleid ich schuldlos ; doch bey Ehren bleiben 
 Die Orakel, und gerettet sind die Gotter." 1 
 
 Die Braut von Messina is not divided into acts, and a com- 
 mentary is provided to the action by a chorus, the introduction 
 of which Schiller defended in a preface to the first edition of 
 the play. This adoption of a convention no longer appli- 
 cable to the modern theatre is without technical justification, 
 and, more than anything else, has militated against the success 
 of Die Braut von Messina as an acting-play. But the poet 
 had here an opportunity, as in none of his other dramas, 
 of giving expression to the lyric and reflective vein in his 
 nature. One element, however, in the tragedy of the Greeks 
 it lay beyond Schiller's power to reproduce ; in vain do we 
 seek the serenity of ^Eschylus or Sophocles in Die Braut von 
 Messina. The calm decrees of an antique Fate become, when 
 set in the medieval framework of Schiller's play, merely the 
 caprices of an evil power ; they rest upon the spectator like a 
 nightmare. In other words, the day has gone by when it was 
 possible to believe in destiny, as the Greeks conceived it, and 
 Schiller fails to convince us that he himself believed in it 
 This is the source of weakness in Die Braut von Messina, as 
 well as in the so-called " Schicksalstragodie," which, as we 
 shall see in a subsequent chapter, arose as an imitation of 
 that drama. The idea of fate savours too much of a supersti- 
 tion to be made the chief motive of a modern tragedy. 
 
 Both Goethe and Schiller felt that the stage had received 
 
 1 Werke, 14, 65, and 114.
 
 CHAP. XIII.J THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 395 
 
 a consecration from the representation of Die Braut von 
 Messina. But hardly a year after its first performance we 
 find Schiller writing to Goethe (Feb. 8, 1804), "mit den 
 griechischen Dingen ist es eben eine missliche Sache auf 
 unserm Theater." 1 By this time, however, Wilhelm Tell 
 was finished, and on March 17, 1804, it was performed amidst T ^> 
 jubilation in Weimar. The struggle of the three Forest 
 Cantons of Swtizerland Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden 
 against the supremacy of the House of Austria at the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century, forms the historical 
 background of this drama. Schiller had found the facts in 
 a Swiss chronicle of the sixteenth century by ^Egidius 
 Tschudi, who also relates the mythical story of the national 
 hero, Wilhelm Tell. For an act of insubordination towards 
 the Austrian Landvogt, Hermann Gessler, Tell is condemned 
 by the latter to shoot an apple from his son's head in the 
 market-place of Altdorf. The arrow divides the apple, and 
 the child is saved. The Vogt, however, has seen Tell conceal 
 a second arrow in his jerkin, and the latter fearlessly confesses 
 the object of this arrow, had the first killed his child. He is 
 put in chains and carried by boat to Kiissnacht ; on the way, 
 a storm arises, and Tell is freed in order that he may guide 
 the boat ; he steers it near the shore, springs on land, and 
 leaves the occupants of the boat to their fate. Gessler 
 escapes the dangers of the storm only, however, to fall by 
 Tell's arrow in the "hollow way" near Kiissnacht. 
 
 Schiller is hardly to be blamed for treating this theme with Epic 
 an epic breadth which he had not hitherto even in Wallen- 
 stein allowed himself. As a matter of fact, the whole story 
 as it is set forth by Tschudi, and as Goethe had realised some 
 years before, demands epic rather than dramatic treatment. 
 Schiller's intention was here to bring before the spectator a 
 whole nation in its struggle for independence ; and on this 
 basis, the unity of the work rests. Had the personal history 
 of Tell been the central theme of the tragedy, as that of the 
 Maid of Orleans in the earlier drama, the representatives 
 of the old Swiss nobility, such as the Freiherr von Atting- 
 hausen, his nephew Ulrich von Rudenz, who is won over 
 from the Austrian party by his fiancee, Bertha von Bruneck, 
 would have been mere excrescences on the plot. In the same 
 
 1 Brief wee hsel gwischen Schiller und Goethe, 4th ed., a, 363.
 
 396 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 way, the famous scene upon the Riitli, where the Swiss make 
 a covenant to rise against their oppressors, has little to do 
 with Tell's personal fate. Even Tell himself is rather the per- 
 sonification of the national spirit of revolt than a hero acting 
 with perfect freedom of will ; it is, for instance, not a heroic 
 action to kill an enemy from behind an ambush. But Schiller 
 did not intend Tell to be regarded as a hero of the ordinary 
 type; he is the spokesman of his nation and the leader of 
 a just revolt. 
 
 " Ich lebte still und harmlos Das Geschoss 
 War auf des Waldes Thiere nur gerichtet, 
 Meine Gedanken waren rein von Mord 
 Du hast aus meinem Frieden mich heraus 
 Geschreckt, in gahrend Drachengift hast du 
 Die Milch der frommen Denkart mir verwandelt, 
 Zum Ungeheuren hast du mich gewdhnt 
 Wer sich des Kindes Haupt zum Ziele sezte, 
 Der kann auch treffen in das Herz des Feinds. 
 
 Die armen Kindlein, die unschuldigen, 
 Das treue Weib muss ich vor deiner Wuth 
 Beschiitzen, Landvogt ! " 1 
 
 Thus the fact that, not Tell, but the Swiss nation, is the hero 
 of the drama justifies to some extent its loose construction. 
 In Wallenstein, Schiller had also introduced a whole people 
 or, at least, a representative class, but even in Wallensteins 
 Lager he had only employed strictly dramatic means. The 
 greater breadth and detail of the picture which he attempted 
 to draw in Wilhelm Tell, made it necessary to have recourse 
 to epic and even lyric elements, as in the opening scene and 
 at the close of the fourth act. This, too, explains the least 
 successful scene in the drama, that of the fifth act. But, after 
 all, Schiller did not overcome the difficulty of blending Tell's 
 personal fate with that of his country ; he felt it necessary to 
 accentuate the impersonal character of Gessler's murder, by 
 introducing Duke Johann von Swabia, the murderer of the 
 Austrian Emperor. Tell turns the parricide from the door, 
 indignant that a murderer should seek shelter from him. 
 
 " Unglucklicher ! 
 
 Darfst du der Ehrsucht blut'ge Schuld vermengen 
 Mil der gerechten Nothwehr eines Vaters? 
 Hast du der Kinder liebes Haupt vertheidigt ? 
 
 1 Act 4, sc. 3 ( Werke, 14, 389).
 
 CHAP. XIII.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 397 
 
 Des Herdes Heiligthum beschiitzt ? Das Schrecklichste 
 
 Das I.etzte von den Deinen abgewehrt? 
 
 Zum Himmel heb' ich meine reinen Hande, 
 
 Verfluche dich und deine That Geracht 
 
 Hab' ich die heilige Natur, die du 
 
 Geschandet Nichts theil' ich mit dir Gemordet 
 
 Hast du, ich hab' mein Theuerstes vertheidigt." 1 
 
 The final act is unquestionably inferior to the rest of the 
 drama, not merely because it lacks all organic connection 
 with the plot, but because it forms an anti - climax, and 
 weakens the impression of the whole. 
 
 Wilhelm Tell was the last drama which it was given to 
 Schiller to complete. In the early summer of 1803, before Transia- 
 beginning this tragedy, he had translated two French comedies tions - 
 by L. B. Picard under the titles Der Parasit and Der Neffe ah 
 Onkel; and in the course of 1804, he was more fertile in new 
 plans than ever. A graceful " Festspiel," Die Huldigung der 
 Kiinste, and a translation of Racine's Phedre (Phadrd) fall in 
 the winter of 1804-5 ; not until January, 1805, did he decide 
 to make the history of the Russian pretender, Demetrius, the 
 subject of his next tragedy. But Demetrius 2 remains a torso Demetrius, 
 of hardly two acts, which later hands have laboured in vain l8 5- 
 to finish. This fragment is certainly inferior to nothing 
 Schiller had yet written, and it is even possible that the com- 
 pleted tragedy would have solved the problem which had 
 engrossed his attention since Wallenstein the reconciliation 
 of antique tragedy with the modern tragedy of character. 
 Schiller's last works were contemporary with the beginning 
 of the Romantic movement, but before the poet's death that 
 movement had not materially influenced the drama. The 
 early attempts of both Werner and Kleist, it is true, had 
 been played in 1803, but neither of these writers became a 
 recognised force in German literature until several years later ; 
 and Grillparzer, the representative dramatist of the succeeding 
 epoch, was not known until 1817. Thus Schiller's work, 
 from Maria Stuart to Tell, might be said to stand between 
 the dramatic literature of the eighteenth century to which 
 it bears most affinity and that of the nineteenth. 
 
 Of the last five years of Schiller's life, which were a constant 
 
 1 Act 5, sc. 2 ( Werke, 14, 420). 
 
 * Cp. G. Kettner, Schillers Demetrius, nach den Handschriften des Goetke- 
 ttnd Schiller- Archivs, Weimar, 1894.
 
 398 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 battle against ill-health, there is little to relate. At the end 
 
 of 1799, he made Weimar his home; in 1801, he paid a 
 
 visit to Leipzig, in 1804, to Berlin. At the beginning of 
 
 1805, he suffered severely, but, in March and April, he felt 
 
 better again, and was able to resume work on Demetrius. On 
 
 Schiller's the 29th of April, however, he was taken seriously ill in the 
 
 death. theatre, and his death occurred on the 9th of May. 
 
 Schiller is an admirable type of the " poet as hero." Others 
 have had to fight against adversity, to live under untoward con- 
 ditions, but few have come through the ordeal so well as he. 
 His view of life was not a calm, dispassionate one like Goethe's, 
 but then existence never appeared to him as a harmonious 
 and well-ordered whole. Schiller went through life as a 
 partisan, a fiery champion of high causes ; the heir of the 
 rationalistic ideals of moral conduct, he fought throughout 
 his whole life for virtue. A utilitarian poet in the meaner 
 sense of the word he was not, yet he never succeeded in 
 divorcing his art from morality. His writings are inspired 
 with a noble idealism, a lofty aspiration and enthusiasm, but 
 they have less meaning for the modern world than the im- 
 partial realism of Goethe ; the denizen of a naiver world 
 than ours, he is representative of the vigorous iconoclasm of 
 the eighteenth century which finally broke with the formal 
 traditions handed down from the Renaissance. The hand 
 of time has lain heavy on Schiller's poetry ; he no longer 
 speaks to us with a living voice, but, nevertheless, he remains 
 the leading dramatic poet of German literature, and, after 
 Goethe, the poet whose work has the firmest hold upon his 
 nation.
 
 399 
 
 CHAPTER XIV.- 
 
 MINOR POETS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD. 
 THE TRANSITION TO ROMANTICISM. 
 
 IT is sometimes less easy to obtain a just idea of a brilliant 
 period of literary history than of a mediocre one; for a 
 single poet of the highest order destroys the whole perspec- 
 tive of literary criticism and alters the proportions of a his- 
 torical survey. This is particularly noticeable in the age of 
 German literature now under consideration : Goethe and 
 Schiller dwarfed their contemporaries completely, and many 
 poets whose talents would have won for them in less favoured 
 epochs an honourable place in literary history, received only 
 scant attention. To the more important of the minor writers, 
 at the zenith of German classicism, we have to turn in the 
 present chapter. 
 
 Among these, Friedrich von Matthisson (I76I-I83I) 1 was per- F. von 
 haps the most gifted. Matthisson was a poet to find a parallel 
 to whom it is necessary to go back at least to the Gottingen 
 Bund. Some of his poems appeared as early as 1781 (Lieder), 
 but the first considerable collection (Gedichte) was published in 
 1787, and found in Schiller a warm eulogist. These lyrics are, 
 for the most part, elegiac in tone ; their strength lies, as Schiller 
 said, in sentimental descriptions of landscape-scenery, which re- 
 call the vignettes of eighteenth-century artists. A good example 
 of Matthisson's verse is the familiar Elegie am Genfersee : 
 
 " Die Sonne sinkt ; ein purpurfarbner Duft 
 Schwimmt um Savoyens dunkle Tannenhiigel ; 
 Der Alpen Schnee entgliiht in hoher Luft ; 
 Geneva malt sich in der Fluten Spiegel. 
 
 1 Cp. Lyriker -und Epiker der klassischen Periode, 3 vols., ed. by M. 
 Mendheim, 2 (D.N.L., 135, 2 [1893]), 191 ff.
 
 400 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 In Gold verfliesst der Berggeholze Saum ; 
 Die Wiesenflur, beschneit von Bliitenflocken, 
 Haucht Wohlgeriiche ; Zefyr athmet kaum ; 
 Vom Jura schallt der Klang der Heerdenglocken." 1 
 
 On the whole, this writer's range of poetic expression was not 
 
 wide, and his love of nature, which recalls the old-world 
 
 sentiment of Gessner's Idylls, is repeated with little variation 
 
 in all his poems, and soon grows monotonous and wearisome. 
 
 J. G. In his footsteps followed the Swiss poet, Johann Gaudenz von 
 
 von Sails- Salis-Seewis (1762-1834), 2 whose Gedichte (1793), however, 
 
 1762-1834. are manlier and less sentimental than Matthisson's ; soldier 
 
 and officer by profession, he is more objective and more in 
 
 touch with the world. Another poet who may be classed with 
 
 C. A. Matthisson is Christian August Tiedge (1752-1841). At the 
 
 Pledge, beginning of the nineteenth century, no poem was more 
 
 popular than Tiedge's Urania itber Gott, Unsterblichkeit und 
 
 Freiheit, "ein lyrisch-didaktisches Gedicht " (i8oi), 3 inspired 
 
 by the Kantian ethics, and couched in the tone of those 
 
 books on popular philosophy which, as we have seen, were 
 
 so widely read at the close of the eighteenth century : its 
 
 language is flowing and musical, but beneath the pleasing 
 
 exterior of the poem, as a new generation was quick to 
 
 discover, there were only platitudes. 
 
 A glance through the innumerable poetic Almanachs of 
 these decades reveals a host of lesser lyric talents which, in 
 another age, might have demanded more attention. Here 
 it is only possible to mention a few outstanding names. 
 G. L. Gotthard Ludwig, or as he called himself Ludwig Theoboul 
 
 Kosegar- Kosegarten (1758-1818), was a native of Mecklenburg; his 
 1818. earliest poetry (Melancholien, 1777 ; Gedichte, collected in two 
 
 volumes, 1788) was written under the influence of Klopstock 
 and the Gottingen school ; but best-known were his idylls in 
 the style made popular by Voss. If Hermann und Dorothea 
 shows the artistic evolution of which Voss's idylls were cap- 
 able, Die Inselfahrt (1805) and Jucunde (:8o8), 4 by Kose- 
 garten, are examples of the eclogue in its decay. As a 
 country pastor in Riigen, Kosegarten suffered severely under the 
 
 1 Cp. D.N.L., 135, 2, 217. 
 
 2 Ed. A. Frey, in D.N.L.. 41, 2, 1884. 
 
 3 Reprinted by M. Mendheim, I.e., 2, 257 ff. 
 
 * Reprinted by M. Mendheim, I.e., 3, 13 ff. Cp. H. Franck, G. L. Kose- 
 garten, Halle, 1887.
 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 40! 
 
 triviality of provincial life, without having Voss's art of con- 
 verting his experiences into poetry. He is fond of full- 
 sounding epithets and has a lofty lyric style which is little in 
 harmony with the simple themes of his poetry. To the Weimar 
 Court circle belonged Amalie von Helvig-Imhoff (1776-1831), A. von 
 a niece of Goethe's friend, Frau von Stein. Her chief poem [^ho'ff 
 is Die Schwestern von Lesbos? an epic in six cantos and 1776-1831. 
 hexameters, which, after being revised by Goethe, was pub- 
 lished in Schiller's Musenalmanach for 1800. 
 
 Johann Gottfried Seume (i 763-1810) 2 was a writer whose J. G. 
 ideas were rooted in the " Geniezeit." A passionate hater of ^g" 16 ^ 
 tyranny in all its forms, he was obliged, against his will, to 
 take up arms against freedom, first in America and then in 
 Poland. By birth a Saxon, he was on his way to Paris in 
 1781, to continue his studies, when he was kidnapped by 
 Hessian recruiting -officers, and sold to England for service 
 against her American rebels. On his return from America, 
 he again fell into the hands of the military authorities, but 
 ultimately was set at liberty, and settled near Leipzig. His 
 poetry is inspired by the humanitarian ideals of the " Auf- 
 klarung " rather than by any inward lyric impulse ; and the 
 most familiar of his poems, Der Wilde, expresses in a new 
 form that respect for the savage races, which Rousseau had 
 first made fashionable in European literature. Seume's most 
 characteristic works, however, are his prose autobiographical 
 writings, Spaztergang nach Syraktis im Jahre 1802 (1803), 
 Mein Sommer, 1805 (1806), and Mein Leben (1813). His 
 prose has sometimes the lightness and vividness of Georg 
 Forster's ; and, if he has not Forster's wide artistic and scientific 
 knowledge, he has, what was more unusual at the beginning 
 of the century in Germany, political interests : Mein Sommer 
 gives a vivid picture of the Napoleonic age. 
 
 Besides these minor poets, whose thought and work kept 
 strictly within the boundaries of German classicism, and even 
 occasionally recalled the era of " Sturm und Drang," another 
 group of writers has to be considered at the close of the 
 eighteenth century who, while still belonging to that century, 
 prepared the way for the Romantic revival of the succeeding 
 
 1 Reprinted by M. Mendheim, l.c,, 3, 107 ff. 
 
 2 Prosaische und poetische Werke, 10 vols. , Berlin, 1879. Cp. O. Planer and 
 C. Reissmann, /. G. Seume, Leipzig, 1898. 
 
 2 C
 
 4O2 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 From class- 
 icism to 
 Romanti- 
 cism. 
 
 Fichte's 
 individual- 
 ism. 
 
 age. The chief representatives of this transition from the 
 classicism and humanitarianism of the eighteenth century to 
 the Romantic individualism of the nineteenth, were Fichte in 
 philosophy, and Richter and Holderlin in literature. 
 
 While Kant's work forms the culmination of the philo- 
 sophical movement of his century, Fichte is to be regarded as 
 a mediator between Kant and Romanticism. Johann Gottlieb 
 Fichte l was a native of the same corner of Germany as Les- 
 sing, having been born in the Oberlausitz in 1762. After 
 a youth of extreme hardships he fell, in 1790, under the 
 influence of the Kantian philosophy, and shortly afterwards 
 went to Konigsberg, where Kant helped him to publish his 
 first work. In 1794, he was appointed professor in Jena, and 
 soon attracted many followers ; but, four years later, he was 
 obliged to lay down his professorship in consequence of an 
 accusation of atheism. Fichte then settled in Berlin, where he 
 was welcomed by the members of the Romantic School. In 
 1805, he was appointed professor at the then Prussian Uni- 
 versity of Erlangen ; but the defeat of Prussia in the following 
 year, again left him without a position. He returned to 
 Berlin, and during Napoleon's investment of the Prussian 
 capital, thundered forth the magnificent Reden an die deutsche 
 Nation (1808), which contributed, in no small degree, to 
 the awakening of German national feeling and the revolt 
 against Napoleon. Fichte was the first rector of the new 
 Berlin University; in 1814, however, he was carried off by 
 hospital -fever, to which both he and his wife had exposed 
 themselves, while nursing the wounded. 
 
 The details of Fichte's philosophic system, which grew out 
 of Kant's, hardly concern us here ; but his ethical doctrines 
 were a powerful factor in literary evolution. The basis of his 
 philosophy is the individual, the Ego ; and the moral world, 
 even reason itself, is the conscious creation of that Ego, 
 Faust's " Im Anfang war die That " might thus stand as 
 the motto of all Fichte's work. His idealism was active and 
 productive, and he exerted a regenerating power more as a 
 moral than as a purely intellectual force. With a ruthlessness 
 which even the medieval ascetics did not surpass, he preached 
 principles of self-denial and resignation, preached that life is 
 
 i Werke, ed. I. H. Fichte, 8 vols., Berlin, 1845-46. Cp. K. Fischer, /. G. 
 Fichte, 3rd ed., Heidelberg, 1897. 

 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 403 
 
 only holy in so far as it is founded on renunciation ; he insisted 
 that every man must, in the most literal sense, carve out his 
 own destiny. This invigorating individualism and idealism 
 were a chalybeate spring, in which the German spirit bathed 
 itself, to emerge again with new strength, to face the struggle 
 for national existence that lay before it at the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century. Friedrich Schlegel called Fichte's Wissen- 
 schaftslehre, of which the first edition appeared in 1794, one 
 of the three great " tendencies " of the age, the other two being 
 Wilhelm Meister and the French Revolution. This was no 
 more than an apercu of the brilliant critic; but the fact is 
 indisputable that from Fichte the Romantic School drew its 
 most vital ethical ideas. 
 
 No German writer shares the character of both centuries 
 to the same extent as the chief novelist of the classical period, 
 Johann Paul Friedrich Richter. 1 His novels combine, in j. p. F. 
 strange incongruity, the exaggeration and sentimentality of the Rl hte l' 
 "Sturm und Drang" with the stern idealism of Fichte, the 
 old-fashioned technique of the German romance with an ex- 
 traordinary imaginative power. "Jean Paul," the name with 
 which Richter signed his earlier books, was born at Wunsiedel, 
 in the Fichtelgebirge, on the 2ist of March, 1763, and in 
 1781, went to the University of Leipzig to study theology. 
 The bitter poverty which Richter experienced as a child, ac- 
 companied him throughout his student years. But it did not 
 still his thirst for knowledge. After an unhappy experiment 
 in publishing his first book, Gronldndische Prozesse (1783-84), 
 he returned home to escape his creditors ; but there seemed 
 even more prospect of his starving in the country than in 
 Leipzig, and he accepted a miserable position as private tutor, 
 with little hope of seeing his manuscripts in print. At length, 
 in 1789, he induced a bookseller to print the Auswahl aus 
 des Teufels Papieren, a continuation of the first satirical 
 sketches which appeared while he was still in Leipzig. In 
 the spring of 1790, Jean Paul obtained an appointment in a 
 private school, and, from this time on, fortune was kinder to 
 him; he published Die unsichtbare Loge (1793), a fantastic 
 variation of the educational novel which had arisen under 
 
 1 The most complete edition of Richter's works is that published by Hempel 
 (60 vols.), Berlin, 1879 ; a selection edited by P. Nerrlich, 6 vols., in D.N.L., 
 130-134 [1884-87]. Cp. P. Nerrlich, Jean Paul, sein Leben und seine \Verke, 
 Berlin, 1889.
 
 404 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Rousseau's influence. Die unsichtbare Loge laid the founda- 
 Hesperus, tion of Richter's popularity, but it was much inferior to his next 
 1 795- book, Hesperus, oder 45 Hundsposttage (1795). Victor, the 
 
 hero of this story, is the foster-son of a certain Lord Horion, 
 and one of those noble-minded sentimentalists brought into 
 vogue by the " Sturm und Drang." He becomes an oculist in 
 order to cure his foster-father of blindness ; the operation is 
 successful, and Victor is appointed body - physician to a 
 German prince. The conflict which Richter depicts, that of 
 the idealist with the sordid realities of life, runs, as we have 
 seen, through all the literature of this age ; but Victor's 
 strivings are apparently objectless, and the story tapers away 
 to an ordinary sentimental romance. 
 
 Quint Jean Paul's next romance, Leben des Quintus Fixlein (1796), 
 
 f '*f e " t ' was on similar lines to the little prose idyll which he had 
 appended to the Unsichtbare Loge, under the title Leben des 
 vergniigten Schulmeisterleins Maria Wuz ; but Fixlein is a 
 longer and more carefully written book. It tells how a poor 
 school-teacher ultimately rises to be Pfarrer of the village 
 church, and how he is able to marry and be happy. Slight as 
 the story is, its idyllic charm is irresistible, and the whole is 
 suffused with a gentle, almost lyrical, sentiment and pathos. 
 A better example of Richter's skill in depicting the joys of 
 common lives could hardly be found than his description of 
 Fixlein's wedding ; a passage from this scene will serve as an 
 illustration of the author's style : 
 
 " In der Friihe des Gebetlautens ging der Brautigam, weil das 
 Getose der Zuriistungen sein stilles Beten aufhielt, in den Gottes- 
 acker hinaus, der (wie an mehren Orten) samt der Kirche 
 gleichsam als Pfarrhof um sein Pfarrhaus lag. Hier auf dem 
 nassen Griin, iiber dessen geschlossene Blumen die Kirchhofs- 
 mauer noch breite Schatten deckte, kiihlte sich seine Seele von 
 den heissen Traumen der Erde ab ; hier, wo ihm die weisse 
 Leichenplatte seines Lehrers wie das zugefallene Thor am Janus- 
 tempel des Lebens vorkam. . . . Aber als er ins Haus kam, traf 
 er alles im Schellengelaute und in der Janitscharenmusik der 
 hochzeitlichen Freude an, alle Hochzeitsgaste batten die Nacht- 
 miitzen heruntergethan und tranken sehr, es wurde geplappert, 
 gekocht, frisiert, Thee-Servicen, KafFee-Servicen und Warmbier- 
 Servicen zogen hintereinander, und Suppenteller voll Brautkuchen 
 gingen wie Topfersscheiben und Schopfrader um. Der Schul- 
 meister probierte aus seinem Hause mit drei Jungen ein Arioso 
 heriiber, und wollte nach dem Ende der Singstunde seinen Vor- 
 gesetzten damit iiberraschen. Aber dann fielen alle Arme der
 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 405 
 
 schaumenden Freudenstrome in einander, als die mit Herzen und 
 Vexierblumen behangene Himmelskonigin, die Braut, auf die Erde 
 nieder kam voll zaghafter Freude, voll zitternder demiithiger Liebe 
 als die Glocken anfingen als die Marschsaule ausriickte als 
 sich das Dorf noch eher zusammenstellte als die Orgel, die 
 Gemeinde, der Konfrater und die Spatzen an den Baumen der 
 Kirchfenster die Wirbel auf der Heerpauke des Jubelfestes immer 
 langer schlugen. . . . Das Herz wollte dem singenden Brautigam 
 vor Freude aus der Weste hiipfen, ' dass es bey seinem Brauttage 
 so ordentlich und prachtig hergehe.'" 1 
 
 Quintus Fixlein was followed by a book which shared the 
 character of both the idyll and the novel, and bore the long 
 title, lumen-, Frucht- und Dornenstiicke, oder Ehestand, Tod Siebenkds, 
 und Hochzeit des Armenadvocaten F. St. Siebenkds (1796-9 7). r 79 6 -97- 
 In this story a fantastic element, which was never altogether 
 absent from Jean Paul's work, was brought into prominence. 
 Siebenkas, one of those sensitive, poetic souls in whom the 
 novelist delighted, lives unhappily with his practically-minded 
 wife, Lenette. An intimate friend, Leibgeber, introduces him 
 to a young Englishwoman, Nathalie, with whom he falls in 
 love. The problem now before him is how to free himself 
 from Lenette, and begin a new and higher existence with the 
 intellectual Nathalie. At Leibgeber's suggestion, Siebenkas 
 pretends to die, and allows his empty coffin to be buried; 
 he himself escapes to Nathalie, while Lenette also finds a 
 more congenial helpmate. The offence which Jean Paul here 
 commits against good taste, not to speak of his defiance of 
 accepted principles of social morality, shows that he had still 
 too much " Sturm und Drang " in his veins, to take advantage 
 of the possibilities which Wilhelm Meister had just begun to 
 open up to German fiction. 
 
 After Siebenkds came a number of smaller genre sketches, 
 among which Der Jubel-Senior (1797) deserves the first place ; 
 and then between 1800 and 1803, Richter published his most 
 ambitious novel, Titan, upon which he had been at work Titan, 
 since 1797. The Titan of this novel, Albano, is again a l8o -3- 
 hero that recalls the "Geniezeit"; he is one of those heaven- 
 storming idealists who go through life making demands upon 
 it, which never are and never can be satisfied. But the 
 influence of Wilhelm Meister is to be seen in the fact that 
 Titan is more closely knit together than its predecessors, 
 
 1 P. Nerrlich's edition, a(D.N.L., 131, i), 141 f.
 
 406 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 and its aim is more definite. Albano, who grows up in 
 ignorance of his parents, passes through a kind of apprentice- 
 ship to life, before coming into his kingdom as heir to the 
 Prince of Hohenflies, and this training is, like Meister's, a 
 sentimental education. The scene of the novel is laid for the 
 most part in Italy, and the pivots round which it turns are 
 Albano's relations to three women, the gentle, sentimental 
 Liane for whom Charlotte von Kalb, Schiller's friend, seems 
 to have been the model the Countess Linda de Romeiro, 
 who is herself something of a Titan-nature, and lastly the 
 Princess Idoine, in whom the hero finds a reflection of his 
 better self, and whom he ultimately marries. 
 
 Between 1802 and 1805, Jean Paul wrote another novel, 
 Fkgel- Flegeljahre (1804-5), which was still more influenced by 
 J a ' Wilhelm Meister. The hero of Flegeljahre, Gottwalt Harnisch, 
 
 a shy, retiring, impracticable idealist with a good heart, is any. 
 thing but a Titan ; and the author sets out with the object of 
 converting him into a man of the world. His education is 
 fantastically set in scene, Gottwalt becoming universal heir of 
 a wealthy relative, under conditions which bring him into 
 conflict with the disappointed kinsfolk and thus effect his 
 conversion to practical life. But the novel remains un- 
 finished, and the problem with which it began, unsolved. 
 Of Richter's later work little need be said ; several other idylls 
 followed, of which at least one, Leben Fibels (1812), almost 
 ranks with Quintus Fixlein ; but his last romance, Der 
 Komet, oder Nicolaus Marggraf (1820-22), was again diffuse 
 and disconnected. Besides writing fiction, Jean Paul was also 
 the author of a Vorschule der Aesthetik (1804) and Levana, 
 oder Erziehungslehre, a treatise on education, which appeared 
 in 1807. From 1804 on, he lived in Bayreuth, where he died 
 in 1825. 
 
 During his lifetime, Richter was a remarkably popular 
 writer, but this was, for the most part, due to the sentimental 
 tone of his romances ; he appealed to the same class of 
 readers who, in the previous generation, had wept over 
 Clarissa Harlowe, Werther and Siegwart. In form and spirit, 
 Richter's novels have, as we have seen, a closer resemblance 
 to those of the "Sturm und Drang" than to Wilhelm Meister 
 and the novels of the Romanticists; and thus, regarded 
 merely as fiction, his work aged rapidly, and at the present
 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 407 
 
 day the bulk of it is unreadable. With clumsy and often 
 tasteless humour, Richter affected .to despise those qualities 
 of form and proportion which give literature abiding worth. 
 Only an artistic instinct could have counterbalanced his ex- 
 treme subjectivity, which out of the characters of his stories 
 made mere channels for his own sentiments and views of life. 
 But this is only one aspect of Richter's work ; to another 
 and better class of readers among his contemporaries, just 
 as to Borne a generation later, and to Carlyle and De Quincey 
 in England, Jean Paul appealed as a humourist and, at the 
 same time, as the bearer of a new gospel inspired by the 
 idealism of Fichte. His refined spirituality, his constant and 
 reverential subordination of the seen to the unseen, his con- 
 tempt for time as opposed to eternity, his holy awe before 
 the miracles of creation in all this, Richter's mind was of an 
 essentially Romantic cast. No writer, not even Novalis, has 
 enriched German literature with so many significant aphorisms, 
 so many scenes and passages of the highest imaginative beauty. 
 There is nothing more impressive in German prose than the 
 dream of the universe, which is introduced into Der Komet 
 (Traum uber das Alt}, or the nightmare of atheism, which 
 forms a " Blumenstiick " in Siebenkds under the title Rede des 
 Todten Christus vom Weltgebdude herab, dass kein Gott sey : 
 
 "Christus fuhr fort: ' Ich ging durch die Welten, ich stieg in 
 die Sonnen und flog mit den Milchstrassen durch die Wiisten des 
 Himmels ; aber es ist kein Gott. Ich stieg herab, so weit das Sein 
 seine Schatten wirft, und schauete in den Abgrund und rief: 
 Vater, wo bist du ? aber ich horte nur den ewigen Sturm, den 
 niemand regiert, und der schlummernde Regenbogen aus Westen 
 stand ohne eine Sonne, die ihn schuf, iiber dem Abgrunde und 
 tropfte hinunter. Und als ich aufblickte zur unermesslichen Welt 
 nach dem gottlichen Auge, starrte sie mich mit einer leeren, 
 bodenlosen Augenhohle an ; und die Ewigkeit lag auf clem 
 Chaos und zernagte es und wiederkauete sich Schreiet fort, Miss- 
 tone, zerschreiet die Schatten ; denn Er ist nicht !'" * 
 
 But for the readers of to-day, who no longer share Richter's 
 Romantic conception of life, even this side of his work has 
 not the vital interest that it once had, and the poetic beauty of 
 individual passages cannot atone for the formlessness of the 
 whole. Richter's claim to a worthy position in his nation's 
 
 1 P. Nerrlich's edition, a (D.N.L., 131, i), 430.
 
 408 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 literature is best justified by his prose idylls. In painting the 
 quiet, simple, unassuming life amidst which he grew up, 
 in painting it with the truth and warmth of the old Dutch 
 artists, Richter is unsurpassed, and his reputation to-day rests 
 mainly on his chronicles of the pastors and schoolmasters 
 whom he knew so well. 
 
 The most gifted lyric genius among Germany's poets at 
 F. Holder- the close of the eighteenth century was Friedrich Holderlin. 1 
 \m, 1770- Unlike Richter, Holderlin had comparatively little of the 
 Romantic spirit ; the fervid pantheism, which inspires his 
 work, was a legacy from the " Sturm und Drang," and, in 
 all else, his temperament was Greek : he drew his inspira- 
 tion from antiquity. Born in 1770, at Lauffen in Wurtem- 
 berg, Holderlin had more than his share of disappointments 
 and unhappiness; the university appointments he aspired to 
 were refused him, and he spent his best years in uncongenial 
 tutoring. The most satisfactory position of this kind which 
 he held, namely, that in the house of the banker Gontard 
 in Frankfort, came to an abrupt end in 1798, owing to the 
 poet's passion for the wife of his employer. This unhappy 
 incident helped to make Holderlin, who had always been 
 sensitive and prone to melancholy, brooding and excitable. 
 In December, 1801, after spending some months in Switzer- 
 land, he again became a private tutor, this time in Bordeaux. 
 Except for one or two letters, his family heard nothing further 
 of him, until one morning, in the June of the following year, 
 he arrived home, in a state of mental derangement. For a 
 time his condition showed signs of improvement, but the 
 change was only temporary ; the malady proved to be incur- 
 able, and he was placed first in an asylum in Tubingen and 
 then in the house of a carpenter in that town. His death did 
 not take place until 1843. 
 
 Holderlin's longest work is a romance in letters, Hyperion, 
 oder der JEremit in Griechenland, which he had begun as 
 a student; it appeared in two volumes in 1797 and 1799. 
 Hyperion, a young Greek, takes part in the unhappy struggle 
 of his people against the Turks in 1770, and in his letters 
 describes his feelings, his hopes, and his disappointments. 
 
 1 Holderlin's Gssammelte Dichtungcn, edited by B. Litzmann, 2 vols., Stutt- 
 gart, 1896; a selection by M. Mendheim, in D.N.L., 135, 2. Cp. C. C. T. 
 Litzmann, F. Holderlins Leben, Berlin, 1890. 
 
 Hyperion, 
 1797-99-
 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 409 
 
 There is little connected plot in the book, and the characters 
 are shadowy and indistinct ; the fervid tone is reminiscent of 
 Werther, but the poet's enthusiasm for Greek antiquity throws 
 a mellow light over the whole, which makes the reader forget 
 how much it has in common with the "Sturm und Drang." 
 Above all, the high-sounding, dithyrambic periods and vivid 
 descriptions of Greek scenery which Holderlin himself never 
 saw make Hyperion a romance that stands alone in the 
 literature of its time. The following apostrophe to nature will 
 give some idea of the beauty of Holderlin's prose : 
 
 " Aber du scheinst noch, Sonne des Himmels ! Du griinst noch, 
 heilige Erde ! Noch rauschen die Strome ins Meer, und schattige 
 Baume sauseln im Mittag. Der Wonnegesang des Friihlings singt 
 meine sterblichen Gedanken in Schlaf. Die Fiille der alllebendigen 
 Welt ernahrt und sattiget mit Trunkenheit mein darbend Wesen. 
 
 O selige Natur ! Ich weiss nicht, wie mir geschiehet, wenn ich 
 mein Auge erhebe vor deiner Scheme, aber alle Lust des Himmels 
 ist in den Thranen, die ich weine vor dir, der Geliebte vor der 
 Geliebten. 
 
 Mein ganzes Wesen verstummt und lauscht, wenn die zarte 
 Welle der Luft mir um die Brust spielt. Verloren ins weite Blau, 
 blick' ich oft hinauf an den Ather und hinein ins heilige Meer, und 
 mir ist, als 6'ffnet' ein verwandter Geist mir die Arme, als loste der 
 Schmerz der Einsamkeit sich auf ins Leben der Gottheit. 
 
 Eins zu seyn mit allem, das ist Leben der Gottheit, das ist der 
 Himmel des Menschen." l 
 
 A tragedy on the subject of Empedokles long occupied Holder- 
 lin, but, as his novel plainly shows, he had none of the 
 qualities that go to make a dramatist. He is essentially His lyrics. 
 a lyric poet ; his poetry is the fulfilment of what Schiller's 
 Goffer Griechenlands promised. In Holderlin's earlier lyrics, 
 the fervour of the " Geniezeit " stands in a somewhat incongru- 
 ous contrast to the philosophic strain introduced by Schiller 
 into the German lyric; but as soon as Holderlin freed him- 
 self from the restraint of rhyme, and learned to move in free 
 classical metres, his poetry attained a certain inner harmony 
 and repose. A Bacchantic passion for Greece and a deep 
 conviction of the oneness of God and nature, formed the 
 two poles of Holderlin's nature, and over all his writings 
 lies a deep melancholy, a refined pessimism, which brings 
 him into touch with the poets of the later nineteenth century. 
 
 1 B. Litzmann's edition, 2, 68.
 
 4io 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 Hyperions 
 Schicksals- 
 lied, 1789. 
 
 Dialect 
 poetry. 
 
 J. P. He- 
 bel, 1760- 
 1826. 
 
 Never has the sense of man's helplessness been more nobly 
 expressed than in Hyperions Schicksalslied (1789), the most 
 beautiful poem that Holderlin ever wrote : 
 
 " Ihr wandelt droben im Licht 
 Auf weichem Boden, selige Genien ! 
 Glanzende Gotterliifte 
 Ruhren euch leicht, 
 Wie die Finger der Kiinstlerin 
 Heilige Saiten. 
 
 Schicksallos, wie der schlafende 
 Saugling, athmen die Himmlischen ; 
 Keusch bewahrt 
 In bescheidener Knospe, 
 Bliihet ewig 
 Ihnen der Geist, 
 Und die seligen Augen 
 Blicken in stiller 
 Ewiger Klarheit. 
 
 Doch uns ist gegeben, 
 Auf keiner Statte zu ruh'n, 
 Es schwinden, es fallen 
 Die leidenden Menschen 
 Blindlings von einer 
 Stunde zur andern, 
 Wie Wasser von Klippe 
 Zu Klippe geworfen, 
 Jahrlang ins Ungewisse hinab. " 1 
 
 Intimately associated with the rise of the Romantic move- 
 ment in Germany was the interest taken in the language of 
 the people : at the end of the eighteenth century and the 
 beginning of the nineteenth, dialect became for the first 
 time a recognised medium of literary expression. Before 
 then, the few poems which had been written in dialect, 
 such as Voss's Low German idylls, attained merely a local 
 celebrity. The first master of German dialect poetry is 
 Johann Peter Hebel 2 (1760-1826), a native of Basle. Hebel 
 was partly educated at Lorrach, a few miles north of Basle 
 in the Black Forest, and wrote his Allemannische Gedichte 
 (1803) in the dialect spoken in the neighbourhood of Lorrach. 
 The charm of Hebel's verse, as of his mildly didactic stories 
 in the Rheinldndische Hausfreund (1808-11) and Schatzkast- 
 
 1 Cp. D.N.L., 135, 2, 456 f. 
 
 2 Hebel's Allemannisclie Gedichte and Schatzkdstlein are edited by O. Behagel 
 (2 vols.), in D.N.L., 142 [1883] ; also in Reclam's Universal-Bibliothek, 24 and 
 143-144, Leipzig, 1868-69.
 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 41! 
 
 lein (1811), is their absolute faithfulness to the milieu which 
 they describe; nature and life are here viewed exclusively 
 from the standpoint of the Black Forest peasant. Hebel 
 was himself too much a child of the people to recognise the 
 possibilities, which Auerbach discovered a generation later, of 
 the peasant as a literary figure, and he was not appreciably 
 influenced by the methods or theories of the Romanticists. 
 As further masters of dialect-literature at the close of the 
 century, may be mentioned the Austrian, Maurus Lindemayr 
 (1723-83), and the Swiss artist and poet, Johann Martin j. M. 
 Usteri (1763-1827), who wrote in the Zurich dialect: De u | ten ' 8 
 Vikari and De Herr ffeiri, the two best-known poems by 
 the latter, 1 were modelled on Voss's idylls. 
 
 The general movement of German literature in the eighteenth 
 century may be said to have been from a false classicism to 
 a true one. It began, as we have seen, with the imitation of 
 the French classics of the seventeenth century ; then came 
 Lessing and Winckelmann, who vindicated the superiority of 
 the classical spirit as seen in Greek antiquity, and taught 
 the German people that their national art and literature 
 were not dependent upon those of France. Lessing proved 
 triumphantly that what was greatest in literature above all, 
 the drama of Shakespeare was in complete harmony with 
 the Greek spirit. Side by side with this aesthetic reformation 
 went a deeper ethical movement ; and after many a battle 
 over faith and unbelief, over the nature of right and wrong, 
 the moral philosophy of the eighteenth century arrived at a 
 broad, calm humanitarianism, which was the real heritage 
 of Rationalism. The evolution from Lessing's classicism to 
 Goethe's humanitarianism had, however, been by no means 
 uninterrupted ; between these two men lay the intellectual 
 upheaval known as the " Sturm und Drang." Advance was 
 only possible by means of a return to nature in other words, 
 reform could only be effective if it were in harmony with 
 nature. This reform accomplished, the movement of " Sturm 
 und Drang " had no further reason for existence, and its un- 
 balanced literature gave place to masterpieces like Iphigenie, 
 Hermann und Dorothea^ and Schiller's last dramas. Thus, 
 a classical spirit, based, not on literary conventions, but on 
 
 1 Dichtungen in Versen ttnd Prosa, edited by D. Hess, 3 vols., 3rd. ed., 
 Leipzig, 1877 ; De Vikari in Reclam, I.e., 609-610, Leipzig, 1873.
 
 412 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [PART IV. 
 
 poetic truth, was reinstated in German literature, and with 
 the full development of this spirit, the eighteenth century 
 may be said to culminate. Meanwhile, however, the vital 
 ideas behind the " Sturm und Drang " were neither lost nor 
 destroyed ; they lived on, long after the " Sturm und Drang " 
 had ceased to be the dominating force in Germany's literature, 
 and, at the close of the century, rose once more into conflict 
 with that classicism which, as we have seen, they had helped 
 to establish on a solid basis. This movement of revolt is 
 known as Romanticism.
 
 PART V. 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 
 
 AT the Court of Weimar, the last night of the eighteenth 
 century was celebrated by a masquerade arranged by Goethe 
 himself, and midnight being past, he, Schiller, the phil- 
 osopher Schelling, and the Norwegian Steffens withdrew into 
 a side-room, where they made eloquent speeches and drank 
 a welcome to the new century in champagne. It is not 
 surprising, in view of the history of the preceding hundred 
 years, that German literature should have entered upon the 
 new era with boundless hopes and enthusiasm ; but, as has 
 already been indicated, the immediate future did not belong 
 to the humanism which had formed the goal of the best 
 tendencies of the eighteenth century. Two years before that 
 century reached its close, a new intellectual movement, 
 Romanticism, had taken definite shape, and this movement 
 stood sponsor at the birth of the new epoch. Of the little 
 group that hailed the nineteenth century so enthusiastically 
 at the Weimar masquerade, Schelling and Steffens were 
 leading spirits in the Romantic School ; Schiller, although 
 by nature little of a Romanticist, was at that very time 
 engaged upon a Romantic tragedy, while to Goethe, the 
 author of Wilhelm Meister^ the new school looked up with 
 reverence as its master. 
 
 It is one of the ironies of literary history that the Romantic The Ro- 
 School a should have been founded in the metropolis of ration- 
 
 1 Cp. R. Haym, Die romantische Schule, Berlin, 1870: H. Hettner, Die 
 romantischc Schule in ihrem inneren Zusammenhange mit Goethe itnd Schiller, 
 Brunswick, 1850 ; G. Brandes, Den romantiske Skole i Tyskland (Hoved- 
 stromninger i del iqde Aarhundredes Litteratur, 2), also in Brandes' Sam- 
 lede Skrifter, 4, Copenhagen, 1900, 195 ff. ; German translation, Leipzig, 1887.
 
 416 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 alism, in Berlin: here, however, began, in 1797 and 1798, 
 the friendship between Ludwig Tieck and the two brothers 
 Schlegel, and here also, in 1798, was published the first 
 number of the Athenceum (1798-1800). But Berlin was 
 only the birthplace of the School; in the summer of the 
 following year, the chief Romanticists found a more congenial 
 home in Jena. The principles and aims of Romanticism 
 were, in this early period, vague and indefinite indeed, the 
 Romantic School had virtually ceased to exist before clear 
 definitions had been formulated at all but, from the first, 
 the School was the centre for a group of brilliant men and 
 hardly less brilliant women, who were drawn together by a 
 determination to have done with the utilitarianism which 
 still flourished under the protection of writers like Nicolai 
 men and women inspired by a common idealism, by a craving 
 for a spiritual, more unworldly poetry and art, and for a form 
 of artistic expression that was in harmony with life. The 
 Romantic School, it is true, ultimately drifted into a mystic 
 Catholicism, a blind worship of the medieval, a glorification 
 of " Volkspoesie," all of which tendencies were potentially 
 present in the movement from the first, but some years 
 elapsed before these principles stiffened into dogmas. 
 
 " Die romantische Poesie," said Friedrich Schlegel in one of 
 his Fragmente, "ist eine progressive Universalpoesie. Ihre 
 Bestimmung ist nicht bloss, alle getrennte Gattungen der Poesie 
 wieder zu vereinigen, und die Poesie mit der Philosophic und 
 Rhetorik in Beriihrung zu setzen. Sie will, und soil auch Poesie 
 und Prosa, Genialitat und Kritik, Kunstpoesie und Naturpoesie 
 bald mischen, bald verschmelzen, die Poesie lebendigund gesellig, 
 und das Leben und die Gesellschaft poetisch machen, den Witz 
 poetisiren, und die Formen der Kunst mit gediegnem Bildungs- 
 stoffjeder Art anfullen und sattigen, und durch die Schwingungen 
 des Humors beseelen. Sie umfasst alles, was nur poetisch ist, 
 vom grossten wieder mehre Systeme in sich enthaltenden Systeme 
 der Kunst, bis zu dem Seufzer, dem Kuss, den das dichtende 
 Kind aushaucht in kunstlosen Gesang." 1 
 
 The humanism of the eighteenth century had been analytic 
 and objective, collective and cosmopolitan ; the spirit of the 
 new movement was synthetic and subjective, individualistic 
 and national. Romanticism is the characteristic expression 
 
 1 Athenceum, i, 2 (1798), 28 ; F. Schlegel's Prosaische Jugendschriften, ed. 
 J. Minor, Vienna, 1882, 2, 220.
 
 CHAP. I.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 417 
 
 of the Germanic temperament, just as that of the Latin races 
 is associated with the word "classic." 
 
 The brothers Schlegel, who were in the first place critics 
 and interpreters, not poets, are the chief representatives of 
 Romanticism in its theoretic and stimulating aspects. They 
 came of a notable literary family ; their father, Johann Adolf 
 Schlegel, a pastor in Hanover, was, it will be remem- 
 bered, a contributor to the Bremer Beitriige, and their uncle, 
 J. E. Schlegel, Lessing's most gifted forerunner. August 
 Wilhelm, 1 the elder of the two brothers, was born on A. W. 
 September 8, 1767, and studied in Gottingen under Heyne f^^fg 1 ' 
 and Burger, from the latter of whom he learned at least the 
 technicalities of verse-writing. After three years as a private 
 tutor in Amsterdam, Schlegel settled in 1796, in Jena, with 
 the intention of living by his pen ; and here his activity as 
 a critic began in earnest. He was one of the contributors to 
 the Horen, in which he published a number of critical essays, 
 as well as specimens of his translation of Shakespeare. The 
 last-mentioned work was Schlegel's most significant achieve- shake- 
 ment, and perhaps, at the same time, the most significant of spe are ' s 
 the whole Romantic School. The verbal accuracy of the tische 
 translation is not always irreproachable, but the skill with Werke, 
 which each line of the original is rendered by an exactly 1797 ~ I 
 corresponding line, is astonishing ; while Schlegel's adaptation 
 of English blank verse to the German iambic metre of five 
 feet led to the general employment of that metre for dramatic 
 purposes. Most remarkable is Schlegel's ability to identify 
 himself with Shakespeare's point of view ; his translation 
 reproduces faithfully the atmosphere and spirit of the Eliza- 
 bethan drama ; he has made Shakespeare a national poet of 
 the German people, and this is, after all, the highest tribute 
 that can be paid to his work. Schlegel himself translated 
 only seventeen of the plays, of which sixteen appeared in eight 
 volumes between 1797 and 1801, Richard III. following 
 nine years later. The remaining dramas were completed by 
 Graf Wolf Baudissin (1789-1878) and by Tieck's daughter 
 Dorothea (1799-1 84 1). 2 
 
 In translating Shakespeare, Schlegel had an able assistant 
 
 1 Sammtliche Werke, edited by E. Booking, 12 vols., Leipzig, 1846-47. Cp. 
 A. W. und F. Schlegel, edited by O. F. Walzel (D.N.L., 143 [1892]). 
 
 2 Cp. M. Bernays, Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Schlegel 'schen Shakespeare, 
 Leipzig, 1872. 
 
 2 D
 
 4i8 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Caroline 
 Schlegel, 
 1763-1809. 
 
 A. W. 
 
 Later life. 
 
 in his wife Caroline (1763-1809), daughter of the Gottingen 
 orientalist, J. D. Michaelis. When Schlegel married her in 
 1796, Caroline had a checkered life behind her; and in 1803, 
 they were divorced, whereupon she became the wife of the 
 philosopher Schelling. The most brilliant and accomplished 
 woman of the Romantic School, Caroline Schlegel left no in- 
 dependent literary work unless her letters l are regarded as 
 such but her share in her husband's writings was not a small 
 one. The fine essay, Uber Shakespeares Romeo und Julia, for 
 instance, which appeared in the Horen in 1797, was mainly 
 by her, and it is significant that after her separation from 
 Schlegel, he left his edition of Shakespeare to be completed 
 by other hands. 
 
 The power of placing himself in the position of his original, 
 which made Schlegel so skilful a translator, was also the 
 secret of his ability as a critic. With contributions to the 
 Horen, the Athenaum, and other periodicals, with his lectures 
 Uber schone Litteratur und Kunst (1801-4), and the still 
 more famous lectures delivered in Vienna, Uber dramatische 
 Kunst und Litteratur (published 1809-11), Schlegel gradually 
 built up his reputation. He not only gave Shakespeare his 
 place in the literature of the world, but also awakened the 
 interest of the Germans in their own earlier literature. It was 
 under Schlegel's influence that Tieck, in 1803, edited Minne- 
 lieder aus dem schwabischen Zettalter, and F. H. von der Hagen 
 (1780-1856), in 1810, published his edition of the Nibe- 
 lungenlied ; and no less important were the services rendered 
 by Schlegel to German literature, in his appreciations and 
 translations of the chief poets of the Latin races Cervantes 
 and Camoens, Dante and Calderon. 
 
 In 1804, on the recommendation of Goethe, Madame de 
 Sta'el appointed August Wilhelm Schlegel, travelling com- 
 panion and tutor to her sons ; with her he visited Italy and 
 Scandinavia. In 1813 and 1814, he was secretary to the 
 Crown Prince of Sweden ; then he rejoined Madame de Sta'el 
 at Coppet on Lake Geneva, where he acted as her adviser 
 while she wrote De fAllemagne (i8i7), 2 the book by which, 
 
 1 Published by G. Waitz in Caroline, Leipzig, 1871, and Caroline und ihrc 
 Freunde, Leipzig, 1882. 
 
 * Cp. for Schlegel's share in De I' Allemagne, O. F. Walzel's study in 
 Forsehnngen sur neueren Litteraturgeschichie. Festgabe fur R. ffeimel, 
 Weimar, 1898, 275 ff.
 
 CHAP. I.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 419 
 
 at one stroke, German literature became a force in Europe. 
 After Madame de Stael's death in 1817, Schlegel received a 
 professorship in the University of Bonn, which he held until 
 his own death in 1845. The eccentricities of his later years 
 destroyed to a large extent the respect of the younger gener- 
 ation for him ; but the oriental studies with which he occupied 
 himself, added considerably to his reputation as a scholar. 
 Schlegel's original poetry has little or no value ; it is essentially 
 the poetry of a critic. The lessons of form which he learned 
 from his old master, Burger, he never forgot ; but the in- 
 trinsic poetic worth of his verses is not great. Besides shorter 
 poems, first collected in 1800 (Gedichte\ Schlegel wrote a 
 classical tragedy, Ion (1803), for which Goethe tried in vain to 
 win the applause of the Weimar public. 
 
 Friedrich Schlegel (born March 10, 1772; died 1829)* Friedrich 
 
 was not so well balanced as his cooler and more critical Schle gel, 
 
 1772-1829. 
 brother ; he was easily carried away by enthusiasms and new 
 
 theories in other words, he had more genius, if less talent, 
 than August Wilhelm. He, too, had studied in Gottingen, 
 and devoted himself mainly to classical literature, on which, 
 from 1794 on, he published several suggestive essays (Die 
 Griechen und die Corner, 1796). The noteworthy feature of 
 these essays is their attempt to define under the influence of 
 Schiller's aesthetic treatises the nature of ancient, as com- 
 pared with modern, literature. An elaborate history of classi- 
 cal poetry, inspired by Winckelmann and Herder, did not * 
 get farther than the first volume (1798). Friedrich Schlegel's 
 active enthusiasm, however, was the main factor in the founda- 
 tion of the Romantic School ; he made Fichte's idealism the 
 philosophic basis of the movement, and in his brilliant Frag- 
 mente, contributed to the Athenceum and other reviews, gave 
 the most lucid statement of the Romantic doctrine. It was 
 in the " fragment " that Friedrich Schlegel found the channel 
 of expression congenial to him ; his most stimulating ideas 
 are presented in the form of aphorisms. In 1799, he pub- 
 lished a fragmentary romance, Lucinde, by far the crudest Lucinde, 
 of all the Romantic novels. Lucinde is an attempt to *799- 
 carry the Romantic antagonism to boundaries and dividing 
 lines into the ordinary relations of society. But so far from 
 giving a fair picture of the Romantic principles of life, it 
 
 1 Sammtliche \Verke, 2nd ed., 15 vols., Vienna, 1846.
 
 420 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Oriental 
 studies. 
 
 Dorothea 
 Schlegel, 
 1763-1839. 
 
 Romantic 
 criticism. 
 
 caricatures them ; instead of vindicating a higher spirituality, 
 Schlegel only advocates the freedom of passion. It is, how- 
 ever, significant that this strange, morbid novel called forth 
 the commendation of an earnest-minded thinker like Schleier- 
 macher, who, in 1800, wrote a series of Vertraute Briefe iiber 
 Lucinde. Friedrich Schlegel had not even as much creative 
 talent as his brother, and what he had, was less under critical 
 control; his tragedy Alarcos (1802), an imitation of Tieck's 
 romantic dramas, is inferior to August Wilhelm's Ion. As a 
 critic, however, Friedrich Schlegel supplemented his brother's 
 work, first, by his classical studies, and later, when he sought 
 the highest Romanticism in the literature of the East. In 
 1803, he went to Paris to learn Sanskrit, and the result of his 
 studies was a treatise Uber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier 
 (1808), the most valuable, or, at least, the most stimulating 
 of all his writings ; this book was a starting-point both for the 
 study of Indian philology and for the science of comparative 
 philology. Friedrich Schlegel's wife, Dorothea (1763-1839), 
 a daughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, was of the 
 same age as Caroline Schlegel, and also one of the prominent 
 women of the Romantic circle; she translated Madame de 
 Stael's Corinne, and wrote an unfinished, but well-constructed, 
 Romantic novel called Florentin (1801). 
 
 Previous to the Schlegels, the critical study of literature was 
 a modest department of learning, with a prospect, if anything, 
 narrower than that of the political history of the time ; in their 
 hands it became a magnificent vantage-ground, from which 
 one could look backwards into antiquity and medievalism, 
 and far and wide over the intellectual life of all nations. The 
 methods of the eighteenth century had been critical and little 
 more ; the method of the Schlegels was less critical than inter- 
 pretative. Their aim was to reconcile the critic and the object 
 or person criticised ; author and reviewer were no longer to 
 stand opposed to each other as antagonists. A critic's first 
 duty was not to pass judgment, but to understand, to char- 
 acterise, to interpret. With this principle began a new era 
 in the history of criticism. The Schlegels realised what 
 Herder, in his vague, enthusiastic way, had dreamt of; it 
 was they who gave Goethe's idea of a " Weltlitteratur " sub- 
 stantial form. And this idea, too, was Romantic; for it 
 tended, with the help of art and poetry, to break down the
 
 CHAP. I.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 421 
 
 boundaries of national prejudices. Their Romanticism made 
 the Schlegels cosmopolites. 
 
 Johann Ludwig Tieck l was the youngest of the leaders of J. L. 
 the Romantic School, but his work illustrates most clearly the Tieck > 
 transition from the " Sturm und Drang " to the " Romantik." 
 Tieck was born in Berlin in 1773, the year of Goethe's Gotz 
 von Berlichingen ; and Gotz, Werther, and Die Rduber were 
 the favourite books of his boyhood. His own early stories, 
 when not actually written to the order of Nicolai (Strauss- 
 federn, 1795-98), belong essentially to the "Sturm und 
 Drang." The most ambitious of them is the Geschichte des 
 Herrn William Lovell (1795-96), a characteristic "Sturm William 
 und Drang" romance in the form of letters, but tempered Lovell > 
 by the influence of Wieland. Lovell, a youth of good 
 impulses and noble ambitions, who is led astray by an evil 
 friend, belongs obviously to the same class of hero as 
 Werther and Karl Moor ; but there is blood in his veins that 
 was not in theirs; his dreamy melancholy and indecision of 
 character have an unmistakably Romantic tinge. The psy- 
 chology of the novel, however, is not convincing, and instead 
 of being tragic, it describes only crimes and horrors. A more 
 distinctive and positive side of Tieck's genius is shown by 
 a play with which, in 1797, he took Berlin by storm, Der Dergestie- 
 gestiefelte Kater ; ein Kindermdhrchen in drey Akten. This W t * Kater 
 Puss in Boots is the best satirical drama in German literature. 
 It labours, it is true, under the disadvantage that Tieck's satire 
 is purely literary ; but it did excellent service in its time by 
 helping to destroy the utilitarian principles of the "Aufklarung" 
 and by bringing into discredit the " moral " comedies of the 
 type associated with Iffland and Kotzebue. A later dramatic 
 satire, Prinz Zerbino (1799), although poetically more am- 
 bitious than the Gestiefelte Kater, is placed at a disadvantage 
 by its inordinate length. 
 
 The Romantic element in Tieck's nature was first fully 
 developed by a companion of his student-days, W. H. Wacken- w. H. 
 roder (i773-98), 2 who was also a native of Berlin. Wacken- w * cken - 
 roder was one of those gentle, child-like souls to whom the 1773-98. 
 
 1 L. Tieck's Schriften, 15 yols., Berlin, 1828-29. Cp. R. Kopke, Ludwig 
 Tieck, Leipzig, 1855. A_ biography of Tieck prefaces the selections from 
 
 Cp. also the selections 
 
 886].
 
 4 22 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Hersenser- 
 giessungen, 
 1797- 
 
 fiber die 
 
 Kvnst, 
 
 1799. 
 
 Romantic School owes its most stimulating and far-reaching 
 ideas. From his passionate love for the beautiful sprang his 
 conviction of the holy earnestness of art ; a life devoted to its 
 service seemed to him the noblest life. This enthusiasm for 
 art is what makes the tiny volume of Herzensergiessungen eines 
 kunstliebendcn Klosterbruders (1797) so valuable a document 
 for the history of the " Romantik." With the exception of 
 one or two sketches, this book is Wackenroder's work, 
 Tieck being only responsible for the editing, but after 
 Wackenroder's early death at the age of twenty-five, his 
 Phantasien friend published a continuation, Phantasien iiber die Kunst 
 (1799), to which he contributed about half the contents. 
 These two little books contain the earliest expression of the 
 Romantic aesthetics : here art is holy, art is divine ; it is 
 a religion founded upon the fervent enthusiasm of sensitive 
 souls. Warmly, however, as Wackenroder loved Diirer and 
 Raphael, music was the art with which he was most in 
 sympathy; music is "das Land des Glaubens, wo alle unsre 
 Zweifel und unsre Leiden sich in ein tonendes Meer verlieren." 
 And in the same spirit, Tieck sings : 
 
 " Liebe denkt in siissen Tonen, 
 Denn Gedanken stehn zu fern, 
 Nur in Tonen mag sie gern 
 Alles, was sie will, verschonen. 
 Drum ist ewig uns zugegen, 
 Wenn Musik mit Klangen spricht, 
 Ihr die Sprache nicht gebricht, 
 Holde Lieb' auf alien Wegen ; 
 Liebe kann sich nicht bewegen, 
 Leiliet sie den Othem nicht." 1 
 
 Thus, at the very outset, the Romantic conception of art came 
 into conflict with the classical ideals for which Goethe had 
 fought since his residence in Italy, and they also in great 
 measure undid what Lessing had achieved in the previous 
 generation. In the glow of Romantic enthusiasm, the 
 hard-and-fast boundaries which the Laokoon had established 
 between poetry and the other arts, melted away, and con- 
 fusion reigned once more ; tones, colours, words were, in the 
 eyes of these young poets and critics, but different forms 
 of the one language of the soul. 
 
 The most considerable outcome of Tieck and Wackenroder's 
 
 1 Cp. Phantasien iiber die Kunst, 1799, 150 and 246.
 
 CHAP. I.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 423 
 
 joint-authorship was the romance, Franz Sternbalds Wan- Franz 
 derungen: eine altdeutsche Geschichte> published by Tieck in 
 1798. This, the first characteristic novel of the Romantic ungen, 
 School, was written exclusively by Tieck, but the plot and the I798< 
 ideas upon which it is based date back to the excursions 
 which the two friends made to Niirnberg and the Fichtelge- 
 birge, while students together at Erlangen, in 1793. Franz 
 Sternbald is a gifted pupil of Durer's who sets out from 
 Niirnberg upon his wanderings, comes first to Holland, and 
 from Holland turns his steps to Italy. He meets with com- 
 panions by the way, and love episodes are not wanting, but 
 little happens in the book and it remains unfinished. To 
 Wilhelm Meister, the fountainhead, as we have seen, of the 
 entire fiction of the Romantic School, 1 Franz Sternbald 
 naturally owes much ; the minor characters, especially the 
 women, are close imitations of those in Meister, and Goethe's 
 example is the excuse for the many lyrics that are inter- 
 spersed. At the same time, the influence of Heinse, the 
 creator of the " Kunstroman " in German literature, is not 
 to be mistaken. The pleasantest feature of the novel is the 
 spontaneous, youthful freshness of the opening chapters, the 
 buoyant delight in nature and the reverent worship of art. 
 Between Lovell and Sternbald^ might be said to run the line 
 that separates " Sturm und Drang " from Romanticism. 
 
 It was Wackenroder also who opened Tieck's eyes to the Tieck's 
 poetry that lay concealed in " Marchen " and " Volksbiicher " ; 
 and to Tieck's interest in such things we owe the three 
 volumes of Volksmahrchen (1797), which, besides the Gestiefelte 
 Kater and a dramatic " Ammenmahrchen " Ritter Blaubart, 
 contained two charming fairy tales, Der blonde Eckbert and 
 Die schone Magelone. In all these " Marchen," Tieck displays 
 the fondness for ridiculing the creations of his own imagina- 
 tion, which was common to all the members of the School; 
 in fact, this so-called " Romantic irony " which Tieck once 
 characterised as "jene letzte Vollendung eines Kunstwerks, 
 jenen Athergeist, der befriedigt und unbefangen iiber dem 
 Ganzen schwebt " 2 was regarded by the Romanticists as the 
 most potent means of heightening poetic or dramatic effect. 
 
 1 J. O. E. Donner, Der Einfiuss Wilhelm Meisters auf den Roman der 
 Romantiker, Berlin, 1893. 
 
 2 Cp. H. Hettner, Die Romantische Schule, Brunswick, 1850, 65.
 
 424 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Tieck's next fairy tales, Der getreue Eckart and Historic 
 von der Melusina, were published, together with the dramas, 
 Genoveva and Rothkdppchen, in the Romantischen Dichtungen 
 (1799-1800), Der Runenberg in 1804. There is little here 
 of the naive tone of the true " Volksmarchen," which the 
 brothers Grimm caught in their Kinder- und Hausmiirchen ; 
 but Tieck is not wanting in naivete ; on the contrary, he revels 
 in the supernatural like a child, although in a peculiarly 
 Romantic way. The forest, the " Waldeinsamkeit " of Eck- 
 bert, the birds, the sea, the sky, all enter into a mystic, 
 poetic relation with human life ; and the moods and feelings 
 of the personages are reflected in the nature around them. 
 Genoveva, Tieck's most ambitious works, as a dramatic poet, are the 
 *799- two " Marchendramen," Leben und Tod der heiligen Genoveva 
 
 (1799) and Kaiser Octavianus (1804). The " Stiirmer und 
 Dranger" Maler Muller had, it will be remembered, drama- 
 tised the story of the unhappy Pfalzgrafin Genoveva, who, 
 in her husband's absence, awakens a passion in the faithless 
 Golo, and dies the victim of his revenge. Miiller's play came 
 into Tieck's hands in MS. in 1797, and undoubtedly sug- 
 gested the subject to him ; but there is no resemblance be- 
 tween the two works except in a few lines of a song. Tieck's 
 Genoveva is a typically Romantic poem ; it is a drama 
 without action. The story is unrolled as on a tapestry 
 over which plays the changing light of all the influences 
 Shakespeare, Calderon, religious mysticism which had 
 moulded the poet's individuality. The language, although 
 defective in dramatic qualities, is resplendent with music and 
 imagery ; and wherever the scene may be on the battlefield, 
 in a castle-dungeon or in a garden flooded with moonlight, it 
 is invariably enveloped in a soft Romantic haze. 
 
 Kaiser Oc- Kaiser Octavianus, which is also based on a " Volksbuch," 
 'i8oA. nUS ' an( * g es a step further than Genoveva, is the best example 
 of the fantastic trend in Tieck's poetry. Kaiser Octavianus 
 is a medieval mystery, or, at least, a drama that plays amidst 
 the Romantic medievalism which Tieck and Novalis distilled 
 from the painting and literature of the middle ages. In out- 
 line, the drama is similar to Genoveva, but it is conceived in a 
 more epic spirit than its predecessor, the personal history of 
 the hero being merely an episode in the whole. Kaiser 
 Octavianus is virtually an allegorical history of the rise of
 
 CHAP. I.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 425 
 
 Christianity, and its object is to show how dissension amongst 
 the heathen peoples disappeared before the beneficent influ- 
 ence of the Christian Church. The scene of the drama, 
 which culminates in a glorification of the middle ages, is 
 virtually the whole medieval world, and its personages include 
 all types of that world from prince to peasant, from chivalrous 
 knight to sanguinary Turk. That such a subject is too com- 
 prehensive for dramatic treatment, even in the four hundred 
 pages which Octavianus occupies in Tieck's works, is suffi- 
 ciently obvious, and Tieck does not even attempt to write 
 a real drama; he is content to supply merely a framework 
 for the restless, ever-changing play of his poetic moods. 
 Kaiser Octavianus begins with a prologue, Der Aufzug der 
 Romanze, and " Romanze," as a personification of the Rom- 
 antic spirit, acts as a chorus in the drama itself. This open- 
 ing allegory embodies, in somewhat confused form, the essen- 
 tials of Tieck's poetic faith ; the great Romantic virtues, 
 Love and Faith, Humour and Valour, are grouped among 
 the knights and shepherds, pilgrims and wanderers of an ideal 
 world. In this poem occur the lines which have become one 
 of the mottoes of the School : 
 
 " Mondbeglanzte Zaubernacht, 
 Die den Sinn gefangen halt, 
 Wundervolle Marchenwelt, 
 Steig' auf in der alten Pracht." l 
 
 Between 1799 and 1801, Tieck published an excellent 
 translation of Don Quixote, and between 1812 and 1816, 
 under the title Phaniasus, he collected his earlier Romantic Phantasus, 
 stories, and embedded them in a connecting narrative. Long, l812 ' 16 - 
 however, before the publication of Phantasus, the purely Rom- 
 antic period in Tieck's life had come to a close; in 1804, he 
 went to Rome, and did not return to Germany until 1806. 
 
 Wackenroder was not the only gentle nature that clung to 
 Tieck, as a tender plant to a strong branch ; a greater .than F von 
 Wackenroder, Friedrich von Hardenberg, also sought and Harden- 
 found support in Tieck's robuster character. 2 Born in 1772, If^vali " 
 Hardenberg, better known by his pseudonym of Novalis, 1772-1801'. 
 
 1 Schriften, i, 33. 
 
 2 Novalis Schriflen, edited by E. Heilborn, 3 vols., Berlin, 1901. Cp. A. 
 Schubart, Novalis' Leben, Dichtcn und Denktn, Giitersloh, 1887 ; J. Bing, 
 Novalis, Hamburg, 1893; E. Heilborn, Novalis, der Romantiker, Berlin, 
 1901.
 
 426 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 grew up in an intensely religious home. During his student- 
 days at Jena, he came under the influence of Schiller and 
 Reinhold, and, in Leipzig, made the acquaintance of Fried- 
 rich Schlegel. In 1792, he went to Wittenberg to study law, 
 and, in 1794, settled at Tennstadt, near Langensalza. Here 
 his poetic genius was awakened by a passion for a girl who, 
 like Dante's Beatrice, had not passed the years of childhood. 
 Sophie von Kiihn was only twelve years of age when Novalis 
 first saw her, and in 1797 she died. The blow to the poet's 
 sensitive nature was overpowering, and from his sorrow sprang 
 Hymnen the Hyninen an die Nacht (1800), which contain some of the 
 Mzfl/ most spiritual poetry in the German tongue. Never has re- 
 1800. ' ligion blended more perfectly with personal grief and bereave- 
 ment than in these outpourings of the soul, in which the 
 " holy, inexpressible, mysterious Night " symbolises the Nir- 
 vana of earthly sufferings. These hymns, which are, for the 
 most part, in rhythmical prose, contain the poetic essence of 
 Jakob Bohme's mysticism. 
 
 " Was haltst du, Nacht, unter deinem Mantel, das mir unsicht- 
 bar kraftig an die Seele geht ? Kostlicher Balsam trauft aus deiner 
 Hand, aus dem Biindel Mohn. Die schweren Fliigel des Gemiiths 
 hebst du empor. . . . Wie arm und kindisch diinkt mir das Licht 
 nun wie erfreulich und gesegnet des Tages Abschied. . . . 
 Himmlischer, als jene blitzenden Stenie, diinken uns die unend- 
 lichen Augen, die die Nacht in uns geoffhet. Welter sehn sie, 
 als die blassesten jener zahllosen Heere unbediirftig des Lichts 
 durchschaun sie die Tiefen eines liebenden Gemiiths was einen 
 hohern Raum mit unsaglicher Wollust fullt. Preis der Weltkoni- 
 ginn, der hohen Verkiindigerinn heiliger Welten, der Pflegcrinn 
 seliger Liebe sie sendet mir dich zarte Geliebte liebliche 
 Sonne der Nacht." 1 
 
 It seemed an example of that irony which the Romanticists 
 saw behind all life and endeavour, that the death Novalis 
 desired so intensely in his sorrow should have come a few 
 years later, at a time when love had again brought zest into 
 his life, and when the friendship of Tieck, whom he met in 
 1799, encouraged him to make new plans of work. Con- 
 sumption had set its mark upon him, and on the 25th of 
 March, 1801, he died from a sudden hemorrhage, before 
 he had attained his twenty-ninth year. 
 
 In Novalis's Geistliche Lieder, the mystic fervour of the 
 
 1 Schriften, ed. E. Heilborn, i, 445 f. ; cp. i, 307 t.
 
 CHAP, i.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 427 
 
 Hymnen an die Nacht became distinctly Catholic in tone, 
 while the most definite expression of his leaning towards 
 Catholicism is the noteworthy essay on Die Christenheit oder 
 Europa (1799). Novalis also left two prose romances, Die 
 Lehrlinge zu Sais and Heinrich von Ofterdingen (published 
 1802), both unfinished. In the former of these, a glowing 
 panegyric of nature, Novalis veiled in poetry his own initia- 
 tion at Freiberg into the wonders of natural science, under 
 the famous geologist A. G. Werner. Heinrich von Ofterdingen Heinrich 
 is Novalis's chief work and, in many respects, the represent- ^ % er 
 ative novel of Romanticism. Like all the romances of the 1802. 
 School, its model is Wilhelm Meister ; but the materials out 
 of which Heinrich von Ofterdingen is constructed are very 
 different from the realities which, as Goethe once complained, 1 
 were all he had to work upon. The world of Heinrich von' 
 Ofterdingen is that dream-world of medievalism, which had 
 first been opened up by Franz Sternbalds Wanderutigen ; in 
 passing, however, through Novalis's fine imagination, it has 
 become spiritualised : " Die Welt wird Traum, der Traum 
 wird Welt." 2 Heinrich von Ofterdingen, whose childhood 
 has been spent in Eisenach, accompanies his mother on a 
 visit to his grandfather in Augsburg. This journey, in the 
 course of which they are joined by merchants who discuss 
 literature and art with them, is the beginning of Heinrich's 
 apprenticeship to poetry. In Augsburg, he chooses the 
 poet Klingsohr as his master, and from Klingsohr learns the 
 Romantic mysteries of poetry ; he loves Klingsohr's daughter, 
 Mathilde, as the author himself had loved Sophie von Ku'hn. 
 Mathilde dies, and, like Novalis, Heinrich too finds con- 
 solation in a new love. The essential difference between 
 Wilhelm Meister and Heinrich von Ofterdingen is the latter's 
 self-reliance : he is not a blind seeker after the true path of 
 his existence ; he begins life as a poet, and with the clear 
 consciousness that he has to find the wonderful " blue flower," 
 in which the ideals and yearnings of Romanticism were sym- 
 bolised. Disenchantments such as Meister had, Heinrich has 
 not ; he sets out to find no asses, but a kingdom, and at 
 the unwritten close of the book, was to have entered into 
 
 1 Goethes Unterhaltungen mil dent Kanzler F. von Miiller, 2nd ed. , Stutt- 
 gart, 1898, 96. 
 
 - ScArtften, i, 161.
 
