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 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GERMANIC STUDIES 
 Vol. II. No. II. 
 
 TYPES OF WELTSCHMERZ 
 IN GERMAN POETRY 
 
 BY 
 
 WILHELM ALFRED BRAUN, Ph.D. 
 
 SOMETIME FELLOW IN GERMANIC LANGUAGES AND 
 LITERATURES, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 The Macmillan Company, Agents 
 
 London : Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 
 1905 
 
 All rishts reserved
 
 Copyright, igos 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Printed from type September, igos 
 
 THE MASON PRESS 
 SYRACUSE, NEW YORK
 
 143 
 
 F4 
 
 5"! 
 
 NOTE 
 
 The author of this essay has attempted to make, as he him- 
 self phrases it, "a modest contribution to the natural history of 
 Weltschmerz." What goes by that name is no doubt some- 
 what elusive ; one can not easily delimit and characterize it with 
 scientific accuracy. Nevertheless the word corresponds to a 
 fairly definite range of psychical reactions which are of great 
 interest in modern poetry, especially German poetry. The 
 phenomenon is worth studying in detail. In undertaking a 
 study of it Mr. Braun thought, and I readily concurred in the 
 opinion, that he would do best not to essay an exhaustive his- 
 tory, but to select certain conspicuously interesting types and 
 proceed by the method of close analysis, characterization and 
 comparison. I consider his work a valuable contribution to 
 literary scholarship. 
 
 Calvin Thomas. 
 Columbia University, June, 1905
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The work which is presented in the following pages is 
 intended to be a modest contribution to the natural history of 
 Weltschmerz. 
 
 The writer has endeavored first of all to define carefully the 
 distinction between pessimism and Weltschmerz; then to clas- 
 sify the latter, both as to its origin and its forms of expression, 
 and to indicate briefly its relation to mental pathology and to 
 contemporary social and political conditions. The three poets 
 selected for discussion, were chosen because they represent dis- 
 tinct types, under which probably all other poets of Welt- 
 schmerz may be classified, or to which they will at least be 
 found analogous ; and to the extent to which such is the case, 
 the treatise may be regarded as exhaustive. In the case of each 
 author treated, the development of the peculiar phase of Welt- 
 schmerz characteristic of him has been traced, and analyzed 
 with reference to its various modes of expression. Holderlin 
 is the idealist, Lenau exhibits the profoundly pathetic side of 
 Weltschmerz, while Heine is its satirist. They have been con- 
 sidered in this order, because they represent three progressive 
 stages of Weltschmerz viewed as a psychological process : 
 Holderlin naive, Lenau self-conscious, Heine endeavoring to 
 conceal his melancholy beneath the disguise of self-irony. 
 
 It is a pleasure to tender my grateful acknowledgments to my 
 former Professors, Calvin Thomas and William H. Carpenter 
 of Columbia University, and Camillo von Klenze and Starr 
 Willard Cutting of the University of Chicago, under whose 
 stimulating direction and never-failing assistance my graduate 
 studies were carried on.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter I — Introduction i 
 
 Chapter II — Holderlin 9 
 
 Chapter III — Lenau 35 
 
 Chapter IV — Heine 59 
 
 Chapter V — Bibliog-raphy 85
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Introduction 
 
 The purpose of the following study is to examine closely 
 certain German authors of modern times, whose lives and writ- 
 ings exemplify in an unusually striking degree that peculiar 
 phase of lyric feeling which has characterized German liter- 
 ature, often in a more or less epidemic form, since the days of 
 "Werther," and to which, at an early period in the nineteenth 
 century, was assigned the significant name "Weltschmerz." 
 
 With this side of the poet under investigation, there must of 
 necessity be an enquiry, not only into his writings, his expressed 
 feelings, but also his physical and mental constitution on the 
 one hand, and into his theory of existence in general on the 
 other. Psychology and philosophy then are the two adjacent 
 fields into which it may become necessary to pursue the subject 
 in hand, and for this reason it is only fair to call attention to 
 the difficulties which surround the student of literature in dis- 
 cussing philosophical ideas or psychological phenomena. In- 
 trepid indeed would it be for him to attempt a final judgment in 
 these bearings of his subject, where wise men have diflfered and 
 doctors have disagreed. 
 
 Although sometimes loosely used as synonyms, it is necessary 
 to note that there is a well-defined distinction between Welt- 
 schmerz and pessimism. Weltschmerz may be defined as the 
 poetic expression of an abnormal sensitiveness of the feelings to 
 the moral and physical evils and misery of existence — a condi- 
 tion which may or may not be based upon a reasoned conviction 
 that the sum of human misery is greater than the sum of human 
 happiness. It is usually characterized also by a certain lack of 
 will-energy, a sort of sentimental yielding to these painful emo- 
 tions. It is therefore entirely a matter of "Gemiit." Pessi- 
 I 1
 
 mism, on the other hand, purports to be a theory of existence, 
 the result of dehberate philosophic argument and investigation, 
 by which its votaries have reached the dispassionate conclusion 
 that there is no real good or pleasure in the world that is not 
 clearly outweighed by evil or pain, and that therefore self- 
 destruction, or at least final annihilation is the consummation 
 devoutly to be wished. 
 
 James Sully, in his elaborate treatise on Pessimism,^ divides 
 it, however, into reasoned and unreasoned Pessimism, including 
 Weltschmerz under the latter head. This is entirely compatible 
 with the definition of Weltschmerz which has been attempted 
 above. But it is interesting to note the attitude of the pessi- 
 mistic school of philosophy toward this unreasoned pessimism. 
 It emphatically disclaims any interest in or connection with it, 
 and describes all those who are afflicted with the malady as 
 execrable fellows — to quote Hartmann — : "Klageweiber mann- 
 lichen und weiblichen Geschlechts, welche am meisten zur Dis- 
 creditierung des Pessimismus beigetragen haben, die sich in 
 ewigem Lamento ergehen, und entweder unaufhorlich in 
 Thranen schwimmen, oder bitter wie Wermut und Essig, sich 
 selbst und andern das Dasein noch mehr vergallen ; eine jam- 
 merliche Situation des Stimmungspessimismus, der sie nicht 
 leben und nicht sterben lasst."^ And yet Hartmann him- 
 self does not hesitate to admit that this very condition of 
 individual Weltschmerz, or "Zerrissenheit," is a necessary 
 and inevitable stage in the progress of the mind toward that 
 clarified universal Weltschmerz which is based upon theoretical 
 insight, namely pessimism in its most logical sense. This being 
 granted, we shall not be far astray in assuming that it is also 
 the stage to which the philosophic pessimist will sometimes 
 revert, when a strong sense of his own individuality asserts 
 itself. 
 
 If we attempt a classification of Weltschmerz with regard to 
 its essence, or, better perhaps, with regard to its origin, we shall 
 find that the various types may be classed under one of two 
 
 * "Pessimism, a History and a Criticism," London, 1877. 
 
 ^ Ed. von Hartmann: "Zur Geschichte und Begriindung des Pessimismus," 
 Leipzig, Hermann Haacke, p. 187.
 
 heads : either as cosmic or as egoistic. The representatives of 
 cosmic Weltschmerz are those poets whose first concern is not 
 their personal fate, their own unhappiness, it may be, but who 
 see first and foremost the sad fate of humanity and regard their 
 own misfortunes merely as a part of the common destiny. The 
 representatives of the second type are those introspective 
 natures who are first and chiefly aware of their own misery 
 and finally come to regard it as representative of universal evil. 
 The former proceed from the general to the particular, the latter 
 from the particular to the general. But that these types must 
 necessarily be entirely distinct in all cases, as Marchand^ asserts, 
 seems open to serious doubt. It is inconceivable that a poet 
 into whose personal experience no shadows have fallen should 
 take the woes of humanity very deeply to heart ; nor again could 
 we imagine that one who has brooded over the unhappy condi- 
 tion of mankind in general should never give expression to a 
 note of personal sorrow. It is in the complexity of motives in 
 one and the same subject that the difficulty lies in making rigid 
 and sharp distinctions. In some cases Weltschmerz may arise 
 from honest conviction or genuine despair, in others it may be 
 something entirely artificial, merely a cloak to cover personal 
 defects. Sometimes it may even be due to a desire to pose as a 
 martyr, and sometimes nothing more than an attempt to ape the 
 prevailing fashion. To these types Wilhelm Scherer adds 
 "Miissigganger, welche sich die Zeit mit iibler Laune vertreiben, 
 missvergniigte Lyriker, deren Gedichte nicht mehr gelesen wer- 
 den, und Spatzenkopfe, welche den Pessimismus fiir besonderen 
 Tiefsinn halten und um jeden Preis tiefsinnig erscheinen 
 wollen."- 
 
 But it is with Weltschmerz in its outward manifestations as 
 it finds expression in the poet's writings, that we shall be chiefly 
 concerned in the following pages. And here the subdivisions, 
 if we attempt to classify, must be almost as numerous as the 
 representatives themselves. In Holderlin we have the ardent 
 Hellenic idealist ; Lenau gives expression to all the pathos of 
 
 ' "Les Poetes Lyriques cle I'Autriche," Paris, 1886, p. 293. 
 
 ^ "Vortrage und Aufsatze zur Geschichte des geistigen Lebens in Deutscliland 
 und Oesterreich," Berlin, 1874, p. 413.
 
 Weltschmerz, Heine is its satirist, the misanthrope, while in 
 Raabe we even have a pessimistic humorist. 
 
 This brief list needs scarcely be supplemented by other names 
 of poets of melancholy, such as Reinhold Lenz, Heinrich von 
 Kleist, Robert Southey, Byron, Leopardi, in order to command 
 our attention by reason of the tragic fate which ended the lives 
 of nearly all of these men, the most frequent and the most ter- 
 rible being that of insanity. It is of course a matter of common 
 knowledge that chronic melancholy or the persistent brooding 
 over personal misfortune is an almost inevitable preliminary to 
 mental derangement. And when this melancholy takes root in 
 the finely organized mind of genius, it is only to be expected 
 that the result will be even more disastrous than in the case of 
 the ordinary mind. Lombroso holds the opinion that if men of 
 genius are not all more or less insane, that is, if the "spheres 
 of influence" of genius and insanity do not actually overlap, 
 they are at least contiguous at many points, so that the 
 transition from the former to the latter is extremely easy and 
 even natural. But genius in itself is not an abnormal mental 
 condition. It does not even consist of an extraordinary mem- 
 ory, vivid imagination, quickness of judgment, or of a combi- 
 nation of all of these. Kant defines genius as the talent of 
 invention. Originality and productiveness are the fundamental 
 elements of genius. And it is an almost instinctive force which 
 urges the author on in his creative work. In the main his 
 activity is due less to free will than to this inner compulsion. 
 
 "Ich halte diesen Drang vergebens auf, 
 Der Tag und Nacht in meinem Busen wechselt. 
 Wenn ich nicht sinnen oder dichten soil, 
 So ist das Leben mir kein Leben mehr," 
 
 says Goethe's Tasso.^ If this impulse of genius is embodied in 
 a strong physical organism, as for example in the case of 
 Shakespeare and Goethe, there need be no detriment to physical 
 health ; otherwise, and especially if there is an inherited ten- 
 dency to disease, there is almost sure to be a physical collapse. 
 Specialists in the subject have pointed out that violent passions 
 are even more potent in producing mental disease than mere 
 
 ^ Act 5, Sc. 2.
 
 intellectual over-exertion. And these are certainly character- 
 istic in a very high degree of the mind of genius. It has often 
 been remarked that it is the corona spinosa of genius to feel all 
 pain more intensely than do other men. Schopenhauer says 
 "der, in welchem der Genius lebt, leidet am meisten." It is 
 only going a step further then, when Hamerling writes to his 
 friend Moser : "Schliesslich ist es doch nur der Kranke, der 
 sich das Leid der ganzen Welt zu Herzen nimmt." 
 
 Radestock, in his study "Genie und Wahnsinn," mentions and 
 elaborates among others the following points of resemblance 
 between the mind of genius and the insane mind : an abnormal 
 activity of the imagination, very rapid succession of ideas, ex- 
 treme concentration of thought upon a single subject or idea, 
 and lastly, what would seem the cardinal point, a weakness of 
 will-energ}', the lack of that force which alone can serve to 
 bring under control all these other unruly elements and give 
 balance to what must otherwise be an extremely one-sided 
 mechanism. Here again the exception may be taken to prove 
 the rule. It is not too much, I think, to assert that Goethe 
 could never have become so uniquely great, not even through 
 the splendid versatility of his genius, but for that incomparable 
 self-control, which he made the watchword of his life. And in 
 the case of the poet of Weltschmerz the presence or absence of 
 this quality may even decide whether he shall rise superior to 
 his beclouded condition or perish in the gloom. The con- 
 clusion at which Radestock arrives is that genius, as the 
 expression of the most intense mental activity, occupies the 
 middle ground, as it were, between the normal healthy state on 
 the one hand, and the abnormal, pathological state on the other, 
 and has without doubt many points of contact with mental dis- 
 ease ; and that although the elements which genius has in 
 common with insanity may not be strong enough in themselves 
 to induce the transition from the former to the latter state, yet 
 when other aggravating causes are added, such as physical 
 disease, violent emotions or passions, overwork, the pressure or 
 distress of outward circumstances, the highly gifted individual 
 is much more liable to cross the line of demarkation between 
 the two mental states than is the average mind, which is more
 
 remote from that line. If this can be asserted of genius in 
 general, it must be even more particularly and widely applicable 
 in reference to a combination of genius and Weltschmerz. We 
 shall find pathetic examples in the first two types selected for 
 examination. 
 
 Having thus introduced the subject in its most general bear- 
 ings and aspects, it remains for us to review briefly its histor- 
 ical background. 
 
 Weltschmerz is essentially a symptom of a period of conflict, 
 of transition. The powerful reaction which marks the 
 eighteenth century — a reaction against all traditional intel- 
 lectual authority, and a struggle for the emancipation of the 
 individual, of research, of inspiration and of genius — reached 
 its high-water mark in Germany in the seventies. But with 
 the unrestrained outbursts of the champions of Storm and 
 Stress the problem was by no means solved ; there remained the 
 basic conflict between the idea of personal liberty and the 
 strait-jacket of Frederician absolutism, the conflict between 
 the dynastic and the national idea of the state. Should the 
 individual yield a blind, unreasoned submission to the state as 
 to a divinely instituted arbitrary authority, good or bad, or was 
 the state to be regarded as the conscious and voluntary cooper- 
 ation of its subjects for the general good? It was, moreover, 
 a time not only of open and active revolt, as represented by the 
 spirit of Klinger, but also of great emotional stirrings, and sen- 
 timental yearnings of such passive natures as Holty. Rous- 
 seau's plea for a simplified and more natural life had exerted a 
 mighty influence. And what has a most important bearing 
 upon the relation between these intellectual currents and Welt- 
 schmerz — these minds were lacking in the discipline implied in 
 our modern scientific training. Scientific exactness of think- 
 ing had not become an integral part of education. Hence the 
 difference between the pessimism of Ibsen and the romantic 
 Weltschmerz of these uncritical minds. 
 
 In accounting for the tremendous efifect produced by his 
 "Werther," Goethe compares his work to the bit of fuse which 
 explodes the mine, and says that the shock of the explosion was 
 so great because the young generation of the day had already
 
 undermined itself, and its members now burst forth individ- 
 ually with their exaggerated demands, unsatisfied passions and 
 imaginary sufferings.^ And in estimating the influences which 
 had prepared the way for this mental disposition, Goethe em- 
 phasizes the influence of English literature. Young's "Night 
 Thoughts," Gray's "Elegy," Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," 
 even "Hamlet" and his monologues haunted all minds. 
 "Everyone knew the principal passages by heart, and everyone 
 believed he had a right to be just as melancholy as the Prince 
 of Denmark, even though he had seen no ghost and had no 
 royal father to avenge." Finally Ossian had provided an emi- 
 nently suitable setting, — under the darkly lowering sky the 
 endless gray heath, peopled with the shadowy forms of de- 
 parted heroes and withered maidens. To quote the substance 
 of Goethe's criticism :- Amid such influences and surround- 
 ings, occupied with fads and studies of this sort, lacking all in- 
 centive from without to any important activity and confronted 
 by the sole prospect of having to drag out a humdrum existence, 
 men began to reflect with a sort of sullen exultation upon the 
 possibility of departing this life at will, and to find in this 
 thought a scant amelioration of the ills and tedium of the times. 
 This disposition was so general that "Werther" itself exerted 
 a powerful influence, because it everywhere struck a responsive 
 chord and publicly and tangibly exhibited the true inwardness 
 of a morbid youthful illusion.^ 
 
 Nor did the dawning nineteenth century bring relief. No 
 other period of Prussian history, says Heinrich von Treitschke,* 
 is wrapped in so deep a gloom as the first decade of the reign 
 of Frederick William III. It was a time rich in hidden intel- 
 lectual forces, and yet it bore the stamp of that uninspired 
 Philistinism which is so abundantly evidenced by the barren 
 
 ^ "Gcethes Werke," Weimar ed. Vol. 28, p. 22^ f. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 216 f. 
 
 ' In view of Goethe's own words, then, the caution of a recent critic (Felix 
 Melchior in Lift. Forscli. XXVII Heft, Berlin, 1903) against applying the term 
 Weltschmerz to "Werther," would seem to miss the mark entirely. Werther is a 
 type, just as truly as is Faust, though in a smaller way, and the malady which he 
 typifies has its ultimate origin in the development of public life, — the very condi- 
 tion which this critic insists upon as a mark of Weltschmerz in the proper appli- 
 cation of the term. 
 
 * "Historische und politische Aufsatze," Leipzig, 1897. Vol. 4.
 
 8 
 
 commonplace character of its architecture and art. Genius 
 there was, indeed, but never were its opportunities for public 
 usefulness more limited. It was as though the greatness of the 
 days of the second Frederick lay like a paralyzing weight upon 
 this generation. And this oppressing sense of impotence was 
 followed, after the Napoleonic Wars, by the bitterness of dis- 
 appointment, all the more keenly felt by reason of this first 
 reawakening of the national consciousness. Great had been 
 the expectations, enormous the sacrifice ; exceedingly small was 
 the gain to the individual.^ And the resultant dissonance was 
 the same as that to which Alfred de Musset gave expression in 
 the words : "The malady of the present century is due to two 
 causes; the people who have passed through 1793 and 18 14 
 bear in their hearts two wounds. All that was is no more ; all 
 that will be is not yet. Do not hope to find elsewhere the 
 secret of our ills."^ 
 
 This then in briefest outline is the transition from the cen- 
 tury of individualism and autocracy to the nineteenth century 
 of democracy. Small wonder that the struggle claimed its 
 victims in those individuals who, unable to find a firm basis of 
 conviction and principle, vacillated constantly between instinc- 
 tive adherence to old traditions, and unreasoned inclination to 
 the new order of things. 
 
 'As early as 1797 Holderlin's Hyperion laments: "Mein Geschaft auf Erden 
 ist aus. Ich bin voll Willens an die Arbeit gegangen, habe geblutet daruber, und 
 die Welt um keinen Pfennig reicher gemacht." ("Holderlin's gesammelte Dich- 
 tungen, herausgegeben von B. Litzmann," Stuttgart, Cotta, undated. Vol. II, p. 
 68.) Several decades later Heine writes: "Ich kann mich iiber die Siege meiner 
 liebsten Ueberzeugungen nicht recht freuen, da sie mir gar zu viel gekostet haben. 
 Dassclbe mag bei manchem ehrlichen Manne der Fall sein, und es tragt viel bei zu 
 der grossen dusteren Verstimmung der Gegenwart." (Brief vom 21 April, 1851, an 
 Gustav Kolb; Werke, Karpeles ed. Vol. IX, p. 378.) 
 
 -"Confession d'un enfant du siecle." CEuvres compl. Paris, 1888 (Charpen- 
 tier). Vol. VIII, p. 24.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Holderlin 
 
 A case such as that of HolderHn, subject as he was from the 
 time of his boyhood to melancholy, and ending in hopeless in- 
 sanity, at once suggests the question of heredity. Little or 
 nothing is known concerning his remote ancestors. His great- 
 grandfather had been administrator of a convent at Grossbott- 
 war, and died of dropsy of the chest at the age of forty-seven. 
 His grandfather had held a similar position as "Klosterhof- 
 meister und geistlicher Verwalter" at Lauffen, to which his 
 son, the poet's father, succeeded. An apoplectic stroke ended 
 his life at the early age of thirty-six. In regard to Holderlin's 
 maternal ancestors, our information is even more scant, though 
 we know that both his grandmother and his mother lived to a 
 ripe old age. From the poet's references to them we judge 
 them to have been entirely normal types of intelligent, lovable 
 women, gifted with a great deal of good practical sense. The 
 only striking thing is the premature death of Holderlin's great- 
 grandfather and father. But in view of the nature of their 
 stations in life, in which they may fairly be supposed to have 
 led more than ordinarily sober and well-ordered lives, there 
 seems to be no ground whatever for assuming that Holderlin's 
 Weltschmerz owed its inception in any degree to hereditary 
 tendencies, notwithstanding Hermann Fischer's opinion to the 
 contrary.^ There is no sufificient reason to assume "erbliche 
 Belastung," and there are other sufficient causes without merely 
 guessing at such a possibility. 
 
 But while there are no sufficient historical grounds for the 
 supposition that he brought the germ of his subsequent mental 
 disease with him in his birth, we cannot fail to observe, even in 
 
 ^ Am. f. d. Alt., vol. 22, p. 212-218.
 
 10 
 
 the child, certain natural traits, which, being allowed to develop 
 unchecked, must of necessity hasten and intensify the gloom 
 which hung over his life. To his deep thoughtfulness was 
 added an abnormal sensitiveness to all external influences. 
 Like the delicate anemone, he recoiled and withdrew within 
 himself when touched by the rougher material things of life.^ 
 He himself poetically describes his absentmindedness when a 
 bov, and calls himself "ein Traumer" ; and a dreamer he 
 remained all his life. It seems to have been this which first 
 brought him into discord with the world : 
 
 Oft sollt' ich stracks in meine Schule wandern, 
 Doch ehe sich der Traumer es versah, 
 So hatt' er in den Garten sich verirrt, 
 Und sass behaglich unter den Oliven, 
 Und baute Flotten, schifift' ins hohe Meer. 
 
 Dies kostete mich tausend kleine Leiden, 
 Verzeihlich war es immer, wenn mich oft 
 Die Kliigeren, mit herzlichem Gelachter 
 Aus meiner seligen Ekstase schreckten, 
 Doch unaussprechlich wehe that es mir." 
 
 If ever a boy needed a strong fatherly hand to guide him, to 
 teach him self-reliance and practical sense, it was this dreamy, 
 tender-spirited child. ^ The love and sympathy which his 
 mother bestowed upon him was not calculated to fit him for 
 the rugged experiences of life, and while probably natural and 
 pardonable, it was nevertheless extremely unfortunate that the 
 boy was unconsciously encouraged to be and to remain a "Mut- 
 tersohnchen." But even with his pecuHar trend of disposition, 
 the result might not have been an unhappy one, had the course 
 of his life not brought him more than an ordinary share of mis- 
 fortune. This overtook him early in life, for when but two 
 
 ' In a letter to his mother he writes: "Freilich ist's mir auch angeboren, dass 
 ich alles schwerer zu Herzen nehme." ("Friedrich Holderlins Leben, in Briefen 
 von und an Holderlin, von Carl C. T. Litzmann," Berlin, 1890, p. 27. Hereafter 
 quoted as "Brief e."). 
 
 ^ "Holderlins gesammelte Dichtungen, heravisgegeben von B. Litzmann," Stutt- 
 gart, Cotta (hereafter quoted as "Werke"). Vol. II, p. 9. 
 
