845 UC-NRLF III mil III III II mil nil nil T559 1 III ill Dl9 $B bE3 371 THE NATURE SENSE IN THE WRITINGS OF LUDWIG TIECK BY GEORGE HENRY DANTON, A. B. Submit 1 hi. i.x i akhai. i-ULFii.MENT of the Requirements for the Deoree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University NEW YORK 1907 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GERMANIC STUDIES Edited by William 11. Carpenter and Calvin Thomas J'oJ. I No. I. SCANDINAVIAN INFLUENCE ON SOUTH- ERN LOWLAND SCOTCH. A Contribution to the Study of the Linguistic Relations of English and Scandinavian. By George Tobias Flom, Ph.D. 8vo, paper, pp. xv + 82. Price, $1.00 net. No. 2. OSSIAN IN GERMANY. Bibliography, General Survey, Ossian's Influence on Klopstock and the Bards. By Rudolf Tombo, Jr., Ph.D. 8vo, paper, pp. iv + 157. Price, $1.00 net. No. 3. THE INFLUENCE OF OLD NORSE LITERA- TURE UPON ENGLISH LITERATURE. By Conrad Hjalmar Nordby. 8vo, paper, pp. xi + 78. Price, $1.00 net. No. 4. THE INFLUENCE OF INDIA AND PERSIA ON THE POETRY OF GERMANY. By Ar- thur F. J. Remy, Ph.D. 8vo, paper, pp. xi + 81. Price, $1.00 net. Vol. I! No. I. LAURENCE STERNE IN GERMAN^'. A Con- tribution to the Study of the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Eighteenth Century. By Harvey Waterman Thayer, Ph.D, 8vo, pa- per, pp. V + 198. Price, $1.00 net. No. 2. TYPES OF W^ELTSCHMERZ IN GERMAN POETRY. By Wilhelm Alfred Braun, Ph.D. 8vo, paper, pp. v + 91. Price, $1.00 net. THE NATURE SENSE IN THE WRITINGS OF LUDWIG TIECK THE NATURE SENSE IN THE WRITINGS OF LUDWIG TIECK BY GEORGE HENRY DANTON, A. B. Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University NEW YORK 1907 Copyright, 1907 By the COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS Printed from type May, 1907 NOTE The voluminous writings of Ludwig Tieck, with their great variety of form and substance, give a very complete reflex of German Romanticism. Almost every phase of it is found in him, although no one phase, perhaps, is found at its very best. And one of the most important aspects of Romanti- cism is its attitude toward nature. These considerations seemed to Mr. Danton, and they seem to me, to justify a purely analytic study of the nature-sense in Tieck, without any concomitant attempt to trace the history of the nature- sense in earlier writers, which would have required a bulky treatise, or to compare Tieck in detail with his Romantic contemporaries, which would have required another treat- ise. In my opinion, Mr. Danton's work has been done with such care and scholarly penetration as to form a useful con- tribution to the study of German Romanticism. Calvin Thomas Columbia University, March, 1907 161440 / OF THE ^ PREFACE This dissertation is offered without apology to the few who will read it. I am convinced that the work was worth doing, for though Tieck's greatest merit is not as a nature-poet, his nature-sense is large enough to admit of an expository mono- graph of this character. There was no great point to be proved, but a few simple facts which made a personal ap- peal are here set forth. Perhaps they may aid some other investigator in the field. The study is of course not exhaustive. There is more ma- terial, some of which is being reserved for a future paper. In the quotations, all the poetry has been left untranslated, but the prose has been turned into English, with but two or three necessary exceptions. I wish to thank Professor Kuno Francke for suggesting the subject, and for his liberal aid in the early stages of the work. The dissertation owes much to Professor Calvin Thomas, also, whose encouragement and constructive critic- ism have been invaluable. Professor O. F. Emerson read part of the manuscript and gave many valuable hints as to style, though I feel that the work leaves much to be desired on this score. I am also grateful to Professor Klee, the dis- tinguished Tieck scholar, to Mr. Williams and to Miss East- man of the Hatch Library, for valuable bibliographical data. G. H. D. Cleveland, Ohio, March, 1907 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction. Tieck's rank as a poet: his nature sense a fundamental part of his poetic gift. Not truly interested in life except in a very- limited sphere. Variance with life does not deny him poetic power. Poetic power manifests itself in lack of coherent doc- trine of nature. Object of present paper to portray individual characteristics without attempt to find a nature philosophy. Because of poetic treatment by Tieck, impossibility of chrono- logical, genetic or comparative treatment. Chapter One: The Temperamental Attitude. The temperamental attitude defined. Limitations of the term. The chapter a contribution to the knowledge of Tieck's per- sonality, being occupied with his spontaneous reactions upon nature. Tieck not unobservant. Peculiarly morbid states combined with common sense. Illness cause of inability to live in natural surroundings like many other poets. Personal feeling for na- ture in letters, etc. Hypochondriac elements. Reflection of this in works. Youthful delight in nature: seen in friendship with Wacken- roder. Impressionability shown by effect of one sunrise in the Harz. This impressionability brings real love ; real love demands honesty of attitude and treatment in self and others. Satirizes dishonesty where found. Knew nature from the March of Brandenburg and travels: Germany (Harz, Fichtelgebirge) Bohemia, Switzerland. Italy: effect of latter. Interest in gardens (parks) like that in specific yolaces. No utilitarianism in attitude toward garden as in Nicolai. Types of garden. Probable influence of Jacobi. demands cer- tain artificiality in garden: liked Italian j^ardens. Mystic- symbolic gardens: "Der Jahrmarkt." Giirden no boundary for nature sense. Limitations of best garden. Effort to obtain wide view for self and characters. Sea, sky, mountain and plain. Descriptive method in such scenes logical. Aspects of land- scape: fondness for pleasant types. Causes of this both physi- cal and traditional. Of various aspects, dawn most important. Emphasis on color elements. Moon not silver. Importance of moonlight through whole life. Black night more decorative: less felt. Chapter Two: The Philosophical Attitude. The term defined. Its limitations as applied to Tieck. Tieck no philosopher. Strong hold of both philosophical and religious theories on him. His feeling arises from his impressionable temperament: vari- ous influences on him. Fichte's egoism and its development in "Abdallah" and "William Lovell." Egoism becomes hedonism with moral decay. Influence of Goethe, Shakespere, not concomitant with Ticck's admiration for them. Influence of Boehme larger. Shown in Tieck's ideas of origin of evil and omnipresence of God, etc. Belief in immanence of God in Nature has three stages in Tieck : I. Suggestion of God in nature, from nature. Man passes from religion into nature. Illustrated from "Sternbald" and "Genoveva." Used as poetic expedient. II. Nature reveals God. God not immediately present in nature since human spirit is too feeble t"o grasp it. He appears in phenomena of world, is near in natural manifestations. III. Identification of God and nature. Found all through Tieck's work: not necessarily a borrowing from Boehme. The idea very strong in "Abdallah" where Tieck wrestles with it in all forms : residuum a tendency to vivid spiritualization. Other illustrations of same phase. Chapter 1?hree: The Naturalistic Interpretations. Definitidn of term. Its limitations. Observation, a presupposition. Large nature.^ The minute in^T^ature: Tieck's sympathy \rith this: lack of morbid states. Observation develops appreciation which arises from simple joy in living, in motion, in generosity of nature. Resultant dignity of treatment. Method of appreciation is unconsciousness. To enjoy necessary to return to nature. Tieck not a real disciple of Rousseau, but attempted to get close to nature. Return implies influence: Pleasure in cheerful landscape; the cheering power of nature. Nature directly refreshes and inspires. Nature and freedom. Nature gives hope, uplift, strength. The feeling rises to a sense of full accord with nature, From nature, longing and melancholy. Glorification of Weh- muth. Effect of color in this connection. Direct education of nature not stressed. External and satiric expressions. — - Interrelation of man and nature. Mutual influence. The effect of various specific phases. Morning both time for rejoicing and sorrow. Parallelism for evening: sorrow grows with falling night. Relation of love to night. Forest: importance. All phases. IValdeinsamkeit a constant note. Love of forest in Tieck's characters. Statistics of oc- currence of forest scenes in dramas. Chapter Four: The Mystic and Symbolic Interpretations. Ground covered by the chapter. Desolate nature as a background for event's in harmony with the scene. Murders occur in storm and rain. Reaction on man's spirit of such scenes. Reflex in metaphors dealing with life. Conventionality in description of these due to historical causes. Keynote in this, revolt and oppression. Also: joy in storm and courage from wilder aspects of nature. Note : vivifying effect on nature of storm. Contrast of nature with feelings. Love and nature. Symbolism. Love that human emotion most bound up with nature and most subject to varying interpreta- tion. Tieck not alone in this symbolism. Spring love's season : — hence importance of spring in Tieck. Spring season of long- ing: same note in Tieck's poetry. The Vorfriihling and its causes. Spring a real experience with Tieck. Vividness and reality in description. Personification. Two notes in spring: love and regret. Latter brought by change of seasons. Parallelism of seasons and emotions. Pessimism of early works. — Rose the flower of spring. Other flowers of minor importance. Overwhelming signifi- cance of rose as symbol of sex passion. Personification of rose. Power of love over nature. Poetic expression in metaphor. Sense of loved one in nature. Other sex symbols in nature. Nature a woman. Other animistic developments : Nature has physical qualities (sight, hearing). Nature has mental qualities (will, memory). Hostility and friendship of nature. The general demonic fatalism in the nature phenomena of Tieck. Progress away from early morbidness and pessimism. THE NATURE SENSE IN THE WRITINGS OF LUDWIG TIECK INTRODUCTION. When Tieck remarked in his "Kritische Schriften," that it is allowable to treat the poet's work only from the stand- point of the poet, that is, to treat him as a whole, he felt that there is a divinity that hedges the poet as well as the king. It is by reason of this divinity that one approaches with a certain diffidence a theme