 428 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 The philo- 
 sophical 
 back- 
 ground. 
 
 F.W.J.von 
 
 Schelling, 
 
 1775-1854- 
 
 possession of his inheritance. Heinrich -von Ofterdingen is 
 more of a poetic " Marchen " than a novel ; as Novalis himself 
 once described it to Tieck, it is an " apotheosis of poetry " ; 
 and like Tieck's Romantic poems, but in a higher degree, 
 it is suffused with the unreal light of a purely imaginary 
 world. " Die Scheidewand zwischen Fabel und Wahrheit, 
 zwischen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart ist eingefallen : Glau- 
 ben, Phantasie und Poesie schliessen die innerste Welt auf." 1 
 
 The Romantic literature was far from being an isolated 
 phenomenon in the intellectual movement of its time ; on the 
 contrary, philosophy and poetry were never so intimately as- 
 sociated as in the period under consideration. The poetry 
 of the Romantic school was the efflorescence of a spiritual 
 revival, whose leaders were Fichte, Schelling, and Schleier- 
 macher. Of these, Fichte has already been discussed as the 
 champion of the individualism on which the movement was 
 based. But the Romantic philosopher par excellence was F. 
 W. J. von Schelling (i775-i854), 2 whose influence on German 
 intellectual life was hardly less widespread than that of Hegel 
 or Schopenhauer. A native of Wiirtemberg, Schelling was born 
 in 1775, and after studying at Tubingen and Leipzig, was ap- 
 pointed Professor of Philosophy at Jena in 1798. He sub- 
 sequently occupied chairs in Wiirzburg, Munich, and Berlin, 
 where he died in 1854. The most suggestive and fruitful of his 
 writings are Ideen zu einer Philosophic der Natur (1797), Von 
 der Weltseele (1798), System des transcendentalen Idealismus 
 (1800). The reconciling spirit, which, as we have seen, is 
 characteristic of Romantic literature, is by Schelling carried 
 over into philosophy. While Spinoza discovered the mystery 
 of the universe in an all-pervading divine spirit, Schelling, 
 whose thought, after all, has many points of contact with 
 Spinoza's, regarded nature and spirit as but two aspects of 
 the "Weltseele." The fundamental conception of his philos- 
 ophy is stated in the words, "die Natur soil der sichtbare 
 Geist, der Geist die unsichtbare Natur seyn " ; and the proof 
 of the dogma lies "in der absoluten Identitat des Geistes in 
 uns und der Natur ausser uns." 3 Such a philosophy as Schel- 
 ling's, when followed out to its logical conclusions, can only 
 
 1 Tieck's Nachwort sum Ofterdingen (Novalis, Schrifien, i), 190. 
 
 2 Sammtliche Werke, 14 vols., Stuttgart, 1856-61. Cp. K. Fischer, Schel- 
 lings Leben, Werke und Lehre, 2nd ed., Heidelberg, 1897. 
 
 * Ideen zu einer Philosophic der Natur ( Werke, 2), 56.
 
 CHAP. I.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 429 
 
 lead to mysticism. But congenial as were these mystic tend- 
 encies to the Romantic School, Schelling's chief service to the 
 movement was in bringing the aesthetic theories of Roman- 
 ticism to a focus. Schelling proclaimed art as the highest of 
 all phenomena, for here alone was to be found that perfect 
 blending of nature and spirit which he sought ; art to him 
 was the great harmonising medium, in which the contradic- 
 tions of life and thought, nature and history, entirely dis- 
 appeared. Another prominent member of the Romantic 
 School was Schelling's Scandinavian apostle, Henrik Steffens 
 (1773-1845), who, attracted by Schelling's reputation, went to Henrik 
 Jena in 1798, to study under him. Neither Steffens' scien- 
 tific and philosophic work nor his long-forgotten Norwegian 
 "Novellen" demand notice in a history of German literature, 
 but, in 1840, he published under the title Was ich erlebte, 
 ten volumes of autobiography, which afford an excellent com- 
 mentary on the literature of the Romantic period. 
 
 What Schelling did for the philosophy and aesthetics of 
 Romanticism, Friedrich E. D. Schleiermacher (i 768-1834) l 
 did for its spiritual ideas. The latter found the life and re- 
 ligion of his time separated from each other, even in open F. E. D. 
 conflict; and he made it his task to reconcile them. He ^ 
 forced the conviction upon his nation that religion was not a 1768-1834. 
 dry system of dogmas, but, in the first instance, a personal 
 matter, and only another name for higher feelings and aspira- 
 tions ; religion was the true poetry of the soul. With his 
 Reden iiber die Religion (1799) and his Monologe (1800), two 
 books which ring in the intellectual life of the new century, 
 Schleiermacher awakened the religious consciousness of the 
 German people from the torpor into which it had sunk under 
 the long reign of the " Aufklarung." When, however, this 
 quickening of religion was reinforced by the mysticism of 
 Schelling and the medievalism of Tieck and Novalis, the 
 resulting product was rather a revival of Catholicism than 
 a deepening of Protestantism. 
 
 1 Sammtliche Werke, 30 vols., Berlin, 1836-65. Cp. W. Dilthey, Leben 
 Schleiermachers, i, Berlin, 1870.
 
 430 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Romanti- 
 cism un- 
 favourable 
 to the 
 drama. 
 
 ROMANTIC DRAMA AND PATRIOTIC LYRIC. 
 
 THE drama was the stepchild of Romanticism ; the Romantic 
 writers found the lyric, the novel, and even, in Slavonic litera- 
 tures, the epic, congenial channels for their ideas, but in Den- 
 mark perhaps alone did the Romantic drama stand on a footing 
 of equality with other forms of expression. It has already 
 been seen from Tieck's works with what difficulty the Rom- 
 antic spirit adapted itself to the requirements of the theatre. 
 The passivity of the Romantic creed on the one hand, and, on 
 the other, its passionate craving to break down the boundaries 
 between the arts, between art and literature, between life and 
 literature, between nature and art, were anything but favour- 
 able to the development of a literary form which can only 
 flourish in obedience to laws and draw nourishment from an 
 active conception of existence. In the pre-Romantic days of 
 "Sturm und Drang," a living drama was still possible, for 
 life was then regarded as action ; the " Stiirmer und Dranger " 
 scorned the rules of dramatic construction even more heartily 
 than their successors, but they firmly believed in the " mighty 
 deed." When, however, we turn to the Romantic School 
 with its essentially lyric ideals of poetry, its preference for 
 the passive aspects of life, we find the drama reduced to a 
 mere shadow of its true self. It is significant that the greatest 
 of all the Romantic dramatists, Heinrich von Kleist, wrote his 
 masterpieces under the influence of the patriotism kindled in 
 German minds by the tyranny of Napoleon. 
 
 If Tieck be left out of consideration, the most exclusively 
 Romantic playwright of this age, and the only one who can
 
 CHAP. II.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 43! 
 
 be compared with Kleist, was F. L. Zacharias Werner. 1 Born Zacharias 
 
 in Konigsberg in 1788, Werner led a strange, unbalanced life; ^l^' 
 
 his biography reminds us of Goethe's characterisation of J. G. 
 
 Giinther, " Er wusste sich nicht zu zahmen, und so zerrann 
 
 ihm sein Leben wie sein Dichten." 2 But it is only fair to 
 
 recognise that Werner was cursed with a temperament which 
 
 made him seem on the brink of insanity ; mental disease alone 
 
 can explain the helpless fashion in which he tossed from one 
 
 extreme of the wildest debauchery to another of the most 
 
 fervid piety. His dissolute, unsettled life at last found rest 
 
 in the bosom of the Catholic Church, he became a priest, 
 
 and, in their day, his sermons were even more popular than 
 
 his plays. He died in Vienna in 1823. Werner's first drama, 
 
 Die Sohne des Thales, was in two parts, Die Templer auf Die Sohne 
 
 Cypern (1803) and Die Kreuzes-Brilder (1804), each six acts **" Thales > 
 
 long. Both are mystic and symbolic, and, notwithstanding 
 
 the author's love for crass, theatrical effects, have as little 
 
 dramatic life as any of Tieck's dramas. The subject is the 
 
 fall of the Order of Templars and the establishment of a 
 
 new order, the " Sons of the Valley," in its place ; the work 
 
 is thus one of those allegories based on freemasonry, in which 
 
 the later eighteenth century took so warm an interest. The 
 
 first part of what was intended as a cycle of dramas on 
 
 Prussian history, Das Kreuz an der Ostsee (1806), shows, 
 
 if we overlook the flimsy texture of many scenes, the influence 
 
 of Schiller's rigorous dramatic technique. The chief success 
 
 of Werner's life was, however, Martin Luther, oder die Weihe Martin 
 
 der Kraft (1807), a drama, the subject of which is Luther's L ther > 
 
 life between 1520 and 1525, Katharina von Bora, who is 
 
 made to resemble a Catholic saint, being the heroine. As 
 
 a historical drama, Martin Luther has little value; it is 
 
 effectively constructed, and in some of the scenes there is a 
 
 mystic and Romantic beauty; but Werner was already too 
 
 much of a Catholic himself and too strongly in sympathy 
 
 with the movement in favour of reconciling Protestantism and 
 
 Catholicism, to do Luther justice. In 1814, after having 
 
 finally renounced Protestantism, he published a repudiation of 
 
 1 Ausgewahlte Schriften, 15 vols., Grimma, 184041 ; cp. Das Schicksals- 
 drama, edited by J. Minor (D.N.L., 151 [1884]), i ff. ; also J. Minor, Die 
 Schicksalstragodie in ihren Hauptvertretern, Frankfurt, 1883, and F. Poppen- 
 berg, Zacharias Werner, Berlin, 1893. 
 
 2 Dichtung und Wahrheit, Book 7 ( Wtrke, 27), 81.
 
 432 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Der vier- 
 undzwan- 
 sigste Fe- 
 bruar, 
 1810. 
 
 The 
 
 "Schick- 
 salstra- 
 godie." 
 
 Adolf 
 
 Mullner, 
 
 1774-1829. 
 
 this drama, a half-lyrical, half-allegorical poem, Die Weihe der 
 Unkraft. His later dramas, Attila (1808), Wanda (1810), 
 and Die Mutter der Makkabder (1820), are, without exception, 
 inferior to his earlier works. 
 
 Werner was also the author of a one -act tragedy, Der 
 vierundzwanzigste Februar produced on the 24th of Feb- 
 ruary, 1 8 1 o, and published in 1815 which was of more 
 moment for the history of the German drama than any other 
 drama of its time. Der vierundzwanzigste Februar is the 
 first of those " Schicksalstragodien," which, in the course 
 of the following decade, flooded the German stage. The 
 ultimate origin of this type of play is to be sought in Greek 
 tragedy, but a less distant model was an English drama, The 
 Fatal Curiosity, by George Lillo, the same Lillo who inspired 
 Miss Sara Sampson. As early as 1781, The Fatal Curiosity 
 had been adapted to the German stage by K. P. Moritz, 
 under the title Blunt, but the time was not then propitious 
 to the idea behind the play. More than ten years afterwards, 
 Tieck, just emerging as an author, wrote two "fate" trage- 
 dies, Der Abschied and Karl von Berneck ; but it was Die 
 Braut von Messina which gave the " Schicksalsdrama " its 
 decisive impulse, and prepared the way for the work of 
 Werner, Mullner, and Houwald. Schiller's tragedy, however, 
 lacked two features essential to the real " fate tragedy " ; in 
 the latter, not only did a curse or a prophesied fate hang 
 over the doomed family, but that fate was associated with a 
 definite day and with some fatal requisite, usually a dagger. 
 Werner chose the 24th of February a date that had played 
 a mysterious role in his own life as the critical day for 
 the Swiss family whose tragic history he unrolls with such a 
 command of weird effects. Slight as it is, Der vierundzwan- 
 zigste Februar is Werner's masterpiece. 
 
 The success of Der vierundzwanzigste Februar tempted 
 Adolf Mullner (1774-1829), x an advocate of Weissenfels, who 
 had hitherto written several comedies on French lines, for an 
 amateur theatre in Weissenfels, to follow in Werner's foot- 
 steps. In 1812, Mullner wrote, with the obvious intention of 
 surpassing his predecessor, Der neunundzwanzigste Februar, a 
 play which contains horrors in plenty, but little real tragedy. 
 Milliner's model, it is true, was also not free from this fault, 
 
 1 Dramatische Werke, 8 vols., Brunswick, 1828; cp. D.N.L., 151, 293 ff.
 
 CHAP. II.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 433 
 
 but Werner was poet enough to be able to some extent to 
 justify his means ; in Miillner, on the other hand, there was 
 little of the poet ; he loved the horrible for its own sake. In 
 the following year, Milliner's best-known play, Die Schuld, was Die 
 produced in Vienna, and was soon to be seen in all German 
 theatres. The plot of this typical " Schicksalstragodie " is 
 laid in Spain ; it is the familiar story of a young man, who, 
 according to a prophecy, is destined to kill his brother. To 
 defeat the ends of fate, his mother brings him up in the north 
 of Europe. Years later, he returns to Spain, loves a certain 
 Elvira, and, in order to be able to marry her, kills her husband 
 while they are hunting together, the dead man proving, of 
 course, to be his brother. Although an indifferent drama from 
 a poetic point of view, Die Schuld is skilfully put together : 
 as has been well said, it is the work of a criminal jurist ; 
 but the gulf that separates it from the greatest of all the 
 " Schicksalsdramen," from Grillparzer's Ahnfrau (1817), a play 
 to which Die Schuld bequeathed at least its trochaic measure, 
 is a wide one. Of Milliner's other tragedies, Kijnig Yngurd 
 (1817), for the hero of which Napoleon evidently lent some 
 traits, is noticeable as an attempt to write a classical iambic 
 tragedy although, after all, Konig Yngurd also is essentially 
 a "fate drama" and in Die Albaneserin (1820), his next 
 work, he endeavours to rival Houwald in a sentimental style 
 that was foreign to his temperament. After this play, Milliner 
 wrote no more for the stage, and, in his later years, devoted 
 himself entirely to journalism. 
 
 C. E. von Houwald (I778-I845), 1 the only other "fate C. E. von 
 dramatist " whose name finds a place in literary history, 
 was the least gifted of the three. He continued the line of 
 homely, mediocre pieces which had been begun by the early 
 Saxon playwrights ; in other words, he supplied the German 
 stage with the kind of play which, in the generation before 
 him, C. F. Weisse had written with so little effort. Houwald's 
 own tastes were sentimental ; the gruesome had little attraction 
 for him ; consequently his imitation of the dramatic methods 
 of Werner and Milliner is artificial, and sometimes even 
 ludicrous. His two best-known pieces, Das Bild and Der 
 Leuchtthurm, both published in 1821, are examples of the 
 "Schicksalstragodie" in its decline. 
 
 1 Sdmmtliche Werke, 5 vols., Leipzig, 1851. Cp. D.N.L., 151, 457 ff. 
 
 2 E
 
 434 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Heinrich 
 von Kleist, 
 1777-1811. 
 
 Die 
 
 Familie 
 Schroffen- 
 stein, 1803. 
 
 Amphi- 
 tryon, 
 1807. 
 
 Penthe- 
 silea, 1808. 
 
 A poet of a very different order from these " fate dramatists " 
 was Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist, 1 the most original 
 dramatist that North Germany has ever produced. While the 
 " Schicksalsdrama " harmonised with the passive intellectual 
 temper of the German nation, as it lay humiliated at Napoleon's 
 feet, the manlier genius of Kleist was fired by that patriotic 
 spirit which burst forth irresistibly in the War of Liberation. 
 Kleist is an enigmatic, even an unsympathetic, figure. Born at 
 Frankfort-on-the-Oder, on October 18, 1777, he grew up in 
 military surroundings which were even more distasteful to him 
 than they had been to the Kleist who wrote Der Friihling. 
 Restless, dissatisfied with the career that had been chosen for 
 him, haunted by woes real and imaginary, Kleist wandered to 
 Paris, and from Paris to Switzerland, so that the new century 
 had begun before he had made any definite plans for his 
 future, or even realised that he was a poet. His first work, Die 
 Familie Schroffenstein (1803), is an expression of the discord 
 that existed in the poet's own nature ; it contains, in concen- 
 trated form, Kleist's " Sturm und Drang." Questions hurled 
 in the face of Destiny, doubts of the goodness of Providence, 
 idyllic charm and crude Romantic horrors the latter sug- 
 gestive of the coming " Fate drama " these are the character- 
 istics of Die Familie Schroffenstein. But there is much rugged, 
 untutored strength in the drama, and its primitive, unreflecting 
 ethics recalls Kleist's model, Shakespeare, rather than the 
 national dramatist Schiller. Amphitryon (1807), a version 
 of Moliere's comedy of that name, in the style and spirit 
 of the " Romantik," was Kleist's next published work. But 
 at this time he was chiefly occupied with Robert Guiskard, a 
 drama in which he set before himself the aim of Schiller's 
 later dramas, namely, a union of ancient tragedy with the 
 Shakespearian drama of character. Disheartened, however, 
 with the progress of Robert Guiskard, he destroyed his manu- 
 script, and only a few fragments have been preserved. In 
 1808, Penthesilea appeared, and was received with scant 
 approval by the reading world. Yet this play contains some 
 of Kleist's most subtle poetry; here we find for the first time 
 that intensity of feeling characteristic of the poet's best work, 
 and the unrelieved grimness of his tragic conflicts. Penthesilea 
 
 1 Sdmmtliche Werke, edited by T. Zolling, 4 vols. (D.N.L., 149-150 [1885]). 
 Cp. O. Brahm, Heinrich von Kleist, 3rd ed. , Berlin, 1892.
 
 CHAP. II.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 435 
 
 is not a regular tragedy ; it is not divided, or even divisible, 
 into acts. It contains only a single conflict, that between 
 Achilles and the Amazonian queen, who slays Achilles, in the 
 belief that he scorns her love ; but the intensity of Penthesilea's 
 hate and scorn is superhuman. At the same time, the drama 
 aims, outwardly at least, at the ideal which the poet of Robert 
 Guiskard had kept before him ; it is a picture of the Homeric 
 age seen by the lurid light of Romanticism. 
 
 On the 2nd of March, 1808, Kleist's one-act comedy, Der Derzer- 
 zerbrochene Krug, was produced without success in Weimar. b chene 
 Goethe, who divided it into three acts, may, as Kleist himself 1808.' 
 thought, have been to blame for the failure, but it was 
 more likely due to the unusual character of the play. 
 Written round a picture of the Dutch School, Der zerbrochene 
 Krug is itself such a picture. It is an unpretentious descrip- 
 tion of a village trial over a broken jar; the incident nearly 
 separates two lovers and ends by unmasking the village judge 
 as the real delinquent. Der zerbrochene Krug is thus a drama 
 with little progressive action ; but it contains a series of clearly 
 cut dramatic portraits, full of humour and character, which are 
 alone sufficient to make it one of the masterpieces of German 
 comedy. 
 
 Das Kdthchen von Heilbronn, oder die Feuerprobe (1810), is Kathchen 
 Kleist's most popular drama. The author describes it as " em v n Heil ~ 
 
 . . . . . oronn, 
 
 grosses historisches Ritterschauspiel," that is to say, it is a 1810. 
 " Ritterdrama " of the later " Sturm und Drang " placed in a 
 Romantic milieu. The rattle of arms and the clank of horses' 
 feet re-echo through the play ; a scene before the " Vehm- 
 gericht" recalls Gotz von Berlichingen ; noble knights and 
 ladies, the Kaiser himself, add historical colouring to the 
 picture, and amidst the medieval paraphernalia stands the 
 charming figure of Kathchen : 
 
 " Ging sie in ihrem biirgerlichen Schmuck iiber die Strasse, den 
 Strohhut auf, von gelbem Lack ergliinzend, das schwarzsummtene 
 Leibchen, das ihre Brust umschloss, mit feinen Silberkettlein 
 behangt, so lief es fliisternd von alien Fenstern herab : das ist das 
 Kathchen von Heilbronn ; das Kathchen von Heilbronn, ihr 
 Herren, als ob der Himmel von Schwaben sie erzeugt, und von 
 seinem Kuss geschwangert, die Stadt, die unter ihm liegt, sie 
 gebohren hatte." 1 
 
 1 Act i, scene i (T. Zolling's edition, 3, 5).
 
 436 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 This simple Swabian girl is bewitched with love for a knight, 
 Wetter vom Strahl ; she follows him like a dog, sleeps with 
 his horse, and is ready to obey his lightest wish. Kathchen's 
 presumptive father, an armourer in Heilbronn, accuses Wetter 
 vom Strahl before the Holy Vehm of being a sorcerer, but 
 Kathchen's words convince the judges of his innocence. In 
 the burning castle of Thurneck she undergoes the " Feuer- 
 probe" for him, and ultimately saves him from a marriage 
 with the false Kunigunde von Thurneck. The Kaiser re- 
 cognises in her his own daughter, whereupon she becomes 
 the wife of the Ritter vom Strahl. The drama itself, if the 
 vigorous Shakespearian speech be excepted, is not a good 
 example of Kleist's powers, or even of the " Ritterdrama " ; 
 the scenes are loosely connected and the action is weakened 
 by irrelevant episodes ; but Kleist has expended all his wealth 
 of poetry upon his heroine. He has written stronger scenes, 
 but none more beautiful than that in the fourth act, where 
 Kathchen sleeps under the elder-tree. 
 
 In the same year as Kathchen von Heilbronn appeared 
 Michael the powerful romance, Michael Kohlhaas, the first and most 
 Kohlhaas, ambitious of a series of eight Erzahlungen, which were 
 published in two volumes in 1810 and the following year. 
 Except for a concession to the Romantic taste of the time 
 towards the close of the novel, Michael Kohlhaas is a 
 masterpiece of straightforward, realistic narrative ; no other 
 German story of its age is still, at the beginning of the 
 twentieth century, so modern in its ideas and point of view. 
 Kohlhaas is a law-abiding horse-dealer of the sixteenth 
 century, whose horses are illegally detained and misused 
 by a nobleman. He first seeks legal means of redress, but 
 the law supports the law-breaker; nothing is to be obtained 
 by peaceful means. Justice, however, Kohlhaas is resolved 
 to have, even though he devotes his life to that object. With 
 cool but grim determination he sets to work, and does not rest 
 until he has involved the country in the terrors of a civil war. 
 But he gains his end; his horses are returned to him in 
 the condition in which they were taken from him ; and 
 he himself lays his head upon the block as a rebel and a 
 criminal, with the consciousness that he has helped to lessen 
 the injustice of the world. The spirit that breathes through 
 Michael Kohlhaas is very different from the mysticism of
 
 CHAP. II.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 437 
 
 Tieck and Werner. Crushed under the heel of Napoleon, 
 the German peoples were beginning to waken to a sense of 
 national pride ; the Napoleonic invasion had rudely shaken 
 them out of their Romantic dreams. They saw that high 
 ideals alone are not sufficient to make a nation great; they 
 must first be converted into deeds. Although the revolt 
 against Napoleon had little in common with the passive 
 unworldliness of the Romantic School, it was, none the less, 
 a natural development of the individualistic trend in Roman- 
 ticism ; unmistakable in Michael Kohlhaas, the national 
 spirit appears still more plainly in Kleist's next work, 
 Die Hermannsschlacht, which was written in 1808, but not 
 published until 1821. 
 
 Die Hermannsschlacht is a tragedy of that full-blooded hate Die Her- 
 which the poets of the Renaissance could describe so well. Mackt 
 Klopstock, it will be remembered, once vainly tried to give 1808 
 dramatic life to the defeat of Varus and his Roman legions ( l821 )- 
 in the year 9, by Arminius or Hermann. Kleist is more suc- 
 cessful, although hardly more faithful to history, than Klop- 
 stock ; only the intensity of the passions in Die Hermanns- 
 schlacht is primitive ; in other respects, the play is a manifesto 
 of German patriotism. Rome is France, and the land of the 
 Cheruskians Germany, Kleist concerning himself as little with 
 archaeological accuracy here as in Kdthchen von Heilbronn. 
 More serious flaws are the unheroic craftiness of Hermann 
 and the brutality of Thusnelda's revenge on the Roman 
 legate, Ventidius. But, as the German people realised when 
 the drama was revived after the Franco-German War, its mag- 
 nificent patriotism atones for the unevenness in its composi- 
 tion. Of the many attempts in German literature to make 
 Arminius a dramatic hero, none comes within measurable 
 distance of this. 
 
 Kleist's last drama, Der Prinz von Homburg (1810), Der Prim 
 maintains the highest level of all his works. He again takes ? Wf H '"~ 
 
 ... " . . . ,. btirg. 1810 
 
 a poets licence in not adhering rigidly to the traditions at (1821). 
 best somewhat apocryphal of Prince Friedrich of Homburg, 
 who, in 1675, gained the victory of Fehrbellin in disobedience 
 to the Elector of Brandenburg^ orders; but he has created 
 an admirable historical drama, the only great historical drama 
 of which Prussia can boast. Condemned by a court-martial, 
 Prince Friedrich shows a cowardly fear of death : the Elector
 
 438 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 refuses to listen, not only to the intercession of his niece 
 Nathalie, who loves the Prince, but even to that of the 
 whole army. He places the decision in the Prince's own 
 hands, whereupon Friedrich again becomes a man ; he recog- 
 nises the justice of his sentence, and, by doing so, wins the 
 Elector's pardon. Characters like the Kurfiirst and the " alte 
 Kottwitz," are masterly examples of dramatic portraiture, 
 while the battle scenes are modelled on those in Shake- 
 speare's histories. The Prince of Homburg is the most 
 convincing of Kleist's male figures, and one that is not 
 unworthy to stand beside Grillparzer's heroes. In his other 
 plays, Kleist is always something of an idealist; he loved 
 to project, as upon a screen, his own dreams. Kathchen, 
 for instance, is little else than an ideal love of his brain ; 
 the Ritter vom Strahl is less Kleist as he was, than the man 
 the poet aspired to be. But the problematical Prince of 
 Homburg is Kleist; like his hero, Kleist was at the mercy 
 of the conflicts in his soul; he, too, was half a hero, half 
 a coward ; at one time a dreamer, at another a man of 
 daring action ; and in this, his last drama, he was unquestion- 
 ably truest to human nature. 
 
 But upon Kleist lay the disease of the age; the inward 
 harmony of mind and soul, which he always hoped to attain, 
 was denied him. From the beginning, his life was a tragedy 
 to him ; tragic was the long pursuit of a happiness that seemed 
 to recede as he approached it ; his unhappy love was tragic ; 
 the lack of recognition, especially on the part of Goethe, 
 whose commendation would have outweighed a nation's ap- 
 plause, most tragic of all. And so, one November afternoon 
 in 1811, the most gifted dramatist of Northern Germany 
 shot himself on the shores of the Wannsee, near Potsdam, 
 having just completed his thirty-fourth year. 
 
 The disasters of Napoleon's Russian campaign, followed by 
 the King of Prussia's appeal to his people on March 17, 1813, 
 gave the signal for a general uprising against the oppressor. 
 The patriotism which was struggling for expression in works 
 like the Hermannsschlacht, suddenly burst into action ; the 
 nation showed that it had not listened in vain to Kant's 
 lofty moralising and Fichte's stirring addresses ; indeed, never 
 before in its history did the German people feel and act 
 with such complete unanimity as at this time. And their
 
 CHAP, ll.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 439 
 
 fervid patriotism resulted in a lyric outburst which, for a Patriotic 
 time, pressed the Romantic poetry of sentiment into the L y" c - 
 background. Foremost among these patriotic singers stand 
 Korner, Arndt, and Schenkendorf. 
 
 Karl Theodor Korner (1791-1813 )/ whose heroic death K. T. 
 in the ranks of Liitzow's volunteer corps made him a I7 Qi8i 
 popular hero, was a son of C. G. Korner, Schiller's friend. 
 Although only twenty -three at his death, he had won a 
 certain reputation as dramatist, his best play, Zriny^ having 
 been produced in Vienna at the end of 1812. But Korner 
 wrote too hastily; his dramas are now forgotten, and he is 
 remembered only as a patriotic singer. In 1810, he pub- 
 lished his first volume of poems, Knospen, which neither 
 attracted, nor deserved to attract, much attention. After his 
 death, however, his father collected his patriotic poetry, under 
 the title Leyer und Schwerdt (1814), and this was received 
 with enthusiasm : to Korner's contemporaries, his songs 
 were triumphant battle-cries; they came from the heart of 
 a soldier and appealed to a people whose hopes were with 
 its soldiers. But looked at from a critical standpoint, the 
 lyrics of Leyer und Schwerdt have few of the qualities of 
 good poetry, and what, at the beginning of the century, was 
 regarded as a faithful expression of national heroism, often 
 seems to the modern reader merely rhetoric and bombast. 
 
 A more influential, and, at the same time, older and riper, 
 poet than the heroic young soldier of Leyer und Schwerdt is 
 Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769- 1 86o). 2 Arndt may be regarded as E. M. 
 the leading singer of the " Befreiungskrieg " ; to him we owe, ^Jjf'gg 
 on the whole, the best patriotic lyrics of the period. The 
 strength of Arndt's poetry lies in the skill with which he 
 conforms to the spirit of the Volkslied and in the earnest 
 spiritual tone which pervades his verse ; his best songs 
 stand in a direct line of descent from the political "Volks- 
 lieder" of the Thirty Years' War. By temperament, Arndt 
 was a sturdy North German ; his Christianity, which reminds 
 us of Luther's, was sincere and manly. His writings, prose 
 as well as verse, reflect the essentially religious character of 
 
 * Werke, edited by A. Stern, 3 vols. (D.N.L., 152, 153 [1890-99]). Cp. 
 W. E. Peschel and E. Wildenow, Theodor Korner, Leipzig, 1898. 
 
 2 Werke, ed. H. Meisner, 6 vols., Berlin, 1892-95 ; a few of his lyrics in 
 M. Mendheim's Lyriker und Epiker der klassischen Periode, 3 (D.N.L., 135, 3 
 [1893]), 33 ff-
 
 440 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 the German revolt against Napoleon. To Arndt, as to his 
 fellow-poets, the war was a holy war : 
 
 " Frischauf, ihr teutschen Schaaren ! 
 Frischauf zum heil'gen Krieg ! 
 Gott wird sich offenbaren 
 Im Tode und im Sieg. 
 Mil Gott, dem Frommen, Starken, 
 Seyd frolilich und geschwind, 
 Kampft fiir des Landes Marken, 
 Fur Altern, Weib und Kind." 
 
 And it was Arndt who wrote the famous lines : 
 
 " Der Gott, der Eisen wachsen liess, 
 Der wollte keine Knechte." 1 
 
 His writings bear constant witness to his familiarity with the 
 Bible ; his language is Biblical ; his God is a Jehovah, a God 
 of battles ; but, like Luther, he sees this Jehovah at the same 
 time through the eyes of an exclusively German temperament. 
 The following verse from Arndt's stirring song on the Leipziger 
 Schlacht (1813) shows how much his patriotism owed to the 
 Old Testament : 
 
 " Wem ward der Sieg in dem harten Streit? 
 Wer griff den Preis mit der Eisenhand? 
 Die Walschen hat Gott wie die Spreu zerstreut, 
 Die Walschen hat Gott verweht wie den Sand ; 
 Viele Tausende decken den griinen Rasen, 
 Die ubrig geblieben, entflohen wie Hasen, 
 Napoleon mit." 2 
 
 Arndt's poems appeared in various collections (Gedichte, 1803 ; 
 Lieder fiir Teutsche, 1813; Bannergesdnge und Wehrlieder, 
 1813) before, in 1818, they were collected in two volumes 
 as Gedichte? 
 
 As a prose writer, Arndt takes an even higher position than 
 
 Geist as a poet. His Geist der Zeit, of which the first volume was 
 
 t j.Bo6-i8 > published in 1806, the fourth and last in 1818, is one of 
 
 the outstanding German books of the beginning of the 
 
 century. This work, with its hatred of Napoleon, its vigorous 
 
 endeavour to awaken the nation's conscience, and, in the 
 
 later volumes, its conviction that Germany would one day 
 
 1 Gedichie, Frankfort, 1818, 2, 64 and 95 (edition of 1860, 212 and 228). 
 
 a Ibid., 2, 218. Cp. edition of 1860, 276. 
 
 * Gedicltte, von E. M. Arndt (Vollstandige Sammlung), Berlin, 1860.
 
 CHAP. II.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 441 
 
 be united, helped to lay the foundations of the new political 
 regime. Besides the Get's f der Z?;V, Arndt wrote a large 
 number of " Flugschriften," which stirred up his countrymen 
 no less effectively than his songs. All his prose and his 
 works include, in addition to those mentioned, many volumes 
 of travel and reminiscence, which read as vividly to-day as 
 when they were written is strong and vigorous, and bears 
 the stamp, rarer in German than in English literature, of the 
 language of the Bible. 
 
 The hope of seeing Germany united under a single ruler, 
 although to some extent associated with the national revolt 
 against Napoleon, received little encouragement as long as 
 the nation had not regained its freedom. In the lyrics of M. von 
 Max von Schenkendorf (1783-1817), one of the poets of the ^01^783. 
 " Befreiungskrieg," however, there are frequent references to 1817. 
 the hoped-for revival of the German medieval empire. 
 Schenkendorf's temperament was less aggressive than that of 
 either Korner or Arndt. He did not live so much in the 
 moment ; he reflected more, and, like the Romanticists, to 
 whom he has many points of resemblance, he was fond of 
 dwelling on the glories of the middle ages. Schenkendorfs 
 Gedichte?- which were collected in 1815, are rarely as stimu- 
 lating and vigorous as Arndt's or Korner's, but they have a 
 higher value as lyric poetry. If Arndt was the greatest force 
 in this era of national revolt, Schenkendorf was its most gifted 
 poet. 
 
 These were the chief singers who were inspired by the 
 War of Liberation ; but almost all the German poets whose 
 youth fell in this age contributed to the lyric of revolt. In 
 1814, Friedrich Riickert (1788-1866), to whom we shall 
 return in a later chapter, wrote his Geharnischte Sonette and F. Ruckert, 
 Kriegerische Spott- und Ehrenlieder, which awakened almost I 788-i866. 
 as warm a response as Arndt's songs ; and in Hoffmann von Hoffmann 
 Fallersleben's (1798-1874) Lieder und Romanzen (1821), there y," 
 is still an echo to be heard of the struggle for freedom. An leben, 
 important sign of the times was that the younger Romanticists i79 8 - l8 74- 
 shared the national enthusiasm : Arnim and Brentano both 
 wrote patriotic songs, while in journals and pamphlets, Gorres, 
 as well as Arnim, fought for German independence. 
 
 1 Ed. A. Hagen, 5th ed., Stuttgart, 1878; also in Reclam's Universal- 
 Bibliothek, 377-379, Leipzig, 1871. Cp. M. Mendheim, I.e., 3, 362 ff.
 
 442 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 As far as actual records are concerned, Napoleon's influence 
 on German literature is thus to be sought in a few volumes of 
 stirring lyrics and a tragedy such as the Hermannsschlacht, 
 results which were hardly proportionate to the importance 
 which the War of Liberation had for the national life. But 
 Germany's debt to Napoleon in Austria, as we shall see in 
 a subsequent chapter, the conditions were, in some respects, 
 otherwise manifested itself indirectly. Napoleon awoke the 
 Romantic writers from their indifference to the questions and 
 interests of their own time ; he brought them into touch with 
 the life around them, gave them a sense of patriotism, which 
 carried the influence of the original Romantic ideas far into 
 the nineteenth century. There had always been a danger lest 
 Romanticism with its high, unworldly dreams should become 
 completely divorced from the national life, and that its fertil- 
 ising stream should lose itself in the sands of Catholicism 
 and medievalism, and this danger was not wholly averted 
 by the Napoleonic invasion; but the best elements in the 
 Romantic movement were won over for the national cause. 
 Until the rise of " Young Germany," Napoleon and the revolt 
 against him were the motive forces in German literature, and 
 they showed themselves not so much in the creation of a new 
 literature, or new forms of literature, as in the deepening and 
 strengthening of Romanticism.
 
 443 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GOETHE'S LATER YEARS. 
 
 GOETHE'S life falls naturally into three main sections : his 
 youth, ending with his arrival in Weimar ; his early manhood 
 and middle age, which extended from 1774 to Schiller's death ; 
 and a third and last division, from 1805 to 1832. This final 
 period of the poet's life, which belongs exclusively to the nine- 
 teenth century, has now to be considered. 1 When Goethe 
 was last discussed in these pages, he had, it will be remem- 
 bered, accomplished the classical stage in his development 
 which began with Iphigenie and Tasso and culminated in 
 the Achilleis and Pandora. In 1808, the First Part of Faust 
 appeared, and Faust established Goethe's reputation in the 
 eyes not only of Germany, but of the world, as the greatest 
 poet of his time and nation. Before the publication of this 
 work, however, a change had come over the social and political 
 condition of Germany ; the nation, suddenly roused from its 
 Romantic dreaming by foreign invasion, was forced to regard 
 itself no longer as a group of principalities basking under 
 an enlightened government and aiming at universal peace 
 and goodwill, but as the enemy of a neighbouring state. 
 Goethe, however, was too much a child of the eighteenth 
 century to sympathise with the new spirit in politics ; as 
 a politician, he remained to the last a citizen of Europe, 
 of the Europe previous to the French Revolution ; and, con- 
 scious of this lack of harmony between his own ideas and 
 those of the new time, he wisely held aloof from political 
 affairs. For Napoleon Goethe always retained a warm ad- Goethe and 
 miration. In 1806, when the French invested Weimar, simply Na P leon - 
 
 1 Cp. O. Harnack, Goethe in der Epoche seiner Vollendung, 1805-32, and ed., 
 Leipzig, 1901.
 
 444 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 because the Duke had remained loyal to the King of Prussia, 
 his comrade in arms, he expressed himself, it is true, with 
 great bitterness : this was the time when, in view of the 
 general insecurity of life and property, he had his marriage 
 with Christiane Vulpius legally solemnised, in order that 
 neither she nor his son should suffer in the event of his 
 death. But the danger passed over, and when, in the next few 
 years, Napoleon swept triumphantly across Europe, the poet 
 was deeply impressed by the " man of destiny." Goethe 
 had complete faith in Napoleon, and although French rule on 
 German soil was distasteful to him, he regarded it as prefer- 
 able to the alternative he feared, a Slavonic invasion from 
 the East; and, in 1808, he stood face to face with Napoleon 
 at Erfurt, when the latter addressed the poet in the oft-quoted 
 words, " Vous etes un homme ! " Even when the first blow 
 fell on Napoleon, before Moscow, and fortune at last deserted 
 him, Goethe had no words of encouragement for the German 
 people. " Schtittelt nur an Euren Ketten ! " he said to Korner 
 and Arndt in April, 1813, "der iVIann ist Euch zu gross, Ihr 
 werdet sie nicht zerbrechen ! " l Not until Napoleon's power 
 was actually broken had Goethe any hope of the success of 
 the German revolt; then he, too, showed that he could re- 
 joice. In his fine " Festspiel," Des Epimenides Erwachen 
 (1814), there are lines of fervid patriotism. 
 
 Of Goethe's life in the years after Schiller's death there is 
 little to say. His first impulse had been to complete his 
 friend's unfinished tragedy Demetrius ; but he soon found that 
 this plan was impracticable without remodelling the whole 
 drama from the beginning. In a magnificent Epilog zu 
 1806. ' Schillers Glocke (1806), however, he paid Schiller perhaps the 
 noblest tribute ever paid by one poet to another : 
 
 Denn er war unser ! Mag das stolze Wort 
 Den lauten Schmerz gewaltig iibertonen ! 
 Er mochte sich bey uns, im sichern Port, 
 Nach vvildem Sturm zum Dauernden gewohnen. 
 Indessen schritt sein Geist gewaltig fort 
 In's Ewige des Wahren, Guten, Schdnen, 
 Und hinter ihm, in wesenlosem Scheine, 
 Lag, was uns alle bandigt, das Gemeine. 2 
 
 1 Erinnerungcn a us dem dusseren Leben von E. M. Arndt, ed. H. Rbsch, 
 Leipzig, 1892, 180. 
 a Werke, 16, 166.
 
 CHAP. III.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 445 
 
 In 1806, Christiane became " Geheimratin von Goethe." In 
 the following year, Brentano's sister, Bettina, visited Weimar, Bettinavon 
 and formed a warm friendship with the poet which was kept Ar g' m ^ 
 up by letter for five years. This is the correspondence which 
 Bettina wove into what might be described as an autobio- 
 graphical novel, and published in 1835 as Briefwechsel 
 Goethes mit einem Kinde. To the same period belongs also 
 Goethe's affectionate interest in Minna Herzlieb, a foster- 
 daughter of K. F. Frommann, a publisher in Jena; and to 
 her he dedicated the majority of his Sonette. In 1807, the 
 death of the Duchess Amalie threw a shadow over the Weimar 
 Court, and, a year later, Goethe lost his mother. 
 
 In October, 1809, Die Wahlverwandtschaften appeared, the Die Wahl- 
 first important work of the last epoch of Goethe's life. Just 
 as in earlier years Werther had been the " Befreiungsthat " 1809. 
 by which the poet had freed himself from his passion for 
 Charlotte Buff, Die Wahlvenvandtschaften was now the poetic 
 expression of his love for and renunciation of Minna Herzlieb. 
 But Die Wahlvenvandtschaften stands on an entirely different 
 basis from that of Werther ; it is not an undisciplined outpour- 
 ing of the poet's personal feelings, but a novel of careful sym- 
 metry, and its moral problems are handled with a classic 
 strength and ruthlessness. Die Wahlvenvandtschaften is a 
 psychological, even a pathological novel, a study of four 
 people in their mutual relations to one another. Eduard 
 and Charlotte have loved each other in youth and been 
 separated by circumstances ; each has married, but, now 
 as widow and widower, they find each other again. Their 
 marriage is not an unhappy one, although based on friend- 
 ship rather than on love. Two new figures are introduced, 
 a Hauptmann or Captain and Ottilie, Charlotte's foster- 
 daughter. Goethe considers these four people as so many 
 chemical elements with inherent, elective affinities ; the Haupt- 
 mann and Charlotte are attracted to each other in spite 
 of themselves, so also are Ottilie and Eduard. Charlotte's 
 lover has the strength to renounce ; Eduard demands a separa- 
 tion from his wife. But in the hopes that her child will 
 bridge the gulf between her husband and herself, Charlotte 
 opposes the separation. Eduard, becoming every day more 
 deeply involved in his passion, goes abroad in order to forget 
 Ottilie ; he distinguishes himself by his bravery in battle, but
 
 446 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 without avail. Charlotte's child is born and bears testimony 
 to the elective affinities of the parents, for it resembles both 
 Ottilie and the Hauptmann. It is subsequently drowned 
 through Ottilie's carelessness, and by this accident the girl's 
 soul is suddenly awakened to moral consciousness. She 
 realises that she can never become Eduard's wife, even should 
 he be free to marry her. Her strength is not able to stand 
 the shock ; she takes ill and dies. And it is not long before 
 the broken-hearted Eduard dies also. 
 
 "Es ist kein Strich in den Wahlverwandtschaften" said 
 Goethe to Eckermann, "den ich nicht selbst erlebt habe ; 
 aber kein Strich so, wie er erlebt worden." 1 And, indeed, 
 judged as an artistic treatment of subjective experiences, this 
 novel might be called Goethe's masterpiece : it has none of 
 the unrefined realism which characterises the "confessions" 
 of the Werther period ; nor, on the other hand, has the 
 subject, like those of Goethe's classical dramas, compelled the 
 poet to appear more objective than he actually was. Irre- 
 spective of its subjectivity, Die Wahlverwandtschaften is one 
 of Goethe's most artistically satisfying works : no book of 
 his has been more deeply influenced by those earnest con- 
 ferences with Schiller on a classic literary art, which occu- 
 pied both poets so exclusively in the later years of their 
 friendship. Strictly speaking, however, this remarkable work 
 is not a " Roman " or novel, but a " Novelle " or short 
 story. Goethe originally intended it to be one of the stories 
 which make up the volume of Wilhelm Meisters Wander- 
 jahre, but it soon grew out of all proportion to the original 
 plan. To a modern reader, the most serious flaws in the 
 Wahlvenvandtschaften are Ottilie's diary, which the poet has 
 filled with his own wisdom, not his heroine's, and the odour of 
 sanctity with which he surrounds her deathbed. But the diary 
 was part of the heritage which the novelists of the eighteenth 
 century left to their successors, and the Roman Catholic tend- 
 ency shows, at least, that Goethe was sufficiently in touch with 
 his younger contemporaries to understand and sympathise 
 with the religious strain in the Romantic movement. Die 
 Wahlvenvandtschaffen is a masterpiece of construction and 
 proportion : although Goethe had reached his sixtieth year, 
 
 1 J. P. Eckermann, Gesprciche mil Goethe (Feb. 17, 1830), 2, 188. Cp. 
 2, 60.
 
 CHAP. III.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 447 
 
 the power of his genius was still unimpaired. And not 
 only the Wahlverwandtschaften, but lively drinking songs like 
 Vanitas ! vanitatum vanitas ! (" Ich hab mein Sach auf 
 merits gestellt "), ballads like Johanna Sebus, Der Todtentanz, 
 Der getreue Eekart, even poems based on old Italian novelle, 
 and full of the sunny, heathen naturalness of Ariosto, all 
 these prove that if the years had brought Goethe to maturity, 
 they had not yet made him old. 
 
 Other more ambitious works were in preparation. To 1810 
 belongs the Farbenlehre, which is practically a continuation of Zur Far- 
 the earlier Beytrdge zur Optik. This attempt of Goethe's to 
 overthrow the authority of Newton is usually looked upon as 
 one of the few controversies in which the poet suffered defeat. 
 To Newton's view of light and colour as wave-phenomena 
 governed by mathematical laws, Goethe, who found one 
 faithful supporter in the philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, 
 opposed a " natural " theory, according to which colours are 
 the result of varying mixtures of light and darkness. But 
 to refute Newton properly, it would have been necessary to 
 meet him on his own ground, and this Goethe was too ill- 
 equipped with mathematical knowledge to attempt. At the 
 same time, Zur Farbenlehre has value, even if only as a 
 negative contribution to science : the treatise is an admir- 
 able example of scientific observation, of clear and careful 
 description, of patient inquiry and experiment, a book that 
 even still has the power to help and stimulate the student of 
 physical science. 
 
 In the following year, 1811, Goethe gave to the public the 
 first volume of his autobiography under the title Aus meinem 
 Leben : Dichtung und Wahrheit ; the second volume was pub- 
 lished in 1812, the third in 1814 ; the fourth, which continues 
 the history of the poet's life as far as his arrival in Weimar, 33 . 
 appeared posthumously in 1833. As fragments of what was 
 to have been a continuation of Dichtung und Wahrheit, Goethe 
 published, in 1816-17, his Italidnische Reise^ ; in 1822, Die 
 Campagnein Frankreich, followed by Die Belagerung von Afaynz 
 in 1829 ; to this year belongs also the Zweyte romische Auf en- 
 thai t, and to 1830, the Tag- und Jahres-Hefte. In Dichtung 
 und Wahrheit, Goethe begins, it has been said, to grow old ; 
 he himself recognised the love of retrospect as a sign of ap- 
 
 1 Edited by C. Schuchardt, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1862.
 
 448 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Goethe's 
 later years. 
 
 Scientific 
 interests. 
 
 preaching age. But the descriptions in Dichtung und Wahrheit 
 of the poet's early life in Frankfort and of the " Sturm und 
 Drang " are so vivid that the reader forgets they were written 
 by a man of sixty. "Es sind lauter Resultate meines Lebens," 
 said Goethe once of this work, " und die erzahlten einzelnen 
 Facta dienen bloss, um eine allgemeine Beobachtung, eine 
 hohere Wahrheit zu bestatigen." 1 Dichtung und Wahrheit is 
 an autobiography composed by an artist and interpreted by a 
 philosopher; the facts of the narrative are the "Wahrheit," 
 the subordination of the facts and events to an artistic plan 
 according to which they are grouped and arranged, and to a 
 philosophy which regards human life and effort with an 
 almost fatalistic calm, as something foreordained that is the 
 " Dichtung." Far removed, as Goethe was, from the scenes 
 which he described, he has not succeeded in conveying the 
 " intensity " of his youth, but his genius gave him the power 
 of suggesting objectively how intense his feelings had been. 
 It only adds to the worth of Dichtung und Wahrheit that it 
 should be tranquilly reflective instead of youthful and turbulent, 
 and the exquisite beauty of the love episodes, especially that of 
 which Friederike Brion is the heroine, is alone sufficient to 
 place Dichtung und Wahrheit at the head of Goethe's achieve- 
 ments in sustained prose. 
 
 Three masterpieces of the poet's last years still remain 
 to be considered, West - ostlicher Divan (1819), Wilhelm 
 Meisters Wanderjahre (1821), and the Second Part of Faust 
 (1833). But these works represent only a part of his 
 many-sided activity at this time ; he also edited a periodical 
 publication, Uber Kunst und Alterthum (1816-32), which 
 with Zur Natunvissenschaft iiberhaupt (1817-24), and Zur 
 Morphologic (1817-24), formed the repository for his most 
 pregnant ideas. Above all, Goethe's interest in natural science 
 seemed to increase as time went on, although it was tempered 
 by a regret that he was unable to keep pace with its rapid 
 advances. 
 
 "Wenn ich das neuste Vorschreiten der Natunvissenschaften 
 betrachte," he wrote in 1826, "so komme ich mir vor wie ein 
 Wandrer, der in der Morgendammerung gegen Osten ging, 
 das heranwachsende Licht mit Freuden anschaute und die 
 
 1 J. P. Eckermann, I.e. (March 30, 1831), 2, 334.
 
 CHAP, ill.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 449 
 
 Erscheinung des grossen Feuerballs mit Sehnsucht erwartete, 
 aher doch bey dem Hervortreten desselben die Augen weg- 
 vvenden musste, welche den gewiinschten gehofften Glanz nicht 
 ertragen konnten." l 
 
 Although, as far as his theory of colour and his " Neptunian " 
 views on the origin of the earth's crust were concerned, he 
 was left behind by the younger geologists, he was able to 
 observe the effects of his theory of metamorphosis and de- 
 velopment on the study of the organic sciences ; and, more 
 than twenty years after Goethe's death, Charles Darwin at 
 last revealed the possibilities that lay hidden in the poet's 
 theories possibilities of which Goethe himself knew nothing. 
 From his sixtieth year onwards, Weimar became a kind of 
 literary Mecca, to which pilgrims from all lands came to 
 pay homage to the greatest European man of letters ; and 
 he corresponded with the representative poets and scientists, 
 not only of his own land but of France, Italy, and England. 
 His Tagebiicher^ his correspondence, such as that with K. Diaries, 
 F. Zelter (6 vols., 1833-34), his conversations, above all, s r n e d ~ ence- 
 those recorded in the Gesprache mit Goethe (1837) by J. P. andcon- 
 Eckermann (1792-1854) and in the Unterhaltungen mit dem vers ations. 
 Kanzler Miiller (1870; 2nd ed., 1898), afford an extra- 
 ordinarily complete picture of Goethe's old age. 2 To the 
 last, he maintained an unflagging interest in all that happened 
 in the world of literature, art, and science ; he had words of 
 kindly encouragement for the younger generation, and bestowed 
 an attention upon leading foreign writers, on Byron, Carlyle, 
 Beranger, Manzoni, which not unreasonably awakened jealousy 
 in Germany. These manifold interests will be found recorded 
 in the pages of Uber Kunst und Alterthum ; and here, too, 
 are those thoughts on a " Weltlitteratur '' which give the key 
 to his magnificent cosmopolitism. The one-sidedness of his 
 views on art as expressed in the Propylaen, is not insisted 
 upon in Uber Kunst und Altert/wm, and he brought a warmer 
 sympathy to bear on the artistic ideals of the Romanticists 
 than it is usual to credit him with the completion of 
 Cologne Cathedral, and the art of Cornelius and Overbeck 
 
 1 Letter to K. G. Carus and E. J. d' Alton (Jan. 23, 1826). Cp. K. G. Carus, 
 Goethe : zu dessen niiherem Verstandniss, Leipzig, 1843, 33 f. 
 
 2 Goethe's Tagebucher form the third division of the Weimar edition, 1887 
 ff. The Gesprache have been collected by W. von Biedermann, 10 vols., 
 Leipzig, 1889-96. 
 
 2 F
 
 450 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 West- 
 Sstlicher 
 Divan, 
 1819. 
 
 Marianne 
 von Wille- 
 mer. 
 
 appealed to him strongly. When he made the oft-quoted 
 remark to Eckermann, "Das Romantische nenne ich das 
 Kranke, das Klassische das Gesunde," 1 he did not mean 
 that he was unable to appreciate what was really vital in 
 the Romantic movement of the new century. 
 
 For the idea of the West-ostliche Divan, Goethe was in- 
 debted to the Viennese orientalist, Joseph von Hammer 
 Purgstall (1774-1856), whose voluminous writings on oriental 
 literature and history opened up a new field to German poetry. 
 In 1813-14, Hammer-Purgstall published a translation of the 
 Divan of the Persian poet Hafiz, which attracted Goethe's 
 attention. Meanwhile, the lyric chords in the poet's nature 
 had been set vibrating by a new passion ; his romantic, or, 
 as it has well been called, " Renaissance " love for Marianne 
 von Willemer, whom he met in the summer of 1814 and again 
 in 1815, demanded lyric expression as fiercely as the passions 
 of his younger days, and he poured the love-songs she inspired 
 into the moulds of the Persian poet. Der West-ostliche Divan 
 is more western than eastern ; it is, as Goethe described it in 
 the sub-title of his MS., a " Versammlung deutscher Gedichte 
 mit stetem Bezug auf den Divan des persischen Sangers Ma- 
 homed Schemfeddin Hafis." The collection is divided into 
 twelve books of unequal length and unequal poetic worth, the 
 best being the " Buch Suleika " and the " Schenkenbuch." 
 An entire book was to have been devoted to Napoleon under 
 the oriental guise of " Timur," but the " Buch des Timur," as 
 it stands, contains only a couple of poems. The Suleika of 
 the Divan is, of course, Marianne von Willemer, who herself 
 contributed one or two beautiful songs notably that begin- 
 ning, " Ach um deine feuchten Schwingen " to the collec- 
 tion. The poet himself is Hatem : ' 
 
 " Nur diess Herz, es ist von Dauer, 
 Schwillt in jugendlichstem Flor ; 
 Unter Schnee und Nebelschauer 
 Ras't ein Xtna dir hervor. 
 
 Du beschamst wie Morgenrothe 
 Jener Gipfel ernste Wand, 
 Und noch einmal filhlet Hatem 
 Friihlingshauch und Sommerbrand." 2 
 
 1 J. P. Eckermann, I.e. (April 2. 1829), 2, 92. 
 * Werke, 6, 168.
 
 CHAP. III.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 451 
 
 The lyrics of the West-ostliche Divan have the convincing 
 sincerity of Goethe's early love-poetry, and are calmer and 
 more reflective than those inspired by Lili or Frau von 
 Stein ; less spontaneous, they are all the richer in penetrat- 
 ing ideas, in phrases which contain the very essence of 
 Goethe's thought two of the books are characteristically 
 entitled " Buch der Spriiche " and " Buch der Betrachtungen." 
 It is to the Zahme Xenien and the Spriiche in Prosa that we 
 must turn, however, to obtain a true idea of the wealth of 
 apothegmatic wisdom which Goethe poured forth in the last 
 fifteen or twenty years of his life. As a creator of " winged 
 words," he is unsurpassed in the literature of the world. 
 
 Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre^ oder die Entsagenden, of Wilhelm 
 which the first part appeared in 1821, the completed work *$%,.. 
 in the "Ausgabe letzter Hand" in 1829, allows of no com- jaAre,i82i 
 parison, as a piece of fiction, with the Lehrjahre : in the 29- 
 Wanderjahre the personal fate of the hero ceases to be inter- 
 esting, and the whole gives the impression of being a collec- 
 tion of brief, irrelevant stories, strung together on a loose 
 thread. Even those characters which are taken over from 
 the Lehrjahre are here only shadows of what they were in 
 the earlier book, mere impersonations of ideas. The pos- 
 sibility of his once writing a sequel to Wilhelm Meisters 
 Lehrjahre was perhaps present to Goethe's mind when he 
 gave the novel its title; in any case, since 1796, when the 
 matter was discussed with Schiller, he had the intention to 
 follow out Meister's history after his apprenticeship to life 
 was accomplished. He wished, in particular, to mark out 
 the province of the individual in his relations to society, to 
 discuss the duties of man as a member of the social organ- 
 ism, above all, to show how far a person must subordinate 
 and efface himself in the interests of the race. Wilhelm 
 Meisters Wanderjahre consequently contains a more complete 
 summary of Goethe's ideas on social ethics than any other of 
 his works. But the comparatively simple problem which the 
 novelist of the eighteenth century had to face, assumed a 
 much more complicated form when approached by a novelist 
 of the nineteenth. With the rise of industrialism and the 
 progress of machinery, social problems forced the philosoph- 
 ical discussion of individual morality into the background ; 
 and Goethe saw that his original plan would not hold all the
 
 452 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 new ideas which crowded upon him ideas which not only 
 tempted discussion in the novel, but could not be denied 
 admittance to it. Thus although the Wanderjahre is full of 
 thoughts which have influenced the whole subsequent de- 
 velopment of ethics, it is the most hopelessly fragmentary of 
 all Goethe's books. Some of the component stories, how- 
 ever, such as Die Flucht nach Agypten, with which the novel 
 opens, and Der Mann von funfzig Jahren, are told freshly 
 and vividly, but almost all of them belong to a much earlier 
 period than does the rest of the book. 
 
 It is not surprising that the last years of the poet who stood 
 at the head of European literature should have been rich in 
 interesting experiences ; so full, indeed, is the record, that 
 there is hardly a week in Goethe's later life which cannot 
 be accounted for. Here, however, we can only concern 
 ourselves with the principal incidents. In 1813, Wieland 
 died; in 1816, Goethe lost his wife; in 1817, he resigned 
 his directorship of the theatre, the duties of which had been 
 growing year by year more irksome to him. In 1822, he 
 was once more at the mercy of an irresistible passion, his last 
 Ulrike von love being Ulrike von Levetzow, a girl of nineteen, whom he 
 met a j Marienbad in the summer of this year. Notwithstand- 
 ing his years, his feelings for Ulrike were deep enough to 
 wring from him the beautiful Marienbader Elegie and the 
 Trilogie der Leiderischaft. Meanwhile, death was rapidly 
 thinning the ranks of his old friends and fellow-workers : in 
 1827, Charlotte von Stein died; in the following year Duke 
 Karl August, and on the 22nd of March, 1832, Goethe 
 himself *vas dead. Not in German-speaking lands alone, 
 but throughout Europe, it was felt that the poet's death 
 marked the close of an era that the grandest intellectual 
 force known in literature for centuries had passed away. 
 
 In the beginning of 1832, Goethe put the finishing touches 
 to Faust, the poem which, more than any other, was the work 
 of his life. The second part of Faust, although poetically 
 complete in itself and more of an artistic whole than the 
 Wanderjakre, is hardly less weighted with a burden of 
 allegory, science, and philosophy; much, as Goethe himself 
 said, was " hineingeheimnisst " into the poem. 1 But at the 
 same time, were it possible to remove all such elements from 
 
 1 Letter to Zelter, July 27, 1829 (Briefwechsel, 5, 77). 
 
 Levetzow. 
 
 Faust, 
 
 Zweyttr 
 
 Theil,
 
 CHAP. HI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 453 
 
 the Second Part of Faust, there would still be left a dramatic 
 poem of imposing beauty. In the First Part, Goethe had led 
 his hero through the little world of personal feelings and aspir- 
 ations ; in the Second, he introduces him to the great macro- 
 cosm of human society, places him face to face with questions 
 of social welfare, of government, finance, and war. Nor is this 
 all : following an incident in the saga which had been utilised 
 by Marlowe, he brings Faust into personal relations with the 
 past, with Greek antiquity. Thus, although in its Second Part 
 Faust is a "world drama "on a gigantic scale, it remains 
 as it was a foregone conclusion that it would a fragment, 
 the fragment of an incommensurable whole. For the theme 
 of Faust, as Goethe conceives it, and as it lies hidden in the 
 old fable, is little less than humanity itself. 
 
 At the beginning of the Second Part, Faust awakens to a 
 new world and a new life. He comes with Mephistopheles to 
 the Court of the Kaiser. Owing to the ruler's indifference 
 towards his duties, the land is on the brink of ruin, but 
 Mephistopheles prevents bankruptcy by the introduction of 
 paper money, and a great " Mummenschanz " takes place at 
 the Court. For the amusement of the Kaiser, Faust under- 
 takes to conjure up Helena and Paris, but before he is able 
 to do this, he is obliged to visit the mysterious "mothers," 
 beings who would seem to personify the creative intelligence 
 to which we owe what Plato called the ideals of things. Re- 
 turning endowed with the power of recalling the shadows of 
 the past, Faust fulfils his promise, only himself to fall in love 
 with Helen of Troy. He attempts to grasp her, but the 
 phantom disappears, and he is thrown stunned to the ground. 
 In the second act, Faust is once more discovered in the 
 familiar study of the First Part, intent on creating in a glass 
 retort a homunculus. With the help of this small being, 
 which represents his will, the factor by which the concep- 
 tions of his imagination are realised, Faust obtains what 
 the " mothers " could only gwe him in shadowy, unsubstantial 
 form, and the homunculus leads him back through the cen- 
 turies to the scene of the " Classische Walpurgisnacht." Al- 
 though one of the most poetically conceived scenes in the 
 entire drama, the poetry of this second Walpurgisnacht is 
 marred by an excess of obscure symbolism : beneath the 
 picturesque beauty of the scenes in the " Pharsalian Fields,"
 
 454 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 on the banks of the Peneios, and the shore of the .'Egean Sea, 
 is concealed a scientific allegory of the origin of the universe. 
 
 Act III., which was published separately, in 1827, as 
 Helena : Klassisch-romantisclie Phantasmagoric, is the oldest 
 and best-sustained part of the Second Faust ; the harmony of 
 the scene is not disturbed to the same extent as in other parts 
 of the poem, by the intrusion of an irrelevant allegory. The 
 subject of Helena is Faust's marriage with Helen of Troy, who 
 has taken refuge with him from the wrath of Menelaus. In 
 bringing Helena from her Grecian home to Faust's medieval 
 " Burg," Goethe has not only placed in striking contrast the 
 two ruling ideas of his time expressed by the catchwords 
 " classic " and " romantic," but has also given picturesque 
 expression to what had been the chief striving of his own 
 intellectual life, the reconciliation of Greek ideals with those 
 of Northern art and poetry. From the union of Faust and 
 Helen springs Euphorion, a being in whom Goethe has 
 symbolised Byron. Higher and higher Euphorion soars 
 until, in an overbold flight, he falls, another Icarus, lifeless 
 at his parents' feet. Helena herself vanishes, leaving only 
 her robe and veil behind her, while Faust, as if awakened 
 from a dream, is led "back by Mephistopheles into practical 
 life. The fourth qct of the Second Part is the weakest of 
 the five : here Goethe obviously intended to dwell on the 
 ideal side of politics, as in the first act he had described 
 its rottenness. Faust aids his Kaiser to vanquish an opponent 
 in battle, and then devotes himself to the development of in- 
 dustry and commerce ; he plans colonies, lays out canals, and 
 even wins from the sea a wide expanse of new land. 
 
 At the opening of the fifth act, Faust's life-work is finished ; 
 from the battlements of his palace he looks down upon the 
 results of his labours. Although he has reached his hundredth 
 year, he is still unsatisfied ; the moment has not arrived to 
 which he can say 
 
 " Verweile doch ! Du bist so schon ! " 
 
 It troubles him, for instance, that all he looks on does not 
 belong to him, and to attain his end, he causes the cottage of 
 two old peasants to be burnt to the ground. But his life lies 
 in the hands of a higher power. Four grey figures, Want, 
 Guilt, Care, Need, approach, but only Care is able to pene-
 
 CHAP, ill.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURV. 455 
 
 trate into Faust's palace, and in the distance appears her 
 stronger brother Death. " Hast du," she asks, " die Sorge nie 
 gekannt?" To which Faust replies in words that express 
 Goethe's own creed : 
 
 " Ich bin nur durch die Welt gerannt ; 
 Ein jed' Geltist ergriff ich bei den Haaren, 
 Was nicht genligte Hess ich fahren, 
 Was mir entwischte liess ich ziehn. 
 Ich habe nur begehrt und nur vollbracht, 
 Und abermals gewiinscht und so mit Macht 
 Mein Leben durchgesturmt ; erst gross und machtig ; 
 Nun aber geht es weise, geht bedachtig. 
 Der Erdenkreis ist mir genug bekannt, 
 Nach drtiben ist die Aussicht uns verrannt ; 
 Tlior ! wer dorthin die Augen blinzelnd richtet, 
 Sich iiber Wolken seines gleichen dichtet ! 
 Er stehe fest und sehe hier sich um ; 
 Dem Tiichtigen ist diese Welt nicht stumm ; 
 Was braucht er in die Ewigkeit zu schweifen ! 
 Was er erkennt lasst sich ergreifen ; 
 Er wandle so den Erdentag entlang ; 
 Wenn Geister spuken geh' er seinen Gang, 
 Im Weiterschreiten find' er Qual und Gliick, 
 Er ! unbefriedigt jeden Augenblick." 1 
 
 Care breathes on Faust's eyes and blinds him. At Mephis- 
 topheles' bidding, lemures dig his grave, and on the brink of 
 this grave Faust grasps at last the great truth, the end of all 
 practical wisdom : 
 
 ' ' Ja ! diesem Sinne bin ich ganz ergeben, 
 Das ist der Weisheit letzter Schluss : 
 Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, 
 Der taglich sie erobern muss. 
 Und so verbringt, umrungen von Gefahr, 
 Hier Kindheit, Mann und Greis sein tiichtig Jalu. 
 Solch ein Gewimmel mocht' ich sehn, 
 Auf freiem Grand mit freiem Volke stehn. 
 Zum Augenblicke diirft' ich sagen : 
 Verweile doch, du bist so schon ! 
 Es kanndie Spur von meinen Erdetagen 
 Nicht in Aonen untergehn. 
 Im Vorgeflihl von solchem hohen Gliick 
 Geniess' ich jetzt den hochsten Augenblick." 2 
 
 Thus Faust sinks into the grave in the " Vorgefiihl " of perfect 
 satisfaction, but Mephistopheles, believing that with Care's aid 
 he has won his wager 3 and that the hour of his triumph has 
 
 i Act 5, 11. 11,433 ff- ( Werke, 15, 309). 2 MM \\, II>573 ff. ( p . 3IS f.) 
 
 8 Cp., however, H. Tiirck, Eine neue Famt-Erkldrung, and ed., Berlin, 
 1901, 55 ff.
 
 456 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART v. 
 
 come, summons his demons to carry Faust off. The angels of 
 the heavenly host descend to do battle for Faust's soul, and 
 Mephistopheles shrinks before the roses that they strew. 
 Higher and higher they rise, bearing the immortal part of 
 Faust, and singing as they go : 
 
 " Gerettet ist das edle Glied 
 Der Geisterwelt vom Bosen : 
 Wer imtner strebend sich bemiihl 
 Den ktinnen wir erlosen." 1 
 
 They ascend through the whole hierarchy of medieval Chris- 
 tianity, to the feet of the Mater Gloriosa herself. Here, " Una 
 poenitentium, sonst Gretchen genannt," intercedes before 
 the Virgin for the "friih Geliebten, nicht mehr Getriibten," 
 and the drama closes with the hymn of the " Chorus 
 mysticus " : 
 
 " Alles Vergangliche 
 
 Ist nur ein Gleichniss ; 
 
 Das Unzulangliche 
 
 Hier wird's Ereigniss ; 
 
 Das Unbeschreibliche 
 
 Hier ist's gethan ; 
 
 Das Ewig-Weibliche 
 
 Zieht uns hinan. " 2 
 
 So culminates Goethe's representative work, a work which, 
 in conception, at least, extends over sixty years of the poet's 
 life. It is difficult to believe that the Goethe who gave 
 the nineteenth century its greatest poem, whose later years 
 belonged to the age of exact science, invention, and indus- 
 trialism, began his intellectual career in the narrow, provincial 
 atmosphere of Gottsched's Leipzig. Never was there a life so 
 rich as his. Not only did he lead German literature through 
 the stormy days of " Sturm und Drang " to the calm age of 
 classical perfection ; not only does he form the end and goal 
 of the movement of eighteenth -century thought, which had 
 begun in England, and become Europeanised in France; but 
 he was able to understand, as no other man of his generation, 
 the new time. He was the spiritual leader of the Romantic 
 movement, and he encouraged all that was modern and healthy 
 in the literatures of Europe, which sprang up under the influ- 
 ence of Romanticism. He looked on life, it is true, with the 
 
 i Act 5, 11. 11,934 ff - (P- 33)- 
 - Ibid., 11. 12,104 ff- (P- 33?)-
 
 CHAP. III.J THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 457 
 
 eyes of eighteenth-century humanitarianism, but, at the same 
 time, he showed an understanding for modern conflicts, for 
 modern ethics, for modern ideals in art and literature, which 
 made him, in the fullest sense, a poet of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. That Goethe was the most universally gifted of men 
 of letters has long been recognised ; but it is sometimes 
 forgotten that he was also the representative poet of two 
 centuries, of two widely different epochs of history.
 
 458 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HEIDELBERG ROMANTICISTS. 
 
 IN following Goethe's life to its close, we have been carried 
 far beyond the point arrived at in the second chapter of the 
 present part. It is now necessary to return once more to the 
 beginning of the century and to trace the development of the 
 movement which was inaugurated by the Romantic School. 
 We have already seen how the ideas scattered abroad by the 
 early Romanticists brought about a change in the aspect of 
 German literature, and how these ideas found support, rather 
 than opposition, in the jubilant individualism of the rising 
 against Napoleon. But between the publication of the 
 Athenaum and the battle of Leipzig, there were many stages of 
 literary evolution, and with the second of these is associated 
 The the so-called Heidelberg School. The chief members of this 
 
 School*** 8 8 rou P were Clemens Maria Brentano (1778-1842), Ludwig 
 Achim von Arnim (1781-1831), and Joseph von G6rres(i776- 
 1848). In the hands of these writers, the vague, poetic 
 idealism of the older school received form and clear outlines : 
 instead of losing itself in purple shadows and yearning for 
 impossible "blue flowers," Romanticism now sought the 
 themes for its poetry in the nation's actual past, and ex- 
 pressed its lyrical ideas in the rhythm of the Volkslied. In 
 other words, in Heidelberg, Romantic individualism became 
 national. 
 
 C. M. Brentano's biography 1 resembles in many respects a Roman- 
 
 ^S3J. tic novel. His father was of Italian birth, but had settled in 
 
 Frankfort, where he married a daughter of Sophie von Laroche. 
 
 1 Gesammelte Schriften, edited by C. Brentano, 9 vols., Stuttgart, 1852-55 ; 
 selections edited by M. Koch in Arnim, Klemens urnt Bettina Brentano 
 (D.N.L., 146, i and 2 [1891]), and by J. Dohmke, Leipzig [1893]. Cp. R. 
 Steig, Achim von Arnim und Clemens Brentano, Stuttgart, 1894.
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 459 
 
 Young Brentano was born at Ehrenbreitstein in 1778. Noth- 
 ing could have been' more distasteful to him than the com- 
 mercial career for which he was intended, and in 1797, after 
 his father's death, he went to study at the University of 
 Jena. Here he stood in personal relations with the mem- 
 bers of the Romantic School, and became intoxicated with 
 their ideas and their poetry. For the next few years he led 
 a wild, unsettled life, wandering like a medieval Spielmann 
 from place to place, with a guitar slung over his back. In 
 1800, he wrote his first book, Gustav Wasa^- a satire in 
 which Tieck's influence predominates on Kotzebue and 
 other fashionable writers of the day. In the following year 
 he published a novel in two volumes, Godwi, oder das Godwi, 
 steinerne Bild der Mutter : ein verwilderter Roman von Maria? l8oi> 
 Although Brentano's brother regarded this romance as too 
 extravagant to include in the Gesammelte Schriften, it forms, 
 nevertheless, an important link between the old Romanticism 
 and the new. Godwi begins as an unmistakable imitation of 
 William Lovell, but in the second volume the author would 
 seem to have taken Lucinde as his model. " Verwildert " 
 Godwi certainly is, in plot as in ideas, but it is the repre- 
 sentative work of Brentano's youth, and contains the germs of 
 all his subsequent work : with all its faults, Godwi is, at least, 
 a better novel than Lucinde, whose freedom and unrestraint 
 had attracted Brentano in Jena. Embedded in Godwi are a 
 few songs which, subsequently, passed over into Des Knaben 
 Wunderhorn ; here, too, is the poem, Die lustigen Musikanten, 
 which, in 1803, was expanded into a "Singspiel." Die Lore 
 Lay, the ballad of the Rhine siren, remodelled by Heine in 
 his familiar Volkslied, is also to be found in Godwi, as well as 
 several verses of the fine Erndtelied, suggested to Brentano by 
 a Latin hymn : 
 
 " Es ist ein Schnitter, der heisst Tod, 
 Er maht das Korn, wenn's Gott gebot 
 Schon wetzt er die Sense, 
 Dass schneidend sie glanze ; 
 Bald wird er dich achneiden, 
 Du musst es nur leiden ; 
 Musst in den Erndtekranz hinein. 
 Hiite dich, schiines Bliimelein ! " 8 
 
 1 Ed. J. Minor, Litteraturdenkmale, 15, Heilbronn, 1883. 
 
 2 Cp. A. Kerr, Godwi, Berlin, 1898. ' Werke, i, 519.
 
 460 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Sophie 
 
 Brentano, 
 
 1770-1806. 
 
 A us der 
 
 Chronika 
 
 eines fah- 
 
 renden 
 
 Schiilers, 
 
 1818. 
 
 L. A. von 
 
 Arnim, 
 
 1781-1831. 
 
 Early 
 novels. 
 
 In 1803, Brentano married Sophie Schubart (1770-1806), 
 who was also engaged in literary work : as the wife of Mereau, 
 a librarian in Jena, she had been one of the contributors 
 to Schiller's Musenalmanache. Her first marriage proved an 
 unhappy one, and, after a few years, was annulled. In 1800, 
 and again in 1802, she published Gedichte^ and these were 
 followed by a novel and several volumes of translations. About 
 the time of his marriage, Brentano wrote the most delicately 
 beautiful of all his prose works, Aus der Chronika eines fah- 
 renden Schiilers (not published until 1818), which, however, 
 remained a fragment. In this faithful imitation of an old 
 chronicle there is a truer medieval spirit than in the novels 
 of either Tieck or Novalis, to whom the middle ages were, 
 after all, only a poetic fairyland. In 1804, the Brentanos 
 settled in Heidelberg, where, during the following year, they 
 were joined by Achim von Arnim. 
 