 'It is a reminiscence of Holderlin's boyhood which finds expression in the 
 words of Hyperion: "Ich war aufgewachsen, wie eine Rebe ohne Stab, und die 
 wilden Ranken breiteten richtungslos iiber dem Boden sich aus." Werke, Vol. II, 
 
 p. T2.
 
 11 
 
 years of age his father died. His widowed mother now Hved 
 for a few years in complete retirement with her two children — 
 the poet's sister Henrietta having been born just a few weeks 
 after his father's demise. But it was not long before death 
 again entered the household and robbed it of Holderlin's aunt, 
 his deceased father's sister, who was herself a widow and the 
 faithful companion of the poet's mother. When the latter 
 found herself again alone with her two little ones, whose care 
 was weighing heavily upon her, she consented to become the 
 wife of her late husband's friend, Kammerrat Gock, and accom- 
 panied him to his home in the little town of Niirtingen on the 
 Neckar. But this re-established marital happiness was to be of 
 brief duration, for in 1779 her second husband died, and the 
 mother was now left with four little children to care and pro- 
 vide for. 
 
 The frequency with which death visited the family during 
 his childhood and youth, familiarized him at an early age with 
 scenes of sorrow and grief. No doubt he was too young when 
 his father died to comprehend the calamity that had come upon 
 the household, but it was not many months before he knew the 
 meaning of his mother's tears, not only for his father, but also 
 for his sister, who died in her infancy. Referring to his 
 father's death, he writes in one of his early poems, '"Einst 
 und Jetzt" ■} 
 
 Einst schlugst du mir so ruhig, emportes Herz! 
 
 Einst in des Vaters Schoosse, des liebenden 
 Geliebten Vaters, — aber der Wiirger kam, 
 Wir weinten, flehten, doch der Wiirger 
 Schnellte den Pfeil, und es sank die Stiitze. 
 
 At his tenderest and most impressionable age, the boy was thus 
 made sadly aware of the fleetingness of human life and the 
 pains of bereavement. We cannot wonder then at finding these 
 impressions reflected in his most juvenile poetic attempts. His 
 poem "Das menschliche Leben," written at the age of fifteen, 
 begins : 
 
 Menschen, Alenschen! was ist euer Leben, 
 
 1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 86.
 
 12 
 
 Eure Welt, die thranenvolle Welt! 
 Dieser Schauplatz, kann er Freude geben 
 Wo sich Trauern nicht dazu gesellt?^ 
 
 But a time of still greater unhappiness was in store for him 
 when he left his home at the age of fourteen to enter the con- 
 vent school at Denkendorf, where he began his preparation for 
 a theological course. A more direct antithesis to all that his 
 body and soul yearned for and needed for their proper develop- 
 ment could scarcely have been devised than that which existed 
 in the chilling atmosphere and rigorous discipline of the mon- 
 astery. He had not even an incentive to endure hardships for 
 the sake of what lay beyond, for it was merely in passive sub- 
 mission to his mother's wish that he had decided to enter holy 
 orders. And now, clad in a sombre monkish gown, deprived 
 of all freedom of thought or movement and forced into com- 
 panionship with twenty-five or thirty fellows of his own age, 
 who nearly all misunderstood him, Holderlin felt himself 
 wretched indeed. "War' ich doch ewig feme von diesen 
 Mauern des Elends !" he writes in a poem at Maulbronn in 
 1787,^ There was for him but one way of escape. It was to 
 isolate himself as much as possible from the world of harsh 
 reality about him, to be alone, and there in his solitude to con- 
 struct for himself an ideal world of fancy, a poetic dreamland. 
 This mental habit not only remained with him as he grew into 
 manhood, it may be said to have been through life one of his 
 most distinguishing characteristics. It would be impossible 
 to make room here for all the passages in his poems and letters 
 of this period, which reflect his love of solitude and his habit 
 of retreating into a world of his own imagining. His letters 
 to his friend Nast almost invariably contain some expression 
 of his heart-ache. "Bilfinger ist wohl mein Freund, aber es 
 geht ihm zu glucklich, als dass er sich nach mir umsehen 
 mochte. Du wirst mich schon verstehen — er ist immer lustig, 
 ich hange immer den Kopf."^ xA.nother letter begins : "Wieder 
 eine Stunde wegphantasiert ! — dass es doch so schlechte 
 Menschen giebt, unter meinen Cameraden so elende Kerls — 
 
 1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 36. 
 
 ^ "Auf einer Heide geschrieben," Werke, Vol. I, p. 44. 
 
 * Briefe, p. 27.
 
 13 
 
 wann mich die Freundschaft nicht zuweilen wieder gut machte, 
 so hatt' ich mich manchmal schon lieber an jeden andern Ort 
 gewiinscht, als unter Menschengesellschaft. — Wann ich nur 
 auch einmal etwas recht Lustiges schreiben konnte ! Nur 
 Gedult ! 's wird konimen — hoff' ich, oder — oder hab' ich dann 
 nicht genug getragen? Erfuhr ich nicht schon als Bube, was 
 den Mann seufzen machen wurde ? und als Jiingling, geht's da 
 besser? — Du lieber Gott! bin ich's denn allein? jeder andre 
 gliicklicher als ich? Und was hab' ich dann gethan?"^ There 
 is a world of pathos in this helpless cry of pain, with its sugges- 
 tion of retributive fate. A poem of 1788, "Die Stille," written 
 at Maulbronn, epitomizes almost everything that we have thus 
 far noted as to Holderlin's nature. He goes back in fancy to 
 the days of his childhood, describing his lonely rambles, from 
 which he would return in the moonlight, unmindful of his late- 
 ness for the evening meal, at which he would hastily eat of that 
 which the others had left : 
 
 Schlich mich, wenn ich satt gegessen, 
 Weg von meinem lustigen Geschwisterpaar. 
 
 O! in meines kleinen Stubchens Stille 
 
 War mir dann so iiber alles wohl, 
 
 Wie im Tempel war mir's in der Nachte Hiille, 
 
 Wann so einsam von dem Turm die Glocke scholl. 
 
 Als ich weggerissen von den Meinen 
 
 Aus dem lieben elterlichen Haus 
 
 Unter Fremden irrte, wo ich nimmer weinen 
 
 Durfte, in das bunte Weltgewirr hinaus, 
 
 O wie pflegtest du den armen Jungen, 
 
 Teure, so mit Mutterzartlichkeit, 
 
 Wann er sich im Weltgewirre miid gerungen, 
 
 In der lieben, wehmutsvollen Einsamkeit." 
 
 This love of solitude is carried to the extreme in his contem- 
 plation of a hermit's life. In a letter to Nast he says : "Heute 
 ging ich so vor mich hin, da fiel mir ein, ich wolle nach vollen- 
 deten Universitats Jahren Einsiedler werden — und der Gedanke 
 
 ' Briefe, p. 29. 
 
 2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 53 f.
 
 14 
 
 gefiel mir so wohl, eine ganze Stunde, glaub' ich, war ich in 
 meiner Fantasie Einsicdler."^ And although he never became 
 a hermit, this is the final disposition which he makes of himself 
 in his "Hyperion." 
 
 These habits of thought and feeling, formed in boyhood, 
 could lead to only one result. He became less and less quali- 
 fied to comprehend and to grapple with the practical problems 
 and difficulties of life, and entered young manhood and the 
 struggle for existence at a tremendous disadvantage. 
 
 Another trait of his character which served to intensify his 
 subsequent disappointments, was the strong ambition which 
 early filled his soul. He aspired to high achievements in his 
 chosen field of art. In a letter to Louise Nast, written prob- 
 ably about the beginning of 1790, he makes the confession: 
 "Der uniiberwindliche Triibsinn in mir ist wohl nicht ganz, 
 doch meist — unbefriedigter Ehrgeiz."^ The mere lad of 
 seventeen had scarcely learned to admire Klopstock, when he 
 speaks of his own "kampfendes Streben nach Klopstocks- 
 grosse," and exclaims : "Hinan den herrlichen Ehrenpfad ! 
 Hiiian ! ini gliihenden kiihnen Traum, sie zu erreichen !"^ It is 
 remarkable to note how this fancy of a dream-life becomes 
 fixed in Holderlin's mind and reappears in almost every poem. 
 Closely allied to this idea is that of a "gliickliche Trunkenheit," 
 and expressions like '"wie ein Gottertraum das Alter schwand," 
 "liebetrunken," "Wie ein Traum entfliehen Ewigkeiten," "sie- 
 gestrunken," "siisse, kiihne Trunkenheit," "trunken dammert 
 die Seele mir," can be found on almost every page of his shorter 
 poems. Hyperion expresses himself on one occasion in the 
 words : "O ein Gott ist der Mensch, wenn er traumt, ein 
 Bettler, wenn er nachdenkt, und wenn die Begeisterung hin ist, 
 steht er da, wie ein missrathener Sohn, den der Vater aus dem 
 Hause stiess, und betrachtet die armlichen Pfennige, die ihm 
 das ^litleid auf den Weg gab,"* which further illustrates the 
 extravagant idealism by which he allowed himself to be carried 
 away, and the etherial and thoroughly unpractical trend of his 
 
 * Briefe, p. 36. 
 
 - Briefe, p. 120. 
 
 * "Mein Vorsatz," Werke, Vol. I, p. 44. 
 
 * Werke, Vol. II, p. 69.
 
 15 
 
 mind. The flights of fancy of which HolderHn is capable are 
 well illustrated by another passage in "Hyperion." Referring 
 to Hyperion's conversation with Alabanda, he says : "Ich war 
 hingerissen von unendlichen Hoflfnungen, Gotterkrafte trugen 
 wie ein Wolkchen mich fort."^ These facts have a direct bear- 
 ing upon Holderlin's Weltschmerz, inasmuch as it was just 
 this unequal and unsuccessful struggle of the idealist with the 
 stern realities of life that brought about the catastrophe which 
 wrought his ruin. 
 
 And just as his ideals are vague and abstract, so too are the 
 expressions of his Weltschmerz. It needs no concrete idea to 
 arouse his enthusiasm to its highest pitch. Thus Hyperion ex- 
 claims: "Der Gott in uns, dem die Unendlichkeit zur Bahn 
 sich offnet, soil stehen und barren, bis der Wurm ihm aus dem 
 Wege geht ? Nein ! nein ! man f ragt nicht, ob ihr woUt ! ihr 
 wollt ja nie — ihr Knechte und Barbaren ! Euch will man auch 
 nicht bessern, denn es ist umsonst ! Man will nur dafiir 
 sorgen, dass ihr dem Siegeslauf der Menschheit aus dem Wege 
 geht !"- It is in the form of lofty generalities such as these, 
 and seldom with reference to practical details, that Holderlin's 
 longings find expression. 
 
 Entirely consistent with this idealism is the nature of his 
 love, ardent, but etherial, "iibersinnlich." This is reflected 
 also in his lyrics, which are statuesque and beautiful, but lack- 
 ing in passion and sensuous charm. Holderlin's earliest love- 
 affair, that with Louise Nast, is important for his Weltschmerz 
 only in its bearing upon the development of his general char- 
 acter. This influence was a twofold one : in the first place his 
 sweetheart was herself inclined to a sort of visionary mysticism, 
 and therefore had an unwholesome influence upon the youth, 
 who had already been carried too far in that direction. She 
 too was a lover of solitude and wrote her letters to him in the 
 stillness of the night, when all others were asleep. There can 
 be no doubt that she had at least some share in determining his 
 mental activity, especially his reading. In one of his earliest 
 letters to her he writes : "Weil Du den Don Carlos liest. will 
 
 ^ Werke, Vol. II, p. 90. 
 ^Werke, Vol. II, p. 86.
 
 16 
 
 ich ihn auch lesen."^ It was during this time too that that he 
 became so ardent an admirer of Schubart and Ossian. "Da 
 leg' ich meinen Ossian weg und komme zu Dir," he writes in 
 1788 to his friend Nast. "Ich habe meine Seele geweidet an 
 den Helden des Barden, habe mit ihm getrauert, wann er 
 trauert iiber sterbende Madchen."^ There is not a sensuous 
 note in all Holderlin's poems or letters to Louise. Typical are 
 the lines which he addresses to her on his departure from Maul- 
 bronn : 
 
 Lass sie drohen, die Stiirme, die Leiden, 
 
 Lass trennen — der Trennung Jahre 
 
 Sie trennen uns nicht! 
 
 Sie trennen uns nicht! 
 
 Denn mein bist du! Und iiber das Grab hinaus 
 
 Soil sie dauren, die unzertrennbare Liebe. 
 
 O! wenn's einst da ist 
 
 Das grosse selige Jenseits, 
 
 Wo die Krone dem leidenden Pilger, 
 
 Die Palme dem Sieger blinkt, 
 
 Dann Freundin — lohnet auch Freundschaft — 
 
 Auch Freundschaft der Ewige. ^ 
 
 The second bearing which his relations to Louise have upon 
 
 his Weltschmerz lies in the fact that his love ended in disap- 
 pointment. This is true not only of this particular episode, not 
 only of all his love-affairs, but it may even be said that disap- 
 pointment was the fate to which he found himself doomed in 
 all his aspirations. And in the persistency with which this 
 evil angel pursued his footsteps through life may be found 
 one of the chief causes of the early collapse of his faculties. 
 What David Miiller* and Hermann Fischer^ have said in their 
 essays in regard to this point — that Holderlin did not become 
 insane because his life was a succession of unsatisfactory situa- 
 tions and painful disappointments, but because he had not the 
 strength to work himself out of these situations into more 
 favorable ones — states only half the case. True, a stronger 
 
 ^ Briefe, p. 49. 
 
 * Briefe, p. 50. 
 
 3 Werke, Vol. I, p. 74. 
 
 * "Friedrich Holderlin, Eine Studie," Preuss. Jahrb., 1866, p. 548-568. 
 ^ Am. f. d. Altertum, Vol. 22, p. 212-218.
 
 17 
 
 mental organization might have overcome these or even greater 
 difficulties ; Schiller, Herder, Fichte are examples ; but not 
 all of Holderlin's failures and disappointments were the result 
 of his weakness, and so while it is right to state that a stronger 
 and more robust nature would have conquered in the fight, it 
 is also fair to say that Holderlin would have had a good 
 chance of winning, had fortune been more kind. For this 
 reason these external influences must be reckoned with as an 
 important cause of his Weltschmerz and subsequently of his 
 insanity. 
 
 This suggests an interesting point of comparison — if I may 
 be permitted to anticipate somewhat — with Lenau, the second 
 type selected. Holderlin earnestly pursued happiness and con- 
 tentment, but it eluded him at every step. Lenau on the con- 
 trary reached a point in his Weltschmerz where he refused to 
 see anything in life but pain, wilfully thrusting from him even 
 such happiness as came within his reach. 
 
 We may postpone any detailed reference to Holderlin's rela- 
 tions with Susette Gontard, which were vastly more important 
 in their influence upon the poet's character and Weltschmerz, 
 until we come to the discussion of his "Hyperion," of which 
 Susette, under the pseudonym of Diotima, forms one of the 
 central figures. 
 
 To speak of all the disappointments which fell to Holder- 
 lin's lot would practically require the writing of his biography 
 from the time of his graduation from Tiibingen to his return 
 from Bordeaux, almost the entire period of his sane manhood. 
 Unsuccessful in his first position as a tutor, and unable, after 
 having abandoned this, to provide even a meagre living for 
 himself with his pen, his migration to Frankfort to the house 
 of the merchant Gontard at last gave him a hope of better 
 things, but a hope which soon proved vain. Following close 
 upon these disappointments was his failure to carry out a 
 project which he had long cherished, of establishing a literary 
 journal ; then came his dismissal from a situation which he had 
 just entered upon in Switzerland. On his return he wrote to 
 Schiller for help and advice, and his failure to receive a reply 
 grieved him deeply. We can only surmise that it was a cruel
 
 18 
 
 disappointment, finally, which caused his sudden departure 
 from Bordeaux, and brought him back a mental wreck to his 
 mother's home. Even as early as 1788 Holderlin complains 
 bitterly in the poem "Der Lorbeer," in which he eulogizes the 
 poets Klopstock and Young and expresses his own ambition 
 to aspire to their greatness : 
 
 Schon so manche Friichte schoner Keime 
 Logen grausam mir ins Angesicht.' 
 
 As the years passed, this feeling of disappointment and disil- 
 lusion became more and more intense and bitter. A stanza 
 from one of his more mature poems (1795) "An die Natur," 
 will serve to illustrate the sentiment which pervades almost all 
 his writings : 
 
 Tot ist nun, die mich erzog und stillte, 
 Tot ist nun die jugendliche Welt, 
 Diese Brust, die einst ein Himmel fiillte. 
 Tot und diirftig wie ein Stoppelfeld; 
 Ach es singt der Friihling meinen Sorgen 
 Noch, wie einst, ein freundlich trostend Lied, 
 Aber hin ist meines Lebens Morgen, 
 Meines Herzens Friihling ist verbliiht.'' 
 
 In close causal connection w'ith Holderlin's Weltschmerz is 
 his belief that his life is ruled by an inexorable fate whose play- 
 thing he is. "Wenn hinfort mich das Schicksal ergreift, und 
 von einem Abgrund in den andern mich wirft, und alle Krafte 
 in mir ertrankt und alle Gedanken," Hyperion exclaims.^ He 
 goes even further, and conceives the idea of a sacrifice to Fate. 
 Thus he makes Alabanda say near the close of "Hyperion :" 
 "Ach ! weil kein Gliick ist ohne Opfer, nimm als Opfer mich, o 
 Schicksal an, und lass die Liebenden in ihrer Freude."* Wil- 
 helm Scherer calls attention to Gervinus' remark that new intel- 
 lectual tendencies which call for unaccustomed and unusual 
 mental effort often prove disastrous to single individuals, and 
 says : "Holderlin war also ein Opfer der Erneuerung des 
 deutschen Lebens — seltsam, wie der Gedanke des Opfers als 
 
 ^ Werke, Vol. I, p. 75. 
 
 * Werke, Vol. I, p. 146. 
 
 ' Werke, Vol. II, p. 107. 
 
 « Werke, Vol. II, p. 188.
 
 19 
 
 ein hoher unci herrlicher ihn in alien seinen Gedichten viel be- 
 schaftigt hat."^ But the poet does not apply this fatalism only 
 to himself, to the individual ; he widens its influence to human- 
 ity in general. "Wir sprechen von unserm Herzen, unsern 
 Planen, als waren sie unser," says Hyperion, "und es ist doch 
 eine fremde Gewalt, die uns herumwirft und ins Grab legt, 
 wie es ihr gefallt, und von der wir nicht wissen, von wannen sie 
 kommt, noch wohin sie geht :"- Perhaps nowhere better than 
 in Hyperion's "Schicksalslied' does he give poetic expression to 
 this thought. Omitting the first stanza it reads thus : 
 
 Schicksallos wie der schlafende 
 Saugling atmen 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 ruhn, 
 Es schwinden, es fallen 
 Die leidenden JMenschen 
 Blindlings von einer 
 Stunde zur andern, 
 
 Wie Wasser von Klippe 
 Zu Klippe geworfen, 
 
 Jahrlang ins Ungewisse hinab.* 
 
 The fundamental difference between Holderlin's "Anschauung" 
 and Goethe's is at once apparent when we recall the "Lied der 
 Parzen" from "Iphigenie." Holderlin does not bring the 
 blessed Genii into any relation with mortals, but merely con- 
 trasts their free and blissful existence, emphasizing their im- 
 munity from Fate, to which suffering humanity is subject. But 
 this humanity is represented by Holderlin characteristically as 
 helpless, passive — "schwinden," "fallen," "blindlings von einer 
 Stunde zur andern." Whereas the opening lines of Goethe's 
 
 ^ "Vortrage und Aufsatze," 1874, Fried. Holderlin, p. 354. 
 2Werke, Vol. II, p. 96. 
 3 Werke, Vol. II, p. 189.
 
 20 
 
 "Parzen" strike the keynote of conflict between the gods and 
 men : 
 
 Es fiirchte die Gotter 
 
 Das Menschengeschlecht! 
 
 Sie halten die Herrschaft 
 
 In ewigen Handen 
 
 Und konnen sie brauchen 
 
 Wie's ihnen gefallt. 
 
 Der fiirchte sie doppelt, 
 
 Den je sie erheben! 
 
 And those who come to grief at the hands of the gods, are not 
 weak passive creatures, but heaven-scaling Titans. This points 
 to the antipodal difference between the characters of these two 
 poets, and explains in part why Goethe did not succumb to the 
 sickly sentimentalism of which he rid himself in "Werther." 
 The difference between yielding and striving resulted in the 
 difference between an acute case of Weltschmerz in the one and 
 a healthy physical and intellectual manhood in the other. 
 
 Thus far it has been almost entirely the personal aspect of 
 Holderlin's Weltschmerz and its causes that has come under 
 our notice. And since he was a lyric poet, it is perhaps natural 
 that the sorrows which concerned him personally should find 
 most frequent expression in his verse. But notwithstanding 
 the fact that this personal element is very prominent in Holder- 
 lin's writings, Scherer's judgment is correct wdien he states : 
 "Die Grundstimmung war eine tiefe Verbitterung gegen die 
 Versunkenheit des Vaterlands."^ The reason is not far to 
 seek, especially when we consider the impossible demands of 
 the poet's extravagant idealism. The conditions in Germany 
 which had called forth the terrible arraignment of petty despot- 
 ism, crushing militarism, and political rottenness generally, in 
 the works of Lenz, Klinger and Schubart, had not abated. 
 Schubart was one of Hdlderlin's earliest favorites, so that the 
 latter was doubtless in this way imbued with sentiments which 
 could only grow stronger under the influence of his more ma- 
 ture observations and experiences. Even in his eighteenth 
 year, in a poem "An die Demut,"- he gives expression in strong 
 
 1 Cf. op. cit., p. 352. 
 ='Werke, Vol. I, p. 51-
 
 21 
 
 terms to his patriotic feelings, in which his disgust with his 
 faint-hearted, servile compatriots and his defiance of "Fiirsten- 
 laune" and "Despotenblut" are plainly evident. So too in 
 "Mannerjubel," 1788: 
 
 Es glimmt in uns ein Funke der Gottlichen! 
 
 Und diesen Funken soil aus der Mannerbrust 
 
 Der Holle IMacht uns nicht entreissen! 
 
 Hort es, Despotengerichte, hort es P 
 
 Perhaps nowhere outside of his own Wiirttemberg could he 
 have been more unfavorably situated in this respect. Under 
 Karl Eugen (1744-1793) the country sank into a deplorable 
 condition. Regardless of the rights of individuals and com- 
 munities alike, he sought in the early part of his reign to replen- 
 ish his depleted purse by the most shameless measures, in order 
 that he might surround himself with luxury and indulge his 
 autocratic proclivities. Among his most reprehensible viola- 
 tions of constitutional rights, were his bartering of privileges 
 and offices and the selling of troops. These things Holderlin 
 attacks in one of his youthful poems "Die Ehrsucht" (1788) : 
 
 Um wie Konige zu prahlen, schanden 
 
 Kleine Wiitriche ihr armes Land; 
 
 Und um feile Ordensbander wenden 
 
 Rate sich das Ruder aus der Hand.^ 
 
 Another act of gross injustice which this petty tyrant perpe- 
 trated, and which Holderlin must have felt very painfully, was 
 the incarceration of the poet's countryman Schubart from 1777 
 to 1787 in the Hohenasperg. But not only from within came 
 tyrannous oppression. Following upon the coalition against 
 France after the Revolution, Wiirttemberg became the scene of 
 bloody conflicts and the ravages of war. Under the regime of 
 Friedrich Eugen (1795-97) the French gained such a foothold 
 in Wiirttemberg that the country had to pay a contribution of 
 four million gulden to get rid of them. These were the condi- 
 tions under which Holderlin grew up into young manhood. 
 But deeper than in the mere existence of these conditions 
 themselves lay the cause of the poet's most abject humiliation 
 and grief. It was the stoic indifference, the servile submission 
 
 * Werke, \'^ol. I, p. 50. 
 2 Werke, Vol. I. p. 49.
 