which subjects a minute portion of a poet's work to microscopic examination, especially when that poet is in his entirety not known to the present public. Tieck, a man of importance in his day, never appealed univer- sally to the masses even in Germany, and so rays of culture from him have not penetrated the general gloom of Philistin- ism. There is no burning curiosity to know more about him in the present generation. The "poet-soul," wherever found and however insignificant in scope, deserves the most careful consideration ; Tieck, with all the elements that go to make the true poet, is worthy of any hint that may make him better understood. However his verses may jingle, and whatever of undue raisonnement there is in his later novelettes, he had true creative impulses which make his work significant of at least one not unimpor- tant side of humanity. That he is historically significant, no one will deny ; but the merely historical does not maintain in- terest in a living age. Unfortunately Tieck was not interested in life. The main elements of his work are poetry and art. He felt the indefi- nite pains of an unreal existence, and had a certain blindness toward the great problems of the world and something of that Don Quixote who meant so much to him. He dealt too much with abstractions even for Germans, among whom ab- stractions have a value not understood by more practical for- eigners. In his youth, when his genius was recognized, he was able to rise in his playful wrath and, with many a jesting whirl of his sling, cast a pebble at the cumbersome giant of "enlighten- ment." But he never outgrew these youthful ideals, and as time goes on, his work fails to gain in import and breadth. One feels that he does not know life, that he has not observed closely and that he cannot characterize it. His personages run together; they become lay-figures upon which to drape costumes, or they suggest dummies in the hands of a ven- triloquist. What still breathed in his youth was petrified in his maturer years. Literature for its own sake grew to have a value for him apart from its relation to life and to the hu- man soul, and just in proportion as he failed to make life his standard, so he is neglected by a living generation. In days when life is of eager interest, when the world throbs with thought, and when action pulses through all the veins of the earth, the human mind refuses to dwell on bygone literary squabbles, to drowse over criticism of authors long ago accept- ed or forgotten, and to waste efifort in understanding the po- lemics of a bygone century. Tieck was conscious of the de- mands upon the creative artist and cried out to his biographer, "One must have lived it," ' but he lived in an inner world, was distinctly a literary man and so fails today of even a just appreciation. This variance with life is seen as poetry in such works as "Genoveva" and "Kaiser Octavianus" and as irony in Tieck's satirical dramas. As he grew older, it manifested itself more and more formally in his novelettes and critical writings, and culminated in a certain retroactive conservatism which is an- tagonistic to Young Germany, republicanisjn and French Romanticism, as types of noxious innovation. Tieck was a poet, and because of the presence of the poetic in his works, there is a continual ^difficulty in treating of his nature-sense. His inspiration and his moods guided him in 'Rudolf Kopke, Ludwig Tieck. Erinnerungen aus dem Leben des Dichters. Leipzig, 1855. II. p. 150. Referred to hereafter as Kopke. The work IS sympathetic but not entirely adequate. his choice of themes, and he made no attempt at coherency of doctrine or even at consistency of attitude toward nature. He was driven by the tempests of his imagination from phase to phase, and so one is finally compelled to follow as through a trackless waste, guided as much by instinct as was he him- self. From this it may be seen that to trace his course chron- ologically through work after work is of little avail, if indeed it were possible. Great desert areas in his writings mean noth- ing ; now and again there is an oasis, while often the progress is through the most luxuriant growth rich in suggestion and inspiration. Even an examination of these fertile fields fails to show any especial sequence in his development except such as any man growing to be very old would naturally exem- plify. He remained from first to last instinctive and emo- tional, and however doctrinaire he became in other fields, he developed nodoctrine of nature. Nor can the treatment be genetic. The poet combines from all spheres, drawing and selecting from each that which he needs for the moment, but it is his transmuting power which makes him a poet and places his real significance beyond the dissecting knife of the historical critic. During all his life Tieck read and absorbed, but this absorption is always, as far as the specific sources are concerned, of minor moment when compared to the portion which he himself took from a first-h and feeling for nature. After all it is immaterial, ex- cept from the Tiistorical standpoint, whether a certain idea is derived from a prototype or whether it comes from direct ob- servation and personal feeling. The important thing is to see how the individual poet treated it, and what form his individual moulding of the thought has taken ; and so, unless the origin of the idea seemed to throw light on the subsequent develop- ment of Tieck's mind, historical data have not been presented. Neither has the aim been to compare Tieck with his prede- cessors or contemporaries, nor to indicate any possible influ- ence on succeeding generations. Much of his work is based on the past and he shows various individual differences from I the other poets; a portion, if perhaps no very great one, has become the unearned increment of the future, but to have compared him with Haller or Goethe, with Shelley or Words- worth, with Victor Hugo or Emerson, would have meant to write a history of all poetry and to write it with all the inward- ness of all the poets. For the nature-sense is fin-ally the poet himself; it is his life and his bemg, and the most common man rises by his feeling toward nature to a creative height, while no poet worthy of the name has ever been without a deep and lasting sense of close sympathy with the impinging universe. CHAPTER ONE TIECK'S TEMPERAMENTAL ATTITUDE TOWARD NATURE A discussion of Tieck's temperamental attitude toward na- ture should reveal the nature-sense in its relation to the personality of the man. It should discover in how far his environment unconsciously influenced him, and how he ex- pressed this influence unconsciously and independently of all theory or dogma. The chapter should to a certain extent con- tribute to the inner biography of the man. It implies an in- terpretation of his reflexes as well as a mere detailing of the external circumstances under which they were produced. In the main it is a discussion of the natural man living in nature. His human self, untrammeled by any conceptual considera- tion, expresses its feelings instinctively and is the primary object. From this the discussion legitimately turns to those selections on the part of the poet which are most charac- teristic. Certain apperceptions of thought must enter in, be- cause the temperament, the instinct, cannot be entirely sepa- rated from the ideas and the intellect; but as a whole all re- actions on the material that are conscious, and all use of nature to illustrate any formulae, are deferred to a future chapter. Tieck's apartness from life and action does not preclude a power of observation both subtle and keen. His ability to see is attested by his wit, although too often he chose to see a rather minor thing. He had, moreover, as an individual gift a definite and in some ways mystifying personality, vv^hich in forms of literary expression becomes a large and wonderful fantasy. It is this which keeps him in the circle of the greater creative poets, giving to his purely poetic work a value equal in its sphere to his critical dicta, and justifying for him the title of the poet of the earlier Romantic School. There is a dualism in his personality which arises from a curious com- bination of pathological states with what Haym' calls sound common sense; just that, in other words, to which the roman- tic poets always felt themselves superior. Tieck's life was filled with dreams and visions:' his world often seems to be apart from that of other mortals, and deep within him there was such a wealth of creative fancy as to make all nature alive about him. His life was attended on its external side by intense physi- cal suffering, melancholy, depression and morbidness, and he is hardly ever represented as enjoying so fully the vigor of the elements as did Byron, Wordsworth or Goethe. Gout attacked him early in life and continued with him till his death. His letters to Solger are filled with warnings against colds and with complaints and woes. He says that the equi- noxes are dangerous times, and that he loathes the dampness and changing weather which cause him to feel indisposed. He urges his friend not to disregard the dangers of exposure to the inclemency of the elements." Dorothea Tieck's reports about her father in her interesting correspondence with Uech- tritz are mainly concerning his physical condition.* Tieck's later journeys grew to be mere searches after health. His home interests were those of his circle of friends, of his read- ings, of his Shakespere and his Goethe.' A healthy growing old with nature cannot, then, be expected, but rather an in- 'R. Haym, Die Romantische Schule, Berlin, 1870. p. 862. ^Solger's Nachgelassene Schriften tind Briefwechsel, herausgegeben von L. Tieck und F. v. Raumer, 2 Bde. Leipzig, 1826. p. 390. Vide, Holtei, 300 Briefe aits 2 Jahrhunderten, p. 46, for an account of a re- markable fit of madness after reading from 4 p. m. to 2 a. m. in Grosse's "Genius." Also L. H. Fischer, Aus Berlins Vergangenheit. On the human side this fantasy is to be connected with his power of mimicry. He speaks in a letter to Bernhardi (Aus Varnhagens Nach- lass, p. 198) of being affected to madness by nature. 'Solger, 303, 429, 621. *Von Sybel, Erinnerungen an Fried, v. Uechtritz, Leipzig, 1884, p. 166. Cf. Schriften der Goethe Ge.sellschaft, XIIL 381-2, and the introduc- tion to the volume, sub Tieck, Solger, 486. 