 Ludwig Achim von Arnim 2 was a calmer, more self-possessed 
 man than his friend ; his temperament was serious and char- 
 acteristically northern, while Brentano had the lightness of the 
 south in his blood. Brentano's favourite form of expression 
 was the lyric, while Arnim, on the other hand, found the epic 
 breadth of prose fiction more congenial to him. Arnim came 
 of a good Brandenburg family, and was born at Berlin, in 1781. 
 He studied in Gottingen and Halle, mainly natural science, 
 and his first publications were on scientific subjects. In 1800, 
 with the aid of Novalis and the physicist Ritter, Arnim came 
 into touch with the group of writers in Jena ; shortly after- 
 wards he made the acquaintance of Brentano and of the 
 latter's Frankfort friends, who would seem definitely to have 
 turned his attention from science to literature. The next few 
 years Arnim spent in travel ; he visited England and Scotland, 
 and, in short stories and sketches, revealed to his countrymen 
 the romantic side of Scottish life and scenery long before 
 the Waverlcy Novels were written. His first ambitious novel, 
 Hollins Liebeleben? in which the influence of Werther^ Lovell, 
 and Godwi may be traced, appeared in 1802, and was sub- 
 sequently incorporated in Grafin Dolores. The fantastic frag- 
 
 1 Cp. M. Mendheim, Lyrik der klassischen Pcriode, a (D. N.L., 135, 2), 
 172 ff. 
 
 * Sdmmtliche Werke, 22 vols., Berlin, 1853-56; selections edited by M. 
 Koch in D.N. L., 146, and by J. Dohmke, Leipzig [1893]. Cp. also R. Steig, I.e. 
 
 * Ed. J. Minor, Freiburg, 1883.
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 461 
 
 ment, Ariels Offenbarung, followed in 1805, in which year 
 Arnim made Heidelberg his home. 
 
 Once before in the history of German literature, it will 
 be remembered, an important movement had originated in 
 Heidelberg; and the young Romanticists who, in 1805 and Heidelberg 
 1806, assembled there recalled with pride 1 that, nearly two ofRo^an- 
 hundred years previously, Martin Opitz had made Heidelberg a titism. 
 centre for the German Renaissance. Throughout the eigh- 
 teenth century, the University of Heidelberg had not taken 
 as large a share in the intellectual life of the nation as that 
 of Leipzig, Konigsberg, Halle, Gottingen, or Jena. Suddenly, 
 however, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a few 
 years before the founding of Berlin University, that of Heidel- 
 berg burst into activity; G. F. Creuzer (1771-1858), a classical 
 scholar, who was in intimate sympathy with Romantic ideas, 
 was invited to occupy a chair in Heidelberg ; he in turn was 
 followed by the jurist A. F. J. Thibaut (1772-1840), and, as 
 representatives of classical philology, by the poet Voss and 
 P. A. Bockh (1785-1867). Efforts were also made to obtain 
 Schelling, Savigny, and Tieck, but without success. Thus, for 
 a few years, from 1805 on, Heidelberg was both in literature 
 and scholarship a centre for the Romantic Movement. The 
 event which gave the school its characteristic stamp was the 
 publication, in the summer of 1805, of the first volume of Des Des 
 Knaben Wunderhorn? to which, in 1808, two other volumes 
 were added. horn, 
 
 The collection of Volkslieder which Arnim and Brentano l8 s-8. 
 edited under this strange title it was the subject of the opening 
 poem is one of the positive achievements of German Roman- 
 ticism. What Herder had effected in the cosmopolitan spirit 
 of his century, the two Heidelberg poets carried out upon a 
 national basis. The difference is significant. The Stimmen 
 der Volker and the Wunderhorn belong to two widely different 
 eras of intellectual development on the one hand, cosmopoli- 
 tan humanism, on the other, Romantic nationalism and indi- 
 vidualism. Although neither Arnim nor Brentano was a lyric 
 genius of the first order, both had Herder's talent for repro- 
 ducing the style of the Volkslied with absolute faithfulness. 
 
 1 See, for instance, Brentano's Lied von eines Stvdenten Ankunft in Heidel- 
 berg vnd stinem Traum aufder Briicke ( Werke, a, 3 ff.) 
 
 a Ed. A. Birlinger and W. Crecelius, a vols., Wiesbaden, 1872-76; also in 
 Reclam's Universal-Bibliothek, 1251-56, Leipzig, 1880.
 
 462 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 The editors of the Wunderhorn were criticised among others, 
 by Voss, who, it will be remembered, did not stand on the 
 best terms with the younger Heidelberg poets for having 
 unduly tampered with the original Volkslieder : what, however, 
 they aimed at producing was not a philological text, but a song- 
 book for the people. And they undoubtedly succeeded. Des 
 Knaben Wunderhorn became an accepted standard for the Ger- 
 man Volkslied, and awakened an interest in the national past 
 more effectually than did A. W. Schlegel's lectures, or the fan- 
 tastic romances in which Schlegel's friends embodied their con- 
 ceptions of the middle ages. In other words, the Wunderhorn 
 is the key to the whole later " Romantik." The popularity 
 of the book was immediate and widespread ; Goethe, to whom 
 the first volume was dedicated, welcomed it in hearty words, 
 while lyric poetry from Eichendorff to Martin Greif, and music 
 from Schubert to the present day, are deep in its debt. 1 
 J. J. von In 1807, induced by the success of the Wunderhorn, Johann 
 
 J ose P n von Gorres 2 collected and edited Die teutschen Volks- 
 biicfier. Although it is usual to associate Gorres more with 
 politics than with literature, his importance as a member of the 
 Heidelberg group cannot be overlooked. Whether in politics, 
 journalism, or literature, what he had to say was always sug- 
 gestive ; he was one of those thinkers to whom an intellectual 
 movement owes its ideas. Gorres began life as a partisan of the 
 French Revolution, but Paris, which he visited in 1799, disap- 
 pointed him bitterly. Between this date and about 1813 lay 
 the most productive years of his life, and from 1806 to 1808 
 he lived in Heidelberg, when his lectures drew large audiences. 
 Besides the Teutschen Volksbitcher^ he edited Lohengrin (1813) 
 and Altdetttsche Volks- und Meisterlieder (\Z\^\ and translated 
 Das Heldenbuch von Iran (1820). In 1813, he threw him- 
 self into the national movement with all the enthusiasm of his 
 fervid temperament, and, as long as he controlled it (1814-16), 
 the Rheinische Merktir was the most influential political journal 
 of its time. Subsequently, his leanings to mysticism and ultra- 
 montanism became more pronounced, and his earlier activity 
 was forgotten. From 1836 on, he lived in Munich, where he 
 died in 1848. 
 
 1 Cp. M. Koch in D.N.L., 146, i, i, Ixix. 
 
 2 Gesammeltc Schriften, ed. M. Gorres, 6 vols., Munich, 1854-60. Cp. J. N. 
 Sepp. Gorres (Geisteshelden, 23), Berlin, 1896, and M. Koch, D.N.L., 146, i, 
 i, iff.
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 463 
 
 Just as the organ of the Romantic School had been the 
 Athenceum, that of the Heidelberg circle was the Zeitung fur Zeitung 
 Einsiedler (1808), a journal inspired by the spirit that is to be ^%^*~ 
 found in the Wunderhorn and Gorres' Volksbiicher. Short-lived 1808. 
 as was the Zeitung fur Einsiedler the title was afterwards 
 changed to Trost Einsamkeit 1 it bore witness to the many 
 friends and widespread sympathy which the movement had 
 won throughout Germany. Among its contributors were Jean 
 Paul on the one hand, and Uhland on the other and here, too, 
 Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the founders of German philology, Jacob 
 published their first articles. 2 Both born in Hanau, Jacob in Gr g mn l' 6 
 1 7&5> Wilhelm in the following year, the Grimms commenced Wilhelm 
 their studies in Marburg under Savigny, who awakened their Gr J I? ir ^ 1 
 interest in the Romantic movement. As far as literature is 
 concerned, their most important works were the Kinder- und 
 Haus-Mdrchen (1812-15), anc ^ tne Deutschen Sagen (1816-18). 
 While these collections by the brothers Grimm are examples 
 of the same understanding for the untutored popular imagina- 
 tion as is to be found in the Wunderhorn, they reflect even 
 more faithfully the nai've heart of the German people. Per- 
 haps for this very reason no Romantic book is, at the present 
 day, more living than Grimms' Fairy Tales ; and not in 
 Germany alone, but to all peoples, these Mcirchen have become 
 the acknowledged type of the fairy-tale of the people, as 
 opposed to the fairy - tale that is written with a conscious 
 object be it didactic or satiric. 
 
 In place of the fantastic and subjective interpretation of the 
 German past, which even the first Romantic School had 
 favoured, the Grimms insisted upon scientific methods of 
 investigation, which, above all things, placed facts before 
 theories. In this way they laid the foundation of the 
 modern study of Germanic antiquity, and through their pupils 
 and fellow - workers prominent among whom was Karl 
 Lachmann (1793-1851) exerted a wide influence upon 
 linguistic and literary research. The brothers Grimm stand 
 at the beginning of a new era of academic scholarship, in 
 which the cold, impersonal ideals of the preceding century 
 gave place to the interpretative criticism of Romanticism : 
 
 1 Edited by F. Pfaff, Freiburg. 1883. 
 
 2 Cp. W. Scherer, Jacob Grimm, and ed., Berlin, 1885, and C. Franke, Die 
 Briider Grimm, Dresden, 1899.
 
 464 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 from their time onwards, philological study was inspired by 
 Romantic ideals. 
 
 Both brothers they were as inseparable in their life as in 
 their work were librarians, first in Kassel, then, from 1829 
 on, in Gottingen. In 1841, they settled in Berlin, where, 
 as members of the Academy of Sciences, they gave lectures 
 at the University. Wilhelm died in 1859, Jacob in 1863. 
 Of Jacob Grimm's works, the three most noteworthy are 
 the Deutsche Grammatik (of which the first volume appeared 
 in 1819, the fourth in 1837), Deutsche Rechtsalterthumer 
 (1828), and Deutsche Mythologie (1835), works which were, 
 and still are, an indispensable basis for the study of German 
 antiquity. Later in life, both brothers made a beginning to 
 the great Deutsche Worterbuch (1852 ff.), which has not yet 
 reached its conclusion. Wilhelm Grimm's independent work 
 is less voluminous than his brother's ; his chief contribution to 
 German scholarship was Die deutsche Heldensage (1829), but 
 he also edited a number of older German texts. 
 
 By 1808, the little Heidelberg circle of poets and scholars 
 who had originated so fruitful a movement had, to a great 
 extent, broken up. A certain tie was, it is true, still afforded 
 by the Heidelberger Jahrbiicher (founded in 1808), but even 
 this did not last long, and Heidelberg soon relapsed into its 
 former unimportance. But in Berlin, where they both settled 
 in 1809, Arnim and Brentano resumed their comradeship, and 
 here they were joined by Eichendorff whose acquaintance 
 they had made in Heidelberg, Fouque, and Chamisso. 
 These writers brought into what might be called the second 
 stage of the younger Romantic movement, a more catholic and 
 productive literary spirit. Before, however, discussing the new 
 members of the group, we must turn to the later writings of 
 Arnim and Brentano, for neither of these poets published his 
 most characteristic work the Wunderhorn excepted while 
 in Heidelberg. 
 
 Arnim's Arnim left a considerable number of dramatic works, but 
 
 later work. ^ e p OSsesse( i even less real dramatic talent than his brother 
 Romanticists ; his plays are lacking in dramatic qualities and 
 not adapted for the stage. He had, however, an inex- 
 haustible wealth of imagination, the true Romantic fantasy; 
 and dramas, such as Halle und Jerusalem (1811) which con- 
 tains a version of Gryphius's Gardenia und Celinde and Die
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 465 
 
 Pdpstin Johanna (1813), are characteristically Romantic in 
 style and spirit. Arnim was only really eminent as a novelist ; 
 and while Brentano was superior to him as lyric poet and 
 dramatist, in prose fiction he carved out for himself a path on 
 which few were, at that time, able to follow him. There is 
 much of indifferent value in the " Novellen " which form the 
 bulk of his Schriften, but, however weak a story may be, Arnim 
 has always the art of picturesque narrative. Armuth, Reich- Grdfin 
 thum, Schuld und Busse der Grdfin Dolores (1809), one of the glares , 
 most interesting of his longer books, is the study of a woman 
 who exerts her powers of coquetry to win herself a husband : 
 she is subsequently faithless to him, then repents and lives 
 happily for many years, until, on the anniversary of her fault, 
 a sudden death overtakes her. The denouement recalls the 
 " Schicksalsdrama," and the story, as a whole, is drawn out 
 to a wearisome length by irrelevant and fantastic episodes. 
 
 Arnim's chief work, and one of the masterpieces of Ger- 
 man Romantic literature, is the historical novel, Die Kronen- Die 
 wdchter. of which two books were published in 1817, under Kr * fn ' 
 
 , -ir.777 T- , iM i , wackier. 
 
 the title, Bertholds erstes und zweites Leben, while a third 1817. 
 book was printed from the MS. after Arnim's death. It is 
 in many respects unfortunate that Die Kronenwdchter should 
 have remained a fragment ; for no historical Romantic novel 
 of its time was conceived and planned on so imposing a 
 scale. As a background, Arnim chose the age of the Re- 
 formation ; Maximilian I., Luther, and Dr Faust are per- 
 sonages of the novel. The " Crown Guardians " is a 
 mysterious society which watches over the Hohenstaufen 
 dynasty, and seeks out and educates descendants of Bar- 
 barossa, in the hope that they may one day revive the 
 glories of the German Empire. One of these descendants, 
 Berthold, is brought up in the little Hohenstaufen town 
 of Waiblingen ; playing as a child in the ruins of Barbar- 
 ossa's castle, a mysterious guide shows him its wonders, 
 and a presentiment of his mission dawns on him. 
 
 " Eine Reihe ritterlicher Steinbilder," he tells the old watchman, 
 Martin, " steht noch fest und wiirdig zwischen ausgebrannten Fen- 
 stern am Hauptgebaude, ich sahe auch das Seitengebaude, ich 
 sahe im Hintergrunde einen seltsamen, dicht vervvachsenen Garten 
 und allerlei kiinstliche Malerei an der Mauer, die ihn umgiebt 
 das ist Barbarossas Palast." " So seltsam rufen sie die Ihren," 
 
 2 G
 
 4 66 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Short 
 stories. 
 
 DieErfin- 
 dung des 
 Raen- 
 kranffs t 
 1852. 
 
 sagte Martin in sich, " so viel Tausende haben als Kinder unter 
 diesen Mauern gespielt, und Keinem fiel dies Gebaude auf, Keiner 
 dachte des Barbarossa." "Es ist mein," rief der Knabe, "ich will 
 es ausbauen und will den Garten reinigen, ich weiss schon, wo die 
 Mutter wohnen soil. Komm mit, Vater, sieh es an ! Du wirst sie 
 alle wieder kennen in den Steinbildern, unsre alten Herzoge und 
 Kaiser, von denen du mir so viel erzahlt hast." 1 
 
 When he grows up, Berthold visits Augsburg and is brought 
 into personal relations with Maximilian's court, of which Arnim 
 gives a picturesque description ; but from here on, the story 
 begins to suffer under the author's love of the fantastic and 
 the supernatural, and loses much of its interest for the modern 
 reader. Arnim had his full share of the characteristic Ro- 
 mantic failings ; he took over from his predecessors much of 
 that vagueness, that lack of bold, clear outline, which, more 
 than anything else, explains why the Romantic literature had 
 so little hold on the popular mind. Of his other stories, the 
 most characteristic are Isabella von Agypten (1812), Der tolle 
 Invalide anf dem Fort Ratonneau (1818), and Fiirst Ganzgott 
 und Stinger Halbgott (published in 1835). In 1811, Arnim 
 married Clemens Brentano's sister, Bettina the Bettina who 
 had sat at Goethe's feet, and who, as will be seen in a sub- 
 sequent chapter, became the most famous woman-writer of 
 her time. But that was not until after her husband's death 
 in 1831. 
 
 Brentano's genius is seen to most advantage in his Miirchen 
 and short stories, in the collection of poems which forms Die 
 Erfindung des Rosenkranzes, and in the Romantic drama, Die 
 Griindung Prags. At the present day, however, he is re- 
 membered chiefly as a story-teller, and none of his works is 
 so popular as the powerful village tragedy, Die Geschichte vom 
 braven Kasperl und dem schonen A finer/ (1817), and the fairy 
 tale, Gockel, Hinkel und Gackeleia (1838). The latter, un- 
 questionably the finest of Brentano's Marchen, is told with 
 a quiet ironic humour, although marred, like most invented, 
 or partly invented, fairy-tales, by over - elaboration. Die 
 Erfindung des Rosenkranzes and Die Griindung Prags, each 
 of which occupies an entire volume in Brentano's collected 
 writings, testify to the extraordinary mastery he possessed 
 over the technicalities of verse and rhyme. Die Erfindung 
 des Rosenkranzes (begun in 1803, published in 1852), based 
 
 1 M. Koch's edition (D.N.L., 146, i, 2), 28.
 
 CHAP. IV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 467 
 
 on religious legends, amongst others that of Tannhauser, is 
 an allegory, in which the poet has introduced episodes from 
 his own life and the lives of his friends : it is full of fine 
 poetry and delicate " Stimmungsbilder," but its symbolism, 
 and the monotony that is unavoidable in a long poem of this 
 nature, have stood in the way of its success. Die Griin- Die 
 dung Prags (1815), on the other hand, is the most striking 
 example of those half-epic, half-lyric dramas which had been 1815 
 introduced into German literature by Tieck. Brentano's play 
 is based on a popular saga which Grillparzer, a generation later, 
 made the subject of one of his noblest tragedies. Libussa, 
 daughter of Duke Krokus, is, after her father's death, ap- 
 pointed regent of Bohemia ; she chooses as her husband, 
 Primislaus, a peasant, whom her messenger, according to an 
 essential element in the saga, finds behind his plough, and 
 with him she founds the " Golden City " of Prague. A com- 
 parison with Grillparzer is, of course, out of the question ; 
 for, although Brentano could occasionally write dramatic verse, 
 he had as little of the true dramatic faculty as either Arnim 
 or Tieck. But in the handling of the verse there is a firm- 
 ness which makes even Tieck's poetry seem a trivial playing 
 with strange metres, and there is also a restraint in the 
 treatment of the theme which is uncommon in Romantic 
 literature. Die Griindung Prags met with comparatively little 
 favour in its day, and is now seldom read, but it is, none the 
 less, one of the most imposing creations of the Heidelberg 
 School. 
 
 Brentano's subsequent life was unsettled. In 1816, he fell 
 passionately in love with Luise Hensel (I798-I876), 1 herself 
 a religious poetess of unusual gifts, and this love-affair was 
 followed by a strange devotion to the visionary nun, Anna 
 Katharina Emmerich, whose revelations he recorded (Das 
 bittere Leiden unsers Herrn Jesu Chris ti, 1833). Brentano 
 felt himself more and more attracted by the Catholic Church, 
 in which he had been born and educated, and the older he 
 grew, the larger was the share which religion and meditation 
 had in his life and work. He died at Aschaffenburg in 1842. 
 
 1 L. Hensel's Lieder, 7th ed., Paderborn, 1892. Cp. F. Binder, L. Hensel, 
 ein Lebensbild, Freiburg, 1885.
 
 468 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ROMANTICISM IN BERLIN. THE PHILOSOPHIC MOVEMENT. 
 
 Roman- THE part which the city of Berlin played in the history of 
 Berlin '" Romanticism was a remarkable one. In this, the last strong- 
 hold of Rationalism, was founded the first Romantic School, 
 and with the lectures, Uber schone Litteratur und Kunst, 
 which A. W. Schlegel delivered in the winter of 1801-2, the 
 movement inaugurated by the school may be said to have 
 taken root. But the city of Voltaire and Frederick the Great, 
 of Ramler and Nicolai, changed slowly, and, even at the 
 present day, in spite of the cosmopolitan character due to its 
 increased political responsibilities, Berlin is still pre-eminently 
 the city of Rationalism. The forces at work in the capital 
 were thus diametrically opposed to Romanticism, and yet, 
 throughout the whole history of the movement, Berlin would 
 seem to have had a fascination for the younger writers like 
 that of the candle for the moth. Not only the Schlegels 
 and Novalis of the older generation Tieck was, of course, 
 a native of Berlin but also one after another of the South. 
 German Romanticists, who have just been discussed, found 
 their way to the Prussian capital. The secret of this irre- 
 sistible attraction is that, at that time, Berlin possessed, in a 
 higher degree than any other German town, an intellectual 
 society and a concentrated literary life. Tieck's ambitions, 
 it will be remembered, had been kindled by his admission 
 to the circle at the head of which stood the composer and 
 litterateur J. F. Reichardt (1752-1814); and to this circle 
 which was the first to look upon the new movement with 
 favour also belonged K. F. Zelter (1758-1832), Goethe's in- 
 timate friend. The most important centres of Romanticism 
 in Berlin were, however, the brilliant Jewish salons presided
 
 CHAP. V.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 469 
 
 over by women of genius, such as Henrietta Herz (1764- 
 1847) an d Rahel Levin (I77I-I833), 1 who subsequently 
 married K. A. Varnhagen von Ense (1785-1858). It was 
 Henriette Herz who brought Schleiermacher and Friedrich 
 Schlegel together, and in her house the latter made the 
 acquaintance of Dorothea Veit, who afterwards became his 
 wife. These salons, which found a common bond in their 
 unequivocal worship of Goethe, were the focuses of North 
 German literature at the beginning of the century. 
 
 In 1809, as we have seen, both Arnim and Brentano ex- 
 changed Heidelberg for Berlin. As popular writers, both 
 were surpassed in the eyes of their contemporaries by another 
 member of their group, Friedrich de la Motte Fouque, a F. de la 
 protegt vi A. W. Schlegel. 2 Born in Brandenburg, in 1777, ^"^ 
 of a military family, Fouque" began to write in 1801, and 1777-1843. 
 from this date onwards published his romances in rapid suc- 
 cession. Chivalry, on the one hand, and the Scandinavian 
 sagas on the other, were the two poles round which his work 
 turned ; in other words, his novels are the direct successors 
 of the " Ritterromane " which were so widely read at the close 
 of the "Sturm und Drang." Of his romances of chivalry, 
 the best is Der Zauberring (1813), which contained enough DerZ.au- 
 of the spirit of Fouque's own time to appeal to the younger ******* 
 generation, then fighting for freedom from the Napoleonic 
 yoke. The theme of Die Fahrten Thiodolfs des Islanders 
 (1815) is taken from northern mythology, and a northern 
 saga is also the basis of the romance of Sintram und seine 
 Gefdhrten (1814). The most pleasing and unaffected of all 
 Fouque's works, and the only one that is still popular, is 
 Undine (1811), the story of a water -sprite without a soul. Undine, 
 Undine can, however, obtain a soul by marriage with a l8ll< 
 mortal, and a knight, Huldebrand von Ringstetten, loves 
 her and marries her. Her uncle, Kuhleborn, is determined 
 to lure her back to her native element, and, with his aid, 
 a certain Berthalda estranges Huldebrand's love from his 
 unearthly wife. Undine returns to her kinsfolk, but, on the 
 day that Huldebrand marries Berthalda, she returns and 
 kills him with a kiss. Although Fouque's style is not free 
 
 1 Cp. O. Berdrow, Rahel Varnhagen, Berlin, 1900. Her husband's Aus- 
 gewdhlte Schriften are collected in 13 vols., Leipzig, 1871-76. 
 
 3 Ausgeivahlte Wtrke, 12 vols., Halle, 1841 ; a selection, edited by M. 
 Koch, in D.N.L., 146, 2, i [1893].
 
 470 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 from mannerisms, he is able to endow miraculous occurrences 
 with a peculiar naive charm, which at once wins the reader's 
 sympathy. Unfortunately, however, in almost all his work 
 there is an excess of the supernatural, to which he turns for 
 a solution of every psychological difficulty: his ability to make 
 character the source of motive and action was hardly superior 
 to that of his predecessors in the "Sturm und Drang." Be- 
 sides novels, Fouque also left a number of stirring songs and 
 a few dramas on Scandinavian themes, similar to those for 
 which Oehlenschlager, the leading Danish Romanticist, had 
 also tried to gain a hearing in Germany. The most interest- 
 ing of these dramas, if only as a forerunner of plays on the 
 same subject by Hebbel and Wagner, is the " Heldenspiel " 
 of Sigurd der Schlangentodter (1808). From 1820 onwards 
 he died in 1843 Fouque's writings deteriorate rapidly: 
 great as his reputation had once been, he outlived it by more 
 than twenty years. 
 
 The most gifted lyric genius among the Berlin Roman- 
 Adelbert ticists was a young French nobleman, Louis Charles Adelaide 
 y? n . de Chamisso, who was born in Champagne in 1781, and 
 1781-1838! is known to German literature as Adelbert von Chamisso. 1 
 When the poet was a boy of eight, his family had to flee 
 from the terrors of the Revolution : they settled in Berlin, 
 where Chamisso became one of the queen's pages, and was 
 educated for the Prussian military service. For a time he 
 hesitated between French and German as a medium of ex- 
 pression, but an introduction to Varnhagen von Ense and his 
 friends turned the balance in favour of German. Chamisso's 
 first poems appeared in the Musenalmanach (1804-6) the 
 so-called " Griine Almanach " z which was edited by him- 
 self and Varnhagen von Ense, and played a part in the 
 movement similar to that of the Zeitung fur Einsiedler in 
 Heidelberg. 
 
 Although Chamisso had thus written poetry as early as 
 1804, he did not turn seriously to literature until more 
 than twenty years later. In the interval, he served in the 
 field, went to France in hope of a professorship, spent 
 several months with Madame de Stael at Coppet on Lake 
 
 1 Editions of Chamisso's works by M. Koch, 4 vols., Stuttgart, 1883, and 
 O. F. Walzel (D.N.L., 148 [1892]). 
 
 a The Mu sen almanack fur das Jahr 1806 is edited by L. Geiger in the 
 Berliner Neudrucke, a, i (1889).
 
 CHAP. V.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 471 
 
 Geneva, and, between 1815 and 1817, made a voyage round 
 the world. On his return, he obtained an appointment as 
 keeper of the Royal Botanical Collections in Berlin, and 
 here he remained until his death in 1838. The first col- 
 lected edition of his Gedichte did not appear until 1831 
 that is to say, long after Romanticism had passed its zenith. 
 But there are no signs of decay in Chamisso's lyrics ; Chamisso's 
 indeed, the Romantic lyric, as a whole, was immune against ty rics - 
 degeneration. Nor does anything in his poetry betray the 
 French aristocrat; on the contrary, he possessed in a re- 
 markable degree the characteristic " deutsche Gemiit " ; he 
 delighted in simple joys and sorrows, and described them 
 with a warmth and sentimentality that was wholly German. 
 His songs of this class, such as the cycles of Frauen- 
 Liebe und Lebcn (1830) and Lebens - Lieder und Bilder 
 (1831), have, in spite of occasional prosaic and unmusical 
 verses, become almost Volkslieder. In his narrative poems 
 and ballads, such as Die Lowenbraut (1827), Die Gift- Ballads. 
 mischerin (1828), Das Kruzifix (1830), and Mateo Falcone^ 
 der Corse (1830), he strikes a more original note, inclining 
 to the bizarre and blood-curdling subjects favoured by the 
 earlier Romanticists. Finest of all is Salas y Gomez (1829), 
 a reminiscence of his voyage round the world : 
 
 " Salas y Gomez raget aus den Fluthen 
 
 Des stillen Meers, ein Felsen kahl und bloss, 
 Verbrannt von scheitelrechter Sonne Gluthen, 
 Ein SteingestelP ohn' alles Gras und Moos, 
 Das sich das Volk der Vogel auserkohr, 
 Zur Ruhstatt im bewegten Meereschooss." 1 
 
 But even when the themes of his ballads are sensational, 
 Chamisso can ill conceal his gentle, sentimental nature ; the 
 strong dramatic tones of Schiller, or even Uhland, were 
 denied to him. As a purely lyric poet, he is most of an in- 
 novator in the translations of Beranger, which he and his 
 friend, F. von Gaudy, made in 1838: these, as well as his 
 own imitations of Beranger's political lyric, justify us in men- 
 tioning him with Uhland as a forerunner of the political poets 
 of 1830 and 1848. As a prose-writer, Chamisso is the author 
 of one of the most popular tales of the nineteenth century, 
 Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte (1814). The naive 1814. 
 
 i O. F. Walzel's edition, 386.
 
 4/2 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 credulity and simplicity which characterised Chamisso's poetry 
 made him an admirable story-teller, especially when, as in 
 this story of a man who sells his shadow to the devil, the 
 incredible has, by means of minute, realistic touches, to be 
 made credible. Peter Schlemihl receives an inexhaustible 
 purse in exchange for his shadow, but the want of the latter 
 brings him into so many difficulties that he soon rues his 
 bargain. The old grey gentleman from whom he obtained 
 the purse appears again, and offers to restore his shadow to 
 him in exchange for his soul. Schlemihl, however, will have 
 nothing more to do with him, throws away the purse, and, 
 with a pair of seven-league boots, wanders through the world. 
 In this way he finds again the peace of mind he had lost. 
 J. von Born in Upper Silesia in 1788, Joseph Freiherr von 
 
 dorff 5 " 88 Eichendorff 1 had become acquainted with Arnim and his 
 1857.' ' friends when a student in Heidelberg; he had contributed 
 to the Wunderhorn and assisted Gorres with his Volksbucher. 
 The stimulus Eichendorff received in Heidelberg bore rich 
 fruit in the two years (i 808-10) which he spent under his 
 father's roof. During this period the greater part of his novel, 
 Ahnung und Gegenwart, was written, as well as many of his 
 finest lyrics : among the latter, the Zeitlieder bear witness to 
 the dejection that lay upon Germany during the Napoleonic 
 invasion. In 1810, Eichendorff joined the Austrian service, 
 but in 1813, was back again in the north, fighting in the ranks 
 of Liitzow's chasseurs. It was 1816 before he was able to 
 settle down to a quiet life. Entering the government service 
 in Breslau, he rose rapidly, the stages in his advance being 
 marked by Danzig, Konigsberg, and Berlin. He retired from 
 the public service in 1844, and died in 1857. 
 
 In Eichendorff 's early songs and in the love-poetry (Friihling 
 und Liebe), inspired by Luise von Larisch, whom he met in 
 1810, and married five years later, he is unquestionably the 
 Lyrics. greatest lyric poet of the Romantic Movement. The poetic 
 genius which his Gedichte (collected 1837) reveal has not 
 many sides, but, within its limits, it is perfect : in the history 
 of the German lyric, indeed, with the exception of Goethe and 
 Walther von der Vogelweide, there is not another singer who 
 
 1 Sdmmtliche foetiiche Werke, 4 vpls., 3rded., Leipzig, 1883; a selection, 
 edited by R. Dietze, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1891. Cp. M. Koch. Fouqut und 
 Eichendorff (D.N.L., 146, 2, a [1893]).
 
 CHAP. V.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 473 
 
 has brought the national lyric feeling to more exquisite expres- 
 sion than Eichendorff. He is essentially a poet of nature ; 
 the beauty of spring and sunshine, of hill and dale and sky 
 was always present to him ; the magic voices of the forest, 
 which had sung round his cradle, accompanied him all through 
 his life. His ideal, like that of all the German singers, from 
 the Spielleute of the middle ages downwards, is a free " Wan- 
 derleben," and Wanderlieder occupy the place of honour in 
 his collected poems. 
 
 " Wem Gott will rechte Gunst erweisen, 
 Den schickt er in die \veite Welt, 
 Dem will er seine Wunder weisen 
 In Berg und Wald und Strom und Feld. 
 
 Die Tragen, die zu Hause liegen, 
 Erquicket nicht das Morgenroth, 
 Sie wissen nur vom Kinderwiegen, 
 Von Sorgen, Last und Noth um Brot. " 1 
 
 Love of home and love of nature these are the two poles 
 of Eichendorff's genius, the passions with which his lyric 
 poetry is inspired, and nowhere are they more beautifully 
 expressed than in Abschied, a poem which originally, however, 
 bore the title Im Walde der Heimath : 
 
 " O Thaler weit, o Hohen, 
 O schoner, griiner Wald, 
 Du meiner Lust und Wehen 
 Andiicht'ger Aufenthalt ! 
 Da draussen, stets betrogen, 
 Saus't die geschaft'ge Welt, 
 Schlag' noch einmal die Bogen 
 Um mich, du grimes Zelt ! 
 
 Wenn es beginnt zu tagen, 
 Die Erde dampft und blinkt, 
 Die Vogel lustig schlagen 
 Dass dir dein Herz erklingt : 
 Da mag vergehn, verwehen 
 Das triibe Erdenleid, 
 Da sollst du auferstehen 
 In junger Herrlichkeit 1 " a 
 
 As a love-poet, Eichendorff is not to be compared with 
 Goethe ; neither does he possess Goethe's wealth of ideas and 
 reflection ; his lyrics are further removed from the simplicity 
 
 1 From Aus dent Leben ein.es Taugenichls (M. Koch's edition. 2, 64). 
 " Gedichte, ed. M. Koch, 2, 224 f.
 
 474 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Eichen- 
 writings 
 
 Ahnung 
 
 Ausdem 
 
 nickts, 
 
 of the Volkslied than either Chamisso's or Wilhelm Mailer's, 
 and his range is more limited than Heine's. On the other 
 hand, his exquisite spirituality and his power of attuning 
 human emotions to nature's most varied moods, give him a 
 unique place among German singers. 
 
 Eichendorff left a varied legacy behind him ; besides lyrics 
 and novels, he wrote dramas Der letzte Held von Marienburg 
 (1830), Ezelin von Romano (1828) which have little or no 
 dramatic quality, several narrative poems, such as Robert und 
 Guiscard (1855) and Lucius (1857), and, in the last years 
 of his life, he was much engaged in criticism and literary 
 history. As a critic, he is always picturesque and suggestive, 
 but in a book like Uber die ethische und religiose Bedeutung 
 der neuen romantischen Poesie in Deutschland(\'a f i\ he stands 
 at too great a distance from his own youth to understand the 
 movement in which he grew up. 
 
 Ahnung und Gegenwart, Eichendorff's first novel, which 
 was finished in l8ll > although not published until 1815, 
 is one of those books which exemplify the ambitions rather 
 than the achievements of the Romantic Movement. Like 
 Franz Sternbald, it is a novel that describes many wanderings ; 
 " Stimmungsbilder " pass before the reader in variegated, un- 
 ending succession, all dominated by a deep unhappy love, 
 which is at last consumed in its own flames ; but there is as 
 little clearness or homogeneity in the plot as in a novel of 
 Jean Paul's, an author by whom Eichendorff would seem to 
 have been influenced, although his chief model was natur- 
 ally Wilhelm Meister. Like so many of the Romantic poets, 
 Eichendorff had abundance of ideas wherewith to fill his vessel, 
 but he had not learned the art of making the vessel itself; 
 and his other long novel, Dichter und ihre Gesellen, published 
 in 1834, is even more loosely constructed. As a prose-writer, 
 however, he is the author of one masterpiece, Aus dem Leben 
 eines Taugenichts (1826). This wonderful story the pearl 
 of Romantic fiction cannot better be described than as a 
 crystallisation in prose of his own Wanderlieder. The story 
 itself is trivial, but, in this age, the strength of the novel did 
 not, as we have seen so often, lie in its plot. A young 
 musician sets out on his wanderings with his fiddle on his 
 back, becomes gardener at a castle, falls in love with what he 
 believes to be a countess, is carried off to Italy by some
 
 CHAP. V.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 475 
 
 artists, who give themselves out as highwaymen. But never, 
 perhaps, did a writer make so much out of so little. Eichen- 
 dorff poured into this book his poetic aspiration, his dreamy 
 delight in nature, and his yearning for Italy, that goal of all 
 Romantic souls. While spacious, unfinished novels like Hein- 
 rich von Ofterdingen and Die Kronenwdchter give some idea 
 of what the Romantic writers aimed at, it is to a gem like 
 Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts that we turn to see what 
 they actually achieved. Eichendorffs other novels, such as 
 Das Marmorbild, written in 1817, but first published in the 
 same volume as the Taugenichts in 1826, and Das Schloss 
 Diirande (1837), a tragic story with the French Revolution 
 as background, although more pleasing than his long novels, 
 cannot compare with the Taugenichts. When Eichendorff 
 died in 1857, he was literally, as Heine described him, "der 
 letzte Ritter der Romantik " ; but he had outlived the move- 
 ment, and his own most vital work was done before he had 
 passed middle life. 
 
 The least fruitful side of Romanticism was its practical 
 politics. To Friedrich Schlegel, for instance, the whole 
 system of modern government seemed out of joint, and he 
 would have liked to see Germany converted into a medieval 
 state. The new political spirit is clearly exemplified in 
 the work of Friedrich von Gentz (1764-1832) and Adam F. von 
 Miiller (1779-1829). The former of these began as an en- G g ntz ' 8 
 thusiastic upholder of English principles, his first work (1793) 
 being a translation of Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in 
 France, and in the period of Germany's humiliation, Gentz's 
 hatred of Napoleon found hardly less eloquent expression 
 than the patriotism of Fichte or Arndt. In 1802, Gentz 
 entered the service of Austria, and his liberalism gradually dis- 
 appeared ; he became an apologist for and champion of Prince 
 Metter'nich, whose rlgime was, after all, only a logical con- 
 sequence of the Romantic ideas as applied to politics. The 
 typical example of a Romantic politician, however, was Adam A. Muller, 
 Miiller. A mystic and reactionary thinker, Muller recoiled I 779-i 82 9- 
 from the Prussian methods of government, and, like his friend 
 Gentz, ultimately found in Austria the sympathy he could 
 not obtain at home. He stood in a nearer relation than Gentz 
 to the literary circles of the time, and besides assisting Kleist 
 to edit his journal, Phobus (1808), he delivered lectures Uber
 
 476 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 F. K. von 
 
 Savigny, 
 1779-1861. 
 
 The philo- 
 sophic 
 movement. 
 
 G. W. F. 
 
 Hegel, 
 1770-1831. 
 
 die deutsche Wissenschaft und Litteratur (1806) from a strictly 
 Romantic standpoint. 
 
 Although in its practical politics the Romantic spirit thus 
 failed to advance the movement of the new century, it pro- 
 duced in Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1779-1861) the most 
 eminent German jurist. This writer's conception of the nature 
 of laws sprang from the supposition that human society is an 
 organic growth, a theory which, it will be remembered, was 
 one of Herder's legacies to the nineteenth century. Savigny 
 established the principle that a system of laws could not be 
 imposed upon a people from without, but must be evolved 
 from the customs and usages handed down by tradition. This 
 was the kernel of his work. In 1810, he was invited to be 
 Professor of Roman Law in the new University of Berlin, 
 and in 1815, appeared the first volume of his Geschichte des 
 Romischen Rechts im Mittelalter (6 vols., 1815-31). To the 
 invigorating influence of Romanticism we owe, too, the epoch- 
 making Romische Geschichte (1811-32) of Barthold Georg 
 Niebuhr (1776-1831) and the Geschichte der Hohenstaufen und 
 ihrer Zeit (1823-25) of F. L. G. von Raumer (1781-1873). 
 
 The three great philosophers at the beginning of the cen- 
 tury, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, were each, at one period or 
 another of their careers, intimately associated with the literary 
 movement. Fichte, from whom, as we have seen, the school 
 drew its practical ethics, was essentially a pioneer, while Schel- 
 ling was the philosopher of the Romantic idea, the thinker, 
 whose philosophy harmonised most perfectly with that of the 
 poets and critics. Finally, Hegel, whose thought did not 
 attain its full force until the Romantic Movement was on 
 the wane, was the philosopher of Romantic decay. G. W. F. 
 Hegel, 1 born in Stuttgart in 1770, was eight years younger 
 than Fichte, and five years older than Schelling. He, too, 
 graduated from the fountain-head of Romantic philosophy, 
 Jena, where he taught from 1801 to 1806. In 1807, his 
 first notable work was published, Die Phdnomenologie des 
 Geistes, in which his soaring idealism stood out in sharp 
 contrast to the philosophy of Schelling. His work on Logik 
 appeared between 1812 and 1 8 1 6, the Philosophic des Rechts^ 
 
 1 Werke, 18 vols., 1834-45 ; vol. 19 (Leipzig, 1887) contains his letters. Cp. 
 R. Haym, Hegel und seine Zeit, Berlin, 1857, and K. Fischer, Hegel* Leben, 
 Werke und Lekre. Heidelberg, 1900-01.
 
 CHAP. V.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 477 
 
 in 1820. In 1816, he received a call to the University of 
 Heidelberg, in 1818, to Berlin, where he died in 1831. 
 
 To no other thinker did the nineteenth century owe so 
 many new thoughts as to Hegel ; no philosopher left his 
 mark upon his age, or rather upon the age that succeeded 
 him for Hegelianism first became a dominant power after 
 the Revolution of 1830 more indelibly than he. For the 
 greater part of the nineteenth century, indeed, his system was 
 regarded as the ne plus ultra of metaphysical thinking, a 
 triumphant conclusion to the idealistic philosophy inaugurated 
 by Kant. In his method and in his application of the idea of 
 historical evolution, Hegel set out from a Romantic basis ; 
 Romantic, too, was his extraordinarily subtle idealism before 
 which the boundaries even of mind and matter disappeared. 
 But, in place of Schelling's " nature," Hegel set " spirit," 
 and the individual, so important a factor in all purely 
 Romantic speculation, was made subordinate to a collec- 
 tive and historical conception of race. In theory, Hegel's 
 philosophy was magnificent ; where, for instance, it laid 
 down a basis for the philosophy of history, its influence was 
 enormous and immediate ; by one flash of his genius, Hegel 
 called a new science into existence. But in politics, in 
 practical ethics, it stood behind Fichte's glowing individualism; 
 in religious inspiration behind Schleiermacher's spirituality ; to 
 art and poetry it brought none of that health and vigour which 
 the nature-philosophy of Schelling was able to communicate, 
 and consequently, as far as literature was concerned, the era 
 of Hegelian ascendancy was a barren one. 
 
 Hegel's successor in the intellectual evolution of the cen- Arthur 
 tury was Schopenhauer ; under the aegis of Schopenhauer's ^ C y pen " 
 philosophy, as we shall see in a later chapter, began the 1788-1860. 
 philosophic and literary revolt against Hegelianism. But 
 just as Hegel's influence first became a power in the age after 
 he was dead, so Schopenhauer was an old man before he was 
 accepted as a philosopher at all. Arthur Schopenhauer, 1 
 whose mother, Johanna Schopenhauer (1766-1838), belonged 
 to the literary society of Weimar at the beginning of the 
 century, was born in Danzig in 1788, and died in Frankfort, 
 
 1 Sdmmtliche \Verke, ed. E. Grisebach, 6 vols., also Nachlass, 4 vols. ^ Brief e, 
 2 vols. (all in Reclam's Universalbibliothek), Leipzig, 1891-95. Cp. E. Grise- 
 bach, A. Schopenhauer, Geschichte seines Lebens, Berlin, 1897, and J. Volkelt, 
 A. Schopenhauer, Stuttgart, 1900.
 
 478 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 which was his home for more than half his life, in 1860. 
 His chief work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, appeared 
 as early as 1819, but he had to wait nearly forty years before 
 his philosophy received the recognition it deserved ; indeed, 
 general attention was not drawn to Schopenhauer, until, in 
 1851, he published a collection of essays under the title 
 Parerga und Paralipomena. 
 
 Schopenhauer was what no German thinker had been 
 before him, a master' of style ; he is one of the most eminent 
 prose writers of the first half of the century. In the cast 
 of his mind, he showed many points of similarity with Novalis 
 and Friedrich Schlegel, and his philosophy, too, was an un- 
 mistakable product of the " Romantik " ; compared with 
 Hegelianism, Schopenhauer's doctrines were virtually a return 
 to the ideas from which the Romantic School set out. The 
 fundamental principle of his philosophy is that the visible 
 world is only " Vorstellung," a figment of the brain, and the 
 only entity, the real world, is the will, that is to say, the active 
 principle which manifests itself in the universe and reaches its 
 highest development in man. But the will is incited to 
 action by a sense of deficiency, in other words, by suffering ; 
 and existence resolves itself into a perpetual struggle against 
 pain. Even if we attain the objects we strive after, the 
 consequence is a feeling of satiety, of ennui, which is as 
 undesirable as the suffering that prompted our actions. Thus 
 the only complete solution to the problem of life is the 
 abandonment of the " will to live " ; the alternative before us 
 is suffering or non-existence. 
 
 "Aber Das," so Schopenhauer closes his Welt als Wille und 
 Vorstellung, "was sich gegen dieses Zerfliessen in's Nichts straubt, 
 unsere Natur, 1st ja eben nur der Wille zum Leben, der wir 
 selbst sind, wie er unsere Welt ist. . . . Wenden wir aber den 
 Blick von unserer eigenen Diirftigkeit und Befangenheit auf die- 
 jenigen, welche die Welt iiberwanden, in denen der Wille, zur 
 vollen Selbsterkenntniss gelangt, sich in Allem wiederfand und 
 dann sich selbst frei verneinte, und welche dann nur noch seine 
 letzte Spur, mit dem Leibe, den sie belebt, verschwinden zu sehen 
 abwarten ; so zeigt sich .uns, statt des rastlosen Dranges und 
 Treibens, statt des steten Uberganges von Wunsch zu Furcht und 
 von Freude zu Leid, statt der nie befriedigten und nie ersterbenden 
 Hoffnung, daraus der Lebenstraum des wollenden Menschen 
 besteht, jener Friede, der hoher ist als alle Vernunft, jene ga'nz- 
 liche Meeresstille des Gemiiths, jene tiefe Ruhe, unerschiitterliche
 
 CHAP. V.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 479 
 
 Zuversicht und Heiterkeit, deren blosser Abglanz im Antlitz, wie 
 ihn Rafael und Coreggio dargestellt haben, ein ganzes und sicheres 
 Evangelium 1st : nur die Erkenntniss 1st geblieben, der Wille 1st 
 verschvvunden. . . . Diese Betrachtung ist die einzige, welche uns 
 dauernd trosten kann, wann wir einerseits unheilbares Leiden und 
 endlosen Jammer als der Erscheinung des Willens, der Welt, 
 wesentlich erkannt haben, und andererseits, bei aufgehobenem 
 Willen, die Welt zerfliessen sehen und nur das leere Nichts vor 
 uns behalten." 1 
 
 Such is the spirit of Schopenhauer's pessimism ; it not only 
 denies the validity of Hegel's conception of society as a 
 historical growth, but also excludes all hope for the develop- 
 ment of the race ; it is a pessimism which culminates in the 
 negation of the will and the cessation of existence. And yet, 
 negative as this philosophy was, it freed German intellectual 
 life from the meaningless juggling with words, into which 
 Hegelianism ultimately degenerated, and, as we shall see in 
 a subsequent chapter, reawakened literature to earnest aims 
 when once the storms of 1848 were past. 
 
 1 Werke, i, 526.
 
 480 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DECAY OF ROMANTICISM. 
 
 THE foregoing chapters of the present part have been occupied 
 with Romanticism as a steadily growing force in German 
 literature : we have followed the Romantic literature through 
 the three stages associated with Jena, Heidelberg, and Berlin. 
 It has now to be studied in its period of decay. While the 
 work of Chamisso and Eichendorff, if not of Fouque, was still 
 virtually free from elements that could be called decadent, 
 the writers who have to be considered in the present chapter 
 represent either the disintegration of the Romantic idea owing 
 to an extravagant abuse of supernatural motives, or else they 
 exemplify how Romanticism, as it ceased to be a vital force, 
 assumed new forms and adapted itself to other ends. 
 
 Beyond question the most brilliantly endowed of the later 
 E. T. A. Romanticists was Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann 1 he 
 1776^822"' himself adopted the name Amadaus, instead of Wilhelm, in 
 honour of Mozart. Hoffmann was born in Konigsberg on 
 January 24, 1776. As a child he was extraordinarily pre- 
 cocious, and at the age of sixteen he matriculated at the Uni- 
 versity of Konigsberg. Law was his chosen profession, and 
 in 1796, he received an appointment first at Glogau, then in 
 Berlin, and finally, in 1800, in Posen. In Posen, however, 
 his dangerous talent for caricature made him enemies, and, as 
 the consequence of a jest during the carnival, he was sent 
 to Plozk, a small town on the Vistula. Being subsequently 
 allowed to exchange Plozk for Warsaw, he made here the 
 acquaintance of Zacharias Werner, whose nature was in some 
 
 1 The most complete edition of Hoffmann's works is that edited by E. Grise- 
 bach, 15 vols., Leipzig, 1900. Cp. G. Ellinger, E. T. A. Hoffmann, sein Leben 
 und seine Werke, Hamburg, 1894, and M. Koch, E. K. F. Schulze und E. T. 
 W. Hoffmann (D.N.L., 147 [1889]), 119 ff.
 
 CHAP. VI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 481 
 
 respects similar to his own. During these years, music was 
 Hoffmann's chief amusement, and when the French occupied 
 Warsaw in 1806 and deprived him of his government position, 
 he turned to it as a profession. After months of destitution, he 
 obtained an appointment as musical director of the theatre at 
 Bamberg, where, in spite of financial difficulties, he remained 
 for about five years : he then joined, in a similar capacity, a 
 travelling company of players, who had their headquarters at 
 Dresden. During this period, Hoffmann composed several 
 operas, a symphony, a Mass, besides lesser works, and, what 
 was more important, turned in earnest to literature, as a 
 means of eking out his income. His first book was the Phantasie- 
 Phantasiestiicke in Callots Manier (4 vols., 1814-11;), the s !? c , k . e " 1 
 
 " Callots 
 
 Callot here imitated being a French artist of the beginning Manier, 
 of the seventeenth century, whose grotesque style appealed l8l 4- 
 strongly to Hoffmann. This collection of fantastic stories 
 and essays, to which Jean Paul wrote the preface, made 
 Hoffmann's reputation. Besides the admirable story of Der 
 goldne Topf, the most noteworthy contents are the Kreis- 
 leriana^ musical opinions placed in the mouth of Johann 
 Kreisler, who was evidently suggested by the musician in 
 Wackenroder's Herzcnsergiessungen. Kapellmeister Kreisler, 
 in whom art and life are blended in a characteristically 
 Romantic manner, is Hoffmann's musical self: 
 
 " Wo ist er her ? Niemand weiss es ! Wer waren seine Eltern ? 
 Es ist unbekannt ! Wessen Schiiler ist er? Eines guten 
 Meisters, denn er spielt vortrefflich, und da er Verstand und 
 Bildung hat, kann man ihn wohl dulden, ja ihm sogar den Unter- 
 richt in der Musik verstatten. . . . Die Freunde behaupteten : 
 die Natur habe bei seiner Organisation ein neues Rezept versucht 
 und der Versuch sei misslungen, indem seinem iiberreizbaren 
 Gemiithe, seiner bis zur zerstorenden Flamme aufgliihenden Phan- 
 tasie zu wenig Phlegma beigemischt und so das Gleichgewicht 
 zerstort worden, das dem Kiinstler durchaus nothig sei, um mit 
 der Welt zu leben und ihr Werke zu dichten, wie sie dieselben, 
 selbst im hohern Sinn, eigentlich brauche." x 
 
 In 1814, Hoffmann obtained a fixed position in connection Hoffmann 
 with the Kammergericht in Berlin, and from this time on, m Berlm - 
 Berlin remained his home. He soon formed warm friend- 
 ships with the Romantic writers of the capital, especially 
 with Fouque and Chamisso, and they met regularly, once 
 
 1 E. Grisebach's edition, i, 21. 
 2 H
 
 482 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Die 
 
 Elixiere 
 des Tevfels, 
 1815. 
 
 Nacht- 
 stiicke, 
 1817. 
 
 Klein 
 
 Zaches, 
 
 1819. 
 
 Die 
 
 Serapions- 
 brudtr, 
 1819-31. 
 
 every week, as the " Serapionsbriider," to discuss art and 
 literature. Unfortunately, in Hoffmann's case, these even- 
 ings were followed by nights of hard drinking, when he 
 squandered, in company unworthy of him, his brilliant wit 
 and imagination. The wild and unbalanced life he led could 
 not last ; he became the victim of spinal disease, and died in 
 1822, at the age of forty-six. 
 
 Die Elixiere des Teufels (1815), the most skilfully con- 
 structed of Hoffmann's longer works, might be described as 
 an attempt to adapt the Gothic " tale of terror " to the Ro- 
 mantic novel ; the subject, indeed, was possibly suggested to 
 Hoffmann by Lewis's Monk. The supernatural paraphernalia 
 of the " Sturm und Drang " romance, as it reappeared in 
 the " Schicksalsdrama," is retained, but Hoffmann had also 
 at his command the refined art and poetic " Stimmungs- 
 malerei " of the Romanticists ; and by means of hints and 
 ingenious insinuations, he is able to awaken a shudder even 
 in a sceptical reader. It is, none the less, detrimental to the 
 story that it was not written with more restraint, kept more 
 within the bounds of the probable ; for the psychological 
 development of the Capuchin monk, led astray by tasting the 
 " devil's elixir," and ultimately brought to his knees in contrite 
 repentance, is more interesting than are the adventures he 
 goes through. In several of the Nachtstiicke (1817), such as 
 Der Sandmann and Ignaz Denner, Hoffmann's fondness for 
 the supernatural is carried still further. In the first of these, 
 for instance, the hero lives in a nightmare of morbid fancies, 
 loves an automaton automata and " Doppelgiinger " were 
 idtes fixes in Hoffmann's imagination and ends his life as 
 a madman. In Das Majorat, the best Novelle of this collec- 
 tion, however, the gruesome elements are subordinated to 
 a vivid description of scenes from the author's early life. 
 Grotesque and morbid to the last degree is Klein Zaches 
 genannt Zinnober (1819), the history of an " Alraune," or man- 
 drake, a weird dwarf of German folklore, who had already 
 appeared in Arnim's story of Isabella von Agypten, " Klein 
 Zaches " possesses the power of winning credit for the good 
 that others do, and of making innocent people responsible for 
 his crimes and misdeeds. 
 
 The fairest estimate of Hoffmann's genius is to be obtained 
 from the four volumes of Die Serapionsbriider (1819-21), a
 
 CHAP. VI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 483 
 
 collection of stories, loosely connected, like those which form 
 Tieck's Phantasus, by the conversations of the friends who 
 tell them. An admirable character-study is that of Rath 
 Krespel, with which Die Serapionsbriider opens, and into Die 
 Fermate the author skilfully weaves reminiscences of his own 
 youth. Masterpieces of their kind are Der Artushof, a ^tory 
 of artist-life in Danzig, Doge und Dogaressa, of which Marino 
 Falieri is the chief figure, a fine romance of old Niirnberg, 
 Meister Martin der Kiifner und seine Gesellen, and, in the third 
 volume of the Serapionsbriider^ Das Frdulein von Scuderi, the 
 most perfect story Hoffmann ever wrote. In these " Novellen " 
 he cannot, it is true, altogether conceal his love for the " night 
 side" of life, but it no longer plays so important a part as 
 in Die Elixiere des Teufels and the Nachtstikke. This is 
 also characteristic of Hoffmann's Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Kater 
 Murr nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters M rr > 
 Johannes Kreisler in zufdlligen Maknlaturbldttern. A romance 
 more fantastically planned than this could not be imagined : 
 a cat is supposed to write its memoirs on the proofs of 
 Kreisler's biography, and the sheets are printed and bound 
 together by mistake. Even Jean Paul hardly ever carried his 
 humour to such extremes. The contents of the book, too, are 
 extraordinarily confused ; the cat is the " Philister," Kreissler 
 the idealist and artist, and the whole is held together by a 
 romantic love-story of which Kreissler is hero. The chief 
 features of Kater Murr are, however, its humorous irony and 
 satire. Two volumes appeared in 1821 and 1822, but 
 Hoffmann did not live to complete it. Among his last 
 writings were the " Novellen," Meister Johannes Wacht and 
 Der Feind, the latter unfinished, and the admirable dialogue, 
 Des Vettcrs Eckfenster. 
 
 Hoffmann is one of the masters of German prose literature, 
 and of all the Romantic novelists he exerted the widest and 
 most abiding influence. His writing is, in a high degree, 
 plastic, a quality which is conspicuous in his power of en- 
 dowing with reality the supernatural phantasms of his brain ; 
 "le poete," as Balzac said of him, "de ce qui n'a pas 1'air 
 d'exister, et qui neanmoins a vie," l he made his imagined 
 world more real than many of his contemporaries were able 
 to make the life around them ; and behind his creations, how- 
 
 1 Unefille (TEve, 6 (La Comtdie humaine, Paris, 1842, 2, 200).
 
 4 8 4 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Ludwig 
 
 Tieck, 
 
 I773-I853- 
 
 Der 
 
 A ufruhr 
 
 in den 
 
 Cevennen, 
 
 1826. 
 
 ever mrbid they may be, is always to be found the German 
 idealist and Romanticist. But the age and his own unbalanced 
 character were against him ; the stamp of decadence lay upon 
 his art as upon his life. German music, however, and notably 
 that kindred genius, Robert Schumann (1810-56), was deeply 
 indebted to him, and, in France, his work was a weightier 
 factor than that of either Goethe or Schiller. 
 
 To the same period as Hoffmann belongs also one of 
 the leaders of the first Romantic School, Ludwig Tieck, who, 
 in 1819, settled in Dresden, and in 1821 turned once more to 
 fiction. His many " Novellen," l which were all published 
 about this time, are occasionally marred by being written with 
 a purpose ; but the solidity of their workmanship distinguishes 
 them favourably from other stories of the age, and even 
 from Tieck's own earlier work. Die Gemdlde (1822), Die 
 Verlobung (1823), and Des Lebens fiberfluss (1839) are among 
 the most effective of the collection ; and Der Mondsiichtige 
 (1831) shows that, in spite of the cooler irony of advancing 
 years, Tieck was able to recall the Romantic enthusiasm of 
 his youth. Dichterleben (1825) and Der Tod des Dichters 
 (1833) are founded respectively on episodes in the lives of 
 Shakespeare and Camoens, while Der junge Tischlermeister 
 (1836) is a romance on the accepted Romantic model, and 
 owes much to Wilhelm Meister. Most important of all is the 
 fragment of a historical novel, Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen 
 (1826), which has, not unjustly, been placed beside Heinrich 
 von Ofterdingen and Die Kronenwdchter as one of the typical 
 examples of Romantic fiction ; Tieck as is also to be seen 
 in a later book, Vittoria Accorombona (1840) had an un- 
 developed talent for the historical novel. As dramaturge, 
 from 1825 onwards, of the Court Theatre in Dresden, he 
 infused into the performances of the German stage an ear- 
 nest, artistic spirit, the effects of which may be traced in 
 the experiments which Immermann made some years after- 
 wards at Diisseldorf. In 1841, Tieck received an invitation 
 from Friedrich Wilhelm IV. to make Berlin his home; and 
 here he died in 1853. 
 
 A writer in the age of Romantic decay, whose position 
 was solitary and in many respects anomalous, is Ernst Konrad 
 
 1 Gesammelte Novellen, 14 vpls., Breslau, 1835-42. On this period of Tieck's 
 life, cp. H. von Friesen, /,. Tieck, 2 vols., Vienna, 1871.
 
 CHAP. Vl.l THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 485 
 
 Fnedrich Schulze (1789-181 7).* Schulze's temperament orig- E. K. F. 
 inally bore some resemblance to Wieland's, but his life having ^g ^ 
 been imbittered by the death of a woman for whom he had 
 a passionate, almost morbid affection, he found the spirituality 
 of the Romanticists more in harmony with his feelings than 
 Wieland's light frivolity. His two epics, Cdcilie (1818) the 
 fulfilment of a vow to erect a monument to his lost love 
 and Die bezauberte Rose (1818), are essentially Romantic 
 poems, but Schulze is Romantic in an old-world way that 
 reminds the reader of the epics of Ariosto : his poetry has 
 an archaic colouring which is obviously artificial, the unreality 
 being further heightened by the allegorical form he chose 
 to give his work. With the exception of Brentano in his 
 Erfindung des Rosenkranzes, Schulze was the only German 
 poet of eminence at this time who wrote epics. For the 
 great epics of Romanticism we must look not to German, 
 but to the Slavonic poets, Mickiewicz and Puschkin. 
 
 An interesting phase of Romanticism is to be seen in the 
 work of Friedrich Riickert, 2 who was born at Schweinfurt in Friedrich 
 1788. Riickert has already been mentioned as a singer of 
 the War of Liberation. His Geharnischte Sonette (1814), 
 although written in 1812, were published too late to have 
 helped to kindle the revolt against Napoleon, and even had they 
 appeared in time, their author had not the power, possessed 
 by lesser poets like Hoffmann von Fallersleben, of expressing 
 his patriotic sentiments in a way that appealed immediately 
 to all classes : moreover, of all lyric forms the sonnet is 
 least adapted for this purpose. As his patriotism began to 
 cool, Riickert returned to the Romantic world, from which 
 the war had rudely torn him, and where he was unques- 
 tionably most at home. In 1817, he visited Italy, and 
 found that his fame had preceded him among the German 
 poets and artists resident in Rome : in the following year, 
 he was in Vienna, zealously engaged in studying oriental 
 literatures, his guide being the same Joseph von Hammer- 
 Purgstall, who had awakened Goethe's interest in Hafiz, and 
 revealed to a generation of Austrian poets the poetic wealth 
 of the East. Three years later, Riickert settled in Coburg; 
 
 1 Poetische Werke, 3rd ed., 5 vols., Leipzig, 1855; selections edited by M. 
 Koch, in D.N.L., 147 [1889], i ff. 
 
 2 Editions of Riickert's works by L. Laistner, 6 vols., Stuttgart, 1896, and 
 C. Beyer, 6 vols. , Leipzig, 1900.
 
 486 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Oriental 
 poetry. 
 
 Die Weis- 
 heit des 
 Brah- 
 manen, 
 1836-39. 
 
 Lyric 
 poetry 
 
 in 1826, he was appointed to a professorship in Erlangen, 
 which, in 1841, he exchanged for one in Berlin. The Prussian 
 capital, however, was little to his taste, and he retired not 
 long afterwards to his country house near Coburg, where he 
 died in 1866. 
 
 Riickert rendered valuable services to German literature as 
 an interpreter of oriental life and poetry. In Ostliche Rosen 
 (1822), he took, for instance, Hafiz as his model, and this 
 work was followed, four years later, by a translation in verse 
 and rhymed prose of the Makamen of Hariri, the merry ad- 
 ventures of an Arabian rogue. He also published versions of 
 the Sanskrit Nal und Damajanti (1828), of the Chinese Schi- 
 King (1833), and the Persian Rostem und Suhrab (1838), 
 besides a poetic Gospel-Harmony, Das Leben Jesu (1839), 
 and a collection of the oldest Arabian Volkslieder, the 
 Hamasa (1846). The most ambitious of his works is Die 
 Weisheit des Brahmanen, a long didactic poem, or rather 
 collection of verse and aphorisms, which appeared between 
 1836 and 1839 in six volumes; and even this list does not 
 exhaust his labours, several of his translations not having been 
 published until after his death. The passive atmosphere of 
 oriental literature appealed strongly to Riickert's temperament, 
 but his ability as a translator depended even to a greater 
 extent upon his mastery of language and verse : in this respect, 
 he is second only to Platen among modern German poets, and 
 indeed, of Riickert's many followers, Platen he wrote Ghaselen 
 in 1824 takes the first place. Towards the middle of the 
 century, Leopold Schefer (1784-1862) and G. F. Daumer 
 (1800-75) imitated Hafiz, and in 1851, Friedrich Bodenstedt 
 published his Lieder des Mirza Schaffy^ to which we shall 
 return in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 As an original poet, Riickert owed his reputation to the 
 collection of lyrics called Liebesfriihling (1823), and the 
 Haus- und Jahreslieder, written between 1832 and 1838. 
 The Kindertodtenlieder (1834), on the death of two of his 
 children, are pathetic, but somewhat diffuse ; his plays, Saul 
 und David (1844) and Kaiser Heinrich IV. (1844), have 
 few dramatic qualities, and had no success on the stage. 
 But his early lyrics are of the true Romantic type ; without 
 being so naively popular as Wilhelm Miiller, Riickert some- 
 times wrote verses that were as harmonious as Eichendorff s.
 
 CHAP. VI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 487 
 
 He was never a greater poet than when he sang in the simple 
 tone of the Volkslied : 
 
 " O siisse Mutter, 
 Ich kann nicht spinnen, 
 Ich kann nicht sitzeu 
 Im Stiiblein innen 
 Im engen Haus ; 
 Es stockt das Radchen, 
 Es reisst das Fadchen, 
 O siisse Mutter, 
 Ich muss hinaus." 1 
 
 In a love-song like the following, beautiful as it is, the sincerity 
 of feeling is veiled by an exaggerated oriental imagery which, 
 as we shall afterwards see, reappeared in Heine's poetry : 
 
 " Du meine Seele, du mein Herz, 
 Du meine Wonn', o du mein Schmerz, 
 Du meine Welt, in der ich lebe, 
 Mein Himmel du, darein ich schwebe, 
 O du mein Grab, in das hinab 
 Ich ewig meinen Kummer gab ! 
 Du bist die Ruh', du bist der Frieden, 
 Du bist der Himmel mir beschieden. 
 Dass du mich liebst, macht mich mir werth, 
 Dein Blick hat mich vor mir verklart, 
 Du hebst mich liebend iiber mich, 
 Mein guter Geist, mein bessres Ich ! 2 
 
 More incongruous elements in Riickert's songs are an affected 
 subtlety of expression and a love of quaint antitheses, which 
 he had also learned from his oriental models. He wrote with 
 the ease and fluency of a Persian poet ; he had nothing of the 
 self-concentration which made Eichendorff and Heine poets 
 of the first rank, and many even of his finest poems are 
 marred by diffuseness and want of form. What, however, was 
 chiefly missing in Riickert's work was a strong personal note ; 
 his nature was almost exclusively receptive. Thus, he is at 
 his best when his imagination is held in check by the necessity 
 of reproducing what others have expressed; as a mediator 
 between Germany and the East, he cannot be too highly 
 estimated. He came, it is true, too late to be a pioneer, but it 
 was he who first gave tangible form to what Friedrich Schlegel 
 had in his mind when he wrote his Weisheit der Inder. Goethe, 
 recognising this, hailed Riickert as a worthy fellow-worker in 
 
 1 C. Beyer's edition, a, 33. 2 Ibid., i, 302 f.
 
 488 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Poetry of 
 the Greek 
 Revolt. 
 
 Wilhelm 
 
 Miiller, 
 
 1794-1827. 
 
 helping to bring about that era of " Weltlitteratur," which was 
 one of the old poet's cherished ideals. 
 
 The lyrics of several young writers, whose sympathies 
 were with the Greeks in their struggle for independence, 
 can with less justification be included under the heading of 
 "Romantic Decay"; 1 the poetry of the Greek Revolt formed 
 a transition from Romanticism to the political lyric of " Jung- 
 Deutschland" and the Revolution of 1848. Of the poets 
 who, as admirers and imitators of Byron, took part in the 
 political movement, the ablest was Wilhelm Miiller, 2 a native 
 of Dessau, who was born in 1794 and died in 1827. 
 Miiller's Lieder der Griechen (1821-24) were Germany's chief 
 contribution to the literature inspired by the Greek struggle. 
 But the sentimental patriotism of these songs does more 
 honour to the singer's enthusiasm than to his poetic 
 genius, and the long trochaic and iambic lines in which he 
 wrote are monotonous to a modern ear accustomed to 
 more subtle rhythms. Apart from his Greek songs, Miiller 
 is a master of the popular lyric ; in a higher degree than 
 any other Romantic singer, even Chamisso, to whom he 
 bears some resemblance, he is the poet of the German Volk. 
 His love-poetry the cycle of songs, Die schone Miillerin, 
 for example, which the music of Franz Schubert (1797- 
 1828) has made universally known has nothing in it of 
 the subtle suggestiveness of Goethe or Eichendorff, nor does 
 it, on the other hand, fall into the occasionally false senti- 
 mentality of Chamisso ; the Volkslied itself is not more 
 simple and direct. To see Miiller's art to full advantage 
 we must turn to a song like 
 
 " Wer schlagt so rasch an die Fenster mir 
 Mit schwanken griinen Zweigen ? 
 Der junge Morgenwind ist hier 
 Und will sich lustig zeigen. 
 
 ' Heraus, heraus, du Menschensohn ! ' 
 So ruft der kecke Geselle, 
 ' Es schwarmt von Friihlingswonnen schon 
 Vor deiner Kammerschwelle. 
 
 1 Cp. R. F. Arnold, Der deutsche Philhellenismus in Euphorion (Erganzungs- 
 heft, 2), 1896. 
 
 2 Gedichte, edited by C. Miiller (Reclam's Universal-Bibliothek, 3261-3264), 
 Leipzig, 1894. Cp. F. Max-Muller (his son) in the Allg. deutsche Biographic 
 22 (1885), 683 ff.
 
 CHAP. VI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 489 
 
 ' Horst du die Kafer summen nicht? 
 Horst du das Glas nicht klirren, 
 Wenn sie, betaubt von Duft und Licht, 
 Hart an die Scheiben schwirren ? ' " 1 
 
 The first collection of Miiller's songs, Gedichte aus den hinter- 
 lassenen Papieren eines reisenden IValdhornisten, was published 
 in 1821, a second volume appearing in 1824. After the 
 Schone Miillerin, the lyrics most characteristic of the poet's 
 genius are the Reiselieder for Miiller, like all the poets of 
 the time, loved a " Wanderleben " : 
 
 " In die griine Welt hinein 
 Zieh' ich mit dem Morgenschein, 
 Abendlust und Abendleid 
 Hinter mir so weit, so weit ! " 2 
 
 But Miiller wrote too easily, and his poetry belongs, in its 
 range of ideas, to an age of na'ive feeling and thinking. Yet, 
 of all his contemporaries, none has a better claim than he to 
 be regarded as Heine's forerunner ; from him, Heine learned 
 the beauty that lay in the simplest metres, and the fine cycles 
 of poems, Muscheln von der Insel Rtigen (1825) and Lieder 
 aus dem Meerbusen von Salerno (1827), are not unworthy of 
 comparison with Heine's lyrics of the North Sea. 
 
 Among the other " Greek " poets at this time, Chamisso's 
 friend, Franz von Gaudy (1800-40), 3 deserves mention. F. von 
 Gaudy was a voluminous writer, who, in his frequently trivial 
 and frivolous verse, imitated Beranger and Heine. His prose 
 sketches and " Novellen " have, however, a more lasting 
 value than his verse. Chamisso himself was also carried away 
 by sympathy for Greece, and poems like Lord Byron's letze 
 Liebe (1827), and the cycle Chios (1829), entitle him to a 
 place among the members of this group. Julius Mosen J. Mosen, 
 (1803-67) 4 was another poet who combined the idealism of l8 3-67- 
 the " Romantik " with a passionate enthusiasm for Greece and 
 Poland ; the Greek revolt is the subject of his novel, Der 
 Kongress zu Verona (1842), while his famous ballad, Die 
 letzten Zehn vom vierten Regiment (1832), describes an episode 
 in Poland's struggle for freedom. Mosen's epics (AAasver, 
 1838) and "Novellen" (Bilder im Moose, 1 846) appealed to 
 
 i Morgenlied (Gedichte, 180). Gedichte, 46. 
 
 3 A selection of Gaudy's works, edited by K. Siegen, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1896. 
 
 4 Sammtliche Werke, 6 vols., Leipzig, 1880.
 
 490 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 the taste of the time, his many romantic dramas (Heinrich der 
 Finkler^ 1836; Cola Rienzi, 1837; Otto III., 1839) had a 
 temporary success, while his work, as director of the Ducal 
 Theatre in Oldenburg, was of real importance for the history 
 of the German stage. The most eminent German poet 
 who sang of Poland was August von Platen, whose noble 
 Polenlieder (1830-31) were published after his death, but 
 almost all the younger lyric poets of the time gave voice to 
 the national sympathy with the Polish cause.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HISTORICAL FICTION AND DRAMA. 
 IMMERMANN AND PLATEN. 
 
 ALTHOUGH since the days of " Sturm und Drang " historical The 
 novels had formed a large group of German fiction, their hlstoricil1 
 quality had, on the whole, been indifferent ; the isolated ex- 
 periments of the Romanticists, such as Arnim's Kronen- 
 wachter, stood so far above the " Ritterromane," and had 
 such entirely different aims, that there could be little ques- 
 tion of mutual influence. In point of fact, historical fiction 
 first asserted itself in Germany, under the vigorous stimulus 
 of the Waverley Novels^ the two most eminent novelists who 
 looked up to Scott as their master being the Swabian, Wilhelm 
 Hauff(i8o2-27), and the North German, Wilhelm H. Haring, 
 best known by his pseudonym, "Willibald Alexis" (1798-1871). 
 
 Although Hauff 1 died in 1827, at the age of twenty-five, w. Hauff, 
 he left a large number of admirable stories ; his instinctive l8 2 ' 2 7- 
 genius for fiction and his attractive style concealed the 
 want of originality and independence, natural in a beginner. 
 Lichtenstein (1826), a story of Wiirtemberg at the beginning 
 of the sixteenth century, is, although closely modelled on 
 Scott, a successful imitation. Mittheilungen aus den Memoiren 
 Satans (1826-27) shows unmistakably the influence of Hoff- 
 mann, while in Der Mann im Monde (1826), Hauff began by 
 intending to write in the style of H. Clauren (an anagram 
 for Carl Heun, 1771-1854), the author of some forty volumes 
 of worthless sentimental fiction : before, however, he had 
 proceeded very far, he changed his mind, and ingeniously con- 
 verted Der Mann im Monde into a satire on his model. Of 
 Hauff 's shorter stories, Das Bild des Kaisers (1828) is the most 
 
 1 Sdmmtliche Werke, ed. H. Fischer, 6 vols., Stuttgart, 1885, and F. Bober- 
 tag, 5 vols. (D.N.L., 156-158 [1891-92]).
 
 492 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 W. H. 
 
 Haring, 
 ("W. 
 Alexis " ), 
 1798-1871. 
 
 H. Zschok- 
 ke, 1771- 
 1848. 
 
 characteristic, in spite of its frequent concessions to the taste of 
 the time ; but his masterpiece is undoubtedly the Phantasien 
 im Bremer Rathskeller (1827), in which his own genius is once 
 more reinforced by what he had learned from Hoffmann. 
 