 22 
 
 with which lie charged his compatriots, that called forth his bit- 
 terest invectives upon their insensible heads. His own words 
 will serve best to show the intensity of his feelings. In 1788 
 he writes, in the poem "Am Tage der Freundschaftsfeier :" 
 
 Da sail er (der Schwarmer) all die Schande 
 
 Der weichlichen Teutonssohne, 
 
 Und fluchte dem verderblichen Ausland 
 
 Und fluchte den verdorbenen Affen des Auslands, 
 
 Und weinte blutige Thranen, 
 
 Dass er vielleicht noch lange 
 
 Verweilen niiisse unter diesem Geschlecht.^ 
 
 Ten years later he treats the Germans to the following ignomin- 
 ious comparison : 
 
 Spottet ja nicht des Kinds, wenn es mit Peitsch' und Sporn 
 Auf dem Rosse von Holz, mutig und gross sich diinkt. 
 Denn, ihr Deutschen, auch ihr seid 
 Thatenarm und gedankenvoll." 
 
 With his friend Sinclair, who was sent as a delegate, he at- 
 tended the congress at Rastatt in November, 1798, and here he 
 made observations which no doubt resulted in the bitter char- 
 acterization of his nation in the closing letters of Hyperion. 
 This convention, whose chief object was the compensation of 
 those German princes who had been dispossessed by the ces- 
 sions to France on the left bank of the Rhine, afforded a spec- 
 tacle so humiliating that it would have bowed down in shame a 
 spirit even less proud and sensitive than Holderlin's. The 
 French emissaries conducted themselves like lords of Germany, 
 while the German princes vied with each other in acts of servil- 
 ity and submission to the arrogant Frenchmen. And it was 
 the apathy of the average German, as Holderlin conceived it, 
 toward these and other national indignities, that caused him to 
 put such bitter words of contumely into the mouth of Hy- 
 perion: "Barbaren von Alters her, durch Fleiss und Wis- 
 senschaft und selbst durch Religion barbarischer geworden, 
 tief unfahig jedes gottlichen Gefuhls— beleidigend fiir jede gut 
 geartete Seele, dumpf und harmonielos, wie die Scherben eines 
 weggeworfenen Gefasses— das, mein Bellarmin ! waren meine 
 
 » Werke, Vol. I, p. 66. 
 nVcrke. Vol. I, p. 165.
 
 23 
 
 Troster."^ In another letter Hyperion explains their incapac- 
 ity for finer feeling and appreciation when he writes : "Neide 
 die Leidensfreien nicht, die Gotzen von Holz, denen nichts man- 
 gelt, weil ihre Seek so arm ist, die nichts fragen nach Regen 
 und Sonnenschein, weil sie nichts haben, was der Pflege be- 
 diirfte. Ja, ja, es ist recht sehr leicht, gliicklich, ruhig zu sein 
 mit seichtem Herzen und eingeschranktem Geiste."- Their 
 work he characterizes as "Stiimperarbeit," and their virtues as 
 brilliant evils and nothing more. There is nothing sacred, he 
 claims, that has not been desecrated by this nation. But it is 
 chiefly his own experience which he recites, when, in speaking 
 of the sad pHght of German poets, of those who still love the 
 beautiful, he says : "Es ist auch herzzerreissend, wenn man 
 eure Dichter, eure Kunstler sieht — die Guten, sie leben in der 
 Welt, wie Fremdlinge im eigenen Hause."^ Still more extrav- 
 agantly does the poet caricature his own people when he writes : 
 "Wenn doch einmal diesen Gottverlassnen einer sagte, dass bei 
 ihnen nur so unvollkommen alles ist, weil sie nichts Reines 
 unverdorben, nichts Heiliges unbetastet lassen mit den plumpen 
 Handen — dass bei ihnen eigentlich das Leben schaal und sor- 
 genschwer ist, weil sie den Genius verschmahen — und darum 
 fiirchten sie auch den Tod so sehr, und leiden um des Austern- 
 lebens willen alle Schmach, weil Hohres sie nicht kennen, als 
 ihr Alachwerk, das sie sich gestoppelt."^ 
 
 But we should get an extremely unjust and one-sided idea of 
 Holderlin's attitude toward his country from these quotations 
 alone. The point which they illustrate is his growing estrange- 
 ment from his own people, which in the very nature of the case 
 must have had an important bearing upon his Weltschmerz. 
 But his feelings in regard to Germany and the Germans were 
 not all contempt. In many of his poems there is the true 
 patriotic ring. It is true, we can nowhere find any clear po- 
 litical program, neither could we expect one from a poet who 
 was so absorbed in his own feelings, and whose ideals soared so 
 high above the sphere of practical politics. In this too Hold- 
 
 iWerke, Vol. II, p. 198. 
 
 ^Werke, Vol. II, p. 97. 
 
 ^ Werke, Vol. II, p. 200. 
 
 * Werke, Vol. II, p. 200 f.
 
 24 
 
 erlin was the product of previous influences. With all their 
 clamor for political upheavals, the "Stiirmer und Dranger" 
 never arrived at any serious or practical plan of action. Not- 
 withstanding all this, the word Vaterland was always an 
 inspiration to Holderlin, and it is especially gratifying to note 
 that the calumny which he heaps upon the devoted heads of the 
 Germans is not his last word on the subject. Nor did he ever 
 lose sight of his lofty ideal of liberty for his degraded father- 
 land or cease to hope for its realization. In this strain he con- 
 cludes the "Hymne an die Freiheit" (1790) with a splendid 
 outburst of patriotic enthusiasm : 
 
 Dann am siissen, heisserrung'nen Ziele, 
 Wenn der Ernte grosser Tag beginnt, 
 Wenn verodet die Tyrannenstiihle, 
 Die Tyrannenknechte Moder sind, 
 Wenn im Heldenbunde meiner Briider 
 Deutsches Blut und deutsche Liebe gliiht, 
 Dann, O Himmelstochter! sing ich wieder, 
 Singe sterbend dir das letzte Lied.^ 
 
 What a remarkable change is noticeable in the tone which the 
 poet assumes toward his country in the lines "Gesang des 
 Deutschen," written in 1799, probably after the completion of 
 his "Hyperion" : 
 
 O heilig Herz der Volker, O Vaterland! 
 Allduldend gleich der schweigenden Muttererd' 
 Und allverkannt, wenn schon aus deiner 
 Tiefe die Fremden ihr Bestes haben. 
 
 Du Land des hohen, ernsteren Genius! 
 Du Land der Liebe! bin ich der Deine schon, 
 Oft ziirnt' ich weinend, dass du immer 
 Blode die eigene Seele leugnest.^ 
 
 How much the reproach has been softened, and with what 
 tender regard he strives to mollify his former bitterness ! To 
 this change in his feelings, his sojourn in strange places and 
 the attendant discouragements and disappointments seem to 
 have contributed not a little, for in the poem "Riickkehr in die 
 
 ^ Werke, Vol. I, p. 105. 
 ^^Werke, Vol. I, p. 196.
 
 25 
 
 Heimat," written in 1800, the contempt of "Hyperion" has been 
 replaced by compassion. He sees himself and his country 
 linked together in the sacred companionship of suffering, con- 
 sequently it can no longer be the object of his scorn. 
 
 Wie lange ist's, O wie lange! des Kindes Ruh' 
 1st hin, vmd hin ist Jiigend, und Lieb' und Gliick, 
 Doch du, mein Vaterland! du heilig 
 Duldendes ! siehe, du bist geblieben.^ 
 
 But the fact remains, nevertheless, that Holderlin from his 
 early youth felt himself a stranger in his own land and among 
 his own people. Some of the causes of this circumstance have 
 already been discussed. The fact itself is important because 
 it establishes the connection between his Weltschmerz and his 
 most noteworthy characteristic as a poet, namely, his Hellenism. 
 No other German poet has allowed himself to be so completely 
 dominated by the Greek idea as did Holderlin. And in his 
 case it may properly be called a symptom of his Weltschmerz, 
 for it marks his flight from the world of stern reality into an 
 imaginary world of Greek ideals. An imaginary Greek world, 
 because in spite of his Hellenic enthusiasm he entertained some 
 of the most un-Hellenic ideas and feelings. 
 
 That the poet should take refuge in Greek antiquity is not 
 surprising, when we consider the conditions which prevailed at 
 that time in the field of learning. It was not many decades 
 since the study of Latin and Roman institutions had been forced 
 to yield preeminence of position in Germany to the study of 
 Greek. Furthermore, his own Suabia had come to be recog- 
 nized as a leader in the study of Greek antiquity, and in his con- 
 temporaries Schiller, Hegel, Schelling, who were all country- 
 men and acquaintances of his, he found worthy competitors in 
 this branch of learning. His fondness for the language and 
 literature of Greece goes back to his early school days, espe- 
 cially at Denkendorf and Maulbronn. On leaving the latter 
 school, he had the reputation among his fellow-students of 
 being an excellent Hellenist, according to the report of Schwab, 
 his biographer. It was while there that Holderlin as a boj 
 
 1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 214.
 
 26 
 
 of seventeen first made use of the Alcaic measure in which he 
 subsequently wrote so many of his poems. 
 
 A full discussion of the technic of Holderlin's poems would 
 have so remote a connection with the main topic under con- 
 sideration that its introduction here would be entirely out of 
 place. It will suffice, therefore, merely to indicate along broad 
 lines the extent to which the Greek idea took and held posses- 
 sion of the poet. 
 
 Out of his i68 shorter poems, 126, exactly three-fourths, are 
 written in the unrhymed Greek measures.^ Those forms which 
 are native are confined almost entirely to his juvenile and 
 youthful compositions, and after 1797 he only once employs 
 the rhymed stanza, namely, in the poem "An Landauer."- As 
 a boy of sixteen, he wrote verses in the Alcaic and Asclepiadeian 
 measures,^ and soon acquired a considerable mastery over them. 
 At seventeen he composed in the latter form his poem "An 
 meine Freundinnen :" 
 
 In der Stille der Nacht denket an euch mein Lied, 
 Wo mein ewiger Gram jeglichen Stundenschlag, 
 Welcher naher mich bringt dem 
 Trauten Grabe, mit Dank begrusst.^ 
 
 While not exhibiting the finish of expression and musical qual- 
 ities of his more mature Alcaic lyrics, still it is not bad poetry 
 for a boy of seventeen, and the reader feels what the boy was 
 not slow to learn, that the stately movement of the Greek 
 stanzas lends an added dignity to the expression of sorrow, 
 which was to constitute so large a part of his poetic activity. 
 As already stated, the Alcaic measure was of all the Greek 
 verse-forms Holderlin's favorite, and the one most frequently 
 and successfully employed by him. He is very fond of intro- 
 ducing Germanic alliteration into these unrhymed stanzas, as 
 the following example will illustrate : 
 
 Und wo sind Dichter, denen der Gott es gab, 
 Wie unsern Alten, freundlich und fromm zu sein, 
 
 1 Werke, Vol. I. 
 
 ' Werke, Vol. I, p. 234. 
 
 ' "An die Nachtigall," "An meinen Bilfinger," Werke, Vol. I, p. 42f. 
 
 * Werke, Vol. I, p. 43.
 
 27 
 
 Wo Weise, wie die unsern sind, die 
 Kalten und Kiihnen, die unbestechbarn?^ 
 
 The Asclepiadeian stanza he employs much less frequently, 
 the Sapphic only once, and that with indifferent success. It 
 was the ode, dithyramb and hymn, the serious lyric, which 
 Holderlin selected as the models for his poetic fashion. In this 
 purpose he was not alone, for his friend Neuffer writes to him 
 in 1793, with an enthusiasm which in the intensity of expression 
 common at the time, seems almost like an inspiration: "Die 
 hohere Ode und der Hymnus, zwei in unsern Tagen, und viel- 
 leicht in alien Zeitaltern am meisten vernachlassigte Musen ! in 
 ihre Arme wollen wir uns werfen, von ihren Kiissen beseelt 
 uns aufraffen. Welche Aussichten ! Dein Hymnus an die 
 Kiihnheit mag Dir zum Motto dienen ! Mir gehe die Hofif- 
 nung voran."- 
 
 But it was in the form much more than in the contents of his 
 poems, that Holderlin carried out the Greek idea. Most of his 
 lyrics are occasional poems, or have abstract subjects, as for 
 example, "An die Stille," "An die Ehre," "An den Genius der 
 Kiihnheit," and so on. Only here and there does he take a 
 classic subject or introduce classic references. The truth of the 
 matter is, that with all his fervid enthusiasm for Hellenic ideals, 
 and with all his Greek cult, Holderlin was not the genuine Hel- 
 lenist he thought himself to be. This is due to the fact that his 
 turning to Greece was in its final analysis attributable rather to 
 selfish than to altruistic motives. He wanted to get away from 
 the deplorable realities about him, the things which hurt his 
 tender soul, and so he constructed for himself this idealized 
 world of ancient and modern Greece, and peopled it with his 
 own creations. 
 
 In Holderlin's "Hyperion," we have the first poetic work in 
 German which takes modern Greece as its locality and a 
 modern Hellene as its hero. Holderlin calls it "ein Roman," 
 but it would be rather inaccurately described by the usual trans- 
 lation of that term. It is not only the poetic climax of his 
 Hellenism, but also the most complete expression of his Welt- 
 
 ^ Werke, Vol. I, p. 197. 
 - Briefe, p. 160.
 
 28 
 
 schmerz in its various phases. It must naturally be both, for 
 the poet and the hero are one. He speaks of it as "mein 
 Werkchen, in dem ich lebe und webe."^ Its subject is the 
 emancipation of Greece. What little action is narrated may be 
 very briefly indicated. Russia is at war with Turkey and calls 
 upon Hellas to liberate itself. The hero and his friend Ala- 
 banda are at the head of a band of volunteers, fighting the 
 Turks. After several minor successes Hyperion lays siege 
 to the Spartan fortress of Misitra, But at its capitulation, he 
 is undeceived concerning the Hellenic patriots; they ravage 
 and plunder so fiercely that he turns from them with repug- 
 nance and both he and Alabanda abandon the cause of liberty 
 which they had championed. To his bride Hyperion had 
 promised a redeemed Greece — a lament is all that he can bring 
 her. She dies, Hyperion comes to Germany where his 
 aesthetic Greek soul is severely jarred by the sordidness, apathy 
 and insensibility of these "barbarians." Returning to the 
 Isthmus, he becomes a hermit and writes his letters to Bell- 
 armin, no less "thatenarm und gedankenvoll" himself than his 
 unfortunate countrymen whom he so characterizes. - 
 
 "Hyperion," though written in prose, is scarcely anything 
 more than a long drawn out lyric poem, so thoroughly is action 
 subordinated to reflection, and so beautiful and rhythmic is the 
 dignified flow of its periods. But having said that the locality 
 is Greece and its hero is supposed to be a modern Greek, that in 
 its scenic descriptions Holderlin produces some wonderfully 
 natural effects, and that the language shows the imitation of 
 Greek turns of expression — Homeric epithets and similes — 
 having said this, we have mentioned practically all the Greek 
 characteristics of the composition. And there is much in it 
 that is entirely un-Hellenic. To begin with, the form in which 
 "Hyperion" is cast, that of letters, written not even during the 
 progress of the events narrated, but after they are all a thing 
 of the past, is not at all a Greek idea. Moreover Weltschmerz, 
 which constitutes the "Grundstimmung" of all HolderHn's 
 writings, and which is most plainly and persistently expressed 
 
 ' Briefe, p. 162. 
 ' Cf. supra, p. 33.
 
 29 
 
 in "Hyperion," is not Hellenic. Not that we should have to 
 look in vain for pessimistic utterances from the classical poets 
 of Greece — for does not Sophocles make the deliberate state- 
 ment : "Not to be born is the most reasonable, but having seen 
 the light, the next best thing is to go to the place whence we 
 came as soon as possible."^ Nevertheless, this sort of senti- 
 ment cannot be regarded as representing the spirit of the 
 ancient Greeks, which was distinctly optimistic. They were 
 happy in their worship of beauty in art and in nature, and above 
 all, happy in their creativeness. The question suggests itself 
 here, whether a poet can ever be a genuine pessimist, since he 
 has within him the everlasting impulse to create. And to 
 create is to hope. Hyperion himself says : "Es lebte nichts, 
 wenn es nicht hoffte."^ But we have already distinguished 
 between pessimism as a system of philosophy, and Welt- 
 schmerz as a poetic mood.^ It is certainly un-Hellenic that 
 Holderlin allows Hyperion with his alleged Greek nature to 
 sink into contemplative inactivity. 
 
 In the poem "Der Lorbeer," 1789, he exclaims : 
 
 Soil ewiges Trauern mich umwittern, 
 Ewig mich toten die bange Sehnsucht?* 
 
 which gives expression to the fact that in his Weltschmerz 
 there was a very large admixture of "Sehnsucht," an entirely 
 un-Hellenic feeling. Nor is there to be found in his entire 
 make-up the slightest trace of Greek irony, which would have 
 enabled him to overcome much of the bitterness of his life, and 
 which might indeed have averted its final catastrophe. 
 
 Undeniably Grecian is Holderlin's idea that the beautiful is 
 also the good. Long years he sought for this combined ideal. 
 In Diotima, the muse of his "Hyperion," whose prototype was 
 Susette Gontard, he has found it — and now he feels that he is in 
 a new world. To his friend Neufifer, from whom he has no 
 secrets, he writes: "Ich konnte wohl sonst glauben, ich wisse, 
 was schon und gut sei, aber seit ich's sehe, mocht' ich lachen 
 tiber all mein Wissen. Lieblichkeit und Hoheit, und Rub und 
 
 1 CEdipus Coloneus," 1225 seq. 
 2Werke, Vol. II, p. 81. 
 ' Cf. Introduction, p. i f. 
 * Werke, Vol. I, p. 89.
 
 30 
 
 Leben, und Geist und Gemiit und Gestalt ist Ein seeliges Eins 
 in diesem Wesen."^ And six or eight months later: "Mein 
 Schonheitsinn ist nun vor Storung sicher. Er orientiert sich 
 ewig an diesem Madonnenkopfe. . . . Sie ist schon wie Engel ! 
 Ein zartes, geistiges, himmlisch reizendes Gesicht! Ach ich 
 konnte ein Jahrtausend lang mich und alles vergessen bei ihr — 
 Majestat und Zartlichkeit, und Frohhchkeit und Ernst— und 
 Leben und Geist, alles ist in und an ihr zu einem gottlichen 
 Ganzen vereint."^ It would be difficult to conceive of a more 
 complete and sublime eulogy of any object of affection than 
 the words just quoted, and yet they do not conceal their 
 author's etherial quality of thought, his "Uebersinnlichkeit." 
 Even his boyish love-afifairs seem to have been largely of this 
 character, and were in all likelihood due to the necessity which 
 he felt of bestowing his affection somewhere, rather than to 
 irresistible forces proceeding from the objects of his regard. 
 
 Lack of self-restraint, so often characteristic of the poet of 
 Weltschmerz, was not Holderlin's greatest fault. And yet if 
 his intense devotion to Susette remained undebased by sensual 
 desires, as we know it did, this was not solely due to the prac- 
 tice of heroic self-restraint, but must be attributed in part to 
 the fact that that side of his nature was entirely subordinate to 
 his higher ideals ; and these were always a stronger passion 
 with Holderlin than his love. So that Diotima's judgment of 
 Hyperion is correct when she says : "O es ist so ganz natiir- 
 lich, dass Du nimmer lieben willst, weil Deine grossern 
 Wiinsche verschmachten."' This consideration at once com- 
 pels a comparison with Lenau, which must be deferred, how- 
 ever, until the succeeding chapter. Undoubtedly this year and 
 a half at Frankfurt was the happiest period of his whole life. 
 It brought him a serenity of mind which he had never before 
 known. Ardent was the response called forth by his devotion, 
 but its influence was wholesome — it was soothing to his sensi- 
 tive nerves. And because it was altogether more a sublime 
 than an earthly passion, he indulged himself in it with a con- 
 
 ^ Briefe, p. 382 f. 
 
 ^ Briefe, p. 403-405. 
 
 ' Werke, Vol. II, p. 175.
 
 31 
 
 science void of offence. Doubtless he correctly describes the 
 influence of his relations with Diotima upon his life when he 
 writes : "Ich sage Dir, lieber Neuff'er ! ich bin auf dem Wege, 
 ein recht guter Knabe zu werden. . . . mein Herz ist voll Lust, 
 und wenn das heilige Schicksal mir mein gliicklich Leben erhalt, 
 so hoft" ich kiinftig mehr zu thun als bisher.'"^ But the happy 
 life was not to continue long. Rudely the cup was dashed 
 from his lips, and the poet's pain intensified by one more disap- 
 pointment — the bitterest of all he had experienced. It filled 
 him with thoughts of revenge, which he was powerless to exe- 
 cute. There can be no question that if his love for Susette had 
 been of a less etherial order, less a thing of the soul, he would 
 have felt much less bitterly her husband's violent interference. 
 But returning to the poem "Hyperion," for as such we may 
 regard it, we find in it the most complete expression of the 
 attitude which the poet, in his Weltschmerz, assumed toward 
 nature. Nature is his constant companion, mother, comforter 
 in sorrow, in his brighter moments his deity. This nature- 
 worship, which speedily develops into a more or less consistent 
 pantheism, Holderlin expresses in Hyperion's second letter, 
 in the following creed : "Eines zu sein mit allem, was lebt, in 
 seliger Selbstvergessenheit wiederzukehren ins All der Natur, 
 das ist der Gipfel der Gedanken und Freuden, das ist die heilige 
 Bergeshohe, der Ort der ewigen Ruhe."- And so nature is to 
 Holderlin always intensely real and personal. The sea is 
 youthful, full of exuberant joy ; the mountain-tops are hopeful 
 and serene; with shouts of joy the stream hurls itself like a 
 giant down into the forests. Here and there his personification 
 of nature becomes even more striking: "O das Morgenlicht 
 und ich, wir gingen uns entgegen, wie versohnte Freunde."' 
 Still more intense is this feeling of personal intimacy, when he 
 exclaims : "O selige Natur ! ich weiss nicht, wie mir geschiehet, 
 wenn ich mein Auge erhebe von deiner Schone, aber alle Lust 
 des Himmels ist in den Thranen, die ich weine vor dir, der 
 Geliebte vor der Geliebten."* It is important for purposes of 
 
 ^ Briefe, p. 404. 
 2Werke, Vol. II, p. 68. 
 ^ Werke, Vol. II, p. 100. 
 «Werke, Vol. II, p. 68.
 