'Tieck, Kritische Schriften, Leipzig, 1848, p. 141, 159: Poems, third ed. Berlin, 1841. p. 280, and Grillparzer, fifth Gotta ed. vol. III.. 148. creasing aloofness from her. Yet in spite of this hypochon- driac attitude in his Hfe, it must be said that his works show neither a cessation, nor hardly a proportionate abatement of a living feeling for nature. In the earlier and most romantic works the nature-sense has of course a larger expression, for as a young man Tieck reveled in the beauty of natural scenery. His letters to Wack- enroder ^ breathe a joy in the garden, the moonlight and the sunlight ; he gives as one reason for not wishing to leave Halle the desire to continue in such lovely surroundings. In a let- ter of June 3, 1792, he exclaims on the beauty of the evening. Speaking of another of his letters, Wackenroder says that there hovers over it all a sort of soft, beautiful and cheerful spirit of happiness which the enjoyment of nature had instilled into it, and urges his friend to remain in this mood, in order, probably, to prevent any of the morbid attacks to which Tieck was subject from getting the upper hand.* Indeed, Tieck's whole attitude toward the world at this time may be summed up in his own words, "It is feeling, not thought." ' To illustrate forcibly the effect of nature on Tieck as a young man, part of a letter given by Friesen may be quoted.* This describes the effect of a mountain scene while the poet was making a trip through the Harz in June, 1792. Friesen re- marks with justice that the impression on the dweller in the plains can never be realized by one who has always been ac- customed to a more rugged environment. It was on this oc- casion that Tieck saw a sunrise which accompanied his whole life as a vision ; he often tried to repeat the actual experience of this moment, but was never able. Friesen, who was not ^In 300 Briefe. 'Holtei. Briefe an Liidwig Tieck, Breslau, 1864, IV., 172. The letter is dated May 5. Tieck's first letter in the 300 Briefe is dated May 10, so that Wackenroder's must be in answer to one unpublished; no doubt to the one mentioned by Tieck on p. 28 of 300 Briefe. '300 Bfe., 129. *H. von Friesen, Ludwij? Tieck, Erinnerungen eines alten Freundes, Wien, 1871. II.. 136 ff. Cf. Kopke, I., 142. 8 satisfied with Kopke's account, quotes the following late letter of Tieck: "It was in the first year of my university days in Halle in I 1792, that I took a trip to see a friend who had invited me to visit him in the Harz. I had never seen a mountain, and so everything was new, cheering and inspiring. It was the time of the summer solstice when I started out. I had not slept the night before, but had written letters. When I saw Eisle- ben, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of its situation, by the fields and meadows and by the fruit, which was almost ripe. I traveled on foot through the little town of Hettstadt, where I witnessed the burial of a miner. As it grew dark, I came to a wood where some young people had gathered and were singing joyfully. They decorated me with garlands, as was the custom of the place. I had let the long day pass lazily by in my observations of nature, and now I came to an inn situated somewhat farther up the mountain, and from this, light, music and dancing streamed out to meet me. It was quite dark when I entered, rejoicing in the noisy festivities; I took a room the door of which I left open in order to enjoy at first hand the frolic and confusion. The young folks were pleased at my participation, and so another night passed with- out slumber. When it got a bit more quiet in the general room, I paid my bill. I went on through a pretty meadow path and climbed a few hills. Soon the sun rose. But what words are sufficient to describe this scene even feebly, the miracle, the phenomenon which greeted me and transformed my soul, my inner being, all my forces, and which led me involuntarily to something divinely great and ineffable? A nameless de- light took hold of my whole being. I trembled and a stream of tears flowed from my eyes with such inner emotion as I had never felt before. I had to stand still to experience this vision thoroughly, and as my heart trembled in the greatest joy, it seemed absolutely as if a second happy loving heart were really beating on mine. As I have said this was the most important moment in my life; I could not help weeping for joy. I cannot tell how long the intoxication of the mo- ment lasted. * * * I am eighty years old now, and still the recollection of this moment is the most wonderful and most enigmatic of my whole long life." Tieck goes on to say that he regards himself as highly for- tunate to have had this experience and there is no doubt that he is referring to the same event where in "Phantasus" * he says that one can have the good fortune only two or three times in one's life really to see a sunrise: this experience does not touch a man lightly, but makes an epoch in his life, and a long time is required to recover from its effects, while many fu- ture years subsist on its recollection. It is very evident, then, that if Tieck himself was so deeply moved by nature, if he felt it with such inner emotion, he will manifest absolute honesty of feeling. As he says in one of his poems, "Nie hab' ich Lust, nie Schmerzen mir erlogen",' / and he demands this same honesty of attitude in others, and * expects from each some poetic power in the treatment of na- ture; where he does not find these he is satirical or angry. The earliest evidence of this feeling is in "Das Reh,"* where the minister and his servant discuss nature humorously and in a manner which brings to mind the later conversations in "Zerbino" between Nestor and the hero. In "Das Reh" the sentimental servant notices nature but the minister will have none of it and exclaims in disgust : "O pshaw ! How could I take any pleasure in a golden cloud? Just as if I could take pleasure in the shadow of a wine bottle or at the jingle of gold- pieces !" The obtuseness to nature which characterizes both Nestor • and Zerbino may well be compared with a passage like this, though in the later work the note is rather that of literary sa- tire, as it is also in "Peter Lebrecht," * where the Ritterromane 'Schriften, Berlin. 1828 ff., IV., 128. In both notes and text Roman numerals will be used to indicate volumes of the "Schriften" in the standard edition of 1828 ff. N. S. will mean literary remains, K. S., critical works. See bibliography. ^Third edition, Berlin, 1841, p. 355. Referred to hereafter as Poem*?. ^N. S. 29. *XIV.. 163, 164. (" lO receive a thrust from this point of view. Adam's book of travel (in "Kaiser Octavianus"), with its thorough banality, brings Nicolai at once to mind/ as does Murner's work on travel in "Herr von Fuchs." * In "Der gestiefelte Kater" * a false nature sense is one of the many points ridiculed. In "Der Naturfreund" Tieck gives vent to his contempt for people who consciously try to gain a thrill from nature, and shows with malicious humor, how the councillor takes the greatest pains to miss no mountain or hut on his way, in order that he may lose none of the beauties of the scenery. Long before his des- tination is reached, he falls asleep, and upon his arrival at the watering-place, spends most of his time at the card-table in utter disregard of his environment. Tieck's personal disgust at Naturjdger is found consci- ously expressed in one of the conversations in "Phantasus" where he says: *'I mean those folks who make a regular hunt for sunrises and sunsets from high mountains, or who chase waterfalls and other natural phenomena and so spoil many a morning for themselves and others in order to wait for a pleasure which very often does not come and which they after- wards must feign. These people treat nature just as they con- sort with men of note; they run into their houses and stand opposite them: well, there they are at last at the famous and oft-mentioned place, and if nothing takes place in their souls, at least they can afterwards say that they have been there. Tieck had not forgotten these people when he wrote "Der Mondsiichtige," as the subjoined passage shows:* "O these travelers ! This horde of gaping English and Germans. Most of them can see nature only as a mere crude decoration ; they sleep, are bored, until the proper moment is announced to them by their guide or guide-book. These people experience no nature ; for them she does not exist, and the pleasure that they take in her is like that of the cafe or the ice-cream parlor." Such attitudinizing is not unknown at the present time, and n.. 148. ^»XII., 43. ^V., 181, 259. ^XXL, 123. II brings to mind the remark of Emerson that when men begin to write about nature they at once fall into euphuism. The words of old Martin in "Peter Lebrecht"^ give another side glance at the literary aspect of the matter. He scolds at books which, by an over-stimulated and false presentation of the simple life, tend to inculcate wrong ideas, both as to existing conditions and as to the influence of nature on man. He goes on to say: **It is the greater art to portray everything natural in a natural manner and yet to wrap one so in sun- shine that one sees only that which one should see, and then each tree is dyed as with a new green. Few have succeeded in that." Several of Tieck's characters despise or affect to despise nature. These are all satirically given ; as, for example, the Pfarrer in ''Die Reisenden" ' who scoffs at nature, a word which has, he says, come into vog^e some forty years since, and by which folks mean "einen etwanigen Bach oder Fluss sammt Berg und Steingeschichten, oder die Waldsachen und dergleichen. Hat mich nie sonderlich interessiert." Another Pfarrer in ''Der Jahrmarkt'" finds in the midst of some commonplaces, nothing more unnatural than so-called nature. The old miner in "Der Alte vom Berge",* who understands his mountain as part of his trade, exclaims: "Nature, that's such a stupid word." Finally in 'Tier junge Tischlermeister," ' the insane old man reviles Leonard's love of nature with much sarcasm and somewhat after the manner of the preceding, when he says that God will certainly be satisfied with crea- tion now that Leonard has loked into it and admired it. Tieck's first impressions of nature were from the March of Brandenburg, for he was born in Berlin — in May, 1773 — and lived there until he began his university career some nineteen years later. He seems to have felt a certain early dislike for his native city,' but the March itself had a very strong hold on him. So Italy recalls it to his mind as he sees a solitary pine ^XV., 29. =XVII., 215. 'XX., 59. *XXIV., 189. 'XXVIII., 412. ^"In a letter to Bernhardi from Erlangen at Whitsuntide, 1793.' Varnhagens Nachlass, p. 189. Cf. 204, 213, 221. 