 The ablest German writer who graduated in the school of 
 Scott was Willibald Alexis, who began by passing off imita- 
 tions of Scott as translations (IValladmor, 1823-24; Schloss 
 Avalon, 1827). In 1832, Alexis published Cabanis, an 
 original novel, with his native country, the Mark of Branden- 
 burg, as background, and Frederick the Great as central 
 figure; and, during the next twenty-five years, he wrote 
 many volumes of historical fiction, besides being busily en- 
 gaged in other literary work. Alexis did not, however, live 
 through the journalistic epoch of German literature an epoch 
 to be discussed in the next chapter without himself taking 
 on some of its colour, without being influenced by the 
 anti-Romantic philosophy of " Jungdeutschland " ; and two of 
 his novels, Das Haus Diisterweg (1835) and Zwolf Ndchte 
 (1838), have all the features of "Young German" fiction. 
 Even the six historical novels, 1 upon which his reputation 
 now rests, are not altogether free from the spirit of that epoch. 
 Der Roland von Berlin (1840), the first of the six, depicts the 
 struggle between the Hohenzollerns and the burgher classes of 
 Brandenburg in the fifteenth century ; the scene of Der falsche 
 Waldemar (1842) is laid a century earlier; while Die Hosen 
 des Herrn von Bredow (1846-48) most successful of all Alexis' 
 novels is a romance of the Reformation period. His next 
 book, Ruhe ist die erste Btirgerpflicht (1852), is an admir- 
 able story of the Napoleonic invasion in the gloomy days 
 before the battle of Jena, and was followed by Isegrimm 
 (1852) and Dorothe (1856), neither of which, however, was as 
 popular as the stories that preceded them. Of all the con- 
 tinental novelists who imitated Scott, Alexis attained the 
 greatest independence of his master. 
 
 While even the name of another fertile writer of this school, 
 Karl Spindler (1796-1855), the author of Der Jude (1827), 
 a historical novel of the fifteenth century, is long since for- 
 gotten, the novels of Heinrich Zschokke (1771-1848) 2 are still 
 
 1 Vaterlandische Jfomane, 8 vols., Berlin, 1884. 
 
 3 Ausgewahlte Novellen und Dichtungen, 10 vols., nth ed., Aarau, 1874. 
 Cp. F. Bobertag, Erxahlende Prosa der klassischen Periode. 2 (D.N.L.. 137 
 [1886]), 231 ff.
 
 CHAP. VII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 493 
 
 popular. A native of Magdeburg, Zschokke, at the age 
 of twenty-five, chose Switzerland as his home, and, for the rest 
 of his life, worked untiringly, both as a writer and as a social 
 and political reformer, in the service of his adopted country. 
 He was a prolific author, his works ranging from history to 
 forestry, from prose fiction to lyric and religious poetry. Before 
 settling in Switzerland, he published a widely-read bandit- 
 novel, Aballino, der grosse Bandit (1794), in which the ideas 
 and tendencies of the "Sturm und Drang" are given full 
 rein. But his best stories were written on the model of the 
 Waverley Novels and are to be found in Bilder aus der Schweiz 
 (1824-26); in this series appeared the novels, Addrich im 
 Moos and Der Freihof von Aarau. Another widely-read book 
 by Zschokke is Das Goldmacherdorf (1817), an imitation of 
 Pestalozzi's educational novel, Lienhard und Gertrud ; but 
 popular as was the Goldmacherdorf, it never became such a 
 household book in Switzerland as the Stunden der Andacht 
 (1809-16), a collection of devotional poems with marked 
 rationalistic tendencies. 
 
 The drama, or at least the North German drama, for it was The 
 otherwise, as we shall see, in Austria, had, with Kleist's death, drama - 
 received a blow from which it did not soon recover. The 
 Romanticists tried again and again to gain a footing on the 
 stage, but they were, for the most part, outrivalled by worth- 
 less competitors. Thus it is little wonder that the critics and 
 theorists of this period Tieck in his Dramaturgische Blatter 
 (1825-26) and Immermann in the Diisseldorfer Anfdnge (1840) 
 did not view the future of the theatre with very sanguine 
 eyes. Indeed, between Kleist and Friedrich Hebbel, North 
 Germany produced only one dramatist of genius, Christian c. D. 
 Dietrich Grabbe (iSoi-36), 1 and he was too romantically un- 
 balanced easily to adapt himself to the requirements of the 
 stage. An unruly genius, Grabbe recalls the age of "Sturm 
 und Drang " rather than that of Romantic decay. His first 
 play, Herzog Theodor von Gothland (1822), begun while the 
 author was still at school, outdoes, in its horrors, the most 
 extravagant productions of the " Geniezeit," but Tieck, whose 
 opinion Grabbe sought, was not blind to its poetic promise. 
 
 1 Sdmmtliche Werke, ed. O. Blumenthal, 4 vols., Detmold, 1874; a new 
 edition by E. Grisebach, 4 vols., Berlin, 1902. Cp. F. Bobertag, C. D. Grabbe, 
 M. Beer und E. von Schenk (D.N.L., 161 [1889]), I ff.
 
 494 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 A literary satire published in the same year, Scherz, Satire, 
 Ironic und tiefere Bedeutung, did not improve Grabbe's posi- 
 tion or his prospects* But in the summer of 1828, he put 
 Don Juan the finishing strokes to Don Juan und Faust (1829). Grabbe 
 und Faust, | iere a j me( j at combining in one drama the two great crea- 
 tions of Goethe and Mozart ; his poetic imagination shrank 
 from nothing, and the result was a play unsuited for the 
 stage, but full of dramatic life and genuine poetry. Don 
 Juan und Fanst was followed by two ambitious historical 
 dramas, Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa (1829) and Kaiser Hein- 
 rich VI. (1830), which were intended to open a series of 
 tragedies on the Hohenstaufen dynasty : these plays are not 
 without striking dramatic situations and moments, but they are 
 marred by the empty rhetoric into which Grabbe's grandiose 
 language too often falls. Gorgeous, again, is the canvas on 
 Napoleon, . which the last episodes in Napoleon's career are painted, 
 Napoleon, oder die hundert Tage (1831). ' This is as far 
 from being a normal drama as anything Grabbe wrote it 
 is only a succession of magnificent scenes in Elba, Paris, 
 and on the field of Waterloo but each scene is a master- 
 piece of dramatic characterisation. Of all the dramas which 
 in the course of the nineteenth century have been written 
 round Napoleon, Grabbe's unquestionably takes the first 
 place. The poet, however, was going rapidly downhill : for 
 his unhappy marriage he alone had been to blame, and 
 with every year he grew more addicted to drink. In Diissel- 
 dorf, Immermann offered him a helping hand, but this only 
 staved off for a time the inevitable end ; spinal disease set 
 in, and he died before completing his thirty-fifth year. His 
 last two works, Hannibal (1835) and Die Hermannsschlacht 
 (1838), add nothing to his standing as a poet. 
 
 M. Beer, Mention must also be made here of Michael Beer (1800- 
 
 1800-33. 33^ a native of Berlin, who, in his tragedies, Der Paria (in 
 
 one act, 1826) and Struensee (1829), occasionally anticipates 
 
 the psychological methods of Hebbel. Beer's friend, Eduard 
 
 von Schenk (1788-1841), on the other hand, as is to be seen 
 
 from his drama Belisar (1829), was content to imitate the 
 
 E. Rau- Romantic drama. 1 Where Grabbe and Beer failed, Ernst 
 
 pach, 1784- Raupach (i 784-1852), an inferior Kotzebue, a playwright desti- 
 
 1 Beer's Sammtliche Werke, Leipzig, 1836; Schenk's Schauspiele, 3 vols., 
 Stuttgart, 1829-35. Cp. F. Bobertag, I.e., 197 ff.
 
 CHAP. VII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 495 
 
 tute of poetic ideals, won popularity. Raupach's many his- 
 torical dramas including a series of no less than twenty-four 
 on the Hohenstaufens are long forgotten even by name ; and 
 Raupach himself would also be forgotten, were it not for the 
 witty attacks made on him by Platen, Immermann, and Heine. 
 
 The work of Karl von Holtei (i 798-1880), x a native of 
 Breslau, occupies a place to itself in the drama of the century. K. von 
 Holtei's most characteristic plays were " Liederspiele " that is Ho l tei 88 ^ 
 to say, adaptations of the French " vaudeville " to the German 
 stage. Der alte Feldherr (1826) and Lenore (1828), the latter 
 a dramatisation of Burger's poem, owed their widespread popu- 
 larity to the songs they contained ; while Lorbeerbaum und 
 Bettelstab (1840), an experiment in a higher form of comedy, 
 is marred by excessive sentimentality. As playwright, actor, 
 and theatre-manager, Holtei led a checkered, unsettled life 
 it is vividly described in his autobiography, Vierzig Jahre 
 (1843-50) until about 1850, when, growing weary of his 
 wanderings, he lived for many years in Graz. From 1864 
 on, his home was Breslau, where he died in 1880. Following 
 Hebel's example, Holtei also wrote poems in his native 
 dialect, and many of the Schlesischen Gedichte (1830) have 
 become Volkslieder. His novels (Die Vagabunden, 1851 ; 
 Der letzte Komodiant, 1863) are interesting in so far as he 
 draws on his own experiences, but they are loosely con- 
 structed, and the character -drawing is superficial. Among 
 other dramatists, the Danish Romanticist, Adam Oehlen- 
 schlager (lyyg-iSso), 2 who was ambitious to acquire a 
 reputation in Germany, must be mentioned, if only as the 
 author of a German tragedy, Correggio (1816), which was 
 frequently played in its day. His many plays on Scandi- 
 navian themes were less to German tastes. 
 
 Although, as regards dramatic literature, these years of The Ro- 
 Romantic decay were unfavourable, the opera or music-drama " 
 passed through a remarkable phase of development. In 1805, 
 Ludwig von Beethoven (1770-1827) created the first markedly 
 Romantic opera, Fidelio, the text of which was of French 
 origin. The representative musical dramatist, however, was Weber" 
 Karl Maria von Weber (1786-1826); Friedrich Kind's Der 1786-1826. 
 
 1 Erziihlende Schriften, 39vols., Breslau, 1861-66; Theater, 6 vols., Berlin, 
 1867 ; Schlesisehc Gedichte, 2oth ed., Berlin, 1894. 
 J Werke (in German), and ed. , 21 vols., Breslau, 1839.
 
 496 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 K. L. Im- 
 
 mermann, 
 1796-1840. 
 
 Merlin, 
 1833. 
 
 Freischiitz, with Weber's music (1821), was at once accepted 
 by the nation as the ideal of a Romantic music -drama. 
 This work was followed by Euryanthe (1823) and Oberon 
 (1826), both of which, however, were placed at a disadvantage 
 owing to the mediocrity of their texts. Besides Weber, the 
 chief opera-composers in the first half of the century were 
 Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859), H. A. Marschner (1795-1861) 
 the composer of Der Vampir (1828), Der Templer und die 
 Jiidin (based on Scott's Ivanhoe, 1829), and Hans Heiling 
 (1838) Albert Lortzing (1803-51), the master of the 
 Romantic " Volksoper," and Otto Nicolai (1810-49). Finally, 
 in 1850, was produced Robert Schumann's (1810-56) only 
 opera, Genoveva. A less healthy feature in the music of this 
 period was the so-called " grand opera," of which Michael 
 Beer's brother, Jakob, known as Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791- 
 1864), was the leading exponent ; but Meyerbeer found a more 
 favourable soil for his art in France than in Germany, and 
 the texts of his works were written by French playwrights. 
 Thus, a national German opera which, as we shall see in a 
 later chapter, culminated in the work of Richard Wagner, 
 was not the least valuable bequest which the nation received 
 from the Romantic movement. 
 
 One of the last from the standpoint of literary evolution, 
 the very last of the Romanticists is Karl Leberecht Immer- 
 mann, 
 1840. 
 
 1827, was appointed Landgerichtsrat at Diisseldorf. Immer- 
 mann experimented, more or less, in all forms of Romantic 
 literature : he wrote, for instance, a " Fate tragedy," Die 
 Verschollene (1822); he followed in Arnim's footsteps with a 
 drama on Cardenio und Celinde (1826), and in Das Trauer- 
 spiel in Tirol (1828), the hero of which is the famous 
 Tyrolese patriot, Andreas Hofer, he introduced supernatural 
 episodes in the Romantic style. Alexis (1832), a trilogy 
 based on the history of Peter the Great, had even less success 
 than Das Trauerspiel in Tirol ; but in Merlin^ eine Mythe 
 (1832), Immermann created, if not a drama for the theatre, 
 at least a dramatic poem of singular depth and beauty. 
 Aferlin is, as the author himself said, the " Tragodie des 
 
 1 Werke, ed. R. Boxberger, 20 vols., Berlin, 1883 ; also a selection by M. 
 Koch, 4 vols. (D.N.L., 159, 160 [1887-88]). 
 
 1 who was born at Magdeburg in 1796, and died in 
 He studied law at Halle, fought at Waterloo, and, in
 
 CHAP. VII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 497 
 
 Widerspruchs " : the son of Satan and a Christian virgin, 
 Merlin is a kind of Anti-Christ who is racked by the antith- 
 eses of existence; the spiritual and the sensual, renunciation 
 and enjoyment, are at war within him, and he dies, baffled 
 in endeavouring to reconcile them. Merlin was the last of 
 the many attempts which the German "Romantik" made 
 to win for its ideas the great secular mysteries associated 
 with the Reformation Faust and the medieval legends of 
 the Holy Graal. 
 
 In 1836 appeared Immermann's first important novel, Die Die Epi- 
 Epigonen. This work, which describes the relations in which 
 a young aristocrat of Bremen stands towards several women, 
 contains the essence of Immermann's own personality. He 
 felt to the core that he, like his hero, was an " Epigone," the 
 " late born " of an age then rapidly passing away ; and the 
 novel contains the tragedy of his life : 
 
 "Wir konnen nicht leugnen, dass iiber unsre Haupter eine 
 gefahrliche Weltepoche hereingebrochen ist. Ungliicks haben 
 die Menschen zu alien Zeiten genug gehabt ; der Fluch des 
 gegenwartigen Geschlechts ist aber, sich auch ohne alles besondre 
 Leid unselig zu fUhlen. Ein odes Wanken und Schwanken, ein 
 lacherliches Sich-ernst-stellen und Zerstreutsein, ein Haschen, 
 man weiss nicht, wonach, eine Furcht vor Schrecknissen, die um 
 so unheimlicher sind, als sie keine Gestalt haben ! Es ist, als ob 
 die Menschheit, in ihrem Schifflein auf einem iibergewaltigen 
 Meere umhergeworfen, an einer moralischen Seekrankheit leide, 
 deren Ende kaum abzusehn ist. . . . Wir sind, um in einem 
 Wort das ganze Elend auszusprechen, Epigonen und tragen an 
 der Last, die jeder Erb- und Nachgeborenschaft anzukleben 
 pflegt." J 
 
 Die Epigonen is largely indebted to Wilhelm Meister ; indeed, 
 it was virtually the last Romantic novel for which Goethe's 
 work served as model. 2 Like Meister^ Die Epigonen has an 
 ethical background, the struggle between the new industrial 
 classes and the old aristocracy, and the problems it discusses 
 bring it into touch with the social philosophy of Goethe's 
 later years. 
 
 In 1838, Immermann published his second romance, Munch- Munch- 
 fiausen, eine Geschichte in Arabesken, which rivalled the first in ^"g" 1 ' 
 
 1 Boxberger's edition, 5, 123 f. 
 
 2 Tieck's Der junge Tischlermeister (see above, p. 484) also appeared in 
 1836, but it was written, for the most part, twenty years earlier. 
 
 2 I
 
 498 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 popularity. As a novel, Miinchhausen cannot be compared 
 with its predecessor : it is a receptacle for all manner of 
 opinions thrown together without order, a bulwark from be- 
 hind which the author makes satirical attacks upon his time. 
 Immermann is here obviously under the influence of Jean 
 Paul, whose carelessness with regard to form he imitates ; 
 but where Jean Paul, or even Hoffmann, might have justi- 
 fied himself, Immermann is not convincing. The fantastic 
 imagination required for a work of this kind was foreign to 
 his nature, and he was not sufficiently gifted with humour. 
 In the conglomerate mass of Miinchhausen^ however, one 
 gem lies buried, the "Novelle" Der Oberhof. Here, at 
 least, Immermann is not an " Epigone " ; Der Oberhof is 
 his master-work and the finest short story of peasant-life that 
 was written before the middle of the century. Arnim and 
 Brentano had taken the first steps towards faithfully por- 
 traying the German peasant; what they began, Immermann 
 completed in the sturdy Westphalian " Hofschulze," who is 
 the hero of Der Oberhof. 
 
 Immermann stood in one other respect at the beginning of 
 dorfer An- a new era rather than at the close of an old one: between 
 1835 and 1838, he took an active share in the direction 
 of the theatre in Diisseldorf. 1 What Tieck had attempted 
 in Dresden, in his impracticable, Romantic way, Immer- 
 mann realised at Diisseldorf; he produced the masterpieces 
 of dramatic literature, above all, plays by Shakespeare and 
 Calderon, as they had never previously been performed on 
 the stage ; and since these dramaturgic experiments of his 
 the record of them will be found in his Diisseldorfer Anfdnge 
 (1840) the German theatre has occupied the leading position 
 in Europe as an institution for interpreting dramatic poetry. 
 A finely wrought, although not inspired, version of Tristan 
 und Isolde (published in 1842) was Immermann's last work, 
 but he did not live to finish it. 
 
 Writing at so late a date, Immermann naturally came into 
 conflict with the pioneers of the post-Romantic epoch, al- 
 though, strange to say, his enemies did not belong to the 
 ranks of " Young Germany"; indeed, "Young Germany," as 
 represented by Heine, greeted his work in a friendly spirit. 
 His most ruthless critic was August Graf von Platen-Haller- 
 
 1 Cp. R. Fellner, Gesckichte einer deutschen Musterbuhne, Stuttgart, 1888.
 
 CHAP. VII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 499 
 
 1796-1835. 
 
 Venedig, 
 1825. 
 
 miinde. 1 Born at Ansbach, in the same year as Immermann, A. von 
 Platen occupies a somewhat anomalous position in literature : fjaUer- 
 a bitter antagonist of Romanticism as he found it, he was, munde. 
 at the same time, no partisan of "Young Germany." He 
 began as an imitator of the Westostlichc Divan in 1821, and 
 three years later published a collection of poems in oriental 
 forms, entitled Ghaselen. These were followed by Sonette 
 aus Venedig (1825), the finest collection of sonnets in the Sonette aus 
 German tongue. In these poems Platen appears as the least 
 subjective of all German poets ; statuesque and cold, his 
 sonnets possess a wonderful classic beauty, which was as little 
 in harmony with the poet's time as with his nationality. One 
 of them must here serve as an example of Platen's art : 
 
 " Venedig liegt nur noch im Land der Traume, 
 
 Und wirft nur Schatten her aus alten Tagen, 
 Es liegt der Leu der Republik erschlagen, 
 Und ode feiern seines Kerkers Raume. 
 
 Die ehrnen Hengste, die durch salz'ge Schaume 
 Dahergeschleppt, auf jener Kirche ragen, 
 Nicht mehr dieselben sind sie, ach sie tragen 
 Des korsikan'schen Uberwinders Zaume. 
 
 Wo ist das Volk von Konigen geblieben, 
 Das diese Marmorhauser durfte bauen, 
 Die nun verfallen und gemach zerstieben ? 
 
 Nur selten finden auf der Enkel Brauen 
 
 Der Ahnen grosse Ziige sich geschrieben, 
 An Dogengrabern in den Stein gehauen." 3 
 
 In 1826, Italy became his permanent home. The antique 
 now appeared to him, as to Goethe a generation before, an 
 antidote to the extravagance of the German spirit ; and, as 
 Goethe had turned from the " Sturm und Drang " to the 
 literature of Greece, so Platen sought in un-German metres 
 a refuge from the degeneration of Romanticism. But, after 
 all, he was still a Romanticist when he formed his dramatic 
 poem, Der glaserne Panto ffel (1824), out of the fairy-tales of 
 Schneewittchen and Aschenbrodel ; he was a Romanticist when 
 he chose stories from the Arabian Nights as the materials of 
 his last epic, Die Abbasiden (i 834) ; he is, above all, Romantic 
 
 1 Sammlliche Werke, edited by C. C. Redlich, 3 vols., Berlin, 1883; also by 
 K. Goedeke, and ed., Stuttgart, 1882. 
 * C. C. Redlich's edition, i, 160 f.
 
 5oo 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Diever- 
 
 1826. 
 
 Derroman- 
 tische Odi- 
 pus, 1829. 
 
 in the meaning which the Schlegels gave to that word, when 
 he expresses his poetic ideas in Romance metres and rhythms. 
 
 At the same time, Platen realised that Romanticism had 
 fallen upon evil days. The " Schicksalstragodie " awakened 
 his virulent hatred, and, in 1826, he satirised it effectually in 
 Die verhdngnissvolle Gabel. A fork here takes the place of 
 the dagger by which, in the typical " fate tragedy," the family 
 ancestress meets her death, and before the close of Platen's 
 drama, a dozen descendants have been stabbed by the " fatal 
 fork." Der romantische Odipus (1829) is a satire on the 
 more general aspects of Romanticism, especially on its form- 
 lessness and its love for experimenting with new and uncouth 
 metres ; and heie the target of Platen's wit was, above all, 
 Immermann ("Nimmermann"), who had kindled his wrath by 
 a word of adverse criticism. Both these plays were inspired 
 by Tieck's satirical dramas ; but Platen went to work more 
 seriously than his predecessor; he aspired to be a German 
 Aristophanes, and even strove to imitate the Greek dramatist's 
 metrical variety. He failed, however, to attain his object, 
 just as Tieck and Heine, as every modern German satirist, 
 is bound to fail ; he is merely a literary satirist, where Aristo- 
 phanes attacked political and social abuses. To find the real 
 Aristophanic satirists of German literature, we must go back 
 to the opponents of the Reformation. 
 
 Platen died at Syracuse, in 1835, at the age of thirty-nine. 
 His Tagebiicher?- which have recently been published in full, 
 are his best biography : these extraordinarily detailed records 
 of the poet's life disclose the personality which one seeks in 
 vain beneath the smooth objectivity of his verse. His place 
 in literature depends upon his command of language and 
 metre ; he is without question the most perfect artist among 
 German poets, a master of beautiful form, and his fine sonnet, 
 Grabschrift) shows that he was conscious of his peculiar 
 merits : 
 
 " Ich war ein Dichter, und empfand die Schlage 
 Der btisen Zeit, in welcher ich entsprossen ; 
 Doch schon als Jiingling hab' ich Ruhm genossen, 
 Und auf die Sprache driickt' ich mein Geprage." 2 
 
 1 Edited by G. von Laubmann and L. von Scheffler, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 
 1900. 
 a C. C. Redlich's edition, i. 658 f. 

 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "YOUNG GERMANY." 
 
 EVERY movement of positive value in literature sets out with 
 the object of sweeping away the conventions and unrealities 
 of the preceding age, and of bringing poetry into closer 
 relation to reality. So the Romantic movement had begun, 
 and, in the same way, began the revolt against Romanticism, 
 which has now to be considered. In its decay, as we 
 have seen, Romanticism lost all touch with life : it became 
 fantastic and insincere. A reaction was inevitable, and, for 
 this reaction, we have to look to the writers who form the 
 group known as "das junge Deutschland." l These "Young "Das 
 Germans" repudiated the Romantic spirit they laughed to J" n e 
 scorn the " mondbeglanzte Zaubernacht " and the quixotic land." 
 search for the " blaue Blume " but they had nothing better, 
 not even a healthy aesthetic realism, to put in its place ; 
 they employed literature merely in the service of material and 
 political ends. "Young Germany," in fact, was a political 
 rather than a literary movement ; in the history of literature, 
 it marks an era of depression. At the same time, the intel- 
 lectual development of modern Germany would have been 
 much less rapid had it not come through this phase a 
 phase which was an indispensable forerunner of unification 
 forty years afterwards. Under "Young Germany," the nation 
 became political, and the newspaper a force ; German 
 authors, following in the footsteps of their colleagues in 
 France, turned from metaphysical dreams and medieval 
 poetry to the social questions of the moment. The delicate 
 
 1 Cp. J. Proelss, Das junge Deutschland, Stuttgart, 1892; G. Brandes, Det 
 unge Tyskland (in Hovedstromninger i det igde Aarhundredes Litteratur, vol. 
 5), Copenhagen, 1890 (also in Samlede Skrifter, 6, Copenhagen, 1900, 365 ff.) ; 
 German translation, Leipzig, 1891.
 
 502 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 spirituality of the Romantic age disappeared ; " emancipation 
 of the flesh," "liberalism," "esprit" were the watchwords of 
 the new time, and national character was prized less highly 
 than a successful imitation of French models. The superiority 
 of France, in poetry and art, as in politics, was one of the 
 established convictions of " Young Germany." And in the 
 end, literature was not altogether a loser ; it emerged from 
 its subservience to French taste less provincial, broader in 
 its sympathies, and more cosmopolitan. But, as literary 
 reformers, apart from their social and political ideas, the 
 Young German writers failed conspicuously to counterbalance 
 the levelling tendency of Hegelianism, to break the spell of 
 mediocrity that was due to Hegel's influence. 
 
 The hopes of a united Germany cherished by the patriots 
 of the Napoleonic wars had been rudely extinguished in 
 1814, by the establishment of the "Deutsche Bund." Ger- 
 many lay at the mercy of Prince Metternich. In vain did 
 L. Jahn, Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852) and his athletic enthusiasts 
 1778-1852. gy mnas ti cs were by hi m made to serve patriotic ends 
 endeavour to uphold the nation's pride under the galling 
 tyranny, while the " Burschenschaften " at the universities were 
 regarded by the Government as little better than revolutionary 
 clubs. The Paris Revolution of 1830 to some extent relieved 
 the pressure, but Germany had still eighteen years to wait for 
 a brighter political epoch. In the mean time, as a direct out- 
 come of the July Revolution, a new literary movement had 
 arisen. Phrases like " Young Germany " were in the air ; in 
 Switzerland, a political society, a branch of Mazzini's " la 
 giovine Europa," had adopted the title " Das junge Deutsch- 
 land," and, in 1833, H. Laube began to write a novel, Das 
 L. Wien- junge Europa. A year later, in 1834, Ludolf Wienbarg 
 barg, 1802- (!8o2-72), a Privatdocent in the University of Kiel, pub- 
 lished Asthetische Feldzuge, a volume of lectures, the dedication 
 of which opened with the words, " Dir, junges Deutschland, 
 widme ich diese Reden, nicht dem alien." The Asthetischen 
 Feldzuge, without professing to embody the principles of the 
 school, contained the views of an " advanced " thinker of 
 1834; and the expression "junges Deutschland" is here 
 used for the first time with reference to literature. In the 
 following year, Laube and Gutzkow planned a review in which 
 they proposed to combine the characteristics of the traditional
 
 CHAP. Vlll.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 503 
 
 literary periodicals with those of the French reviews. The 
 new journal, originally to have been called Das junge 
 Deutschland, was ultimately announced as the Deutsche 
 Revue. Before, however, the first number was published, 
 the German Bundestag, at the instigation of Austria, issued 
 a decree dated December 10, 1835, ordering the suppression 
 of the "Schriften aus der unter dem Namen des jungen 
 Deutschlands bekannten litterarischen Schule, zu welcher 
 namentlich Heinrich Heine, Karl Gutzkow, Ludolf Wienbarg, 
 Theodor Mundt und Heinrich Laube gehoren " ; and thus it 
 might be said that the name, even the very existence, of 
 the school now known as " Young Germany " was the con- 
 sequence of a decree intended for its suppression. But the 
 two oldest members of the group, Ludwig Borne and Heinrich 
 Heine, were both famous before the July Revolution. 
 
 Ludwig Borne, 1 or Lob Baruch, for the former name was Ludwig 
 only assumed after his conversion to Christianity (1818), f 8 T e> 8 
 was born in the Frankfort Ghetto in 1786, and died at Paris 
 in 1837. His father sent him to study medicine at the 
 University of Berlin, and here he fell in love with Henriette 
 Herz, who was more than twenty years his senior. In 1807, 
 he exchanged medicine for more congenial political studies 
 at Heidelberg and Giessen, and, four years later, received 
 an official position in his native town. After Napoleon's fall 
 and the re-establishment of Frankfort as a free city, Borne 
 was obliged, as a Jew, to resign his post. He turned 
 to journalism, but his various periodicals the best of them 
 was Die Waage (1818-21) brought him into constant con- 
 flict with the police. In 1830, he made Paris his home, 
 and from here wrote, originally as private letters to his friend 
 Jeannette Wohl, the brilliant Brief e aus Paris ( 1830-33). On Briefe aus 
 their publication, they were suppressed by the Bundestag, a 
 step which helped to make them the most popular book of 
 the day. Borne's Briefe aus Paris are at a disadvantage 
 in so far as they are merely documents of their time ; under 
 the guise of reports from Paris, they are glowing pleas for 
 reform at home, determined attempts to make Germany 
 ashamed of the condition of slavery to which her rulers 
 had reduced her. They are, however, strangely unbalanced : 
 
 1 The latest edition of Bbrne's Gesammelte Schriften, 6 vols. , Leipzig, 1900. 
 Cp. M. Holzmann, L. Borne, set* Lebcn und Wirken, Berlin, 1888.
 
 504 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Short 
 stories. 
 
 Heinrich 
 
 Heine, 
 
 I797-I856. 
 
 optimistic and sanguinary as long as there is hope for the 
 cause of freedom and revolution, depressed at every defeat 
 which the cause has to sustain. On the whole, they are 
 excellent examples of journalistic writing : Borne's easy style 
 was not only much superior to the lumbering prose in which 
 the newspaper of his time was written, but was also an advance 
 on the lengthy periods of even eminent men of letters. Thus, 
 irrespective of their contents, the Briefe aus Paris mark a 
 stage in the evolution of German prose. 
 
 As a critic of literature, Borne's opinions were almost in- 
 variably subordinate to his political and social standpoint. 
 For Jean Paul Richter, for instance, he had unbounded ad- 
 miration, but what really appealed to his democratic heart 
 was the older writer's sympathy for the poor and oppressed. 
 He imitated Jean Paul in a witty, superficial way in his own 
 satires and short stories, the most familiar of which are the 
 Monographic der deutschen Postschnecke (1821), Der Narr im 
 weissen Schwan, and Der Rsskiinstler (1822); but his imag- 
 ination had little of the Romantic delicacy which character- 
 ised Richter's. Borne was also the leader of a crusade against 
 Goethe's sovereignty in German literature, to which he was 
 impelled less by the poet's work than by his aristocratic 
 nature ; the respect which Goethe, in common with most 
 writers of the eighteenth century, had for princes, was distaste- 
 ful to the journalist who assisted at the July Revolution. 
 
 By far the most gifted of the writers who belonged to, or at 
 least for a part of their lives were associated with, "Young 
 Germany," is Heinrich Heine. 1 The ties that bound Heine 
 to the school were not, however, so close as in Borne's 
 case. In his lyric poetry, Heine drew his inspiration from 
 the Romanticists, and was able to share the feelings of the 
 latter towards Goethe although a time came when he 
 attacked the movement to which he nominally belonged, with 
 a mockery and bitterness of which Heine alone was capable. 
 He sympathised that is to say, one side of his Protean 
 nature sympathised with the Young German antagonism to 
 
 1 Editions of Heine's works by G. Karpeles, 9 vols., and ed., Berlin, 1893, 
 and E. Elster, 7 vols., Leipzig, 1887-90. Of literature on Heine the most 
 noteworthy books are A. Strodtmann, Heinrich Heines I^ben und Wcrke, 2 
 vols., 3rd ed., Berlin, 1884; W. Bolsche, Heinrich Heine; Versuch einer 
 dsthetisch-kritischen Analyse seiner Werke, Leipzig, 1887, and J. Legras, 
 Henri Heine foete, Paris, 1897.
 
 CHAP. VIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 505 
 
 the " Romantik," and he agreed heart and soul with them 
 when they pointed to France as the Promised Land, and 
 to Paris as the New Jerusalem. 
 
 Heinrich, or more correctly Harry Heine, was a native of 
 Diisseldorf, where he was born on the I3th of December, 
 1797. After more than one unsuccessful attempt to establish 
 him in business, Salomon Heine, a wealthy uncle in Hamburg, 
 consented to him matriculating at the University of Bonn as In Bonn, 
 a student of law. Law had as little attraction for Heine as 
 commerce, but in Bonn he had the opportunity of hearing 
 lectures by A. W. Schlegel. He spent his second term at 
 the University of Gottingen, from which he was expelled for 
 his share in a duel. Thereupon he went to Berlin, where 
 he had access to the salon of Rahel Varnhagen, and where, 
 in 1822, he published his first volume of Gedichte ; also, 
 about this time, he completed two tragedies, Almansor and 
 William Ratdiff (1823), which, like the early poems, relate 
 his own "junge Leiden." But none of these works attracted 
 much attention. For four years Heine cherished an un- 
 requited passion for one of his cousins, a daughter of 
 Salomon Heine; in 1823, however, when at Cuxhaven, 
 he fell in love with her younger sister. In the following 
 year he returned to Gottingen, and in the autumn made an 
 excursion through the Harz Mountains, the account of which Die /fare- 
 occupies half the first part of the Reisebilder. In 1825, reise > * 826 
 Heine turned Christian, and, a few weeks later, graduated 
 from Gottingen as Doctor of Law. With the Harzreise 
 
 (1826) he became famous, and the Buck der Lieder Buchder 
 
 (1827) made him at one stroke the most popular poet in I ^ er> 
 Germany. The second part of the Reisebilder (containing, 
 besides a continuation of Die Nordsee, Das Buck le Grand} 
 
 was published in 1827; the third, descriptive of his journey 
 to the Baths of Lucca, three years later; while the fourth 
 volume is taken up partly with an account of Die Stadt 
 Lucca and partly with Englische Fragmente (1831), being 
 Heine's impressions of a journey to England in 1827. 
 
 From 1831 on, Paris was Heine's home, where he was in Paris, 
 mainly occupied as correspondent for German newspapers 
 (Franzosische Zustande, 1833; Der Salon, 1835-40; Lutetia, 
 1854). His warm sympathies for France and his satirical 
 attacks on Germany commended him not only to the " Young
 
 506 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 German " party, but also to the French Government, from 
 which, between 1836 and 1848, he received a pension. He 
 never, however, ceased to love Germany with a Romantic 
 affection : 
 
 " O, Deutschland, meine feme Liebe, 
 Gedenk' ich deiner, wein' ich fast ! 
 Das muntre Frankreich scheint mir triibe, 
 Das leichte Volk wird mir zur Last." 1 
 
 In the winter of 1834-35, Heine made the acquaintance of 
 Eugenie Mirat (" Mathilde "), who, after being his faithful 
 comrade for six ye^ars, became his wife. Neither Die 
 Romantische Schule (1836) nor his attack on Borne, Ludivig 
 Borne (1840), places the poet in a favourable light, but 
 in 1844, as the result of a visit to Germany, he published 
 an admirable satire, Deutschland, ein IVintermarchen, and a 
 volume of Neue Gedichte, the first since the Buck der Lieder. 
 Atta Troll, Atta Troll, ein Sommermdrchen (1847), tne hero of which 
 is a dancing-bear in the Pyrenean village of Cauterets, is, on 
 the whole, Heine's most sustained poem. The slight fable of 
 Atta Troll the bear escapes from its keeper and takes refuge 
 in the famous Vale of Roncevaux, where it is ultimately shot 
 is only the framework for an attack on the political poetry 
 which, about 1840, began to spread over Germany. But 
 keen as was the lash of Heine's satire, the magic beauty 
 with which he decked out the Romantic scenery of Ronce- 
 vaux was still more effectual in making the " leathern " verse 
 of the time ridiculous. Atta Troll is, as the poet himself 
 said of it, "das letzte freie Waldlied der Romantik." On 
 January 3, 1846, he wrote to Varnhagen von Ense 
 
 " Das tausendjahrige Reich der Romantik hat ein Ende, und ich 
 selber war sein letzter und abgedankter Fabelkonig. Hatte ich 
 riicht die Krone vom Haupte fortgeschmissen und den Kittel 
 angezogen, sie batten mich richtig gekopft. Vor vier Jahren hatte 
 ich, ehe ich abtriinnig wurde von mir selber, noch ein Geliiste, mit 
 den alien Traumgenossen mich herumzutummeln im Mondschein 
 und ich schrieb den 'Atta Troll,' den Schwanengesang der unter- 
 gehenden Periode, und Ihnen habe ich ihn gewidmet." 2 
 
 Roman- The fine romances and pessimistic lyrics forming the 
 
 ero, 1851. Romancero were published in 1851, and the Letzten Gedichte 
 
 1 E. Elster's edition, i, 272. 
 a Briefe, 2 (G. Karpeles' edition, 9), 324. 
 ( Werke, 2, 420). 
 
 Cp. the close of Atta Troll
 
 CHAP, vill.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 507 
 
 in 1853 and 1855. In 1848, Heine was struck down by a 
 disease of the spine, which condemned him for eight years to 
 a " Matratzengruft." He died on the lyth of February, 1856. 
 A gleam of light in his last years was his love for Camille 
 Selden her real name was Elise von Krienitz the faithful 
 " Mouche," who nursed, him in the final stage of his illness. 
 
 Heinrich Heine is the most cosmopolitan poet of Germany. Heine as 
 With remarkable unanimity, the nations of Europe, and espe- 'y ric P 061 - 
 cially the Latin nations, have made themselves his champions, 
 maintaining with a persistence which his own countrymen 
 often find it difficult to understand, that among German poets 
 he is second to Goethe only. No lyric poet has been so 
 widely read in all lands as Heine, no German book of the 
 century has exerted so enduring an influence as the Buck 
 der Lieder. The fact is that Heine, as none of his pre- 
 decessors, made the German lyric European ; he stripped it 
 of many of its exclusively national qualities. In place, for 
 instance, of that vague spirituality peculiar to German song, 
 we find in his poems in those at least of the Buck der 
 Lieder a bold imagery, which all nationalities are able to 
 appreciate. Heine had the power of giving concrete and 
 definite expression to the most subtle feelings ; delicate 
 " Stimmungen " he clothed in startling metaphors which, 
 in the poems of the first period, almost jar upon the reader. 
 The lyric beauty of verses like Was will die einsame Thrdne ? 
 or 
 
 " Aus meinen Thranen spriessen 
 
 Viel bliihende Blumen hervor, 
 
 Und meine Seufzer warden 
 
 Ein Nachtigallenchor " ; 
 
 or in a less degree of 
 
 " Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam 
 Im Norden auf kahler Hdh'. 
 Ihn schlafert ; mil weisser Decke 
 Umhiillen ihn Eis und Schnee. 
 
 Er traumt von einer Palme, 
 Die fern im Morgenland 
 Einsam und schweigend trauert 
 Auf brennender Felsenwand," * 
 
 1 E. Elster's edition, i, 66, 78, and 108. Cp. G. Brandes, Del unge Tysk- 
 land (Samlede Skrifter, 6), 446 ff.
 
 508 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 recalls not the national German " Lied," but the Song of 
 Songs: in other words, Heine, like his contemporary, Riickert, 
 introduced into the Romantic lyric a note of orientalism. 
 While, however, in Riickert, this exotic element was easily 
 recognised, it was combined in Heine's case with traditional 
 German elements. Heine's oriental exaggeration and materi- 
 alisation, combined with the irony which he was always ready 
 to pour on his own Romanticism, were new and strange, 
 and they appealed with the same irresistible force to his 
 contemporaries as the Byronic " Weltschmerz " had appealed 
 to a decade earlier. But, nevertheless, in the evolution 
 of the German lyric, Heine struck an insincere note, which 
 may be sought in vain in Walther von der Vogelweide, 
 Goethe, Eichendorff, or the nameless poets of the Volkslied. 
 Later As Heine grew older a change came over his poetry ; the 
 
 lyrics. scoffing and extravagant tone of so many of the lyrics in the 
 
 Buck der Lieder gradually disappeared. During his years of 
 suffering in Paris, life became terribly earnest, and the 
 passion with which it closed was very different from that of 
 his Junge Leiden. The feelings expressed in the verses of 
 Heine's last period were too intense to admit of satirical 
 witticisms. No poet was ever more sincere than he, when 
 he wrote Die Wahlverlobten : 
 
 ' ' Ich weiss es jetzt. Bei Gott ! du bist es, 
 Die ich geliebt. Wie bitter ist es, 
 Wenn im Momente des Erkennens 
 Die Stunde schlagt des ew'gen Trennens ! 
 Der Willkomm ist zu gleicher Zeit 
 Ein Lebewohl ! Wir scheiden heut' 
 Auf immerdar. Kein Wiedersehn 
 Gibt es fur uns in Himmelshohn " 1 
 
 or that mystic, Romantic epithalamium, composed a few weeks 
 before his death, in which he dreams of himself lying dead 
 in a marble sarcophagus, and of his " Mouche " as a passion- 
 flower above his head. 
 
 Ballads. In objective poetry, where, above all, visual power is 
 
 demanded, Heine was a master. Volkslieder such as the 
 Loreley, in which he gave final form to Brentano's poem ; 
 ballads, such as Die Grenadiere (written in 1819), JBelsazer, 
 Die Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar, and Das Schlachtfeld von Hast- 
 
 1 E. Elster's edition. 2, 45.
 
 CHAP. VIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 509 
 
 ings, are worthy of a place beside the best of Schiller's or 
 Uhland's. The entire poetry which sprang up round Napoleon 
 pales before the simple intensity of Heine's verses 
 
 " Nach Frankreich zogen zwei Grenadier', 
 Die waren in Russland gefangen. 
 Und als sie kamen ins deutsche Quartier, 
 Sie liessen die Kopfe hanyen. 
 
 Da horten sie beide die traurige Mar' : 
 Dass Frankreich verloren gegangen, 
 Besiegt und zerschlagen das grosse Heer, 
 Und der Kaiser, der Kaiser gefangen. 
 
 Da weinten zusammen die Grenadier' 
 Wohl ob der klaglichen Kunde. 
 Der eine sprach : Wie weh wild mir, 
 Wie brennt meine alte Wunde ! 
 
 Der andre sprach : Das Lied ist aus, 
 Auch ich mocnt' mil dir sterben, 
 Doch hab' ich Weib und Kind zu Haus, 
 Die ohne mich verderben. 
 
 Was schert mich Weib, was schert mich Kind ! 
 Ich trage weit bessres Verlangen ; 
 Lass sie betteln gehn, wenn sie hungrig sind, 
 Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser gefangen ! " l 
 
 There is still another side to Heine's poetry in which he had Sea-poetry. 
 no rival among German poets, his understanding for the sea. 
 He is almost the only German writer who has expressed that 
 fervid delight in the ocean, which echoes through the poetry 
 of Greece, Scandinavia, and England. Heine loved the fresh 
 salt air, the curling waves, and the long sandy beaches of the 
 North Sea coasts as intensely as Eichendorff loved the forest ; 
 and nothing he wrote surpassed in beauty of expression his 
 full-sounding lyrics of Die Nordsee : 
 
 " Thalatta! Thalatta ! 
 
 Sei mir gegriisst, du ewiges Meer ! 
 
 Sei mir gegriisst zehntausendmal 
 
 Aus jauchzendem Herzen, 
 
 Wie einst dich begriissten 
 
 Zehntausend Griechenherzen, 
 
 Ungliickbekampfende, heimatverlangende, 
 
 Weltberiilmite Griechenherzen." 2 
 
 1 E. Elster's edition, i, 39 f. 2 Ibid., i, 179.
 
 5io 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Heine's 
 cynicism. 
 
 As a prose writer, Heine exerted a hardly less abiding 
 influence than as a poet. His style, it is true, is often 
 unbalanced and tastelessly flippant ; Romantic " Schwarmerei " 
 and wit jostle each other in the same paragraph, but his 
 prose is always clear and concrete ; his touch is never 
 heavy, nor are his sentences unwieldy. The light tone of 
 the Reisebilder or Salon was better adapted for the ideas 
 which the Young German School had to express than the 
 classic prose of Goethe or Schopenhauer. The harshest 
 accusation that can be brought against Heine is that his 
 satire was misplaced, his wit cynical and even gross; many 
 a matchless song is ruined by a gratuitous gibe ; his scoffing 
 at Christianity is in bad taste; and his personal attacks on 
 men like Schlegel, at whose feet he had sat, or on Borne, 
 who had been his friend, are beyond all defence. But at the 
 same time it must be recognised that Heine, as few other 
 German writers, had at his command an Aristophanic wealth 
 of satire and cynicism, which only expressed itself in petty 
 personalities for want of worthier objects : Heine suffered by 
 living in an age when there were no great causes to fight 
 for. And, after all, he was a fighter ; it was no vainglorious 
 boast when he called himself " a soldier in the Liberation War 
 of Humanity " : 
 
 " Ich weiss wirklich nicht, ob ich es verdiene, dass man mir 
 einst mil einem Lorbeerkranze den Sarg verziere. Die Poesie, 
 wie sehr ich sie auch liebte, war mir immer nur heiliges Spielzeug 
 oder geweihtes Mittel fur himmlische Zwecke. Ich habe nie 
 grossen Werth gelegt auf Dichterruhm, und ob man meine Lieder 
 preiset oder tadelt, es kiimmert mich wenig. Aber ein Schwert 
 sollt ihr mir auf den Sarg legen ; denn ich war ein braver Soldat 
 im Befreiungskriege der Menschheit." * 
 
 This "spirituel Allemand," as the French called him, had a 
 great soul ; he combined the art of the lyric poet with the 
 reforming zeal of a Hebrew prophet. It was the irony of 
 Heine's fate that his opportunity never came. 
 
 The reputation of none of the Young German writers has 
 
 KariGutz- faded more rapidly than that of Karl F. Gutzkow, 2 who, 
 
 7 g w> l8 for at least twenty years of his life, was the most influential 
 
 writer in Germany. Born in 1811, Gutzkow was brought 
 
 1 Reisebilder, 3, K.ip. 31 ( IVerke, 3, 281). 
 
 2 Gesammelte Werke (novels, &c.), 12 vols., Jena, 1873-78.
 
 CHAP. VIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 51 I 
 
 up with a view to a clerical career, but the July Revolution 
 sweeping away all such plans, he became a journalist. An 
 ironical romance, Maha Guru, Geschichte eines Gottes (1833), 
 attracted a little attention, and, in 1835, appeared IVally, die Wallydie 
 Zweiflerin, a book which not only excited violent indignation Z ei fl er * n * 
 in its day, but even cost its author three months' imprison- 
 ment. Besides being tinged by the religious scepticism which 
 found its most characteristic expression in the Leben Jesu 
 (1835) by David F. Strauss, this novel was what the critics 
 of the School called a "glorification of the flesh," and it 
 scintillated with that superficial wittiness which, ever since, 
 has been a disagreeable element in German fiction. 
 
 Gutzkow's next novel, Seraphine (1837), into which he wove 
 a love affair of his own, did not meet with much favour, but 
 Blasedow und seine Sohne (1838), an educational story in a 
 humorous and satirical vein, was an advance on anything he 
 had yet written. In fact, Gutzkow's reputation rests almost 
 exclusively on books published after the Revolution of 1848. 
 Of these, Die Ritter vom Geiste (1850-52), in nine volumes, Die Ritter 
 was a starting-point for the modern social novel in Germany, *"?* Gets/e > 
 and the immediate forerunner of F. Spielhagen's Problematische 
 Naturen. To some extent Die Ritter vom Geiste anticipates 
 the literary principles of the later French naturalists, Gutzkow's 
 object here being, in the first instance, to paint a milieu rather 
 than to narrate events. 
 
 " Ich glaube," he says in his preface to the novel, " dass der 
 Roman eine neue Phase erlebt. Er soil in der That mehr werden, 
 als der Roman von friiher gewesen. Der Roman von friiher, ich 
 spreche nicht verachtend, sondern bewundernd, stellte das Nachein- 
 ander kunstvoll verschlungener Begebenheiten dar. . . . Der neue 
 Roman ist der Roman des Nebeneinander. Da liegt die ganze 
 Welt ! Dabegegnen sich Konigeund Bettler ! Die Menschen, die 
 zu einer erzahlten Geschichte gehoren, und die, die ihr eine wider- 
 strahlte Beleuchtung geben. . . . Nun fallt die Willkiir der Erfin- 
 dung fort. Kein Abschnitt des Lebens mehr, der ganze, runde, 
 voile Kreis liegt vor uns." 1 
 
 In practice, however, Gutzkow fell short of the ideal he 
 set up for himself in this preface. Die Ritter vom Geiste 
 aimed at depicting the reactionary period that followed the 
 Revolution, but Gutzkow's picture is confused. The funda- 
 mental idea of the "Knights of the Spirit" who were to 
 
 1 Vorwort sur ersten Avflage, ix.
 
 512 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Other 
 novels. 
 
 As drama- 
 tist. 
 
 Zopfund 
 Schwert, 
 1843- 
 
 Der 
 Konigs- 
 lieutenant, 
 1849. 
 
 oppose the misuse of political power was characteristic of the 
 age, and a symptom of the intellectual tendency that gave rise 
 to Freiligrath's famous mot, " Ueutschland ist Hamlet." l But 
 the plot underlying the nine volumes of " Nebeneinander " is 
 sensational and trivial, and recalls the "family" novels which 
 had flooded the book-market from previous to the "Sturm 
 und Drang " until the close of the eighteenth century. Die 
 Ritter vom Geiste was followed by Der Zauberer von Rom 
 (1858-61), a romance of German Catholicism. This, how- 
 ever, and Gutzkow's remaining novels, Hohenschwangau (1867- 
 68), Die Sohne Pestalozzis (1870), Die neuen Serapionsbriider 
 (1877), show a steady decline of power; moreover, the 
 movement in German fiction which Die Ritter vom Geiste 
 inaugurated, and to which we shall return in a later chapter, 
 advanced too rapidly for Gutzkow, and he was soon left far 
 behind. 
 
 Although Gutzkow owed his position in literary history 
 mainly to the fact that he was a pioneer of modern methods 
 of writing fiction, his popularity as a playwright has been 
 more durable. 2 After some failures, Richard Savage, a 
 tragedy, met with success in 1838; and this was the first 
 of a long series of plays which, although deficient in finer 
 poetic qualities, are well constructed, and written in an 
 effective and not unliterary style ; several of them are still 
 in the repertory of all German theatres. Zopf und Schwert 
 (1843), which takes the chief place, is a historical comedy 
 of intrigue, on the lines made popular by Eugene Scribe; 
 Friedrich Wilhelm I. of Prussia and the members of his 
 " Tabakscollegium " are drawn with admirable humour, and 
 the historical colour, without being particularly true, is utilised 
 to heighten the effect. So much can hardly be said of 
 Gutzkow's last important drama, Der Konigslieutenant, which 
 was written in celebration of Goethe's hundredth birth- 
 day (1849). The subject of the play is taken from the 
 third book of Dichtnng und WahrJieit, where Goethe de- 
 scribes how the " Konigslieutenant " Thorane (properly 
 Thoranc) was quartered in his father's house at Frankfort. 
 The local artists whom Thorane gathers round him are 
 described with some skill, but the French count himself is 
 
 1 Freiligrath's Gesammelte Dichtungen, 3, 83. 
 
 2 Dramatiscke IVcrke, 20 vols., Jena, 1871-72.
 
 CHAP. VIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 513 
 
 merely a theatrical figure, and the boy Goethe is idealised with 
 a complete disregard for facts. The same indifference to 
 actuality is to be seen in the clever comedy, Das Urbild des 
 Tartiiffe (1847), founded on an incident in Moliere's life. 
 Lastly, mention has to be made of Gutzkow's only success- 
 ful effort at a higher form of drama, Uriel Acosta (1847), i n Uriel 
 which the martyrdom of Spinoza's forerunner is made the A osta > 
 basis of a flaming plea for " Gedankenfreiheit." The play 
 is in iambics and excellently written, but the standpoint and 
 spirit of the conflict are too exclusively those of Strauss and 
 his school for the work to have any historical value. Gutzkow's 
 death took place in 1 8 7 8, as the result of an accident : an 
 overturned candle set fire to his bed. 
 
 Heinrich Laube 1 (1806-84), the last of the leaders of H. Laube, 
 "Young Germany," and five years older than Gutzkow, was l8o6-8 4- 
 a Silesian, who came from a poor and provincial home and 
 fought his way to the front. At the university, Laube 
 devoted more time to duelling and social life than to study ; 
 but the theatre attracted him strongly, and his tentative begin- 
 nings as dramatist and critic met with encouragement. In 
 1832 and 1833, he published two volumes of essays entitled 
 Das neue Jahrhundert, which were followed by the first of 
 an ambitiously planned series of novels, Das junge Europa. Dasjunge 
 This book, which bore the separate title Die Poeten (1833), Europa, 
 is a " Tendenzroman " in letters, and discusses the advanced 
 ideas of the author's time ; but the story is only a succession 
 of gallant adventures. The remaining parts of the work, Die 
 Krieger, in which the Polish Revolution occupies the fore- 
 ground, and Die Burger, were not published until 1837. 
 Between 1834 and 1837, Laube wrote six volumes of Reisc- 
 novellen, an attempt to carry out on a larger scale the kind 
 of writing Heine had made popular in the Reisebilder. 
 Laube's chief work of fiction was Der deutsche Krieg, a cycle Der 
 of no less than nine volumes (1865-66), depicting with un- ^ ut , 3cftf 
 deniable grandeur of a realistic nature, the stormy epoch of 1865-66. 
 the Thirty Years' War. In Die Bohminger (1880), his last 
 novel, he endeavoured to call up the age in which his own 
 youth was passed, and the interest of the book depends 
 mainly on the freshness of the author's reminiscences. 
 
 1 Gtsammelte Sehriften, 16 vols., Vienna, 1875-82; Dramatiscke Werte, 12 
 vols., Vienna, 1880-92. 
 
 2 K
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Laube as 
 
 theatre 
 
 director. 
 
 His plays. 
 
 Die Karls- 
 sc hitler, 
 1847. 
 
 Graf 
 
 Essex, 
 
 1856. 
 
 T. Mundt, 
 1808-61. 
 
 To Laube, as to all writers of that time, Paris was an 
 irresistible centre of attraction ; but he was not able to visit 
 it until 1839. His residence in France was of special im- 
 portance to his subsequent work as playwright and theatre- 
 director. On the first of January, 1850, he entered upon 
 his duties as artistic manager of the Burgtheater of Vienna, 
 and with this appointment, reached the goal of his ambi- 
 tion. He remained in Vienna until 1867; a couple of years 
 later, he undertook the direction of the Municipal theatres 
 in Leipzig, but in 1871, was again in Vienna, this time 
 at the head of the new " Wiener Stadttheater." His books 
 on the theatre (Das Burgtheater, 1868; Das norddeutsche 
 Theater, 1872; Das Wiener Stadttheater, 1875) are valuable 
 contributions to modern dramaturgic literature. 
 
 As a playwright, Laube rivalled Gutzkow, and even his first 
 dramatic attempts such as the unpublished tragedy, Gustav 
 Adolf (1829) revealed an instinctive knowledge of stage- 
 requirements. Mondaleschi (1839) was a drama of promise, 
 but his name did not become known before the production 
 of Struensee (1847), a clever piece in the manner of the French 
 dramatists, to whom he looked up as unsurpassable models. 
 Laube also wrote two "literary" comedies, Gottschedund Gellert 
 (1845), and Die Karlsschiller (1847), tne latter, a play which 
 may still be seen on the German stage. The subject of 
 Die Karlsschiiler is Schiller's flight from the Karlsschule in 
 Stuttgart, and the author took advantage of the opportunity 
 to express the political sentiments of his School. The 
 piece is theatrically effective, but full of a vague pathos, 
 which has aged more rapidly than the bourgeois humour of 
 Gutzkow's drama on Goethe's childhood. Laube's ablest 
 drama is Graf Essex (1856), in which Queen Elizabeth's 
 favourite is drawn with real psychological insight. The 
 construction of this work is solid and regular, but it is 
 in verse, and verse was not Laube's strong point; he could 
 be declamatory, sententious, epigrammatic, and witty, but he 
 was seldom or never a poet. 
 
 Of the minor writers associated with the school, little 
 need be said. A. Lewald (1792-1871) and H. Marggraff 
 (1809-64) were no more than journalists, while the wit of 
 M. G. Saphir (1795-1858), a Hungarian Jew, illustrates to 
 what depths could sink the brilliancy of a Borne and Heine.
 
 CHAP. VIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 515 
 
 Theodor Mundt (i 808-61), who was mentioned in the 
 decree against the School, was Professor and University 
 Librarian in Berlin, and remained practically the man of one Madonna. 
 book, Madonna, Unterhaltungen mit einer Heiligen (1835), l835> 
 which, on its appearance, created an extraordinary stir. This 
 was partly due to the doctrinaire fashion in which Mundt 
 championed the " Kinder der Welt " against the " Kinder 
 Gottes," and set forth the Young German ideas on emanci- 
 pation of the senses, but also because the book was associated 
 with an incident much discussed in the capital. A Berlin 
 teacher, Heinrich Stieglitz (1801-49), wno had published four 
 volumes of indifferent poetry (Bilder des Orients, 1831-33), 
 believed that he was born to great things, and, towards the 
 end of 1834, his wife, Charlotte, killed herself, in the hope Charlotte 
 that a deep sorrow would awaken her husband's genius. Stie s litz - 
 After Charlotte Stieglitz's suicide, Mundt, to whom she was 
 bound by a Platonic friendship, wrote a book about her 
 (Charlotte Stieglitz, ein Denkmal, 1835), and it is evident 
 that she also sat for the portrait of his " Madonna." Neither 
 Mundt, however, nor his friend Gustav Kiihne (1806-88), the 
 author of numerous stories and sketches, had much talent 
 or distinction. 1 Georg Biichner (i8i3-37), 2 on the other 
 hand, is still remembered by a powerful drama on the French 
 Revolution, Dantons Tod, which was published by Gutzkow 
 in 1835. 
 
 Between 1830 and 1848, Goethe stood by no means high 
 in his countrymen's favour ; 3 his ideas and personality were 
 both distasteful to the Young German School, although only 
 Borne had the courage to attack his reputation. But to dis- 
 parage Goethe was also a natural consequence of the Hegelian 
 philosophy ; in the Geschichte der deutschen Nationallitteratnr 
 (1835), for instance, by G. G. Gervinus (1805-71), who, him- G. G. 
 self a disciple of Hegel, constructed his book according to Gervinus, 
 his master's philosophy of history, Goethe is not spoken of 
 with enthusiasm. The most characteristic expression of this 
 antipathy to the poet is to be found in the writings of Wolfgang w. Men- 
 Menzel (1798-1873), a hot-headed graduate of the patriotic !, 1798- 
 student-clubs, who tilted in stormy wrath, not only against 
 
 1 On Mundt and Kiihne, cp. E. Pierson, Gustav Kiihne, Dresden, 1890. 
 
 5 Sammtliche Werke, ed. K. E. Franzos. Frankfurt, 1879. 
 
 3 Cp. V. Hehn, Gedanken iiber Goethe, 4th ed., Berlin, 1900, 156 ff.
 
 516 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Goethe, but against the Young German coterie itself: it 
 was Menzel, in fact, who was chiefly responsible for the 
 decree of 1835. While most of this author's voluminous 
 writings are forgotten, his Geschichte der Deutschen (1824) 
 has still some value as an example of the form then taken 
 by German patriotism, and his Deutsche Litteratur (1827) is 
 an interesting document of the literary tastes of the age. 
 
 But Young Germany's indifference towards Goet'he was 
 counterbalanced by the warmth of the Berlin circle, over 
 which Varnhagen von Ense presided. In 1834, the latter had 
 written an appreciative memoir of his gifted wife, Rahel, ein 
 Buck des Andenkens filr ihre freunde, and in the following 
 Bettinavon year, Bettina von Arnim (ijS^-iS^g), 1 Achim von Arnim's 
 ^ r g'^' widow, published her first book, Goethes Briefwechsel mit 
 einem Kinde. This is one of the most beautiful books of 
 the whole German " Romantik," and an excellent illustra- 
 tion of the unsophisticated Romantic temperament. But 
 enthusiastic adoration alone could not have raised so fine a 
 monument to Goethe's genius; Bettina was herself a poet. 
 A similar delicacy of feeling is to be seen in her book 
 on Karoline von Giinderode (i78o-i8o6), 2 Die Giinderode 
 (1840), the unhappy poetess and friend of Wilhelm von 
 Humboldt, who killed herself in 1806. In a later work, 
 Dies Buck Dies Buck gehort dem Konig (1849), Bettina von Arnim 
 8 Kbnig, "' ' snowe d how easy it was for the warm-hearted Romanticist 
 1849. to champion those very ideas for which Young Germany 
 
 was fighting. Dies Buck gehort dem Konig is a political 
 book of liberal ideas ; it was wrung from Bettina's senti- 
 mental soul by the sufferings of the Silesian weavers, by 
 the oppression of the lower classes, by the rise of indus- 
 trialism, and the change of social conditions, and all this, 
 in naive Romanticism, she lays before the king he alone 
 is able to help and relieve. Thus Romanticism could, 
 at this late date, be invoked in the service of political and 
 social reform. 
 
 From the Revolution of 1830 to that of 1848, German 
 literature was practically dominated by Young Germany; but 
 
 1 Sammlliche Werke, n vols., Berlin, 1853. Cp. M. Carriere, Bettina von 
 Arnim, Breslau. 1887, and M. Koch in D.N.L., 146, i, 2 [1891], 441 ff. 
 
 7 Cp. L. Geiger, Karoline von Gundtrode und ihre Frettnde, Stuttgart, 1895.
 
 CHAP. VIM.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 517 
 
 from about 1841 onwards, a change came over the aims 
 and methods of political literature. The vague theoris- 
 ing of writers like Borne yielded to definite revolutionary 
 principles, and the " Ritter vom Geiste," to whom Gutzkow 
 looked for Germany's political regeneration, gave way to 
 blue blouses and red caps.
 
 Si8 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SWABIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 As the reader will have gathered from the preceding chapters, 
 the most natural and enduring expression of the German 
 Romantic spirit was the lyric. The Romantic drama never 
 gained a footing on the national stage, and soon ceased 
 to be more than a literary curiosity; the Romantic novel, 
 although it gave a stimulus to the fiction of the succeeding 
 period, had little value in the eyes of the younger generation ; 
 but the lyric remained romantic, even after Romanticism, 
 as a creed, had lost all hold upon the nation ; and it 
 found a refuge in South Germany from the storms of the 
 Revolution. The Swabian poets, 1 who have now to be dis- 
 cussed, were virtually the heirs of the "Romantik"; they 
 carried the Romantic traditions across the uninspired period 
 of political journalism, which arose under "Young Germany," 
 and kept the line unbroken between the first leaders of 
 Romanticism and masters like Storm and Keller in the 
 following generation. 
 
 The acknowledged head' of the Romantic circle in Wiir- 
 
 J- L. temberg was Johann Ludwig Uhland. 2 Born in 1787, at 
 
 1787^1862. Tiibingen, where his father was secretary to the university, 
 
 Uhland showed, as a boy, unusual talent, and was early 
 
 sent to the university to be trained as a jurist. The rich 
 
 stores of poetry which the Heidelberg Romanticists had 
 
 1 Cp. R. Krauss, Schwdbische Litter aturgeschichte, 2 vols., Freiburg, 1897- 
 99. 2. 
 
 2 Gesammelte Werke, ed. H. Fischer, 6 vols., Stuttgart, 1892; also by L. 
 Frankel, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1893. A critical edition of the Gedichte by E. 
 Schmidt and J. Hartmann, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1898. Cp. K. Mayer, L. 
 Uhland, seine Freunde und Zeitgenossen, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1867, and H. 
 Fischer, L. Uhland, Stuttgart, 1887.
 
 CHAP. IX.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 519 
 
 discovered in the songs of the people and in the nation's 
 past proved, however, more attractive than law to the 
 young student. Uhland was a poet before he was twenty, 
 and one or two of his finest poems Die Kapelle, Des 
 Schdfers Sonntagslied, Das Schloss am Meer were written 
 as early as 1805. In 1808, he contributed, as we have 
 seen, to the Zeitung filr Einsiedler ; two years previously, he 
 had published poems in a " Musenalmanach." With his 
 poetic interests, Uhland combined a strong taste for the 
 study of German antiquity, and in Paris, where he went in 
 1810, to complete his legal training, he spent most of his 
 time in the National Library over MSS. of medieval poetry. 
 During his student days in Tubingen, he had made the 
 acquaintance of two poets, who were subsequently to be his 
 fellow-workers Justinus Kerner and Karl Mayer and, on 
 his return from Paris to Tubingen, he was welcomed by 
 Gustav Schwab and the group of young writers of whom 
 Schwab was the centre. To the patriotic movement of 
 1813-14 Uhland was at this time an assessor in the 
 Ministry of Finance at Stuttgart he contributed several 
 stirring Lieder, such as Vorwarts and Die Siegesbotschaft. His 
 radical views, however, rendered his position as Government 
 official an uncomfortable one, and, with a view to acquiring 
 more independence, he became an advocate. In the mean- 
 time, he had induced Cotta of Tubingen to publish his 
 collected Gedichte (1815), the success of which suggested Gedichte. 
 the possibility of making literature his profession. I8l 5- 
 
 On the establishment, in 1819, of parliamentary govern- 
 ment in Wiirtemberg an end for which Uhland worked 
 heart and soul he began to take an active interest in 
 politics, but his Germanic studies were not neglected. In 
 1822, he published a Leben Waif hers von der Vogelweide, 
 and, in 1830, was appointed professor in the university of 
 his native town; three years later, in consequence of politi- 
 cal conflicts, he was obliged to resign his chair. The year 
 1848 naturally awakened great hopes in Uhland; his dream of 
 constitutional liberty seemed at length on the point of being 
 realised. He was a prominent member of the Parliament 
 which held its sittings in the Paulskirche at Frankfort, but 
 after the failure of the political movement he withdrew from 
 public life, and his last years were occupied with those studies
 
 520 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 in early German literature 1 to which, throughout his career, 
 he was more faithful than to poetry. He died in Tubingen 
 on the 1 3th of November, 1862. 
 
 Uhland proved the worthy heir of all that was best in the 
 younger Romantic movement, which opened his eyes to the 
 inexhaustible poetry of the "Volk," and taught him to 
 appreciate and love the historic past of his own people. 
 But he was by no means a dreamy, impracticable Roman- 
 ticist, whose chief thought was to veil the prosaic in poetic 
 mysticism; his political interests are evidence enough to the 
 contrary. He had a singularly clear brain and a deep regard 
 for the realities of life. In this respect it would seem, indeed, 
 as if his work were the beginning of that revolt against Roman- 
 ticism which " Young Germany " completed, and it is not sur- 
 Uhiand's prising to find that he was more successful as a ballad-singer 
 ballads. ^an as a p Ogt Q f f ee n n g s an( j sentiments. His poetry, it is 
 true, contains a few lyric gems, which might have been 
 written by Eichendorff, but it is in his ballads and Volkslieder 
 that he appears a master. Among the finest of his early 
 ballads are Klein Roland (1808), Roland Schildtrdger (1811), 
 Konig Karls Meerfahrt (1812), Des Sdngers Fluch (1814), 
 and the cycle, Graf Eberhard der Rauschebart (1815). In 
 the restfulness of these poems, and their perfect sense of fit- 
 ness, there is something that recalls Goethe's classic art. Un- 
 like his Romantic contemporaries, unlike even Heine, Uhland 
 never obtrudes his own personality upon his poetry : he is 
 essentially, as D. F. Strauss described him, the " Klassiker 
 der Romantik." The most complete idea of his talent is 
 to be gained from Des Sdngers Fluch> which opens with the 
 full-sounding verses : 
 
 " Es stand in alien Zeiten ein Schloss, so hoch und hehr, 
 Weit glanzt' es iiber die Lande bis an das blaue Meer, 
 Und rings von duft'gen Garten ein bliithenreicher Kranz, 
 Drin sprangen frische Brunnen in Regenbogenglanz. 
 
 Dort sass ein stolzer Konig, an Land und Siegen reich, 
 Er sass auf seinem Throne so finster und so bleich ; 
 Denn was er sinnt, ist Schrecken, und was er blickt, ist Wuth, 
 Und was er spricht, ist Geissel, und was er schreibt, ist Blut." 2 
 
 1 Schriften sur Geschichte der Dichtung itnd Sage, 8 vols., Stuttgart, 
 1861-72 
 a E. Schmidt and J. Hartmann's edition, i. 306 ff.
 
 CHAP. IX.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 521 
 
 As a poet of the Volkslied, Uhland has written a handful 
 of excellent songs, such as Abschied (" Was klinget und singet 
 die Strass' herauf?" 1806), Der gute Kamerad (1809), Der 
 Wirthin Tochterlein (1809) and the fine Trinklied (" Wir sind 
 nicht mehr am erstem Glas," 1812), all of which are worthy 
 of being placed beside Heine's Loreley or Eichendorff's Zer- 
 brochenes Ringlein, as genuine songs of the people. The 
 following is Der Wirthin Tochterlein: 
 
 " Es zogen drei Bursche wohl tiber den Rhein, 
 Bei einer Frau Wirthin da kehrten sie ein : 
 
 ' Frau Wirthin, hat Sie gut Bier und Wein? 
 Wo'hat Sie Ihr schones Tochterlein?' 
 
 ' Mein Bier und Wein ist frisch und klar. 
 Mein Tochterlein liegt auf der Todtenbahr.' 
 
 Und als sie traten zur Kammer hinein, 
 Da lag sie in einem schwarzen Schrein. 
 
 Der erste, der schlug den Schleier zuriick 
 Und schaute sie an mit traurigem Blick : 
 
 ' Ach, leljtest du noch, du scheme Maid ! 
 Ich wtirde dich lieben von dieser Zeit.' 
 
 Der zweite deckle den Schleier zu 
 Und kehrte sich ab und weinte dazu : 
 
 ' Ach, dass du liegst auf der Todtenbahr ' ! 
 Ich hab' dich geliebet so manches Jahr.' 
 
 Der dritte hub ihn wieder sogleich 
 Und kiisste sie an den Mund so bleich : 
 
 ' Dich liebt' ich immer, dich lieb' ich noch heut 
 Und werde dich lieben in Ewigkeit.' 5>1 
 
 As a dramatist, Uhland showed little talent ; his imagina- 
 tion seemed incapable of the sustained effort demanded by 
 the drama. In two historical plays, Ernst Herzog von Uhland's 
 Schwaben (1818) and Ludwig der Bayer (1819), he made dramas 
 a mistake common to all the Romantic dramatists, of con- 
 fusing the province of the drama with that of the epic. 
 But, unlike many of his predecessors, Uhland does not allow 
 the lyric element to encroach unduly ; and, after all, the 
 most serious defect of his dramas is that they are written 
 
 1 E. Schmidt and J. Hartmann's edition, i, 176.
 
 522 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Vater- 
 
 Idndische 
 
 Gedichte, 
 
 1816. 
 
 J. Kerner, 
 1786-1862. 
 
 without knowledge of, and without due consideration for, the 
 technical requirements of the theatre. 
 
 Uhland and his Swabian friends were " epigoni," belated 
 followers of the classic and Romantic traditions, rather than 
 pioneers of a new period. The perfection of Uhland's ballad 
 poetry is that of classic ripeness, the result of careful work- 
 manship and calm critical judgment : he is not a reformer, 
 he is never filled with the desire to create new forms of 
 expression or to win new ideas for poetry. Indeed, the 
 only interest which Uhland did not share with his pre- 
 decessors was that in politics : his Vaterliindische Gedichte 
 (1816), although now forgotten, were the forerunners of the 
 political poetry of the following generation. For ten years 
 of his life, those between 1819 and 1829, Uhland's poetic 
 genius seemed to lie dormant; then, making a fresh start, 
 he composed the fine ballads, Bertran de Born (1829), Der 
 Waller (1829), and Das Gliick von Edenhall (1834). But 
 after this brief Indian summer, he wrote no more ; thus his 
 career as a poet was virtually a short one, and poetry, instead 
 of being the main business of his life, was, his first youth 
 over, only an occasional pastime. Yet notwithstanding such 
 restrictions, he towers high above the other Swabians, with 
 the single exception of Eduard Morike, who was the truest 
 lyric poet of them all. 
 
 Uhland's immediate comrade in arms was Justinus A. C. 
 Kerner (1786-1862 ). 1 After many false starts, Kerner re- 
 solved to devote himself to medicine ; he studied in Tubingen, 
 where he made Uhland's acquaintance, and where he spent 
 more time and thought over literature than over medicine. 
 But, unlike his friend, he did not allow poetry to distract 
 him from his chosen profession. In 1819, he settled in the 
 little Swabian town of Weinsberg, where, in later years, his 
 hospitable house was a goal of pilgrimage for the leading 
 German poets of his time. Kerner's first book, Reiseschatten : 
 von dem Schattenspieler Lux (1811), was the result of a visit 
 paid to Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna ; and the Romantic con- 
 fusion of poetry and prose, seriousness and humour, contained 
 in this work, gives a more complete idea of the poet's genius 
 
 1 Ausgewdhlte poetische Werke, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1878; also in Reclam's 
 Universal-Bibliothek, 3837-3858, Leipzig, 1898. Cp. T. Kerner, /. Kerners 
 Briefwechsel mit seinen Freunden, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1897.
 
 CHAP. IX.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 523 
 
 than his verse. The first collection of his Gedichte appeared 
 in 1826, a fifth and much enlarged edition (Lyrische Gedichte) 
 in 1854. As Kerner grew old, he went blind, and, in 
 1851, was forced to give up his practice. He died in 
 1862. Like Uhland, he learned his most valuable lesson 
 from the Volkslied, but his profession brought him into 
 closer touch with the people, and his ballads, although 
 they lack the fine classic polish of Uhland's, are sometimes 
 more genuine Volkslieder. Kerner had a more sensitive 
 poetic temperament than his friend, and Romantic mysticism, 
 not cool objectivity, formed the basis of his talent; often, 
 too, in his lyrics, there is a touch of melancholy which recalls 
 the Austrian poet, Lenau. Although smoothness and clear- 
 ness of expression are missing in Kerner's writings, these 
 qualities are atoned for by the interesting personal note ; he 
 himself had experienced the truth of his own lines on Poesie : 
 
 " Poesie ist tiefes Schmerzen, 
 Und es kommt das echte Lied 
 Einzig aus dem Menschenherzen, 
 Das ein tiefes Leid durchgliiht. 
 
 Doch die hochsten Poesien 
 Schweigen wie der hochste Schmerz, 
 Nur wie Geisterschatten ziehen 
 Stumm sie durch's gebrochne Ilerz." 1 
 
 Not all Kerner's poetry, however, is elegiac in its tone ; the 
 most familiar of all his songs is the Wander lied: 
 
 " Wohlauf ! noch getrunken 
 
 Den funkelnden Wein ! 
 
 Ade nun, ihr Lieben ! 
 
 Geschieden muss seyn. 
 . Ade nun, ihr Berge, 
 
 Du vaterlich Haus ! 
 
 Es treibt in die Feme 
 
 Mich machtig hinaus." 2 
 
 In 1826, Friederike Hauffe, a peasant woman of the 
 neighbouring village of Prevorst, who was a victim to som- 
 nambulism, came to Kerner to undergo a magnetic cure, 
 and although he soon found that he could do nothing for her, 
 her mental condition awakened his scientific interest. For 
 
 1 Lyrische Gedichte, Stuttgart, 1854, 5. 
 
 2 Ibid., 165.
 
 524 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Die 
 
 Seherin 
 von Pre- 
 vorst, 1829. 
 