 32 
 
 comparison, to note that notwithstanding his intense Welt- 
 schmerz, in his treatment of nature HolderHn does not select 
 only its gloomy or terrible aspects. Light and shade alternate 
 in his descriptions, and only here and there is the background 
 entirely unrelieved. The thunderstorm is to him a dispenser of 
 divine energies among forest and field, even the seasons of 
 decline and decay are not left without sunshine: "auf der 
 stummen entblatterten Landschaft, wo der Himmel schoner 
 als je, mit Wolken und Sonnenschein um die herbstlich schla- 
 fenden Baume spielte."^ One passage in "Hyperion" bears so 
 striking a resemblance, however, to Lenau's characteristic 
 nature-pictures, that it shall be given in full — although even 
 here, when the gloom of his sorrow and disappointment was 
 steadily deepening, he does not fail to derive comfort from the 
 warm sunshine, a thought for which we should probably look 
 in vain, had Lenau painted the picture: "Ich sass mit Ala- 
 banda auf einem Hiigel der Gegend, in lieblich warmender 
 Sonn', und um uns spielte der Wind mit abgefallenem Laube, 
 Das Land war stumm ; nur hie und da ertonte im Wald ein 
 stiirzender Baum, vom Landmann gefallt, und neben uns mur- 
 melte der vergangliche Regenbach hinab ins ruhige Meer."^ 
 
 In spite of his deep and persistent Weltschmerz, Holderlin 
 rarely gives expression to a longing for death. This forms so 
 prominent a feature in the thought of other types of Welt- 
 schmerz, for instance of Lenau and of Leopardi, that its ab- 
 sence here cannot fail to be noticed. It is true that in his 
 dramatic poem "Der Tod des Empedokles," which symbolizes 
 the closing of his account with the world, Holderlin causes his 
 hero to return voluntarily to nature by plunging into the fiery 
 crater of Mount Etna. But Empedokles does this to atone 
 for past sin, not merely to rid himself of the pain of living ; and 
 thus, even as a poetic idea, it impresses us very differently from 
 the continual yearning for death which pervades the writings 
 of the two poets just mentioned. Leopardi declared that it 
 were best never to see the light, but denounced suicide as a 
 cowardly act of selfishness ; and yet at the approach of an epi- 
 
 ^Werke, Vol. II, p. 85. 
 2 Werke, Vol. II, p. 181.
 
 33 
 
 demic of cholera, he clung so tenaciously to life that he urged a 
 hurried departure from Naples, regardless of the hardships of 
 such a journey in his feeble condition, and took refuge in a 
 little villa near Vesuvius. Holderlin's Weltschmerz was abso- 
 lutely sincere. 
 
 Numerous passages might be quoted to show that Holder- 
 lin's mind was intensely introspective. This is true also of 
 Lenau, even to a greater extent, and may be taken as generally 
 characteristic of poets of this type. The fact that this intro- 
 spection is an inevitable symptom in many mental derange- 
 ments, hypochondria, melancholia and others, indicates a not 
 very remote relation of Weltschmerz to insanity. In Holder- 
 lin's poems there are not a few premonitions of the sad fate 
 which awaited him. One illustration from the poem "An die 
 Hoffnung," 1801, may suffice: 
 
 Wo bist du? wenig lebt' ich, doch atmet kalt 
 Mein Abend schon. Und stille, den Schatten gleich, 
 Bin ich schon hier; und schon gesanglos 
 Schlummert das schau'rende Herz im Busen/ 
 
 It is impossible to read these lines without feeling something of 
 the cold chill of the heart that Holderlin felt was already upon 
 him, and which he expresses in a manner so intensely realistic 
 and yet so beautiful. 
 
 Having thus attempted a review of the growth of Holder- 
 lin's Weltschmerz and of its chief characteristics, it merely 
 remains to conclude the chapter with a brief resume. We 
 have then in Friedrich Holderlin a youth peculiarly predis- 
 posed to feel himself isolated from and repelled by the world, 
 growing up without a strong fatherly hand to guide, giving 
 himself over more and more to solitude and so becoming 
 continually less able to cope with untoward circumstances and 
 conditions. Growing into manhood, he was unfortunate in all 
 his love-affairs and as though doomed to unceasing disappoint- 
 ments. Early in life he devoted himself to the study of an- 
 tiquity, making Greece his hobby, and thus creating for himself 
 an ideal world which existed only in his imagination, and taking 
 refuge in it from the buffetings of the world about him. He was 
 
 1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 253. 
 
 3
 
 34 
 
 a man of a deeply philosophical trend of mind, and while not 
 often speaking- of it, felt very keenly the humiliating condition 
 of Germany, although his patriotic enthusiasm found its artistic 
 expression not with reference to Germany but to Greece. As a 
 poet, finally, his intimacy with nature was such that nature-wor- 
 ship and pantheism became his religion. 
 
 In reviewing the whole range of Holderlin's writings, we 
 cannot avoid the conclusion, that in him we have a type of 
 Weltschmerz in the broadest sense of the term; we might 
 almost term it Byronism, with the sensual element eliminated. 
 He shows the hypersensitiveness of Werther, fanatical enthusi- 
 asm for a vague ideal of liberty, vehement opposition to exist- 
 ing social and political conditions ; there is, in fact, a breadth in 
 his Weltschmerz, which makes the sorrows of Werther seem 
 very highly specialized in comparison. Bearing in mind the 
 distinction made between the two classes, we must designate 
 Holderlin's Weltschmerz as cosmic rather than egoistic; the 
 egoistic element is there, but it is outweighed by the cosmic and 
 finds its poetic expression not so frequently nor so intensely 
 with reference to the poet himself, as with reference to mankind 
 at large.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Lenau 
 
 If Holderlin's Weltschmerz has been fittingly characterized 
 as idealistic, Lenau's on the other hand may appropriately be 
 termed the naturalistic type. He is par excellence the "Pathet- 
 iker" of Weltschmerz. 
 
 Without presuming even to attempt a final solution of a 
 problem of pathology concerning which specialists have failed 
 to agree, there seems to be sufficient circumstantial as well as 
 direct evidence to warrant the assumption that Lenau's case 
 presents an instance of hereditary taint. Notwithstanding the 
 fact that Dr. Karl Weiler^ discredits the idea of "erbliche Be- 
 lastung" and calls heredity "den vielgerittenen Verlegenheits- 
 gaul," the conclusion forces itself upon us that if the theory 
 has any scientific value whatsoever, no more plausible instance 
 of it could be found than the one under consideration. The 
 poet's great-grandfather and grandfather had been officers in 
 the Austrian army, the latter with some considerable distinc- 
 tion. Of his five children, only Franz, the poet's father, sur- 
 vived. The complete lack of anything like a systematic 
 education, and the nomadic life of the army did not fail to 
 produce the most disastrous results in the wild and dissolute 
 character of the young man. Even before the birth of the poet, 
 his father had broken his marriage vows and his wife's heart by 
 his abominable dissipations and drunkenness. Lenau was but 
 five years old when his father, not yet thirty-five, died of a dis- 
 ease which he is believed to have contracted as a result of these 
 sensual and senseless excesses. To the poet he bequeathed 
 something of his own pathological sensuality, instability of 
 thought and action, lack of will-energy, and the tears of a heart- 
 
 ^ Euphorion, 1899, p. 791. 
 
 35
 
 36 
 
 broken mother, a sufficient guarantee, surely, of a poet of mel- 
 ancholy. Even though we cannot avoid the reflection that the 
 loss of such a father was a blessing in disguise, the fact remains 
 that Lenau during his childhood and youth needed paternal 
 guidance and training even more than did Holderlin. He be- 
 came the idol of his mother, who in her blind devotion did not 
 hesitate to show him the utmost partiality in all things. This 
 important fact alone must account to a large extent for that pre- 
 sumptuous pride, which led him to expect perhaps more than 
 his just share from life and from the world. 
 
 Lenau's aimlessness and instability were so extreme that they 
 may properly be counted a pathological trait. It is best illus- 
 trated by his university career. In 1819 he went to Vienna 
 to commence his studies. Beginning with Philosophy, he soon 
 transferred his interests to Law, first Hungarian, then Ger- 
 man; finding the study of Law entirely unsuited to his tastes, 
 he now declared his intention of pursuing once more a phil- 
 osophical course, with a view to an eventual professorship. 
 But this plan was frustrated by his grandmother, the upshot of 
 it all being that Lenau allowed himself to be persuaded to take 
 up the study of agriculture at Altenburg. But a few months 
 sufficed to bring him back to Vienna. Here his legal studies, 
 which he had resumed and almost completed, were interrupted 
 by a severe affection of the throat which developed into 
 laryngitis and from which he never quite recovered. This too, 
 according to Dr. Sadger,^ marks the neurasthenic, and often 
 constitutes a hereditary taint. Lenau thereupon shifted once 
 more and entered upon a medical course, this time not abso- 
 lutely without predilection. He did himself no small credit in 
 his medical examinations, but the death of his grandmother, 
 just before his intended graduation, provided a sufficient ex- 
 cuse for him to discontinue the work, which was never again 
 resumed or brought to a conclusion. But not only in matters 
 of such relative importance did Lenau exhibit this vacillation. 
 There was a spirit of restlessness in him which made it impos- 
 sible for him to remain long in the same place. Of this condi- 
 tion no one was more fully aware than he himself. In one of 
 
 ^ "Nicolaus Lenau," Neue Fr. Pr., Nr. ii 166-7
 
 37 
 
 his letters he writes: "Gestern hat jemand berechnet, wieviel 
 Poststunden ich in zwei Monaten gefahren bin, und es ergab 
 sich die kolossale Summe von 644, die ich im Eilwagen unter 
 bestandiger Gemiitsbewegung gefahren bin."^ That this habit 
 of almost incessant travel tended to aggravate his nervous 
 condition is a fair supposition, notwithstanding the fact that 
 Dr. Karl Weiler- skeptically asks "what about commercial 
 travellers?" Lenau himself complains frequently of the dis- 
 tressing effect of such journeys: "Ein heftiger Kopfschmerz 
 und grosse iMiidigkeit waren die Folgen der von Linz an un- 
 ausgesetzten Reise im Eilwagen bei schlechtem Wetter und 
 abmiidenden Gedanken an meine Zukunft."^ Many similar 
 statements might be quoted from his letters to show that it was 
 not merely the ordinary process of traveling, though that at 
 best must have been trying enough, but the breathless haste of 
 his journeys, combined with mental anxiety, which usually 
 characterized them, that made them so detrimental to his 
 health. 
 
 It is as interesting as it is significant to note in this connec- 
 tion the fact that while on a journey to Munich, just a short 
 time before the light of his intellect failed, Lenau wrote the 
 following lines, the last but one of all his poems : 
 
 's ist eitel niclits, wohin mein Aug' ich hefte! 
 Das Leben ist ein vielbesagtes Wandern, 
 Ein wiistes Jagen ist's von dem zum andern, 
 Und unterwegs verlieren wir die Krafte. 
 
 Doch tragt uns eine Macht von Stund zu Stund, 
 Wie's Kruglein, das am Brunnenstein zersprang, 
 Und dessen Inhalt sickert auf den Grund, 
 So wait es ging, den ganzen Weg entlang, — 
 Nun ist es leer. Wer mag daraus noch trinken? 
 Und zu den andern Scherben muss es sinken.* 
 
 Holderlin also uses the striking figure contained in the last 
 line, not however as here to picture the worthlessness of human 
 
 * Schurz, Vol. II, p. 212. 
 
 * Cf. Eiiphorton, 1899, p. 795. 
 
 'Anton Schurz: "Lenau's Leben," Cotta, 1855 (hereafter quoted as "Schurz"), 
 Vol. II, p. 199. 
 
 * "Lenaus Werke," ed Max Koch, in Kiirschner's DNL. (hereafter quoted as 
 "Werke"), Vol. I, p. S2sf.
 
 38 
 
 life in general, but to stigmatize the Germans, whom Hyperion 
 describes as "dumpf und harmonielos, wie die Scherben eines 
 weggeworfenen Gefasses."^ 
 
 That Lenau was a neurasthenic seems to be the consensus of 
 opinion, at least of those medical authorities who have given 
 their views of the case to the public.- This fact also has an 
 important bearing upon our discussion, since it will help to 
 show a materially different origin for Lenau's Weltschmerz 
 and Holderlin's. 
 
 Much more frequent than in the case of the latter are the 
 ominous forebodings of impending disaster which characterize 
 Lenau's poems and correspondence. In a letter to his friend 
 Karl Mayer he writes: "Mich regiert eine Art Gravitation 
 nach dem Ungliicke. Schwab hat einmal von einem Wahnsinn- 
 igen sehr geistreich gesprochen. . . . Ein Analogon von sol- 
 chem Damon (des Wahnsinns) glaub' ich auch in mir zu be- 
 herbergen."^ He is continually engaged in a gruesome self- 
 diagnosis : "Dann ist mir zuweilen, als hielte der Teufel seine 
 Jagd in dem Nervenwalde meines Unterleibes : ich hore ein 
 deutliches Hundegebell daselbst und ein dumpfes Halloh des 
 Schwarzen. Ohne Scherz ; es ist oft zum Verzweifeln."* 
 This process of self-diagnosis may be due in part to his med- 
 ical studies, but much more, we think, to his morbid imagina- 
 tion, which led him, on more than one occasion, to play the 
 madman in so realistic a manner that strangers were fright- 
 ened out of their wits and even his friends became alarmed, 
 lest it might be earnest and not jest which they were witnessing. 
 
 Lenau was not without a certain sense of humor, grim 
 humor though it was, and here and there in his letters there is 
 an admixture of levity with the all-pervading melancholy. An 
 example may be quoted from a letter to Kerner in Weinsberg, 
 dated 1832 : "Heute bin ich wieder bei Reinbecks auf ein 
 grosses Spargelessen. Sparge! wie Kirchthurme werden da 
 gefressen. Ich allein verschlinge 50-60 solcher Kirchthurme 
 
 ^ Cf. supra, p. 22. 
 
 ' Cf. among others Sadger, Weiler. Infra, p. 88. 
 
 ' "Nicolaus Lenau's Briefe an einen Freund," Stuttgart, 1853, p. 68 f. 
 * "Nicolaus Lenau's sammtliche Werke," herausgegeben von G. Emil Barthel, 
 Leipzig, Reclam, p. CL
 
 39 
 
 und komme mir dabei vor, wie eine Parodie imserer politisch- 
 prosaischen, durchaus uiiheiligen Zeit, die auch schon das 
 Maul aufsperrt, um alles Heilige, und namentlich die guten 
 glaubigen Kirchthiirme wie Spargelstangen zu verschlingen." 
 The letter concludes with the signature : 'Teh umarme Dich, 
 bis Dir die Rippen krachen. Dein Niembsch."^ Not infre- 
 quently this humor was at his own expense, especially when 
 describing an unpleasant condition or situation, as for example 
 in a letter to Sophie Lowenthal in the year 1844 : "J^tzt lebe 
 ich hier in Saus und Braus, — d. h. es saust und braust mir der 
 Kopf von einem leidigen Schnupfen."^ Again, on finding him- 
 self on one occasion very unwell and uncomfortable in Stutt- 
 gart, he writes as follows : "Bestandiges Unwohlsein, Kopf- 
 schmerz, Schlaflosigkeit, Mattigkeit, schlechte Verdauung, 
 Rhabarber, Druckfehler, und Aerger iiber den tragen Fort- 
 schlich meiner Geschafte, das waren die Freuden meiner 
 letzten Woche. Emilie will es nicht gelten lassen, dass die 
 Stuttgarter Luft nichts als die Ausdiinstung des Teufels sei. — 
 Ich schnappe nach Luft, wie ein Spatz unter der Luftpumpe. — 
 In vielen der hiesigen Strassen riecht es am Ende auch 
 lenzhaft, namlich pestilenzhaft, und die guten Stuttgarter 
 merken das gar nicht ; 'siiss duftet die Heimat.' "^ In his 
 fondness for bringing together the incongruous, for introduc- 
 ing the element of surprise, and in the fact that his humor is 
 almost always of the impatient, disgruntled, cynical type, 
 Lenau reminds us not a little of Heine in his "Reisebilder" and 
 some other prose works. Holderlin, on the other hand, may 
 be said to have been utterly devoid of humor. 
 
 Lack of self-control, perhaps the most characteristic trait 
 among men of genius, was even more pronounced in Lenau 
 than in Holderlin, This shows itself in the extreme irregu- 
 larity of his habits of life. For instance, it was his custom 
 to work long past the midnight hour, and then take his rest 
 until nearly noon. He could never get his coffee quite strong 
 enough to suit him, although it was prepared almost in the 
 
 ^ Schurz, Vol. I, p. 169. 
 - Schurz, Vol. II, p. 144. 
 * Schurz, Vol. II, p. i52f.
 
 40 
 
 form of a concentrated tincture and he drank large quantities 
 of it. He smoked to excess, and the strongest cigars at that ; in 
 short, he seems to have been entirely without regard for his 
 physical condition. Or was it perverseness which prompted 
 him to prefer close confinement in his room to the long walks 
 which he ought to have taken for his health ? Even his recre- 
 ation, which consisted chiefly in playing the violin, brought 
 him no nervous relaxation, for it is said that he would often 
 play himself into a state of extreme nervous excitement. 
 
 All these considerations corroborate the opinion of those 
 who knew him best, that his Weltschmerz, and eventually his 
 insanity, had its origin in a pathological condition. Indeed 
 this was the poet's own view of the case. In a letter to his 
 brother-in-law, Anton Schurz, dated 1834, he says: "Aber, 
 lieber Bruder, die Hypochondrie schlagt bei mir immer tiefere 
 Wurzel. Es hilft alles nichts. Der gewisse innere Riss wird 
 immer tiefer und weiter. Es hilft alles nichts. Ich weiss, es 
 liegt im Korper ; aber — aber — "^ In its origin then, Lenau's 
 Weltschmerz dififers altogether from that of Holderlin, who 
 exhibits no such symptoms of neurasthenia. 
 
 Lenau's nervous condition was seriously aggravated at an 
 early date by the outcome of his unfortunate relations with the 
 object of his first love, Bertha, who became his mistress when 
 he was still a mere boy. His grief on finding her faithless was 
 doubtless as genuine as his conduct with her had been repre- 
 hensible, for he cherished for many long years the memory of 
 his painful disappointment. The general statement, "Lenau 
 war stets verlobt, fand aber stets in sich selbst einen Wider- 
 stand und unerklarliche Angst, wenn die Verbindung endgiltig 
 gemacht werden soUte,"- is inaccurate and misleading, inas- 
 much as it fails to take into proper account the causes, mediate 
 and immediate, of his hesitation to marry. Lenau was only 
 once "verlobt," and it was the stroke of facial paralysis^ which 
 announced the beginning of the end, rather than any "un- 
 
 ^ Schurz, Vol. I, p. 275. 
 
 * Ricarda Huch: "Romantische Lebenslaufe." Neue d. Rundschau, Feb. 1902, 
 p. 126. 
 
 'Sept. 29, 1844. Cf. Schurz, Vol. II, p. 223.
 
 41 
 
 erklarliche Angst," that convinced him of the inexpediency of 
 that important step. 
 
 Beyond a doubt his long drawn out and abject devotion to 
 the wife of his friend Max Lowenthal proved the most impor- 
 tant single factor in his life. It was during the year 1834, 
 after his return from America, that Lenau made the acquaint- 
 ance of the Lowenthal family in Vienna.^ Sophie, who was 
 the sister of his old comrade Fritz Kleyle, so attracted the 
 poet that he remained in the city for a number of weeks instead 
 of going at once to Stuttgart, as he had planned and promised. 
 What at first seemed an ideal friendship, increased in inten- 
 sity until it became, at least on Lenau's part, the very glow of 
 passion. We have already alluded to the poet's premature 
 erotic instinct, an impulse which he doubtless inherited from 
 his sensual parents. In his numerous letters and notes to 
 Sophie, he has left us a remarkable record of the intensity of 
 his passion. Not even excepting Goethe's letters to Frau von 
 Stein, there are no love-letters in the German language to 
 equal these in literary or artistic merit ; and never has any 
 other German poet addressed himself with more ardent devo- 
 tion to a woman. A characteristic difference between Holder- 
 lin and Lenau here becomes evident: the former, even in his 
 relations with Diotima, supersensual ; the latter the very incar- 
 nation of sensuality. Lenau was fully conscious of the tre- 
 mendous struggle with overpowering passion, and once con- 
 fessed to his clerical friend Martensen that only through the 
 unassailable chastity of his lady-love had his conscience re- 
 mained void of offence. Almost any of his innumerable 
 protestations of love taken at random would seem like the 
 most extravagant attempt to give utterance to the inexpres- 
 sible : "Gottes starke Hand driickt mich so fest an Dich, dass 
 ich seufzen muss und ringen mit erdriickender Wonne, und 
 meine Seele keinen Atem mehr hat, wenn sie nicht Deine Liebe 
 saugen kann. Ach Sophie ! ach, liebe, liebe, liebe Sophie !"^ 
 "Ich bete Dich an, Du bist mein Liebstes und Hochstes."' 
 
 •L. A. Frankl: "Lenau und Sophie Lowenthal," Stuttgart, 1891 (hereafter quoted 
 as "Frankl") p. 189, incorrectly states the date as 1838. Possibly it is a misprint 
 
 * Frankl, p. 155. 
 
 * Frankl, p. 151.
 
 42 
 
 "Am sechstcn Juni reis' ich ab, nichts darf mich halten. Mir 
 brennt Leib unci Seele nach Dir, Du ! O Sophie ! Hiitt' ich 
 Dich da ! Das \'erlangen schnierzt, O Gott !"^ Instead of ex- 
 periencing the soothing influences of a Diotima, Lenau's fate 
 was to be cngrp:ed for ten long years in a hot conflict between 
 principle and passion, a conflict which kept his naturally over- 
 sensitive nerves continually on the rack. He himself expresses 
 the detrimental effect of this situation : "So treibt mich die 
 Liebe von einer Raserei zur andern, von der ziigellosesten 
 Freude zu verzweifeltem Unmut. Warum? Weil ich am Ziel 
 der hochsten, so heiss ersehnten Wonne immer wieder umkehren 
 muss, weil die Sehnsucht nie gestillt wird, wird sie irr und wild 
 und verkehrt sich in Verzweiflung, — das ist die Geschichte 
 meines Herzens."- It would seem from the tone of many of 
 his letters that there was much deliberate and successful effort 
 on the part of Sophie to keep Lenau's feelings toward her al- 
 ways in a state of the highest nervous tension. So cleverly did 
 she manage this that even her caprices put him only the more 
 hopelessly at her mercy. One day he writes : "Mit grosser 
 Ungeduld erwartete ich gestern die Post, und sie brachte mir 
 audi einen Brief von Dir, aber einen, der mich krankt."^ For 
 a day or two he is rebellious and writes : "Ich bin verstimmt, 
 missmutig. Warum storst Du mein Herz in seinen schonen 
 Gedanken von innigem Zusammenleben auch in der Feme?"* 
 But only a few days later he is again at her feet: "Ich habe 
 Dir heute wieder geschrieben, um Dich auch zum Schreiben zu 
 treiben. Ich sehne mich nach Deinen Briefen. Du bist nicht 
 sehr eifrig, Du bist es wohl nie gewesen. Und kommt endlich 
 einmal ein Brief, so hat er mcist seinen Haken — O liebe 
 Sophie ! wie lieb' ich Dich !"^ Her attitude on several oc- 
 casions leaves room for no other inference than that she was 
 extremely jealous of his affections. When in 1839 a mutual 
 regard sprang up between Lenau and the singer Karoline 
 Unger, a regard which held out to him the hope of a fuller and 
 
 * Frankl, p. 164. 
 ^ Frankl, p. 102. 
 ^ Frankl, p. 149. 
 
 * Frankl, p. 150. 
 " Frankl, p. 150.
 
 43 
 
 happier existence, we may surmise the nature of Sophie's inter- 
 ference from the following reply to her: "Sie haben mir mit 
 Ihren paar Zeilen das Herz zerschmettert, — Karoline liebt 
 mich und will mein werden. Sie sieht's als ihre Sendung an, 
 mein Leben zu versohnen und zu begliicken. — Es ist an Ihnen 
 Menschlichkeit zu iiben an meinem zerrissenen Herzen. — Ver- 
 stosse ich sie, so mache ich sie elend und mich zugleich. — 
 Entziehen Sie mir Ihr Herz, so geben Sie mir den Tod ; sind 
 Sie ungliicklich, so will ich sterben. Der Knoten ist geschiirzt. 
 Ich wollte, ich ware schon tot !''^ Not only was this proposed 
 match broken off, but when some five years later Lenau made 
 the acquaintance of and became engaged to a charming young 
 girl, Marie Behrends, and all the poet's friends rejoiced with 
 him at the prospect of a happy marriage, a "Musterehe," as 
 he fondly called it, Sophie wrote him the cruel words : 
 "Eines von uns muss wahnsinnig werden."- Only a few 
 months were needed to decide which of them it should be. 
 