12 on the shores of the Lago Maggiore;^ the last Hne of the passage, "Daheim in meiner Mark" is significant from the use of "meiner" and in his whole conception of the sadness of that country. Another passage^ touches on the same idea, when in Bozen he meets a strict anti-Catholic of the kind, as he says, that he supposed only the sand and firs of his native land produced. The novelette, "Die Gesellschaft auf dem Lande" ^ opens with a remark that shows him even more dis- posed to appreciate the scene in his native province : " . . auch im Brandenburgischen Lande giebt es sclione Naturgemalde, wenn man sie nur aufzusuchen versteht." Though he cared for the March and understood it, it is evident, in the main, that this child of an unpicturesque land lets his fancy roam out over all Germany, which he claims to have regarded as the true fatherland before any of his contemporaries.* While on the whole Tieck's life was a quiet one, it may be said that like his heroes, he traveled. He had the opportunity to see a very lar^e part of Germany, from Hamburg to Munich and from the extreme east to the Rhine and Switzerland. He also went to Italy and England. Na- turally enough, the expression of his feelings on these jour- neys is varied, and ranges from the simple joy of motion and delight in the newness of things, through the hypochondria of many of his Italian poems, to a practically complete silence with regard to his English experiences.' A letter to Bernhardi contains one of the fullest accounts given by Tieck of any of his journeys. He reports on his trip 'Poems, 333.-^ — =^Ibid., 220. 'XXIV., 393. For the "muses and graces of the March" who never progressed bey;ond copying its ugly details, Tieck had no use. Kr. Sch. L, 81. The same thing is satirized in "Zerbino," X., 320. Cf. Goethe's poem "Musen und Grazien in der Mark'' and the introduction to Gei- ger's reprint of F. W. A. Schmidt's Poems under this title, Berlin, 1889, pages 3-4. ^Letters to Solger, 269, 393, 553. Kopke, XL, 172. Hettner, Die romantische Schule u. s. w. 145-148. "Dichterleben"' (XVII., 67) "The love of country is- a refined and educated nature sense, an instinct developed to noble consciousness." Cf. Klee's ed. II.. 215. "Cf. Brandes, Die romantische Schule in Deutschland, Leipzig. '92, p. 122. Brandes blames Tieck for his attitude. 13 from Erlangen through the Fichtelgebirge and back to his uni- versity town, and tells of his visits to people, his dinners at their houses, of his descent into the depth of mines and of the thousand allotria of such an expedition. It is pleasing to note that he had all the young daring of his age, and many of its enthusiasms; he gallops his horse over dangerous places, climbs hills on the steepest side, and in general gains all the good from the trip that was to be had. Of quiet description there is but little ; his favorite spots were Berneck, which be- came the scene of his play "Karl von Berneck," and Culmbach, and he joins them to the Rosstrappe in the Harz as the finest places that he had as yet seen. (Varnhagen's Nachlass, 234.) The memory of another trip, this time through Bohemia, in 1803, is perpetuated in "Eine Sommerreise" thirty years later, and in echoes in "Der junge Tischlermeister." * So, for in- stance, he mentions the dreary landscape between Frankfort on the Oder and Crossen, a region with which, from his long residence in Ziebingen, he must have been reasonably familiar. Lusatia, where nature is greener and friendlier, and "das liebliche Dresden", which he knew and loved so well, are men- tioned. Here the landscape is neither sublime, of earnest mien nor solemn, and none of those voices are heard that one hears in the mountains ; but it is none the less habitable for all that. Pirna, Giesshiibel and Liebenstein are passed over lightly, and Weimar with its recollections of Goethe was sa- cred to him.* In this novelette two enthusiasts fight a duel over the respective merits of Teplitz and Carlsbad.' Wunsiedel with its "'baroque form," * brings to mind the mention of this town in "Der Mondsiichtige," ' where Tieck compares it to the works of Jean Paul, whose birthplace it was — fragmentary, but at times highly poetic. Later on he gives to the place the epithet "finsteres Nest."" ^Kopke, L, 307, IL, 152. "Eine Sommerreise," XXIIL, 7, 15, 22, 25. ^XXIII., 130. The novelette was written shortly after Goethe's death, when any mention of him would be timely. Cf. for the same attitude toward Weimar, Grillparzer, 5th Cotta edition, and III.. 224, Grillparzer Jahrbuch, I., 267. 'XXIIL, 42. ^*Ibid., 45. 'XXI., 78. ^"XXVIIL. 22. 14 Switzerland is described in "Der Mondsiichtige" and in "Eigensinn und Laune," which show that Tieck had a deep reverence for the natural beauties of these wonderful regions. The "Reisegedichte" also touch on Switzerland, but in the main they commemorate his trip to Italy in 1805-6. They are among the best poems that Tieck wrote and abound in touches of humor, in hints as to his physical as well as his mental and spiritual condition. There are many descriptions of places that he traversed, and often the landscape dissolves into the emotion of the moment. In the main, however, Tieck sees in the passing scene merely the mirror of his own thoughts, and though these are often tinged with the melancholy of a very sick man, yet it is surprising how little real ill-humor and peevishness they contain. In crossing the Alps through Tyrol, Tieck is first intoxi- cated by the uplift of the mountain scenery,^ and then falls into a state of sadness which was presaged in ''Franz Sternbald" "" long before. Then he descends to Bozen in all its loveliness, which he eulogizes thus: "Welche Wonne! Unten liegt ein Himmelsthal Im Glanz der reinen Sonne. Wie der Weg sich senkt. Riicken neue Hiigel, Berge vor — , Rundum Glanz und Farbenpracht ; Am Wege hohe Hecken Von blithenden Granaten, Gluth aiif Ghith gedrangt. . . ."' Although he arrived in Olevano tired out, he gives, neverthe- less, a striking picture of the dark little city with its castle hanging high up on the jagged summit of this Bergeinsam- hcit* Subiaco^ with its mountains, its cypresses and its val- leys, brings to his mind his native heath with its desolate bar- renness. He compares the two regions after carrying their physical qualities over into the mental sphere: Toems, 216. =^XVI., 316. ^Poems, 221. ^*Ibid., 293; the word Bcrgcinsamkeit is, like Waldeinsamkeit, a coinage of Tieck's. Toems, 299. 15 "Hier dichtet die Erde, Dort schlaft sie kaum, Befangen, angstvoll, Ringt sie nur nach Dasein." In Rome he scoffs at himself for his out-and-out German- ism as he sits for weeks in the Vatican library poring over old and musty manuscripts instead of going out into the clear Italian air to be cured of his gout. The lordly gardens, a festival, the ruins, all lure him into the open, until an evil spirit takes hold of him compelling him to copy and compare the old poems, "Und ich musste nach Rom gehen Um erst stockdeutsch zu werden."* Tivoli is described in the most enthusiastic terms and his joy in being there is thus indicated : "Saht ihr schon je, ihr klingenden Gestade Einen so gliicklichen Wandersmann ?'" The feeling for Tivoli still reverberates through Tieck's last / novel, "Vittoria Accorombona," with a final flash of that old ( voluptous power so characteristic of "Lovell" and "Sternbald/* / These few excerpts will show a certain keen appreciation of Italy in spite of the illness and weakness which oppressed Tieck during most of his stay. Long before he ever saw Italy, the love of it is expressed in the "Sehnsucht nach Ital- ien," of the "Sternbald" and of the "Herzensergiessungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders." Tieck saw what he could of nature after he got there, but his sojourn had no such effect on him as one notes in the case of Goethe; Italy does not ring through his life as it did through Byron's, nor, on the other hand, does the bitter recollection of unpleasantness incurred there persist as the ultimate result as with Grillparzer. Echoes do live on, and there is a joy in Italy which makes him wish to go back with Solger, even though the picture that he presents to his friend's eye be only one of walking through the / beautiful world in philosophic conversation. And so another : ^Poems, 274-5. 'lb.. 301-2. i6 passage in his letters to Solger grows significant, when he says that he often longs to be out of this madhouse of a world and to enjoy air and sunshine, this which the poet can do best of all, but that his humanity (Menschheit) leads him back to listen, pay attention and answer." That is, he sank himself more and more deeply into abstraction as he grew older, and with this there came an ever-increasing need of self expres- sion on literary canons, and a growing away from reality." To be coupled with Tieck's knowledge of specific places and complementary to his attitude toward the out-of-door world in general, is his life-long interest in gardens. The first one which he probably learned to know was the Berlin Tiergar- ten. In its pleasant shady walks Wackenroder and he were accustomed to wander in their school-days, and it was barren and deserted for the gentle friend after Tieck left for the university.' In Potsdam there were gardens in the mixed style of Switzer,* and though Tieck speaks of this Hohenzol- lern city with considerable contempt in the afore-cited letter to Bernhardi, yet there can be no doubt that this too had its in- fluence on him. In a letter to Wackenroder he calls the cele- brated garden at Worlitz, which they had both seen, divine, and in connection with this offers his first criticism of a gar- den. He has just made a certain factor happy by praising his mediocre garden and continues:'' "This garden is fairly large and every spot is very carefully used ; there are few trees, in short, it is very productive but the less beautiful." Here at once in his university days, it can be seen how far he is above the utilitarian attitude toward nature. He can enjoy beauty for its own sake. In this connection a later passage from the correspondence is eminently expressive:" "Moral utility is merely a matter of chance, and so far as beautiful objects re- fine the sense of beauty, does each fine art have an immediate 'Solger, 627. ^^Ibid., 491. ^^Holtei, Briefe an Tieck, IV, 216. Referred to hereafter as Holtei. *Sievekin^, Gardens Ancient and Modern, 404. Cf. 133. 389. "^300 Briefe, 28-9. This garden is still a point of interest. (Sieveking, 403.) See also Hosaus, Die Worlitzer Antiken, Dessau, 1873, 1883. ^"300 Bfe., 59. F. Schlegel to the same effect in the Athenaeum, quoted by R. Huch, p. 54. 