 G. Schwab, 
 1792-1850. 
 
 K. Mayer, 
 1786-1870. 
 
 G. Pfizer, 
 1807-90. 
 
 two and a half years he kept her in his house, observing and 
 recording her mysterious sayings and doings, which form the 
 contents of the strange book, Die Seherin von Prevorst : Eroff- 
 nungen iiber das innere Leben das Menschen und iiber das 
 Hereinragen einer Geisterwelt in die unsere (1829). Through- 
 out his life, Kerner had for the unseen world an almost morbid 
 curiosity, which has left its traces on all his writings. 
 
 Another of the circle of friends at the University of Tubin- 
 gen was Gustav Schwab (1792-1850), a native of Stuttgart. 
 In his character, Schwab was an exception to the group to 
 which he belonged : active and enterprising, he was fond 
 of making new friends, of seeing new faces and visiting 
 new lands ; he had something of the North German love 
 of roaming. His literary work, for which his pastoral duties 
 left him ample leisure, was even more varied than Uhland's ; 
 he modernised Rollenhagen's Froschmauseler (1819), edited 
 Paul Fleming (1820), translated Lamartine (1826), and wrote 
 Schillers Leben (1840), besides several books descriptive 
 of Wiirtemberg. As a poet, however, he occupies a sub- 
 ordinate position; his verse (Gedichte, 1 828-29) x lacks in- 
 spiration, and is often merely rhetorical. Schwab called 
 himself with pride Uhland's pupil, and, had it not been for 
 Uhland, he might never have discovered his poetic talent. 
 One of the few poems by him that is still remembered is 
 the student song, " Bemooster Bursche zieh' ich aus " ; and he 
 is especially successful in his Legends, notably the Legende 
 von den heiligen drei Konigen (1827). But it is characteristic 
 of Schwab's talent that his most widely read books were inter- 
 pretations of the sagas of his native land {Deutsche VolksbiicJier, 
 1835) and of Greece {Die schb'nstcn Sagen des klassischen 
 Alterthums, 1 8 3 8-40). 2 
 
 These three writers form the inner circle of the so-called 
 Swabian School. With them are associated a few others 
 who stood in more or less close relations to them. Karl 
 F. H. Mayer (1786-1870) had a reputation for his nature- 
 poetry, but his talent, although genuine, was small, and the 
 verses of Gustav Pfizer (1807-90) are deficient both in spon- 
 taneity and lyric feeling. The prodigal son of the Tubingen 
 
 1 Ed. G. Klee. GUtersloh, 1882. Cp. K. Kltipfel, G. Schwab, sein Leben 
 und \Verken, Leipzig, 1888. 
 
 2 Both works edited by G. Klee, Gutersloh, 1894.
 
 CHAP. IX.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 525 
 
 circle was Wilhelm Waiblinger (I804-30), 1 a remarkably gifted w. Waib- 
 writer, who unfortunately was cursed by that lack of balance 
 which brought so many of the Romantic poets to a tragic end. 
 Waiblinger, at least, did not share the provincial, homely tastes 
 of his comrades. He began his career as an enthusiast in 
 the cause of Greece (Lieder der Griechen, 1823 ; Vier Erzah- 
 lungen aus der Geschichte des jetzigen Griechenlands, 1826); 
 and in Rome, which he first visited in 1827, he made a scanty 
 income by writing sketches, short stories, and poetry for 
 German publishers. His health broke down under the strain 
 of his restless life, and he died in 1830. The novels of 
 another Swabian Romanticist, Wilhelm Hauff, have already 
 been mentioned in connection with the general Romantic 
 movement ; but Hauff was also a poet, and several of his songs 
 {Reiters Morgengesang, Soldatenliebe) have become Volkslieder. 
 Unquestionably the greatest lyric poet that Swabia ever pro- 
 duced was Eduard Morike, 2 who was born at Ludwigsburg in E. Mbrike, 
 1804. Morike, like his friends, did not make a profession l8 4-7S- 
 of literature : from 1834 on, he was pastor in Cleversulzbach, 
 a small village in Wiirtemberg, until, in 1843, he was obliged 
 to resign on account of his health. Eight years later, he was 
 appointed teacher of German literature in the Katharinenstift 
 in Stuttgart, where he remained until 1866. He died in 
 1875. Morike was not a voluminous writer his collected 
 works are contained in four small volumes but all that he 
 wrote bears the stamp of genius. He was a shy, retiring 
 man, who came little into contact with the world, and his 
 lyric genius unfolded itself, free from all disturbing influ- 
 ences. His Gedichte, collected in 1838, contain a handful of 
 poems, such as the cycle Peregrina (1824 and later), Jung 
 Volker (1826), Das verlassene Madchen (1829), Agnes (1831), 
 Schon-Rohtraut (1837), Der Gartner (1837), Soldatenbraut 
 (1837), Ein Stiindlein wohl vor Tag (1837), which are 
 numbered among the masterpieces of German lyric poetry. 
 The peculiar charm of these songs is their perfect truth and 
 simplicity. Morike is never metaphysical or rhetorical; he 
 sings of unsatisfied longing, of lost happiness, with an in- 
 tensity that is suggested rather than expressed ; he was able, 
 
 1 Gesammelte Werke, 3rd ed., Pforzheim, 1859. 
 
 2 Gesammelte Schriften, 4 vols., Stuttgart, 1894. Cp. H. Mayne, E. 
 Morike, sein Leben und Dichten, Stuttgart, 1902.
 
 526 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 as few poets since Goethe, to penetrate with reverential 
 delicacy into the secret hopes and longings of the soul. Das 
 ocrlassene Mddchen illustrates these characteristics of Morike's 
 
 genius : 
 
 " Friih, wann die Hahne krahn, 
 Eh' die Sternlein verschwinden, 
 Muss ich am Herde stehn, 
 Muss Feuer ziinden. 
 
 Schbn ist der Flammen Schein, 
 Es springen die Funken ; 
 Ich schaue so drein, 
 In Leid versunken. 
 
 Plotzlich da kommt es mir, 
 Treuloser Knabe, 
 Dass ich die Nacht von dir 
 Getraumet habe. 
 
 Thrane auf ThrJine dann 
 Stiirzet hernieder ; 
 So kommt der Tag heran 
 O ging' er wieder ! " 1 
 
 As a ballad-writer (Die schlimme Gret, 1837 ; Der Feuerreiter, 
 1847; Der Schatten, 1855), Morike does not rank so high; 
 the definite conciseness of Uhland's art was better suited to 
 this form of poetry than the suggestiveness in which Morike 
 excelled. His " Marchen " in verse, however (Mdrchen vom 
 sichern Mann, 1838), and his Idylle vom Bodensee (in seven 
 cantos, 1846), contain a rich and unexpected fund of humour. 
 Morike's most ambitious work is an unfinished novel, 
 Maler Maler Nolten (1832), a book full of poetic charm. Maler 
 1832!"' Nolten does not, it must be admitted, conform to the modern 
 conception of a novel ; it is formless, like so many Romantic 
 books; its plot is fragmentary, and its events are imagined 
 rather than observed. But the characters are drawn with 
 an extraordinary fineness of perception, and with a poet's in- 
 sight into the springs of human action ; the reader is re- 
 minded again and again of the imaginative flights in the 
 early Romantic fiction. An imitation of Wilhelm Meister 
 and the novels of the Romanticists, Maler Nolten is en- 
 cumbered with many of the weak elements of its models : 
 its atmosphere, for instance, is provincial, and the modern 
 reader is more wearied than entertained by allegorical 
 
 i Gedichte, 61.
 
 CHAP. IX.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 527 
 
 masquerades described at length ; but, nevertheless, Morike's 
 story is a landmark in the development of German fiction, 
 standing, as it does, between the purely Romantic novel and 
 such a work as Gottfried Keller's Der grune Heinrich. In 
 1839, Maler Nolten was followed by a volume of shorter 
 stories, among which was the charming "Novelle," Lucie Nmelien, 
 Gelmeroth. A " Marchen," Das Stuttgarter ffutzelmdnnlein, l839 ' 
 appeared in 1852, and, in 1855, ripest of all Morike's prose 
 writings, Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag, a series of finely 
 delineated episodes. 
 
 With Morike it is usual to associate Hermann Kurz (1813- H. Kurz, 
 73), 1 who, in his Gedichte (1836) and Dichtungen (1839), l8l 3'73 
 helped to keep alive the poetic traditions of the School. 
 But much of Kurz's time was spent from circumstance 
 rather than choice in translating : he made excellent versions 
 of Orlando Furioso (1843) and of Gottfried's Tristan (1844), 
 the close of which he wrote himself with admirable poetic 
 tact. As a novelist, Kurz was the author of a number of 
 short stories and two excellent historical romances, Schillers 
 Heimathjahre (1849) and Der Sonnenwirth (1855), the scene 
 of which is laid in Wiirtemberg during Schiller's youth. 
 
 Swabians, too, although not connected with the School, 
 were the religious poet F. K. von Gerok (1815-90), whose 
 Palmblatter (1857) became a household book, David Friedrich 
 Strauss (1818-74), the author of the Leben Jesu (1835-36), and 
 Friedrich Theodor Vischer (1807-87). The last mentioned F. T. 
 was Professor of ^Esthetics in Stuttgart, and, in this field, X> isch | r> 
 one of the most influential teachers of his time. His chief 
 philosophic work, &sthetik, appeared between 1847 and 
 1858, but he is best known to literature as the author of a 
 humorous and satirical novel, Auch Einer (1879). Vischer 
 also published a satire on the second part of Faust (Faust, 
 der Tragodie drifter Theil, 1862), a collection of poems 
 (Lyriscne Gdnge, 1882), and several volumes of criticism 
 (Kritische Gdnge, 1844-73). All his writings bear the stamp 
 of the rugged humour and straightforward honesty of con- 
 viction with which their author faced every problem and 
 difficulty. He was an admirable example of a writer who 
 faithfully endeavoured to realise Goethe's words and live " im 
 Ganzen, Guten, Schonen." 
 
 1 Gesammelte \Verkf, ed. P. Heyse, 10 vols., Stuttgart, 1874-75.
 
 528 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Thus, whatever the poets of the Swabian School might be, 
 they were not innovators ; they only completed and perfected 
 what the Heidelberg Romanticists had begun. They were 
 none of them men of strongly marked character or personality, 
 and it would be difficult to point to a group of equally eminent 
 authors in any literature who have regarded their work in such 
 an amateurish spirit. Not one of these men, with the excep- 
 tion of Kurz and the unhappy Waiblinger, had the courage 
 to make poetry his lifework : they were doctors, pastors, 
 professors, librarians ; and literature was consigned to their 
 leisure moments. This easy-going groove, into which they all 
 fell, their whole attitude towards literature, occasionally com- 
 bined as it was with a narrow orthodoxy, set the mark of 
 parochialism upon their work. If ever, as in Uhland's case, 
 they cherished liberal ideas in politics or religion, these were 
 without that hearty, youthful optimism before which alone the 
 world yields. Uhland's character and nature made him the 
 appropriate leader of such a school ; he, and not Morike, 
 gave the movement its general character.
 
 529 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LITERATURE IN AUSTRIA; GRILLPARZER. 
 
 IN the first half of the nineteenth century, conditions in Austrian 
 Austria were unfavourable to the growth of a national litera- " terattire - 
 ture. While in Weimar, Goethe and Schiller lived under 
 an enlightened government which paid literature and art every 
 respect, the writers of the Austrian capital could hardly rise 
 above the platitudes of ordinary life, without coming into 
 conflict with an autocratic censor. A freer literary develop- 
 ment might have been possible had the Austrians, like the 
 Russians of a later date, sought outside their own country the 
 liberty denied them at home ; but Austrian literature in the 
 first half of the century was too exclusively Viennese to bear 
 transplanting, and the Austrian poets preferred to suffer in 
 silence. Only one art, that of music, had complete free- 
 dom to develop in Vienna at the beginning of the century ; 
 here Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), a native of Bonn, L. van 
 found a congenial home and encouraging patrons ; here he 
 composed, between 1800 and 1812, his eight Symphonies^ 
 followed in 1823-24 by the ninth in D minor works which 
 laid the foundation of modern instrumental music. In 
 Vienna, too, Franz Schubert (1797-1828), the first master 
 of German song - writing, composed his countless Lieder. 
 The strongest proof of the artistic instincts of Austria under 
 Metternich's tyranny is, however, that the drama the form 
 of literature most exposed to the interference of a censor 
 should not only have lived, but flourished, and that Vienna 
 should have produced in Franz Grillparzer, the greatest 
 dramatic poet of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Throughout the eighteenth century, as has been pointed 
 out in an earlier chapter, the Austrian drama lagged far 
 
 2 L
 
 530 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 behind the drama in North Germany, and even as late as the 
 last quarter of that century, a Viennese public still listened 
 to the pseudo-classical tragedies of Ayrenhoff, and laughed 
 at harlequinades, hardly more reputable than those which 
 Gottsched had banished from the stage in Leipzig, forty 
 years before. The first attempt to create a serious drama was 
 H. J. von made by Heinrich Joseph von Collin (1771-1811 ), 1 who re- 
 ITTI-'IBII g ar ded the theatre from Schiller's standpoint. Collin began as 
 a follower of Kotzebue, and although his best works, such as 
 Regulus, performed with success in 1801, Coriolan (1802), 
 and Bianca della Porta (1807), are poetically superior to any 
 plays of Kotzebue's, he never entirely shook off a tendency 
 unduly to emphasise the sentimental. In the general char- 
 acter of his tragedies, Collin aimed at a compromise between 
 Schiller and the ancients, or, more accurately, between Schiller 
 and Ayrenhoff. And what Collin, who was also, it may be 
 noted, the author of a collection of patriotic songs (Wehr- 
 J. Schrey- mannslieder, 1809), achieved for the drama in Austria, Joseph 
 i68-i8 2 Schreyvogel (1768-1832) did for the theatre. Schreyvogel 
 wrote under the pseudonym of "West," and his Donna 
 Diana (1819), a version of Moreto's El desden con el desden, 
 is still frequently played ; but he is now chiefly remembered 
 as the first successful director of the Hofburgtheater. 
 FranzGrili- Franz Grillparzer 2 was born in Vienna, on January 15, 
 1791^1872 T 79 T > ne studied law at the university, and, in 1813, 
 entered the service of the state, ultimately rising to the 
 position of " Archivdirektor," from which he did not retire 
 until 1856. The even course of his life was little inter- 
 rupted: a journey to Italy in 1819, another to Germany in 
 1826, when he visited Goethe and had the opportunity of 
 comparing the ideal conditions which prevailed in the little 
 Saxon residence with those in Vienna ; a visit to France and 
 England in 1836, and, lastly, one to Greece in 1843 
 these were the chief events of his career. Before he died, 
 on the 2ist of January, 1872, he had had a share of the 
 favour and recognition which, in his most productive years, 
 
 1 Sammtliche Werke, 6 vols., Vienna, 1812-14. Q>. F. Laban, H. J. von 
 Collin, Vienna, 1879, and A. Hauffen, Das Drama der klassischen Periode, 2, 
 2 (D.N.L., 139, 2 [1891], 261 ff. 
 
 3 Sammtliche Werke, ed. A. Sauer, 5th ed., 20 vols., Stuttgart, 1892-94. 
 Cp. E. Reich, Fran* Grillparzers Dramen, Dresden, 1894; A. Ehrhard, Franz 
 Grillpantr, Paris, 1900 (German edition by M. Necker, Munich, 1902).
 
 CHAP. X.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 531 
 
 had been denied him. Grillparzer's temperament was not 
 a heroic one ; he endured or renounced where a man of a 
 stronger personality would have asserted himself and rebelled ; 
 he was deficient in that moral strength with which a poet 
 like Schiller was so richly endowed. Grillparzer's life, in 
 fact, was torn asunder by that conflict of will and circum- 
 stance which, in his dramas, he depicts again and again. His 
 disappointments lay heaviest upon him about middle life, and 
 his diaries, published after his death, reveal to what depths of 
 despair he sank in the decade between 1825 and 1835. But 
 in the midst of his misery and suffering, he wrote his finest 
 lyric poetry poetry which gives him a place beside Lenau 
 among the modern lyric writers of Austria. The group of Lyric 
 verse which bears the title Tristia ex Ponto (1835) con- P 0611 "?- 
 tains the concentrated history of Grillparzer's life during this 
 period ; here is the cry for an inspiration that will not come, 
 the bitterness of disappointed hopes, and the mockery of a 
 love that brings no happiness : 
 
 " O Triigerin von Anfang, du o Leben ! 
 
 Ein reiner Jiingling trat ich ein bei dir, 
 Rein war mein Ilerz, und rein war all mein Streben, 
 Du aber zahltest Trug und Tauschung mir dafiir." 
 
 This is the burden of all the unhappy poet's verses; and 
 for him, as for Lenau, the only solution to the problem 
 of life is a pessimistic renunciation : 
 
 " Eins ist, was altergraue Zeiten lehren 
 Und lehrt die Sonne, die erst heut getagt : 
 Des Menschen ew'ges Loos, es heisst Entbehren, 
 Und kein Besitz, als den du dir versagt." 1 
 
 Between 1807 and 1809, Grillparzer wrote Blanka von 
 Kastilien, a long iambic tragedy in the style of Don Carlos, 
 but Die Ahnfrau was the first of his plays to be performed ; Die Ahn- 
 it was produced on January 31, 1817, and received by the f rau > I8l 7- 
 Viennese public with enthusiasm. Die Ahnfrau^ in which 
 the poet gave expression to his own " Sturm und Drang," 
 is written in the trochaic metre of Milliner's Schuld? and is 
 itself virtually a "fate tragedy"; but it must be said to Grill- 
 
 1 Werke, i, 227 (Jugenderinnerungen im Griinen) and 129 (Enfsagung). 
 
 2 Cp. J. Minor, Die Ahnfrau und die Schicksalitragedie in Fesigabe fiir R. 
 Heimel, Weimar, 1898, 387 ff. ; also an article in the Grillparxcr-Jahrbuch, 9 
 (1899), i ff.
 
 532 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 parzer's credit that the ghostly " Ahnfrau," who watches over 
 the house of Borotin, is surrounded with more of the poetry 
 of horror than is to be found in any other work of its class. 
 The most noticeable feature of Die Ahnfrau, however, is the 
 skill with which it is built up ; certainly no other leading 
 dramatist of the world has begun his career with so little to 
 learn as Grillparzer in the art of dramatic construction. A 
 few months after the production of Die Ahnfrau, he completed 
 
 Sappho, his second drama, Sappho (1818). Goethe's Iphigenie and 
 Tasso were naturally the models for this play, while the subject 
 would seem to have been suggested to the poet by Madame 
 de Stael's Corinne and a forgotten tragedy by F. von Kleist. 1 
 Here again, the mastery of Grillparzer's technique is remark- 
 able, and as striking as the beauty of his verse ; out of the 
 simple theme of Sappho's renunciation of Phaon on learning 
 that he loves her young slave, Melitta, Grillparzer has created 
 an impressive tragedy, classic in its proportions, and inspired 
 by an essentially modern ethical idea. 
 
 The reception of Sappho, if not as warm as that of Die 
 Ahnfrau, was not discouraging, and Grillparzer began his 
 
 Dasgol- next work, Das goldene Vliess (1820), which was planned as 
 a tr ^S v > w ' tn a ^S nt neart - But between the beginning and 
 the close of this trilogy, life assumed a different aspect for 
 him ; in a fit of insanity, his mother put an end to her life. 
 This was a terrible blow to the poet, who himself was only 
 too prone to melancholy, and, for a time, the work was en- 
 tirely neglected. While Der Gastfreund and Die Argonauten, 
 the two first dramas of the trilogy, were written, for the most 
 part, in 1818, the last, Medea, was not finished until the 
 beginning of 1820. The idea of the Goldene Vliess was 
 possibly suggested to Grillparzer by Goiter's melodrama, 
 Medea (1787), which was played in Vienna in 1817, and by 
 Cherubini's opera of the same name (1792); Grillparzer, 
 however, differed from his predecessors in so far as he 
 dramatised the whole story of Jason and Medea, and not 
 merely the momentous scenes of Medea's life. 
 
 Der Gastfreund is a brief prologue in which Phryxus, 
 coming with the Golden Fleece to Colchis, meets his death 
 by treachery, at the hands of Medea's father. Die Argonauten 
 
 1 Cp. J. Schwering, F. Grillparzers hellenische Traverspiele, Paderborn, 
 1891, 14 ff.
 
 CHAP. X.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 533 
 
 describes Jason's quest of the stolen Fleece, and culminates 
 in the tragic conflict between Medea's love for Jason and her 
 duty towards her own land and kin. In Medea, Grillparzer's Medea. 
 genius was first revealed in its true proportions. Wherever 
 Jason turns, he is ridiculed for his barbarian wife ; in Corinth 
 he hopes to find a place of refuge. Medea buries the symbols 
 of her magic power, and resolves to subordinate herself to her 
 husband's will. But the curse uttered by the dying Phryxus 
 rests upon the Fleece, and is no less fatal to the Argonauts 
 than was the curse on the " Nibelungenhort" to the possessors 
 of that treasure. The fundamental idea of the trilogy might 
 be expressed in Schiller's words : 
 
 " Das eben ist der Fluch der bosen That, 
 Dass sie fortzeugend Bo'ses muss gebaren. " l 
 
 There is no rest for Jason and Medea even in Corinth. Jason 
 spurns the wife he has learned to hate ; even her children flee 
 from her. The wild spirit of the barbarian at last breaks 
 forth in Medea; she slays her children and sets the palace 
 of the Corinthian king on fire. In the closing act of the 
 tragedy, she bears the Fleece back to Delphi, and takes 
 eternal leave of Jason in a noble monologue, hardly inferior 
 to the farewell in the Medea of Euripides : 
 
 " Erkennst das Zeichen du, um das du rangst? 
 Das dir ein Ruhm war und em Gliick dir schien? 
 Was ist der Erde Gliick ? Ein Schatten ! 
 Was ist der Erde Ruhm ? Ein Traum ! 
 Du Armer ! Der von Schatten du getraumt ! 
 Der Traum ist aus, allein die Nacht noch nicht. 
 Ich scheide nun, leb' wohl, mein Gatte ! 
 Die wir zum Unglvick uns gefunden, 
 Im Ungliick scheiden wir. Leb' wohl !" 2 
 
 Das goldene Vliess is the finest of all dramatic versions of 
 the Greek saga ; neither Euripides nor Seneca, neither Corneille 
 nor Klinger, has brought out the poetic significance of Medea's 
 life as clearly as Grillparzer. In many respects, too, Das 
 goldene Vliess fulfils the conditions of a trilogy better than its 
 forerunner, Wallenstein : for while the latter is, as we have 
 seen, essentially one long drama, introduced by a prologue, 
 the constituent plays of Grillparzer's trilogy are independent 
 
 1 Die Picfolomini, Act 5, sc. i. 
 3 Wtrkc, 5, 228.
 
 534 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 of one another. Indeed, Das goldene Vliess is not suffi- 
 ciently homogeneous in style and character; the romantic 
 elements of Die Argonauten harmonise ill with the classic 
 severity of Medea ; and this want of harmony explains, per- 
 haps, why Grillparzer's work has never succeeded as a trilogy, 
 although, from the first, Medea was recognised as a tragedy 
 of the highest order. The suggested comparison with Wallen- 
 stein brings another feature of Das goldene Vliess into promin- 
 ence, and that is its essentially modern character. Of the 
 naive enthusiasm of Schiller, there is nothing ; like Wagner's 
 Ring des Nibelungen, with which it has many points in 
 common, the Goldene Vliess is a tragedy of modern pessimism. 
 In style and form, again, it foreshadows the naturalistic litera- 
 ture that arose in France on the decay of Romanticism : 
 Grillparzer describes his milieu with a care for detail that is 
 not to be found in Goethe or Schiller, or even Kleist; the 
 characters of his personages are, as it were, determined by 
 their surroundings and expressed in the rhythm of the verses 
 they speak. 
 
 The years between 1819 and 1822 were the most active 
 in the poet's life ; innumerable plans of new dramas a cycle 
 of six from Roman history, to be called Die letzten Romer, a 
 Marino f alien, a Herodes und Mariamne were sketched 
 out, and, one after the other, thrown aside. Ultimately 
 Grillparzer turned his attention to the historical past of his 
 own land, and wrote the tragedy Konig Ottokars Gliick 
 Un ^ End 6 * which was played in 1825, after a protracted 
 Ende, conflict with the Austrian censor. The subject of the drama 
 l82 S- is King Ottokar of Bohemia's vain struggle against the Haps- 
 
 burgs ; but this is only a cloak for the impressions which had 
 been left on Grillparzer's own mind by the rise and fall of 
 a mightier than Ottokar Napoleon. In many ways, Konig 
 Ottokar marks a new departure in its author's work; com- 
 pared with Sappho or Medea, it presents an extraordinary 
 variety of incidents and of characters : in fact, the historical 
 realism of Konig Ottokar has been detrimental to its success 
 as a national tragedy. The canvas Grillparzer chose was 
 too broad for the fine detail-painting of his picture, and his 
 hero is, in psychological respects, too complicated to dominate 
 the action as, for instance, Shakespeare's kings dominate his 
 English histories. The Hungarian Bankban, the principal
 
 CHAP. X.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 535 
 
 figure in Ein treuer Diener seines Herrn (1828), Grillparzer's Eintrcuer 
 second historical drama, is a hero after the poet's own heart : Dl . ener 
 
 J Sl tlCS 
 
 in Bankban, he embodied the idea of self-effacing duty, which Herrn, 
 had attracted him in Kant's ethics. It was hardly to be ex- l828> 
 pected, however, that an audience would follow the history of 
 such a hero with sympathy or understanding, and consequently 
 the drama is seldom to be seen on the stage. But in Des 
 Meeres und der Liebe Wellen (1831) and Der Traum ein 
 Leben (1834) Grillparzer produced two masterpieces which 
 belong to the permanent repertory of all German theatres. 
 
 Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen stands in the foremost Des Meeres 
 rank of modern love-tragedies. Once more in this drama, un . dder 
 
 ^-, MI i i i- Liebe 
 
 Grillparzer returned to the classic scenery of his earlier Weiien t 
 works, and this time, took his subject from Hero and l8 3 x ' 
 Leander, a late Greek poem by Musaeus. When the play 
 opens, Hero is about to take the vow that binds her for 
 ever, as vestal, to the service of Aphrodite. The solemn 
 festival begins, but, while Hero is pouring incense upon the 
 altar of Hymenaeus, her eyes meet those of the kneeling 
 Leander, who, with his friend Naukleros, has gained access 
 to the precincts of the temple. The second act brings 
 Hero and Leander's first meeting in the grove of the temple, 
 and, in the evening, guided by a light in the window, 
 Leander swims the Hellespont and climbs the wall of Hero's 
 prison. Here, in the most beautiful scene Grillparzer has 
 written, Hero awakens to full self-consciousness ; subdued, 
 restful, harmonious, this love-scene mirrors, as no other in 
 modern literature, the " edle Einfalt und stille Grosse " of the 
 antique. But suspicion rests on Hero ; the passion which 
 has made a woman of her and converted her irresolute lover 
 into a man of action, leads to recklessness. On the following 
 night, Leander again attempts to swim the Hellespont; but 
 while Hero sleeps, a storm extinguishes the guiding light in 
 her window. The waves of the sea triumph over those 
 of love, and Leander's body is washed up on the shore. 
 In a "Totenklage" Hero pours out her grief, then sinks 
 lifeless on the temple steps : 
 
 " Nie wieder dich zu sehn, im Leben nie ! 
 Der du einhergingst im Gewand der Nacht 
 Und Licht mir strahltest in die dunkle Seele, 
 Auf bluhen machtest all, was hold und gut,
 
 536 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Du fort von hier an einsatn dunkeln Ort, 
 
 Und nimmer sielit mein lechzend Aug' dich wieder? 
 
 Der Tag wird kommen und die stille Nacht, 
 
 Der Lenz, der Herbst, des langen Sommers Freuden, 
 
 Du aber nie, Leander, horst du? nie ! 
 
 Nie, nimmer, nimmer, nie ! " 1 
 
 Der Grillparzer's next drama, Der Traum ein Leben, although 
 
 Jin*LeLn not finished and played until 1834, was begun as early as 
 1834. 1817. A story by Voltaire, Le blanc et le noir, seems to 
 
 have suggested the plot, and the Romantic setting of the play 
 was borrowed from the Spanish drama. But here, too, as 
 in Konig Ottokar^ the overweening ambition of Napoleon 
 found a poetic echo. Rustan is a country lad whose desires 
 and ambitions, like those of Grillparzer's typical hero, outrun 
 his power to realise them. Instigated by Zanga, a negro 
 slave, he resolves to leave his uncle's home and go out into 
 the world to seek his fortune. But night descending, he 
 defers his departure until the morrow. In the night, his 
 wishes pass before him in a dream, which, from this point 
 on, becomes the reality for the spectator. In his dream, 
 Rustan takes credit for saving the life of the King of 
 Samarcand, and kills the man to whom the rescue was really 
 due ; he rises rapidly to the highest honours at court, and 
 the king ultimately promises him his daughter in marriage. 
 But his deceit and crime come to light ; he is unmasked, 
 and has to flee for his life; ultimately, he plunges into a 
 river to escape his pursuers, and at this critical moment, 
 awakens. The horrors of the nightmare are swept away by 
 the rising sun, which Rustan thus addresses : 
 
 ' ' Sei gegrusst, du heil'ge Friihe, 
 Ew'ge Sonne, sel'ges Heut' ! . . . 
 Breit' es aus mit deinen Strahlen, 
 Senk' es tief in jede Brust : 
 Eines nur ist Gluck hiernieden, 
 Eins : des Innern stiller Frieden 
 Und die schuldbefreite Brust ! 
 Und die Grosse ist gefahrlich, 
 Und der Ruhm ein leeres Spiel ; 
 Was er giebt, sind nicht'ge Schatten, 
 Was er nimmt, es ist zu viel ! " 2 
 
 " Des Innern stiller Frieden," the peace of soul that 
 knows neither ambition nor sense of guilt this was Grill- 
 
 1 Werke, 7, 101. 2 Ibid., 7, 214 f.
 
 CHAP. X.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 537 
 
 parzer's ideal in life as in poetry. The nothingness of fame, 
 of happiness and love, is the burden of all his plays ; renunci- 
 ation is to him the noblest form of heroism, contentment the 
 highest virtue. 
 
 Three and a half years after Der Traum ein Leben, Grill- 
 parzer's only comedy, WeK dem, der liigt (1838), was played in WeK dem, 
 Vienna and failed, and this failure cost Austria dear : dis- d ^J" gt> 
 heartened and embittered, her greatest dramatic poet made 
 no further attempts to win the applause of the theatre. 
 Long since, it is true, not only Vienna, but every other 
 German-speaking capital, has made ample amends for the 
 fiasco of WeK dem, der liigt, which is now universally recog- 
 nised as one of the masterpieces of modern comedy; but 
 recognition came too late in Grillparzer's life to tempt him 
 to write again for the stage. Leon, the hero of WeK dem, 
 der liigt, is a cook in the service of Bishop Gregory, and 
 sallies forth from Tours into the land of the barbarian to 
 rescue the bishop's nephew. By the very force of the truth 
 for his master will not allow him to tell a single lie 
 he outwits the barbarian and achieves his object, all of 
 which is told with an inimitable verve and humour, and 
 revealed an unsuspected side of the dramatist's genius. 
 
 Grillparzer wrote three other plays, Libussa, Ein Bruder- Other 
 zwist in Habsburg and Die Jildin von Toledo, which were not, P la y s - 
 however, published until after his death (1872), while a 
 beautiful fragment of a Biblical drama, Esther, appeared in 
 1863. The first of these, Libussa, is based on the Volks- 
 buch which tells of the mythical foundation of Prague, and 
 is, as a dramatic poem, although not as a play for the stage, 
 one of Grillparzer's best works. Ein Bruderzwist in Habs- 
 burg is a historical tragedy and Die Judin von Toledo a 
 brilliant adaptation of Lope de Vega's drama, Las Pazes de 
 los Reyes y Judia de Toledo ; but of the three, only Die Jildin 
 von Toledo has won a permanent place in the repertory of the 
 national theatre. Grillparzer was also the author of two short 
 stories, Das Kloster bei Sendomir (1828) and Der arme Spiel- 
 mann (1848), the latter the delicate study of a musician, 
 written directly from the poet's own heart. As a critic, his 
 most important writings are devoted to the Spanish dramatists 
 (Studien zum spanischen Theater), to whom by temperament 
 he was closely allied. How thoroughly he entered into the
 
 538 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 E. F. J. von 
 
 Miinch- 
 
 Belling- 
 
 hausen 
 
 ("F. 
 
 Halm "), 
 
 1806-71. 
 
 E. von 
 Bauern- 
 feld, 1802- 
 90. 
 
 The 
 
 Viennese 
 
 "Posse." 
 
 spirit of Spanish literature may be seen from his appreciation 
 of Lope de Vega, a poet whom the Romantic critics, in their 
 admiration for Calderon, had unjustly depreciated. 1 
 
 Grillparzer stands alone among the dramatic writers of the 
 century; he had neither contemporaries nor successors who, 
 even in a remote degree, could be compared with him. In 
 popularity, however, he was surpassed by his fellow-country- 
 man, E. F. J. von Munch- Bellinghausen (1806-71), who 
 wrote under the pseudonym of Friedrich Halm. 2 Halm's 
 Griseldis (1834), Der Sohn der Wildnis (1842) and Der 
 Fechter von Ravenna (1854), were once favourite plays in 
 all German theatres, but they have small literary worth. Their 
 success was mainly due to Halm's skill in dramatising the 
 ideas brought into vogue by the Young German School ; 
 these plays had an "actual" interest for his contemporaries. 
 But Halm's talent was often theatrical rather than dramatic, 
 and his language and style were sentimental. At the same 
 time, he was a worthier representative of the Austrian drama 
 at the middle of the century than the once popular play- 
 wright, S. H. von Mosenthal (1821-77), author of a favourite 
 " Volksschauspiel," Deborah (1849). 
 
 A writer of finer, although more limited, talent than Halm 
 was Eduard von Bauernfeld (1802-90), a native of Vienna. 3 
 Bauernfeld's comedies owe much both to Kotzebue and to 
 French models ; they are marred by trivialities, and bon mots 
 frequently take the place of ideas ; but the characters of the 
 plays are delicately outlined, and the picture given of the 
 higher Austrian society of the author's time is tolerably 
 faithful. Besides familiar pieces like Die Bekenntnisse (1834) 
 and Biirgerlich und Romantisch (1835), which depend for 
 their attractiveness on their witty dialogue, Bauernfeld wrote, 
 at least, one comedy of the first order, Aus der Gesellschaft 
 (1866), a play which may be compared with the best French 
 dramas of the time. 
 
 The Viennese " Posse " of the earlier half of the century was 
 similar to the older English pantomime ; both had retained 
 the characteristics of the Italian commedia dell' arte, from 
 which they were derived, and both were purely popular forms 
 
 1 Cp. A. Farinelli, Grillparzer und Lope de Vega, Berlin, 1894, 194 ff. 
 
 2 F. Halm's Werke, 12 vols., Vienna, 1850-73. 
 
 * Gesammelte Schrt/ten, 10 vols., Vienna, 1871-72. Cp. E. Horner, Bauern- 
 feld, Leipzig, 1900.
 
 CHAP. X.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 539 
 
 of entertainment. The humour of the " Posse " was a humour 
 of situation and local allusions, a favourite comic effect being 
 to place the ordinary citizen of Vienna amidst the incongruous 
 surroundings of fairyland. Such was the "Posse" as cul- 
 tivated by J. A. Gleich (1772-1841), Karl Meisl (1775- 
 *%53)> J- F. Castelli (1781-1862), and Adolf Bauerle (1784- 
 1859), and Schikaneder's Die Zauberfldte(\i^o)^ which inspired 
 Mozart's noblest music, was also, as has been seen, essentially 
 a Viennese "Posse." Between Die Zauberflote and Raimund's F. Rai- 
 first play, Der Barometermacher auf der Zauberinsel (1823), und ' g 6 
 however, this class of drama made little progress. Ferdinand 
 Raimund (i 790-1836) x is an even more tragic figure than 
 Grillparzer in the literary history of Austria. As a favourite 
 comic actor in a suburban theatre, he naturally found little 
 opportunity to develop his genius for the serious drama 
 and yet no writer ever made such an astounding advance as 
 that from the Barometermacher to Der Bauer als Millionar 
 (1826), Der Alpenkonig und der Menschenfeind (1828), and 
 Der Verschwender (1833). But Raimund, not easily satisfied, 
 aspired still higher, and when the fickle public transferred 
 its favour to his younger rival, Johann Nestroy, he sank into 
 a melancholy to which, like Grillparzer, he always had a 
 tendency, and shot himself at the age of forty-six. The 
 value of Raimund's writings does not lie in their wit; it is 
 rather to be sought in scenes such as that of the coming of 
 "Youth" and "Age" to the hero of Der Bauer als Milliondr, 
 where a poetic idea has to be expressed by a concrete image. 
 Der Alpenkonig und der Menschenfeind is Raimund's master- 
 piece and the best German comedy of its time. The hero of 
 this play, the misanthropic Rappelkopf, is worthy of Moliere ; 
 and the "Alpenkonig," who, in order to cure him, imper- 
 sonates him, while Rappelkopf himself looks on, is a very 
 different figure from the fantastic genii which appeared in 
 the " Posse." Another characteristic of Raimund's genius was 
 the affectionate sympathy with which he dwelt upon the life 
 of the "Volk"; their joys and troubles he described with 
 a naive pathos and a truth to nature, which entitle him to 
 be regarded as a pioneer of the peasant-literature of the next 
 generation. 
 
 1 Sdmmtliche Werke, ed. by K. Glossy and A. Sauer, 3 vols., 2nd ed., 
 Vienna, 1891. Cp. E. Schmidt, Charakterhtiken, i, Berlin, 1886, 381 ff.
 
 540 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 J. Nestroy, A witty and cynical satirist, Johann Nestroy (iSoi-62), 1 
 1801-62. was a com pi e t e antithesis to Raimund, who had little reason 
 to take Nestroy's rivalry to heart. Only in a few of his 
 earliest farces, such as Der bose Geist Lumpacivagabundus 
 oder das liederliche Kleeblatt (1833), did the latter encroach 
 on the fairy drama which Raimund had done so much to 
 spiritualise. Of all Nestroy's pieces, Lumpacivagabundus, 
 it is true, is the most popular and widely known, but 
 his genius is seen to much greater advantage in the later 
 farces, Das Mddl aus der Vorstadt (1841), Einen Jux 
 will er sich machen (1842), and Kampl (1852). Not even 
 in France has the invention of comic situations been com- 
 bined with such skilful character-drawing as in these plays ; 
 Nestroy appears here as one of the most brilliant farce-writers 
 in European literature. 
 
 During the first half of the nineteenth century, lyric poetry 
 developed in Austria under the influence of two dominant 
 forces, the Romantic traditions, as represented by the Swabian 
 School, and the political feeling which, between 1830 and 1848, 
 was even more intense in South than in North Germany. 
 But there were also poets who turned a deaf ear to the cry 
 for freedom, and were susceptible only to the first of these 
 influences. Of these, the chief was J. C. von Zedlitz (1790- 
 i862), 2 who, as a dramatist {Der Stern von Sevilla, 1830; 
 Kerker und Krone, 1834), endeavoured with little success to 
 follow in Grillparzer's footsteps, but as a lyric and ballad 
 poet, revealed an originality which has been somewhat unduly 
 overshadowed by the genius of Griin and Lenau. Zedlitz's 
 most famous work is the Todtenkranze (i82y), 3 a collection 
 of noble threnodies at the graves of great personalities, 
 Wallenstein and Napoleon, Petrarch and Laura, Tasso and 
 Byron, Romeo and Juliet. The metrical form of these 
 poems is the Italian canzone, which Zedlitz handled with 
 dexterity; in- this respect, the Todtenkranze may be classed 
 with the experiments made by the Romantic School, in adapt- 
 ing German verse to Romance forms. Many of Zedlitz's 
 ballads, such as the famous Ndchtliche Heerschau, in which 
 
 1 Gesammelte Werke, ed. V. Chiavacci and L. Ganghofer, 12 vols., Stutt- 
 gart, 1890-91. 
 
 2 Dramatische Werke, 4 vols., Stuttgart, 1860; Gedichte, 6th ed., Stuttgart, 
 1859. 
 
 8 Gedichte, 323 ff. 
 
 J. C. von 
 
 Zedlitz, 
 
 1790-1862.
 
 CHAP. X.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 54! 
 
 Napoleon reviews his fallen heroes, are not inferior to Uh- 
 land's. 
 
 The most vital Austrian poetry of this epoch, however, 
 was political in tendency; its burden was a passionate crav- 
 ing for freedom from the tyranny of the Metternich regime. 
 The leading political poet was Graf Anton Alexander von 
 Auersperg, better known by his pseudonym of Anastasius Griin A. Grun, 
 ( 1 806-7 6). 1 As a lyric poet, Griin is inferior to Zedlitz, and, I8o6 '7 6 - 
 for a writer of such genius, has contributed surprisingly little 
 to the storehouse of German song. His importance for the 
 development of Austrian literature depends, not on his lyric 
 poetry, of which one collection (Bliitter der Liebe) appeared in 
 1830, another (Gedichte) in 1837, but on his influence as an 
 agitator. His Spaziergiinge eines Wiener Poeten (1831), which, 
 on its appearance, was eagerly read by all classes, is a frank 
 declaration of the poet's liberalism, and a challenge to the 
 autocratic oppressors of Austria. The earnestness of Griin's 
 political aims is tempered by a genial humour, akin to that of 
 Uhland, who was clearly his model in Der letzte Ritter (1830), 
 a romance of Maximilian I. in the style of the Nibelungenlied ; 
 occasionally, too, as in Schutt (1835), Griin gives rein to a 
 pungent wit that recalls Heine. 
 
 A poet of a very different type from Griin is Nikolaus N. Lenau, 
 Lenau, 2 or, with his full name, Nikolaus Franz Niembsch von l8 2 -5- 
 Strehlenau. Born at Csatad in Hungary in 1802, Lenau 
 passed a checkered and unhappy youth. Owing to the gen- 
 erosity of his grandfather, he was enabled to attend the 
 University of Vienna, but from his studies there he seemed 
 to gain little positive advantage. In 1832, he came into con- 
 tact with the poets of the Swabian School, and, with their 
 assistance, published his first volume of Gedichte (1832). 
 The vivid scenes of a peasant-life new to German literature, 
 which these poems described, the fresh breath they brought 
 from the pustas of Hungary, at once attracted the attention 
 of Lenau's contemporaries. But the tone of melancholy, of 
 religious doubt and pessimistic discontent, which runs through 
 all his work, had already begun to show itself; he sings of 
 
 1 Gesammelte IVerke, ed. L. A. Frankl, 5 vols., Berlin, 1877. 
 
 2 Sdmmtliche Werke, ed. E. Hepp, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1882, and M. Koch, 
 2 vols. (D.N.L., 154, 155 [1888]). Cp. A. X. Rchurz, Lenau's Leben, 2 vols., 
 Stuttgart, 1855, nnd L. Roustnn, Lenau et son temps, Paris, 1898.
 
 542 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 In 
 America. 
 
 Faust, 
 1836. 
 
 spring, it is true, but the elegiac mood of the autumn is 
 dearest to him : 
 
 "Triibe Wolken, Herbstesluft, 
 Einsam wandl' ich meine Strassen, 
 Welkes Laub, kein Vogel ruft, 
 Ach, wie stille ! wie verlassen ! 
 
 Todeskiihl der Winter naht ; 
 Wo sind, Walder, cure Wonnen? 
 Fluren, eurer vollen Saat 
 Goldne Wellen sind veronnen ! 
 
 Es ist worden kiihl und spat, 
 Nebel auf der Wiese weidet ; 
 Durch die oden Haine weht 
 Heimweh ; alles flieht und scheidet." l 
 
 Lenau was one of those unhappy natures in which German 
 literature is so rich, natures for whom existence remains an 
 eternal enigma. The freedom which he could not find in 
 Austria, he sought in North America 
 
 " Du neue Welt, du freie Welt, 
 An deren bluthenreichem Strand 
 Die Fluth der Tyrannei zerschellt : 
 Ich grvisse dich, mein Vaterland ! " 2 
 
 and an echo of Chateaubriand's delight in the red man, which 
 may be heard in all European literatures during the first half 
 of the century, is present in poems like Der Indianerzug, 
 Das Blockhaus, Niagara. But the "land of freedom" was 
 a disappointment " Es ist ein Land voll traumerischem 
 Trug" 3 and Lenau returned to Europe. For the follow- 
 ing ten years, he lived, first in Vienna, then in Wiirtemberg, 
 and, in 1846, when his life seemed on the point of becom- 
 ing happier and more hopeful, he suddenly went insane. 
 After spending five years in an asylum, he died in 1850. 
 Of Lenau's longer works, the first was an epic drama, Faust 
 (1836), into which he poured his own doubts, his scepticism 
 and despair. His genius, however, was essentially lyric, and 
 he succeeded indifferently in epic or drama only in so far 
 as Faust is lyric, does it appeal to us. And the same is 
 true of the pessimistic poems, Savonarola (1837) and Die 
 Albigenser (1842). In these years, the elegiac melancholy of 
 
 1 Herbstentschlvss ( Werke, ed. M. Koch, i, 83). 
 
 2 Archied (I.e., i, 95). 
 
 8 Der Urwald (I.e., i, 237).
 
 CHAP. X.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 543 
 
 Lenau's first volume of Gedichte rapidly gave way to the 
 depressing gloom of the Neueren Gedichte (1838, 1840). 
 
 The chief influences which are to be traced upon Lenau's Lenau's 
 poetry are those of Goethe, Eichendorff, and Byron; with 
 Uhland and the Swabians, on the other hand, he had little 
 in common ; his own life was too tragic for him to under- 
 stand the satisfied provincialism of Kerner or Morike, and 
 the friendly relations in which he stood to the circle did not 
 imply any literary sympathy. No poet of northern Europe, 
 not even Holderlin, expresses as intensely as Lenau the feel- 
 ing of "eternal autumn," of unrelieved despair. And it is 
 almost always a tragic despair, rarely that withering cynicism 
 first made fashionable by Byron and imitated by Heine. 
 
 " Lieblos und ohne Gott ! der Weg ist schaurig, 
 Der Zugwind in den Gassen kalt ; und du ? 
 Die ganze Welt ist zum Verzweifeln traurig." 1 
 
 In other words, Lenau is to northern literatures what his 
 contemporary Leopardi was to the literatures of the south 
 of Europe, the representative poet of pessimism : but with 
 this difference, that while Leopardi expressed a mood, in 
 great measure, personal or as far as Italian literature was 
 concerned restricted, Lenau gave voice to a pessimism 
 which has inspired the whole movement of German litera- 
 ture from Grillparzer to Richard Wagner. 
 
 In concluding this survey of the prominent writers of 
 Austria before 1848, it may fairly be said that this nation, 
 like Norway during the same period, built up, in these years, 
 a national literature of its own. Grillparzer and Bauernfeld, 
 Raimund and Nestroy, set an Austrian stamp upon the German 
 drama, which was of paramount importance for the subsequent 
 development of dramatic literature; and, at the same time, 
 Lenau, Griin, Zedlitz, and Grillparzer himself, created a 
 national Austrian lyric, which had little in common with 
 that of North or even South Germany. Intensely elegiac 
 and pessimistic, this lyric is the voice of a nation whose 
 fate has always been tragic, and whose literature to-day, as 
 fifty years ago, is overshadowed by inaction and despair. 
 
 1 Einsamkeit (I.e., i, 77).
 
 544 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE POLITICAL LYRIC. 
 
 NOWHERE in Europe, not even in France itself, did the 
 Revolution of 1848 make a deeper incision into the life of 
 the nation intellectual, social, political than in German- 
 speaking lands. To Austria, which it freed from the tyranny 
 of Prince Metternich, the Revolution meant almost as much 
 as that of 1789 to France, and the word " vormarzlich " is 
 still used there in speaking of the period before March, 1848. 
 But a time of revolution is not, and never has been, favour- 
 able to literature, and the period between 1840 and 1848 in 
 Germany was no exception to the rule. The literary fore- 
 runners of the Revolution, and, of course, to a great extent, 
 the participators in it, were the writers who have been con- 
 sidered under the heading "Young Germany"; but, besides 
 these men, there were a number of poets who sprang, as it 
 were, directly from the revolutionary movement itself. 
 
 To find the origin of the revolutionary lyric, it is necessary 
 
 N. Becker, to go back as far as 1840. In that year, Nikolaus Becker 
 
 1809-45. (1809-45), a poet of limited talents, wrote his famous song 
 
 Der deutsc/ie Rhein^ each stanza of which began with the 
 
 lines : 
 
 " Sie sollen ihn nicht haben, 
 Den freien deutschen Rhein." 1 
 
 And in the same year, a hardly more gifted poet, Max 
 
 Schneckenburger (1819-49), wrote Die Wacht am Rhein, 
 
 which, thirty years later, became a national song. But 
 
 Becker was the hero of the day, and his Rheinlied called 
 
 R. E. forth a reply from Robert Eduard Prutz (1816-72), a native 
 
 1816*' 2 ^ Stettin. Prutz gave the feeling against France, which 
 
 1 Gedichle, Cologne, 1841, 216.
 
 CHAP. XI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 545 
 
 Becker had expressed, a higher significance ; before the 
 Rhine could be "free," he insisted, Germany must break 
 the fetters of thought and word; her press must be free. 
 Compared with Becker or Schneckenburger, Prutz was a 
 poet of genuine inspiration, and his first collection of Gedichte 
 (1841) contains a few admirable ballads; but, on the whole, 
 he remained, like his friend Herwegh, a political poet. Prutz's 
 best-known work was a satirical comedy, Die politische Wo- 
 chenstube (1843), i n which he championed the principles of 
 the revolutionary party. But the impossibility of a political 
 Aristophanes in modern Prussia at once became obvious ; 
 Prutz was charged with the majestt, and had it not been 
 for the personal intervention of Friedrich Wilhelm IV., whose 
 ideal of a state did not exclude literature, the poet would 
 have paid severely for his temerity. Prutz was also the author 
 of a series of historical dramas, which mirror the spirit of the 
 time, as do also his now forgotten novels. At a later date, 
 when constitutional reform had ceased to be a burning ques- 
 tion, he fulfilled the promise of his early ballads in the 
 love-poetry of Aus der Heimath (1858), of Herbstrosen (1864), 
 and his Buck der Liebe (1869). When, however, political 
 troubles began again in 1866, the demagogue that slumbered 
 in him took arms at once, this time with the consequence of 
 three months' imprisonment. Prutz also wrote, besides other 
 works on literary history, an excellent Geschichte des deutschcn 
 Theaters (1847). 
 
 The year 1841 brought the development of the revolu- 
 tionary lyric to a critical point ; towards the end of this 
 year, in a poem, Aus Spanien, Ferdinand Freiligrath wrote 
 the oft-quoted lines 
 
 " Der Dichter steht auf einer hohern Warte, 
 Als auf den Zinnen der Partei ! " J 
 
 to which Georg Herwegh replied in flaming words : 
 
 " Partei ! Partei ! Wer sollte sie nicht nehmen, 
 Die noch die Mutter aller Siege war ? 
 Wie mag ein Dichter solch ein Wort verfehmen ? 
 Em Wort, das Alles Herrliche gebar ?" - 
 
 1 Gesammelte Dichtungen, 5th ed., Stuttgart, 1886, 3, n 
 
 2 Gedichte eines Lebendigen, 2, Zurich, 1844, 62. 
 
 2 M
 
 546 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Herwegh was attacked on every side, Geibel, among others, 
 taking part against him ; but the revolutionary spirit triumphed. 
 One after another, these young poets of 1841 were swept from 
 their " hohere Warte " to join in the swelling chorus. 
 Georg Herwegh, whose life was as unbalanced as his poetry, was 
 
 1817*75! born in Stuttgart in 1817, and early threw up theology for 
 literature. But always tactless, he insulted an officer and was 
 obliged to fly to Switzerland, where he found a publisher 
 for the Gedichte eines Lebendigen (1841), of which a second 
 volume appeared in 1844. Like almost all these revolu- 
 tionary poets, Herwegh's reputation was made overnight. 
 On his return to Germany, after having spent some time 
 in Paris, he was welcomed on every side with enthusiasm ; 
 the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV., received him in 
 a friendly spirit and expressed the hope that he and the 
 poet would be at least "ehrliche Feinde." When, how- 
 ever, the new journal he had planned was suppressed by 
 the Prussian Government, Herwegh again showed his want 
 of tact by writing to the king in a tone which led to his 
 summary expulsion from Prussia. He returned to Switzer- 
 land as a political martyr, and from Switzerland found his way 
 back to Paris. When the Revolution broke out, Herwegh 
 put himself at the head of a band of nearly a thousand 
 men, partly French, partly German, and marched into Baden 
 with the intention of converting Germany into a republic. 
 This practically put an end to his career ; the remainder of 
 his life was spent in Paris, Zurich, and Baden-Baden, where 
 he died in 1875. Herwegh possessed in a high degree that 
 rough-and-ready talent for versification which is essential to 
 a successful " Volksdichter," but his poetry was not wholly 
 political, and occasionally he shows a capacity for lyric feeling, 
 which was unusual among the revolutionary poets. Had he 
 been less of an agitator or had he lived in less stormy times, 
 he would have been a truer poet. 
 
 The most important member of the political group is 
 H. F. undoubtedly Hermann Ferdinand Freiligrath, 1 who was born 
 at Detmold, on June 17, 1810. Freiligrath was intended 
 for a commercial career, and at an early age was removed 
 from school. At seventeen, he was a poet; he fell under 
 
 1 Gesammelte Dichtungen, 6 vols., 5th ed.. Stuttgart, 1886. Cp. W. Buchner, 
 F. Freiligrath, tin Dickterleben in Brie/en, 2 vols., Lahr, 1882.
 
 CHAP XI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 547 
 
 the influence of Byron and Victor Hugo, both of whom he 
 began to translate. His apprenticeship to business was spent 
 at Soest, where the poems which fill the volume of Gedichte 
 (1833) were, for the most part, written. Far from being 
 revolutionary, these first poems were essentially Romantic in 
 character and strongly coloured by the specifically French 
 Romanticism which Hugo's lyrics had brought into vogue, 
 like his immediate predecessors, Freiligrath took refuge 
 from the crassness of reality in the poetry of the East. He 
 succeeded in catching the taste of the public, and awoke to 
 find himself famous. 
 
 In 1841, he married and settled in Darmstadt; in 1841, 
 too, Herwegh's bugle-call resounded through Germany. For 
 a time, Freiligrath resisted the new liberal ideas, but not for 
 long. The German " Victor Hugo," as Gutzkow called him, 
 laid down the pension, which had called forth bitter taunts 
 from Herwegh, and, the day of his "Wxisten- und Lowen- 
 Poesie" over, Freiligrath became a poet of the Revolution. 
 In Ein Flecken am Rhein (1842), he takes farewell of the AS a poet 
 "Romantik":- 
 
 " Dein Reich ist aus ! Ja, ich verhehl' es nicht : 
 Ein andrer Geist regiert die Welt als deiner. 
 Wir fuhlen's Alle, wie er Bahn sich bricht ; 
 Er pulst im Leben, lodert im Gedicht, 
 Er strebt, er ringt so strebte vor ihm keiner ! " 
 
 The poet no longer stands " auf einer hoheren. Warte " ; his 
 parole is : 
 
 " Frei werd' ich stehen 
 Fiir das Volk und mit ihm in der Zeit ! 
 Mil dem Volke soil der Dichter gehen 
 Also les' ich meinen Schiller heut ! " 1 
 
 In 1844, Freiligrath published his political verse under the 
 title Ein Glaubensbckenntniss, the immediate consequence of 
 which was that he was obliged to escape to Brussels and 
 afterwards to Switzerland. In 1846 appeared another col- 
 lection of revolutionary poems, pa im, and in 1849 ar| d 
 1850, the two little volumes of Neuere politiscfie und sociale 
 Gedichte , which contain Freiligrath's finest poetry, the best, 
 indeed, of the whole revolutionary age. Here is to be found 
 
 1 Gesammelte Dichtungen, 3, 19 f. and 32.
 
 548 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 the famous poem Von unfen auf! in which the poet compares 
 the proletariate to the stoker of a Rhine steamer ; here, too, 
 he stirs the people to revolt against the tyranny of their 
 rulers, and pleads for the freedom of the press. Die Todten 
 an die Lebenden, which appeared in July 1848, resulted in 
 an accusation of the majestt, from which the poet was ac- 
 quitted. In 1851, however, he deemed it wiser to return to 
 London, where, in 1846, he had found refuge from the per- 
 secution of the German government ; and for the next sixteen 
 years he made London his home, returning to that com- 
 mercial life for which his training had fitted him. The 
 national triumphs of 1871 awakening his patriotism once 
 more, he contributed to the " Kriegslyrik " some stirring 
 songs. The new German Empire was not, it is true, the 
 empire which he and his friends had dreamt of thirty years 
 before, but it was at least a united Germany. He died at 
 Cannstadt in 1876. 
 
 Freiligrath's earlier, non-political poetry, in which he calls up 
 the sentiments of the " Romantik," has retained its charm long 
 after his songs of revolution have been forgotten. After all, 
 there is more poetic feeling in a verse like 
 
 " O stilles Leben im Walde ! 
 O griine Einsamkeit ! 
 O hlumenreiche Halde ! 
 Wie weit seid ihr, wie weit ! " 
 than in 
 
 " Die neue Rebellion ! 
 
 Die ganze Rebellion ! 
 
 Marsch, Marsch ! 
 
 Marsch, Marsch ! 
 
 Marsch war's zum Tod ! 
 
 Und unsre Fahn' ist roth ! " l 
 
 On the other hand, it is in the nature of all political poetry 
 to age rapidly. The rhetorical pathos of poems such as 
 Die Todten an die Lebenden is lacking in good taste, and 
 their virulence against the ruling classes is too verbose to be 
 criminal ; but they fulfilled the mission for which Freiligrath 
 intended them, and remain the most effective lyrics of their 
 class. A characteristic side of Freiligrath's talent is to be 
 seen in his translations ; he had the Romantic power of 
 sinking himself in a foreign poet's individuality and of re- 
 
 1 Dichlungen, i, 116 (Im Walde), and 3, 184 (Reveille).
 
 CHAP. XI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 549 
 
 producing not merely fine shades of meaning, but also the 
 indefinable spirit of his original. Some of his translations 
 from Hugo and Burns, poets for whom he had an innate 
 sympathy, are still numbered among the best translations in 
 German literature. 
 
 A more harmless revolutionary than any of these singers 
 was Franz Dingelstedt ( 1 8 1 4 - 8 1 ), 1 author of the Lieder F. Dingei- 
 eines kosmopolitischen Nachtwdchters (1842). To Dingelstedt, stedt, 1814- 
 however, the revolutionary fever was only a form of " Sturm 
 und Drang," his hatred of crowned heads but a passing phase, 
 and the verses in which he expressed this hatred are deficient 
 in individual character. In later years, as "Hofrat" and 
 literary adviser of the Court Theatre in Stuttgart, and after 
 the success of his tragedy Das Haus des Barneveldt (1850) 
 as Intendant of the Court Theatre in Munich, Dingelstedt 
 found no difficulty in adapting himself to those circles which 
 he had formerly denounced. In 1857, he exchanged his 
 position in Munich for a similar one in Weimar, where he 
 arranged Shakespeare's " Konigsdramen " for representation 
 in an unbroken cycle, an achievement which marked the 
 beginning of a new era in the history of the German stage, 
 and outweighed in importance all his lyrics and sentimental 
 novels. In 1872, Dingelstedt was appointed Laube's suc- 
 cessor as Director of the Hofburgtheater. 
 
 Another poet of this group whose interests were not re- 
 stricted to politics was August Heinrich Hoffmann (1798- Hoffmann 
 1874), or Hoffmann von Fallersleben, as he called himself l^sieben 
 after his birthplace, near Liineburg. 2 Hoffmann devoted 1798-1874, 
 himself to literary history and Germanic philology at Bonn, 
 Gottingen, and Leyden. In 1823, he was appointed librarian 
 at Breslau, becoming at the same time " Privatdocent " in the 
 University there. Seven years later, he was made professor, 
 and, in 1840 and 1841, he published two volumes of 
 Unpolitische Lieder. The consequences of this publication 
 were disastrous to Hoffmann : he was dismissed from the 
 university, and, from 1843 on, led a wandering, unsettled 
 life, like a Spielmann of the middle ages. Although he 
 was a political poet, he did not, like so many of the 
 group, cease to be inspired when he sang of politics. Even 
 
 1 Sdmmtliche IVerke, 12 vols., Berlin, 1877. 
 
 2 Gesammelte Werke, ed. H. Gerstenberg, 8 vols., Berlin, 1891-93.
 
 550 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 [PART v. 
 
 K. Beck, 
 
 1817.79. 
 
 M. Hart- 
 in ann, 
 1821-72. 
 
 Freiligrath was rarely at the same time both poet and agitator, 
 but with Hoffmann it was otherwise; his political songs are 
 genuine " Volkslieder," and not merely revolutionary catch- 
 words. Hoffmann von Fallersleben's art has no great 
 delicacy ; he was a maker of Volkslieder, not a refiner of 
 them. Of lyric subjectivity he had little, but perhaps just 
 on this account, it was the easier for him to catch the 
 popular tone : songs like Abend wird es wieder, like Wie 
 konnt' ich dein vergessen and Deutschland, Deutschland, iiber 
 Alles, the last-mentioned written in 1841, have become the 
 common property of the nation. 
 
 Several of the revolutionary poets were Austrians. Men 
 like Beck and Hartmann, or the Bohemian Meissner, stand, 
 however, in closer affinity to the German political singers 
 than to the older Austrian poets, of whom the chief rep- 
 resentative, as we have seen, was Anastasius Griin. Karl 
 Beck (1817-79), a Hungarian Jew, began to write under the 
 auspices of "Young Germany," and, for a short time, stood 
 high in favour ; the theatrical effects and noisy political 
 enthusiasm of his Gepanzerte Lieder (1838) appealed exactly 
 to the taste of the time. His Lieder vom armen Mann 
 (1846) gave a social - democratic turn to political poetry, 
 by emphasising the gulf between rich and poor. But no 
 very fastidious talent was necessary to make a popular political 
 singer, and Beck was certainly not the least gifted of the 
 group. So far as he is now remembered at all, it is by his 
 sympathetic pictures of Hungarian life in poems such as 
 Janko, der ungarische Rosshirt (1841), a kind of novel in 
 verse, or in the idyllic Stillen Lieder (1839). Moritz Hart- 
 mann (I82I-72), 1 also a Jew, was an author whose word carried 
 more weight. He, too, began by writing political verse, Kelch 
 und Schwert (1845), and Reimchronik des Pfaffen Maurizius 
 (1849), tne latter, his best-known work, being a satire on 
 the Frankfort Parliament of 1848. Hartmann's main im- 
 portance, however, for Austrian life and literature was as a 
 journalist; under his editorship, the Neue Freie Presse with 
 which he was connected from 1868 on became a power, not 
 merely in Austria, but throughout Europe. Hartmann was a 
 native of Bohemia and, in his youth, espoused the national 
 cause of the Czechs, but the real champion of Bohemia's 
 
 1 Gesammelte Scfiriften, tovols., Stuttgart, 1873-74.
 
 CHAP. XI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 551 
 
 interests in German literature was his fellow- countryman, 
 Alfred Meissner (1822-85). Meissner's lyric poetry (Gedichte, 
 1845) was influenced by Byron, Lenau, and the French 
 Romanticists, and his epic, Ziska (1846), is filled with 
 the turbulent spirit of the revolutionary age. His novels, 
 although then widely read, were little more than hackwork, for 
 Meissner was not particular as to where he obtained his stories, 
 or even in how far they were written by himself. Another 
 Austrian poet of this period was Hermann von Gilm (1812- 
 64), 1 a native of the Tyrol, who, with the finely strung tem- 
 perament of a Romantic poet, combined a sturdy patriotism 
 and liberal political views. In Vienna itself, the most gifted 
 lyric genius about the middle of the century was Elisabeth 
 Gliick, known to literature as Betty Paoli (i8i4-94). 2 Warm 
 and passionate as this poetess was by temperament, she 
 expressed herself with a restraint and a freedom from 
 sentimentality that suggest at times a comparison with her 
 acknowledged model, Annette von Droste-Hiilshorf. 
 
 As a poet, Gottfried Kinkel (1815-82) has little in common 
 with the writers just discussed, but, like them, he owed his 
 reputation to his sympathy with the Revolution of 1848. 
 Kinkel took an active part in the rising in Baden and was 
 condemned to imprisonment for life; but, in 1850, through 
 the agency of Karl Schurz (born 1829), who subsequently 
 played a leading political role in the United States, he 
 escaped to London. Kinkel's Gedichte (1843) were favourably 
 received, and one of his epics, Otto der Schiitz (1846), a fore- 
 runner of SchefTel's Trompeter von Sakkingen, ran through 
 more than seventy editions; but his talents were hardly in 
 proportion to his popularity : his work, as a whole, is charac- 
 terised by that sentimental mediocrity which, when the Revolu- 
 tion was at an end, spread over all departments of German 
 literature. In Hans Ibeles in London ( 1860), a story of German 
 political refugees in England, Kinkel's wife, Johanna (1810-58), 
 showed that she possessed more genius than her husband. 
 
 Emanuel Geibel 3 formed the last link in the chain of 
 revolutionary poets ; and Geibel's share in the movement 
 
 1 A convenient edition of Gilm's Gedichte, in Reclam's Universal-Bibliothek, 
 No. 3391-3394, Leipzig, 1896. 
 
 2 Gedichte (Auswahl und Nachltiss), Stuttgart, 1895. 
 
 3 Gesamtnelte Werke, 8 vols., 3rd ed., Stuttgart, 1893. Cp. T. Litzmann, 
 E. Geibel, Berlin, 1887. 
 
 A. Meiss- 
 ner, 1822- 
 85- 
 
 H. von 
 Gilm, 1812- 
 64. 
 
 B. Paoli, 
 1814-94. 
 
 G. Kinkel, 
 1815-82. 
 
 E. Geibel, 
 1815-84.
 
 552 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 was limited virtually to his Zeitstimmen (1841). He had not 
 the fitting temperament for a political singer, and openly 
 disavowed all sympathy with the tendencies upheld by Her- 
 wegh and his friends. At the same time, Geibel was by no 
 means a pronounced " reactionary " in poetry ; his attitude 
 towards politics was only one of indifference. Born in 
 Liibeck in 1815, he studied classical philology at Bonn and 
 Berlin. In the latter city, he obtained an introduction to the 
 literary circles that had gathered round Chamisso, Bettina von 
 Arnim, and J. E. Hitzig (1780-1849), and he lived in the 
 same house as Willibald Alexis and the novelist L. Rellstab 
 (1799-1860). In 1838, the Russian ambassador in Athens 
 offered Geibel an engagement as tutor, and this gave him the 
 longed-for opportunity of seeing Greece with his own eyes; 
 here, too, he formed a warm friendship with Ernst Curtius, 
 the archaeologist (1814-96). After his return to Germany 
 in the spring of 1840, Geibel's first task was to publish a 
 collection of Gedichte (1840), which, a year afterwards, was 
 followed by the Zeitstimmen. The tone of all his political 
 lyrics is conciliatory; he pours oil on the troubled waters 
 of party spirit, which, in these years, had encroached on 
 literature. 
 
 " Kein eitel Spiel werk ist mein Singen, 
 
 Ich spur' in mir des Geistes Wehn. 
 
 Und ob auch der Vernichtung Tonen 
 
 Der Haufe rasch entgegenflammt 1 
 
 Zu bau'n, zu bilden, zu versohnen, 
 
 Furwahr, mir diinkt's ein besser Amt." 1 
 
 But, although no friend of the Revolution, Geibel sympa- 
 thised with the national spirit that lay behind the unbalanced 
 phrases of the revolutionary singers, and shared their hope 
 of one day seeing a united Germany. 
 
 His poem, An Georg Herwegh (1841), which made it 
 clear that he did not approve of the strong measures of 
 Herwegh's party, won him favour in high places ; Friedrich 
 Wilhelm IV. granted him an annual pension of 300 thalers, 
 and, from this time on, the flow of his poetry was almost un- 
 broken. In 1843, he dedicated his Volkslieder und Romanze n 
 der Spanier to Freiligrath, with whom he had spent the 
 summer. This was, of course, previous to the appearance of 
 
 1 An den Konig von Preussen (Gesammelte Werke, i, 227 f.)
 
 CHAP. XI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 553 
 
 Freiligrath's Glaubensbekenntniss, a book which came upon 
 Geibel with a shock, the following year. The poets, however, 
 remained friends. Zwolf Sonette fitr Schleswig-Holstein were 
 published in 1846, and the Juniuslieder a year before the 
 Revolution. Geibel has written better poems than any in lt " ler > 
 these collections, but, as a whole, Die Juniuslieder touch a 
 higher level than his other works. In 1851, Maximilian II. 
 of Bavaria, intent on making Munich the artistic metropolis 
 of Germany, invited Geibel to be an " Ehrenprofessor " in the 
 university, and he at once became the centre of the literary 
 coterie there. The seven years which Geibel spent in 
 Munich were the most productive of his life. At this time 
 he wrote the lyric epics Der Mythus vom Dampf, Der 
 Bildhauer des Hadrian, Der Tod des Tiberius, the cycle of 
 poems, Ada, in memory of his wife, whom he lost in 1855, 
 three years after marriage, and, best of all, the lyrics contained 
 in the Neuen Gedichte (1857). As a dramatist, Geibel was 
 deficient in the power of vivid presentation ; but Meister 
 Andrea, a fantastic comedy written in 1855, and Brunhild 
 (1858), an attempt to give a modern significance to the saga 
 of the Nibelungs, were, although unsuited for the stage, widely 
 read. In 1868, Geibel returned to his native town, Liibeck, 
 where the Prussian king offered him a higher pension than 
 he had received at the Bavarian Court, and where he lived 
 to see realised his dream of Germany united under a 
 Hohenzollern emperor. The volume of Heroldsrufe (1871), 
 in which, however, there are also earlier poems, contains 
 almost the only genuine poetry inspired by the war of 
 1870-71. Geibel died in 1884. 
 
 Emanuel Geibel is the representative German poet of the 
 epoch between 1848 and 1870. Without being either a great 
 or, in the strict sense, an original genius, he had the un- 
 deniable faculty of coining " Volkslieder," of writing poetry 
 that was sung after him by the nation at large. He inherited 
 the vast treasures of the Romantic lyric, and made them his 
 own, but he was not the singer of a new time ; indeed, of 
 all the eminent lyric poets in German literature, Geibel is, 
 perhaps, the least individual and the least stimulating. His 
 facility of writing verses was fatal to him ; striking poetic 
 thoughts are buried in commonplace phrases, or rendered trivial 
 by a monotonous and conventional rhythm. No poet who
 
 554 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART v. 
 
 has written so much, or held so warm a place in popular 
 regard, has had so little that was new to say in this 
 respect, Geibel may not unjustly be compared with the 
 "Anacreontic" poets of the eighteenth century. And yet 
 his influence was considerable, more lasting even than that of 
 Freiligrath, who was a poet of a much stronger personality. 
 Geibel's dramatic poems had, it is true, only a baleful effect, for 
 they made dramas fashionable in which poetic language and 
 lyric feeling took the place of dramatic force and action, and 
 his epics were almost as little adapted to the requirements 
 of the time as his plays ; but, in his lyric poetry, as we shall 
 see in a subsequent chapter, Geibel left his mark, not only 
 on the poets of the Munich School, but through them upon 
 the German lyric as a whole, almost down to the close of the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 Of the lesser poets of this time, who were associated 
 with Herwegh and his friends on the one hand and with 
 M. von Geibel on the other, a Silesian, Graf Moritz von Strachwitz 
 ( I ^ 22 "47) 1 i s noteworthy. Indeed, when it is remembered 
 that Strachwitz died at the age of twenty-five, and that in 
 two collections, Lieder eines Erwachenden (1842) and Neue 
 Gedichte (1848), he left poems of such marked character 
 as Der Himmel ist blau, or the national, patriotic song, Ger- 
 mania, it seems no paradox to say that he was the most gifted 
 writer of the entire group. But before he died, Strachwitz 
 had hardly developed his full originality; his verse clearly 
 shows the influence, not merely of Herwegh and Geibel, but 
 also of Platen. 
 
 The poets who have been mentioned in the present chapter 
 exemplify the condition of the German lyric in the epoch 
 succeeding that of Heine and "Young Germany" of the 
 revolutionary poetry, as well as of the more genuinely poetic 
 verse, that sprang up as the political excitement subsided. 
 The reaction did not, however, mature a vigorous, original 
 lyric ; the younger generation of poets preferred to fall back 
 on sentimental pre-Revolutionary ideals, to dream patriotic 
 and Romantic dreams of a revival of Barbarossa's empire, 
 rather than to face the problems of their own time. If the 
 German lyric of this period is to be estimated by its sincerity, 
 the entire body of it grows pale before the writings of an un- 
 1 Gedichte, in Reclam's Universal-Bibliothek, No. 1009, 1010, Leipzig, 1878.
 
 CHAP. XI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 555 
 
 assuming Westphalian authoress, who, as a strict Catholic, 
 lived retired from the world, knew little of literary coteries 
 or movements, and wrote more heartfelt poetry than any other 
 poet of the age. 
 
 Annette von Droste-Hiilshoff, 1 Germany's greatest poetess, Annette 
 belonged to an old Munster family. She was born in 1797, jj^i^ff te 
 passed an uneventful life, partly in her home, partly near Lake 1797-1848. 
 Constance, and died in the year of the Revolution. Out- 
 wardly, her life was little ruffled, and she was one of those 
 strong natures that are able to stifle or conceal inward 
 troubles. She seems never to have been absorbed by a 
 passion, and died unmarried. Her best friend was Levin 
 Schiicking (1814-83), who, however, himself stood too much 
 under the influence of " Young Germany " fully to appreciate 
 her delicate spirituality. But beneath the exterior of this 
 retiring, unattractive personality there was a rich mental life 
 and a glowing poetic genius. Annette von Droste-Hiilshoff 
 is one of the most original lyric poets of the nineteenth 
 century. She wrote without models, or such as she had 
 belonged to the previous century. At most, Byron's influence 
 is occasionally noticeable in such of her narrative poems 
 as Walther (written in 1 8 1 8), Das Hospiz auf dem Grossen 
 St Bernhard (1838), and the magnificent Schlacht im Lohner 
 Bruch (1838): the latter, the theme of which is the fight 
 between Tilly and Christian of Brunswick in 1623, is one 
 of the masterly epics in modern literature. Annette von 
 Droste-Hiilshoffs pessimism, again, bears some resemblance 
 to Lenau's, in spite of the gulf that lay between the pious 
 resignation of the Catholic and Lenau's defiant acceptance 
 of the inevitable. But there is nothing of Heine's or of 
 Geibel's sweetness in her poetry : it is almost repellent in 
 its masculine acerbity. Her knowledge of nature is intimate 
 and personal, although the poetry in which she describes it 
 is never sentimental. She sings of the red soil of her native 
 land, Westphalia; above all, of its forests and moors. But 
 with her, nature is rarely, as it is in the poetry of the Swabians, 
 or of the North German, Storm, a mirror for human sentiment 
 and suffering ; she loves it for itself. The poetry of the moor 
 
 1 Gesammelte Werke, edited by W. Kreiten (with biography), 4 vols. , 
 Paderborn, 1884-87. Cp. H. Hiiffer, A. von Droste-Hulshoff, and ed., Gotha, 
 1890.
 