 The foregoing illustrations are ample to show what sort of 
 influence Sophie exerted over the poet's entire nature, and 
 therefore upon his Weltschmerz. Whereas in their hopeless 
 loves, Holderlin and to an even greater extent Goethe, strug- 
 gled through to the point of renunciation, Lenau constantly 
 retrogrades, and allows his baser sensual instincts more and 
 more to control him. He promises to subdue his wild out- 
 bursts a little,''' and when he fails he tries to explain/ to apol- 
 ogize.^ If with Holderlin love was to a predominating degree 
 a thing of the soul, it was with Lenau in an equal measure a 
 matter of nerves, and as such, under these conditions, it could 
 not but contribute largely to his physical, mental and moral 
 disruption. With Holderlin it was the rude interruption from 
 without of his quiet and happy intercourse with Susette, which 
 embittered his soul. With Lenau it was the feverish, tumultu- 
 ous nature of the love itself, that deepened his melancholy. 
 
 1 Schurz, Vol. II, p. 7. 
 
 - Cf. Lenaii's Sammtl. Werke, herausg. von G. Emil Bartel, Leipzig, ohne Jahr. 
 Introd., p. clxv. 
 ' Frankl, p. 32. 
 * Frankl, p. 14. 
 " Frankl, p. 30.
 
 44 
 
 The charge of affectation in their Weltschmerz would be an 
 entirely baseless one, both in the case of Holderlin and Lenau. 
 But this difference is readily discovered in the impressions 
 made upon us by their writings, namely that Holderlin's Welt- 
 schmerz is absolutely naive and unconscious, while that of 
 Lenau is at all times self-conscious and self-centered. Men- 
 tion has already been made, in speaking of Lenau's pathological 
 traits,^ of his confirmed habit of self-diagnosis. This he ap- 
 plied not only to his physical condition but to his mental expe- 
 riences as well. No one knew so well as he how deeply the 
 roots of melancholy had penetrated his being. 'Teh bin ein 
 Melancholiker" he once wrote to Sophie, "der Kompass meiner 
 Seele zittert immer wieder zuriick nach dem Schmerze des 
 Lebens."- Innumerable illustrations of this fact might be 
 found in his lyrics, all of which would repeat with variations 
 the theme of the stanza : 
 
 Du geleitest mich durch's Leben 
 
 Sinnende Melancholic! 
 
 Mag mein Stern sich strebend heben, 
 
 Mag er sinken, — weichest nie !^ 
 
 The definite purpose with which the poet seeks out and strives 
 to keep intact his painful impressions is frankly stated in one 
 of his diary memoranda, as follows: "So gibt es eine Hohe 
 des Kummers, auf welcher angelangt wir einer einzelnen 
 Empfindung nicht nachspringen, sondern sie laufen lassen, 
 weil wir den Blick fiir das schmerzliche Ganze nicht verlieren, 
 sondern eine gewisse kummervolle Sammlung behalten wollen, 
 die bei aller scheinbaren Aussenheiterkeit recht gut fort- 
 bestehen kann."* Holderlin, as we have noted, ^ not infre- 
 quently pictures himself as a sacrifice to the cause of liberty 
 and fatherland, to the new era that is to come: 
 
 Umsonst zu sterben, lieb' ich nicht; doch 
 
 Lieb' ich zu fallen am Opferhiigel 
 
 Fiir's Vaterland, zu bluten des Herzens Blut, 
 
 Fur's Vaterland . . . ." 
 
 iCf. s:ipra, 
 
 p. 38. 
 
 
 "Frankl, p. 
 
 15- 
 
 
 » Werke, I, 
 
 p. 89. 
 
 
 * Frankl, p. 
 
 114. 
 
 
 » Cf. supra. 
 
 p. 18. 
 
 
 » Holderlins 
 
 1 Werke, 
 
 Vol. 
 
 I, p. 19s.
 
 45 
 
 Lenau, on the other hand, is anxious to sacrifice himself to his 
 muse. "Kiinstlerische Ausbildung ist mein hochster Lebens- 
 zweck ; alle Krafte meines Geistes, meines Gemiites betracht' 
 ich als Mittel dazu. Erinnerst Du Dich des Gedichtes von 
 Chamisso/ wo der Maler einen Jiingling ans Kreuz nagelt, um 
 ein Bild vom Todesschmerze zu haben? Ich will mich selber 
 ans Kreuz schlagen, wenn's nur ein gutes Gedicht gibt."- And 
 again : "Vielleicht ist die Eigenschaft meiner Poesie, dass sie 
 ein Selbstopfer ist, das Beste daran."^ The specific instances 
 just cited, together with the inevitable impressions gathered 
 from the reading of his lyrics, make it impossible to avoid 
 the conclusion that we are dealing here with a virtuoso of 
 Weltschmerz ; that Lenau was not only conscious at all times 
 of the depth of his sorrow, but that he was also fully aware 
 of its picturesqueness and its poetic possibilities. It is true 
 that this self-consciousness brings him dangerously near the 
 bounds of insincerity, but it must also be granted that he never 
 oversteps those bounds. 
 
 Regarded as a psychological process, Lenau's Weltschmerz 
 therefore stands midway between that of Holderlin and Heine. 
 It is more self-centred than Holderlin's and while the poet is 
 able to diagnose the disease which holds him firmly in its grasp, 
 he lacks those means by which he might free himself from it. 
 Heine goes still further, for having become conscious of his 
 melancholy, he mercilessly applies the lash of self-irony, and 
 in it finds the antidote for his Weltschmerz. 
 
 Fichte, says Erich Schmidt, calls egoism the spirit of the 
 eighteenth century, by which he means the revelling, the com- 
 plete absorption, in the personal. This will naturally find its 
 favorite occupation in sentimental self-contemplation, which 
 becomes a sort of fashionable epidemic. It is this fashion 
 which Goethe wished to depict in "Werther," and therefore 
 Werther's hopeless love is not wholly responsible for his sui- 
 cide. "Werther untergrabt sein Dasein durch Selbstbetrach- 
 tung," is Goethe's own explanation of the case.* And it is in 
 
 ^ "Das Kruzifix, Eine Kunstlerlegende," 1820. 
 
 ^'Schurz, Vol. I, p. is8f. 
 
 ^ Schurz, Vol. II, p. 6. 
 
 * Cf. Breitinger: "Studien und Wandertage;" Frauenfeld, Huber, 1870.
 
 46 
 
 this light only that Werther's malady deserves in any compre- 
 hensive sense the term Weltschmerz. Here, then, Lenau and 
 Werther stand on common ground. Other traits common to 
 most poets of Weltschmerz might here be enumerated as charac- 
 teristic of both, such as extreme fickleness of purpose, supersen- 
 sitiveness, lack of definite vocation, and the like; all of which 
 goes to show that while for artistic purposes Goethe required a 
 dramatic cause, or rather occasion, for Werther's suicide, he 
 nevertheless fully understood all the symptoms of the prevail- 
 ing disease with which his sentimental hero was afflicted. 
 
 While the personal elements in Lenau's Weltschmerz are 
 much more intense in their expression than with Holderlin, its 
 altruistic side is proportionately weaker. So far as we may 
 judge from his lyrics, very little of Lenau's Weltschmerz was 
 inspired by patriotic considerations. There is opposition, it is 
 true, to the existing order, but that opposition is directed 
 almost solely against that which annoyed and inconvenienced 
 him personally, for example, against the stupid as well as rigor- 
 ous Austrian censorship. Against this bugbear he never ceases 
 to storm in verse and letters, and to it must be attributed in a 
 large measure his literary alienation from the land of his adop- 
 tion. That we must look to his lyrics rather than to his longer 
 epic writings, in order to discover the poet's deepest interests, is 
 nowhere more clearly evidenced than in the following refer- 
 ence to his "Savonarola," in a letter to Emilie Reinbeck during 
 the progress of the work: "Savonarola wirkte zumeist als 
 Prediger, darum muss ich in meinem Gedicht ihn vielfach 
 predigen und dogmatisieren lassen, welches in vierfiissigen 
 doppeltgereimten lamben sehr schwierig ist. Doch es freut 
 mich, Dinge poetisch durchzusetzen, an deren poetischer 
 Darstellbarkeit wohl die meisten Menschen verzweifeln. Auch 
 gereicht es mir zu besonderem Vergniigen, mit diesem Gedicht 
 gegen den herrschenden Geschmack unseres Tages in Oppo- 
 sition zu treten."^ The inference lies very near at hand that 
 his opposition to the prevailing taste was after all a secondary 
 consideration, and that the poet's first concern was to win glory 
 
 ' Schlossar: "Nicolaus Lenaus Briefe an Emilie von Reinbeck," Stuttgart, 1896 
 (hereafter quoted as "Schlossar"), p. 98.
 
 47 
 
 by accomplishing something which others would abandon as an 
 impossibility. While recognizing the fact that Lenau's 
 "Faust" and "Don Juan" are largely autobiographical, it is, I 
 think, obvious that an entirely adequate impression of his Welt- 
 schm.erz may be gained from his letters and lyrics alone, in 
 which the poet's sincerest feelings need not be subordinated for 
 a moment to artistic purposes or demands. And nowhere, 
 either in lyrics or letters, do we find such spontaneous out- 
 bursts of patriotic sentiment as greet us in Holderlin's poems: 
 
 Gliickselig Suevien, meine Mutter!^ 
 This could not be otherwise; for was he (Lenau) not an Hun- 
 garian by birth, an Austrian by adoption, and in his profes- 
 sional affiliations a German? Had his interests not been 
 divided between Vienna and Stuttgart, and had he not been 
 possessed with an apparently uncontrollable restlessness which 
 drove him from place to place, his patriotic enthusiasm would 
 naturally have turned to Austria, and the poetic expression of 
 his home sentiments would not have been confined, perhaps, to 
 the one occasion when he had put the broad Atlantic between 
 himself and his kin. That his brother-in-law Schurz should 
 wish to represent him as a dyed-in-the-wool Austrian is only 
 natural.- However this may be, the poet does not hesitate to 
 state in a letter to Emilie Reinbeck : "Ein Hund in Schwaben 
 hat mehr Achtung fiir mich als ein Polizeiprasident in Oester- 
 reich."" And although he professes to have become hardened 
 to the pestering interference of the authorities, as a matter of 
 fact it was a constant source of unhappiness to him. "So aber 
 w'ar mein Leben seit meinem letzten Briefe ein bestandiger 
 Aerger. Die verfluchten Vexationen der hiesigen Censurbe- 
 horde haben selbst jetzt noch immer kein Ende finden konnen."* 
 Speaking of his hatred for the censorship law, he says : "Und 
 doch gebiihrt mein Hass noch immer viel weniger dem Gesetze 
 selbst, als denjenigen legalisierten Bestien, die das Gesetz auf 
 eine so niedertrachtige Art handhaben; — und unsre Censoren 
 stellen im Gegensatze der pflanzen- und fleischfressenden Tiere 
 
 ^Werke, Vol. II, p. 260. 
 - Schurz, Vol. II, p. 193. 
 ^ Schlossar, p. 109. 
 * Schlossar, p. iii.
 
 48 
 
 die Klasse der geistfressenden Tiere dar, eine abscheuliche, 
 monstrose Klasse !"^ Roustan expresses the opinion that with 
 Lenau patriotism occupied a secondary place.^ He had too 
 many "native lands" to become attached to any one of them. 
 
 There is something of a counterpart to Holderhn's Hellen- 
 ism and championship of Greek liberty in Lenau's espousal of 
 the Polish cause. But here again the personal element is 
 strongly in evidence. A chance acquaintance, which afterward 
 became an intimate friendship, with Polish fugitives, seems to 
 have been the immediate occasion of his Polenlieder, so that 
 his enthusiasm for Polish liberty must be regarded as inci- 
 dental rather than spontaneous. Needless to say that with a 
 Greek cult such as Holderlin's Lenau had no patience what- 
 ever. "Dass die Poesie den profanen Schmutz wieder ab- 
 waschen miisse, den ihr Goethe durch 50 Jahre mit klassischer 
 Hand griindlich einzureiben bemiiht war ; dass die Freiheits- 
 gedanken, wie sie jetzt gesungen werden, nichts seien als kon- 
 ventioneller Trodel, — davon haben nur wenige eine Ahnung."^ 
 
 All these considerations tend to convince us that Lenau's 
 Weltschmerz is after all of a much narrower and more personal 
 type than Holderlin's. Again and again he runs through the 
 gamut of his own painful emotions and experiences, diagnosing 
 and dissecting each one, and always with the same gloomy 
 result. Consequently his Weltschmerz loses in breadth what 
 through the depth of the poet's introspection it gains in in- 
 tensity. 
 
 One of the most striking and, unless classed among his 
 numerous other pathological traits, one of the most puzzling 
 of Lenau's characteristics is the perverseness of his nature. 
 His intimate friends were wont to explain it, or rather to leave 
 it unexplained by calling it his "Husarenlaune" when the poet 
 would give vent to an apparently unprovoked and unreason- 
 able burst of anger, and on seeing the consternation of those 
 present, would just as suddenly throw himself into a fit of 
 laughter quite as inexplicable as his rage. He takes delight 
 
 * Schlossar, p. 112 f. 
 
 2 "Lenau et son Temps," Paris, 1898, p. 351. 
 
 * Schlossar, p. 103.
 
 49 
 
 in things which in the ordinarily constructed mind would 
 produce just the reverse feeling. Speaking once of a particu- 
 larly ill-favored person of his acquaintance he says : "Eine so 
 gewaltige Hasslichkeit bleibt ewig neu und kann sich nie ab- 
 niitzen. Es ist was Frisches darin, ich sehe sie gerne."^ And 
 in not a few of his poems we see a certain predilection for the 
 gruesome, the horrible. So in the remarkable figure employed 
 in "Faust:" 
 
 Die Traume, ungelehr'ge Bestien, schleichen 
 
 Noch immer nach des Wahns verscharrten Leichen.^ 
 
 This perverseness of disposition is in a large measure accounted 
 for by the fact that Lenau was eternally at war with himself. 
 Speaking in the most general way, Holderlin's Weltschmerz 
 had its origin in his conflict with the outer world, Lenau's on 
 the other hand must be attributed mainly to the unceasing con- 
 flict or "Zwiespalt" within his breast. In his childhood a 
 devout Roman Catholic, he shows in his "Faust" (1833-36) a 
 mind filled with scepticism and pantheistic ideas ; "Savonarola" 
 (1837) marks his return to and glorification of the Christian 
 faith; while in the "Albigenser" (1838-42) the poet again 
 champions complete emancipation of thought and belief. Only 
 a few months elapsed between the writing of the two poems 
 "Wanderung im Gebirge" (1830), in which the most orthodox 
 faith in a personal God is expressed, and "Die Zweifler" 
 (1831). The only consistent feature of his poems is their 
 profound melancholy. But Lenau's inner struggle of soul did 
 not consist merely in his vacillating between religious faith 
 and doubt ; it was the conflict of instinct with reason. This is 
 evident in his relations with Sophie Lowenthal. He knows 
 that their love is an unequal one^ and chides her for her cold- 
 ness,* warning her not to humiliate him, not even in jest f he 
 knows too that his alternating moods of exaltation and dejec- 
 tion resulting from the intensity of his unsatisfied love are de- 
 
 ^ Schlossar, p. 154. 
 ^Werke, Vol. II, p. 183. 
 ^ Frankl, p. 99. 
 * Frankl, p. 90. 
 " Frankl, p. 90.
 
 50 
 
 stroving- him.^ "Oetter hat sich der Gedanke bei mir ange- 
 meldet: Entschlage dich dieser Abhangigkeit und gestatte 
 diesem Weibe keinen so machtigen Einfluss auf deine Stim- 
 mungen. Kein Mensch auf Erden soil dich so beherrschen. 
 Doch bald stiess ich diesen Gedanken wieder zuriick als einen 
 Verrater an meiner Liebe, und ich bot mein reizbares Herz 
 wieder gerne dar Deinen zartlichen Misshandlungen. — O ge- 
 liebtes Herz ! missbrauche Deine Gewalt nicht ! Ich bitte Dich, 
 liebe Sophie !"^ And yet, in spite of it all, he is unable to 
 free himself from the thrall of passion : "Wie wird doch all 
 mein Trotz und Stolz so gar zu nichte, wenn die Furcht in mir 
 erwacht, dass Du mich weniger liebest" f and all this from the 
 same pen that once wrote: "das Wort Gnade hat ein Schuft 
 erfunden."* 
 
 But just as helpless as this defiant pride proved before his 
 all-consuming love for Sophie, so strongly did it assert itself 
 in all his other relations with men and things. A hasty word 
 from one of his best friends could so deeply offend his spirit 
 that, according to his own admission, all subsequent apologies 
 were futile/^ For Lenau, then, such an attitude of hero- 
 worship as that assumed by Holderlin towards Schiller, would 
 have been an utter impossibility. We have already seen the 
 extent to which he was over-awed (?) by Goethe's views when 
 they were at variance with their own.® On another occasion he 
 writes : "Was Goethe iiber Ruysdael faselt, kannte ich 
 bereits."^ Toward his critics his bearing was that of haughty 
 indifference : "Mag auch das Talent dieser Menchen, mich 
 zu insultieren, gross sein, mein Talent, sie zu verachten, ist auf 
 alle Falle grosser."* When his Friihlingsalmanach of 1835 
 had been received with disfavor by the critics, he professed to 
 be concerned only for his publisher : "Ich meinerseits habe 
 auf Liebe und Dank nie gezahlt bei meinen Bestrebungen."^ 
 
 1 Frankl, p. 192. 
 - Frankl, p. 173. 
 
 * Frankl, p. 103. 
 
 * Schlossar, p. 55. 
 
 ^ Cf. Schlossar, p. 93 f. 
 ' Cf. supra, p. 48. 
 '^ Schlossar, p. 46. 
 
 * Schlossar, p. 85. 
 
 * Schlossar, p. 83.
 
 51 
 
 "Die (Recensenten) wissen den Teufel von Poesie."^ Whether 
 this real or assumed nonchalance would have stood the test of 
 literary disappointments such as Holderlin's, it is needless to 
 speculate. 
 
 Holderlin eagerly sought after happiness and contentment, 
 but fortune eluded him at every turn. Lenau on the contrary 
 thrust it from him with true ascetic spirit. 
 
 The mere thought of submitting to the ordinary process of 
 negotiations and recommendations for a vacant professorship 
 of Esthetics in Vienna is so repulsive to his pride, that the 
 whole matter is at once allowed to drop, notwithstanding that 
 he has been preparing for the place by diligent philosophical 
 studies.^ The asceticism with which he regarded life in gen- 
 eral is expressed in a letter to Emilie Reinbeck, 1843, ^^ which 
 he says: "Wer die Welt gestalten helfen will, muss darauf 
 verzichten, sie zu geniessen."^ But more often this resigna- 
 tion becomes a defiant challenge: 'Teh habe dem Leben ge- 
 geniiber nun einmal meine Stellung genommen, es soli mich 
 nicht hinunterkriegen. Dass mein Widerstand nicht der eines 
 ruhigen Weisen ist, sondern viel Trotziges an sich hat, das 
 liegt in meinen Temperament."" 
 
 Another characteristic diflference between Lenau's Welt- 
 schmerz and Holderlin's lies in the fact that the writings of the 
 latter do not exhibit that absolute and abject despair which 
 marks Lenau's lyrics. Typical for both poets are the lines 
 addressed by each to a rose : 
 
 Ewig tragt im Mutterschosse, 
 Siisse Konigin der Flur, 
 Dich und mich die stille, grosse, 
 Allbelebende Natur. 
 
 Roschen unset Schmuck veraltet, 
 Sturm entblattert dich und mich, 
 Doch der ew'ge Keim entfaltet 
 Bald zu neuer Bliite sich P 
 
 1 Schurz, Vol. I, p. 176. 
 
 * Cf. Schlossar, p. 173. 
 ' Schlossar, p. 184. 
 
 * Schlossar, p. 87. 
 
 "Holderlin, "An eine Rose," Werke, Vol. I, p. 142.
 
 52 
 
 Unmistakable as is the melancholy strain of these verses, they 
 are not without a hopeful afterthought, in which the poet turns 
 from self-contemplation to a view of a larger destiny. Not so 
 in Lenau's poem, "Welke Rosen" : 
 
 In einem Buche blatternd, fand 
 
 Ich eine Rose welk, zerdriickt, 
 
 Und weiss auch nicht mehr, wessen Hand 
 
 Sie einst fiir mich gepfliickt. 
 
 Ach mehr und mehr ini Abendhauch 
 Verweht Erinn'rung; bald zerstiebt 
 Main Erdenlos; dann weiss ich auch 
 Nicht mehr, wer mich geliebt.^ 
 
 The intensely personal note of the last stanza is in marked con- 
 trast with the corresponding stanza of Holderlin's poem just 
 quoted. Further evidence that Lenau's Weltschmerz was con- 
 stitutional, while Holderlin's was the result of experience, lies 
 in this very fact, that nowhere do the writings of the former 
 exhibit that stage of buoyant expectation, youthful enthusiasm, 
 or hopeful striving, which we find in some of the earlier poems 
 of the latter. In Holderlin's ode "An die Hoffnung," he apos- 
 trophizes hope as "Holde ! giitig Geschaftige !" 
 
 Die du das Haus der Trauernden nicht verschmahst.^ 
 Lenau, in his poem of the same title, tells us he has done with 
 hope: 
 
 All dein Wort ist Windesfacheln; 
 
 Hoffnung! dann nur trau' ich dir, 
 
 Weisest du mit Trosteslacheln 
 
 Mir des Todes Nachtrevier.^ 
 
 Even his Faust gives himself over almost from the outset to 
 abject despair. 
 
 Logically consequent upon this state of mind is the poet's 
 oft-repeated longing for death. The persistency of this 
 thought may be best illustrated by a few quotations from 
 poems and letters, arranged chronologically : 
 
 1831. Mir wird oft so schwer, als ob ich einen Todten in mir 
 herumtriige/ 
 
 ^ Werke, Vol. I, p. 389. 
 
 ^ Holderlins Werke, \'ol. I, p. 253. 
 
 ^ Werke, Vol. I, p. 99. 
 
 * Schurz, Vol. I, p. 132.
 
 53 
 
 l833- Und mir verging die Jugend traurig, 
 
 Des FriJhlings Wonne blieb versaumt, 
 Der Herbst durchweht mich trennungsschaurig, 
 Mein Herz dem Tod entgegentraumt/ 
 1837. Heute dachte ich ofter an den Tod, nicht mit bitterem Trotz 
 und storrischem Verlangen, sondern mit freundlichem Ap- 
 petit." 
 
 1837. Soil ich Dir alles sagen? Wisse, dass ich wirklich daran 
 
 dachte, mir den Tod zu geben.' 
 
 1838. Der Gedanke des Todes wird mir immer freundlicher, und ich 
 
 verschwende mein Leben gerne.* 
 1838. Durchs Fenster kommt ein diirres Blatt 
 
 Vom Wind hereingetrieben; 
 Dies leichte offne Brieflein hat 
 Der Tod an mich geschrieben.^ 
 1840. Oft will mich's gemahnen, als hatte ich auf Erden nichts 
 mehr zu thun, und ich wiinschte dann, Gervinus mochte 
 recht haben, indem er, wie Georg mir erzahlte, mir einen 
 baldigen Zusammenbruch und Tod prophezeite. 
 