17 influence on the character." The shaping power of beauty is nowhere more definitely stated. The garden then was to be influenced by no considerations of a material sort/ as was the case so frequently in a material- istic generation. Indeed, Nicolai so portrayed it in the "Freu- den des jungen Werthers" in which Werther is represented in direct satire on Goethe, as having purchased a house with a garden and enjoying *'the simple harmless delight of a man who can put on his table a cabbage head that he has himself raised, and who not only enjoys the cabbage, but at the same time all the good days, the beautiful morning on which he planted it, the charming evenings on which he watered it and when he was pleased with its progress.'" Lotte raised vegeta- bles and simples, the orchard was Werther's care, and the children planted beds of tulips and lovely anemones. Nor would such a stanza as this from Schmidt, the Werneuchen pastor, be possible in Tieck :* "Die gelbe Honigbiene schwebt Um bliih' nde Himbeerbecken; Die Dirne die im Garten grabt, Reisst Unkraut aus und Quecken. Der Hauswirth harkt den Gartensteig, Sa't Mohn und Gurkenkern. Indessen ruft die Unk' im Teich, Der Kuckuk in der Feme. One expects rather to find the romantic longing and melan- choly of the sonnet "Garten :" "Betret ich nun des Gartens griine Gange? Wie frisch und lieblich dort die tiefen Griinde ! Die Einsamkeit holdseelig und gelinde, Wie Chorgesang rauscht hier das Baumgedrange. Was find' ich an dem bliihenden Gehange? Wie' !Thranen an so manchem bunten Kinde? Was seufzen denn so bang die Abendwinde? Wo tonen her so zauberhaft Gesange? Sind wohl so spat in Wand'rung noch die Bienen? Schlummern hier Lieder aufgeweckt von Sternen? Des Waldes Geister, in der Baume Kronen? Gesangs-Gottinnen, die den Hain bewohnen, Sind jetzt, herdenkend, weit in andern Femen, Drum klagt so Wind, wie Staud', und Baum im Griinen."* ^Tieck and the Prince de Ligne are thoroughly in accord. The latter, a noted Belgian connoisseur on gardens, says, "Let all trades be ban- ished from gardens." Sieveking, 200. ^Kurschner's Deutsche Na- tionallitteratur, LXXIL, 383. ^"Geiger's edition, p. 14. ^"Poems, 193. i8 Tieck's use of the garden varies from this romantic indefi- niteness to the most fantastic type, as in the garden of poesy in ''Zerbino,'" or the garden of Prospero in the opening scene of "Das Reh,"^ to its use figuratively in "WilHam Lovell/" where change in the garden symbolizes the changed times and conditions of men. It is quite evident that Tieck had more than a merely gen- eral idea of the history of the garden, though from what source he drew his information, it is, without more definite data, im- possible to say. There were innumerable books on the sub- ject even in Tieck's time ; he may have used some of these or have gained his information from the intercourse of which a picture is given in "Phantasus." His knowledge of a romance like the "Insel Felsenburg''* might have served to keep his interest alive. In "Phantasus" Tieck cites the novel "Woldemar" ' of his friend Jacobi, in which, he says, the justification of the correct attitude toward nature is found in a far better form than he himself could put it. In "Woldemar" " there is a detailed de- scription of a formal garden with the usual accessories and with two additional points very carefully emphasized. The first is that the garden really to be a garden must not be a mere imitation of nature : *T know of nothing more wretched than the imitations of a so-called free nature, writhing in a thousand fetters. . . . Where there is imitation, art must be displayed, a creative human hand. ... I demand of a gar- den that it be a garden out and out, a garden in a high degree. It must make up to me in adornment and grace, what it can- not have in completeness and majesty." This position is dis- \ tinctive of Tieck as well as of Jacobi, with whom he may well have discussed the question in the period of their residence at Munich and who, as he remarks in a letter to Solger, under- ^X., 257flf. =^N. S. L, 21. 'VI., 219, 339; VII., 43, 241. Tor which Tieck wrote a preface in 1826. 'Konigsberg, 1792. "p. 80 flf . 19 stood him after all the best. Kopke also notes that Tieck's life in Munich is portrayed in the conversations in "Phan- tasus." The English Garden in Munich may have been a point of departure for the friends to base their dislike on, since it is evident that the landscape style is not to Tieck's taste. So for example, in "Der getreue Eckart" ' he has an enclosed gar- den, and in Sternbald^ one with a stockade. He dislikes the de- based French style,' though in a later novelette the better type of French garden is compared favorably with the English. What Tieck always means by an English style when he speaks in condemnation, is a return to the romantic elements in gar- dening, that breaking away from the formalism of the early Tudors, which was encouraged by Addison and Pope in 17 12-3. Such an early English style is referred to in 'Than- tasus,"* while later references to English taste' are to the romantic garden which, with its sunken ditches (ha-ha's), its abolition of parterres, "knots" and topiary work, and its gen- eral effort toward freedom, openness and the faithful repro- duction of nature, was carried too far by men like "Capability" Brown, only to be ridiculed in England, and to work harm in the destruction of many a fine old formal garden. Such changing and altering are referred to in "Woldemar" (p. 81) and in "Phantasus" (p. 58). The Italian garden with its distinctly southern character, its artifice so well based in its origin, as Sir William Temple points out,' met with Tieck's approval. It was the Borghese gardens especially, with their wealth of walks, statuary, arbors and recollections of Goethe, of which he sings : "Niemals veraltet dein Reiz, So oft ich hier wandle. Dank dem edlen Geiste, Der das siisse Labyrinth erschuf ^IV., 203. ^'XVL, 339-40. 'IV., 57. ^V., 79. 'XXVIII., 138, 147. 'Works, 217. ^'Poems, 289. 20 Und uns vergonnte, Hier wo aus griinen Baumen Bilder uns griissen, Wo Blumenpracht den Friihling ausgiesst Und Duft und Farben spendend AUe Sinne mif Zauber umstrickt. Gliicklich zu sein. Dort das sprudelnde Wasser, Und in dem einsamen Raum Unter Eppich und Ulmen versteckt Die niederperlenden Tropfen Krystals, Die in Marmorbecken Melodisch fallen und klingen : Dazu der Turteltaube Liebesklage Aus dichterem Gebiisch, Den wilden Waldruf Fremden Gefliigels ; Wie oft schon trank ich hier das siisseste Innigste Leben entziickt. — " The ultimate result, then, of an examination of Tieck's atti- tude toward the garden is rather at variance with what might / be expected from a romantic poet. He wished a certain arti- I ficiality in it, as can be seen from his comparisons of the vari- \^ ous forms of the garden with the various artificial verse-forms, like the sextet of which he was so fond ; such comparisons are foimd as late as *'Vittoria Accorombona."^ Nor does he like to have the garden encroach on the domain of nature, and he can endure almost all of the eccentricities of formalism until the decay of taste occurs under the influence of the Dutch. Glass balls, colored sand and the other excessive baroque elements are as repellant to him as the excess of nature, with a conse- quent attempt to arouse the melancholy and sentimental feel- ings in man.'' Tieck discusses a very curious garden in ''Der Jahrmarkt,'" a novelette which, according to Friesen,* points to a time when Tieck was interested in gardens of a mystic-symbolic order, and which is to be connected with gardens of the same type in Jean Paul. That Tieck has progressed beyond a liking for such a garden is perfectly clear from a passage in the novelette 'Second edition, Breslau, 1841. I., 93. 'IV., 80. Humorously touched on, p. 85. n831. XX., Ifl. 'U., 361. 21 itself, in which the deserting hermit speaks of another garden a mile or so away from this curious one. In that nothing so fantastic is found, and nature is only helped along toward perfection.^ The garden of "Der Jahrmarkt" is as fantastic as anything that the imagination of Jean Paul could invent. It is largely allegorical in character, and so one meets conceits like a valley of childhood, a plain of youth with saplings and no flowers; pines indicate the hill of maturity, while dead trees show the bareness of old age, just as Brown in Eng- land planted them to imitate a perfectly natural landscape. In this garden, as in one mentioned by Sir William Tem- ple,' are found the four quarters of the globe. Greece is rep- resented by a wooden temple connected by a winding path with Elysium; there is a short cut thereto, and an impatient visitor by chance uses it to the vexation of the owner, as is shown with much humor and a tinge of gentle satire. Tar- tarus also is not lacking, and in the portrayal of its wonders the garden at Worlitz may have been in Tieck's mind, though the painted wooden Cerberus is thoroughly Tieckian in its humor. The itinerary of civilization continues through China and Turkey to the Christian Gothic era, and then the progress of man goes hand in hand with the history of gardening, so that topiary work and the Dutch atrocities are presented as typical of their respective ages. At this juncture the Baron who owns the garden remarks to the party that he is conducting, apropos of the loudly expressed pleasure of the minister's wife in this portion, that the absolute absence of nature ( Unnatur) has its charm as well, because through it the mind is turned back to the delights of the real. More than this Tieck does not imply by his praise of Unnatur, for he was primarily a lover of the simple and direct emotions. In the grotto of the sirens the too inquisitive youth is sprayed with water after the manner of the fountains on the Vexirkiinste on which Theodore dis- cants in "Phantasus." There is a valley of tears and a hill of ^Cf. XXIII., 9, where speaking of the Finkenstein gardens Tieck praises their unpretentiousness. ^Works, 223. 