 556 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 has never, perhaps, been more beautifully expressed than in 
 the cycle of Haidebilder, which includes such gems as Die 
 Mergelgrube^ Das Hirtenfeuer, Der Knabe im Moor, Der 
 Haidemann. The following strophes, describing the rising 
 mists, are from the last mentioned of these poems : 
 
 " ' Geht, Kinder, nicht zu weit in's Bruch ! 
 Die Sonne sinkt, schon surrt den Flug 
 Die Biene matter, schlafgehemmt, 
 Am Grunde schwimmt ein blasses Tuch, 
 Der Haidemann kommt ! ' . . . 
 
 Man sieht des Hirten Pfeife glimmen 
 Und vor ihm her die Heerde schwimmen, 
 Wie Proteus seine Robbenschaaren 
 Heimschwemmt im grauen Ocean. 
 Am Dach die Schwalben zwitschernd fahren, 
 Und melancholisch kraht der Hahn. 
 
 Nun strecken nur der Fohren Wipfel 
 Noch aus dem Dunste griine Gipfel, 
 Wie iiber'n Schnee Wacholderbiische ; 
 Ein leises Brodeln quillt im Moor, 
 Ein schwaches Schrillen, ein Gezische 
 Dringt aus der Niederung hervor." 1 
 
 Annette von Droste-Htilshoff's technical mastery and virile 
 restraint are classic in the pre-Romantic sense of that word, 
 but her language is unclassical in so far as it draws vigour 
 from her native soil; it bristles with expressive Westphalian 
 phrases, and with those obscure ellipses in which the language 
 of the people is rich. Das geistliche Jahr> which was not pub- 
 lished until after the authoress's death (1851), contains the 
 finest religious poetry of the nineteenth century ; we have to 
 turn in German literature, at least to the hymns of the 
 Reformation-era to find anything so heartfelt, earnest, and 
 yet poetically so perfect, as the poems which make up 
 the Geistliche Jahr, Annette Droste-Hiilshoff made many 
 demands upon her readers ; she had too little consideration 
 for the tastes and the prejudices of the modern world ever 
 to be popular, as Miiller, Heine, and Geibel were popular 
 poets ; she is rather to be classed with Holderlin to whom 
 she was by nature allied, with Morike and Keller, as an 
 original force in the development of the German lyric. 
 
 l Gesammelte Werke (ed. W. Kreiten), 3, 87 f.
 
 557 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LITERATURE OF THE PROVINCE. THE DRAMA. 
 
 THE decade from 1840 to 1850 was not, in German literary 
 history, entirely dominated by the revolutionary movement ; 
 it was also an age of re-organisation and new beginnings. 
 The decisive battle of the first half of the century, that 
 between " Jungdeutschland " and Romanticism, had, it will 
 be remembered, been fought out at least ten years before the 
 political struggle of 1848. A fundamental principle of the 
 Young German party was to reinstate nature and simplicity in 
 the place of the fantastic unrealities which the Romantic poets 
 loved, and an immediate consequence of the movement was 
 a revived interest in the literature of the province. Not that 
 the later Romanticists had overlooked the province; on the 
 contrary, they had a keen sense for the poetry of peasant-life, 
 and encouraged writing in dialect, but it was left to a later 
 generation to cultivate such a literature on strictly realistic 
 principles. Kleist, Brentano, Arnim, had all written of the 
 Volk in a more or less Romantic way ; but it was Immer- 
 mann, in Der Oberhof, who first regarded the peasant from 
 the new standpoint, and, about the same time, Albert Bitzius A. Bitzius, 
 known to literature as Jeremias Gotthelf (i 797-1854) l J 797- l8 54- 
 wrote his Bauern-Spiegel oder Lebensgeschichte des Jeremias 
 Gotthelf von ihm selbst berichtet (1837). Bitzius was a 
 Swiss pastor who turned to authorship late in life ; his long 
 series of novels prominent among which are Wie Uli der 
 Knecht gliicklich ward (1841), Uli der Pdchter (1846), and 
 Elsi, die selfsame Magd (1850) were avowedly didactic in 
 purpose, although Gotthelf's moralising was too na'ive, seriously 
 
 1 Gesammelte Schriften, 24 vols., Berlin, 1861 ; his two chief works also in 
 Reclam's Universal-Bibliothek, Nos. 2333-2335 and 2672-2675, Leipzig, 1898.
 
 558 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 B. Auer- 
 bach, 1812- 
 82. 
 
 Schwars- 
 
 walder 
 
 Dorfge- 
 
 schickten, 
 
 1843-54- 
 
 Aufder 
 
 Hohe, 
 
 1865. 
 
 to detract from the masterly objectivity and epic sweep of his 
 narrative. At the same time, it was not he but Auerbach, 
 a Swabian writer, who first made the peasant-story a recog- 
 nised form of fiction in European literature. 
 
 Berthold Auerbach, 1 the son of Jewish parents, was born 
 at Nordstetten, in the Swabian portion of the Black Forest, 
 in 1812. He soon emancipated himself from the narrow 
 orthodox education which his father gave him, and studied 
 at Tubingen, where Strauss won his interest for Spinoza, the 
 hero of his first novel {Spinoza, 1837). In 1843, a volume 
 of Schwarzwalder Dorfgeschichten appeared and at once made 
 him famous. Their publication could not have been more 
 opportune ; the fiction of the day was that of Gutzkow and 
 his school, and dealt mainly, as we have seen, with social 
 questions and plans of reform and revolution, and to a public 
 weary of " Tendenz - litteratur " these stories of village -life 
 came as a welcome relief. Their effect was magical ; Auer- 
 bach's readers did not stop to consider whether the life he 
 described was real or not indeed, if they had remembered 
 Bitzius, they would have realised that Auerbach's peasants 
 were unduly endowed with their creator's own temperament 
 but their sympathies were at once won by the naive elements 
 in the stories and by the exaltation of the village, as opposed 
 to the town. The secret of Auerbach's success was that he 
 made a compromise between a realism which would not have 
 been tolerated at the middle of the century, and the traditional 
 idealism of the Romantic writers ; and, although it would be 
 unfair to compare him with the writers who came after him, 
 he was, in relation to the literary milieu from which he sprang, 
 a genuine realist and a forerunner of masters like Keller 
 and Anzengruber. 
 
 The early Schwarzwalder Dorfgeschichten^ such as Der 
 Tolpatsch, Tonele mit dcr gebissenen IVange, Befehlerles, show 
 Auerbach's art in the most favourable light ; in the subse- 
 quent volumes (1848-54), the natural colours are paler and the 
 author's fondness for philosophic reflection is more obtrusive ; 
 characteristic examples of this tendency are the famous stories, 
 Die Frau Professorin (1846) and Barfiissele (1857). Auer- 
 bach is also the author of several long novels in the style of 
 Gutzkow and Spielhagen ; An/ der Hohe (1865) and Das 
 
 1 Gesammelte Sc hriften, new ed., 18 vols., Stuttgart, 1892-95.
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 559 
 
 Landhaus am Rhein (1869) were popular in their day, and Das Land- 
 are more readable than Gutzkow's novels, but they do not *%%*j% m 
 rank with the " Novellen." On the surface, these novels of 1869. 
 social life appear to be more homogeneous than a book like 
 Die Ritter vom Geiste, but, in reality, they are retrogressive. 
 Auerbach had no new theories of fiction like Gutzkow ; he 
 was satisfied to imitate the type of romance that had been 
 handed down by the Romanticists ; like them, he loved to 
 describe the inner life of his personages, and his books are 
 burdened with diaries, letters, and confessions. Waldfried Wald- 
 (1874), written after the war, shows the interest with which f ried > l874< 
 Auerbach followed the political movement, but, as a novel, 
 it is confused and overladen. Towards the close of his life 
 he died as late as 1882 Auerbach returned to the 
 " Dorfgeschichte " which had won him his first success, but 
 age lay heavy upon him, and the attitude of the time towards 
 this form of story had also undergone a change. The result 
 was that Nach dreissig Jahren (1876), and the novels, Der 
 Forstmeister (1879) and Brigitta (1880), found comparatively 
 few readers. 
 
 The Schwarzwdlder Dorfgeschichten called forth a veritable 
 flood of peasant-literature. Hermann Kurz, Morike's friend, 
 and Melchior Meyr (1810-71) wrote Swabian "Novellen," 1 
 Hermann von Schmid (i8i5-8o), 2 Bayrische Geschichten 
 (1861-64), F. von Kobell (1803-82) lyrics and Volkslieder 
 in the Upper Bavarian dialect; while Adolf Pichler (1819- 
 1900) described the life of the Tyrol. A master of German 
 prose about the middle of the century was the Austrian, 
 Adalbert Stifter (1805 -68), 3 born at Oberplan, in the A. Stifter, 
 Bohemian Forest. In the idylls and stories which make l8 5-68. 
 up his Studien (1844-50) and Bunte Steine (1852), Stifter 
 reveals a warm sympathy for nature in all her moods; but 
 his character-drawing is shadowy and does not stand on 
 the same level as his finished descriptions of scenery. Sub- 
 sequent novels, Der Nachsommer (1857) and Witiko (1864- 
 67), were strongly didactic in character. 
 
 Close on Auerbach's heels followed another novelist of 
 
 1 M. Meyr, Erzdhlungen aits dem Reis (1856-70), 4th ed., 4 vols., Leipzig, 
 1892. 
 
 2 Gesammelte Schriften, 50 vols., 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1889-92. 
 
 8 Werke, ed. by K. Furst, 6 vols., Leipzig, 1899. Cp. J. K. Markus, A. 
 Stifter, 2nd ed., Vienna, 1879.
 
 560 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 provincial life, to whom the former had lent a helping hand 
 a pupil who soon threw his master into the shade. Fritz 
 F. Reuter, Reuter 1 was the son of the Biirgermeister of Stavenhagen, 
 1810-74. a little town in Mecklenburg, where he was born in 1810. 
 In 1833, for merely wearing, as a student in Jena, the colours 
 of a political club, Reuter was condemned first to death, then 
 to thirty years' imprisonment in a fortress, of which he had 
 undergone seven, when the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg- 
 Schwerin effected his release. His good name was lost, and 
 he had little zeal, when set at liberty, to begin life afresh, and 
 still less to surmount the obstacles which arose on every 
 side. Reuter's life was virtually ruined by the tyranny of the 
 Prussian government, and until his literary work gave him a 
 status and a profession, he was in danger of becoming a slave 
 to drink ; had it not been for his wife, his genius might have 
 remained undeveloped. It was she who encouraged him to 
 publish his first book, a collection of Lauschen und Rimels 
 ("Short Stories and Rhymes," 1853), in dialect, which was 
 widely read in the " Plattdeutsch " districts of North Germany. 
 Reuter's reputation spread beyond his home with the three 
 Plattdeutsch novels Ut de Franzosentid (1860), descriptive 
 of the condition of Mecklenburg in the end of the Napoleonic 
 age, Ut mine Festungstid (1863), the story of his imprisonment, 
 told without either bitterness or useless regret, and his master- 
 piece, Ut mine Stromtid (1862-64), the "Stromtid" being the 
 years he spent in Mecklenburg as agriculturist or "Strom," 
 after his release from prison. 
 
 Reuter was a born story-teller, but he displayed little art in 
 constructing his novels. The anecdote, the short humorous 
 incident, was his true field, and all his longer works, with 
 the possible exception of Ut mine Stromtid, are virtually col- 
 lections of episodes. In so far as Reuter had a master, it 
 was Dickens, but he borrowed only a few hints as to method 
 and exposition. Reuter's personages are, almost without ex- 
 ception, drawn direct from life, and his humour is peculiarly 
 North German. In common, however, with his English 
 model, he has a tendency to exaggerate one element in a 
 character at the expense of others, and, when opportunity 
 
 1 Sdmmtliche Werke (Volksausgabe), 7 vols., gth ed., Wismar, 1895. Cp. 
 K. T. Gaedertz, Aus Fritz Reuters jungen und alten Tagen, 3rd ed., Wismar, 
 1899.
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE NINKTEENTH CENTURY. 561 
 
 offers, expresses himself in a sentimental tone which was wide- 
 spread in European fiction about the middle of the century : 
 but Reuter is more of a realist than Dickens, and his humour 
 rarely takes the form of caricature. No other German pro- 
 vince is so completely reflected in literature as Mecklenburg 
 in Reuter's Ut mine Stromtid ; while Auerbach only described utmine 
 certain types of Black Forest life, Reuter brought his native St J? m J id 
 country before his readers in its most varied aspects. Figures 
 like the farmer Hawermann, the amusing Fritz Triddelfitz, 
 the " Frau Pasturin," and a dozen others, crowned by the 
 inimitable " Entspekter," Unkel Briisig, are charming humor- 
 ous portraits, and alone sufficient to establish Reuter's place 
 in the front rank of German novelists. From 1863 to his 
 death in 1874, Reuter lived near Eisenach, at the foot of 
 the Wartburg. But in the Franzosentid, Festungstid, and 
 Stromtid) he had exhausted what he had to say to his 
 generation: his later stories, such as Dorchlduchting (1866), 
 in spite of excellent character-sketches, do not add anything 
 to what is to be found in his chief works. 
 
 Fritz Reuter is one leading representative of modern " Platt- 
 deutsch" literature; Klaus Groth (1819-1899), : a native of Klaus 
 
 Holstein, is the other. The two men stand in a characteristic Groth 
 . 1819-99 
 
 antithesis to each other. Reuter was a novelist; his talent 
 
 was epic : Groth, on the other hand, was essentially a lyric 
 poet. Reuter's books found readers all over Germany, while 
 Groth's poetry, with its exclusively local interest and more 
 pronounced dialect, awakened little interest outside the poet's 
 native province. Groth's chief work, the book on which his 
 popularity rests, is Quickborn^ a collection of poems in the 
 Dithmarschen dialect; it appeared in 1852, shortly before 
 Reuter's first stories and rhymes. Subsequently, Groth pub- 
 lished several volumes of Plattdeutsch stories (Vertelln^ 1855- 
 59), which, however, mainly show the limitations of his peculiar 
 talent. 
 
 While, about the middle of the century, fiction stood so The 
 high in favour, the German drama was passing through a drai na- 
 critical phase. The period under consideration might be 
 described as one of significant dramatic experiments ; for, 
 from about 1840 onward, the foundations were being laid for 
 
 * Gesammelte VVerke, 4 vols., Kiel, 1893. Cp. K. Eggers, Klaus Groth und 
 die plattdeutsche Dichtung, Hamburg, 1885 ; A. Bartels, K. Groth, Leipzig, 1889. 
 
 2 N
 
 5 62 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 C. F. 
 
 Hebbel, 
 1813-63. 
 
 Judith, 
 1840. 
 
 that dramatic revival which took place in Northern Europe 
 during the last quarter of the century. Friedrich Hebbel, 
 the chief dramatist to be discussed, was one of the most 
 original German poets of his time ; an innovator as no other 
 European dramatist between Victor Hugo and Henrik Ibsen, 
 he exerted an influence, more powerful than that of either 
 Kleist or Grillparzer, on the subsequent development of the 
 German drama. 
 
 Christian Friedrich Hebbel 1 was one of the few dramatic 
 poets whose home has been on the German coasts, a region 
 so fertile in poetry and fiction. Born in 1813, as the son of 
 a poor mason in the village of Wesselburen in Holstein, 
 Hebbel grew up amidst depressing surroundings and the direst 
 poverty. In 1835 he went to Hamburg, where, by heroic per- 
 severance, he made up for the defects in his early education, 
 and subsequently attended the Universities of Heidelberg and 
 Munich. From law, to which he first applied himself, he soon 
 turned to literature. In 1839, after having found his way back 
 to Hamburg, he was stimulated by Gutzkow's tragedy, Saul, to 
 put his own theories of tragedy into practice, and he wrote his 
 first drama, Judith, which, in 1840, was produced in Berlin. 
 The most characteristic feature of Judith, which bears marks 
 of the "Sturm und Drang" in HebbePs own life, is the 
 standpoint from which the poet regards the story of Holo- 
 fernes and his murderess. Judith is here the saviour of her 
 people, but, like Schiller's Tell, only after she has avenged 
 her personal wrongs; the conflict in the heroine's inner life 
 thus forms the centre of Hebbel's drama. Judith is a brutal 
 work, full of strong passions and unbridled feelings, and un- 
 doubtedly fell far short of its author's intentions ; Holofernes, 
 in particular, is but a rhetorical embodiment of abstract 
 qualities, in whom it is impossible to believe. But and here 
 is the specifically modern element in the drama Hebbel has 
 endowed Judith not merely with a tragic, heroic individuality, 
 but also with a power to rise to greatness through sin, which 
 was new to the European drama of the time. 
 
 While, in the tragedy of Judith, the development and asser- 
 tion of a woman's personality in the ancient world is depicted, 
 
 1 Sammtliche Werke, ed. by E. Kuh and H. Krumm, 12 vols., Hamburg, 
 1891-92 ; also by R. M. Werner, in 12 vols. (six have appeared), Berlin, 1901 ff. 
 Cp. E. Kuh, Biographie F. Hebbeh, 2 vols., Vienna. 1877.
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 563 
 
 the same theme is, in Genove-va (1843), transferred to the 
 middle ages, and in Maria Magdalene (1846) to a wholly 
 modern milieu. For Genoveva, Hebbel chose the story which Genoveva, 
 had been decked out by Tieck in characteristic Romantic l8 43- 
 costume. In Hebbel's play, however, the chief figure is not 
 Genoveva, but her lover, Golo, who, in former versions of 
 the story, had been little more than the incorporation of 
 evil. With the instinct of the born dramatist, and his own 
 over -keen sense for what was psychologically interesting, 
 Hebbel selected, as the central figure of the tragedy, not the 
 meek, suffering Genoveva, but Golo, the victim of a passion 
 over which he loses control. 
 
 The performances of Judith in Berlin brought Hebbel fame, 
 but they did not improve his material prospects. At this 
 point, however, as twice before in the history of German 
 letters, a Danish king came to the rescue : Christian VIII. 
 granted Hebbel a travelling scholarship, which enabled him 
 to visit Paris, and here, in 1843, was written the greater 
 part of Maria Magdalene, ein biirgerliches Trauerspiel. For Maria 
 this drama, which was performed with great success at Leipzig, %*/***% 6 
 in 1846, Hebbel borrowed some traits from experiences of 
 his own in Munich, but it is, in the main, a more genuinely 
 objective work than either Judith or Genoveva. Maria 
 Magdalene the title is not well chosen is an excellently 
 planned play; in technical respects, indeed, it is a model 
 "tragedy of common life." The construction of the plot 
 could not be simpler. A young girl in humble life believes 
 that the man she loves has deserted her ; she gives herself 
 to another, is abandoned by him, and drowns herself. The 
 central figure is not, however, as might be expected, the 
 heroine, Klara, but her father, Meister Anton ; the whole 
 family is shipwrecked on his unbending pride and rectitude ; 
 Klara drowns herself to save his honour, not her own, and 
 the world which he has built up for himself, and in which 
 he alone believes, falls to pieces. This is the tragic idea 
 to which Hebbel has sought to give expression. In the 
 details of its workmanship, Maria Magdalene owes much to 
 the traditional "biirgerliche Tragodie" as handed down by 
 Iffland, but the characters, even the most episodic, are skil- 
 fully drawn, and the conflict, unlike that of Judith or Genoveva, 
 lies within the sphere of ordinary human sympathy.
 
 564 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. f PART v - 
 
 Minor 
 dramas. 
 
 Hebbel 
 in Vienna. 
 
 Herodes 
 und Mart- 
 amne, 
 1850. 
 
 His Danish bounty enabled Hebbel, in 1844 and 1845, 
 to visit Italy, and, towards the end of the latter year, he settled 
 in Vienna. To this period of his life belong a number of 
 minor plays which must be reckoned among his failures. 
 Ein Trauerspiel in Sirilien (1851) and Julia (1851) reflect the 
 dissatisfied life which the poet had led in Italy ; Der Diamant 
 (1847), an older piece, and a " Marchen," Der Rubin (1851), 
 fail owing to Hebbel's deficient sense of comedy. By far the 
 most pleasing of this group is Michel Angela (1855), a drama- 
 tised anecdote relating to the great artist : in order to put to 
 shame those critics who held up to him the superior beauty 
 of the antique, Michel Angelo is said to have mutilated and 
 buried a work by himself, and the critics discovering it, fall 
 into the snare which has thus been laid for them. 
 
 In Vienna, Hebbel's prospects showed signs of improve- 
 ment : it seemed as if a change for the better had at last 
 taken place in his checkered career Here he found not 
 only generous patrons, but also his future wife, Christine 
 Enghaus, an actress in the Hofburgtheater. From this time 
 on, his work became less oppressively gloomy, and, with the 
 exception of Agnes Bernauer, was in verse. The first 
 tragedy of this new period of Hebbel's life was Herodes und 
 Mariamne (1850), which, although unsuccessful on the stage, 
 marks a further development of his genius. There is 
 something almost barbarous in the actual facts of the Jewish 
 story which are here dramatised. Herodes commands that, 
 should he not return alive from a journey within a certain 
 time, Mariamne, the wife he passionately loves, is to be slain, 
 in order that she may not belong to another after he is 
 dead. He returns, however, unexpectedly, and is coldly 
 received by Mariamne, who, in the meantime, has learned 
 his instructions. Herod's suspicion is kindled, and he 
 leaves her once more under the same conditions. A report 
 reaches Jerusalem that he has been killed, but instead of 
 mourning for her husband, Mariamne holds a festival, in 
 the midst of which Herod suddenly appears. She is tried 
 and condemned to death ; too late it comes to light that 
 she is innocent, that the festival was only a ruse to force 
 Herod who had not faith enough in her love to believe 
 that she would die with him to kill her himself. In spite 
 of the complicated and improbable psychological problems
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 565 
 
 which had here to be solved, Hebbel has made Herodes 
 und Mariamne a more convincing play than the bare out- 
 line of its plot might lead the reader to suppose; the char- 
 acters are more consistent than in his earlier dramas, and 
 the picture presented by the last act, where the Roman world 
 and Asiatic barbarism clash with the new epoch heralded by 
 Christianity, is one of the enduring achievements of German 
 dramatic literature. 
 
 Agnes Bernauer, the heroine of Hebbel's next drama (1852), Agne 
 was a surgeon's daughter of Augsburg, who was secretly &** 
 married to Duke Albrecht III. of Bavaria. The marriage 
 brings the young Duke into conflict with his father and with 
 his duties to the state; advantage is taken of Albrecht's 
 absence to accuse Agnes of witchcraft, and she is drowned 
 in the Danube. Agnes Bernauer's fate has been repeatedly 
 dramatised by German poets, for the first time, it will be re- 
 membered, by Graf Torring, towards the end of the eighteenth 
 century, while for Otto Ludwig it had also a peculiar fascina- 
 tion. The reason why Hebbel's version has never become 
 popular is probably because Agnes does not stand in the 
 immediate foreground of the tragedy ; she is beautiful and 
 is sacrificed to the interests of the state : that is all. The 
 real conflict is between the rights of the individual as re- 
 presented by Agnes's lover, and the claims of the state 
 which are urged by his father : the tragedy depicts the 
 cold triumph of political reasoning over passion. 
 
 Gyges und sein Ring (1856) is Hebbel's masterpiece. His Gyges 
 love for the strange, the psychologically involved, was again s ^\ 
 the chief reason which led him to dramatise this fable from 
 Herodotus. King Kandaules of Lydia allows the young Greek 
 Gyges to see, in her naked beauty, his wife Rhodope, whom 
 Oriental custom condemns to complete seclusion from the 
 world. Gyges renders himself invisible by means of a magic 
 ring, but the queen, learning of the disgrace that her husband 
 has inflicted upon her, challenges Gyges to wipe out the stain 
 upon her honour by killing Kandaules and marrying her. 
 He -obeys, but no sooner is she married to him than she 
 stabs herself. The dramatic motive of the play, Rhodope's 
 exaggerated sense of a woman's honour, is even more at 
 variance with ordinary experience than Herod's overpower- 
 ing love in Herodes und Mariamne ; but Gyges und sein Ring
 
 566 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 is, in the naturalness of its development, an advance on its 
 predecessor ; the solution of the problem which Hebbel here 
 set himself is less open to question. The verse of the drama, 
 too, is such as Hebbel had not written previously and hardly 
 ever wrote again. One short quotation must serve as an 
 example. It is Kandaules the idealist, who dreams of a new 
 age of freedom, that speaks Kandaules, whose soul revolts 
 against the oriental barbarism over which he reigns, and 
 under whose iron laws he himself must suffer : 
 
 " Ich weiss gewiss, die Zeit wird einmal kommen, 
 Wo Alles denkt, wie ich ; was steckt denn auch 
 In Schleiern, Kronen oder rost'gen Schwertem, 
 Das ewig ware ? Doch die miide Welt 
 1st liber diesen Dingen eingeschlafen, 
 Die sie in ihrem letzten Kampf errang, 
 Und halt sie fest . . . 
 
 Die Welt braucht ihren Schlaf, wie Du und ich 
 Den uns'rigen, sie wachs't, wie wir, und starkt sich, 
 Wenn sie dem Tod verfallen scheint und Thoren 
 Zum Spotte reizt." 1 
 
 Die Nibe- On his most ambitious dramatic work, Die Nibelungen 
 ["ste."' (1862), Hebbel spent seven years of his life. Die Nibe- 
 lungen is a trilogy which, in form, resembles Wallenstein or 
 Das goldene Vliess ; it consists of a one-act prologue, Der 
 gehornte Siegfried, and two five-act dramas, Siegfrids Tod and 
 Kriemhilds Rache. Although in beauty of verse and in 
 dramatic portraiture Die Nibelungen is not inferior either to 
 Herodes und Mariamne or to Gyges und sein Ring, the subject 
 did not afford Hebbel's genius such good opportunities. Con- 
 trary to his usual practice, he made little alteration in the 
 story of the Nibelungenlied ; he dramatised the epic, instead, 
 like Richard Wagner a few years earlier, in his Ring des 
 Nibelungen, of building up an independent drama on the saga. 
 And this was undoubtedly detrimental to the value and 
 success of Hebbel's work. To a certain extent, of course, he 
 was obliged to modernise his theme ; he endeavoured to gloss 
 over the barbaric strength of Brunhild ; he made the most of 
 the idyllic and sentimental episodes of Kriemhilds Rache ; he 
 gave the drama and no one was better able to do so than 
 he a grandiose background, where Christianity triumphs over 
 the old German heathenism. The trilogy is thus a com- 
 
 1 Act 5 (R. M. Werner's edition, 3, 335 f.)
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 567 
 
 promise between the rough medieval simplicity of the German 
 epic and the poet's own love for involved problems ; but he 
 has retained too much of the original spirit of the Nibelungen- 
 lied to allow of the full development of his own peculiar art. 
 Admirable as Hebbel's figures are, above all, Hagen, the 
 grim ideal of the Germanic virtue of "Treue," Siegfried, to 
 whom the poet has given the light-hearted joviality of the 
 Spielmann, and Kriemhild, they live only as pale reflections 
 of the heroic world, and are neither genuinely modern nor 
 genuinely medieval. 
 
 Demetrius (1864) was, in the first instance, an attempt Demetrius, 
 to finish Schiller's tragedy of that name, but, like Schiller's, l86 *- 
 this, too, remained unfinished. Hebbel soon realised that 
 his method was separated from Schiller's by too wide a gulf 
 for him to follow in the latter's footsteps, and he commenced 
 Demetrius anew in his own way ; but as far as can be judged 
 from the two fragments, Schiller's dramatic objectivity was 
 better adapted to the subject than his successor's excessive 
 refinement. Between Gyges and the Nibelungen^ Hebbel 
 wrote his Mutter und Kind (1859), a pleasing epic, or Mutter und 
 rather novel, in verse. Here, however, the poet's love for ^"^' 
 psychological problems, and his endeavour to avoid the 
 simple and the direct, mar, to some extent, the effectiveness 
 of the whole; but the poem is full of fine passages, and is 
 a not unworthy example of the idyllic epic, on which Goethe 
 set a classic stamp. Hebbel's lyric poetry (Gedichte^ 1842, Gedichte, 
 1848, and 1857) is deficient in all the qualities we are *g 42> l848 - 
 accustomed to look for in the German lyric ; but it possesses, 
 at least, individuality and poetic strength, if little sweetness. 
 The key to the poet's personality, however, is to be found 
 not in his lyrics, but in his Tagebiicher ;^ whatever may be Tage- 
 the ultimate value of his dramatic work, there is no question buclur ' 
 of the thoroughness with which he laboured, and of the 
 magnificent earnestness of his struggle for his art. How much 
 the modern drama owes to him, how many of the most vital 
 ideas of our time may be traced to his initiative, appears 
 almost more clearly in these Tagebiicher than in the dramas 
 themselves. His death took place on December 13, 1863. 
 
 1 Ed. in 2 vols. by F. Bamberg, Berlin, 1885-87. Cp. also Hebbel's Brief- 
 wechsel by the same editor, 2 vols., Berlin, 189092, and Nachlese by R. M. 
 Werner, 2 vols., Berlin, 1900.
 
 $68 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 O. Lud- 
 wig, 1813 
 65- 
 
 Although Otto Ludwig 1 denied all allegiance to Hebbel, 
 his most important drama, Der Erbforster, was obviously 
 suggested by Maria Magdalene. Otto Ludwig was born in 
 1813 at Eisfeld, in Thuringia, and was thus of the same age 
 as Hebbel; he died at Dresden in 1865. Ludwig was one 
 of those "problematic natures" who go through life without 
 obtaining happiness, or even satisfaction from it. Outwardly 
 uneventful, his career was inwardly a succession of struggles, 
 rebuffs, and disenchantments ; he was born out of his time 
 and he felt it. He shrank from the world, and poverty 
 and ill-health only made his isolation the harder to bear; 
 and in 1844, after a short residence in Dresden, he retired 
 to a lonely house near Meissen. In 1850, however, when 
 Der Erbforster brought him fame, he emerged for a time 
 from his obscurity, made literary friends, and settled once 
 more in Dresden, where were written a second tragedy, Die 
 Makkabder and his " Novellen." 
 
 Ludwig looked upon himself as a realist, but he is rather 
 to be compared with a genre painter. His strength lay in the 
 careful observance of detail; he loved to describe and to 
 dwell on the infinitely little. The plot of Der Erbforster is 
 sensational, and its style recalls the " biirgerliche Drama," 
 even the " Schicksalstragodie " ; but the milieu of the play 
 is worked out with great care. The forester of an estate 
 which has just changed hands does not believe that the 
 new owner is legally entitled to remove him, his father and 
 grandfather having been foresters there before him, and re- 
 gards himself as possessing a hereditary right to the position. 
 Refusing to thin out some trees, he receives the threatened 
 dismissal. Hereupon follow thoughts of revenge, which are 
 fanned into flame by improbable coincidences ; and ultimately 
 he shoots his own daughter in the belief that she is his 
 master's son. Crude as Der Erbforster seems from the bare 
 outline of the story, it is an effective and convincing tragedy 
 on the stage ; the characters, which are, without exception, 
 admirably drawn, are less complicated than Hebbel's, and, 
 for that reason, more comprehensible to the listener. 
 DieMakka- Ludwig's Makkabder (1853), the subject of which was 
 baer t 1853. taken from the Apocrypha, is written wholly in verse. The 
 
 1 Gesammelte Schriften, ed. A. Stern and E. Schmidt, 6 vols., Leipzig, 1891- 
 92 ; also by A. Bartels, 6 vols., Leipzig, 1900. 
 
 Der Erb- 
 forster, 
 1850.
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 569 
 
 traditions of Leah's heroic sacrifice of her seven sons to her 
 religion are here brought into connection with the historical 
 revolt of the Maccabees and their victory over Antiochus 
 Eupator. The realistic detail which Ludwig lavished on his 
 Thuringian drama was impossible in Die Makkabaer ; but 
 he made up for it by more careful construction and work- 
 manship. Yet, even allowing for the difficulty a difficulty 
 with which every modern writer has to contend of interest- 
 ing his contemporaries in antique or Biblical themes, Die 
 Makkabaer cannot be called a successful tragedy of its class. 
 The dramatic action practically reaches its climax at the close 
 of the second act, and the two subsequent acts are occupied 
 with personages and incidents which are but loosely con- 
 nected with the main theme. With the exception of one or 
 two individual scenes and the fine character of Judah, Die 
 Makkabaer does not leave by any means so lasting an impres- 
 sion on the reader as Der Erbforster, 
 
 Ludwig's dramatic work suffered from the narrowness of his 
 critical standpoint; he was an uncompromising admirer of 
 Shakespeare, his Shakespeare -Studien were published in Skake- 
 1871, and the entire drama, from Schiller to his own frag- s f? t ar f~ 
 ments, stood or fell by an Elizabethan standard. This constant 1871. 
 insistence upon an impossible criterion explains, too, why he 
 himself was comparatively unproductive. He remodelled his 
 sketches and plays until their original form was past recog- 
 nition ; he approached his subjects from all sides, and con- 
 sequently left behind him more fragments than completed 
 works. A few early comedies, Hanss Frei (1842-43), Die Comedies. 
 Pfarrrose (1845), Die Rechte des Herzens (1845), anc ^> best of 
 all, Das Fraulein von Scuderi (1848), based on Hoffmann's story 
 of that name, were finished, but his drama on Agnes Bernauer 
 a published fragment bears the title DerEngelvon Augsburg 
 occupied him all his life without reaching completion. 
 
 It is as a novelist that Ludwig's reputation is most secure. Novels 
 He began by writing short stories, and a satirical sketch, 
 written under Hoffmann's influence, dates from the winter of 
 1842-43. In 1857 appeared Die HeiteretJici and Aus dent 
 Regen in die Traufe^ both admirable novels of Thuringian 
 village life, and to the preceding year belongs Zwischen Himmel Zwischen 
 und Erde. In this masterpiece, two brothers, Fritz and Apol- 
 
 . . . . un . 
 
 lonms, slaters by vocation, love the same woman. Apollomus, 1856.
 
 570 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 shy and retiring, loses his opportunity of winning her, and 
 on returning from his " Wander jahre," finds her married to 
 his brother. The latter now regards Apollonius with a guilty 
 hatred, and one day, when both brothers are working upon 
 a church steeple, " between heaven and earth," he tries to 
 throw Apollonius down, and loses his own life in the attempt. 
 Apollonius is free to marry his first love ; but the shadow of 
 the dead brother stands between them, and he renounces 
 her. The chain of development is carefully welded to- 
 gether, and every picture the author calls up, from the first 
 page to the last, is clearly focussed; Zwischen Himmel und 
 Erde is an excellent example of detail-painting on a large 
 canvas. The background of the novel, as of Ludwig's shorter 
 stories, is his Thuringian home; his work is Thuringian 
 as Annette von Droste's poetry is Westphalian, and, like 
 hers, Ludwig's style is tinged by the provincialisms of his 
 native dialect. His language is neither smooth nor easy, but 
 it is terse and powerful, and at times he writes passages of 
 dramatic eloquence unsurpassed in modern German prose. 
 Above all, Zwischen Himmel und Erde is free from purpose 
 or "Tendenz" no small virtue in an age when the novel 
 was still dominated by the theories of " Young Germany." 
 
 Among the dramatists who were contemporary with Hebbel 
 and Ludwig, mention has to be made of Robert Griepenkerl 
 (1810-68), whose tragedies, Maximilian Robespierre (1851) 
 and Die Girondisten (1852), suggest a comparison with 
 Georg Biichner's fine drama of the French Revolution, 
 Dantoris Tod. The revolutionary spirit is also reflected in 
 the early plays of R. von Gottschall (born 1823); but his 
 most successful piece was Pitt und Fox> a comedy modelled 
 on Scribe, and performed in 1854; and the many plays he 
 has since written are all in the style of the middle of the 
 century. As a literary historian, Gottschall is the author of 
 a widely read work, Die deutsche Nationallitteratur des 19. 
 Jahrhunderts, of which the first edition was published as 
 early as 1855. Oskar von Redwitz (1823-91) was famous in 
 his day as the author of a sentimental Romantic epic, 
 Amaranth (1849), t>ut is now only remembered by his play 
 Philippine Welser (1859). A frequently performed drama of 
 those years was Narciss (1856), by A. E. Brachvogel (1824- 
 78), whose talent, as is also to be seen from his novels, was
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 5/1 
 
 essentially theatrical. The most popular German comedy- 
 writer since Kotzebue was the Saxon, Roderich Benedix 
 (1811-73). The plays of Benedix combine a homely pro- 
 vincialism with undoubted powers of characterisation and 
 command of stage effects, but they possess little or no literary 
 interest, except, perhaps, as modern equivalents of the Saxon 
 comedy of the eighteenth century. Less talented than 
 Benedix, Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer (1800-68) adapted popular 
 novels to the stage Dorf und Stadt (1848), for example, 
 from Auerbach's Frau Professorin, and Die Waise aus Lowood 
 (1855) from Jane Eyre in the style of the traditional 
 " Rtihrstiicke " of Iffland and Kotzebue.
 
 572 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE NOVEL FROM 1848 TO 1870. 
 
 As the storms of the Revolution gradually subsided, German 
 literature found itself upon what might be described as a 
 uniform plateau. The period between 1848 and 1870 is not 
 devoid of outstanding names and noteworthy writings, but the 
 general impression which it leaves is one of mediocrity. 
 What was great in the age awakened little or no response 
 on the part of the nation ; it was an epoch without youth, and 
 consequently without enthusiasm. All that " Young Ger- 
 many" had dreamt of politically, all that the Revolutions of 
 1830 and 1848 had promised, was still as far from realisation 
 as if these upheavals had never taken place ; and the nation 
 was overcome by a sense of hopelessness. The stagnation 
 and provincialism, into which the German mind is so prone 
 to fall, again made itself felt and frustrated every effort, until 
 the struggle of 1870-71, by placing Germany in the front rank 
 of European nations, and giving her new responsibilities, 
 brought a fresh incentive to bear on her literature and art. 
 Thephilo- As regards the general character of this period, the most 
 sopinc conspicuous change was that Hegelianism gradually lost 
 ground a change mainly due to the rise of a new power in 
 the intellectual life of Europe, to natural science and the 
 positive philosophy associated with it Strauss's Leben Jesu 
 had, although Strauss himself was a disciple of the Hegelian 
 school, done much to clear the way for a materialistic phil- 
 osophy ; but Hegelianism was first shaken to its foundation by 
 Ludwig A. Feuerbach (1804-72), whose work on Das Wesen 
 des Christenthums appeared in 1841, and formed a prominent 
 landmark in the development of positive thinking. The 
 new intellectual movement was, however, a result of foreign
 
 CHAP. XIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 573 
 
 stimulus. In France and England, Auguste Comte's positiv- 
 ism had acted as an antidote to the unhealthy half-religious, 
 half-social theorisings of Saint-Simon theorisings which in 
 Germany had made some progress under the Young German 
 School and Comte's influence found its way to Germany, 
 if not directly, at least through English thinkers, such, for 
 instance, as John Stuart Mill. On sociology and political 
 economy, again, Arnold Ruge (1802-80), Ferdinand Lassalle 
 (1825-64), and Karl Marx (1818-83), whose famous work, 
 Das Kapital, began to appear in 1867, helped to introduce 
 advanced English theories. The first and most distinguished 
 of Darwin's followers in Germany was Ernst Haeckel (born 
 1834), who, since 1862, has been professor in Jena; in 
 Switzerland, Jakob Moleschott (1822-93) vindicated tne rights 
 of science to be treated purely empirically ; while men like 
 Karl Vogt (1817-95) an d Ludwig Biichner (1824-99), the 
 author of an attractively written but superficial work, Kraft 
 und Staff (1855), popularised the standpoint of modern 
 science. Hegelian idealism had a hard stand against the 
 attacks of this scientific and sociological battery that was 
 brought to bear on it between 1850 and 1870. The new 
 philosophy, on the other hand, was hardly adapted to form 
 a basis for literature, and it is not surprising to find poetic 
 souls, who did not regard scientific positivism as the world's 
 salvation, harking back to the philosophy of Schopenhauer. 
 Schopenhauer's day, indeed, had now come ; these decades 
 with their resigned, passive spirit, were more favourable to 
 the spread of his ideas than the days when Romanticism 
 and Realism clashed, and when Die Welt als Wille und 
 Vorstellung had just appeared. The higher poetry of the 
 period under consideration took refuge in pessimism. 
 
 As far as literature is concerned, the period from 1848 
 to 1870 was pre-eminently an age of fiction. The experi- 
 mental beginnings, made on a grandiose scale by men like 
 Gutzkow and Laube, now began to be appreciated. One 
 of the chief German novelists of this age was Gustav Freytag, 1 G.Freytag, 
 who was born at Kreuzburg, in Upper Silesia, in 1816, and l8lfi -95- 
 died in 1895. To the Romantic wonderland of German 
 antiquity Freytag was introduced in Breslau by Hoffmann von 
 
 1 Gesammelte Werke, 22 vols., Leipzig, 1886-88. Cp. C. Albert!, Gustav 
 Freytag, Leipzig, 1890, and F. Seller, Guslav Freytag, Leipzig, 1898.
 
 574 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 His 
 dramas. 
 
 Die Jour- 
 nalist en, 
 1852. 
 
 Soil vnd 
 
 Haben, 
 
 1855- 
 
 Fallersleben ; while at Berlin, he studied under Lachmann. In 
 1839, he became Privatdocent at the University of Breslau, 
 shortly afterwards to relinquish an academic career for litera- 
 ture. In 1848, he and Julian Schmidt (i 818-86), the literary 
 historian, became editors of Die Grenzboten, a bi-monthly 
 review, with which Freytag maintained his connection until 
 1870. Freytag's personal tastes ran in the direction of the 
 drama rather than the novel ; his academic studies had been 
 mainly directed to the drama, and his Technik des Dramas 
 (1863) is a valuable, if now somewhat old-fashioned, treatise 
 on dramaturgy. His first successes were also plays. Die 
 Brautfahrt, oder Kunz von der Rosen, he wrote in 1841 ; 
 and it was followed by Die Valentine (1847), and Graj 
 Waldemar (1848), dramas which treat, with a rather pointed 
 " Tendenz," modern problems. Freytag's only poetic tragedy 
 in the higher style, Die Fabier (1859), was a failure, but, 
 six years earlier, he had written Die Journalisten (1852), 
 one of the best German comedies of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. It speaks volumes for the vitality of this play that, 
 although dealing largely with politics, and especially with the 
 part played by journalism at elections, in other words, with a 
 condition of affairs that has long ceased to exist as Freytag 
 described it, Die Journalisten is still a favourite comedy on 
 the German stage. This is due, in the first instance, to the 
 fresh humour of its situations, and also to the fact that from 
 his predecessors of the Young German School, Freytag had 
 learned the art of writing a brilliant, if somewhat superficial, 
 dialogue. In his hero, a journalist, Konrad Bolz, Freytag 
 gave modern German literature its favourite type of bon-vivant 
 or " Lebemann." Here the witty man of the world, whom 
 the preceding generation had introduced from French literature, 
 is thoroughly Germanised, and, from this time on, becomes a 
 stock figure in German fiction and comedy. 
 
 " Der Roman soil das Volk da suchen, wo es in seiner 
 Tiichtigkeit zu finden ist, namlich bei der Arbeit" These 
 words, written by Julian Schmidt, 1 form the motto of Soil und 
 Haben (1855), Freytag's best novel. Gutzkow first set the 
 example of theorising about the mission of the novel ; but 
 Goethe had written Wilhelm Meisters IVanderjahre and Im- 
 
 1 Geschichte der deutschen Nationa Hitter atur im 19. Jahrhundert, Leipzig, 
 1853, 2, 370.
 
 CHAP. XIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 575 
 
 mermann his Epigonen with an object in view not unsimilar to 
 that which Freytag here made his own. As has been justly 
 observed, however, Freytag was the first to construe the word 
 " Arbeit " as meaning everyday, mercantile life. Soil und 
 Haben is a glorification of German commercialism : the bales 
 and coffee-sacks of the house of T. O. Schroter in Hamburg 
 outweigh the ancient prestige of the barons of Rothsattel. 
 There is something of the democratic spirit which "Young 
 Germany " had imported from France, in this elevation of the 
 middle-class at the nobility's expense, but Freytag does not 
 obtrude his social doctrines. He holds the balance equal by 
 introducing, as the real hero of the novel, Fritz von Fink, a 
 young nobleman whose nobility has been rejuvenated in the 
 wilds of the New World. Through honest handiwork and 
 commercial activity, Fink, who is a finer, less shallow Konrad 
 Bolz, saves the house of Rothsattel and ultimately marries 
 the Baron's daughter, Lenore, while Anton Wohlfahrt, the 
 humbler representative of the commercial spirit, ends as 
 brother - in - law of the wealthy Hamburg merchant. The 
 charm of Soil und Haben and in this respect Freytag 
 had learned from Dickens lies in its genial humour; the 
 kindly spirit in which the book is written conceals its often 
 narrowly provincial outlook on life, and the want of in- 
 dividuality, especially in its female characters. Lastly and 
 not the least of its merits Soil und Haben is one of the 
 most skilfully constructed of all German novels. 
 
 In Freytag's next book, Die verlorene Handschrift (1864), Diever- 
 the easy-going provincialism of his art 1s more obtrusive; l ^ en j 
 or, it may be that it is here less in place than in the com- 
 mercial novel. Die verlorene Handschrift is not so spontane- 
 ous as Soil und Haben ; its plot is, in comparison, artificial. 
 Abandoning the milieu with which he was familiar, the author 
 introduces conflicts which demanded a finer poetic insight 
 than he had at his command. As long, for instance, as 
 Freytag is describing Professor Werner's search for a lost manu- 
 script of Tacitus, he is completely successful, but when his hero 
 comes into contact with aristocratic circles, and a prince falls 
 in love with Use, the professor's wife, the story ceases to be 
 convincing. In the end, the birth of a child consoles the 
 professor for the manuscript he cannot find, and brings the 
 novel to a conventional end.
 
 5/6 
 
 THE NINETEKNTM CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Bilder aus 
 derdeut- 
 
 1859-62. 
 
 DieAhnen, 
 1872-80. 
 
 Between 1859 and 1862, Freytag published a series of 
 Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit (5 vols.), in which he 
 brought the past history of the German people home to his 
 contemporaries. Although the admirable scenes of the Polish 
 revolt in Soil und Haben gave a foretaste of Freytag's ability 
 vividly to describe historical events, his homely humour 
 and easy - going realism were, in general, not well adapted 
 to make him a trustworthy exponent of history. The " spiess- 
 btirgerliche" element in Freytag's art disappeared, however, 
 almost completely in these character- sketches of the great 
 men who built up Germany's past. Historical events and 
 personages are, it is true, now seen with sterner, more strictly 
 realistic eyes than Freytag's, but his warm sympathy popu- 
 larised his subject where the labours of more faithful historians 
 were ineffective. Upon the Bilder der deutschen Vergangen- 
 heit was based the cycle of romances, Die Ahnen, which 
 opened, in 1872, with Ingo und Ingraban, two novels of Ger- 
 man national life in the fourth and eighth centuries. They 
 were followed, in 1874, by Das Nest der Zaunkonige, the scene 
 of which is laid at the beginning of the eleventh century ; in 
 1875, by Die Briider vom deutschen Hause (thirteenth cen- 
 tury). A year afterwards came Marcus Konig, a story of 
 the Reformation period; and in 1878, Die Geschwister, two 
 stories illustrating respectively the Thirty Years' War and the 
 beginning of the eighteenth century. The series was closed 
 in 1880 with Aus einer kleinen Stadt, a story which culminates 
 in the Revolution of 1848. When the enormous magnitude 
 of the task which 'Freytag here set himself is considered 
 that of following the " Kulturgeschichte " of his nation from 
 its beginnings down to the nineteenth century it is not 
 surprising that the value of the series should be unequal. 
 None of the novels of Die Ahnen can be compared with 
 Soil und Haben, or even Die verlorene Handschrift ; the 
 earlier stories are marred by that professorial didacticism 
 which, as a consequence of the impoverished condition of 
 German letters at the middle of the century, spread over the 
 historical novel, and when the cycle reached a period with 
 which Freytag was more familiar, " die Kraft und die Freude 
 an der Arbeit," which he had hoped would accompany him to 
 the end, would seem to have forsaken him. His early interest
 
 CHAP. XIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 577 
 
 in the scheme visibly abated, and on finding a journalist set 
 up as the last link in the evolution of a German family, 
 we are reminded that the author himself had sprung from 
 the milieu of "Young Germany." 
 
 A more militant representative of the social novel in F. Spiel- 
 Germany was Friedrich Spielhagen, 1 who, all his life, had 
 stood " auf den Zinnen der Partei." Spielhagen was born 
 at Magdeburg in 1829, and passed his youth on the shores 
 of the Baltic; he turned to literature in 1857, and in 1862, 
 settled permanently in Berlin. He is Gutzkow's direct 
 successor in fiction, and, like his master, employs the novel 
 in the service of ideas ; his books are all, more or less, 
 "Tendenzromane." But it is only necessary to read one of 
 Spielhagen's masterpieces after such a novel as Ritter vom 
 Geiste, to realise that, in spite of his didacticism, he is a 
 truer artist than his predecessor. Spielhagen had written two 
 short stories, Clara Vere (1857) and Auf der Dime (1858), 
 before he became famous with Problematische Naturen (1860), Protle- 
 a continuation of which, Durch Nacht zum Licht* appeared 5f** 
 
 ,._,., . Naturtn, 
 
 two years afterwards. " Es gibt problematische Naturen, 1860. 
 wrote Goethe in one of his Spruche in Prosa? " welche keiner 
 Lage gewachsen sind, in der sie sich befinden, und denen keine 
 genug thut. Daraus entsteht der ungeheure Widerstreit, der 
 das Leben ohne Genuss verzehrt;" and these words were 
 more applicable to the generation of unpractical dreamers 
 who, at the middle of the century, had set their hopes on the 
 Revolution, than to Goethe's contemporaries. Spielhagen was 
 thus writing from the heart of his time, when he made Oswald 
 Stein, the hero of his novel, a " problematic nature " ; and this 
 Stein, who begins life as a tutor in the family of a Pomeranian 
 nobleman, and ends fighting on the barricades in 1848 who 
 is drawn opposite ways by democratic ideals of state and 
 society, on the one hand, and by the distractions of social life 
 on the other is still, after forty years, a comparatively modern 
 figure. As an antidote to the constant strife with existence, in 
 which such problematic natures are involved, Spielhagen offered 
 the advanced political liberalism of his time, the belief in " the 
 
 1 Aitsgewcihltc Romane, 22 vols., Leipzig, 1895. Cp. G. Karpeles, F. Spiel- 
 hagen, Leipzig, 1888. 
 
 a Goethe's Nachgclasstnt Werke, Stuttgart, 1833, 9, 49. Cp. chap. 33 of the 
 novel. 
 
 2 O
 
 578 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 In ReiK 
 
 und died, 
 1866. 
 
 Sturm- 
 ftut, 1876. 
 
 solidarity of all human interests." Dr Braun, the representa- 
 tive of this liberalism, expresses the author's standpoint : 
 
 " Wer die Solidaritat aller menschlichen Interessen das oberste 
 Princip aller politischen und moralischen Weisheit begriffen hat, 
 weiss auch, das seine individuelle Existenz nur ein Tropfen in dem 
 ungeheuren Strome ist und dass diese Tropfen- Existenz weder das 
 Recht nochdie Moglichkeit der absoluten Selbstandigkeithat. Wenn 
 die Menschen wie reife Friichte vom Baume fielen, mochte es schon 
 eher gehen. So aber, wo wir von einer Mutter mit Schmerzen ge- 
 boren werden, um Jahre lang die hiilflosesten aller Geschopfe zu 
 sein ... wo wir spater jeden wahren Genuss, jedes Fest der Seele 
 nur mit Anderen geniessen und feiern konnen da diirfen wir uns 
 denn auch nicht langer strauben, zu sein, was wir wirklich sind : 
 Menschensohne, Kinder dieser Erde, mit dem Recht und der 
 Pflicht, uns hier auf diesem unseren Erbe auszuleben nach alien 
 Kraften, mit der anderen Menschensohnen, unseren Briidern, die 
 mit uns gleiche Rechte und freilich auch gleiche Pflichten haben." ' 
 
 In 1864, Spielhagen wrote Die von Hohenstein, and in 1866, 
 another powerful romance, In ReiK und Glied. This, again, 
 is a novel with a purpose ; in the background are schemes 
 for the improvement of the working-classes, socialistic dreams, 
 and invectives against capital. The story ends tragically ; the 
 ideal of a society marching forward " in rank and file " is not 
 realised, and the hero, who was modelled on Ferdinand 
 Lassalle, is ultimately killed, like his prototype, in a duel. 
 Hardly less interesting was Spielhagen's next work, Hammer 
 und Amboss (1869), but then came a long series of romances, 
 none of which reached the level of his early masterpieces : 
 only once again, in Sturmflut (1876), did Spielhagen write 
 a novel worthy of comparison with Problematische Naturen. 
 In Sturmflut, the financial crises which took place in Berlin 
 after the Franco-German war are brought into a grandiose, 
 although somewhat forced, connection with a storm on the 
 Baltic coasts. In 1879, appeared a story of Pomerania, 
 Plait Land, in 1880, Quisisana, in 1881, Angela, and in 
 1888, Noblesse oblige, a historical novel, the scene of which is 
 laid in Hamburg. Spielhagen's more recent romances have 
 failed to meet with the approval of the younger generation, 2 
 but he has always retained their sympathy by his friendly 
 attitude towards the literary movements of the day. Occasion- 
 ally, however, in spite of their author's old-fashioned technique, 
 
 1 Durch Nacht turn Licht, chap, i (Ausgewahlte Komane, 5, 15). 
 
 * See, for example, H. and J. Hart, Jfritische Wa/engange, 6, Leipzig, 1884.
 
 CHAP. XIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 579 
 
 books like J^austulus (1897) and freigeboren (1900) rise to 
 the level of Problematische Naturen, 
 
 In the historical novel, Alexis had virtually no successors ; The his- 
 even the names of such novelists as Heinrich Konig (1790- 
 1869) and Georg Hesekiel (1819-74) are now forgotten*. In 
 1878, however, Theodor Fontane (1819-98), whose Gedichte T. Fon- 
 (1851) and Balladen (1861) contain some terse and vigorous ta " e > l8l S' 
 ballad-poetry, published Vor dem Sturm, a romance of the 
 " Befreiungskrieg," which was faithful to the best traditions of 
 Alexis. Fontane also wrote many volumes of travel (Aus 
 England, 1860; Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg, 
 1862-81) and vivid accounts of his experiences as war-cor- 
 respondent (Der deutsche Krieg von 1866, 1869-71; Kriegs- 
 gefangen, 1871), but a history of German literature is chiefly 
 concerned with his novels of modern life, which will be dis- 
 cussed in a subsequent chapter. An exotic element was intro- 
 duced into German fiction from America by Karl Anton Postl, 
 a native of Moravia, who wrote under the pseudonym of Charles c. Seals- 
 Sealsfield (I793-I864), 1 and whose sketches and novels of fi eid, 1793- 
 American life notably the romance Der Virey und die Aris- 
 tokraten (1834), the scene of which is laid in Mexico, in 181 1 
 have never met with the recognition they deserve. Another 
 novelist who wrote about America was Friedrich Gerstacker 
 (1816-72), but, like Sealsfield's, Gerstacker's voluminous writ- 
 ings have fallen into a neglect that is difficult to account for. 
 A similar fate has, with more justice, befallen the novels and 
 plays of F. W. von Hacklander (1816-77). 
 
 A less healthy development of modern German fiction is Theanti- 
 to be seen in the antiquarian novels of Ebers, Dahn and Haus- q uanan 
 rath. For the Romantic delight in the past, which the older 
 school of historical novelists learned from Scott, these writers 
 substituted historical accuracy and learned detail ; a didactic 
 spirit takes the place of imagination and poetry. Georg Ebers 
 (i837-98), 2 Professor of Egyptology in Leipzig, wrote, in 1864, 
 a novel of ancient Egyptian life, Eine agyptische Konigstochter 
 (1864), and followed it up by a large number of romances on 
 similar themes ; but, with the possible exception of Homo sum 
 (1878), Ebers' works are little more than conventional, senti- 
 
 1 Gesammelte Werke, srd ed., 15 vols., Stuttgart, 1845-46. Cp. A. B. Faust, 
 C. Sealsfield, Weimar, 1897. 
 
 2 Gesammelte Werkr, 25 vols., Stuttgart, 1893-95.
 
 580 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY [PART V. 
 
 G. Keller, 
 1819-90. 
 
 Der griine 
 Heinrich, 
 I854-55- 
 
 mental stories in an antiquarian setting. Felix Dahn (born 
 I834), 1 whose scholarly studies in German antiquity {.Die 
 Konige der Germanen, 1861-72) have undisputed value, is also 
 more historian than novelist. ' The most popular of his many 
 novels, Ein Kampf um Rom (1876), the subject of which is 
 the Gothic invasion of the Roman Empire, is, apart from its 
 graphic descriptions, a sensational story of small poetic worth. 
 Lastly, Adolf Hausrath (born 1837), a theologian who writes 
 under the pseudonym of George Taylor, is the author of the 
 widely read historical novels, Antinous (1880), Klytia (1883), 
 and Elfnede (\%%s\ 
 
 Gottfried Keller, 2 the master-novelist of this age, and, with- 
 out question, its most original literary personality, was a Swiss. 
 Keller, who was born at Zurich, on July 19, 1819, first set 
 his heart on becoming an artist ; he spent two years in Munich 
 studying painting, only to find that he had mistaken his 
 calling. Resolving to begin life over again, he attended, in 
 1848, the University of Heidelberg, where a friendship with 
 Hermann Hettner (1821-82), the art-historian and author of 
 a valuable Literaturgeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts 
 (1856-70), helped him to discover wherein his talent lay. 
 From Heidelberg, Keller went to Berlin, where, in the years 
 1850 to 1855, he seriously turned his attention to authorship. 
 Gedichte he had already published in 1846, but they received 
 little notice ; five years later, however, appeared a collection 
 of Neuere Gedichte (1851), which contained some of the most 
 original lyric poetry of the time. In Berlin, too, Keller wrote 
 his first prose work, a romance, Der griine Heinrich (1854-55), 
 which is, in great part, his autobiography. Heinrich Lee, a 
 native of Zurich, who is brought up by his mother, is pressed 
 by circumstances into the career which Keller himself had 
 chosen as a young man ; he goes to Munich in order to 
 study art and into this meagre story are woven reminiscences 
 and episodes from the author's childhood. Der griine Hein- 
 rich is thus a history of Heinrich's apprenticeship to life, his 
 struggles, temptations and dreams, up to the point where, grow- 
 ing courageous enough to face the truth, that he has missed 
 his vocation, he returns to his native land and becomes re- 
 
 1 Gesammelte dichterische Werke, 21 vols., and ed., Leipzig, 1900. 
 
 J Gesammelte Werke, 10 vols., Berlin, 1889-90. Cp. J. Bachtold, Gottfried 
 Kellers L^ben, 3 vols., Berlin, 1893-98, O. Brahm, Gottfried Keller, Leipzig, 
 1883, and F. Baldensperger, G. Keller, sa vie et ses aeuvres, Paris, 1899.
 
 CHAP. XIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 581 
 
 conciled to a humbler career. But, so far from being merely 
 a realistic account of its hero's life, Der griine Heinrich is rich 
 in poetic beauties ; it might even be described as a Romantic 
 novel, a Heinrich von Ofterdingen^ in a nineteenth-century 
 setting, and appealing directly to the modern reader. Der 
 griine Heinrich has, it is true, many of the faults of the 
 Romantic novels : it shows, in particular, little regard for 
 form, but this is more than atoned for by its intimately per- 
 sonal character. It is the last of the great novels which stand 
 in the main line of development of German national fiction ; 
 in other words, the type of novel which began with Agathon 
 and Wilhelm Meister, and passed through the hands of the 
 Romanticists from Franz Sternbald to Maler Nolten 
 seems to have reached a close with Der griine Heinrich. 
 
 In the last years of his stay in Berlin, Keller also wrote a 
 volume of short stories, to which he gave the title, Die Leute Die Leute 
 von Seldwyla (18156). General attention was not, however, v ., 
 
 i i ,, -i /. Seldwyla, 
 
 attracted to this collection until the appearance, in 1874, of 1856-74. 
 a new edition containing many additional "Novellen." 
 
 " Seldwyla," says the author in his introduction, " bedeutet nach 
 der alteren Sprache einen wonnigen und sonnigen Ort, und so ist 
 auch in der That die kleine Stadt dieses Namens gelegen irgendwo 
 in der Schweiz. Sie steckt noch in den gleichen alten Ringmau- 
 ern und Thiirmen, wie vor dreihundert Jahren, und ist also immer 
 das gleiche Nest ; die urspriingliche tiefe Absichtdieser Anlage wird 
 durch den Umstand erhartet, dass die Griinder der Stadt dieselbe 
 eine gute halbe Stunde von einem schiffbaren Flusse angepflanzt, 
 zum deutlichen Zeichen, dass nichts daraus werden solle. Aber 
 schon ist sie gelegen, mitten in griinen Bergen, die nach der Mit- 
 tagseite zu offen sind, so dass wohl die Sonne herein kann, aber 
 kein rauhes Liiftchen. Deswegen gedeiht auch ein ziemlich guter 
 Wein rings um die alte Stadtmauer, wahrend hoher hinauf an den 
 Bergen unabsehbare Waldungen sich hinziehen, welche das Ver- 
 mogen der Stadt ausmachen ; denn dies ist das Wahrzeichen und 
 sonderbare Schicksal derselben, dass die Gemeinde reich ist und 
 die Biirgerschaft arm, und zwar so, dass kein Mensch zu Seldwyla 
 etwas hat und niemand weiss, wovon sie seit Jahrhunderten eigent- 
 lich leben. Und sie leben sehr lustig und guter Dinge, halten die 
 Gemtithlichkeit fur ihre besondere Kunst und wenn sie irgendwo 
 hinkommen, wo man anderes Holz brennt, so kritisieren sie zuerst 
 die dortige Gemiithlichkeit und meinen, ihnen thue es doch niemand 
 zuvor in dieser Hantierung." 1 
 
 1 Gcsammclte Werke, 4, 7 f.
 
 5 82 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Ziirichtr 
 Novelltn 
 1878. 
 
 Das Sinn- 
 gedicht, 
 
 1881. 
 
 A fine example of Keller's work is the story in the first 
 series of Die Leute von Seldwyla, entitled Romeo und Julia 
 auf dem Dorfe. Two peasants disagree over the boundary- 
 line between their fields, and the quarrel grows until it ulti- 
 mately becomes a family feud. Sali and Vrenchen, the Romeo 
 and Juliet of this rustic tragedy, whose union is rendered im- 
 possible by the enmity of the parents, resolve to have a last 
 happy day together : they dance to their heart's content at a 
 village festival, and next morning, at dawn, throw themselves 
 into the river. The episode is, in itself, commonplace, but 
 Keller has encircled it with a wonderful halo of poetry. Un- 
 obtrusively and with unconscious art, he unfolds his story 
 from the opening scene where the peasants are ploughing 
 their respective fields, to the catastrophe on the river; the 
 reader who finds himself at first interested and amused by 
 Keller's genial touches of humour, is suddenly confronted 
 by a tragedy, the more stupendous because related without 
 sentimentality or artificial pathos. And if we turn to Die 
 drei gerechten Kammmacher in the same volume, or to Kleider 
 machen Leute in the second series of Die Leute von Seldwyla, 
 we find it difficult to say whether Keller was greater as a 
 writer of comedy or of tragedy. 
 
 In 1855, Keller returned to Switzerland, and in 1861, was 
 appointed " erster Staatsschreiber " of the canton of Zurich, a 
 position which to the detriment, it is to be feared, of his 
 literary work he occupied for fifteen years. In 1876, he 
 retired, and died at Zurich, in 1890. Sieben Legenden, a 
 collection of Novellen in which the lives of certain saints 
 are related with naive ingenuousness and poetic charm, 
 appeared in 1872, and in 1878, the magnificent cycle of 
 Ziiricher Novellen. In the last-mentioned collection is to 
 be found the story of the Minnesinger, Johann Hadlaub, 
 also Das Fdhnlein der sieben Aufrechten, a humorous picture 
 of Swiss political life in the early part of the century, and, 
 most masterly and characteristic of all Keller's works, Der 
 Landvogt von Greifensee. In the course of 1879 and 
 1880, Keller revised Der griine Heinrich, endeavoured to 
 improve its defects of form, and made the denouement less 
 tragic. Das Sinngedicht^ another volume of Novellen, which 
 are threaded together on a common theme, the choice of a 
 wife, was published in 1882, an edition of his Gesammelte
 
 CHAP. XIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 583 
 
 Gedichte in 1883. Finally Martin Salander, a prosaic and 
 uninspired novel of modern Swiss life, closed the series of 
 his works in 1886. 
 
 Gottfried Keller is the master of the " Novelle " ; he is the 
 greatest writer of short stories in a literature which is extra- 
 ordinarily rich in this form of prose fiction. At the same 
 time, it is not easy to say, in a few words, wherein the 
 peculiar merit of Keller's work lies. His subjects, as in the 
 case of Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe, are often only 
 anecdotes, or else have grown naturally out of anecdotes ; 
 and, as far as artistic form is concerned, Keller is surpassed by 
 at least two of his contemporaries, Paul Heyse, at his best, 
 and C. F. Meyer. It is rather his method of writing that 
 is unique; he possesses, in a higher degree than any other 
 prose author of modern Europe, an epic style ; he is a supreme 
 example of what Schiller called a " naive " genius. As a prob- 
 able result of his early training as a painter, all that Keller 
 relates or describes takes visible form before his eyes; his 
 language, in other words, is instinctively plastic and con- 
 crete. A master of style, as Meyer and Nietzsche are masters, 
 Keller is not, but his prose is the complete expression of his 
 individuality ; it is strong and healthy, and reflects the sturdy 
 independence of his native land. During his lifetime, Keller 
 was but little read outside Germany, and he was an old 
 man before he attained a widespread recognition even in 
 German-speaking lands. In his writings, as in his character, 
 there was a certain exuberance of strength that repelled a 
 public accustomed to the more conventional manner of his 
 contemporaries; it was left to a later generation to discover 
 in him the representative German novelist of the century, 
 and the truest exponent of the German spirit. 
 
 While Keller in the South of Germany formed a link 
 between Romanticism and modern literature, another master 
 of the short story kept the connection unbroken in the 
 North. Theodor W. Storm 1 was born in 1817, at Husum T. Storm, 
 on the coast of Schleswig, and throughout his life he re- I8l 7- 88 - 
 mained a warm patriot of that province. His career was 
 uneventful. He occupied various posts in the service of 
 
 1 Gesammelte Werke, iovols., Brunswick, 1899. Cp. P. Schutze, T. Storm, 
 sein Leben und seine Dichtung, Berlin, 1887, and E. Schmidt, Charakleristiken, 
 i, Berlin, 1886, 437 ff.
 
 584 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 the State, and was finally appointed Landvogt and Amtsrichter 
 in his native town. In 1880, he retired to Hademarschen 
 in Holstein, where he died in 1888. Less pronounced in 
 his individuality than Keller, Storm stood wholly in the 
 shadow of the Romantic traditions ; he took over many 
 of the weaker elements in the literature of his predecessors ; 
 and thus, unlike Keller's, the majority of his "Novellen" 
 already begin to show signs of age. The key to Storm's 
 prose work is his lyric poetry. Like his model, Eichen- 
 dorff, he was, in the first instance, a poet, and his Gedichte 
 (1853) give him a high place among German singers. A 
 love of home and all its associations, an intense if some- 
 what melancholy delight in looking back upon the years of 
 youth, and, above all, a delicacy of perception, are the chief 
 characteristics of Storm's poetry. And these features, too, 
 are to be traced in his prose works. He loves the novel 
 
 "Novel- of reminiscence, and all his finest "Novellen" are stories of 
 a past happiness that lies irrevocably behind the narrator, 
 and is seen through a veil of resignation. Storm's earlier 
 "Novellen," such as Im Sonnenschein (1854), Ein griines 
 Blatt (1855), and, best known of all, Immensee (1852), are 
 purely Romantic in tone and spirit; but, as he grew older, 
 his style changed. The passive, retrospective novel gave place 
 to a more active and dramatic form of romance. To this 
 group belong Psyche (1877), a story in imitation of Paul 
 Heyse, Aquis submersus (1877), which is perhaps his master- 
 piece, and Renate (1878). A number of these novels are 
 classed together as " Chroniknovellen," and include, besides 
 Aquis submersus and Renate, EekenhoJ "(1880), Zur Chronik von 
 Grieshuus (1884), and Ein Fest auf Haderslevhuus (1886); 
 they are written in an archaic style, and preserve, with con- 
 siderable faithfulness, the character of old chronicles. In the 
 last years of his life, Storm wrote stories on more realistic 
 lines, such as John Rievf (1886), Der Schimmelreiter (1888), 
 but his art was too romantic, readily to adapt itself to modern 
 problems. 
 
 Women The fiction of this period was, to a large extent, written by 
 
 women, eminent among whom were Fanny Lewald (1811-89) 
 and Grafin Ida Hahn-Hahn (1805-80). Both grew up under 
 the influence of the Young German School, but, while the 
 former never lost touch with that coterie, the Grafin Hahn-
 
 CHAP. XIII.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 585 
 
 Hahn early turned away from it and, in 1850, became a 
 Catholic. An aristocrat herself, the Grafin Hahn-Hahn loved 
 to depict aristocrats of mind and feeling, strong passionate 
 natures, who fall victims to the tyranny of circumstance. 
 Her most characteristic novels were collected in 1844, under 
 the title Aus der Gesellschaft (12 vols.) The novels of Ottilie 
 von Wildermuth (1817-77), a Swabian writer, do not rise 
 above the provincial interests of her home, but to Luise von 
 Francois (1817-93) we owe Die letzte Reckenburgerin (1871), 
 one of the outstanding German romances of the time. 
 
 Still another side of German literature in the period between W. Jordan, 
 1848 and 1870 is to be seen in the work of Wilhelm Jordan, born I8l9> 
 who was born at Insterburg in the same year as Keller. 
 Independent and original, a writer of undeniable poetic im- 
 agination, Jordan has suffered under the mediocrity and 
 intellectual poverty of his time. He had already written 
 philosophical poems before the Revolution of 1848, and 
 Demiurgos (1852-54), his first epic, is essentially didactic in 
 tone; the materialistic philosophy, which men like Biichner 
 had introduced from England, here reappears in all its prosaic 
 baldness. Jordan's chief work is Die Nibelunge, an epic, Die Nibe- 
 which was published in two parts, Sigfridssage and Hilde- lu ^^ 
 brands Heimkehr in 1868 and 1874. Owing to its strongly 
 marked patriotic "Tendenz," the epic at once met with success, 
 and the poet himself wandered from town to town, reciting 
 it like a medieval " Spielmann." Die Nibelunge is written in 
 alliterative verse, and contains here and there passages which 
 recall the grandiose simplicity of the Germanic " Helden- 
 dichtung." But Jordan's effects are too calculated to make 
 good poetry, and Die Nibelunge is marred, even more than 
 DemiurgoSy by lapses of taste and arid stretches of unpoetic 
 philosophy, which a genuinely creative imagination would have 
 avoided. As a dramatist (Durchs Ohr t 1870) and a novelist 
 (Die Sebalds, 1885), he has kept in traditional grooves. More 
 effectually than Jordan, Karl Simrock (1802-76), a patient K.Sim- 
 student of Germany's past, who spent the greater part of his r ^ ck l8 2 " 
 busy life translating the masterpieces of the Middle High 
 German epic, has helped to make the modern generation 
 familiar with the figures of medieval literature.
 
 586 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE MUNICH GROUP. HISTORY AND CRITICISM. 
 
 PREVIOUS to the inroads of realism from France, the German 
 literature of the second half of the nineteenth century was 
 strangely free from schools or coteries. This in itself was a 
 proof that the vitality of German poetry and, north of the 
 Alps, vitality of this kind is almost always accompanied by a dis- 
 play of party spirit was at a low ebb. In the epoch before 
 the Franco-German war, only one group of writers existed to 
 whom the word " school " may be applied, namely, the poets 
 whom the Bavarian king, Maximilian II., gathered round him 
 in Munich, between 1850 and 1860. As, however, almost all 
 the men of this circle were North Germans, it cannot be said 
 that they formed a Bavarian school comparable to the Swabian 
 school of the preceding generation ; nor were the members 
 bound as closely by common principles as Uhland and his 
 friends had been. The general tendency of the group was 
 towards conservativism ; they raised a bulwark against the un- 
 restrained aspirations of the age, held up an ideal of literary 
 form to a generation that was chiefly interested in ideas, and 
 inaugurated that movement which, later on, was to make so 
 stubborn a stand against the naturalistic tendencies of the last 
 quarter of the century. Thus, the importance of the Munich 
 poets was mainly negative, and with the possible exception of 
 half-a-dozen stories by Paul Heyse, they left nothing that is 
 signally great. Leaders in an age of mediocrity, they infused 
 no fresh life into German literature, but they prevented it from 
 sinking below a certain level of excellence. 
 
 E. Geibel, Emanuel Geibel, whose work has already been discussed, 
 
 1815-84. was ca n e( j to Munich by the King of Bavaria in 1851, and 
 
 at once became the head of the coterie; and, as we have
 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 587 
 
 seen, the years which he spent in Munich were the most 
 productive of his career. In 1861, he published a Munchner 
 Dichterbuch, a belated " Musenalmanach," which served as 
 a bond of union for the members of the group. Geibel gave 
 the tone to the Munich lyric as represented by Heyse and 
 Greif; his epic ballads had on ScheffePs work a greater 
 influence than even Kinkel's epics, and his undramatic plays 
 were the models for the many iambic tragedies that were 
 performed in the Bavarian national theatre. 
 
 The house of Graf Adolf Friedrich von Schack 1 (1815- A. F. von 
 94), a native of Mecklenburg, who came to Munich in 1855, 
 was the chief centre of literary life in the Bavarian capital. 
 Schack's original productions he wrote .two novels and 
 several plays do not display much talent. His verses, 
 however (Gedichte, 1867), occasionally strike an individual 
 note, and his Ndchte des Orients (1874), a philosophic poem, 
 in which he laid down his own personal creed, contains 
 poetry of some merit. Schack was an inveterate traveller and 
 loved strange literatures ; his translations, the Heldensagen des 
 Firdusi (1851) as well as those from the Spanish and Portu- 
 guese, are more successful than his original work. He also 
 wrote, it may be noted, an excellent Geschichte der dramatischen 
 Litteratur und Kunst in Spanien (1845-46). Schack played a 
 larger role as an art-patron than as a man of letters, and 
 his unsurpassable collection of modern German pictures, now 
 known as the Schack Gallery, will keep his name alive when 
 his writings are forgotten. 
 