 1842. Ich habe ein wollustiges Heimweh, in Deinen Armen zu 
 
 sterben/ 
 
 1843. Selig sind die Betaubten ! noch seliger sind die Toten!* 
 
 1844. In dieses Waldes leisem Rauschen 
 1st mir, als hor' ich Kunde wehen, 
 Dass alles Sterben und Vergehen 
 Nur heimlichstill vergniigtes Tauschen.^ 
 
 If we should seek for the Leit-motif of Lenau's Weltschmerz, 
 we should unquestionably have to designate it as the transient- 
 ncss of life. Thus in the poem "Die Zweifler," he exclaims : 
 
 Verganglichkeit! wie rauschen deine Wellen 
 Durch's weite Labyrinth des Lebens fort!" 
 
 Ten per cent, of all Lenau's lyrics bear titles which directly ex- 
 press or suggest this thought, as for example, "Vergangen- 
 heit," "Verganglichkeit," "Das tote Gliick," "Einst und Jetzt," 
 
 iWerke, Vol. I. p. 82. 
 
 ^ Frankl, p. 79. 
 
 ^ Frankl, p. 102. 
 
 * Frankl, p. 127. 
 
 ^ Werke, Vol. I, p. 267. 
 
 ^ Schlossar, p. 144. 
 
 ■^ Frankl, p. 169. 
 
 ^ Schlossar, p. 188. 
 
 "Werke, Vol. I, p. 405. 
 
 '" Werke, \'ol. I, p. 130.
 
 54 
 
 "Aus!," "Eitel Nichts," "Verlorenes Gliick," "Welke Rose," 
 "Vanitas," "Scheiden," "Scheideblick," and the like; while in 
 not less than seventy-one per cent, of his lyrics there are al- 
 lusions, more or less direct, to this same idea, which shows 
 beyond a doubt how large a component it must have been of 
 the poet's characteristic mood. 
 
 If Holderlin, the idealist, judges the things which are, ac- 
 cording to his standard of things as they ought to he, Lenau, 
 on the other hand, measures them by the things which have 
 been. 
 
 Friedhof der entschlafnen Tage, 
 
 Schweigende Vergangenheit! 
 
 Du begrabst des Herzens Klage, 
 
 Ach, und seine Seligkeit !' 
 
 Nowhere is this mental attitude of the poet toward life in all 
 its forms more clearly defined than in his views of nature. 
 That this is an entirely different one from Holderlin's goes 
 without saying. Lenau has nothing of that naive and un- 
 sophisticated childlike nature-sense which Holderlin possessed, 
 and which enabled him to find comfort and consolation in 
 nature as in a mother's embrace. So that while for Holderlin 
 intercourse with nature afforded the greatest relief from his 
 sorrows, Lenau's Weltschmerz was on the contrary intensified 
 thereby. For him the rose has no fragrance, the sunlight no 
 warmth, springtime no charms, in a word, nature has neither 
 tone nor temper, until such has been assigned to it by the poet 
 himself. And as he is fully aware of the artistic possibilities 
 of the mantle of melancholy "um die wunde Brust geschlun- 
 gen,"2 it follows consistently that he should select for poetic 
 treatment only those aspects of nature which might serve to 
 intensify the expression of his grief. 
 
 Among the titles of Lenau's lyrics descriptive of nature are 
 "Herbst," "Herbstgefiihl" (twice), "Herbstlied," "Ein Herbst- 
 abend," "Herbstentschluss," "Herbstklage," and many others 
 of a similar kind, such as "Das diirre Blatt," "In der Wiiste," 
 "Friihlings Tod," etc. If we disregard a few quite excep- 
 
 ^Werke, Vol. I, p. 62. 
 * Werke, Vol. I, p. 102.
 
 55 
 
 tional verses on spring, the statement will hold that Lenau sees 
 in nature only the seasons and phenomena of dissolution and 
 decay. So in "Herbstlied" : 
 
 Ja, ja, ihr lauten Raben, 
 Hoch in der kiihlen Luft, 
 's geht wieder ans Begraben, 
 Ihr flattert urn die Gruft P 
 
 "Je mehr man sich an die Natur anschliesst," the poet writes 
 to Sophie Schwab, "je mehr man sich in Betrachtungen ihrer 
 Ziige vertieft, desto mehr wird man ergriffen von dem Geiste 
 der Sehnsucht, des schwermiitigen Hinsterbens, der durch die 
 Natur auf Erden weht."- Characteristic is the setting which 
 the poet gives to the "Waldkapelle" : 
 
 Der dunkle Wald umrauscht den Wiesengrund, 
 Gar duster liegt der graue Berg dahinter, 
 Das diirre Laub, der Windhauch gibt cs kund. 
 Geschritten kommt allmahlig schon der Winter. 
 
 Die Sonne ging, umhiillt von Wolken dicht, 
 Unfreundlich, ohne Scheideblick von hinnen, 
 Und die Natur verstummt, im Dammerlicht 
 Schwerniiitig ihrem Tode nachzusinnen.^ 
 
 The sunset is represented as a dying of the sun, the leaves fall 
 sobbing from the trees, the clouds are dissolved in tears, the 
 wind is described as a murderer. We see then that Lenau's 
 treatment of nature is essentially different from Holderlin's. 
 The latter explains man through nature ; Lenau explains nature 
 through man. Holderlin describes love as a heavenly plant,* 
 youth as the springtime of the heart,^ tears as the dew of 
 love f Lenau, on the other hand, characterizes rain as the tears 
 of heaven, for him the woods are glad,^ the brooklet weeps,* 
 the air is idle, the buds and blossoms listen,'' the forest in its 
 
 1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 299. 
 
 2 Cf. Farinelli, in Verhandlungen des 8. deutschen Neuphilologentages, Hannover. 
 1898, p. 58. 
 
 3 Werke, Vol. I, p. 137. 
 *H61d. Werke, Vol. I, p. 167. 
 "Hold. Werke, Vol. I, p. 143. 
 «H61d. Werke, Vol. I, p. 140. 
 ^Len. Werke, Vol. I, p. 258. 
 
 * Len. Werke, Vol. I, p. 250. 
 " Len. Werke, V&l. I, p. 260.
 
 56 
 
 autumn foliage is "herbstlich gerotet, so wie ein Kranker, der 
 sich neigt zum Sterben, wenn fliichtig noch sich seine Wangen 
 farben."^ A remarkable simile, and at the same time char- 
 acteristic for Lenau in its morbidness is the following : 
 
 Wie auf dem Lager sich der Seelenkranke, 
 Wirft sich der Strauch im Winde hin und her.^ 
 
 Holderlin speaks of a friend's bereavement as "ein schwarzer 
 Sturm" f when he had grieved Diotima he compares himself 
 to the cloud passing over the serene face of the moon ;* gloomy 
 thoughts he designates by the common metaphor "der Schatten 
 eines Wolkchens auf der Stirne."^ Lenau turns the compari- 
 son and says : 
 
 Am Himmelsantlitz wandelt ein Gedanke, 
 Die diistre Wolke dort, so bang, so schwer.' 
 
 Where Holderlin finds delight in the incorporeal elements 
 of nature, such as light, ether, and ascribes personal qualities and 
 functions to them, Lenau on the contrary always chooses the 
 tangible things and invests them with such mental and moral 
 attributes as are in harmony with his gloomy state of mind. 
 Consequently Lenau's Weltschmerz never remains abstract ; 
 indeed, the almost endless variety of concrete pictures in which 
 he gives it expression is nothing short of remarkable, not only 
 in the sympathetic nature-setting which he gives to his lamen- 
 tations, but also in the striking metaphors which he employs. 
 Of the former, probably no better illustration could be found 
 in all Lenau's poems than his well-known "Schilflieder"^ and 
 his numerous songs to Autumn. One or two examples of his 
 incomparable use of nature-metaphors in the expression of 
 his Weltschmerz will suffice : 
 
 1 Len. Werke, Vol. I, p. 249. 
 ^ Len. Werke, Vol. I, p. 147. 
 ' Hold. Werke, Vol. I, p. 144. 
 *H61d. Werke, Vol. I, p. 164. 
 = H61d. Werke, Vol. II, p. 117. 
 * Len. Werke, Vol. I, p. 147. 
 ^ Werke, Vol. I, p. 51 f.
 
 57 
 
 Hab' ich gleich, als ich so sacht 
 Durch die Stoppein hingeschritten, 
 Aller Sensen auch gedacht, 
 Die ins Leben mir geschnitten/ 
 
 Auch mir ist Herbst, und leiser 
 Trag' ich den Berg hinab 
 Mein Btindel diirre Reiser 
 Die mir das Leben gab.' 
 
 Der Mond zieht traurig durch die Spharen, 
 Denn all die Seinen ruhn im Grab; 
 Drum wischt er sich die hellen Zahren 
 Bei Nacht an unsern Blumen ab.^ 
 
 The forceful directness of Lenau's metaphors from nature is 
 aptly shown in the following comparison of two passages, one 
 from Holderlin's '"An die Natur/' the other from Lenau's 
 "Herbstklage," in which both poets employ the same poetic 
 fancy to express the same idea. 
 
 Tot ist nun, die mich erzog und stillte, 
 Tot ist nun die jugendliche Welt, 
 Diese Brust, die einst ein Himmel fiillte, 
 Tot und diirftig wie ein Stoppelfeld.* 
 
 If we compare the simile in the last line with the corresponding 
 metaphor used by Lenau in the following stanza, — 
 
 Wie der Wind zu Herbsteszeit 
 Mordend hinsaust in den Waldern, 
 Weht mir die Vergangenheit 
 Von des Gliickes Stoppelfeldern,^ 
 
 the greater artistic effectiveness of the latter figure will be at 
 once apparent. 
 
 The idea that nature is cruel, even murderous, as suggested 
 in the opening lines of the stanza just quoted, seems in the 
 course of time to have become firmly fixed in the poet's mind, for 
 he not only uses it for poetic purposes, but expresses his con- 
 viction of the fact on several occasions in his conversations and 
 letters. Tossing some dead leaves with his stick while out 
 
 * "Der Kranich," Werke, Vol. I, p. 328. 
 
 * "Herbstlied," Werke, Vol. I, p. 299. 
 ' "Mondlied," Werke, Vol. I, p. 310. 
 *H61d. Werke, Vol. I, p. 146. 
 
 " Werke, Vol. I, p. 299.
 
 58 
 
 walking, he is said to have exclaimed : "Da seht, und dann 
 heisst es, die Natur sei liebevoll und schonend ! Nein, sie ist 
 grausam, sie hat kein Mitleid. Die Natur ist erbarmungslos !"^ 
 It goes without saying that in such a conception of nature the 
 poet could find no amelioration of his Weltschmerz.- 
 
 In summing up the results of our discussion of Lenau's 
 Weltschmerz, it would involve too much repetition to mention 
 all the points in which it stands, as we have seen, in striking 
 contrast to that of Holderlin. Suffice it to recall only the most 
 essential features of the comparison : the predominance of 
 hereditary and pathological traits as causative influences in 
 the case of Lenau ; the fact that whereas Holderlin's quarrel was 
 largely with the world, Lenau's was chiefly within himself ; the 
 passive and ascetic nature of Lenau's attitude, as compared 
 with the often hopeful striving of Holderlin ; the patriotism of 
 the latter, and the relative indifference of the former; Lenau's 
 strongly developed erotic instinct, which gave to his relations 
 with Sophie such a vastly different influence upon his Welt- 
 schmerz from that exerted upon Holderlin by his relations with 
 Diotima ; and finally the marked difference in the attitude of 
 these two poets toward nature. 
 
 A careful consideration of all the points involved will lead to 
 no other conclusion than that whereas in Holderlin the cosmic 
 element predominates, Lenau stands as a type of egoistic Welt- 
 schmerz. To quote from our classification attempted in the 
 first chapter, he is one of "those introspective natures who 
 are first and chiefly aware of their own misery, and finally come 
 to regard it as representative of universal evil." Nowhere is 
 this more clearly stated than in the poet's own words : "Es 
 hat etwas Trostliches fiir mich, wenn ich in meinem Privatun- 
 gliick den Familienzug lese, der durch alle Geschlechter der 
 armen Menschen geht. Mein Ungliick ist mir mein Liebstes, — 
 und ich betrachte es gerne im verklarenden Lichte eines allge- 
 meinen Verhangnisses."^ 
 
 ^ Schurz, Vol. II, p. 104. 
 
 " For an exhaustive discussion of Lenau's nature-sense cf. Prof. Camillo von 
 Klenze's excellent monograph on the subject, "The Treatment of Nature in the 
 Works of Nikolaus Lenau," Chicago, University Press, 1902. 
 
 * Frankl, p. 116.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Heine 
 
 Heine was probably the first German writer to use the term 
 Weltschmerz in its present sense. Breitinger in his essay 
 "Neues iiber den alten Weltschmerz"^ endeavors to trace the 
 earliest use of the word and finds an instance of it in Julian 
 Schmidt's "Geschichte der Romantik,"- 1847. He seems to 
 have entirely overlooked Heine's use of the word in his discus- 
 sion of Delaroche's painting "Oliver Cromwell before the body 
 of Charles I." (1831).^ The actual inventor of the compound 
 was no doubt Jean Paul, who wrote (1810) : "Diesen Welt- 
 schmerz kann er (Gott) sozusagen nur aushalten durch den 
 Anblick der Seligkeit, die nachher vergiitet."* 
 
 But although Heine may have been the first to adapt the word 
 to its present use, and although we have fallen into the habit 
 of thinking of him as the chief representative of German Welt- 
 schmerz, it must be admitted that there is much less genuine 
 Weltschmerz to be found in his poems than in those of either 
 Holderlin or Lenau. The reason for this has already been 
 briefly indicated in the preceding chapter. Holderlin's Welt- 
 schmerz is altogether the most naive of the three ; Lenau's, 
 while it still remains sincere, becomes self-conscious, while 
 Heine has an unfailing antidote for profound feeling in his 
 merciless self-irony. And yet his condition in life was such as 
 would have wrung from the heart of almost any other poet 
 notes of sincerest pathos. 
 
 In Lenau's case we noted circumstances which point to a 
 
 ^ "Studien und Wandertage," Frauenfeld, Huber, 1884. 
 
 - Vol. II, p. 265. 
 
 5 "Franzosische Maler. Gemalde-Ausstellung in Paris, 183 1." Heines Sammtliche 
 Werke, mit Einleitung von E. Elster. Leipzig, Bibliogr. Inst., 1890. (Hereafter 
 quoted as "Werke.") Vol. IV, p. 61. 
 
 * "Selina, oder iiber die Unsterblichkeit," II, p. 132. 
 
 59
 
 60 
 
 direct transmission from parent to child of a predisposition to 
 melancholia. In Heine's, on the other hand, the question of 
 heredity has apparently only an indirect bearing upon his 
 Weltschmerz. To what extent was his long and terrible dis- 
 ease of hereditary origin, and in what measure may we ascribe 
 his Weltschmerz to the sufferings which that disease caused 
 him? The first of these questions has been answered as con- 
 clusively as seems possible on the basis of all available data, by 
 a doctor of medicine, S. Rahmer, in what is at this time the 
 most recent and most authoritative study that has been pub- 
 lished on the subject.^ Stage by stage he follows the develop- 
 ment of the disease, from its earliest indications in the poet's 
 incessant nervous headaches, which he ascribes to neurasthenic 
 causes. He attempts to quote all the passages in Heine's let- 
 ters which throw light upon his physical condition, and points 
 out that in the second stage of the disease the first symptoms 
 of paralysis made their appearance as early as 1832, and not 
 in 1837 as the biographers have stated. To this was added in 
 1837 an acute affection of the eyes, which continued to recur 
 from this time on. In addition to the pathological process 
 which led to a complete paralysis of almost the whole body, 
 Rahmer notes other symptoms first mentioned in 1846, which 
 he describes as "bulbar" in their origin, such as difficulty in 
 controlling the muscles of speech, difficulty in chewing and 
 swallowing, the enfeebling of the muscles of the lips, disturb- 
 ances in the functions of the glottis and larynx, together with 
 abnormal secretion of saliva. He discredits altogether the 
 diagnosis of Heine's disease as consumption of the spinal mar- 
 row, to which Klein-Hattingen in his recent book on Holderlin, 
 Lenau and Heine- still adheres, dismisses as scientifically unten- 
 able the popular idea that the poet's physical dissolution was 
 the result of his sensual excesses, finally diagnoses the case as 
 "die spinale Form der progressiven Muskelatrophie"^ and main- 
 tains that it was either directly inherited, or at least developed on 
 
 ^ "Heinrich Heines Krankheit und Leidensgeschichte." Eine kritische Studie, 
 von S. Rahmer, Dr. Med., Berlin, 1901. 
 
 ^ "Das Liebesleben Holderlin's, Lenaus, Heines." Berlin, 1901. 
 ' Rahmer, op. cit. p. 45.
 
 61 
 
 the basis of an inherited disposition.^ He finds further evidence 
 in support of the latter theory in the fact that the first symptoms 
 of the disease made their appearance in early youth, not many 
 years after puberty, and concludes that, in spite of scant infor- 
 mation as to Heine's ancestors, we are safe in assuming a heredi- 
 tary taint on the father's side. 
 
 The poet himself evidently wouM have us believe as much, 
 for in his Reisebilder he says : "Wie ein Wurm nagte das 
 Elend in meinem Herzen und nagte, — ich habe dieses Elend 
 mit mir zur Welt gebracht. Es lag schon mit mir in der Wiege, 
 und wenn meine Mutter mich wiegte, so wiegte sie es mit, und 
 wenn sie mich in den Schlaf sang, so schlief es mit mir ein, und 
 es erwachte, sobald ich wieder die Augen aufschlug. Als ich 
 grosser wurde, wuchs auch das Elend, und wurde endlich ganz 
 gross und zersprengte mein. . . . Wir wollen von andern Dingen 
 sprechen. . . .''- 
 
 And yet Heine's disposition was not naturally inclined to 
 hypochondria. In his earlier letters, especially to his intimate 
 friends, there is often more than cheerfulness, sometimes a 
 decided buoyancy if not exuberance of spirits. A typical 
 instance we find in a letter to Moser (1824) : "Ich hofife Dich 
 wohl nachstes Friihjahr wiederzusehen und zu umarmen und 
 zu necken und vergniigt zu sein."^ Only here and there, but 
 very rarely, does he acknowledge any influence of his physical 
 condition upon his mental labors. To Immermann he writes 
 (1823) : "Mein Unwohlsein mag meinen letzten Dichtungen 
 auch etwas Krankhaftes mitgeteilt haben."'* And to Merkel 
 (1827) : "Ach ! ich bin heute sehr verdriesslich. Krank und 
 unfahig, gesund aufzufassen."^ In the main, however, he 
 makes a very brave appearance of cheerfulness, and especially 
 of patience, which seems to grow with the hopelessness of his 
 affliction. To his mother (1851) : 'Teh befinde mich wieder 
 krankhaft gestimmt, etwas wohler wie friiher, vielleicht viel 
 wohler; aber grosse Nervenschmerzen habe ich noch immer, 
 
 ^ Rahmer, p. 46. 
 
 ^Werke, Vol. Ill, p. 194- 
 
 ^Karpeles ed. Werke (2. Aufl.) VIII, p. 441. 
 
 *Ibid., p. 378. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 520.
 
 62 
 
 und leider ziehen sich die Krampfe jetzt ofter nach oben, was 
 mir den Kopf zmveilen sehr erniiidet. So muss ich nun ruhig 
 aushalten, was der liebe Gott iiber mich verhangt, und ich trage 
 mein Schicksal mit Geduld. . . . Gottes Wille geschehe!"^ 
 Again a few weeks later : "Ich habe mit diesem Leben abge- 
 schlossen, und wenn ich so sicher ware, dass ich im Himmel 
 einst gut aufgenommen werde, so ertriige ich geduldig meine 
 Existenz."^ Not only to his mother, whom for years he affec- 
 tionately kept in ignorance of his deplorable condition, does he 
 write thus, but also to Campe (1852) : "Mein Korper leidet 
 grosse Oual, aber meine Seele ist ruhig wie ein Spiegel und hat 
 manchmal auch noch ihre schonen Sonnenaufgange und Son- 
 nenuntergange."^ 1854: "Gottlob, dass ich bei all meinem 
 Leid sehr heiteren Gemiites bin, und die lustigsten Gedanken 
 springen mir durchs Hirn."* Much of this sort of thing was no 
 doubt nicely calculated for effect, and yet these and similar pas- 
 sages show that he was not inclined to magnify his physical 
 afflictions either in his own eyes or in the eyes of others. Nor is 
 he absolutely unreconciled to his fate : "Es ist mir nichts 
 gegliickt in dieser Welt, aber es hatte mir doch noch schlimmer 
 gehen konnen."^ 
 
 In his poems, references to his physical sufferings are re- 
 markably infrequent. We look in vain in the "Buch der 
 Lieder," in the "Neue Gedichte," in fact in all his lyrics written 
 before the "Romanzero," not only for any allusion to his illness, 
 but even for any complaint against life which might have been 
 directly occasioned by his physical condition. What is there 
 then in these earlier poems that might fitly be called Welt- 
 schmerz? Very little, we shall find. 
 
 Their inspiration is to be found almost exclusively in Heine's 
 love-affairs, decent and indecent. Now the pain of disap- 
 pointed love is the motive and the theme of very many of 
 Holderlin's and Lenau's lyrics, poems which are heavy with 
 Weltschmerz, while most of Heine's are not. To speak only 
 
 * Karpeles ed. Werke, IX, p. 371. 
 'Ibid., p. 374. 
 
 ' Ibid., p. 459 ff. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 513. 
 ' Ibid-, p. 475.
 
 63 
 
 of the poet's most important attachments, of his unrequited 
 love for his cousin Amalie, and his unsuccessful wooing of her 
 sister Therese, — there can be no doubt that these unhappy loves 
 brought years of pain and bitterness into his life, sorrow prob- 
 ably as genuine as any he ever experienced, and yet how little, 
 comparatively, there is in his poetry to convince us of the fact. 
 Nearly all these early lyrics are variations of this love-theme, 
 and yet it is the exception rather than the rule when the poet 
 maintains a sincere note long enough to engender sympathy 
 and carry conviction. Such are his beautiful lyrics "Ich grolle 
 nicht,"^ "Du hast Diamanten und Perlen."- 
 Let us see how Lenau treats the same theme : 
 
 Die dunklen Wolken hingen 
 Herab so bang und schwer, 
 Wir beide traurig gingen 
 Im Garten bin und her. 
 
 So heiss und stumm, so tritbe, 
 Und sternlos war die Nacht, 
 So ganz wie unsre Liebe 
 Zu Thranen nur gemacht. 
 
 Und als ich musste scheiden 
 Und gute Nacht dir bot, 
 Wiinscht' ich bekiimmert beiden 
 Im Herzen uns den Tod.' 
 
 We believe implicitly in the poet's almost inexpressible grief, 
 and because we are convinced, we sympathize. And we feel 
 too that the poet's sorrow is so overwhelming and has so filled 
 his soul that it has entirely changed his views of life and of 
 nature, or has at least contributed materially to such a 
 change, — that it has assumed larger proportions and may 
 rightly be called Weltschmerz. Compare with this the first 
 and third stanzas of Heine's "Der arme Peter :" 
 
 Der Hans und die Crete tanzen herum, 
 Und jauchzen vor lauter Freude. 
 Der Peter steht so still und stumm, 
 
 ^ Werke, Vol. I, p. "jz, Nos. i8 and 19. 
 * Werke, Vol. I, p. 123, No. 62. 
 " Lenaus Werke, Vol. I, p. 257 ff.
 
 64 
 
 Und ist so blass wie Kreide. 
 