22 superstition, and finally with charming pleasantry, a region of virtue with seats and a bust of Socrates. Last of all comes nature itself, from white painted stones in the polar regions, to the hot-houses and artificial volcanos of the tropics. A good luncheon completes the experience of this marvellous in- stitution. It is self-evident that this is not in any way to be regarded as a model garden. Tieck presents it with gentle irony, per- haps as the consummation of that in a garden which makes it intrinsically less valuable. His idea of the garden is limited and coincides with the second point made by Jacobi in "Wol- demar," where the fundamental insufficiency of the garden as a satisfying factor in man's delight in nature is strongly brought out. The same thought is quite constant with Tieck. As early as the letter to Bernhardi already quoted, he re- marks, "in every garden without exception the lofty religious feeling is lost which nature produces in us." ^ In the Poems the expression is even stronger : ^ "Endlich die Hohe erreicht, Und Alpen, weiter Himmel vind See Beschamen in klarsten Morgenlicht Die falsche Kiinstelei des Gartens." In "Der junge Tischlermeister" Charlotte cries out that there are times when the most lovely garden terrifies.' It is manifest then from this, that though Tieck's interest in gardens was lively, though his understanding of them was inti- mate, and his tastes very definite, though he cared for the gar- den as a garden to a very great degree, yet his nature sense is not to be bounded by it, and that the investigation must look out into a far broader world, into the whole of visible creation, unwalled, for the scope of his feeling. As Biese says,* the gar- den style of an age is always a highly important gauge of the relation of the human being to nature, according as man sub- jects it to his laws. Taste and culture are mirrored in the gardens of each age as it progresses toward perfection. With *P. 198. Even in Worlitz as he says. ^'Poems, 333. ^XXVIIL, 283. *Page 262. 23 Tieck there is an uplift beyond the garden, an effort to Hve untrammeled in nature itself." The first impulse away from the confines of the garden is in an attempt to obtain wide views in nature. The landscape garden which for definite reasons did not appeal to Tieck, was an effort in this direction, but he preferred the wideness in nature itself, as can be seen for example, in the whole trend of his letter to Bernhardi on his trip to the Fichtelge- birge, where he is always on the lookout for vistas. Tieck touches upon this even humorously in **Der gestiefelte Kater" when the king climbs a tree and exclaims from the branches, 'T love the broad views in nature,"" the fresh satire of which is like a breath of cool air blowing in on a dull day. Again, in "Der Autor," Der Altfrank says to the poet who is of course, Tieck himself, "Du liebst in der Natur das Weite und Freie,'" a statement that is borne out by many a passage in Tieck's writings. For instance, Peter Lebrecht's father's cloister had a view where one could see far and wide over blooming fields, cities and villages.* Again, in *'Ritter Blaubart,'" the desire for ^That Tieck's characters enjoy gardens and are found in them need hardly be mentioned. A case or two in point: IV., 304, XVI., 340. XXVIIL, 137. and in several of the novelettes such as "Gliick giebt Verstand." There are gardeners in "Lovell" and "Der Ru- nenberg." To be intimately connected with his attitude toward gardens is Tieck's disposition of the house. In general, his houses lie low. For example, in "Magelone" there is a meadow opposite and cattle graze on the hills off to one side. On the other side there is a wood. In "Der blonde Eckbert" (IV., 151) the hut lies in a green valley full of birches. In Sternbald (XVI., 172) it lies in a free wide space backed by rocks and trees. In "Liebeszauber" house and garden are intimately connected and in the most charming region. Here, too, there are wooded hills and a river. In "Die Elfen" (IV., 365) the house lies high and this exceptional situation is also that of "Das Zauberschloss." Especially interesting and quite in accord with Tieck's love of the woods is the fact that his houses are so fre- quently in a grove-like environment. For example, in Red Riding Hood and "Waldeinsamkeit." In "Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen" the house nestles among the olive trees and vineyards of a milder climate. (XXVI., 287.) The lack of a bold and striking situation is at once apparent, while the feeling of privacy so to be desired in the ideal house is secured by the surrounding trees. =*V., 258-9. 'XIII., 320. ^XIV., 232. =V., 83, 88, 136. 24 broad views is set forth by Agnes in her longing for travel, and the play has several roof scenes where the view is taken from above. Such desire for travel is not rare among the characters from Tieck's pen. It permeates "Sternbald," and takes fast hold of Athelstan in "Die Reise ins Blaue hinein." Leonard has it in "Der junge Tischlermeister" and the cycle is completed when, in the tale within a tale in "Die Glocke von Arragon," Tieck essays to show that after all travel "home-keeping hearts are happiest." It seems as if Tieck, after a restlessness in which his spirit was ever longing to be superior to the ills of his body, had come to the conclusion that it were better to remain quiet in the enjoyment of a sim- ple earthly happiness. The motive often recurs.^ His characters enjoy the broad view even more than they do the garden. So Lovell ;'' and he says of Franz and Ru- dolph in "Sternbald" that they were overjoyed as they looked down from a hill into the riotous beauty of the landscape f their hearts swelled and they felt themselves regenerated, "magnetically attracted by heaven and earth through love." In "Fortunat"* the free landscape and the garden are associated as the two desiderata from which prison keeps man. In "Dichterleben,"'' Rosaline and Shakespere go out on the hill above Bath to enjoy the westerly view toward Bristol. In "Eine Sommerreise"^ there is a very interesting and beautiful passage, based on a real experience, which describes the break- ing or the light through the clouds and the disclosing of the vista behind. "Der Alte vom Berge"' contains a similar de- scription : "The mist had meanwhile lifted slightly, and one saw from above the little valleys with wood and bush lighted like tiny islands by the morning sun, and between, the half-hid- den little house and huts which leaned against hill and rock." So, too, in "Der Aufruhr" there is a view from an arbor over the distant hills.* The wide view can be extended to the heavens which, with clouds and stars, form a fitting basis for man's contemplation ^XIV., 219. Cf. XXIV., 297. ^^VI., 33. "XVL, 204.— *III., 431. "XVIIL, 307. «XXIII.. 26. ^^XXIV., 150. «XXVI., 259. 25 of the infinite, but there seem but few places in Tieck where he sinks himself thoroughly into this mood/ though he surely enjoys the sky and especially the stars, whose influence on man he feels to be very great. The other symbol of infinity, the endless sea, plays a rather minor role in Tieck's works. In the much-despised "Alia Moddin," which has its scene on an island, there is a certain atmosphere of it, and it is there used as a symbol of freedom. In "Magelone'"" there is an overwrought description of a sun- rise on the sea in the manner of the nature descriptions of that rather turgid rehabilitation of the old legend. The soft lights of the setting sun over the Mediterranean at Leghorn' and a touch now and then as, for example, the gray sea of one of the poems, are all. Even where the opportunity oflFered itself as in the novelettes which treat of the same theme as Schiller's "Diver," Tieck confines himself to literary enthusi- asms. He was, of course, not without feeling for the sea; he liked the broad view over the water as well as over the plain to the hills. Loveir looks out into the endless sea, and in I * Abendgesprache"" the old man loves the sea best of all: "Here one has the flight of the clouds, the freshness of the water, the current of air — and what one may call real weather. Then each wave offers food for contemplation: the long roll, the hovering, the final break; one wave coming quietly, another foaming, the third with a high curve, and the next breaking too soon." The sounds and lights of the sea are also described. But generally it is mountain and plain which afford Tieck his outlook on the visible world. In "Der Runenberg'" the contrast is brought out between mountain and the level land in the feelings of Christian, who, born in the confines of the lowlands, is awakened to new life by the mysterious call of the upland. Tieck knew exceedingly well how to express the demoniac fascination of this mountain influence; how flat and 'XXVI., 528. ^"IV., 340. ^'Poems, 325. *VI., 41. "XXV., 210. ^'IV., 216, 227. 26 stale all other landscapes appear to the young man after the snow-capped peaks, how dull the winding river after the swift-rushing mountain torrent. Yet in this place there comes at once a sense of rebound, so that he can say that the plain l^ appears delightful after the terrors of the mountains. The charm of the prospect of a broad plain is elsewhere not un- noticed by Tieck, even where there is no sense of contrast; as, for example, in "Sternbald :"^ "Now the forest opened up. A beautiful plain with bushes and tufted hills lay before them." The plain shows a view of the distant mountains and is broken up by bushes as Tieck wished it in a later passage from "Phantasus''^ on the theory that this heightens the esthetic and spiritual effect. In "Peter Lebrecht/'^ it is the mountains behind which his childish wishes lay ; in the Italian poems, the mountains affect him with their grandeur and solemnity, and the whole tremen- dous power of the Alps is nowhere better exhibited than on Emmeline in "Eigensinn und Laune."* She says amid tears and sobs: "Can one see the natural beauties of this place, above us the Eiger and the other immeasurable Alps, all about us the green solitude of the wilderness, and all this so heart-rending, without deep emotion? I never could have believed that nature could so powerfully penetrate the human spirit. My soul succumbs to these unexpected feelings." The idyllic concomitant of the Lago di Garda and the nearness of Germany and Switzerland are alluded to in "Vittoria Accor- ^) ombona," where the ever-changing scene of the mountain gives an individual charm to the landscape and to the life of Vittoria and her husband in their loving days before the ulti- mate catastrophe. The first noticeable feature of the landscape as such, is its wide scope, as when in "Abdallah"^ Tieck covers the whole range of the visible scene and fills in the details besides: "Now he climbed a hill which overlooked a very beautiful ^region. A vale nestled down between the wood-covered moun- ^XVI, 231. ^IV., 122. ''XIV., 219. *XXIV., 306. ^'VIIL, 45. V 27 tains; the woods rustled soberly and solemnly and through their trembling green a stream peeped coyly ; this disappeared from time to time, and now and again shone in the sunshine like a broad lake. Peaceful cottages lay trustingly under the trees, the sunshine played in many rays upon the fresh green of the turf, which poured down, now darker, now lighter from the hills. Cedars stood solemn and black on the mountains which enclosed the horizon. All beings, from the fly that hummed in the sunlight, to the stag in the forest and the eagle in the clouds were joyful and happy." The details of this description are given in very logical order, as often in Tieck; for instance in Felicitas' monolog in the wilderness, where the landscape rises with the eye from the valley in which the water is, to the grass-covered meadow (Plan) and thence to hills and sky, while whispering trees and loneliness add the requisite romantic touch .