 After Geibel, the most widely read lyric poet of the circle 
 was Friedrich Bodenstedt (1819-9 a), 2 who, in 1851, published F. Boden- 
 his Lieder des Mirza Schaffy, a volume of oriental poetry, ^ t 2 edt| I8l9 ~ 
 or rather imitations of oriental poetry. Bodenstedt was the 
 last poet who, following in Riickert's footsteps, imitated the 
 West-ostliche Divan; but he had not Riickert's genius, and 
 it is now difficult to understand what made the Lieder 
 des Mirza Schaffy the most popular book of poetry of its 
 time. Although there is little genuine lyric inspiration in 
 Bodenstedt's verse, he had at his command an easy flow 
 of language, and he had sufficiently immersed himself in the 
 
 1 Gesammelte Werke, and ed., 8 vols., Stuttgart, 1891. 
 
 8 Gesammelte Schriften, 12 vols. (incomplete), Berlin, 1865-69; the Lieder 
 des Mirza Schaffy are at present in their i52nd edition.
 
 588 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 oriental spirit he spent several years in the East to adapt it 
 to his ideas. His readers, who did not question the genuine- 
 ness of his oriental colouring, delighted to discover familiar 
 maxims and truisms beneath the strange disguise in which 
 he clothed them. The success of this work was fatal to 
 Bodenstedt ; he remained all his life the " poet of Mirza 
 Schaffy" ', his dramas and his graphically written books of travel 
 were little read. Like all the poets of his generation, he 
 was also a translator, and made admirable versions of Russian 
 poets as well as of Shakespeare. 
 
 Other poets who stood in more or less close relationship 
 to Geibel were Julius Grosse (1828 - 1902), whose work 
 H. Leut- has few lasting qualities, Heinrich Leuthold (1827-79), an d 
 hold. 1827- Hermann Lingg (born 1820). Of these Leuthold was un- 
 questionably the most gifted ; but his life was unhappy 
 and tragic, and he ultimately went insane. Both in his 
 Gedichte (I879) 1 and in the epic, Penthesilea, which, how- 
 ever, like Lenau's epics, is essentially lyric in tone and 
 style, Leuthold towers high above his friends. Hermann 
 H. Lingg, Lingg (born 1820), on the other hand, corresponds more 
 born 1820. c i ose ]y t o th e ideal poet at which the Munich school aimed ; 
 he was "discovered" by Geibel, who drew attention to his 
 first collection of Gedichte in 1853. As a poet, Lingg has un- 
 doubted ability, but, writing in an age in which originality was 
 little prized, he was tempted to produce too much. His ambi- 
 tious epic in ottave rime, Die Volkerwandeiung (1866-68), 
 notwithstanding poetic swing and beauty of language, fails to 
 bring order and concentration into so vast a theme; and 
 his dramas are also without clearly marked outlines. He has 
 written little in prose a handful of historical " Novellen " 
 but they are wholly deficient in the plastic qualities to be 
 found in the novels of a master like C. F. Meyer. Similar to 
 M. Greif, Lingg's is the talent of Martin Greif (pseudonym for Hermann 
 Frey ' bom jg.^2 Greif > s lyrics (Gedichte, ist ed., 1868) 
 are strongly influenced by the Romantic traditions, and his 
 compass is narrow, but he has written a number of vigorous 
 songs in the tone of the Volkslied. His dramas all of them 
 on historical subjects have, on the other hand, few dramatic 
 qualities, and are written without adequate knowledge of the 
 
 1 Edited by J. Baechtold, 3rd ed., Frauenfeld, 1884. 
 a Gesammelte Werke, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1895-96.
 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 589 
 
 stage. Although not personally connected with the Munich 
 group, Otto Roquette (1824-96) was a writer whose many- o. Ro- 
 sided activity lyrics, tales in verse and prose, dramas, literary 
 criticism bears a close resemblance to theirs. But just as 
 Bodenstedt is associated with Mirza Schaffy, so Roquette is 
 now chiefly remembered as the author of Waldmeisters Braut- 
 fahrt, a charming Marchen, which appeared in 1851, and has 
 gone through more than sixty editions. 
 
 Like Bodenstedt, Joseph Viktor von Scheffel (i 826-86) x J. V. von 
 was the victim of his popularity. His epic, Der Trompeter 
 von Sdkkingen, which was written in Italy and published in 
 1854, was one of the most widely read books of its day, 
 and is generally regarded as the embodiment of Scheffel's 
 poetic work. It is a fresh, unrestrained poem, interspersed 
 with lyrics, and written in the sentimental style which was the 
 least valuable heritage of Romanticism ; its poetic beauties lie 
 on the surface, and its humour is of that superficial kind that 
 makes no claims on the imagination. The secret of Scheffel's 
 charm was his spontaneousness ; he did not pay strict observ- 
 ance to the technique of the epic, nor did he hamper himself 
 by following acknowledged models. And the result was, 
 not perhaps an epic of abiding worth, but at least a poem 
 that expressed exactly the easily satisfied tastes and ideals of 
 his time. A historical romance, Ekkehard, eine Geschichte aus Ekkehard, 
 dem zehnten Jahrhundert (1857), stands upon a higher plane. l857> 
 Scheffel made a careful study of the age when the monastery 
 of St Gall was a solitary light in intellectual darkness; he 
 also helped to edit the Waltharilied. Ekkehard, the hero 
 of which is the young monk who wrote the Waltharilied, 
 is an excellent historical novel of its kind, but, in justice 
 to Scheffel's predecessors, the fact cannot be overlooked 
 that he was deficient in the poetic seriousness of Scott, 
 or of a disciple of Scott like W. Alexis; nor, on the other 
 hand, does Ekkehard fulfil those essentially modern require- 
 ments, according to which sentimentality and romantic, not 
 to say "Young German," trivialities, should be excluded from 
 a picture of a bygone age. But it is an interesting story, 
 and, compared with the attempts of Ebers and Dahn to 
 rehabilitate the historical novel on antiquarian lines, a master- 
 
 1 Cp. J. Proelss, Scheffels Lebcn und Dichten, Berlin, 1887. A collected 
 edition of Scheffel's works has not yet appeared.
 
 590 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Scheffel's 
 successors. 
 
 F. W. 
 
 Weber, 
 1813-94. 
 
 W. Hertz. 
 1835-1902. 
 
 piece. Less important were Scheffel's historical "Novellen," 
 Hugideo (published 1884), a story of the fifth century, and 
 JuniperuSy Geschichte eines Kreuzfahrers (1868). Frau Aven- 
 tiure, Lieder aus Heinrich von Ofterdingens Zeit (1863), 
 although also anachronistic in its sentiment, contains some 
 of Scheffel's finest lyrics. Gaudeamus (1867), again, offers 
 but a poor equivalent for the classical German drinking-song, 
 and, in general, the poet's "beer-humour" and his parodies, 
 which, in their day, won great applause, are without literary 
 significance. Scheffel was not formally called to Munich by 
 the Bavarian king, but he lived there for several years, in in- 
 timate touch with members of the group, as well as in Italy 
 with Paul Heyse. His books were published at widely distant 
 dates, but most of them were written between 1850 and 1860. 
 Scheffel has had many imitators. The contentment with 
 easily won success, and the want of serious poetic ideals, 
 which in him were a grave source of weakness, are to be 
 found accentuated in his followers. Of these the chief is 
 Julius Wolff (born 1834), the author of a large number of 
 sentimental romances in verse, such as Der Rattenfdnger von 
 Hameln (1875), Der wilde Jdger (1877), an( ^ Tannhauser 
 (1880). Rudolf Baumbach (born 1840), again, is a poet of 
 more individuality than Wolff, and his humour is less trivial 
 than Scheffel's. An enthusiastic mountaineer, Baumbach loves 
 Alpine sagas, and such a saga forms the subject of Zlatorog 
 (1877), his best known poem, while his lyrics (Lieder eines 
 fahrenden Gesellen, 1878-80) re-echo the sentimental tone of 
 Scheffel's songs. A Westphalian Catholic, F. W. Weber 
 (1813-94), wrote, in 1878, an epic, Dreizehnlinden, the 
 enormous popularity of which was chiefly due to its religious 
 tendency. But Weber was a manly and independent poet, 
 and not unworthy of comparison in his Gedichte (1881), 
 rather than in his epic with his great countrywoman, Annette 
 von Droste-Hiilshoff. A refined poetic talent, no less sterling 
 because expended, for the most part, on translations, is that 
 of Wilhelm Hertz (1835-1902), who was one of the original 
 contributors to Geibel's Dichterbuch, Hertz continued the 
 work Karl Simrock had begun ; with a rare power of entering 
 into the thoughts and feelings of the Middle High German 
 poets, he translated both Gottfried's Tristan (1877) and 
 Wolfram's Parzival (1898).
 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 591 
 
 The most serious vein in the literature of this age was a Pessimism, 
 pessimistic one. About 1850, as we have seen, Arthur Schop- 
 enhauer came into his kingdom in German intellectual life ; 
 and, from 1850 until the last decade of the century, his phil- 
 osophy was a dominating force. Neo-Kantism and positivism, 
 it is true, soon began to shake the supremacy of his system, 
 but, in some form, pessimism long remained the inspiration of 
 literature and art. In 1869, Eduard von Hartmann (born 1834) 
 published his Philosophic des Unbewussten a work which, as 
 regards popularity, might be compared with the writings of the 
 " Popularphilosophen " in the eighteenth century and won 
 new friends for Schopenhauer's ideas by bringing them into 
 harmony with Hegelian idealism. Literature generally even 
 when it was most joyous and apparently careless could not 
 avoid a pessimistic tinge; the humour of the Munich poets 
 was, in its lack of sincerity, only a cloak for inward hopeless- 
 ness. During these decades, pessimism found a characteristic 
 expression in the Gedichte (1870) of a Moravian, Heinrich 
 Landesmann, who writes under the pseudonym of Hieronymus H. Lorm, 
 Lorm (born 1821). Early deprived of the sense of hearing, born l82I- 
 subsequently, also of sight, Lorm was more justified than his 
 fellow-poets in seeing the dark side of things, and a note of 
 despair dominates all his poetry. Heinrich Leuthold, whose 
 work has already been mentioned, belongs also to this group, 
 and a bitter cynicism inspires the epic, Der neue Tanhduser 
 (1869), by E. Grisebach (born 1845). Another sombre poet 
 is Leuthold's fellow - countryman, Ferdinand von Schmid 
 (1823-88), known to literature as "Dranmor." 1 The exotic F. von 
 elements in Schmid's poetry are to be traced to the fact that fu^n- 
 he passed the latter part of his life in South America. mor"), 
 
 Pessimistic, too, are the writings of one of the leading poets l8a 3-88. 
 of this time, an Austrian, Robert Hamerling (1830- 89),* 
 although in Hamerling's poetry the conflict had already begun R- Hamer- 
 between pessimism and a more buoyant outlook on life. ^ g> ' 3 
 When, in 1857, Hamerling published his first collection of 
 poems, his Sangesgruss vom Strande der Adria, he was pro- 
 .fessor in a school at Trieste; in 1866, the income from his 
 
 1 Gesammelte Dichtungen, 3rd ed., Berlin, 1879. 
 
 2 Werke, edited by M. M. Rabenlechner, 4 vols., 2nd ed., Hamburg, 
 1901. Cp. M. M. Rabenlechner, Hamerlings Leben und Werke, Hamburg, 
 1897.
 
 592 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 writings allowed him to give up teaching, whereupon he made 
 Graz his home. His earlier poems, the Sangesgruss, Venus in 
 ^^7(1858), Ein Schivanenlied der Romantik (1862), have a 
 certain rhythmic charm which, however, hardly makes up for 
 the poverty of the thoughts expressed. In 1866, and in 1869, 
 Hamerling published the two epics on which his reputation 
 in rests, Ahasver in Rom and Der Konig von Sion, both of 
 
 Rom, 1866. w hich found enthusiastic admirers. It is questionable, how- 
 ever, whether he has here succeeded in solving the problem 
 as to what form the modern epic should take ; or even, 
 whether he has justified its existence in modern literature. 
 The subject of Ahasver in Rom^ the Wandering Jew, is one 
 that has fascinated many poets, and Hamerling has at least 
 given it an original setting. He has chosen the epoch during 
 which Christianity was encroaching upon paganism, and has 
 brought Ahasuerus face to face with Nero, amidst the luxury 
 of the Roman Empire ; the brilliant colouring of his scenes 
 recalls the pictures of his fellow-countryman, Hans Makart, 
 but the personages and events are depicted with a theatrical 
 striving after effect, which makes it difficult to believe in the 
 poet's artistic sincerity. Like so many Austrians, Hamerling 
 was unable to express all that he would have liked to say ; 
 his ambitions outstripped his power to realise them, and thus 
 fine ideas the identification of the Wandering Jew with Cain, 
 for instance which are full of possibilities, remain undevel- 
 oped. His grandiose scenes do not bring conviction with 
 them, and his pathos is too often merely sounding rhetoric. 
 The same breach between conception and execution is to be 
 
 Der K9nig observed in the second epic, Der Konig von Sion, the subject 
 of which is the rising of the Anabaptists in Miinster, in 1534. 
 Here, however, a more realistic method than in Ahasver was 
 not only possible but necessary, and brought a wholesome 
 restraint to bear on Hamerling's imagination. Der Konig von 
 Sion was followed by another epic, Amor und Psyche (1882), 
 and by a satirical poem on modern life, Homunculus (1888). 
 Hamerling also experimented as a dramatist, but Danton und 
 Robespierre (1871) is only a prose epic in dramatic form; 
 while a philosophic novel, Aspasia (1876), might be compared 
 with one of Wieland's Greek romances, remodelled in the style 
 of the modern antiquarian novel. 
 
 The writer of the Munich group who has had the most
 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 593 
 
 permanent influence upon his generation, is Paul Heyse. 1 P. Heyse, 
 That Heyse, who was born in Berlin in 1830, should have born l83 * 
 chosen the Romance languages for study at the university, is 
 characteristic of his peculiar cast of mind : he is what Wieland 
 was in the eighteenth century, an upholder of Romance rather 
 than Germanic ideals in literature. In 1852, Heyse spent a 
 year in Italy, which finally decided his tastes ; he had, how- 
 ever, before this published a tragedy, Francesco, da Rimini I 
 (1850), and a couple of stories in verse, and, in 1854, 
 King Maximilian invited him to Munich, which, since then, 
 has remained his home. Although Heyse is essentially a 
 novelist, he has also written over thirty dramas, which have Dramas, 
 only exceptionally been successful on the stage. The reason 
 of his failure as a dramatist is not unfamiliarity with the 
 requirements of the theatre, but the fact that at the time 
 when most of his plays were written, the drama was still 
 emancipating itself from the classic traditions, and had not 
 adapted itself to modern requirements. At the same time, 
 plays such as Hans Lange (1866) and Colberg (1868) to 
 mention only two are masterpieces of their kind. As a 
 lyric poet, 2 Heyse has also never been esteemed as he de- 
 serves, while his versions of modern Italian poets especially 
 of Giusti (1875) and Leopardi (1878) stand on a level with 
 Riickert's oriental translations. 
 
 The first volume of Heyse's Novellen^ which appeared in Novellen. 
 1855, contained L Arrabbiata, a masterly story of Italian life, 
 which he has perhaps never surpassed. Since this date, he 
 has published many volumes of short stories Meraner 
 Novellen (1864), Moralische Novellen (1869 and 1878), Trou- 
 badour-Novellen (1882), to mention only a few characteristic 
 collections which display unfailing variety and originality 
 of invention. The charm of Heyse's stories is essentially one 
 of outward form : with an art that is rare in German literature, 
 he moulds and proportions his plots. His sense of beauty, 
 whether physical beauty or that of character, is extremely 
 delicate ; and although he is fond of depicting strong passions 
 and piquant psychological problems, the laws of artistic form 
 
 1 Gesammelte Werke, 29 vols., Berlin, 1897-1901. Cp. Heyse's ownjugend- 
 erinnerungen vnd Bekenntnisse, Berlin, 1900, O. Kraus, P. Heyses Novellen vnd 
 Romane, Frankfort, 1888, and G. Brandes. Samlede Skrifter, 7, Copenhagen, 
 1901, 314 ff. 
 
 J Cp. especially his Neue Gedichte und Jugendlieder, Berlin, 1897. 
 
 2 P
 
 594 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 are never violated. Thus, with the genius of a sculptor or 
 a painter, Heyse has given the German "Novelle" a grace 
 and elegance which one looks for in vain in other writers of 
 the time ; but sometimes these Romance qualities are bought 
 at the sacrifice of that Germanic depth and sincerity which 
 make Keller and Storm great. Heyse's art, like all Romance 
 art, is objective ; and his attention is often too much taken up 
 with external harmony to attend to inward truth. His style, 
 which it was formerly the custom to compare with Goethe's, is 
 superficially clever rather than simple and sincere. Heyse is 
 at his best in those Novellen which describe Italian life ; his 
 Italian women, with their intense feelings and luxuriant beauty, 
 are drawn with perfect objectivity and consequently are truest 
 to nature. His German characters, on the other hand, are 
 influenced by the literary traditions of the Young German 
 School, and, in the majority of cases, are either brilliantly 
 witty or metaphysical and sentimental. 
 
 The sense of form and proportion which, in the short story, 
 stood Heyse in such good stead, forsook him when he wrote 
 novels on a larger scale ; the wide canvas which he selected 
 Kinder der for works like Kinder der Welt (1873) an d Im Paradiese 
 ( J 876) afforded him more space than he had power to utilise 
 for the development of his figures. But the former of these 
 is, like Spielhagen's Sturmflut, one of the representative 
 novels of its epoch ; the passionate conflict between the 
 " children of the world " and the " children of God," which, 
 in 1872, was called forth by Strauss's Der alte und der neue 
 Glaube, is here fought out, while pessimism and the rise of 
 social democracy stand in the background of the story. 
 In spite of defective construction and a conventional plot, 
 Kinder der Welt consequently gives an excellent idea of 
 the condition of Germany at the beginning of the new 
 empire. Im Paradiese is a novel of artist life in Munich, 
 which Heyse describes in interesting detail, but the basis 
 of the story is inferior to that of its predecessor. Der 
 Roman der Stiftsdame (1886), a masterly study of character, 
 is more o'f an extended " Novelle " than a " Roman " : 
 while Merlin (1892) and Uber alien Gipfeln (1895) are 
 " Tendenz " novels directed against the modern spirit in 
 German literature. 
 
 After Heyse, the most talented writer of short stories in
 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 595 
 
 the Munich circle was W. H. Riehl (1823-97), whose Kul- w. H. 
 turgeschichtliche Novellen appeared in 1856; while Hans Riehl 
 Hopfen (born 1835) shows in his vigorous realistic novels 
 more sympathy than any of his friends with modern ideals. 
 Adolf Wilbrandt and Wilhelm Jensen (both born 1837) A. Wil- 
 are two North Germans whose work bears many points of * ' andt > 
 resemblance to that of the Munich School. The former, 
 a native of Rostock, is distinguished both as dramatist and 
 novelist. His comedies, the most ambitious of which is 
 Die Maler (1872), are marred by a failing of his time, an 
 inability to regard literature with the seriousness of the artist. 
 A classical tragedy, Arria und Messalina (1874), stands far 
 behind Der Meister von Palmyra (1889), although the latter 
 drama is too heavily weighted with metaphysical ideas for 
 the purposes of the stage. Wilbrandt, however, is less of a 
 dramatist than a novelist. Adams Sohne, which appeared in 
 1890, was followed, in 1892, by Hermann Ifinger, a novel 
 of artist-life in Munich, Die Osterinsel (1895), Die Rothen- 
 burger (1895), ar >d Hildegard Mahlmann (1897) all books 
 which treat of themes of absorbing interest to the author's 
 contemporaries. In some of his early stories, such as Die 
 braune Erica (1868), Wilhelm Jensen gave promise of rival- W.Jensen, 
 ling Storm, but his many long novels are wholly deficient in bom l8 37- 
 concentration. 
 
 The most eminent humourist of this period was Wilhelm Humour- 
 Raabe (born I83I), 1 whose charming idyll, Die Chronik der lsts> 
 Sperlingsgasse (1857), first made him generally known. Of 
 his many stories, the most characteristic are Der Hungerpastor 
 (1864), Abu Telfan (1867), and Der Schiidderump (1870). 
 Raabe has points of resemblance to Jean Paul, whom he 
 follows often too faithfully ; the construction of his novels 
 is naively artificial, and their style old-fashioned. Like Jean 
 Paul, too, Raabe obtrudes his personality on the reader; 
 but he has little of his master's optimistic faith in humanity, 
 his humour being in many cases only a cloak for irony. 
 Other humourists of this age are Wilhelm Busch (born 1832), 
 whose Max und Moritz (1865), Der heilige Antonius (1870), 
 and Die fromme Helene (1871) have become household books, 
 and Heinrich Seidel (born 1842), the author of Leberecht 
 Hiihnchen (1882). 
 
 1 Cp. P. Gerber, IF. Raabe, Leipzig, 1897. 

 
 596 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 The period during which the Munich School dominated 
 German literature was, although the least literary of the 
 century, one of marked activity in other fields ; it was the era 
 in which Germany, under Bismarck, gradually fought her way 
 into the front rank of European nations. Neither before 
 nor immediately after the Franco-German war were the condi- 
 tions favourable to literature, the attention of the nation being 
 engrossed by other interests. The political changes reacted, 
 
 History. however, favourably on the science of history, which, since 
 1848, had been steadily widening its circle of students in 
 Germany. The master of the science, Leopold von Ranke 
 (1795-1886), whose most famous work, Die romischen Pdpste, 
 ihre Kirche und ihr Staat im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, ap- 
 peared as far back as 1834-36, was still alive, and, in 1881, 
 began the publication of his crowning work, a Weltgeschichte, 
 which he was able to carry on as far as the ninth volume 
 ( 1 88 1 -88). Amongst Ranke's most eminent disciples were 
 G. Waitz (1813-8 6), W. Giesebrecht (1814-89), and Heinrich 
 von Sybel (1817-95) SybeFs Die Begriindung des deutschen 
 Reichs durch Wilhelm I. (1889-94) is one of the prominent 
 works of this period while J. G. Droysen (1808-84), another 
 of the older historians, had more in common with Niebuhr 
 than with Ranke. The monumental Romische Geschichte by 
 Theodor Mommsen (born 1817) appeared, it has also to be 
 noted, in 1854-56. Above all, two men exerted a stimulating 
 and furthering influence on the younger generation Jakob 
 Burckhardt (1818-97), a native of Basle, whose Die Kultur 
 der Renaissance in Italien (1860) is one of the masterpieces of 
 German scholarship, and Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-96). 
 Treitschke's Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten Jahrhundert 
 (1879-94) which, however, does not extend beyond the 
 Revolution of 1848 forms, to a larger extent than any 
 other single work, the groundwork for the intellectual life of 
 Germany subsequent to the war with France. 
 
 Criticism. Literary criticism during this period was less vigorous and 
 healthy than political history. In 1870, it is true, Hermann 
 Hettner (1821-82) completed his Literaturgeschichte des acht- 
 zehnten Jahrkunderts, already mentioned, and Rudolf Haym 
 (1821-1901) his Romantische Schule, both literary histories of 
 the first order; but, unlike France, Germany possessed no 
 criticism whose mission it was to lead rather than be led by 

 
 CHAP. XIV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 597 
 
 the literature of the day. The only eminent German critic 
 in this sense of the word was Karl Hillebrand (1829-84), 
 who lived long both in France and England, and whose 
 collected essays appeared in seven volumes under the title 
 Zeiten, Volker und Menschen (1874-85). In the universities, 
 philological methods of literary research gradually gave way 
 to a more aesthetic and organic study of literature a change 
 to some extent due to the increased attention paid to Goethe. 
 Works like Herman Grimm's (1828-1901) lectures on Goethe 
 (1876), the Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur (1883) by Wil- 
 helm Scherer (1841-86), and Erich Schmidt's (born 1853) 
 Lessing (1884-92) show the academic study of literature at 
 its best. And from Scherer's school he was professor in 
 the University of Berlin from 1877 to his death has gone 
 out the most vital movement in modern German criticism.
 
 598 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FROM 1870 TO 1890; RICHARD WAGNER. 
 
 RECENT literature in Germany, in so far as it rests on a 
 national basis at all, has been inspired by the unification of 
 the German people. The victorious issue of the war with 
 France in 1870-71 left virtually no impression on poetry; 
 the lyric, for instance, that was called forth by the war 
 Geibel's Heroldsrufe (1872) is a typical example is not 
 to be compared with the patriotic songs of 1813. Thus, 
 until a new generation grew up as citizens of the German 
 Empire a generation alive to new national responsibilities 
 literature remained in the hands of older writers and continued 
 to run in traditional grooves. In 1876, however, occurred 
 what must be regarded as the first national achievement of 
 the united German nation, namely, the production at Bay- 
 reuth of Wagner's trilogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen. To 
 appreciate the significance of Wagner's work for the develop- 
 ment of the modern German drama, we must trace his career 
 at some length. 
 
 R. Wag- Wilhelm Richard Wagner x was born at Leipzig on May 
 
 ner, 1813- 2 2, 1813. As a child, he showed a precocious talent for 
 
 music and a strong love for the theatre ; his own early 
 
 dramatic attempts were accompanied by music. He devoted 
 
 himself zealously to the study of this art, and, while musical 
 
 director in Wiirzburg, Magdeburg, Konigsberg, and Riga, 
 
 Rienxi, wrote the operas Die Feen (1833), Das Liebesverbot (1834), 
 
 1842. ' and Rienzi (1842). In the last of these, which is based on 
 
 1 Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen, 10 vols., and ed., Leipzig, 1887-88. 
 Cp. C. F. Glasenapp, Das Leben Richard Wagners, i, 2, 3rd ed., Leipzig, 
 1894-99 1 F. Muncker, Richard Wagner, eine Skizze seines Lebens und 
 Wirkens, sth ed. , Bamberg, 1891 ; and H. Lichtenberger, fi. Wagner, poete 
 et penseur, Paris, 1898.
 
 CHAP. XV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 599 
 
 Bulwer Lytton's romance, Wagner directly challenged com- 
 parison with the masters of historical or "grand" opera, 
 Spontini and Meyerbeer. The chief hope of success for a 
 dramatic composer at this time was to win the approval of 
 Paris, and in 1839, Wagner gave up his position in Riga 
 and made virtually the same voyage that Herder had made 
 seventy years before. In Paris, where Wagner arrived in 
 summer, he met with little encouragement ; he was obliged 
 to write for his bread, and, amidst poverty and privation, he 
 produced the essays and " Novellen " collected under the title 
 Ein deutscher Musiker in Paris (1840-41). In Paris, too, he 
 composed Der fliegende Hollander (1843), the first of his Derflie- 
 dramas which was at variance with the conventional opera. 8 i^de^ 1 ' 
 
 In April, 1842, Wagner left Paris, and, during the ensuing 1843. 
 winter, both Rienzi and Der fliegende Hollander were per- 
 formed at Dresden under his own direction. Meanwhile he 
 was engaged on Tannhauser und der Sdngerkrieg auf Wartburg Tann- 
 (1845) and Lohengrin (1850), works in which he gradually l % ls ' r ' 
 freed himself from the traditional form of opera. In Tann- 
 hauser^ as also in Der fliegende Hollander, a woman's love 
 is invested with a mystic power of redemption ; in all three 
 operas, the powers of light are, in characteristically Romantic 
 fashion, opposed to the powers of darkness or evil. Tann- 
 hauser is a skilful combination of two sagas, that of Ritter 
 Tannhauser, who has visited the subterranean realms of the 
 Venusberg, and that of the famous " singing-contest " between 
 the great poets of Middle High German literature in the castle 
 of the Wartburg. 1 Lohengrin, dramatically more complicated, Lohengrin, 
 also contains a wider range of scenes and characters. The l8s ' 
 dark figures of Ortrud and Friedrich von Telramund stand 
 in the shadow of heathendom ; Lohengrin, the Knight of 
 the Swan, and Elsa von Brabant, whose good name the 
 knight defends, are representatives of medieval Christianity, 
 while reminiscences from the saga of the Nibelungen give the 
 poem an air of archaic solemnity. 
 
 In 1849, Wagner was implicated in a revolutionary move- 
 ment at Dresden, and, to escape prosecution, was obliged to 
 flee. He made Switzerland his home and here wrote three 
 treatises which contain the theoretical principles of his art, Die Theoretical 
 Kunst und die Revolution (1849), D as Kunstwerk der Zukunft 
 1 See above, pp. 158 f. and 162 f.
 
 6oo 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Der Ring 
 des Nibe- 
 lungen, 
 1853- 
 
 Das Rhein- 
 gold. 
 
 (1850), and Oper und Drama (1851). In these prose 
 writings, Wagner expressed clearly and definitely what the 
 theorists of the preceding generation had blindly groped 
 after. Since Herder's time, the regeneration of the "music- 
 drama" which, under Italian influence, had lost its claim 
 to be regarded as a form of literary art had been dis- 
 cussed by German writers on aesthetics, and several of them 
 had speculated on the possibility of reviving a form of art 
 similar to the tragedy of the Greeks. The foundation on 
 which Wagner based his theories was not new ; he only insisted 
 that now, as in ancient Greece, music should be an aid to the 
 interpretation of the drama, and not, as in the Italian opera, an 
 end in itself; the national German drama, he claimed, must, 
 like that of the Greeks, be a composite art, in which poetry 
 and music, acting and decorative art, all lent their assistance 
 to the representation of a dramatic action of national interest. 
 
 To the year of the Revolution, 1848, and to the years 
 succeeding, belong the sketches of four dramas, Friedrich der 
 Rothbart, Siegfrieds Tod, Jesus von Nazareth, and Wieland 
 der Schmiedt ; but, with the exception of Siegfrieds Tod, these 
 plans were not carried out. Soon, however, the myth of the 
 Nibelungen, which Wagner had mastered thoroughly before 
 writing his drama on Siegfried, wholly engrossed his attention, 
 and in 1853, the trilogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen, was com- 
 pleted. Der Ring des Nibelungen is an essentially modern 
 drama, reflecting the spirit and aspirations of its epoch ; it is 
 the poetic expression of a philosophy closely allied to Schopen- 
 hauer's, of which, however, Wagner knew nothing till 1854. 
 With a finer dramatic instinct than Hebbel, who, as we 
 have seen, had dramatised the Middle High German epic in 
 his Nibelungen, Wagner saw that for the modern poet, the 
 possibilities of the subject lay, not in the German Nibe- 
 lungenlied, a poem of a definite historical epoch, but in the 
 primitive saga as preserved in the Edda. And, as in Tann- 
 hduser he had successfully combined two originally uncon- 
 nected sagas, so here he united the Scandinavian Volsungasaga 
 to that of the Rhinelander Siegfried, and gave the whole a 
 mythological background. 
 
 The trilogy is preceded by a " Vorabend," Das Rheingold, 
 which tells how Alberich the Nibelung obtains possession of 
 the treasure that lies sunk in the Rhine, the gold which
 
 CHAP. XV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 6OI 
 
 makes its owner master of the world. But, as the Rhine 
 daughters sing 
 
 " Nur wer der Minne 
 
 Macht versagt, 
 
 nur wer der Liebe 
 
 Lust verjagt, 
 
 nur der erzielt sich den Zauber, 
 zum Reif zu zwingen das Gold. " 1 
 
 Alberich welds the all-powerful ring. Meanwhile, the giants, 
 having built Walhalla, demand from the gods the promised 
 reward the goddess Freia. In her place, they are persuaded 
 to accept the Nibelungenhort, which Wotan, with the help 
 of Loge's cunning, wrests from Alberich; and, on every 
 one who obtains possession of the ring, the latter pronounces 
 the curse of death. The first drama of the trilogy, Die Die Wai- 
 Walkiire, is based on the Volsungasaga. Siegmund the e ' 
 Volsung, having succeeded in drawing from the ash -tree in 
 Hunding's house the sword which Wotan had once plunged 
 into it, is seized with a passionate love for Hunding's wife, 
 Sieglinde, who is, at the same time, his own sister. The death 
 of Siegmund at Hunding's hands, which Wotan may not avert, 
 his daughter, the Walkiire, Briinnhilde, tries in vain to prevent, 
 and her father punishes her for her intervention by putting her 
 to sleep on a mountain summit, surrounded by a ring of fire. 
 In the second drama, Siegfried, the young hero, the son of Siegfried. 
 Siegmund and Sieglinde, and brought up by the dwarf Mime, 
 kills Fafner, the dragon, and wins the hoard and ring. Guided 
 by a bird, he comes to the mountain where Briinnhilde lies 
 sleeping, fights his way through the flames and awakens her. 
 Gotterdammerung) which is based on the drama Siegfrieds Gotterddm- 
 Tod, written by Wagner in 1848, is the fullest and most merun & 
 varied drama of the trilogy; the destinies of generations, of 
 the gods themselves, are involved in the tragedy of Siegfried 
 and Briinnhilde. Leaving the fire-girt mountain, Siegfried 
 arrives at the castle of Gunther on the Rhine; the wily 
 Nibelung, Hagen, who wishes to see Gunther wed to Briinn- 
 hilde, suggests that Siegfried's memory be destroyed by a 
 potion. Siegfried, disguised in the Tarnhelm, once more 
 braves the fire and, as in the German Nibelungenlied, wins 
 Briinnhilde for Gunther. He himself marries Gunther's 
 
 1 Schriften und Dichtungen, 5, 211.
 
 602 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 The Bay- 
 reuth 
 Festspiele, 
 1876. 
 
 Tristan 
 
 sister, Gudrun, who thus plays the part of Kriemhild in the 
 epic. The murder of Siegfried by Hagen at Briinnhilde's 
 instigation takes place in the third act of the tragedy ; the 
 body is brought home and laid out upon the funeral pyre, and 
 Briinnhilde throws herself into the flames. Thus comes to 
 an end the race of the Volsungs, which Wotan had originally 
 created to save the world from the power of the self-seeking 
 Nibelungs. But by Siegfried's death and by Briinnhilde's 
 love for him, the might and the curse of the ring are alike 
 destroyed ; the end of the gods, which Wotan has foreseen, 
 approaches, and, in her last words, Briinnhilde greets the dawn 
 of a new age : 
 
 " Verging wie Hauch 
 
 der Gotter Geschlecht, 
 
 lass' ohne Walter 
 
 die Welt ich zuruck : 
 meines heiligsten Wissens Hort 
 weis' ich der Welt nun zu. 
 
 Nicht Gut, nicht Gold, 
 
 noch gottliche Pracht ; 
 
 nicht Haus, nicht Hof, 
 
 noch herrischer Prunk ; 
 
 nicht triiber Vertrage 
 
 trugender Bund, 
 
 noch heuchelnder Sitte 
 
 hartes Gesetz : 
 selig in Lust und Leid 
 lasst die Liebe nur sein." 1 
 
 The musical composition of Der Ring des Nibelungen, which 
 was printed in 1853, but not published until 1863, occupied 
 Wagner with interruptions from 1853 to 1870. Das Rheingold 
 and Die Walkiire were performed at Munich, in 1869 and 
 1870, but the first representation of the trilogy as a whole 
 took place in the summer of 1876, in the " Festspielhaus " at 
 Bayreuth, which Wagner had erected under almost insuperable 
 difficulties. Long before this, however, he had produced 
 two other master - works, the tragedy of Tristan und Isolde 
 (1865), which, like Der Ring des Nibelungen, is mainly 
 written in alliterative verse-forms, and the comedy of Die 
 Meistersinger von Niirnberg (1868). Tristan und Isolde, 
 from a poetic standpoint Wagner's finest drama, was a 
 result of his enthusiastic study of Schopenhauer's writings; 
 it is the poetic expression of that thinker's philosophy. 
 
 1 Schriften und Dichtungen, 6, 254 f.
 
 CHAP. XV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 603 
 
 Here, with a masterly hand, Wagner has made a drama 
 out of the loose narrative of Gottfried's epic, substituting 
 dramatic conciseness for epic breadth. The first act passes 
 on Tristan's ship on the voyage from Ireland to Cornwall, 
 and Brangane substitutes the love potion for the poison 
 which Isolde orders her to put into the wine. Nothing is 
 left, as in the epic, to chance, and, while according to 
 Gottfried, the potion is the cause of all the evil, in Wagner's 
 tragedy it is but symbolic of the love which already has 
 both Tristan and Isolde in its grasp. Alone in the garden, 
 the lovers realise that the only solution to their all-devouring 
 passion is the perfect union of death. They are discovered 
 by King Marke, and in the third act, Tristan dies in the presence 
 of Isolde, who has crossed the sea to bring him healing. 
 
 For his drama Die Meistersinger von Nilrnberg, Wagner Die Mei- 
 borrowed some suggestions from Hans Sac/is (1829), a stersin s er 
 comedy by an Austrian playwright J. L. Deinhardstein (1794- Numberg, 
 1859), which had already been utilised for an opera by Albert l868 - 
 Lortzing. But the idea round which Wagner's plot turns, 
 that of a young knight gaining admittance to the guild 
 of Meistersingers, and winning the daughter of a burgher 
 for his wife, is exclusively his own. The figure of Hans 
 Sachs himself in Deinhardstein's drama Hans Sachs was a 
 young man is Wagner's most genial character, and one of 
 the finest figures in German comedy. At the same time, 
 Die Meistersinger is essentially a subjective work ; for, in 
 writing it, the poet had obviously his own artistic ideals and 
 trials in view : Sixtus Beckmesser, the malicious " Stadt- 
 schreiber " of Niirnberg, is a satirical caricature of the critics 
 and pedants against whom, all his life long, Wagner was 
 obliged to fight. Die Meistersinger was Wagner's enthusiastic 
 tribute to German national art ; the Romantic doctrine, " dass 
 die Kunst mit dem Volke gehen muss," here appears in a new 
 form ; the " deutschen Meister," the burghers who represent 
 the genius of the Volk, form the true bulwark of German art. 
 
 " Zerfallt erst deutsches Volk und Reich, 
 in falscher walscher Majestat 
 kein Fiirst bald mehr sein Volk versteht ; 
 und walschen Dunst mit walschem Tand 
 sie pflanzen uns in's deutsche Land. 
 Was deutsch und acht wiisst' Keiner mehr, 
 lebt's nicht in deutscher Meister Ehr'.
 
 604 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 \ 
 
 Drum sag* ich euch 
 ehrt cure deutschen Meister, 
 dunn bannt ihr gute Geister ! 
 Und gebt ihr ihrem Wirken Gunst, 
 
 zerging' in Dunst 
 das heil'ge rom'sche Reich, 
 
 uns bliebe gleich 
 die heil'ge deutsche Kunst ! " 1 
 
 Parsifal, Wagner wrote one other drama, Parsifal (1882), in which, 
 1882. w j t k consummate constructive power, he blended the saga, 
 
 as he found it in Wolfram's poem, with motives from the 
 Alexanderlied the "flower maidens" who tempt Parsifal 
 and from the later Arthurian epic. Out of these traditional 
 materials he created a poem which, in its calm beauty and re- 
 ligious earnestness, is not inferior to the best parts of Tristan 
 or Die Meister singer. Parsifal represents the last stage of 
 that spiritual evolution in Wagner's thought, which had begun 
 with Tannhduser. He was still a pessimist, but, like his 
 master Schopenhauer, he went back to the fatalism of the 
 East and the oriental Nirvana ; the spirit of Parsifal is a 
 transfigured pessimism. But the age was rapidly advancing ; 
 the German nation was rising full of renewed energy, and the 
 religious mysticism of Parsifal did not awaken the same 
 enthusiasm among the younger generation, as the Nibelungen 
 Ring and Tristan had done some years previously. In less 
 than a year after the production of Parsifal at Bayreuth, on 
 February 13, 1883, Wagner died in Venice. 
 
 Wagner has so completely overshadowed the music drama 
 that even still the latter lies under his ban. The German 
 theatre, on the other hand, benefited enormously by the 
 example of Bayreuth, and, about the same time, the Court 
 The Theatre of Meiningen began to employ in the spoken drama 
 
 inger!"" those artistic principles which guided Wagner's reforms, 
 namely, attention to detail, the repression of the individual 
 actor, the subordination of parts to the whole above all, 
 it aimed at unity of style. Thus, not from Berlin or 
 Munich, but from the little towns of Bayreuth and Meinin- 
 gen, spread the reforms which, within a few years, advanced 
 the German theatre to the leading position in Europe as 
 an artistic institution. The " Meininger " had been mainly 
 dependent upon the classical drama for their materials, but 
 
 1 Scftriften, 7, 270 f.
 
 CHAP. XV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 605 
 
 they also brought into notice such dramatists as Albert Minor 
 Lindner (1831-88), author of Brutus und Collatinus (1866) dr *matists. 
 and Die Bluthochzeit (1871), and Arthur Fitger (born 1840) : 
 Die Hexe (1875), by the latter, is a powerful tragedy of 
 religious doubt, but marred by too pronounced a "Ten- 
 denz." In addition to these writers, the chief dramatists 
 of this period were Heinrich Kruse (1815-1902), who, 
 however, had but little talent for the stage, Adolf Wilbrandt 
 (born 1837), and Paul Lindau (born 1839) Lindau's 
 once popular social plays (Ein Erfolg, 1874; Grafin Lea, 
 1879) are imitations of French models, and have small 
 literary value. The favourite pieces of the day were written 
 by playwrights like G. von Moser (born 1829), A. L'Arronge 
 (born 1838), F. von Schonthan (born 1849), and O. Blumen- 
 thal (born 1852), who remained faithful to the well-worn 
 traditions of Benedix. The " Meininger," however, helped 
 to make known a writer whose work was a factor of some 
 importance in the later dramatic movement, namely, Ernst 
 von Wildenbruch (born in 1845). Wildenbruch, who first E. von 
 attracted notice by epics on the Franco-German war, has b^, 1 ^ 11 " 
 also written several volumes of Novellen, but his talent is born 1845. 
 essentially dramatic, and he is the author of a long series 
 of plays, mostly on historical themes. Die Karolinger 
 (1881) and Das neue Gebot (1886) brought the historical 
 drama again into honour ; while Die Quitzows (1888) met with 
 a success which was unequalled by any of Wildenbruch's later 
 dramas from Prussian history, such as Der Generalfeldoberst 
 (1889) or Der neue Herr (1891). With a double tragedy, 
 Heinrich und Heinrichs Geschlecht (the Emperor Heinrich IV., 
 1896), and a drama of Reformation times, Die Tochter des 
 Erasmus (1900), he has again awakened the enthusiasm 
 which his earlier plays called forth. But the good qualities 
 of his work lie on the surface ; while effective on the stage 
 and noisily patriotic, it is deficient in the attributes of true 
 dramatic poetry. 1 
 
 Previous to 1889, the North German drama gave little or 
 no signs of vitality. In the meantime, however, in Austria, 
 where the succession of dramatic poets has always been less 
 broken than in Germany, a dramatist had arisen who, besides 
 a knowledge of the stage, had an unmistakably poetic talent. 
 
 1 Cp. H. Bulthaupt, Dramaturgic des Schauspiels, 4, Leipzig, 1901, 205 ff.
 
 606 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 L. Anzen- Ludwig Anzengruber (i 839-89), x a native of Vienna, is the 
 g o ube most gifted German dramatist who has written his chief works 
 in dialect, and no writer since Fritz Reuter has given such 
 faithful pictures of peasant life. In Anzengruber's novels, 
 as well as in his plays, may be observed what was virtually a 
 new attitude towards the province : the peasant is no longer 
 idealised, as in the village stories of the first half of the 
 century, but is described as he actually is. Anzengruber 
 was thus, in some respects, a pioneer of the realistic move- 
 ment which, a decade later, set in in German literature. 
 After years of extreme privation, as a strolling actor in the 
 Austrian provinces, he wrote Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld 
 (1870), which at last brought him into notice. The popularity 
 of this drama it is still frequently played was, however, due 
 rather to the interest in questions of religious doubts and toler- 
 ance, which the repeal of the " Concordat " in Austria and the 
 " Kulturkampf " in Germany had awakened, than to inherent 
 poetic qualities. But Anzengruber's next work, Der Meineid- 
 bauer(\^i\\ both in plot and character-drawing a masterpiece, 
 made it clear that his peculiar forte lay in the depiction of 
 peasant-life, and this play was followed by Die Kreuzelschreiber 
 (1872), Der Gwissenswurm (1874), Doppelselbstmord (1876), 
 and Das Jungferngift (1878). These powerful and absorbing 
 dramas have not yet been appreciated as they deserve to be, 
 and the fact that they are, for the most part, written in an 
 Austrian dialect has excluded them from North German 
 theatres; only Das vierte Gebot (1878), indeed, an impressive 
 tragedy of Viennese life, can be said to be really popular 
 outside Austria. In addition to this, Anzengruber's realism 
 was tempered by few concessions to popular taste ; unless 
 to some extent in Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld, he never merely 
 transferred, as his predecessors had done, a modern social 
 drama to a milieu in which dialect is spoken. Whatever his 
 peasants are, they are, at least, genuine types : they neither 
 philosophise like the favourite heroes of the older " Dorf- 
 geschichte," nor do they express literary ideas. Anzengruber 
 is, above all, consistent; his plays and stories often seem 
 trivial, na'ive, even sentimental ; but these characteristics are 
 
 1 Gesammelte Werke, 10 vols., 3rd ed., Stuttgart, 1898. Cp. A. Bettelheim, 
 Ludwig Anzengruber, and ed., Dresden, 1898, and S. Friedmann, L. Anzen- 
 gruber, Leipzig, 1902.
 
 CHAP. XV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 607 
 
 part of the life he reproduces. The excellence of his art lies 
 
 in his realism, in his power of endowing the life of the peasant 
 
 with a tragic destiny, of raising petty joys and sorrows to the 
 
 realm of high comedy or tragedy. Anzengruber is the most 
 
 striking dramatic talent that modern Austria has produced, 
 
 and the continued vitality of the Austrian theatre is due to 
 
 him and not to poets like Franz Nissel (1831-93), who were F. Nissel, 
 
 content to imitate Grillparzer. Nissel, whose masterly tragedy, l8 3 I -93- 
 
 Agnes von Me fan, won the Schiller Prize in 1878, spent an 
 
 even more unhappy life than Anzengruber ; his work brought 
 
 with it no inward satisfaction to compensate for the want of 
 
 popular success. 
 
 Between 1870 and 1885, the short story, or " Novelle," The short 
 was the most healthy form of German literature ; it showed story> 
 much more promise than the novel, which still remained in 
 the hands of writers whose reputations had been made 
 previous to the war. The master of the German Novelle 
 in this age, as in the preceding one, was a Swiss. Conrad 
 Ferdinand Meyer (1825-98) x was a native of Zurich, and c. F. 
 turned to literature comparatively late in life; before 1870, 
 he had published only one small volume of Gedichte (1864). 
 Meyer was long uncertain whether to write in French or 
 German, but, his sympathies being with Germany, he ulti- 
 mately decided for the latter tongue. In 1871, he wrote a 
 fine epic, Huttens letzte Tage, and, in 1872, followed it up 
 by Engelberg, a poetic idyll. The first of his novels, Jurg 
 Jenatsch (1876), the hero of which played an important role 
 in Graubiinden during the Thirty Years' War, is a master- 
 piece of historical fiction; and Der Heilige (1880), a novel 
 on Thomas a Becket, is not inferior to it The range 
 of historical subjects congenial to Meyer's taste was, how- 
 ever, restricted ; he was only at his ease when describing 
 an age of great personalities like that of the Renaissance. 
 His aristocratic mind was in close sympathy with the com- 
 manding geniuses of such an epoch, and his own nature 
 responded to the polish and scholarly wit of the humanists. 
 The same perfect workmanship characterises all the novels that 
 followed Der Heilige, namely, Das Amulet, Der Schuss von der 
 Kanzel, Plautus im Nonnenkloster, Gustav Adolfs Page (all 
 published together in 1883), Das Leiden eines Knaben (1883), 
 
 1 Cp. A. Frey, C. F. Mfyer, Stuttgart, 1900.
 
 6o8 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 F. von 
 Saar, born 
 1833- 
 
 M. von 
 Ebner- 
 Eschcn- 
 bach, born 
 1830. 
 
 Die Hochzeit des Monchs (1884), Die Richterin (1885), Die 
 Versuchung des Pescara (1887), and Angela Borgia (1890). 
 Meyer is pre-eminently the artist among modern German 
 novelists ; his style is polished and finely balanced ; his scenes 
 are delineated with infinite care, and his subjects always have 
 a certain inner harmony with the spirit of the author's own 
 time. Of the essentially " naive " genius of his countryman, 
 Keller, he had nothing, nor had he the latter's purely German 
 humour ; the qualities in which he excels are, as in the case 
 of Heyse, those peculiar to Romance literatures beauty of 
 style and form. Like Keller and Heyse, Meyer was also a 
 lyric poet, but, as may be inferred from his prose, he turned 
 with preference to the ballad ; his verse is dramatic rather 
 than lyric ; the inner warmth and the power of giving himself 
 up to moods and feelings are denied him. 
 
 While Meyer is not, and never will be, a popular novelist, 
 like Storm or Keller, his contemporary, Ferdinand von Saar, 1 
 who was born at Vienna in 1833, has a still smaller circle 
 of admirers. Saar has written poetic tragedies Heinrich IV. 
 (two parts, 1865-67) but without success; he was not a 
 dramatist who could adapt himself to the requirements of the 
 stage. As a lyric poet, Saar is one of the most delicately 
 organised of living German writers ; a singer, whose favourite 
 note is renunciation, no one expresses better than he the re- 
 signed mood of modern Austria ( Wiener Elegien, 1893). As 
 a novelist, his art is, even in comparison with Meyer's, narrow, 
 his best work being contained in two small volumes of Novellen 
 aus Osterreich (1877-97). While Meyer rejoiced in strong, 
 optimistic characters, Saar chooses to write of those who have 
 been worsted in life ; and the shadowy figures of his stories 
 are invariably set in a sombre framework. 
 
 A more widely known writer of short stories in Austria is 
 Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (born i83o), 2 who, like Saar, 
 also began her career with ambitious dramas. These, however, 
 attracted little attention, and it was 1875, before a story, Ein 
 Spdtgeborener^ revealed the marked originality of Frau Ebner's 
 talent. This book was followed, in 1876, by JBozena, a novel 
 of some length, to which the Moravian scenery gave a special 
 interest. A collection of Erzdhlunge n, published in 1875, was 
 
 1 Cp. J. Minor, Ferdinand von Saar, Vienna, 1898. 
 
 2 Gesammelte Werke (6 vols. have appeared), Berlin, 1893 ff.
 
 CHAP. XV.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 609 
 
 succeeded by a second in 1881 ; two volumes of Dorf- und 
 Schlossgeschichten appeared in 1883 and 1886, and since then 
 Frau von Ebner-Eschenbach has written many books, includ- 
 ing longer novels, such as Das Gemeindekind (1887) and 
 Unsiihnbar (1890). Although not without understanding for 
 recent tendencies in literature, she is more deeply indebted to 
 her predecessors than to her contemporaries ; she has learned 
 from Heyse and even from Auerbach. Her talents are seen to 
 best advantage in her witty and satirical sketches of Austrian 
 aristocratic life, as, for example, in Zwei Comtessen (1885) and 
 Die Freiherren von Gemperlein (1881). All her writings are 
 characterised by an essentially Austrian lightness of touch, 
 and that ability to express ideas epigrammatically, which 
 lends piquancy to her collection of Aphorismen (1880). 
 
 The novel of provincial life was, at this period, cultivated Minor 
 to a larger extent in Austria than in Germany. Despite a Austr . lan 
 preference for morbid psychological problems, Leopold von 
 Sacher-Masoch (1835-95) wrote some powerful Galizische 
 Geschichten (1876-81) and Judengeschichten (1878-81), and 
 K. E. Franzos (born 1848) described a similar life in Aus 
 Halbasien (1876) and Die Juden von Barnow (1877). Peter 
 Rosegger, who was born in 1843, as the son of a Styrian 
 peasant, is a disciple of Anzengruber. But without either 
 his master's genius, or that discipline which disheartening 
 failure brought to bear on Anzengruber's work, Rosegger has 
 become a voluminous writer, whose natural talent has lost 
 itself in didactic sentimentality. Among his most noteworthy 
 books are Die Schriften des Waldschulmeisters (1875) and 
 Das ewige Licht (1897). 
 
 The pioneer of the modern German novel was a North 
 German, Theodor Fontane (iSig-gS), 1 who has already been T. Fon- 
 mentioned as a follower of Willibald Alexis. A native of t L ne > I8l 9" 
 
 9". 
 
 Neuruppin, Fontane identified himself with the Mark of 
 Brandenburg, in the same way as Storm and Reuter identified 
 themselves with Schleswig and Mecklenburg. Between his 
 historical romances, Vor dem Sturm (1878) and Schach von 
 Wuthenow (1883), Fontane wrote a number of Novellen 
 (Grete Minde, 1880; L'Adultera, 1882), in which he gradu- 
 ally felt his way towards a realistic form of fiction. In 1887, 
 Irrungen, Wirrungen, appeared and had an immediate and 
 
 1 Gesammelte Romane und Novellen, 12 vols., Berlin, 1890-91. 
 2 Q
 
 610 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 marked influence on the methods of the German novel : for 
 this work and Stine (1890), Fontane's models were Flaubert, 
 the Goncourts, and Zola. Two stories, Unwiederbringlich 
 (1891) and JFrau Jenny Treibel (1892), which followed 
 Irrungen, Wtrrungen, did not mark much advance ; but in 
 Effl. Briest, 1895, Fontane published his masterpiece, Effi Briest. The 
 l8 95- poet who, in his old age, had learned a new style from the 
 
 French realists, here employed it in describing the milieu of 
 his North German home ; the figures of his story, apart from 
 their surroundings, are often shadowy and indistinct, and the 
 plot is meagre, but the fine poetic spirit in which the whole is 
 conceived, gives the novel a unique position in the fiction of 
 the time. After Effi Briest appeared Die Poggenpuhls (1896) 
 and Der Stechlin (1898), in which the charm of the author's 
 style atones for the almost complete absence of incident. 
 Fontane's personality as reflected in the volumes of auto- 
 biography, Meine Kinderjahre (1893) and Von Zwanzig bis 
 Dreissig (1898) is the most interesting in recent German 
 literature : he may be regarded as the typical example of the 
 Berlin man of letters in the last quarter of the century.
 
 6n 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 THE literary movement of which the work of the Munich 
 school was a characteristic expression, culminated, as we have 
 seen, in the opening of the " Festspielhaus " at Bayreuth, 
 and the general acceptance of the Wagnerian drama. The 
 passive resignation which inspired this literature was not, 
 however, to the taste of the younger generation of writers, 
 who had grown up in an era of national optimism ; they 
 demanded a more positive, self-assertive faith than was to 
 be learned from Schopenhauer. The conflict against the 
 collective spirit of Hegelianism, which had virtually been 
 begun, before the middle of the century, by the Danish in- 
 dividualist, Soren Kierkegaard, and carried over into social 
 fields, as early as 1845, by Max Stirner (pseudonym for 
 Kaspar Schmidt, 1806-56), in his remarkable work, Der 
 Einzige und sein Eigenthum?- came into the foreground of 
 German intellectual life as the influence of Schopenhauer 
 waned. This optimistic and individualistic reaction is first 
 definitely and clearly set forth in the work of Friedrich 
 Nietzsche, the most original thinker in the last period 2 of 
 German intellectual evolution. 
 
 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 3 was born at Rocken near F. W. 
 Liitzen, on October 15, 1844, and educated at Schulpforta. 
 
 1 Reprinted in Reclam's Universal-Bibliothek, No. 3057-60, Leipzig, 1893; 
 
 2 For this period, cp., besides R. M. Meyer, Die deutsche Litteratur des 
 neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, and ed., Berlin, 1900; A. Bartels, Die deutsche 
 Dichtung der Gegenwart, and ed., Leipzig, 1901 ; and A. von Hanstein, Das 
 jiingste Deutschland, and ed., Leipzig, 1901. 
 
 3 Werke, 8 vols., Leipzig, 1899 ; three volumes of Nachgelassene Werke have 
 also appeared in this edition, Leipzig, 1901. Cp. E. Forster-Nietzsche, Das 
 Le.ben Nietzsches, i, 2, Leipzig, 1895-97; H. Lichtenberger, La philosophie de 
 Nietzsche, Paris, 1898 (German translation, with an introduction by E. Forster- 
 Nietzsche, Dresden, 1899), and T. Ziegler, Friedrich Nietzsche, Berlin, 1900.
 
 612 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Die Geburt 
 der Tra- 
 godie, 1872. 
 
 Unteit- 
 
 getndssf 
 
 Hetrach- 
 
 titngen, 
 
 1873-76. 
 
 Nietzsche 
 and Wag- 
 ner. 
 
 At the universities of Bonn and Leipzig he studied classics, 
 and so distinguished himself that he was appointed Professor 
 of Classical Philology at Basle in 1869, before he had taken a 
 degree. In 1879, illness, combined with mental overstrain, 
 obliged him to resign his chair, and for the next ten years he 
 led an unsettled life at Swiss health resorts and in Italy ; in 
 1889, his mind gave way, and he died at Weimar, on August 
 25, 1900. Like every pioneer of a new period in thought 
 or art, Nietzsche himself passed through the transition which 
 lay between him and his predecessors : he began his career as 
 a disciple of Schopenhauer and a warm friend and admirer of 
 Richard Wagner. His first work, Die Geburt der Tragodie 
 aus dem Geiste der Musik (1872), was not merely a revolt 
 against uninspired and uninspiring philological methods and 
 an attempt to solve, by philosophic intuition, the problem 
 of dramatic origins ; it was, at the same time, 'an apology 
 for Wagner's art. In the four Unzeitgemassen Betrachtungen 
 which followed (1873-76), Nietzsche appears as the declared 
 antagonist of his time; he attacks the self-satisfied feelings 
 with which the German people regarded themselves after the 
 war, singling out David Friedrich Strauss as the represent- 
 ative of that complacency ; he opposes with reformatory zeal 
 the Hegelianism which still lay heavy on German philosophy, 
 and, in the two final Unzeitgemassen Betrachtungen^ points 
 to Schopenhauer and Wagner, the men who had had the 
 chief influence on his development, as the saviours of the 
 age from " Bildungsphilistertum." Before, however, the last 
 Betrachtung appeared, a gulf opened between himself and 
 Wagner; Nietzsche's sensitive nature recoiled from the prac- 
 tical imperfections of the Bayreuth Festspiele and the vulgarity 
 of their supporters. This was on the surface, but the origin 
 of the schism lay deeper than either then realised ; the two 
 men held irreconcilable " Weltanschauungen " Wagner, that 
 pessimism which, for the greater part of the century, had 
 dominated German culture, Nietzsche, a new individualistic, 
 joyous optimism ; and the admiration Nietzsche had felt 
 for the triumphant heroism of a Siegfried, ceased before the 
 resigned Christian mysticism of Parsifal. His antagonism to 
 Wagner found its final, virulent and embittered expression in 
 Der Fall Wagner and Nietzsche contra Wagner, two pamphlets 
 written in 1888, on the eve of the philosopher's last illness.
 
 CHAP. XVI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 613 
 
 Having broken away from both Wagner and Schopenhauer, Other 
 Nietzsche entered upon what has been called his second wntin & s - 
 period, a stage of positivism to which belongs Menschliclies, 
 Allzunienschliches : ein Buck fiir freie Geister (1878-80), while 
 Morgenrothe : Gedanken itber die moralischen Vorurtheile 
 (1881) and Die frohliche Wissenschaft (1882) lead up to 
 his chief book, Also sprach Zarathustra : ein Buck fur Alle 
 und Keinen (1883-91). Jenseits von Gut und ose, Vor -spiel 
 einer Philosophic der Zukunft (1886), Zur Genealogie der 
 Moral : eine Streitschrift (1887), and Gotzen-Dcimmerung, oder 
 wie man mit dem Hammer philosophirt (1888), may be re- 
 garded as supplements to Also sprach Zarathustra. Ill-health 
 prevented Nietzsche from finishing Der Wille zur Macht : 
 Versuch einer Umwerthung aller Werthe, a work in which 
 he proposed to gather up the threads of his philosophy and 
 set forth his system. Only the first part, Der Antichrist: 
 Versuch einer Kritik des Christentkums, reached completion 
 (1888, published 1895). 
 
 Also sprach Zarathustra the book by which Nietzsche A ho sprach 
 has especial claim to a place in literary history is the %?J~ 
 most original prose work of its time. The Persian prophet, 1883-91'. 
 Zoroaster or Zarathustra, serves as a mouthpiece for the 
 thinker's own philosophy, and this Zarathustra seeks refuge 
 from the eternal recurrence of things " Die Wiederkunft des 
 Gleichen " in the doctrine of a higher manhood than the 
 world has yet known. Also sprach Zarathustra stands on the 
 boundary between philosophy and poetry ; it may or may not 
 be what its author once proclaimed it, the " deepest " work of 
 its time, but, from an artistic point of view, it is a wonderfully 
 beautiful book ; the fulness of its thought and its grandiose 
 Biblical language make it one of the master-works of modern 
 literature. No reader can be insensible to the beauty of 
 passages like those on the "grosse Sehnsucht," or the fol- 
 lowing lines from " Von den sieben Siegeln " : 
 
 "Wenn ich dem Meere hold bin und allem, was Meeres-Art ist, 
 und am holdesten noch, wenn es mir zornig widerspricht : 
 
 Wenn jene suchende Lust in mir ist, die nach Uncntdecktem 
 die Segel treibt, wenn eine Seefahrer-Lust in meiner Lust ist : 
 
 Wenn je mein Frohlocken rief : 'die Kiiste schwand nun fiel 
 mir die letzte Kette ab 
 
 Das Grenzenlose braust um mich, weit liinaus glanzt mir Raum 
 und Zeit, wohlan ! wohlauf ! altes Herz !'
 
 614 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Nietzsche's 
 phil- 
 osophy. 
 
 Nietzsche 
 as a poet. 
 
 Oh wie sollte ich nicht nach cler Ewigkeit briinstig sein und 
 nach dem hochzeitlichen Ring der Ringe dem Ring der Wieder- 
 kunft?" 1 
 
 Nietzsche was a moral philosopher rather than a meta- 
 physician ; his works are practical sermons on the text, 
 "Memento vivere." He goes back to the springs of life, to 
 the natural man ; he strips society of the dogmas and conven- 
 tions that have gathered round it in the course of the ages, 
 the artificial distinctions of good and evil, and regards, as its 
 salvation, a return to the first principles of human nature, to 
 the domination of the strong and the assertion of the in- 
 dividual. The social duty of the race is not to him, as 
 it had seemed to his predecessors, to subordinate the in- 
 dividual to the herd, but to create heroes, great men. And 
 the hero is the man with the strong will, the self-asserting 
 genius, who has risen above the altruistic virtues of his weaker 
 fellows such is the " Ubermensch." In this assertion of indi- 
 vidualism, there is an echo of the Romantic revolt against the 
 humanitarianism of the eighteenth century. Nietzsche himself 
 is an illustration of his dogma of "die ewige Wiederkunft," 
 and the parallel which has been drawn between his conception 
 of the " tJbermensch," and the hero-worship, evolved by Carlyle 
 from the philosophy of Fichte, is not a wholly imaginary 
 one. And it is not merely in the individualism of his philos- 
 ophy that Nietzsche resembles the pioneers of Romanticism, 
 nearly a hundred years before him. Like Friedrich Schlegel 
 and Novalis, Nietzsche is a thinker in aphorisms ; and, above 
 all, he is an artist in the use of words. He discovered pos- 
 sibilities in the German language of which the classical 
 masters of prose knew nothing; his rhythmic periods com- 
 bine the dignity of Luther's language with the dithyrambic 
 style of that kindred genius in the Romantic period kindred 
 not only in thought, but in the tragedy of his life Friedrich 
 Holderlin. Nietzsche, whether for good or evil, introduced 
 Romance qualities of clearness and terseness in German 
 prose; it was his endeavour to free it from those elements 
 which he described as "deutsch und schwer." 
 
 It is sometimes forgotten that Nietzsche was also a lyric 
 poet, although his Gedichte und Spriiche (collected in 1897) 
 contain a number of poems that rank with the best of the 
 1 Werke, 6, 337.
 
 CHAP. XVI.] THE NINETEENTH. CENTURY. 
 
 time. Of all forms of contemporary literature, moreover, the The 
 lyric has drawn most immediate inspiration from this thinker. 
 The chief poet of the epoch is the Prussian officer, Detlev D von 
 von Liliencron, who was born in Kiel in 1844. Liliencron's Liliencron, 
 Adjutantenritte und andre Gedichte, which appealed in 1883, born l844 ' 
 is full of manly and vigorous verse, and contrasts markedly 
 with the musical but superficial poetry of the Munich school. 
 Among the younger writers, the most original and character- 
 istic lyric poets are Gustav Falke (born 1853), F. Avenarius 
 (born 1856), Arno Holz (born 1863), Richard Dehmel (born 
 1863), K. Henckell (born 1864), Franz Evers (born 1871), 
 and Carl Busse (born 1872). More varied lyric tones are to 
 be heard in the work of O. J. Bierbaum (born 1865), while 
 the poetry of Stefan George (born 1868) would seem to point 
 to a revival of Romantic mysticism and symbolism. 1 The The epic, 
 epic, which stood so high in favour with the writers of the 
 previous generation, has been almost entirely neglected by 
 the poets who pride themselves on being " modern," Das Lied 
 der Menschkeit (1887 ff.), by the brothers Heinrich and Julius 
 Hart (born 1855 and 1859), forming a solitary exception. 
 Robespierre (1894), on the other hand, an ambitious epic by 
 a Viennese poetess, Marie delle Grazie (born 1864), belongs 
 essentially to the school of Hamerling. 
 
 The literary revival which set in in Germany during the The 
 last two decades of the century was, in great measure, a result realistic 
 
 r n i T n i- movement. 
 
 of foreign influences, French, Russian, and Scandinavian 
 naturalism having created the necessary conditions. Arno 
 Holz, Johannes Schlaf (born 1862), and Karl Bleibtreu (born 
 1859) formulated the principles of a specifically German 
 realism, and illustrated their theories by realistic lyrics, 
 novels, and dramas. The drama benefited most immediately 
 by the new movement, and, in the winter of 1889-90, the 
 earliest plays of Sudermann and Hauptmann were produced 
 in Berlin. Hermann Sudermann 2 is an East Prussian, and H. Suder- 
 was born in 1857. As novelist and dramatist, he has, to a mann.b 
 large extent, learned from French models ; this is especially 
 noticeable in his careful #z/7/<?#-painting and his graceful and 
 concrete style. The collection of "Novellen," Im Zwielicht Novels. 
 
 1 A selection of recent German lyrics is to be found in C. Basse's Neuere 
 deutsche Lyrik, Leipzig, 1895 (new ed., Halle, 1001). 
 
 2 Cp. W. Kawerau, Hermann Sudermann, Magdeburg, 1897.
 
 6i6 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Die Ehre, 
 1889. 
 
 Heimat, 
 1893. 
 
 Das Gliick 
 im \Vin- 
 kel, 1895. 
 
 (1887), was modelled on Maupassant's work, while Frau 
 Sorge (1887), one of the most pleasing examples of recent 
 German fiction, is evidently to some extent autobiographical. 
 Gesehwister, two short stories, appeared in 1888, and in 
 1889, Der Katzensteg, a romance of the Napoleonic invasion 
 of Prussia. Sudermann's most ambitious novel is Es war 
 (1894), where, however, the engrossing ethical conflict is 
 marred by a leaning towards sensationalism, both in plot 
 and style. 
 
 But it is as a dramatist that Sudermann has had the 
 greatest influence on his contemporaries. His first play, Die 
 Ehre, which may be described as a satire on the arbitrary 
 ideas associated with the word "honour," was performed in 
 November, 1889, and inaugurated a new era in the history 
 of the German stage. The interest which Die Ehre awak- 
 ened was due, in the first instance, to its problematic char- 
 acter; it is an effectively constructed drama, in which the 
 ideas of a Berlin factory-owner and his family are contrasted 
 with those of one of his employees ; but the real strength 
 of Die Ehre is the masterly realism with which the inmates of 
 the "Hinterhaus" are drawn. Sodoms Ende (1890), although 
 displaying more careful workmanship than Die Ehre, was 
 decadent in subject and style, and hence proved less to the 
 taste of the public. In Heimat (1893), Sudermann virtually 
 repeated the dramatic motive of Die Ehre: in the latter 
 drama, a son returned after long absence to his father's 
 roof, to find that he had outgrown his home; here, it is a 
 daughter. The situations of Heimat are more or less sen- 
 sational in character, but the drama is based on close ob- 
 servation, and the milieu in which it plays is excellently 
 depicted. More than any other of this writer's dramas, 
 it illustrates the close affinity between his work and the 
 " biirgerliche Trauerspiel " ; Heimat stands in the direct line 
 of succession which, beginning with the sentimental pieces of 
 Iffland, culminated in Maria Magdalene and Der Erbforster. 
 Sudermann's next plays were Die Schmetterlingsschlacht (1894) 
 and Das Gliick im Winkel (1895), of which the latter is, on 
 the whole, the finest work he has yet written. The theatrical 
 elements of Heimat are absent; the whole atmosphere is 
 genuinely poetic ; while the two leading characters, the East 
 Prussian Junker, Baron von Rocknitz, and Frau Elisabeth
 
 CHAP. XVI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 617 
 
 Wiedemann, are drawn with a power that Sudermann had 
 previously shown only in depicting the lower strata of society. 
 There is more of the subjective charm of Frau Sorge in Das 
 Gliick im Winkel than in any other of his dramatic works. 
 
 In 1896, Sudermann collected three one-act pieces under 
 the title Morituri ; of these, Teja is a tragic episode from Aforituri, 
 the Gothic invasion of the Roman Empire, Fritzchen, the l8<?6> 
 tragedy of a young officer who falls in a duel, Das Eivig- 
 Mannliche, a fantastic satire in verse. Morituri was succeeded 
 by Johannes (1898), an effective drama in prose, on the sub- Johannes, 
 ject of John the Baptist, which the author provided with an l898 ' 
 impressive, if wholly modern, psychological background. His 
 next drama, a poetic " Marchen," Die drei Reiherfedern 
 (1898), was too deficient in na'ivetd, both of verse and situa- 
 tion, to assert itself beside other " Marchendramen " of the 
 time; and in his latest works, Johannisfeuer (1900) and Es 
 lebe das Leben (1902), he has returned to the drama of social 
 life. Although Sudermann's dramatic work is deficient in 
 enduring qualities, he is a writer whose ideas are of very real 
 interest and importance to his contemporaries, and he has 
 the power of putting them in concise and concrete dramatic 
 form, blurred neither by metaphysics nor by romanticism. 
 In a literature such as that of Germany, the faculty of look- 
 ing at life in a strictly realistic way is valuable, even although 
 it also implies a limitation which makes itself felt whenever 
 Sudermann tries higher flights. Yet even if in his plays of 
 modern life he has only helped to free the German drama 
 from a slavish imitation of the later French playwrights, he 
 has done it a service which cannot be overlooked. 
 
 The most original dramatist of contemporary German litera- 
 ture is Gerhart Hauptmann, 1 who was born in 1862, at Salz- G. Haupt- 
 brunn in Silesia. With that hesitation in deciding upon a {^. 
 career, which seems characteristic of modern writers of genius, 
 Hauptmann began as a student of art in Breslau, then went 
 to the University of Jena to study natural science. After 
 travelling in Spain and Italy, he published an epic, Prome- 
 thidenlos (1885), on the model of Childe Harold. Settling 
 in Berlin, Hauptmann came into touch with the group of 
 naturalists to which Holz and Schlaf belonged, and the re- 
 suit was a crude, realistic drama, Vor Sonnenaufgang (1889), dramas. 
 
 1 Cp. P. Schlenther, Gerhart Hauptmann, Berlin, 1898.
 
 6l8 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 which, a year afterwards, was followed by Das Friedensfest. 
 Both of these plays show the influence of Zola and Tolstoi, 
 while Einsame Menschen, which appeared in 1891, is written 
 in the manner of Ibsen. It was not, however, until after the 
 Die Weber, production of his fourth work, Die Weber, originally written 
 1892. j n dialect as J) e Waber (1892) that Hauptmann began to 
 
 be generally known. The subject of Die Weber is the rising 
 of the Silesian weavers in 1844; but there is little or no 
 plot in the drama. It is the dramatisation of an event which 
 involves, without distinction of persons, a whole class of 
 society ; the misery before which that class succumbs, takes, 
 as has well been said, the place of hero, and Die Weber is 
 thus, in a sense undreamt-of by earlier dramatists, a "Volks- 
 drama." This was the first of Hauptmann's plays to reveal 
 his remarkable talent for dramatic writing : not only did he 
 succeed in awakening interest for the unpleasant milieu of the 
 drama, but he gave each of the many figures a definite and 
 clear-cut personality, and that solely by legitimate dramatic 
 means. College Grampian, a study of an artist fallen on 
 evil days, which also appeared in 1892, did not aim so 
 high as Die Weber, but was even more effective on the 
 stage. 
 
 In 1893, Hauptmann wrote a work of a very different 
 Hanneies kind from anything he had hitherto attempted : Hanneles 
 fahfTiZ Himmelfahrt is a strange play in which naturalism and 
 Romantic poetry appear side by side. Hannele Mattern, the 
 child of a drunken mason, has tried to drown herself; she 
 is dragged out of the water and brought to the almshouse, 
 where her feverish visions are represented to the spectator. 
 The figures and stories of the child's imagination all that 
 she has been taught of death, of heaven and angels take 
 visible form and become associated in her mind with her 
 actual life and surroundings ; her teacher appears, for in- 
 stance, as Christ, and raises her to life, just as if she had been 
 Jairus's daughter. Finally, the dream vanishes ; the crude 
 reality of the almshouse returns ; the child is dead. In this 
 attempt to portray the dreams of a dying child of the people, 
 Hauptmann has perhaps unduly accentuated the Romantic 
 side of the picture ; the contrast between Hannele's dreams 
 and the unmitigated squalor of her surroundings jars upon the 
 spectators by its strong contrast. But the play at least proved
 
 CHAP. XVI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 6ig 
 
 that its author was too independent a dramatist to allow 
 himself to be hemmed in by a narrow theory of realism. 
 
 Der Biberpelz (1893), "eine Diebskomodie," is a slighter 
 play, and wholly realistic in style. The characters are clear 
 cut and drawn with the same genial humour that distin- 
 guished College Grampian, Florian Geyer (1895), Haupt- Florian 
 mann's next tragedy, is an effort to break down the prejudice ^%"?' 
 which hinders a modern writer from handling historical themes. 
 Florian Geyer is a historical drama in so far as it deals with 
 the Peasants' War in the stormy times of Gotz von Berlich- 
 ingen ; but Hauptmann's art and method remain the same as 
 in Die Weber in its technique, in fact, Florian Geyer is only 
 Die Weber repeated on a grander scale. Moreover, the sub- 
 ject, as Hauptmann wished to treat it, was too unwieldy, 
 the personages were too numerous, and where clear outlines 
 and bold strokes were required, his minute workmanship was 
 naturally ineffectual. 
 