 Der Peter spricht leise vor sich her 
 Und schauet betriibet auf beide : 
 "Ach ! wenn icli nicht zu verniinftig war', 
 Ich that' mir was zu leide."^ 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to cite further examples of this man- 
 nerism of Heine's, for so it early became, such as his "Erbsen- 
 suppe,"- "Ich wollte, er schosse mich tot,"^ "Doktor, sind Sie 
 des Teufels; '* "Madame, ich liebe Sie!"^ and many other glar- 
 ing instances of the "Sturzbad," in order to show how the poet 
 himself deliberately attempted, and usually with success, to 
 destroy the traces of his grief. This process of self-irony, 
 which plays such havoc with all sincere feeling and therefore 
 with his Weltschmerz, becomes so fixed a habit that we are 
 almost incapable, finally, of taking the poet seriously. He 
 makes a significant confession in this regard in a letter to 
 Moser (1823) : "Aber es geht mir oft so, ich kann meine 
 eigenen Schmerzen nicht erzahlen, ohne dass die Sache 
 komisch wird."'' How thoroughly this mental attitude had 
 become second nature with Heine, may be inferred from a 
 statement which he makes to Friederike Roberts (1825) : 
 "Das Ungeheuerste, das Ensetzlichste, das Schaudervollste, 
 wenn es nicht unpoetisch werden soil, kann man auch nur in 
 dem buntscheckigen Gewande des Lacherlichen darstellen, 
 gleichsam versohnend — darum hat auch Shakespeare das 
 Grasslichste im "Lear" durch den Narren sagen lassen, darum 
 hat auch Goethe zu dem furchtbarsten Stoffe, zum "Faust," die 
 Puppenspielform gewahlt, darum hat auch der noch grossere 
 Poet (der Urpoet, sagt Friederike), namlich Unser-Herrgott, 
 alien Schreckensszenen dieses Lebens eine gute Dosis Spass- 
 haftigkeit beigemischt."'^ 
 
 ' Werke, Vol. I, p. 37. 
 
 ''Ibid., Vol. II, p. II. 
 
 ^Ibid., Vol. I, p. 97. 
 
 *Ibid., Vol. I, p. 177. 
 
 ^ Ibid., Vol. I, p. 197. 
 
 ' Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 408. 
 
 ''Ibid., p. 468.
 
 65 
 
 In not a few of his lyrics Heine gives us a truly Lenauesque 
 nature-setting, as for instance in "Der scheidende Sommer:" 
 
 Das gelbe Laub erzittert, 
 Es fallen die Blatter herab ; 
 Ach, alles, was hold und lieblich 
 Verwelkt und sinkt ins Grab.* 
 
 This is one of the comparatively few instances in Heine's 
 lyrics in which he maintains a dignified seriousness throughout 
 the entire poem. It is worth noting, too, because it touches a 
 note as infrequent in Heine as it is persistent in Lenau — the 
 fleeting nature of all things lovely and desirable.^ This is one 
 of the characteristic differences between the two poets, — 
 Heine's eye is on the present and the future, much more than 
 on the past ; Lenau is ever mourning the happiness that is past 
 and gone. Logically then, thoughts of and yearnings for 
 death are much more frequent with Lenau than with Heine.^ 
 
 Reverting to the point under consideration : even in those 
 love-lyrics in which Heine does not wilfully destroy the first 
 serious impression by the jingling of his harlequin's cap, as 
 he himself styles it,* he does not succeed, — with the few excep- 
 tions just referred to, — in convincing us very deeply of the 
 reality of his feelings. They are either trivially or extrava- 
 gantly stated. Sometimes this sense of triviality is caused by 
 the poet's excessive fondness for all sorts of diminutive ex- 
 pressions, giving an artificial effect, an effect of "Tandelei" 
 to his verses. For example : 
 
 Du siehst mich an wehmiitiglich, 
 Und schiittelst das blonde Kopfchen, 
 Aus deinen Angen schleichen sich 
 Die Perlenthranentropfchen."* 
 
 Sometimes this effect is produced by a distinct though unin- 
 
 ^ Karpeles ed. W^rke, Vol. II, p. 31. 
 
 * A few other examples of this same coloring in Heine's lyrics are to be found 
 in the "Neuer Friihling," Nos. 40, 41 and 43. 
 
 ' Werke, Vol. II, p. 89, No. 55, "O Gott, wie hasslich bitter ist das Sterben!" 
 etc. 
 
 *Engel: "Heine's Memoiren," p. 133. 
 
 » Werke, Vol. I, p. 87. 
 5
 
 66 
 
 tended anti-climax. Nowhere has Heine struck a more truly- 
 elegiac note than in the stanza : 
 
 Der Tod, das ist die kiihle Nacht, 
 Das Leben ist der schwiile Tag. 
 Es dunkelt schon, mich schlafert, 
 Der Tag hat mich niiide gemacht.^ 
 
 There is the most profound Weltschmerz in that. But in the 
 second stanza there is relatively little : 
 
 Ueber main Bett erhebt sich ein Baum, 
 Drill singt die junge Nachtigall; 
 Sie singt von lauter Liebe, 
 Ich hor' es sogar im Traum. 
 
 Lenau's lyrics have shown that much Weltschmerz may grow 
 out of unsatisfied love ; Heine's demonstrate that mere love- 
 sickness is not Weltschmerz. The fact is that Heine fre- 
 quently destroys what would have been a certain impression of 
 Weltschmerz by forcing upon us the immediate cause of his 
 distemper, — it may be a real injury, or merely a passing annoy- 
 ance. What a strange mixture of acrimonious, sarcastic pro- 
 test and Weltschmerz elements we find in the poem "Ruhelech- 
 zend"^ of which a few stanzas will serve to illustrate. Again 
 he strikes a full minor chord : 
 
 Las bluten deine Wunden, lass 
 Die Thranen fliessen unaufhaltsam ; 
 Geheime Wollust schwelgt im Schmerz, 
 Und Weinen ist ein siisser Balsam. 
 
 This in practice rather than in theory is what we observe in 
 Lenau, — his melancholy satisfaction in nursing his grief, — 
 and we have promise of a poem of genuine Weltschmerz. 
 Even through the second and third stanzas this feeling is not 
 destroyed, although the terms "Schelm" and "Tolpel" gently 
 arouse our suspicion : 
 
 Des Tages Larm verhallt, es steigt 
 Die Nacht herab mit langen Flohren. 
 In ihrem Schosse wird kein Schelm, 
 Kein Tolpel deine Ruhe storen. 
 
 ^ Werke, Vol. I, p. 134. 
 'Ibid., Vol. 11, p. 102.
 
 67 
 
 But the very next stanza brings the transition from the subHme 
 to the ridiculous : 
 
 Hier bist du sicher vor Musik, 
 Vor des Pianofortes Folter, 
 Und vor der grossen Oper Pracht 
 Und schrecklichem Bravourgepolter. 
 
 O Grab, du bist das Paradies 
 Fiir pdbelscheue, z-irte Ohren — 
 Der Tod ist gut, doch besser war's, 
 Die Mutter hatt' uns nie geboren. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to point out that the specific cause 
 which the poet confides to us of his "wounds, tears and pains" 
 is ridiculously unimportant as compared with the conclusion 
 which he draws in the last two lines. 
 
 Evidently then, he does not wish us to take him seriously, 
 nor could we, if he did. Thus in their very attitude toward 
 the ills and vexations of life, there appears a most essential 
 difference between Lenau and Heine. Auerbach aptly re- 
 marks : "Spott und Satire verkleinern, Zorn und Hass ver- 
 grossern das Object."^ And Lenau knew no satire; where 
 Heine scoffed and ridiculed, he hated and scorned, with a 
 hatred that only contributed to his own undoing. With Heine 
 the satire's the thing, whether of himself or of others, and to 
 this he willingly sacrifices the lofty sentiments of which he is 
 capable. Indeed he frequently introduces these for no other 
 purpose than to make the laugh or grimace all the more strik- 
 ing. And with reference to his love affair with Amalie, while 
 the question as to the reality and depth of his feelings may be 
 left entirely out of discussion, this much may be safely asserted, 
 that in comparatively few poems do those feelings find expres- 
 sion in the form of Weltschmerz. Now there is something 
 essentially vague about Weltschmerz ; it is an atmosphere, a 
 "Stimmung" more or less indefinable, rather than the state- 
 ment in lyric form of certain definite grievances with their par- 
 ticular and definite causes. And that is exactly what we find 
 in Lenau, even in his love-songs. His love-sorrow is blended 
 with his many other heart-aches, with his disappointments and 
 
 1 "Nicolaus Lenau. Erinnerung und Betrachtung." Wien, 1876.
 
 68 
 
 regrets, with his yearning for death. He sings of his pain 
 rather than of its immediate causes, and the result is an atmos- 
 phere of Weltschmerz. 
 
 Turning to Heine's later poems, especially to the "Roman- 
 zero," we find that atmosphere much more perceptible. But 
 even here the poet is for the most part specific, and his method 
 concrete. So for instance in "Der Dichter Firdusi"^ in which 
 he tells a story to illustrate his belief that merit is appreciated 
 and rewarded only after the death of the one who should have 
 reaped the reward. So also in "Weltlauf,"^ the first stanza of 
 which suggests a poetic rendering of Matth. 13:12, "For who- 
 soever hath, to him shall be given and he shall have more 
 abundance ; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken 
 away even that he hath," — to which the poet adds a stanza of 
 caustic ironical comment : 
 
 Wenn du aber gar nichts hast, 
 Ach, so lasse dich begraben — 
 Denn ein Recht zum Leben, Lump, 
 Haben nur, die etwas haben. 
 
 And again, the poem " Lumpen tum"^ presents an ironical 
 eulogy of flattery. His failure to realize the hopes of his youth 
 is made the subject of "Verlorne Wiinsche"* which maintains 
 throughout a strain of seriousness quite unusual for Heine, 
 and concludes : 
 
 Goldne Wiinsche ! Seifenblasen ! 
 
 Sie zerrinnen wie mein Leben — 
 
 Ach ich liege jetzt am Boden, 
 
 Kann mich nimmermehr erheben. 
 
 Und Ade ! sie sind zerronnen, 
 Goldne Wiinsche, siisses Hoffen ! 
 Ach, zu totlich war der Faustschlag, 
 Der mich just ins Herz getroffen. 
 
 A number of these lyrics from the Romanzero show very 
 strikingly Heine's objective treatment of his poems of com- 
 plaint. Such selections as "Sie erlischt,"^ in which he com- 
 
 1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 367!. 
 'Ibid., Vol. I, p. 415. 
 ^ Ibid., Yol I, p. 48. 
 * Ibid., Vol. I, p. 42 f. 
 ^Ibid., Vol. I, p. 428.
 
 69 
 
 pares his soul to the last flicker of a lamp in the darkened 
 theater, or "Fran Sorge,"^ which gives us the personification of 
 care, represented as a nurse watching by his bedside, bring his 
 objective method into marked contrast with Holderlin's sub- 
 jective Weltschmerz. The same may be said of his auto- 
 biography in miniature, "Riickschau,"- which catalogues the 
 poet's experiences, pleasant and adverse, with evident sincerity 
 though of course with a liberal admixture of witty irony. 
 Needless to say there is no real Weltschmerz discoverable in 
 such a pot pourri as the following : 
 
 Die Glieder sind mir rheumatisch gelahmt, 
 Und meine Seele ist tief beschamt. 
 
 Ich ward getrankt mit Bitternissen, 
 
 Und grausam von den Wanzen gebissen, etc. 
 
 It would scarcely be profitable to attempt to estimate the 
 causes and development of this self-irony, which plays so im- 
 portant a part in Heine's poetry. Its possibility lay no doubt 
 in his native mother-wit, wnth its genial perception of the in- 
 congruous, combined, it must be admitted, w'ith a relatively 
 low order of self-respect. Its first incentive he may have 
 found in his unrequited love for Amalie. Had it been like 
 that of Holderlin for Diotima, or Lenau for Sophie, recipro- 
 cated though unsatisfied, w^e could not easily imagine the 
 ironical tone which pervades most of his love-songs. And so 
 he uses it as a veil for his chagrin, preferring to laugh and 
 have the world laugh wath him, rather than to weep alone. 
 But the incident in Heine's life which probably more than 
 any other experience fostered this habit of making him- 
 self the butt of his witty irony was his outw^ard renunciation 
 of Judaism. Little need be said concerning this, since the 
 details are so w^ell known. He himself confesses that the step 
 was taken from the lowest motives, for w'hich he justly hated 
 and despised himself. To Moser he writes (1825) : 'Teh 
 w^eiss nicht, was ich sagen soil, Cohen versichert mich, Cans 
 predige das Christentum und suche die Kinder Israels zu be- 
 
 1 Werke, Vol. I, p. 424. 
 - Ibid.. \'ol. I, p. 416.
 
 70 
 
 kehren. Thut er dieses aus Ueberzeugung, so ist er ein Narr; 
 thut er es aus Gleissnerei, so ist er ein Lump. Ich werde zwar 
 nicht aufhoren, Gans zu lieben; dennoch gestehe ich, weit 
 lieber war's mir gewesen, wenn ich statt obiger Nachricht 
 erfahren hatte, Gans habe silberne Loffel gestohlen. . . . Es 
 ware mir sehr leid, wenn mein eigenes Getauftsein Dir in 
 einem giinstigen Lichte erscheinen konnte. Ich versichere 
 Dich, wenn die Gesetze das Stehlen silberner Loffel erlaubt 
 hatten, so wiirde ich mich nicht getauft haben."^ But in addi- 
 tion to the loss of self-respect came his disappointment and 
 chagrin at the non-success of his move, since he realized that 
 it was not even bringing him the material gain for which he 
 had hoped. Instead, he felt himself an object of contempt 
 among Christians and Jews alike. "Ich bin jetzt bei Christ 
 und Jude verhasst. Ich bereue sehr, dass ich mich getauft 
 hab' ; ich sehe gar nicht ein, dass es mir seitdem besser gegan- 
 gen sei ; im Gegenteil, ich habe seitdem nichts als Ungluck."^ 
 He is so unhappy in consequence of this step that he earnestly 
 desires to leave Germany. "Es ist aber ganz bestimmt, dass es 
 mich sehnlichst drangt, dem deutschen Vaterlande Valet zu 
 sagen. Minder die Lust des Wanderns als die Qual person- 
 licher Verhaltnisse (z. B. der nie abzuwaschende Jude) treibt 
 mich von hinnen."" 
 
 In his tragedy "Almansor," written during the years 1820 and 
 1 82 1,* his deep-rooted antipathy to Christianity finds strong ex- 
 pression through Almansor, although the countervailing argu- 
 ments are eloquently stated by the heroine. Prophetic of the 
 poet's own later experience is the representation of the hero, 
 who is beguiled by his love for Zuleima into vowing allegiance 
 to. the Christian faith, only to find that the sacrifice has failed 
 to win for him the object for which it was made. In the char- 
 acter of Almansor, more than anywhere else, Heine's "Liebes- 
 schmerz" and "Judenschmerz" have combined to produce in 
 him an inner dissonance which expresses itself in lyric lines of 
 real Weltschmerz : 
 
 ^ Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 473. 
 
 - Cf. Heine's letter to Moser, Jan. 9, 1826, in Karpeles' Autob. p. 191. 
 
 ' Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 491. 
 
 * Cf. Werke, Einleitung, Vol. II, p. 241.
 
 71 
 
 Ich bin recht miid 
 Und krank, und kranker noch als krank, denn ach, 
 Die allerschlimmste Krankheit ist das Leben ; 
 Und heilen kann sie nur der Tod ^ 
 
 But here too, as in "Ratcliff," such passages are exceptional. 
 In the main these tragedies are nothing more than vehicles for 
 the poet's stormy protest, much of it after the Storm and 
 Stress pattern ;- and mere protest, however acrimonious, can- 
 not be called Weltschmerz. 
 
 Certain it is that during these early years numerous disap- 
 pointments other than those of love contributed to produce in 
 the poet a gloomy state of mind. A reflection of the unhap- 
 piness which he had experienced during his residence in Ham- 
 burg is found in many passages in his correspondence which 
 express his repugnance for the city and its people. To Im- 
 manuel Wohlwill (1823) : "Es freut mich, dass es Dir in den 
 Armen der aimablen Ham.monia zu behagen beginnt; mir ist 
 diese Schone zuwider, Mich tauscht nicht der goldgestickte 
 Rock, ich weiss, sie tragt ein schmutziges Hemd auf dem 
 gelben Leibe, und mit den schmelzenden Liebesseufzern 'Rind- 
 fleisch-'' Banko !' sinkt sie an die Brust des Meistbietenden. . . . 
 Vielleicht thue ich aber der guten Stadt Hamburg unrecht ; die 
 Stimmung, die mich beherrschte, als ich dort einige Zeit lebte, 
 war nicht dazu geeignet, mich zu einem unbefangenen Beur- 
 teiler zu machen; mein inneres Leben war briitendes A^ersin- 
 ken in den diisteren, nur von phantastischen Lichtern durch- 
 blitzten Schacht der Traumwelt, mein ausseres Leben war 
 toll, wiist, cynisch, abstossend ; mit einem Worte. ich machte es 
 zum schneidenden Gegensatz meines inneren Lebens, damit 
 mich dieses nicht durch sein L^ebergewicht zerstore."^ To 
 Moser (1823) : "Hamburg? sollte ich dort noch so viele Freu- 
 den finden konnen, als ich schon Schmerzen dort empfand? 
 Dieses ist freilich unmoglich — "■* "Hamburg ! ! ! mein Elysium 
 und Tartarus zu gleicher Zeit ! Ort, den ich detestiere und am 
 meisten Hebe, wo mich die abscheulichsten Gefiihle martern und 
 
 ^ Werke, Vol. II, p. 293. 
 
 * Cf. Almansor's speech, Werke, Vol. II, p. 288 f. 
 ^ Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 363. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 384,
 
 72 
 
 wo ich mich dennoch hinwiinsche."^ Another letter to Moser 
 is dated: "Verdammtes Hamburg, den 14. Dezember, 1825."^ 
 The following year he writes, in a letter to Immermann : 'Teh 
 verliess Gottingen, suchte in Hamburg ein Unterkommen, fand 
 aber nichts als Feinde, Verklatschung und Aerger."^ And to 
 Varnhagen von Ense (1828) : "Nach Hamburg werde ich nie 
 in diesem Leben zuriickkehren ; es sind mir Dinge von der aus- 
 sersten Bitterkeit dort passiert, sie waren auch nicht zu ertragen 
 gewesen, ohne den Umstand, dass nur ich sie weiss."* To his 
 mother's insistent pleading he replies (1833) : "Aber ich will, 
 wenn Du es durchaus verlangst, diesen Sommer auf acht Tage 
 nach Hamburg kommen, nach dem schandlichen Neste, wo ich 
 meinen Feinden den Triumph gonnen soil, mich wiederzusehen 
 und mit Beleidigungen iiberhaufen zu konnen."^ 
 
 His several endeavors to establish himself on a firm material 
 footing in life had failed, — he had sought for a place in a 
 Berlin high school, then entertained the idea of practising law 
 in Hamburg, then aspired to a professorship in Munich, but 
 without success. But more than by all these reverses, more 
 even than by the circumstances and consequences of his Hebrew 
 parentage, was the poet wrought up by the family strife over the 
 payment of his pension, which followed upon the death of his 
 uncle in December, 1844, and which lasted for several years. 
 From the very beginning he had had much intermittent annoy- 
 ance through his dealings with his sporadically generous uncle 
 Salomon Heine. As early as 1823 Heine writes to Moser: 
 "Auch weiss ich, dass mein Oheim, der sich hier so gemein 
 zeigt, zu andern Zeiten die Generositat selbst ist; aber es ist 
 doch in mir der Vorsatz aufgekommen, alles anzuwenden, um 
 mich so bald als moglich von der Gute meines Oheims loszureis- 
 sen. Jetzt habe ich ihn freilich noch notig, und wie knickerig 
 auch die Unterstiitzung ist, die er mir zufliessen lasst, so kann 
 ich dieselbe nicht entbehren."*' And again in the same year : 
 "Es ist fatal, dass bei mir der ganze Mensch durch das Budget 
 
 1 Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 391. 
 
 ' Ibid., p. 472. 
 
 ^Ibid., p. 503. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 540. 
 
 » Ibid., IX, p. 25. 
 
 » Ibid., VIII, p. 392.
 
 73 
 
 regiert wird. Aiif meine Grundsatze hat Geldmangel oder 
 Ueberfluss nicht den mindesten Einfluss, aber desto mehr auf 
 meine Handlungen. Ja, grosser Moser, der H. Heine ist sehr 
 klein."^ And when, after his uncle's demise, the heirs of the 
 latter threatened to cut ofT the poet's pension, he writes to 
 Campe- and to Detmold,^ in a frenzy of wrath and excitement, 
 and shows what he is really capable of under pressure of cir- 
 cumstances. Perhaps it is only fair to suppose that his long 
 years of suffering, both from his physical condition and from 
 the unscrupulous attacks of his enemies, had had a corroding 
 effect upon his moral sensibilities. In his request to Campe 
 to act as mediator in the disagreeable affair he says : "Sie kon- 
 nen alle Schuld des Missverstandnisses auf mich schieben, die 
 Grossmut der Familie hervorstreichen, kurz, mich sacrificiren." 
 And all this to be submitted to the public in print ! "Ich gestehe 
 Ihnen heute ofifen, ich habe gar keine Eitelkeit in der Weise 
 andrer Menschen, mir liegt am Ende gar nichts an der INIeinung 
 des Publikums ; mir ist nur eins wichtig, die Befried'gung 
 meines inneren Willens, die Selbstachtung meiner Seele." But 
 how he was able to preserve his self-respect, and at the same 
 time be willing to employ any and all means to attain his end, 
 perhaps no one less unscrupulous than he could comprehend. 
 He intimates that he has decided upon threats and public 
 intimidation as being probably more effective than a servile 
 attitude, which, he allows us to infer, he would be quite willing 
 to take if advisable. "Das Beste muss hier die Presse thun zur 
 Intimidation, und die ersten Kotwiirfe auf Karl Heine und 
 namentlich auf Adolf Halle werden schon wirken. Die Leute 
 sind an Dreck nicht gewohnt, wahrend ich ganze Mistkarren 
 vertragen kann, ja diese, wie auf Blumenbeeten, nur mein 
 Gedeihen zeitigen."* 
 
 It is quite evident that this long drawn out quarrel aroused 
 all that was mean and vindictive, all that was immoral in the 
 man, and that the nervous excitement thereby induced had a 
 most baneful effect upon his entire nature, physical as well as 
 
 1 Karpeles ed. VIII, p. 396. 
 
 2 Ibid., IX, p. 308 ff. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 316. 
 
 * Letter to Detmold, Jan. 9, 1845, Werke (Karpeles ed.), Vol. IX, p. 310.
 
 74 
 
 mental. In a number of poems he has given expression to his 
 anger and has masterfully cursed his adversaries, for example, 
 "Es gab den Dolch in deine Hand,"^ "Sie kiissten mich mit 
 ihren falschen Lippen,"^ and several following ones. But here, 
 too, his fancy is altogether too busy with the suitable charac- 
 terization of his enemies and the invention of adequate tortures 
 for them, to leave room for even a suggestion of the Welt- 
 schmerz which we might expect to result from such painful 
 emotions. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to theorize as to what would have been 
 the attitude and conduct of a sensitive Holderlin or a proud- 
 spirited Lenau in a similar position. Lenau is too proud to 
 protest, preferring to sufifer. Heine is too vain to appear as a 
 sufferer, so he meets adversity, not in a spirit of admirable cour- 
 age, but in a spirit of bravado. In giving lyric utterance to his 
 resentment, Heine is conscious that the world is looking on, 
 and so he indulges, even in the expression of his Weltschmerz, 
 in a vain ostentation which stands in marked contrast to Lenau's 
 dignified pride. He is quite right when he says in a letter to 
 his friend Moser: "Ich bin nicht gross genug, um Erniedri- 
 gung zu tragen."'^ 
 
 As an illustration of the vain display which he makes of his 
 sadness, his poem "Der Traurige" may be quoted in part : 
 
 Allen tliut es well in Herzen, 
 Die den bleichen Knaben sehn, 
 Dem die Leiden, dem die Schmerzen 
 Auf's Gesicht geschrieben stehn.* 
 
 A similar impression is made by the concluding numbers of 
 the Intermezzo, "Die alten, bosen Lieder."'^ And here again 
 the comparison, — even if merely as to size, — of a coffin with 
 the "Heidelberger Fass" is most incongruous, to say the least, 
 and tends very effectually to destroy the serious sentiment 
 which the poem, with less definite exaggerations, might have 
 
 iWerke, Vol. II, p. 104. 
 ^Ibid., Vol. II, p. 105. 
 ^ Cf. Karpeles' Autob. p. 164. 
 ^Werke, Vol. I, p. 35. 
 ^Ibid., Vol. I, p. 92.
 