^ In the poem "Phantasus," ' the progression is again from below upward, starting with the very fish in the water and ending in the air. The poem "Tyrol"' offers the reverse process, for the view is down on the landscape from above on the hillside, and is bounded by valley and sky. Tieck's vision drops in a natural way from the rocky walls high up, through the wooded hill- sides, to the vineyards, and connects the hill and valley very easily by means of the mountain cascade which becomes the river below. Sometimes the two methods are combined* and the progress is down from above and then at once again up from below. Or with an interesting sidelight on the application of Lessing's doctrine of motion in poetry, in the poem "San Lorenzo and Bolsena,"' Tieck causes the landscape to rise and meet the descending spectator. In "Der Runenberg"" the landscape climbs with him. To gain greater scope and seemingly not with entire unconsciousness in the use of the method, Tieck, employs the simple but striking device, of drawing attention! to the reflection of the sky in the water.^ The resulting per-1 ^I., 112. ^^IV., 131. ^^Poems, 216. ^*Ibid, 41. "Poems, 249. ^^IV., 219 ff. 'XVI., 45. 28 spective doubles the sweep and depth of the view. The same expedient is resorted to in "Neuer Sinn,"^ an early poem, where the stars mirror themselves in the sea, but no further details are given. In the main then, it is a broad scene and a wooded and hilly landscape which is found in Tieck, and from what has been said before, this preference is natural; it lay in the law of contrasts that he should tend toward this type rather than to the plain and heath. The various aspects of the landscape deserve brief mention. It is found in all phases of the day, either in regular progres- sion from day-time to night-time, or vice-versa; here its use may be merely decorative or again the use may be wholly symbolic of states of consciousness. There seems to be no special preference for any particular time, and this is due to the continued pregnancy of the moments in question. All the seasons are represented, winter less frequently. Spring re- mains the season of romance, and the reason for Tieck's pre- ference for the spring is at once evident when one takes into consideration the- whole man and the sources of his inspira- tion. In some ways Tieck was advanced; he has a decidedly more modern attitude toward the mountains than that which was current from classic times to Dr. Johnson, who was dis- gusted with the Scottish Highlands on account of the difficul- ties attendant upon travel there. But in respect to the storm, winter, rain and cold, Tieck is still altogether within the bounds of tradition. With his physical delicacy and his gout, he could not be expected to live in the clash and play of the elements as did Goethe, or to swim the Hellespont with Byron. The storm had its attraction for him, but not for its own sake ; it is the symbol of inner conflict, or it is decorative. That higher type of nature feeling, which is necessary to have in order to understand and love the unpleasant as well as the pleasant moods of nature was almost wholly foreign to him. Furthermore Tieck was largely influenced by literary models, and spring is the traditional season of the poet, especi- 'Poems. 85. 29 ally in the medieval poetry with which he so largely occupied himself. As iS natural, the result of this attention to the work of past ages takes a somewhat conventional form, but there is less of the really hackneyed in Tieck than might be sup- posed. The trees, the flowers, nightingales and the phenom- ena of the heavens are often presented with pathetic inward- ness and veracity. Tieck's effort was to get close to nature. He seems to have slipped away from it and from life with re- gret, and his misfortune is that his creative power always was less than the mass of ideas and feelings within him. Dawn pictures are of frequent occurrence, and the descrip- tions are given with a vividness of language that brings to mind in its poetic fire the golden rays of the rising sun. The dawn is preeminently a great occasion in Tieck's life, and the impression that the one sunrise in the Harz made on him was vital and lasting. The dawn is variously presented. In "Genoveva" the moments before the breaking of day are twice noticed, once when Zulma describes the coming of the watch who extinguishes the dim lamps, the gradual paling of the moon and of the little stars, and finally the cock in the neigh- boring village announcing the coming of day.* In another place in the play, Genoveva tells of the coming of the morning, the disappearance of the stars, and the gradual sinking of the veil of the night as the morning lark rises.' Impatience for the coming dawn is portrayed in "Alia Mod- din,"' and the actual dawning is painted in the most flamboyant colors, and with much personification. Here the sun rises in purple floods and with flaming sails. Later on, in "Abdal- lah," the elements are the trembling sunbeam, the fresh cool breeze, and the reflection of the light on the waves and palaces. Such light-reflection as a part of the dawn is found in "Stern- bald,"* where the churches of Nuremberg shine out to Franz at parting, and again in "Genoveva,'"' where the windows shine in the reflected rays. The light usually burns warm, and the favorite colors are the reds, purples and gold.* Indeed ^IL, 47. =^11., 89-90. «XI., 347. ^*XVI, 4. 'U., 6. ^»VIIL, 51. 30 the word Morgenrothe is of singular frequence in Tieck. Besides pictures of the dawn proper, there are many of the morning in a further stage of advancement, as for example, in *' Der blonde Eckb ert,'' where the sunshine spreads over the green fields and makes the green birches sparkle/ The sunset mood and the descriptions of the magnificence of the setting sun, the Ahendrothe, pervade all of Tieck's works. As early as "Abdallah,"'^ the elegiac mood or revery is connected with this period of the day: Abdallah returned to the city after having watched the shadows grow long on the mountains. The evening bustle and occupation surround him ; but in his mind's eye he still sees the country and hears the sound of the inaudible flute in a way that recalls Words- worth's ''Reverie of Poor Susan," who "at the corner of Wood Street and Cheapside" has the country brought vividly back to her by a singing bird. As in the dawn pictures, the emphasis is again on the color, on the purples, the soft reds and the golden rays, which glow especially on trees and fields,^ or now and then, as in the des- cription of Florence at sunset, on hills, villas and buildings,* or again, as in the poem on Leghorn, cited above,'' where the glimpse of distant Elba with its soft glow and the strange lights on the water together with passing ships and birds, fills out the picture. The nightingales and the night butterflies are also elements, as the picture progresses." The moon when it rises is either ted or golden \ the silver moon seems not to have attracted Tieck's attention. The im- portance of the moonlight for Tieck will be discussed later; for the present it will suffice to note its intimate connection with the romantic aspects of all his work, the culmination of which is found in the novelette ''Der Mondsiichtige," in which the love of the moonlight and the influence it exerts are car- ried to the same extreme as the love of the forest in ''Waldein- samkeit." In the descriptions of the moonlight the same ^IV., 158. =^VIII., 47. "IX., 207; IV., 151. *Poems, 242. 'Ibid., 325. "IX., 207; XIV., 154. 'II., 115, 117, 118, 119. 31 points are brought out as in the dawn and sunset pictures, namely the shimmering reflected light and in general the sense of fullness and intimacy with the time and scene in question/ While the sunset and moonrise are intimately connected, the night is far less logically joined to the other parts of the day, and may be said to be used with more attention to the poetic or theatrical effects. The night itself is usually heavy and black with clouds, which, themselves mountains, sink down from the mountains. No star and no gleam of moonlight pene- trate this cloud wilderness. There is rain and storm, the sky has deep dark shadows. Such an aspect is in distinct contrast to a night- coming after sunset when the moonlight rises gold- en. That is, the clear moonlight night is usually a develop- ment of the day. Night when used alone is at best starlit and conveys a sense of heaviness and gloom.' The enumeration of the various phases of Tieck's attitude toward the individual phenomena of the visible world could be extended considerably, but enough has been said to show that his interest lay along certain fixed lines, somewhat tra- ditional in the main, it must be admitted, but felt with a poet's inwardness and reality. The concreteness of his vision and the reality of it are noticeable in the emphasis on color, light and shade and in the predilection for broad views. ^XXI, 92, 131. *VIII., 58; IV., 190; L, 303, 336; XXVI.. 117, 507, 417. CHAPTER TWO TIECK'S PHILOSOPHIC ATTITUDE TOWARD NATURE The limitations of this chapter are at once evident, and are conditioned by those characteristics of Tieck that were noticed in the introductory remarks. Tieck was not a philosopher, but a poet, and developed, therefore, no defensible scheme of nature philosophy which can be set up as a canon for future thinkers. In particular, he was no metaphysician and his cos- mogonical ideas are always inextricably blended with his pure- ly poetic dicta. But yet there are certain intellectual phases of his work which deserve treatment under this head. With how- ever little justification, he felt himself to be a philosopher, and philosophized about God, the mystics and the systematic thinkers. Some of these aspects may be treated here. What religion could mean to him, can at once be seen from his words in "Sternbald," where he says that piety is the high- est and purest esthetic pleasure. At the same time, this re- mark throws light on his whole attitude toward Catholicism, to which an uncompromising Protestantism accused him of being a convert. It was his sense of form and color and his romantic longing that made him turn to that church which most satisfied his fantasy, but there seems to be no reason to suppose that he was actually a proselyte. His God was a far different god from that of any church, and though in "Geno- veva" and