 With the exception of Die Ehre> Die versunkene Glocke Diever- 
 (1897) has been the most popular drama of the present S Q^^ e e 
 period. Still another side of its author's talent is revealed 1897. 
 in this " Marchendrama " ; poetry, imagination, and fairy-lore 
 take the place of the sordid realities of his early plays. A 
 bellfounder has made a church-bell, which he regards as his 
 best achievement, but, as it is being borne to the church, 
 the waggon is overturned by a " Waldschrat " or faun, the 
 bell sinks into a lake, and Heinrich the bellfounder almost 
 loses his life. He falls under the spell of an elf, Rautende- 
 lein, who tempts him away from wife and home. High up 
 in the mountains, free from earthly cares and lowly aspira- 
 tions, he lives for his work alone, until the tones of the 
 sunken bell rise from the lake and drag him down to earth 
 again. The symbolism and allegory of the poem are not 
 difficult to understand ; it is the tragedy of the artist's life 
 in a new form. When more closely examined, however, Die 
 versunkene Glocke has many realistic features : the human 
 personages are, it is true, indefinite and shadowy types com- 
 pared with Hauptmann's earlier characters, but the super- 
 natural figures, the Waldschrat, the Nickelmann, and even 
 Rautendelein are thoroughly realistic and bear witness to the 
 literary influence of Germany's greatest modern artist, Arnold 
 Bocklin (1827-1901). Thus when, in his next work, Haupt-
 
 620 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 Fiihrmann 
 
 J/enschel, 
 
 1898. 
 
 Minor 
 dramatists. 
 
 Austrian 
 writers. 
 
 mann returned to the milieu of his first dramas, the step 
 was not so great as at first appeared. Fuhrmann Henschel 
 (1898) is a tragedy of village life. The carrier of a Silesian 
 "Badeort," whose wife dies at the beginning of the play, 
 marries Hanna Schal, his servant, who has made herself in- 
 dispensable in his household ; but the words with which his 
 dying wife has warned him against Hanna haunt him like the 
 Furies of the ancient drama ; his second marriage brings noth- 
 ing but misery upon him, and ultimately, in despair, he hangs 
 himself. While Fuhrmann Henschel thus conformed to the 
 traditional methods of tragedy, Schluck nnd Jau (1900) was a 
 fantastic comedy on original lines, the subject having been 
 suggested by the prologue to The Taming of the Shrew ; the 
 hero of the piece is a vagabond who is made to believe 
 that he is a prince. In 1900, Hauptmann also wrote 
 Michael Kramer, a drama of artist-life, in which the interesting 
 characters hardly compensated for the want of dramatic action, 
 and in 1901, Der rote Hahn, a sequel to Der Biberpelz. 
 
 Beside Sudermann and Hauptmann, a number of minor 
 writers have helped to give the German stage that promi- 
 nence as a literary institution, for which it was admirably 
 fitted by its technical and artistic organisation. With plays 
 like Alexandra (1888) and Eva (1889), Richard Voss (born 
 1851) was, to some extent, a forerunner of the new school of 
 dramatists. Max Halbe (born 1865) is the author of one or 
 two skilful dramas, such as Jugend (1893) and Mutter Erde 
 (1898); and interesting plays have also been written by 
 W. Kirchbach (born 1857), O. E. Hartleben (born 1864), 
 and Ernst Rosmer (pseudonym for Elsa Bernstein, born 
 1866). Comedy is still what it has always been, the weak 
 side of the German drama ; mention has, however, to be 
 made of the work of Max Dreyer (born 1862), while Ludwig 
 Fulda (born 1862) has employed to good advantage his talent 
 for writing graceful verse by translating Moliere's masterpieces 
 (1892). Fulda's original plays, the most successful of which 
 was Der Talisman (1893), are built upon conventional motives 
 and deficient in seriousness of aim. In Austria, the most 
 gifted of the younger dramatists is Arthur Schnitzler (born 
 1862), whose finely pointed dialogues (Anatol, 1893) reveal 
 a talent that is more French than German ; his plays (Liebelei, 
 1895; D as Vermachtnis, 1898; Der griine Kakadu, 1899;
 
 CHAP. XVI.] THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 621 
 
 Der Schleier der Beatrice, 1900) are, despite a fondness for 
 morbid problems and motives, characteristically Austrian in 
 tone and style. Hermann Bahr (born 1863), who is, at the 
 same time, the leading Austrian critic of the new school, has 
 also written dramas (Das Tschaperl^ 1898; Der Apostel, 1901) 
 which have been popular in Vienna. Most promising of all 
 the younger Austrians is Hugo von Hofmannsthal (born 1874), 
 who has learnt much from the Italian writer, D'Annunzio. 
 None of the lyric poets of the time has written verses so full 
 of music and subtle imagery as are to be found in Hofmanns- 
 thal's poetic plays, Der Thor und der Tod (1894), Die Hochzeit 
 der Sobeide and Der Abenteurer und die Sangerin (1899). 
 
 Almost contemporaneous with the dramatic revival, the The realis- 
 novel, under the influence of French and Russian models, tic novel - 
 entered upon a new stage of its development. We have 
 already traced the inroads of modern realism in the work of 
 Fontane, and have seen how Sudermann's novels benefited by 
 the stimulus of foreign writers. Realistic novels, in the re- 
 stricted sense of that word, have been written by H. Conradi 
 (1862-90), M. Kretzer (born 1854), M. G. Conrad (born 
 1846), Karl Bleibtreu (born 1859), and K. Alberti (born 
 1862). In spite, however, of the enthusiasm with which 
 French naturalism was greeted in Germany about 1880, 
 neither novel nor drama long remained faithful to the prin- 
 ciples of the movement. Just as Hauptmann turned from 
 Die Weber to Hanneles Himmelfahrt, a writer like Kretzer 
 followed up the undiluted naturalism of Meister Timpe (1888) 
 with the supernaturalism and naturalism of Das Gesicht 
 Christi (1897). Characteristic of the latest development of 
 German fiction is the large number of good novels written 
 by women. Besides fine poetic talents like Ricarda Huch 
 (born 1864) and Isolde Kurz(born 1863), who have published 
 mainly short stories and verse, Helene Bohlau (born 1859), 
 Gabriele Reuter (born 1859), and Clara Viebig (born 1860) 
 may also be mentioned as representative novelists. 
 
 The criterion of an outstanding epoch in literature has always 
 been not so much great poetry as great personalities, and, 
 with the exception of Richard Wagner, whose work only partly 
 belongs to literature, all Germany's prominent literary person- 
 alities Lessing and Herder, Schiller and Goethe were men 
 of the eighteenth, not the nineteenth century. Thus although
 
 622 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [PART V. 
 
 the latter century, by virtue of the extraordinary richness and 
 variety of its literature, occupies a larger space in a history 
 of German letters than any preceding period of the same 
 duration, it has not been as decisive an epoch for the national 
 life as that which culminated with the year 1800. The general 
 movement of the nineteenth century has been a gradual descent 
 from the " Bliitezeit " with which the century opened, but a 
 descent full of interesting episodes and pauses, as well as 
 occasional recoveries of lost ground. At the beginning of 
 the period, Germany was, as we have seen, at the zenith of 
 her literary greatness ; Schiller was writing his chief dramas, 
 Goethe completing Faust ; the Romantic Movement was 
 rapidly extending its influence over every literature in Europe ; 
 under the stimulus of Romanticism, Kleist and Grillparzer 
 were fitting themselves to be Schiller's successors, while lyric 
 poetry flowed more freely and abundantly than at any time 
 since the heyday of the Minnesang. With Goethe's death 
 and the July Revolution came a pause ; the political era 
 in German literature set in ; French influence asserted itself 
 as it had not done since the middle of the eighteenth 
 century. After the Revolution of 1848, which extinguished 
 the political hopes of a whole generation, pessimism settled 
 down over German literature, and national writers, like Hebbel 
 and Keller, were little heeded until their day was over, or 
 nearly over. Then came the war with France, and the 
 German national spirit awakened anew. Wagner's dramatic 
 work roused the German theatre from its lethargy and in- 
 differentism, and the novel and the lyric shook themselves 
 free from the burdens of mid-century tradition. In how far 
 this revived activity of the close of the nineteenth century 
 will leave a permanent mark upon the development of German 
 literature, it is for the future to decide.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abbt, T., 273, 291, 294, 296. 
 Abraham a Santa Clara (Ulrich 
 
 Megerle), 223 f. 
 Albert, H., 211 (note). 
 Alberti, K., 621. 
 Albertinus, A., 228 (note). 
 Alberus, E., 151, 179. 
 Albrecht von Eyb, 168. 
 Albrecht von Halberstadt, 84 f. 
 Albrecht von Johannsdorf, 118. 
 Albrecht von Kemenaten, 79 (note). 
 Albrecht von Scharfenberg, 107. 
 Alcuin, 13, 18. 
 Alexander der Grosse, 145. 
 Alexander lied. See Lamprecht and 
 
 Ulrich von Eschenbach. 
 Alexis, W. See W. Haring. 
 Allegory, 137 f., 145 f. 
 Alliteration, 4, 17, 21, 24, 585, 602. 
 Alpharts Tod, 79. 
 Alxinger, J. B. von, 289. 
 Amadis de Gaula, 198. 
 Anacreontic poetry, 242 f., 256 ff., 
 
 303, 3i6, 554. 
 Anegenge, 42. 
 
 Angelus Silesius. See J. Scheffler. 
 Annolied, Das, 43, 206. 
 Antichrist, Spiel vom, 35. 
 Anton Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick, 
 
 232. 
 
 Anzengruber, L., 558, 606 f., 609. 
 Arigo (H. Leubing?), 168, 187. 
 Arminius (Hermann), 5. 
 Arndt, E. M., 439 ff., 444, 475. 
 Arnim, Bettina von, 445, 466, 472, 
 
 516, 552- 
 Arnim, L. A. von, 441, 458, 460 ff., 
 
 469. 475. 482, 484, 491, 496, 498, 
 
 Si6, 557. 
 Arnold, G., 238. 
 Artus (Arthur), King, and Arthurian 
 
 romance, xviii, xxv f., 77 f., 86 ff., 
 
 93 ff., 134, 604. 
 
 Athis und Prophilias, 85. 
 
 Attila (Atli, Etzel), 8 f., 16, 29, 59, 67 
 
 f., 78 f. 
 Auerbach, B., 411, 658 f., 561, 571, 
 
 609. 
 Auersperg, A. A. von (A. Griin), 540, 
 
 641, 543- 550- 
 Austrian literature, xxiv, 266 f. ( 289 f., 
 
 343 f -. 433. 529 ff., 550, 591 f., 605 
 
 ff., 620 f. 
 Ava, Frau, 43. 
 Avenarius, F., 615. 
 Ayrenhoff, C. H. von, 344, 530. 
 Ayrer, J., 200 ff. 
 
 Babo, J. M., 343. 
 
 Bahr, H., 621. 
 
 Balde, J., 219. 
 
 Ballad poetry. See Volkslied. 
 
 Barbarossa, Kaiser, 35, 113, 118, 
 
 554- 
 
 Barditus, 5. 
 " Bards," the, 266 f. 
 Basedow, J. B., 292. 
 Baudissin, W., 417. 
 Bauerle, A., 539. 
 Bauernfeld, E. von, 638, 543. 
 Baumbach, R., 590. 
 Baumgarten, A. G., 256. 
 Bayreuth Festspiele, the, 598, 602, 604, 
 
 6nf. 
 Beast epic and fable, 31, 54 f., 150 ff., 
 
 254, 356 f. 
 Beck, K., 550. 
 Becker, N., 544 f. 
 Beer, J. See G. Meyerbeer 
 Beer, M., 494, 496. 
 Beethoven, L. van, 495, 529. 
 Beheim, M., 160, 164. 
 Benediktinerre_!;el(O\d High German), 
 
 14. 
 
 Benedix, R., 671, 605. 
 Beowulf, xvii, 17, 20, 72.
 
 624 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Be>anger, P. J. de, xxiii, 449, 471, 489. 
 
 Berchter (Herchtung), Duke, 45, 80 f. 
 
 Bernger von Horheim, 117. 
 
 Bernstein, E. (E. Rosmer), 620. 
 
 Berthold von Holle, 108. 
 
 Berthold von Regensburg, 139, 166. 
 
 Besser, J. von, 240, 244, 264. 
 
 Bible, the Gothic, 6 f. 
 
 Bible, translations of the (before 
 
 Luther), 167. See also M. Luther. 
 Bierbaum, O. J., 615. 
 Birch- Pfeiffer, C., 571. 
 Birck, S. (X. Betulius), 184, 186. 
 Bismarck, O. von, 596. 
 Biterolf und Dietlieb, 78. 
 Bitzius, A. See J. Gotthelf. 
 Bleibtreu, K., 615, 621. 
 Blumauer, J. A., 289. 
 Blumenorden, Der gekrbnte, 210 f. 
 Blumenthal, O., 605. 
 Bockh, P. A., 461. 
 Bocklin, A., 619. 
 Bodenstedt, F., 486, 587 ff. 
 Bodmer, J. J., 244, 245, 248 ff., 256, 
 
 260 ff., 283 f., 337 (note). 
 Bohlau, H., 621. 
 Bohme, J., 217, 238, 426. 
 Boie, C. H., 298 f. 
 Boileau-Despr&uix, N., xxi, 208, 240 
 
 f., 246, 251. 
 Boner, U., 150. 
 Bonifacius (Winfrith), n, 13. 
 Boppe, Meister, 132. 
 Borck, K. W. von, 250. 
 Borkenstein, H., 251. 
 Borne, L., 407, 603 f., 506, 510, 515, 
 
 5i7- 
 
 Brachvogel, A. E., 570. 
 Brant, S., 153 ff., 167 f., 177 f., 189, 
 
 194. 
 
 Brawe, J. W. von, 272, 337 (note). 
 Breitinger, J. J., 244, 245, 248 ff., 256, 
 
 260. 
 
 Bremer Beitriige, 249 ff. 
 Brentano, Bettina. See B. von Arnim. 
 Brentano, C. M., 441, 468 ff., 469, 
 
 472, 485, 498, 508, 557. 
 Br'entano, Sophie (S. Mereau), 460. 
 Biichner, G., 616, 570. 
 Buchner, L., 673, 585. 
 Bucholtz, A. H., 232. 
 Biihel, Hans von, 145. 
 Burckhardt, J., 596. 
 Burger, G. A., xxii, 298, 302, 304 ff., 
 
 340. 417, 419, 495. 
 Burggraf von Regensburg, the, 57. 
 Burgundians, the, 8, 59, 77. 
 Burkart von Hohenfels, 130. 
 Busch, W., 595. 
 Busse, C., 615. 
 
 Byron, Lord, xxiii, 449, 454, 488 f., 
 508, 540. 543, 547, 551, 555, 617. 
 
 Coedmon, 19. 
 
 Cassar, Julius, 4. 
 
 Calderon de la Barca, xxi, 418, 424, 
 
 498, 538. 
 
 Calendar (Gothic), 7. 
 Canitz, R. von, 240, 244. 
 Carmen ad Deum (Old High Ger- 
 man), 14. 
 
 Carmina Burana, 55. 
 Castelli, J. F., 539. 
 Catonis, Disticha, 34 (Notker), 133 f. 
 Celtes, K., 169, 182, 204. 
 Cervantes, M. de (Don Quixote), xxi, 
 
 228 (note), 284, 418, 425. 
 Chamisso, A. von, 464, 470 ff., 474, 
 
 480 f., 488 f., 552. 
 Charles the Great (Karl der Grosse), 3, 
 
 12 ff., 18, 26, 78, 86 f., 145. 
 Charms, xvii, 5, 12. 
 Chivalry, xviii, 44, 47, 49 ff., 62, 83, 
 
 86 f., nsf., 143 f. 
 Christianity, introduction of, n. 
 Christmas plays, 34 f. 
 Ckristus und die Samariterin, 26. 
 Clajus, J. See J. Klaj. 
 Claudius, M., 302 f. 
 Clauren, H. See C. Heun. 
 Colin, P., 145. 
 Collin, H. J. von, 530. 
 Columbanus, n. 
 Conrad, M. G., 621. 
 Conradi, H., 621. 
 Corneille, P., xxi, 273, 533. 
 Cornelius, P. von, 449. 
 Court epic, 32, 51 ff., 71 f., 76 ff., 82 
 
 ff., 140, 147. 
 
 Cramer, J. A., 250 f., 273. 
 Crescentia, 44. 
 Crestien de Troyes, xxvi, 86 f., 89 ff., 
 
 104. 
 
 Creutzer, C. F., 461. 
 Cronegk, J. F. von, 272. 
 Crotus Rubianus. See J. Jager. 
 Crusades, the, 39, 46 f., 60 f., 143 f. 
 Curtius, E., 552. 
 
 Dach, S., 207, 211, 241. 
 
 Dahn, K., 579, 580, 589. 
 
 Dalberg, W. H. von, 332, 342. 
 
 Darwin, C., 449, 573. 
 
 Daumer, G. F., 486. 
 
 David von Augsburg, 138, 166. 
 
 Dedekind, F., 194. 
 
 Defoe, D. (Robinson Crusoe}, 231. 
 
 Dehmel, R.. 615. 
 
 Deinhardstein, J. L., 603. 
 
 Denis, M., 266 f.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 625 
 
 Deutsche Bund, the, 502. 
 
 Dialect literature, 183, 213, 222 (., 
 
 410 f., 560 f., 606. 
 Didactic poetry, 59, 133 ff. 
 Diderot, D., xxii, 274, 324, 342. 
 Diet mar von Aist, 56 f. 
 Dietrich, 77 ff. 
 Dietrichs Flucfit, 79. 
 Dietrich von Bern, 8, 45 f., 59 f., 77 
 
 ff., 81. See also Theodorich the 
 
 Great. 
 
 Dingelstedt, F., 549. 
 Dominicans, the, 166. 
 Dorfpoesie, hbfische, 128 ff., 148, 
 
 157- 
 Drama, beginnings of the, xx, 5, 34 f., 
 
 iSoff. 
 
 Drama, the liturgic, 34 f. 
 Dranmor. See F. von Schmid. 
 Dreikonigsspiel, 35. 
 Dreyer, M., 620. 
 Drollinger, K., 244. 
 Droste-Hiilshoff, A. von, 551, 555 f. , 
 
 570, 59- 
 
 Droysen, J. G., 596. 
 Diirer, A., 191, 422 f. 
 
 Easter Plays, 35, 180. 
 
 Ebers, G., 579 f., 589. 
 
 Ebert, J. A., 251. 
 
 Ebner-Eschenbach, M. von, 608 f. 
 
 Ecbasis Captivi, 30 f., 39, 54. 
 
 Eckenlied, Das, 33, 78 f. 
 
 Eckermann, J. P., 358, 446, 449 f. 
 
 Eckhart, Meister, xix, 166 f. 
 
 Eckhof, K., 342. 
 
 Edda, the, 9, 17, 600. 
 
 Eichendorff, J. von, xxiii, 462, 464, 472 
 
 ff., 480, 486 ff., 508 f., 520 f., 543, 
 
 584- 
 
 Eike von Repkow, 139. 
 Eilhart von Oberge, 53 f., 82, 86. 
 Einhard, 26. 
 Ekkehard of St Gall (Waltharius 
 
 manu fortis), 29 f., 32 (589). 
 Elbschwanenorden, the, 210, 213. 
 Elisabeth von Nassau -Saarbriicken, 
 
 147. 
 
 Engel, J. J., 292. 
 Englische Comodianten, 191, 199 ff., 
 
 214. 
 
 Enikel, J., 108. 
 Epic, beginnings of the, 7 ff., 17, 29 
 
 f. 32, 4i, 55- 
 Epic, Court, Popular, Spielmann's. 
 
 See Court epic, &c. 
 Epiphany plays, 35. 
 Epistola obscurorum virorum, 170. 
 Eraclius, 85. 
 Erasmus, D., 169 f., 195. 
 
 2 
 
 Ermanarich, 7, 59, 79. 
 
 Ermenrikes Dod, Koning, 162. 
 
 Ernst, Herzog. See Hersog Ernst. 
 
 Eschenburg, J. J., 284. 
 
 Etzel. See Attila. 
 
 Kulenspiegel, Till, 149, 196. 
 
 Evers, F., 615. 
 
 Exodus, translations of, 41, 42. 
 
 Eyb, A. von. See Albrecht von Eyb. 
 
 Ezzolied, Das, 40, 43. 
 
 Fable, the Beast. See Beast Fable. 
 
 Facetias, 149. 
 
 Falke, G., 615. 
 
 Fastnachtsspiele, 155, 181, 183, 189 f., 
 
 202, 213. 
 
 Fate-tragedy. See Schicksalstragbdie. 
 Faust (Volksbuch), 180, 198 f., 497. 
 
 See also Goethe, Grabbe, Klinger, 
 
 Lenau, Lessing, Miiller, and note 
 
 to 328. 
 
 Feuerbach, L. A., 572. 
 Fichte, J. G., 363, 368, 402 f., 419, 
 
 428, 438, 475 ff., 614. 
 Fischart, J., 194 ff., 224 f., 227. 
 Fitger, A., 605. 
 Flacius, M. See M. Vlacich. 
 Fleck, K., no. 
 Fleming, P., 207, 211 f., 217, 241, 
 
 524- 
 
 Floris und Blancheflur, 54. 
 Folz, H., 155, 181, 187, 189. 
 Fontane, T., 579, 609 f., 621. 
 Forster, J. G., 347, 380, 401. 
 Fouque', F. de la Motte, 464, 469 f., 
 
 480 f. 
 
 Franciscans, the, 138 f., 166. 
 Francke, A. H., 238. 
 Franckenberg, A. von, 217. 
 Franco-German war, the, 548, 553, 
 
 586, 596, 598, 605. 
 Fran9ois, L. von, 585. 
 Frankfurter, P., 149. 
 Franks, the, 10 f. 
 Franzos, K. E., 609. 
 Frauenlob. See Heinrich von Meissen. 
 Freidank (Vridanc), 135 f., 140, 154. 
 Freiligrath, F., 512, 545, 546 ff., 552 
 
 ff. 
 
 Frey, H. See M. Greif. 
 Frey, J., 193. 
 Frey tag, G., 573 ff. 
 Friedrich der Grosse, 245, 257, 259 f., 
 
 276, 344i 468. 492- 
 Friedrich von Hausen, 117 ff. 
 Frischlin, P. N., 185 f. 
 Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, the, 
 
 209 f. 
 
 Fiietrer, U., 145. 
 Fulda, L., 620. 
 R
 
 626 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Gall, St. See St Gall. 
 
 Gal/us, Lobgesang auf den heiligen, 29. 
 
 Gartner, K. C., 250 f. 
 
 Garve, C., 292. 
 
 Gaudy, F. von, 471, 489. 
 
 Geibel, E., 546, Ml ff., 586 ff., 598. 
 
 Geiler of Kaisersberg, J., 167 f., 177, 
 225. 
 
 Gellert, C. F., xxi, 251, 252 if.. 257, 
 289, 292, 309. 
 
 Gemmingen, O. H. von, 342. 
 
 Genesis, Anglo-Saxon, 21. 
 
 Genesis, Old Saxon, 19 ff. 
 
 Genesis, Vienna, 41 f. 
 
 Genesis, Vorauer, 42. 
 
 Gengenbach, P., 183. 
 
 Geniezeit, the. See Sturm und 
 Drang. 
 
 Gentz, F. von, 475. 
 
 Georg, Lied vom heiligen, 26. 
 
 George, S., 615. 
 
 Gerhardt, P., 219 f. 
 
 German, characteristics of Middle 
 High, 41. 
 
 German, High and Low, 10 f. 
 
 Germanic races, the, 3 ff. 
 
 Germans, East and West, 4. 
 
 Gerok, F. K. von, 527. 
 
 Gerstacker, F., 579. 
 
 Gerstenberg, H. W. von, 266, 323. 
 
 Gervinus, G. G., 515. 
 
 Gessner, S., 267, 300, 327, 400. 
 
 Gesta romanorum, 149. 
 
 Giesebrecht, W., 596. 
 
 Gilm, H., 551.. 
 
 Gleich, J. A., 539. 
 
 Gleim, J. W. L., 256 ff. 
 
 Glichesaere, Heinrich der. See Hein- 
 rich der Glichesaere. 
 
 Glosses, Old High German, 12. 
 
 Gluck, C. W. von, 278, 334 f. 
 
 Gliick, E. See B. Paoli. 
 
 Gnaphasus, G., 183. 
 
 Gockingk, L. F. G. von, 298, 302 f. 
 
 Goldemar, 79. 
 
 Goliards, the, 55. 
 
 Gtirres, J. J. von, 441, 458, 462 f., 
 472. 
 
 Goethe, J. W. von, xxii f., xxvii, 82, 
 116, 126, 143, 260, 265, 276, 288, 
 295 ff., 301, 307, 308 ff., 323 ff., 334, 
 337 (note), 339 ff., 348 ff., 366, 367 
 ff., 374 ff., 387 f., 393 ff., 398 f.. 411, 
 419 f., 422, 431, 435, 438, 443 ff., 
 458, 462, 466, 468 f., 484, 487 f., 
 497, 499, 504- 507 f-, Sio, 512, 514 
 f., 520. 526, 529 f., 534, 540, 543, 
 577, 594, 621 f. ; Clavigo, 317 f., 
 322, 350 ; Dichtung und Wahrheit, 
 309, 311, 447 f., 512; Egmont, 321 
 
 f., 352; Faust, 199, 319 ff., 327, 
 35 2 , 377, 379 ff., 443, 462 ff., 494 
 527, 622 ; Gotz von Berlichingcn, 
 261, 308, 313 ff., 318, 321 f., 326, 
 343. 35, 421, 435 ; Hermann und 
 Dorothea, 89, 300, 369, 374 ff., 385 
 f., 400, 411, 567 ; Iphigenic auf 
 Tauris, 322, 350 ff., 383 ff., 385, 
 387, 411, 443, 532; Lyric poetry, 
 105, 243, 309 ff., 325, 350, 376 f., 
 447, 473 ; Torquato Tasso, 321, 
 350 ff., 385 f., 387, 443, 532; Die 
 
 Wahlverwandtschaften, 445 ff. ; 
 
 Werther, 267, 270, 286, 289 f., 304, 
 307, 315 f. , 350, 406, 409, 421, 445 
 f. ; Der Westostliche Divan, 448, 
 
 450 f., 499, 587 ; Wilhelm Melster, 
 309, 345 f., 349, 351, 357 ff., 368, 
 403, 405 f., 415, 423, 427, 445, 448, 
 
 451 f., 474, 497, 526, 574, 581 ; 
 Xenien (with Schiller), 252, 270, 
 287, 368. 
 
 Goths, the, xvii, 4, 5 f. 
 
 Gotter, F. W., 298, 312, 337 (note), 
 
 532. 
 
 Gottfried von Neifen, 130, 162. 
 Gottfried von Strassburg ( Tristan), 
 
 xxvi, 53 f., 82 f., 91, 97, 99 ff., no, 
 
 112, 264, 527, 603. 
 Gotthelf, J. (A. Bitzius), 557 f. 
 Gottingen Dichterbund, the (Hain- 
 
 bund), 267, 298 ff., 331 f., 399 f. 
 Gottschall, R. von, 570. 
 Gottsched, J. C., xxviii, 208, 240 f., 
 
 243, 245 ff., 252 f., 256, 260, 268, 
 
 271 ff., 309, 337 (note), 388, 456, 
 
 530. 
 
 Gottsched, L. A., 247. 
 Gotz, J. N., 256, 258. 
 Gotz von Berlichingen, 47, 313 f., 619. 
 Goeze, J. M., 280. 
 Grabbe, C. D., 493 f. 
 GrafKudolf, 54. 
 Gral, the, 94 ff., 107 f., 497. 
 Grazie, M. delle, 615. 
 Greek Revolt, Poetry of the, 488 ff., 
 
 525- 
 
 Greif, M. (H. Frey), 462, 587, 688. 
 
 Griepenkerl, R., 570. 
 
 Grillparzer, F. , xxiii, xxvii, 397, 438, 
 467, 529, 630 ff., 543, 562, 607, 622 ; 
 Die Ahnfrau, 433, 631 f. ; Das 
 goldene Vliess, 632 f., 566 ; Konig 
 Ottokars Gluck und Ende, 534, 536 ; 
 Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen, 
 535 f. ; Sappho, 532, 534: Der 
 Traum ein Leben, 536 f. ; Ein 
 treuer Diener seines Herrn, 534 f. ; 
 Weh dent, der liigf, xxvii, 537. 
 
 Grimm, H., 597.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 627 
 
 Grimm, T., 463 f. 
 
 Grimm, W. , 463 f. 
 
 Grimmelshausen, J. J. C. von, xxi, 
 
 226, 227 ff. 
 Grisebach, E., 591. 
 Grosse, J., 588. 
 Groth, K., 561. 
 Grotius, H., 206, 239. 
 Grim, A. See A. A. von Auersperg. 
 Gryphius, A., xxi, 213 ff., 217, 230, 
 
 233. 464- 
 
 Guarini, G. B., 233. 
 Gudrun, 52, 59, 72 ff., 79, 81 f., 104, 
 
 140. 
 
 Gunderode, K. von, 516. 
 Giinther, J. C., 241, 244, 257, 431. 
 Gutzkow, K., 502 f., 610 ff., 514, 517, 
 
 558 f., 562, 573, 577, 585. 
 
 Haeckel, E., 573. 
 
 Hacklander, F. W., 579. 
 
 Hadamar von Laber, 146. 
 
 Hadloub, J., 131 (582). 
 
 Hafiz, 450, 485 f. 
 
 Hagedorn, F. von, 242 f. , 254, 256 f., 
 
 283. 
 
 Hagen, F. H. von der, 418. 
 Hahn-Hahn, I., 584 f. 
 Hainbund, Der. See Gottingen Dich- 
 
 terbund. 
 Halbe, M., 620. 
 Halle or Prussian School, the, 256 ff., 
 
 267, 270, 302. 
 Haller, A. von, 243 f., 255, 259, 
 
 267. 
 Halm, F. See E. von Munch-Belling- 
 
 hausen. 
 
 Hamann, J. G., 293 f. 
 Hamerling, R., 591 f. 
 Hammer-Purgstall, J. von, 450, 485. 
 Handel, G. F., 241. 
 Happel, E. W., 232. 
 Hardenberg, F. L. von (Novalis), 
 
 407, 424, 425 ff, 429, 460, 468, 475, 
 
 478, 484, 581, 612. 
 Haring, W. (W. Alexis), 491, 492, 552, 
 
 579, 589, 609. 
 Harsdbrffer, G. P., 210. 
 Hart, H. and J., 578 (note), 6ic. 
 Hartleben, O. E., 620. 
 Hartman (Votn Glauben}, 40. 
 Hartman von Aue, 85 ff, 97, 99, 104, 
 
 io6f., 119 f. 
 Hartmann, E. von, 591. 
 Hartmann, M., 550 f. 
 Hatzlerin, Klara, 165. 
 Hauff, W., 491 f., 525. 
 Hauptmann, G., 615, 617 ff., 621. 
 Hausrath, A. (G. Taylor), 579 f. 
 Haym, R., 596. 
 
 Hebbel, C. F., xxiii, xxvii, 470, 493, 
 
 562 ff., 600, 616, 622. 
 Hebel, J. P., 410 f., 495. 
 Hegel, G. W. F., 476 ff., 502, 515, 
 
 572 f., 591, 6n. 
 Heidelberg Romanticists, the, 458 ff., 
 
 518 ff., 528. 
 Heine, H., xxiii, 459, 474 f., 487, 489, 
 
 495. 498, 500, 503. 604 ff., 513, 520 
 
 f., 541,543. 554 ff., 614. 
 Heinrich VI., Kaiser, 115, 117, 122. 
 Heinrich der GHchesaere, 54 f. 
 Heinrich der Vogler, 79. 
 Heinrich Julius of Brunswick, Duke, 
 
 200 f. 
 
 Heinrich von dem Tiirlin, 106 f. 
 Heinrich von Freiberg, 103, 114. 
 Heinrich von Hesler, 145. 
 Heinrich von Laufenberg, 165. 
 Heinrich von Meissen (Frauenlob), 
 
 132, 159 f. 
 
 Heinrich von Melk, 41 f. 
 Heinrich von Morungen, 118, 126, 
 
 128, 130. 
 
 Heinrich von Mtiglin, 159. 
 Heinrich von Neuenstadt, 114. 
 Heinrich von Rugge, 117. 
 Heinrich von Veldeke, 20, 83 ff., 99, 
 
 116 f. 
 
 Heinrico, De, 32, 122. 
 Heinse, J. J., 283, 344 ff., 423. 
 Heinsius, D., 205, 208. 
 Heinzelein von Konstanz, 146. 
 Helbling, Seifried, 137. 
 Heldenbuch, Dai, 59, 77 ff., 148, 201. 
 Heldenbtich, Das Dresdener, 148. 
 Heldenlieder, 16. 
 Heliand, Der, 19 ff. , 27, 36, 172, 
 
 264. 
 
 Helvig-Imhoff, A. von, 401. 
 Henckell, K., 615. 
 Hensel, L., 467. 
 Herbert von Fritslar, 84 f. , 113. 
 Herder, J. F., xxii, 43, 165, 211, 245, 
 
 265, 278, 293 ff., 305, 307 f., 311, 
 
 3'7. 3 2 3, 339. 35*. 3^3, 3^8, 419 f., 
 
 461, 476, 599 f., 621. 
 Herger, 57 f. 
 
 Herman von Sachsenheim, 146. 
 Herman (Johannes) von Salzburg, 165. 
 Herman von Thuringen, Landgraf, 
 
 124. 
 
 Hermes, J. T. , 290. 
 Herrant von Wildonie, 114. 
 Hertz, W., 590. 
 Herwegh, G., 645 ff., 552, 554. 
 Herz, Henriette, 469, 503. 
 Hersog Ernst, 46 ff.. 51, 59, 83. 
 Hergog Ernst (Volksbuch), 47. 
 Hesekiel, G., 579,
 
 628 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hesler, H. von. See Heinrich von 
 
 Hesler. 
 
 Hettner, H., 372, 580, 596. 
 Heun, C. (H. Clauren), 491. 
 Heyne, C. G. , 417. 
 Heyse, P.. 583 f., 586 f., 590, 593 (., 
 
 608 f. 
 Hildeb rands lied. Das, xvii, 16 f., -7, 
 
 44,78. 
 
 Hildebrant, 162. 
 Hillebrand, K., 597. 
 Hiller, J. A., 273. 
 Hiltbold von Schwangau, 128. 
 Hitnmel and Holle, 40. 
 Hinrik von Alkmar, 151. 
 Hippel, T. G. von, 292. 
 Historical Lieder, 5, 7, 15 K., 26, 32, 
 
 i6if. 
 
 Hitzig, J. E., 552. 
 
 Hbfische Epos, the. See Court Epic. 
 Hoffmann, E. T. A., 480 ff., 491 f., 
 
 498, 569. 
 Hoffmann von Fallersleben, A. H., 
 
 441,485, 649 f., 573- 
 Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau, C. 
 
 H. von, 233, 241. 
 Hofmannsthal, H. von, 621. 
 Hoi berg, L.. 190, 251, 324. 
 Hblderlin, F., 283, 402, 408 ff., 543, 
 
 556, 614. 
 
 Holtei, K. von, 495. 
 Holty, L. H. C., 299, 301 f. 
 Holz, A., 615, 617. 
 Homer, 60, 70 f., 76, 84, 194, 208, 263, 
 
 300 ff., 315, 367, 374, 376, 435. 
 Hopfen, H., 595. 
 Horace, 205, 208, 243, 275. 
 Houwald, C. E. von, 432 f. 
 Hrabanische Glossen, 12. 
 Hrabanus. See Rabanus. 
 Hrotsuith (Roswitha) of Ganders- 
 
 heim, 31, 182, 186. 
 Huch, R., 621. 
 Hugdieterich, 80 f. 
 Hugo, V., xxiii, 547, 562. 
 Hugo von Montfort, 156. 
 Hugo von Trimberg, 127, 137 f. 
 Humanism, xix, 168 ff., 203 f. 
 Humboldt, A. von, 366. 
 Humboldt, K. W. von, 365, 366, 516. 
 Huns, the, 4, 7 f., 16, 59, 67 ff. 
 Hitmen Seyfried, Lied vom, 148. 
 Hutten, U. von, 170, 175 f. 
 Hymns. See Kirchenlieder. 
 Hymns, battle, 5, 7. 
 
 Ibsen, H.,562, 618. 
 Iffland, A. W., 342, 347, 421, 571, 616. 
 Immermann, K. L., 484, 493 ff., 496 
 ff -. 500, 557. 575- 
 
 Individualism, xxvii f., 237, 402 f., 
 
 416, 477, 6n, 614. 
 Insel Felsenburg, Die. See J. G. 
 
 Schnabel. 
 Irenicus, F., 169. 
 Isaac and seine Sohne, 35. 
 Isidorus, De fide catholica (Old High 
 
 German translation), 14, 34; Glosses, 
 
 12. See also Monseer Fragmente. 
 
 Jacobi, F. H., 316. 
 
 Jacobi, J. G., 316. 
 
 Jacobus de Cessolis, 146. 
 
 Jager, J. (Crotus Rubianus), 170. 
 
 Tahn, F. L., 502. 
 
 Jean Paul. See J. P. F. Richter. 
 
 Jensen, W., 595. 
 
 Jordan, W., 585. 
 
 Judith, 40. 
 
 Julius, Duke of Brunswick. See Hein- 
 rich Julius. 
 
 Jungdeutschland. See Young Ger- 
 many. 
 
 Jungere Titurel, Der, 107. 
 
 Jiinglingt im Feuerofen, Die drei, 
 40. 
 
 Jung-Stilling, H., 311. 
 
 Jutta, Spiel von Fraw. See T. 
 Schernberk. 
 
 Kaiserchronik, Die, 43 f., 53. 
 Kalenberg, Der Pfaffe von, 148 f. 
 Kant, I., xxii, 282, 293, 298, 341, 361 
 
 ff., 402, 428, 438, 477, 535. 
 Karl der Grosse. See Charles the 
 
 Great. 
 
 Karlmeinct, 145. 
 Karsch (Karschin), L., 259 f. 
 Kaspar von der Ron, 148. 
 Kastner, A. G., 252, 268. 
 Keiser, R., 241. 
 Keller, G., xxiii, 518, 527, 556, 558, 
 
 580 ff. , 594, 608, 622. 
 Kerner, J., 519, 522 ff., 543. 
 Keronische Glossar, Das, 12. 
 Kind, F., 495 f. 
 Kinkel, G., 551, 587. 
 Kinkel, Johanna, 551. 
 Kirch bach, W., 620. 
 Kirchenlieder, 164 f., 174 f., 193, 
 
 217 ff. 
 
 Kirchhoff, H. W., 150, 193. 
 Kirchmayer, T. (Naogeorgus), 185. 
 Klage, Diu, 71. 
 Klaj (Clajus), J., 210. 
 Kleist, E. C. von, xxii, 257, 258 f., 
 
 272 f., 276, 434. 
 Kleist, F. von, 532. 
 Kleist, H. von, xxiii, 257, 397, 430, 
 
 434 ff., 442, 475, 534, 557, 622.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 629 
 
 Klinger, F. M. von, 323, 375 ff., 329, 
 343, 346 t"., 533. 
 
 Klopstock, F. G., xxi f., 126, 210, 241, 
 243, 251, 255 f., 259, 260 ff., 273, 
 283 f., 294, 296, 302 f., 316, 323, 
 3 2 7- 33'. 33 6 > 337 (note), 400. 437 ; 
 Der Messias, 242, 249, 260 ff., 268, 
 271, 309, 316 ; Oden, 264 f. 
 
 Klotz, C. A., 280, 295. 
 
 Knebel, K. L. von, 349. 
 
 Knigge, A. von, 290. 
 
 Knighthood. See Chivalry. 
 
 Knittelverse, 184, 189. 
 
 Kobell, F. von, 559. 
 
 Kolross, J., 184. 
 
 Konig, H., 579. 
 
 Konig, J. U. von, 240, 264. 
 
 Konig Rother, 44 ff., 47 f., 51, 59, 77, 
 80, 83. 
 
 Konrad von Regensburg (Rolands- 
 lied), 44,51f., 82. 
 
 Konrad von Stoffel, 107. 
 
 Konrad von Wurzburg, no, 111 ff. 
 
 Kbrner, C. G., 335 f., 363, 439. 
 
 Korner, K. T., 439, 441, 444. 
 
 Kortum, K. A., 289. 
 
 Kosegarten, G. L., 400 f. 
 
 Kotzebue, A. von, xxviii, 388 f., 421, 
 
 459. 494, 53, 538, 57i- 
 Kraft, A., 191. 
 Kretschmann, K. F., 266. 
 Kretzer, M., 621. 
 Kriiger, B., 185. 
 Kruse, H., 605. 
 Kudrun. See Gudrun. 
 Kiihne, G., 515. 
 Kiirenberg, 56 f. 
 Kurz, H., 527 f., 559. 
 Kurz, I., 621. 
 
 Lachmann, K., 60, 463, 574. 
 Lamprecht (Alexanderslied), 47, 61 
 
 f., 72, 82, 604. 
 
 Landesmann, H. (H. Lorm), 591. 
 Land-und Lehnrechtsbuch (Schwaben- 
 
 Spiegel), 139. 
 Langbein, A. F. E. , 290. 
 Lange, S. G., 266, 264, 269 f. 
 Laroche, S. von, 290, 313, 315, 458. 
 L' Arrange, A., 605. 
 Lassalle, F., 673, 578. 
 Latin literature, u, 28 ff., 168 ff. 
 Latin School Comedy, 182, 184 ff., 
 
 230. 
 
 Laube, H., 502 f., 513 f., 549, 573. 
 Lauremberg, J., 222 f. 
 Laurin, 78. 
 
 Lautverschiebung. See Soundshifting. 
 Lavater, G. K., 264, 316 f. 
 Legends of the Saints, 43 f., 83. 
 
 Leibniz, G. W., xxi, 239. 
 
 Leich, the, 5, 45. 
 
 Leisen (hymns), 164 f. 
 
 Leisewitz, J. A., 326, 329. 
 
 Lenau, N., 523, 531, 641 ff., 551, 555. 
 588. 
 
 Lenz, J. M. R., 323 ff., 334. 
 
 Lessing, G. E., xxi ff., 51, 143, 221, 
 247, 250 f., 259, 268 ff., 296 f., 309 
 f., 325 f., 341, 402, 411, 621 ; Emilia 
 Galotti, 271, 279 f., 317 f., 327, 333 
 f . ; Hamburgische Dramaturgic, 278 
 f., 285 ; Laokooh, 274 ff., 295, 422 ; 
 Litteratur Briefe, 273 ff. , 293 f. ; 
 Minna von Barnhelm, xxvi f. , 276 
 ff. ; Miss Sara Sampson, 271 f . ; 
 Nathan der \Veise, 269, 281 f., 337. 
 
 Leubing, H. See Arigo. 
 
 Leuthold, H., 688, 591. 
 
 Leuthold von Savene, 128. 
 
 Levin, Rahel. See Rahel Varnhagen 
 von Ense. 
 
 Lewald, A., 514. 
 
 Lewald, F., 584. 
 
 Lichtenberg, G. C., 291 f. 
 
 Lichtwer, M. G., 254. 
 
 Liliencron, D. von, 615. 
 
 Lillo, G., 271, 432. 
 
 Lindau, P., 605. 
 
 Lindemayr, M., 411. 
 
 Lindener, M., 193. 
 
 Lindner, A., 605. 
 
 Lingg, H., 588. 
 
 Liscow, C. L., 252. 
 
 Literary societies in the seventeenth 
 century, 209 f. 
 
 Liturgy, Old High German transla- 
 tions of the, 12 ff. 
 
 Livlcindische Reimchronik, 108. 
 
 Logau, F. von, 221 f., 224, 242. 
 
 Lohengrin, 108, 462. 
 
 Lohenstein, D. C. von, 230, 233 f. , 
 
 253- 
 
 Lorm, H. See H. Landesmann. 
 Lortzing, A., 496, 603. 
 Lucidarius, Der kleine, 137. 
 Luder, P., 169. 
 Ludwig, O., 565, 668 ff., 616. 
 Ludwigslied, Das, 26. 
 Ludwig the German, 22 f. 
 Ludwig the Pious, 18 f., 22 f. 
 Luther, M., xix f., 6, 167, 169, 170 ff., 
 
 1 88, 214, 217, 219 ff., 224, 282, 431, 
 
 439 f., 614. 
 Lyric poetry, beginnings of, 15, 55. 
 
 See also Minnesang. 
 
 Mai nnd Reafior, 114, 145. 
 Malbergische (i/ossen, 12. 
 Mnnesse, R., 133.
 
 630 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Manuel, N., 179, 183. 
 
 Marggraff, H., 514. 
 
 Mariendichtung, 42, 56, 112, 165. 
 
 Marino, G., 233. 
 
 Markolf. See Morolf. 
 
 Marlitt, E. 
 
 Marner, Der, 132, 159. 
 
 Marschner, H. A., 496. 
 
 Marx, K., 573. 
 
 Matthisson, F. von, 399 f. 
 
 Maurus, R'abanus. See Rabanus 
 
 Maurus. 
 
 Maximilian I., Kaiser, 146 f. , 541. 
 Mayer, K., 519, 524. 
 Megerle, Ulrich. See Abraham a 
 
 Santa Clara. 
 
 Meiningen Court Theatre, the, 604 f. 
 Meinloh von Sevelingen, 57. 
 Meisl, K., 539. 
 Meissner, A., 550 f. 
 Meissner, A. G., 290. 
 Meistergesang and Meistersingers, 
 
 127, 132, 156 ft., 187 f., 208. 
 Melanchthon (Schwarzerd), P., 176, 
 
 179. 
 
 Memento mori, 39 f. 
 Mendelssohn, M., 270, 273, 420. 
 Menzel, W., 515 f. 
 Merck, J. H., 312. 
 Mereau, Sophie. See S. Brentano. 
 Merigarto, 41. 
 
 Merseburger Zauberspriiche, 12. 
 Meyer, C. F., 283, 583, 588, 607 f. 
 Meyer, H., 368, 379. 
 Meyer von Knonau, J. L., 254. 
 Meyerbeer, G. (J. Beer), 496, 599. 
 Meyr, M., 559. 
 Michaelis, J. D., 418. 
 Middle High German, xvi, 41. 
 Migrations, the (Volkerwanderung), 
 
 xvii, 1, 10, 27 f., 59. 
 Miller, J. M., 299, 302, 316, 400. 
 Milton, J., xxi, 204, 248, 261 ff. 
 Minne, Minnedienst, 44, 54, 105, 109, 
 
 115 ff., 120, 125, 130. 
 Minnesang, xviii, xxvi, 55 ff., 62, 115 
 
 ff., 140, 156 f., 163, 212, 241, 622. 
 Moleschott, J., 573. 
 Moliere, J. B. P., xxi, xxvii, 190, 251, 
 
 276, 310, 434, 513, 539. 
 Mommsen, T., 596. 
 Monster Fragmente, the, 14, 19, 34. 
 Montanus, M., 193. 
 Moralische Wochenschriften, 244. 
 Morike, E., xxiii, 522, 525 ff., 528, 
 
 543. 556, 559, 581- 
 Moringer, der edele, 162. 
 Moritz, K. P., 346 f., 432. 
 Moris von Croon, 85 (note). 
 Moriz von Hessen, Landgraf, 200. 
 
 Morolf (Markolf), 48, 149. 
 
 Moscherosch, H. M., 226 ff. 
 
 Mosen, J., 489 f. 
 
 Mosenthal, S. H. von, 538. 
 
 Moser, G. von, 605. 
 
 Mdser, J., 291, 294, 296. 
 
 Mozart, W. A., 344, 480, 494, 539. 
 
 Miiller, A., 475 f. 
 
 Miiller, F. (Maler Miiller), 327 f., 424. 
 
 Miiller, J. von, 340. 
 
 Miiller, W. ( 474, 486, 488 f., 556. 
 
 Milliner, A., 432 f., 531. 
 
 Miinch-Bellinghausen, E. F. J. von 
 
 (F. Halm), 538. 
 Munchhausen, Reisen des Freyherrn 
 
 von, 231, 306. 
 Mundt, T., 503, 515. 
 Munich group of poets, the, 553 f., 
 
 586 ff., 611, 615. 
 Murbacher Hymne, 14. 
 Murner, T., 177 ff., 183, 189, 194, 225. 
 Musaus, J. K. A., 290. 
 Muscatblut, 160. 
 Music Drama. See Opera. 
 Muspilli, 22 f., 25. 
 Mylius, C., 268 f. 
 Mysticism, xix, 25, 42, 145, 166 f. 
 
 Naogeorgus. See T. Kirchmayer. 
 Napoleon, 378, 401 f., 430, 434, 437 
 
 ff., 442 ff., 450, 458, 469, 475, 485, 
 
 492, 494, 502 f., 509, 534, 536, 
 
 540 f. 
 
 National epic. See Popular epic. 
 Neander, J., 238. 
 Neidhart Fuchs, 148. 
 Neidhart von Reuenthal, 128 ff.. 148. 
 Nestroy, J., 539, 640, 543- 
 Neuber, J. and K., 246 f., 249, 268, 
 
 272. 
 
 Neukirch, B., 233, 240. 
 Nibelungenlied, Das, 9, 53, 56, 59 ff., 
 
 76 f., 79, 81 f., 122, 140, 264, 390, 
 
 533' 54 r > o. 
 Nibelungen saga, the, 8 f., 30, 59 f., 
 
 553, 585, 599 ff 
 Nicolai, C. F., 270, 273, 290, 315 f., 
 
 416, 421, 468. 
 Nicolai, O. , 496. 
 Niebuhr, B. G., 476, 596. 
 Nietzsche, F. W., 283, 583, 611 ff. 
 Nissel, F., 607. 
 Nivardus ( Ysengrimus), 54. 
 Notker I. (The Stammerer), 29. 
 Notker III. (Labeo), 14, 29, 33 f., 36, 
 
 40. 
 
 Novalis. See F. von Hardenberg. 
 Nunnenpeck, L., 187. 
 
 Odoaker, 7, 16.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 631 
 
 Oehlenschlager, A., 470, 495. 
 
 Old High German, xvi, 10 f. 
 
 Olearius, A., 212. 
 
 Opera (Music drama), 241, 278, 344, 
 
 495 f. , 598 ff. See also Singspiele. 
 Opitz, M., xxi, xxviii, 184, 204 ff., 217, 
 
 219, 222 f., 240, 246, 461. 
 Orendel, 48. 
 Oriental influence, 31, 47, 51, 212, 450, 
 
 486 f., 515. 
 Or t nit, 80 f. 
 
 Ossian, 266 f. , 294, 302, 315. 
 Osterspiele. See Easter Plays. 
 Oswald, 48 f. 
 
 Oswald von Wolkenstein, 156 ff. , 184. 
 Otfrid (EvangelienbucK), 13, 19, 23 
 
 ff., 27. 
 
 Otto the Great, 28. 
 Overbeck, J. F., 449. 
 
 Palmenordens, Gesellschaft des, 209 f. 
 
 Paoli, B. (E. Gliick). 551. 
 
 Pariser Glossen, 12. 
 
 Paternoster, 42. 
 
 Patriot, Der, 244. 
 
 Patriotic lyric, 438 ff., 485, 519, 530, 
 
 598. 
 
 Pauli, J., 149 f., 168. 
 Pegnitz, Gesellschaft der Schafer an 
 
 der, 210. 
 Pessimism, 409, 477 ff., 531, 534, 543, 
 
 555. 573, 59i, 600, 602, 604, 611, 
 
 622. 
 
 Pestalozzi, J. H., 292, 493. 
 Petrus, Bittgesangan den heiligen, 26. 
 Peutinger, K., 169. 
 Pfaffe Amis, Der. See Der Strieker. 
 Pfeffel, G. K., 254. 
 Pfintzing, M., 147. 
 Pfizer, G., 524. 
 Physiologus, 31, 41. 
 Picaresque novel, the. See Schelmen- 
 
 romane. 
 
 Pichler, A., 559. 
 Pietism, 238, 309 f. 
 Pietsch, J. V., 240, 264. 
 Pilgrim of Passau, Bishop, 30, 60. 
 Pirckheimer, W., 169, 191. 
 Platen-Hallermiinde, A. von, 486, 
 
 490, 495, 498 ff., 554. 
 Plattdeutsch literature. See Dialect 
 
 literature. 
 
 Plautus, 1 68, 182, 269, 324. 
 Pleier, Der, 107. 
 
 Poeta Saxo (De gestis Caroli), 26. 
 Polenlieder, 489 f. 
 Political lyric, 522, 544 ff. 
 Pope, A., 242, 244, 251, 270. 
 Popular epic, xvii, 56, 59 ff., 122, 172. 
 Popular philosophers, 290 f. 
 
 Postel, C. H., 264. 
 
 Postl, K. (C. Sealsfield), $79- 
 
 Prehauser, G., 343. 
 
 Prins Evgen der edle Ritter, 241. 
 
 Prussian School, the. See Halle 
 School. 
 
 Prutz, R. E., 544 f. 
 
 Psalms, Old High German transla- 
 tions of the, 14, 26, 40. 
 
 Pufendorf, S., 238 f. 
 
 Puschmann, A., 160 (note). 
 
 Piiterich von Reicherzhausen, 145. 
 
 Pyra, I. J., 256, 264, 269. 
 
 Pytheas of Marseilles, 3. 
 
 Raabe, W. , 595. 
 
 Rabanus Maurus, 18, 23, 29. 
 
 Rabelais, F., 196 f., 227. 
 
 Rabener, G. W., 223, 251 f., 253. 
 
 Rabenschlacht, Die, 79 f. 
 
 Rachel, J., 223. 
 
 Racine, J. de, xxi, 273, 397. 
 
 Raimund, F., 539 f., 543. 
 
 Ramler, K. W., 221, 259, 468. 
 
 Ranke, L. von, 596. 
 
 Raspe, R. E., 306. 
 
 Rationalism, 237 ff., 280 ff., 284, 291, 
 
 411, 429. 
 
 Ratpert of St Gall, 29. 
 Raumer, F. L. G. von, 476. 
 Raupach, E. von, 494 f. 
 Realism, 558, 573, 609 f., 615 ff. 
 Rebhun, P., 184, 186. 
 Redwitz, O. von, 570. 
 Reformation, the, xv, xx f., 140, 143, 
 
 145, 154, 161, 166 ff., 188, 191, 198, 
 
 217, 219 ff., 237. 
 Reformation Drama, the, 180 ff. 
 Regenbogen, 132. 
 Regensburg, Burggraf von, 57. 
 Reichardt, J. F., 468. 
 Reichenauer Glossen, 12. 
 Reimarus, H. S., 280. 
 Reimreden, Reimsprecher, 155. 
 Reynke de Vos, 161 ff., 194, 223, 357. 
 
 See also Beast epic and fable. 
 Reinfried von Braunschweig, 114. 
 Reinhold, K. L., 363, 426. 
 Reinmar von Hagenau, 119 f., 130. 
 Reinmar von Zweter, 131 f., 158. 
 Rellstab, L., 552. 
 Renaissance, the, xv, xix f., xxviii, 
 
 143, 188, 218 f., 203 ff., 234, 237, 
 
 308. 
 
 Renart, Roman de, 54. 
 Reuchlin, J., 169 f., 182. 
 Reuter, C., 231. 
 Reuter, F., 560, 606, 609. 
 Reuter, G., 621. 
 Revolution of 1789, the French, xxii,
 
 632 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 265, 347. 357. 362 374. 378 f., 443, 
 
 544- 
 Revolution of 1830, the, xxiii, 502, 504, 
 
 511, 516, 572, 622. 
 Revolution of 1848, the, xxiii, 516 f. , 
 
 544 ff., 572, 622; Lyric of the Re- 
 volution, 544 ff. 
 Rhyme, introduction of, 24. 
 Richardson, S., xxi, 193, 253, 271, 
 
 283 ff., 290, 315, 354, 406. 
 Richter, J. P. F. (Jean Paul), 402, 
 
 403 ff., 463, 474, 481, 483, 498, 504, 
 
 595- 
 
 Riehl, W. H., 595. 
 
 Ringwaldt, B., 193 f. 
 
 Rist, J., 210, 213. 
 
 Ritter, J. W., 460. 
 
 Ritterdramen, 328, 342 f., 435. 
 
 Ritterromane, 469. 
 
 Roberthin, R., 211 (note). 
 
 Robinsonaden, 231. 
 
 Rolandslied, Das. See Konrad. 
 
 Roling, J., 211 (note). 
 
 Rollenhagen, G., 194. 
 
 Romanticism, xxviii, 105, 276, 297, 
 306, 328, 392, 402 f., 412, 446, 456, 
 496 ff., 501, 504 ff., 516 ff., 525 f., 
 547. 557 573> 622 ; The Romantic 
 School, xxiii, 270, 357, 416 ff., 540; 
 Romantic drama, 430 ff., 493, 518 ; 
 The Heidelberg Romanticists, 468 
 ff., 528; Romanticism in Berlin, 
 468 ff. ; The Decay of Romanticism, 
 480 ff. 
 
 Roquette, O., 589. 
 
 Rosegger, P., 609. 
 
 Rosengarten, Der, 78. 
 
 Rosengarten, Laurin nnd der kleine, 
 78. 
 
 Rosenpliit, H., 166, 164, 181. 187, 189. 
 
 Rosmer, E. See E. Bernstein. 
 
 Roswitha. See Hrosuith. 
 
 Rather, Konig, See Konig Rather. 
 
 Rousseau, J. J., xxii, 5, 51, 231, 237, 
 244, 283 f., 289, 291 f., 297, 307, 
 
 3 10 - 3*5< 3'7. 3 2 4 f -. 4<>i. 
 Ruckert, F., 441, 486 ff., 508, 587, 
 
 593- 
 
 Rudolf von Ems, no ff. 
 Rudolf von Fenis, 118. 
 Ruge, A.. 573. 
 Rumezland, 132. 
 Runic alphabet, 5 f. 
 Ruodlieb, 15, 32 f., 96, no. 
 
 Saar, F. von, 608. 
 
 Sacher-Masoch, L. von, 609. 
 
 Siichs, H., xxviii, 155, 160 1., i8r, 186 
 
 ff., 201, 215, 319. 
 Sachsenchronik, Die, 139. 
 
 Sachsen Spiegel, Der (Spigelder Saren), 
 
 139- 
 
 Salis-Seewis, J. G. von, 400. 
 
 Salman und Morolf, 48. 
 
 Salzman, J. D., 311, 323. 
 
 Saphir, M. G., 514. 
 
 Satire, beginnings of, 57. 
 
 Savigny, F. K. von, 461, 463, 476. 
 
 Schachbuch, Das, 145 f. 
 
 Schack, A. F. von, 587. 
 
 Schede, P. (Melissus), 204. 
 
 Schefer, L., 486. 
 
 Scheffel, J. V. von, 551, 587, 689 f. 
 
 Scheffler, J. (Angelus Silesius), 217 ff. 
 
 Scheidt, K., 194. 
 
 Schelling, Caroline. See C. Schlegel. 
 
 Schelling, F. W. J. von, 415, 418, 428 
 f., 461, 476 f. 
 
 Schelmenromane (Picaresque novels), 
 yxi, 109, 228 f., 231 f. 
 
 Schembartlauf, 181. 
 
 Schenk, E. von, 494. 
 
 Schenkendorf, M. von, 439, 441. 
 
 Scherer, W., 597. 
 
 Schernberk, T. (Spiel von Fra-w 
 fatten), 180 f. 
 
 Schicksalstragodie, the, 394, 432 ff., 
 465, 482, 496, 500, 531 f. 
 
 Schikaneder, E. , 344, 539. 
 
 Schiller, J. F. von, xxvii, 298, 301, 306 
 f., 328 ff., 336 ff., 363 ft'., 376 ff., 387 
 ff., 399, 401, 411, 415, 417 f., 426, 
 431. 434. 439, 443 f-, 446. 451, 471, 
 484, 509. 514, 5 2 7, S29 534, 5 6 7, 
 583, 621 f. ; Writings on aesthetics, 
 363 ff. ; Die Brattt von Messina, 
 387, 392 ff., 432; Don Carlos, 337 
 ff-i 369. 531; Ft f sco, 332 ff., 337; 
 Relations with Goethe, 340, 348 
 f., 356, 360, 366 ff., 380; Histori- 
 cal writings, 339 f., 369, 372; 
 Die Jungfrau von Orleans, 390 ff., 
 415 ; Kabale und Liebe, 271, 332, 
 333 ff. ; Lyric poetry, 258, 331, 
 335 f -> 3,40, 366 f., 376 f., 409; 
 Maria Stuart, 389 f., 392, 397; 
 Die Rauber, 308, 319, 327 f., 329 
 ff., 332 ff., 337, 421 ; Wallenstein, 
 224, 337, 369 ff.. 374, 387, 389, 392, 
 
 395 f-. 533- 566; Wilhelm Tell, 
 
 396 ff., 533, 562; Xenien. See 
 Goethe. 
 
 Schink, J. F., 328 (note). 
 
 Schlaf, J., 615, 617. 
 
 Schlege!, A. W. von, 250, 284, 300, 
 306, 368, 416, 417 ff., 420 f., 458, 
 462 f., 468 f., 500, 505, 510. 
 
 Schlegel, Caroline (C. Schelling), 418. 
 
 Schlegel, Dorothea, 420, 469. 
 
 Schlegel, F. von, 250, 368, 403, 416
 
 INDEX. 
 
 633 
 
 ff., 419 ff., 426, 459, 468 (., 475, 47&, 
 
 487, 500. 614. 
 Schlegel, J. A., 260 f., 417. 
 Schlegel, J. E., 260 f., 337, 417. 
 Schleiermacher, F. E. D., 420, 428, 
 
 429, 469, 477. 
 
 Schmid, F. von (Dranmor), 591. 
 Schmid, H. von, 559. 
 Schmidt, E., 597. 
 Schmidt, J., 574. 
 Schmidt, K. (M. Stirner), 611. 
 Schnabel, J. G. (Die Insel Felsenburg), 
 
 231. 
 
 Schneckenhurger, M., 544 f. 
 Schnitzler, A., 620 f. 
 Schonaich, C. O. von, 249. 
 Schone, K., 328 (note). 
 Schonthan, F. von, 605. 
 School Comedy. See Latin School 
 
 Comedy. 
 Schopenhauer, A., 447, 477 ff., 510, 
 
 573, 591, 600, 604, 611 f. 
 Schopenhauer, J. , 477 f. 
 Schottelius, J. G., 209. 
 Schreiber, A. W., 328 (note). 
 Schreyvogel, J., 530. 
 Schroder, F. L., 326, 341 f. 
 Schubart, C. F. D., 329, 331 f. 
 Schubart, Sophie. See S. Brentano. 
 Schubert, F., 462, 488, 529. 
 Schticking, L., 555. 
 Schulze, E. K. F., 484 f. 
 Schumann, R., 484, 496. 
 Schumann, V., 193. 
 Schupp (Schuppius), J. B., 223 f. 
 Schurz, K., 551. 
 Schiitz, H., 207. 
 Schwab, G., 519, 624. 
 Schwabe, J. J., 250. 
 Schivabenspiegel, Der, 139. 
 Schwabe von der Heyde, E., 208. 
 Schwankdichtung, 109, 148 ff., 155, 
 
 189, 193. 
 Scott, W., xxiii, 460, 491 ff., 496, 579, 
 
 589- 
 
 Sealsfield, C. See K. Postl. 
 
 Seidel, H., 595. 
 
 Sempacher Scklacht, Die, 162. 
 
 Sequences, Latin, 29, 32. 
 
 Seume, J. G., 401. 
 
 Seuse(Suso), H., 166 f. 
 
 Seyfried, Das Lied vom htirnen, 148. 
 
 Shakespeare, W., xx f. , 105, 201, 213, 
 215, 250, 264, 272 f., 276, 279, 284, 
 296, 300, 307, 310 f., 324, 326, 333, 
 34i, 346, 352, 359, 361, 372, 393- 
 411, 417 f., 424, 434, 484, 498, 534, 
 540, 549. 569, 588. 
 
 Shrovetide Plays. See Fastnachts- 
 spiele. 
 
 Sieten weisen Meister, Die, 149. 
 
 Siebenzahl, Von der, 42. 
 
 Siegfried, 8 f., 59, 61 ff., 77 f., 81, 190. 
 
 Sigenot, 79. 
 
 Silesius, Angelus. See J. Scheffler. 
 
 Simrock, K., 585, 590. 
 
 Singspiele, 202, 273, 318, 344. 
 
 Skeireins (Gothic), 7. 
 
 Soden, F. J. H. von, 328 (note), 343. 
 
 Soundshifting (Lautverschiebung), 
 
 first, 4. 
 
 Soundshifting, second, 10, 24. 
 Speculum humana salvationis, 145. 
 Spec, F. von, 218 ff. 
 Spener, P. J., 238. 
 Spervogel, Der, 67 f. , 135. 
 Spielhagen, F., 511, 558, 677 ff., 594. 
 Spielleute, xvii, 28, 32, 40, 46, 49, 52 
 
 f-, 59, 77, 107, 140. 
 Spielmannsdichtung,48f., 52 f., 59, 73, 
 
 78,80. 
 
 Spindler, K., 492. 
 
 Spinoza, B., 238, 316, 428, 513, 558. 
 Spohr, L., 496. 
 Spruchdichtung, 67 f., 122, 131 f., 135, 
 
 140, 155, 204. 
 St Gall, ii, 29, 33, 39. 
 St Gall, Monk of, 26. 
 Stael-Holstein, G. de, xxv, 418 ff., 470, 
 
 532. 
 
 Stainhowel, H., 150. 
 Steffens, H., 415, 429. 
 Stein mar, 130 f. 
 
 Stieglitz, Heinrich and Charlotte, 515. 
 Stifter, A., 559. 
 Stirner, M. See K. Schmidt. 
 Stolberg, C. zu, 302, 307. 
 Stolberg, F. L. zu, 302, 307. 
 Storm, T., xxiii, 518, 555, 683 f., 594 
 
 f., 608 f. 
 
 Strachwitz, M. von, 554. 
 Stranitzky, J. A., 343. 
 Strauss, D. F., 511, 513, 520, 627, 558, 
 
 572. 594, 612. 
 Strassburger Eide, the, 22. 
 Strieker, Der, 106 f., 108 (., 148 f. 
 Sturm und Drang, xxii, 263 f., 266, 
 
 279, 283, 294 ff., 305, 307 ff., 323 ff., 
 
 401, 403, 405, 408, 411. 421, 430, 
 
 435, 45 6 . 469 f-, 49i, 493, 499, S". 
 Suchenwirt, P., 155. 
 Sudermann, H., 616 ff., 620 f. 
 Summa Theologies, 42. 
 Suso, H. See H. Seuse. 
 Swabian School, the, 618 ff., 540 f., 
 
 543, 586. 
 Swiss literature, xxiv, 106, nof., 114, 
 
 118, 130 f., 150, 182 f., 243 f., 248 
 
 f., 267, 291 f., 400, 411, 557 f., s8q 
 
 ff., 607 f.
 
 634 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sybel, H. von, 596. 
 Sylvester, 44. 
 
 Tacitus, C., 5, 266. 
 Tagelied, the, 57, 127, 158, 164. 
 Tanhauser, Der, 130, 146, 162 f. 
 Tanhiiuser (ballad), 162 ff., 467. 
 Tanzlieder, 164. 
 
 Tatian (Evangelienharmonie), 18 f. 
 Tauler, J., xix, 166, 167 f., 217. 
 Taylor, G. See A. Hausrath. 
 Terence, 31, 34, 168, 182, 184, 186. 
 Tersteegen, G., 238. 
 Teue.rdank (Tewrdannck), 147. 
 Theodorich the Great (Dietrich von 
 
 Bern), 8, 10, 16, 77 ff. 
 Theophilus, 180. 
 Thibaut, A. F. J., 461. 
 Thilo von Culm, 145. 
 Thirty Years' War, the, xx, 200, 203, 
 
 226 f., 234, 237 (339 f., 369 ff.). 
 Thomasin von Zirclcere, 134 f. 
 Thomasius, C., 239 f. 
 Thomson, J. , 242, 258, 272. 
 Thummel, M. A. von, 289. 
 Tieck, Dorothea, 417. 
 Tieck, J. L., 25, 328, 392, 416, 418, 
 
 420, 421 ff., 429 ff., 447, 459 ff., 467 
 
 f., 474, 483, 484, 493, 497 (note), 
 
 498, 500, 563, 581. 
 Tiedge, C. A., 400. 
 Torring, J. A. von, 343, 565. 
 Treitschke, H. von, 556. 
 Triller, D. W., 264. 
 TrojanischeKrieg, Der (in prose), 145, 
 Tschudi, ^Egidius, 395. 
 Tundalus, Vision of, 44. 
 
 Uhland, J. L., 463, 471, 509, 518 ff., 
 
 523 f., 526 ff., 543, 586. 
 Ulfilas. See Wulfila. 
 Ulrich von Eschenbach, 108. 
 Ulrich von Gutenberg, 117. 
 Ulrich von Liechtenstein, 109, 116, 
 
 130 f. 
 
 Ulrich von Singenberg, 127 i. 
 Ulrich von Tiirheim, 97 f., 103. 
 Ulrich von dem Tiirlin, 97. 
 Ulrich von Winterstetten, 130. 
 Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, 106. 
 Usteri, J. M., 411. 
 Uz, J. P., 256, 257 ff., 301 f., 336. 
 
 Varnhagen von Ense, K. A., 469 f., 
 
 506, 516. 
 Varnhagen von Ense, Rahel, 469, 505, 
 
 516. 
 
 Vernitnfftler, Der, 244. 
 Viebig, C., 621. 
 Virgil, 20, 30, 34, 2C?8, 275, 385. 
 
 Virginal, 79. 
 
 Vischer, F. T., 527. 
 
 Vischer, P., 191. 
 
 Vlacich (Flacius), M., 19. 
 
 Vocabularius Sancti Galti, 12. 
 
 Vogt, K., 573. 
 
 Vb'lkerwanderung. See Migrations. 
 
 Volksbiicher, 148. 
 
 Volksepos. See Popular epic. 
 
 Volkslied, the, xxii, 128, 130, 161 ff., 
 
 174 ff., 212, 227, 230, 241, 296, 304 
 
 f.,46if. 
 
 Voltaire, xxii, 271, 284, 387, 468, 536. 
 Voss, J. H., 288, 299 ff., 327, 340, 374, 
 
 400 f., 410 f., 461 f. 
 Voss, R., 620. 
 
 Wackenroder, W. H., 421 ff., 425, 
 481. 
 
 Wagner, H. L., 323, 327. 
 
 Wagner, R., 470, 496, 543, 598 ff., 
 611 f., 621 f. ; Der fliegende Hol- 
 lander, 599 ; Lohengrin, 599 ; Die 
 Meislersinger von Nurnberg, xxvii, 
 603 f. ; Parsifal, 604, 612 ; Rienti, 
 598 f. ; Der King des Nibelungen, 
 534, 566, 598, 600 ff. ; Tannhiiuser, 
 599, 604 ; Tristan und Isolde, 602 f. 
 
 Waiblinger, W., 525, 528. 
 
 Waitz, G., 596. 
 
 Waldere (Anglo-Saxon), 17. 
 
 Waldis, B., 150 f., 183 f. 
 
 Waltharius manu fortis. See Ekke- 
 hard. 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide, 116 f., 
 119, 120 ff., 135, 156, 158 f., 311, 
 
 473, 5 8 < 5!9- 
 Wappendichter, 155. 
 Wartburgkrieg, Der, 158. 
 Weber, F. W., 590. 
 Weber, K. M. von, 495 f. 
 Weckherlin, G. R., 204 f. 
 Weidmann, P., 328 (note). 
 Weihnachtsspiele. See Christmas 
 
 plays. 
 
 Weise, C., 230 f. 
 Weisse, C. F., xxviii, 272 f., 337 (note), 
 
 433- 
 
 Weissenburger Katechismus, Der, 13. 
 Werner, A. G., 427. 
 Werner, F. L. Z., 397, 430 ff., 437, 
 
 480. 
 
 Wernher (Lief von der maget), 42. 
 Wernher ( Von den vier Rddern), 42. 
 Wernher der Gartensere (Meier Helm- 
 
 brechf), 32, 109 f., 148. 
 Wernher von Elmdorf, 133. 
 Wernigke, C., 241 f. 
 Wessobrunner Gebet, Das, 14 f. 
 Wickram, J., 85, 150, 192 f., 226.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 635 
 
 Widmann, G. (Histori Peter Leiven), 
 
 149. 
 Wieland, C. M., xxi, 243, 264, 273, 
 
 283 ff., 303, 310, 317, 337 (note), 
 
 339, 344, 346, 349, 362 f., 421, 452, 
 
 485. 581, 592 f. 
 Wienbarg, L. , 502 f. 
 Wigamur, 107. 
 Wilbrandt, A., 595, 605. 
 Wildenbruch, E. von, 605. 
 Wildermuth, O. von, 583. 
 Willem (Reinart de Voz), 151. 
 Willeram von Ebersburg, 40. 
 Wimpfeling, J., 169, 177, 182, 204. 
 Winckelmann, J. J., xxii, 274 f., 352, 
 
 354. 379, 4", 4*9- 
 Windesbach, Herr von (Der Wins- 
 
 beke), 133 f., 140. 
 Winfrith. See Bonifacius. 
 
 Winsbecke, Der. See Windesbach. 
 
 Winsbekin, Diu, 134. 
 Wirnt von Gravenberg, 106. 
 Wisse, C, 145. 
 Wittenweiler, H., 148. 
 Wochenschriften, Moralische, 244. 
 
 Wolf, F. A., 60. 
 
 Wolff, C. von, 240, 256. 
 
 Wolff, J.. 590. 
 
 Wolfram von Eschenbach, xxvi, 90 ff., 
 99, 118, 126, 127, 158 f. ; Parzival, 
 82, 91 ff., 99 f-, 104, 107 f., 145, 
 T 47i J 59. 22 8 f., 264; Titurel, 96 
 f. ; Willehalm, 91, 97 f. 
 
 Wulnla(Ulfilas), 6 f . 
 
 Wyl, N. von. See Niklas von Wyl. 
 
 Wyss, J. R., 231. 
 
 Young Germany, xxiii, 442, 488, 492, 
 498 f., 501 ff., 520, 538, 544, 550, 
 554 f-, 557, 570, 572 ff., 584. 
 
 Zachaiia, J. F. W., 251, 258, 289. 
 Zedlitz, J. C. von, 540 f., 543. 
 Zelter, K. F., 449, 468. 
 Zesen, P. von, 210, 232. 
 Ziegler, H. A. von, 232 f. 
 Zimmermann, J. G., 291. 
 Zincgref, J. W., 204 f. 
 Zinzendorf, N. L. von, 238. 
 Zschokke, H., 492 f. 
 
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