 75 
 
 conveyed. Similarly overdone is his poetic preface to the 
 "Rabbi" sent to his friend Moser ■} 
 
 Brich aus in lauten Klagen 
 Du diistres Martyrerlied, 
 Das ich so lang getragen 
 Im flammenstillen Gemiit ! 
 
 Es dringt in alle Ohren, 
 Und durch die Ohren ins Herz; 
 Ich habe gewaltig beschworen 
 Den tausendjahrigen Schmerz. 
 
 Es weinen dir Grossen und Kleinen, 
 Sogar die kalten Herrn, 
 Die Frauen und Blumen weinen, 
 Es weinen am Himmel die Stern. 
 
 It is not necessary, even if it were to the point, to adduce 
 further evidence of Heine's vanity as expressed in his prose 
 writings, or in poems such as the much-quoted 
 
 Nennt man die besten Namen, 
 So wird auch der meine genannt." 
 
 It cannot be denied that this element of vanity, of showiness, 
 only serves to emphasize our impression of the unreality of 
 much of Heine's Weltschmerz. 
 
 With the reference to this element of ostentation in Heine's 
 Weltschmerz there is suggested at once the question of the 
 Byronic pose, and of Byron's influence in general upon the 
 German poet. On the general relationship between the two 
 poets much has been written,^ so that we may confine ourselves 
 here to the consideration of certain points of resemblance in 
 their Weltschmerz. 
 
 Julian Schmidt names Byron as the constellation which ruled 
 the heavens during the period from the Napoleonic wars to the 
 "Volkerfriihling," 1848, as the meteor upon which at that time 
 the eyes of all Europe were fixed. Certainly the English poet 
 could not have wished for a more auspicious introduction and 
 
 iWerke, Vol. II, p. 164. 
 
 ^ Ibid., Vol. I, p. 102. 
 
 3 One of the most exhaustive monographs on the subject is that of Felix Mel- 
 chior (Cf. bibliography, infra p. 90), to whom I am indebted for several of the 
 parallels suggested.
 
 76 
 
 endorsation in Germany, if he had needed such, than that 
 which was given him by Goethe himself, whose subsequent 
 tribute in his Euphorion in the second part of "Faust" is one 
 of Byron's most splendid memorials. The enthusiasm which 
 Lord Byron aroused in Germany is attested by Goethe: 'Tm 
 Jahre 1816, also einige Jahre nach dem Erscheinen des ersten 
 Gesanges des 'Childe Harold,' trat englische Poesie und 
 Literatur vor alien andern in den Vordergrund. Lord Byrons 
 Gedichte, je mehr man sich mit den Eigenheiten dieses ausser- 
 ordentlichen Geistes bekannt machte, gewannen immer grossere 
 Teilnahme, so dass Manner und Frauen, Magdlein und Jung- 
 gesellen fast aller Deutschheit und Nationalitat zu vergessen 
 schienen."^ 
 
 It is important to note that this first period of unrestrained 
 Byron enthusiasm coincides with the formative and impres- 
 sionable years of Heine's youth. In his first book of poems, 
 published in 182 1, he included translations from Byron, in 
 reviewing which Immermann pointed out- that while Heine's 
 poems showed a superficial resemblance to those of Byron, the 
 temperament of the former was far removed from the sinister 
 scorn of the English lord, that it was in fact much more 
 cheerful and enamored of life.^ There is plenty of evidence, 
 however, to show that it was exceedingly gratifying to the 
 young Heine to have his name associated with that of Byron ; 
 and although he had no enthusiasm for Byron's philhellenism, 
 he was pleased to write, June 25, 1824, on hearing of the 
 Englishman's death : "Der Todesfall Byrons hat mich 
 iibrigens sehr bewegt. Es war der einzige Mensch, mit dem 
 ich mich verwandt fiihlte, und wir mogen uns wohl in 
 manchen Dingen geglichen haben ; scherze nur dariiber, soviel 
 Du willst. Ich las ihn selten seit einigen Jahren ; man geht 
 lieber um mit Menschen, deren Charakter von dem unsrigen 
 verschieden ist. Ich bin aber mit Byron immer behaglich um- 
 gegangen, wie mit einem vollig gleichen Spiesskameraden. 
 Mit Shakespeare kann ich gar nicht behaglich umgehen, ich 
 
 * Weimar Ausg. I Abt. Bd. 36, p. 128. 
 
 - In the Rheinisch-ivestfalischer Anzeiger, May 31, 1822, No. 23. 
 ' Cf. Strodtmann, "H. Heines Leben und Werke,'' 3. ed., Hamburg, 1884. 
 \'o\. I, p. 200.
 
 77 
 
 fiihle nur zu sehr, dass ich nicht seinesgleichen bin, er ist der 
 allgewaltige Minister, und ich bin ein blosser Hofrat, und es 
 ist mir, als ob er mich jeden Augenblick absetzen konnte."^ 
 Significant is the allusion in this same letter to a proposition 
 which the writer seems to have made to his friend in a 
 previous one: "... ich darf Dir Dein Versprechen in Hin- 
 sicht des 'Morgenblattes' durchaus nicht erlassen. Robert 
 besorgt gern den Aufsatz. Byron ist jetzt tot, und ein Wort 
 iiber ihn ist jetzt passend. Vergiss es nicht; Du thust mir 
 einen sehr grossen Gefallen."- We shall probably not be far 
 astray in assuming that the "Gefallen" was to have been the 
 advertising of Heine as the natural successor of Byron in 
 European literature. Three months later he once more urges 
 the request: "Auch fande ich es noch immer angemessen, ja 
 jetzt mehr als je, dass Du Dich iiber Byron und Komp. verneh- 
 men liessest."^ 
 
 But it was not long before Heine, with an increasing sense 
 of literary independence, reinforced no doubt by the reaction 
 of public opinion against Byron, and influenced also by his 
 friend Immermann's judgment in particular,* was no longer 
 willing to be considered a disciple of the English master. 
 Several unmistakable references betoken this change of heart, 
 for example, the following from his "Nordsee" HI (1826): 
 "Wahrlich in diesem Augenblicke fiihle ich sehr lebhaft, dass 
 ich kein Nachbeter, oder, besser gesagt, Nachfrevler, Byrons 
 bin, mein Blut ist nicht so spleenisch schwarz, meine Bitterkeit 
 kommt nur aus den Gallapfeln meiner Dinte, und wenn Gift in 
 mir ist, so ist es doch nur Gegengift, Gegengift wider jene 
 Schlangen, die im Schutte der alten Dome und Burgen so be- 
 drohlich lauern."^ Byron, instead of being regarded as "kin- 
 dred spirit" and "cousin," is now characterized as a ruthless de- 
 
 1 Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 434- 
 
 "Ibid., p. 433. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 441. 
 
 * In discussing the first volume of Heine's "Reisebilder," Immermann had said: 
 "Man hat Heinen beim Beginn seiner dichterischen Laufbahn mit Byron vergleichen 
 wollen. Diese Vergleichung scheint nicht zu passen. Der Brite bringt mit un- 
 geheuren Mitteln nur massige poetische Effekte hervor, wahrend Heine eine Anlage 
 zeigt, sich kiinstlerisch zu begrenzen und den Stoff ganzlich in die Form zu absor- 
 bieren." (Jahrbitcher f. vissenschaftliche Kritik, 1827, No. 97, p. 767.) 
 
 6 Werke, III, p. 116.
 
 78 
 
 stroyer of venerable forms, injuring the most sacred flowers of 
 life with his melodious poison, or as a mad harlequin who 
 thrusts the steel into his heart, in order that he may teasingly 
 bespatter ladies and gentlemen with the black spurting blood. 
 In remarkable contrast with his former views, he now writes : 
 "Von alien grossen Schriftstellern ist Byron just derjenige, 
 dessen Lektiire mich am unleidigsten beriihrt." 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting passage in this connection, 
 because so thoroughly characteristic of the Byronic pose in 
 Heine, occurs in the "Bader von Lucca" : "Lieber Leser, 
 gehorst du vielleicht zu jenen frommen Vogeln, die da ein- 
 stimmen in das Lied von Byronischer Zerrissenheit, das mir 
 schon seit zehn Jahren in alien Weisen vorgepfiffen und vor- 
 gezwitschert worden . , . ? Ach, teurer Leser, wenn du 
 iiber jene Zerrissenheit klagen willst, so beklage lieber, dass die 
 Welt selbst mitten entzwei gerissen ist. Denn da das Herz des 
 Dichters der Mittelpunkt der Welt ist, so musste es wohl in 
 jetziger Zeit jammerlich zerrissen werden. Wer von seinem 
 Herzen riihmt, es sei ganz geblieben, der gesteht nur, dass er 
 ein prosaisches, weitabgelegenes Winkelherz hat. Durch das 
 meinige ging aber der grosse Weltriss, und eben deswegen weiss 
 ich, dass die grossen Gotter mich vor vielen andern hoch 
 begnadigt und des Dichtermartyrtums wiirdig geachtet 
 haben."^ Here while vociferously disclaiming all kinship or 
 sympathy with Byron, he pays him the flattering compliment 
 of imitation. Probably nowhere in Byron could we find a 
 more pompous display of egoism under the guise of Welt- 
 schmerz. 
 
 Byron's Weltschmerz, like Heine's, had its first provocation 
 in a purely personal experience. "To a Lady"^ and "Remem- 
 brance"^ both give expression in passionate terms to the poet's 
 disappointed love for Mary Chaworth, the parallel in Heine's 
 case being his infatuation for his cousin Amalie. The neces- 
 sity for defending himself against a public opinion actively hos- 
 
 iWerke, Vol. Ill, p. 304. 
 
 ^Byron's Works, Coleridge ed., London and New York, 1898. Vol. I, p. 189 ff. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 211.
 
 79 
 
 tile to his earliest poems/ largely diverted Byron from this 
 first painful theme, so that from this time on until he left 
 England, he is almost incessantly engaged in a bitter warfare 
 against the injustice of critics and of society. To this second 
 period Heine's development also shows a general resemblance. 
 Thus far both poets exhibit a purely egoistic type of Welt- 
 schmerz. But with his separation from his wife in 1816, and 
 his final departure from England, that of Byron enters upon a 
 third period and becomes cosmic. Ostracized by English so- 
 ciety, his relations with it finally severed, he disdains to defend 
 himself further against its criticism, and espouses the cause of 
 unhappy humanity. No longer his own personal woes, but 
 rather those of the nations of the earth are nearest his heart : 
 
 What are our woes and sufferance? . . . 
 
 Ye! 
 
 Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
 
 A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.^ 
 
 And in contemplating the ruins of the Palatine Hill : 
 
 Upon such a shrine 
 
 What are our petty griefs? Let me not number mine.* 
 
 Here we have the essential difference between these two types 
 of Weltschmerz. Heine does not, like Byron, make this tran- 
 sition from the personal to the universal stage. Instead of 
 becoming cosmic in his Weltschmerz, he remains for ever 
 egoistic. 
 
 Numerous quotations might he adduced from the writings 
 of both poets, which would seem to indicate that Heine had 
 borrowed many of his ideas and even some forms of expression 
 from Byron. Except in the case of the most literal corre- 
 spondence, this is generally a very unsafe deduction. Such 
 passages as a rule prove nothing more than a similarity, pos- 
 sibly quite independent, in the trend of their pessimistic 
 
 ^ Cf. the poems "To a Knot of Ungenerous Critics," "English Bards and 
 Scotch Reviewers," and others. 
 
 * Coleridge ed., Vol. II, p. 388 f. 
 ' Ibid., p. 406.
 
 80 
 
 thought. Compare for example Byron's lines in the poem 
 "And wilt thou weep when I am low ?" 
 
 Oh lady! blessed be that tear — 
 It falls for one who cannot weep ; 
 Such precious drops are doubly dear 
 To those whose eyes no tear may steep,' 
 
 with Heine's stanza : 
 
 Seit ich sie verloren hab', 
 Schafft' ich auch das Weinen ab ; 
 Fast vor Weh das Herz mir bricht, 
 Aber weinen kann ich nicht.^ 
 
 Or again, "Childe Harold," IV, 136: 
 
 From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy 
 Have I not seen what human things could do? 
 From the loud roar of foaming calumny 
 To the small whisper of the as paltry few — 
 And subtler venom of the reptile crew,^ 
 
 with the first lines of Heine's ninth sonnet : 
 
 Ich mochte weinen, doch ich kann es nicht; 
 Ich mocht' mich riistig in die Hohe heben, 
 Doch kann ich's nicht ; am Boden muss ich kleben, 
 Umkrachzt, umzischt von eklem Wurmgeziicht,* 
 
 a thought which in one of his letters (1823) he paraphrases 
 thus : "Der Gedanke an Dich, Hebe Schwester, muss mich zu- 
 weilen aufrecht halten, wenn die grosse Masse mit ihrem 
 dummen Hass und ihrer ekelhaften Liebe mich niederdriickt."" 
 There can be no doubt that Heine for a time studied dili- 
 gently to imitate this fashionable model, pose, irony and all. 
 So diligently perhaps, that he himself was sometimes unable 
 to distinglish between imitation and reality. So at least it 
 would appear from No. 44 of "Die Heimkehr :" 
 
 Ach Gott ! im Scherz und unbewusst 
 Sprach ich, was ich gefiihlet : 
 Ich hab mit dem Tod in der eignen Brust 
 Den sterbenden Fechter gespielet.* 
 
 ^ Coleridge ed., Vol. I, p. 266 f. 
 2 Werke, Vol. I, p. 78. 
 
 * Coleridge ed., Vol. II, p. 429. 
 
 * Werke, Vol. I, p. 61. 
 
 " Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 411. 
 
 * Werke, I, p. 117.
 
 81 
 
 In summing up our impressions of the two poets we shall 
 scarcely escape the feeling that while Byron is pleased to dis- 
 play his troubles and his heart-aches before the curious gaze 
 of the world, they are at least in the main real troubles and sin- 
 cere heart-aches, whereas Heine, on the other hand, does a 
 large business in Weltschmerz on a very small capital. 
 
 Nor is Heine the man more convincing as to his sincerity 
 than Heine the poet. No more striking instance of this fact 
 could perhaps be found than his letter to Laube on hearing 
 the news of Immermann's death.^ "Gestern Abend erfuhr 
 ich durch das Journal des Debats ganz zufallig den Tod von 
 Immermann. Ich habe die ganze Nacht durch geweint. 
 Welch ein Ungliick ! . . . Welch einen grossen Dichter haben 
 wir Deutschen verloren, ohne ihn jemals recht gekannt zu 
 haben! Wir, ich meine Deutschland, die alte Rabenmutter ! 
 Und nicht nur ein grosser Dichter war er, sondern auch brav 
 und ehrlich, und deshalb liebte ich ihn. Ich liege ganz 
 darnieder vor Kummer." But scarcely has he turned the page 
 with a short intervening paragraph, when he continues : "Ich 
 bin, sonderbar genug, sehr guter Laune," and concludes the 
 letter with some small talk. Now if he was sincere, as we 
 may assume he was, in the asseveration of his grief at the death 
 of his friend, then either that grief must have been anything 
 but profound, or we have the clearest sort of evidence of the 
 poet's incapacity for serious feeling of more than momentary 
 duration. It is safe to assert that Heine never set himself a 
 high artistic task, and remained true to his purpose until the 
 task was accomplished. In other words, Heine betrays a lack 
 of will-energy along artistic lines, which in the case of Holder- 
 lin and Lenau was more evident in their attitude toward the 
 practical things of life. 
 
 But the fact that Heine never created a monumental liter- 
 ary work of enduring worth is not attributable solely to a 
 fickleness of artistic purpose or lack of will-energy. We find 
 its explanation rather in the poet's own statement: "Die 
 Poesie ist am Ende doch nur eine schone Nebensache."- and to 
 
 1 Werke, Karpeles ed. Vol. IX, p. 162 f. 
 
 ''Letter to Immermann, Werke (Karpeles ed.), Vol. VIII, p. 354. 
 
 6
 
 82 
 
 this principle, consciously or unconsciously, Heine steadily 
 adhered. Certain it is that he took a much lower view of his 
 art than did Holderlin or Lenau. Hence we find him ever 
 ready to degrade his muse by making it the vehicle for immoral 
 thoughts and abominable calumnies.^ 
 
 The question of Heine's patriotism has always been a much- 
 debated one, and must doubtless remain so. But whatever 
 opinion we may hold in regard to his real attitude and 
 feelings toward the land of his birth, this we shall have to ad- 
 mit, that there are exceedingly few traces of Weltschmerz 
 arising from this source. Genuine feeling is expressed in the 
 two-stanza poem "Ich hatte einst ein schones Vaterland"^ and 
 also in "Lebensfahrt,"^ although this latter poem illustrates a 
 characteristic of so many of his writings, namely that he him- 
 self is their central figure. It is the sublime egoism which 
 characterizes Heine and all his works. No wonder, then, that 
 one of his few "Freiheitslieder" refers to his own personal lib- 
 erty.* For the failings of his countrymen he is ever ready 
 with scathing satire,^ he grieves over his separation from them 
 only when he thinks of his mother f and in regard to the future 
 of Germany he is for the most part sceptical.'^ In a word, 
 Heine's lyric utterances in regard to his fatherland are of so 
 mixed a character, that altogether aside from the question of 
 the sincerity of his feeling toward the land of his birth, cer- 
 tainly none but the blindest partisan would be able to discover 
 more than a negligible quantity of Weltschmerz directly at- 
 tributable to this influence. 
 
 Heine's conscience is at best a doubtful quantity. Where 
 Byron with a sincere sense and acknowledgment of his guilt 
 writes : 
 
 1 Cf. his vulgar prognostication of Germany's future, Kaput XXVI of the 
 "Wintermarchen," Werke, Vol. II, p. 488 ff. 
 ^Werke, Vol. I, p. 263. 
 'Ibid., Vol. I, p. 308. 
 * Ibid., Vol. I, p. 301, "Adam der erste." 
 ^Ibid., Vol. I, p. 316, "Zur Beruhigung." 
 'Ibid., Vol. I, p. 320, "Nachtgedanken." 
 '' Cf. supra, note i.
 
 83 
 
 "My injuries came down on those who loved me — 
 
 On those whom I best loved : 
 
 But my embrace was fatal."^ 
 
 Heine sees it in quite another light : "War ich doch selber jetzt 
 das lebende Gesetz der Moral und der Quell alles Rechtes und 
 aller Befugnis ; die anriichigsten Magdalenen wurden purifi- 
 ziert durch die lauternde und siihnende Macht meiner Liebes- 
 flammen,"- a moral aberration which he attributes to an im- 
 perfect interpretation of the difficult philosophy of Hegel. If 
 further evidence were necessary to show the perversity of 
 Heine's moral sense, the following paragraph from a letter to 
 Varnhagen would suffice, in its way perhaps as remarkable a 
 contribution to the theory of ethics as has ever been penned: 
 "In Deutschland ist man noch nicht so weit, zu begreifen, dass 
 ein Mann, der das Edelste durch Wort und That befordern 
 will, sich oft einige kleine Lumpigkeiten, sei es aus Spass oder 
 aus Vorteil, zu schulden kommen lassen darf, wenn er nur durch 
 diese Lumpigkeiten (d. h. Handlungen, die im Grunde ignobel 
 sind,) der grossen Idee seines Lebens nichts schadet, ja dass 
 diese Lumpigkeiten oft sogar lobenswert sind, wenn sie uns in 
 den Stand setzen, der grossen Idee unsres Lebens desto wiirdiger 
 zu dienen."^ Scarcely less remarkable is the poet's confession 
 to his friend Moser that he has a rubber soul: "Ich kann Dir 
 das nicht oft genug wiederholen, damit Du mich nicht misst 
 nach dem Massstabe Deiner eigenen grossen Seele. Die 
 meinige ist Gummi elastic, zieht sich oft ins Lmendliche 
 und verschrumpft oft ins Winzige. Aber eine Seele habe ich 
 doch. I am positive, I have a soul, so gut wie Sterne. 
 Das geniige Dir. Liebe mich um der wunderlichen Sorte 
 Gefiihls willen, die sich bei mir ausspricht in Thorheit und 
 Weisheit, in Giite und Schlechtigkeit. Liebe mich, weil es 
 Dir nun mal so einfallt, nicht, weil Du mich der Liebe wert 
 hiiltst. . . . Ich hatte einen Polen zum Freund, fiir den ich 
 mich bis zu Tod besofifen hatte, oder, besser gesagt, fur den ich 
 mich hatte totschlagen lassen, und fiir den ich mich noch 
 totschlagen Hesse, und der Kerl taugte fiir keinen Pfennig, 
 
 ' "Manfred." Coleridge ed., IV, p. loi. 
 
 2 Werke VI, p. 48. 
 
 ' Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 541.
 
 84 
 
 und war venerisch, imd hatte die schlechtesten Grundsatze — 
 aber er hatte einen Kehllaut, mit welchem er atif so wunder- 
 liche Weise das Wort 'Was?' sprechen konnte, dass ich in 
 diesem Augenblick weineii und lachen muss, wenn ich daran 
 denke."^ 
 
 Taking him all in all then, Heine is not a serious personality, 
 a fact which we need to keep constantly in mind in judging 
 almost any and every side of his nature. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Heine's Weltschmerz, like his whole 
 personality, is of so complex and contradictory a nature, that 
 it would be a hopeless undertaking to attempt to weigh each 
 contributing factor and estimate exactly the amount of its 
 influence. All the elements which have been briefly noted in 
 the foregoing pages, and probably many minor ones which 
 have not been mentioned, combined to produce in him that 
 "Zerrissenheit" which finds such frequent expression in his 
 writings. But it must be remembered that this "Zerrissen- 
 heit" does not always express itself as Weltschmerz. In 
 Heine it often appears simply as pugnacity ; and where wit, 
 satire, self-irony or even base calumny succeeds in covering up 
 all traces of the poet's pathos we are no longer justified on 
 sentimental or sympathetic grounds in taking it for granted. 
 In looking for pathos in Heine's verse we shall not have to 
 look in vain, it is true, but we shall find much less than his 
 popular reputation as a poet of Weltschmerz would lead us 
 to expect ; and we frequently gain the impression that his dis- 
 position and his personal experiences are after all largely the 
 excuse for rather than the occasion of his Weltschmerz. 
 
 Pliimacher maintains : "Der Weltschmerz ist entweder die 
 absolute Passivitat, und die Klage seine einzige Aeusserung, 
 oder aber er verpufft seine Krafte in rein subjectivistischen, 
 eudamonischen Anstrengungen,"- — a characterization which 
 certainly holds good in the case of Lenau and Holderlin re- 
 spectively. Holderlin, although in a visionary, idealistic way, 
 remains, even in his Weltschmerz, altrviistic and constructive. 
 Lenau is passive, while Heine is solely egoistic and destructive. 
 
 ^ Karpeles ed. Werke, VIII, p. 399. 
 
 ^Plumacher: "Der Pessimismus." Heidelberg, 1888, p. 103.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
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 86 
 
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 87 
 
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 88 
 
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