elsewhere, there is a great deal of the mystery and uplift of an orthodox deity, with appurtenances, it is plain that this deity has for Tieck a purely poetic value and is not to be regarded as a part of his private human belief. As he grew older, the subjectivity of his early years dominated him less and less, and finally, to judge from a deliverance recorded by 33 Kopke under the caption "Religion," he reached an entirely objective and historical attitude toward the whole world of religion, and his entire philosophy is summed up in a stoic maxim of resignation. Both in philosophical receptivity and in religious fervor, Tieck was of the impressionable type, and as he came under various influences at different periods of his career, so the re- sult tends to become an undigested mass of ideas from many sources, with a consequent shifting of attitude. The most im- portant factors in his cultural sum are plainly Goethe, Jacob Boehme and Shakespere, but Fichte, Ben Johnson, Cervantes, the Romanticists, Schiller and Solger, not to mention many others, exert a more or less transitory influence on him. It was under the influence of Fichte's philosophy, as well as from a natural predilection for such ideas, that Tieck early came to believe that the whole outside world was only a re- flex of himself, and that whatever was there, was projected there by his own ego. In "Abdallah" and "Lovell" this philo- sophy led to an ideal of life which made pleasure its aim, an ideal summed up in the words of "Lx)vell,"* "In this material world I myself am my first and last goal." The ignobleness of this egoism with its selfishness, its utter abandon to wrong, and the resultant moral decay, as exemplified by Lovell, is not a necessary development, though it is a perfectly logical one ; Abdallah, however, often merely feels the unrealty of nature except as a mirror of his own passions — "all nature was mere- ly an echo of his own feelings."* In the "Phantasien iiber die Kunst"' the same idea is expressed: "And I should like in many an hour of pleasure to say that the world and the very sun in the sky borrow their light from me." Again in "Zer- bino."* "Alles Leben war aus der ewigen Natur geflohen. Und ich sah in ihr mich selbst." The same thought is more poetically expressed in "Wald Garten und Berg," in which the spirits of the mountains are 'VII., 30. ^'VIII., 51. 'Poems, 186; Cf. Herzensergiessungen, 185; Poems, 211; IV., 202. *X., 17>. 34 said to be inwardly related to man who can, by the force of his spirit, make nature serve him. This idea runs through Tieck's works in several forms; in one of the ''Lebensele- mente,"^ self-observation is identified with observation of na- ture. In "Das alte Buch"" the reaction of man upon nature is very strongly expressed in the words "Ohne Stimmung ist keine Natur da," while in "Die Vogelscheuche,'" the idea has degenerated into a statement almost therapeutic in value, where the astronomer Heinzmann expatiates on the influence of the spiritual body on the material. Marlowe in "Dichterleben"* says in the same spirit: "And our vital emotions, our fan- cies, our inspirations, are they not perhaps the inmost forces and springs of the other animals, of the plants, the elements and the so-called inanimate objects? Would the earth revolve around the sun without man? Would the ice of the sea melt in the spring sun? Would the tide ebb and flow?" Yet though the poet in these and other passages may be- lieve this world to be only a reflex of himself, he cannot help but indicate that the world of observable objects, interacts up- on him in a way that makes it possible for the critic to speak of nautre-influence. Nature-analysis cannot always mean mere self-analysis; the poet in so far as he is a poet and a creator of plastic forms, must have an objective attitude toward na- ture, and Tieck in his most transcendental period does live outside of himself and not in a world purely ideal. Nature is ever present before one's eyes, as he himself makes the stranger tell the drunken miner in "Der Alte vom Berge ;"° it is this nature that he emphasizes, in which he sees bonds of sympathy with man, and whose cult is a continual source of happiness. It is curious that even from those of whom he speaks with the greatest reverence, Tieck drew much less than would be expected. Their influence sank but little into his character and one is tempted to say that though he was violently moved, he was never deeply moved. It is really remarkable that a man 'Poems, 150. ^^XXIV., 22. ^"XXVII.. 14. ^*XVIII., 97.. »XXIV., 189. 35 who claimed so much for Shakespere, and who was, according to his own statement, so thoroughly steeped in Shakespere's greatness, and whose magnum opus on the British poet did not appear for the very reason that he was unable to digest the great mass of material at his command, should have so little of the true Shakesperian spirit, so little of the real flavor of Shakespere, so little of that insight into life that characterizes him. Tieck's genius never assimilated Shakespere, for the two men were too dissimilar ever thoroughly to blend. And as with Shakespere, so with Goethe, though here the proximity of Goethe's personality prevented quite the blind worship with which he regarded Shakespere. Now and again, however, he falls into the same attitude of mawkish admiration for both. The influence of Jacob Boehme is not quite of this character. Ederheimer* has pointed out that Novalis, for example, was far more inwardly imbued with the spirit of the Gorlitz mystic than was Tieck, who never organized his borrowings into a system. He remained rather on the surface of the movement of which he was the originator. He caught, however, the terminology of Boehme, transmuted many of his ideas and em- phasized especially the erotic character of his imagery. In the main, Boehme's influence is seen in such ideas as the frailty (Zerbrechlichkeit) of the human race, in the symbolic use of light as the son and heart of God, though on this doctrine Tieck's own personality has a strongly qualifying effect, as it has also in passages which treat of music as a heavenly rever- beration. Other ideas, such as those of the weaving of the eter- nal elements, as well as the persistent use of the imagery of Geister and Quellen as part of the forces of nature, are strong- ly reminiscent of Boehme, who also furnished much material on the origin of evil and on the omnipresence of God. The omnipresence of God plays a great role in Tieck's na- ture sense, especially in a discussion of God in nature. The *Ederheimer, Jakob Boehmes Einfluss auf Ludwij? Tieck, Heidel- berg, 1904, p. 56. See also author's article in the Bulletin of West- ern Reserve University, Nov., 1905, on the general relations of Boehme to the Romantic School, and for a criticism of Ederheimer's chron- ology. 36 idea is developed in three stages. These are the suggestion of God in nature, the revelation of God through nature, and the coincidence of God and nature ; but it must be explained at once that these three stadia are not found each at a distinct period in Tieck's career. They interchange rather, with al- most kaleidoscopic rapidity. The method of approach may be that man passes from religion to nature, instead of from nature into thoughts of God. Such a process is found in "Sternbald" where Franz' gaze wanders from the pictures at the altar out into the open, which is alive with a certain religious emotion.^ So in "Geno- veva" the close connection of nature imagery and religion is very strongly felt, and Genoveva describes the revelation of Christ who came to her "like a flower from its green bonds" in the following words -' "Wie er gestaltet, kann ich niemand sagen, Was ich gefiihlt, kann keine Zunge sprechen. Was seine Engel sungen. darf nicht wagen Der irdische Othem wieder aiiszusprechen, Wie wenn nach harten diistern Wintertagen, Der Friihling durch die Finsterniss will brechen, Und in dem Fruhling Friihling sich entziindet, Aus Blume sich noch eine Bluthe windet. Wie wenn das Morgenroth die Knospe ware. Aus der die Himmelsblum' sich musst' entfalten, Und alles sich bis in die hochste Sphare j Zu einem bliihnden Purpurkelch gestalten, [ Und Sonn und Mond. der Sterne machtge Heere 1 Im Lauf zu einem Kranze stille halten. \ So sah ich Christum vor mir niedersteigen." In his poem on Holy Week, Tieck employs the process as an expedient, handling it with considerable skill ; he combines *XVI., 66. It is interesting to note how Sternbald couples nature and God with his friend Sebastian, the model for whom was Wack- enroder. It is evident that Tieck associated him very closely with this phase of his development, for he returns to the idea not only in the Phantasien iiber die Kunst, but in a later sonnet to Wackenroder, written after the latter's death, where he says, "Dann sah ich dich . . . Einsam Natur und Gott und Himmel lieben." Cf. XVI., 12; Phantasien, 133; Poems, 154. ^IL. 87. /^ 37 as in "Sternbald" the artistic with the religious emotions, and these with the growing twilight, and ends the poem in an elegiac mood of piety. Nature is not used in any way as an emotional stimulus, but is subtly brought into relationship with the religious mood :* "Wie die Sonne tiefer und tiefer sinkt, Leuchtet der rothe Strahl Wundersam in Buonarotti's Schopfung hinein. Die Lichter erloschen Eins nach dem andern. Die Abendrothe sinkt, Und Dammerung und Dunkcl Ruht auf der bewegten Menge, So wie die letzten Tone verklingen." In "Eine Sommerreise" the same feeling is set forth, but the picture is that of a Ragnarok, a Gdtterddmmerung, which with the dawning of the day becomes a resurrection and a new being as faith is renewed.' In "Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen/'" the sunset melts into a religious mood; "At this moment the veil of clouds parted at the horizon, and the sinking sun threw a purple flood of light into the black sky above, a red fire poured over the vine- yards; bush, tree and vine sparkled in the glow; behind, the woods gleamed and, as one looked up, there stood the peaks of the distant Cevennes in the roseate light ; at the left, the water- fall sprang like blood from the precipitous rock, and the whole room, the table and the guests were all as if bathed in blood, so that at this moment the candles burned but dimly and the fire in the chimney-place flickered as with a bluish light. The rain had ceased, a solemn silence pervaded nature, no leaf stir- red, only the brooks babbled and the glowing waterfall roared out its melody. The old man looked up, as if he were praying silently, and a tear come to his large eye; the blond young man put down his knife and fork and folded his hands; the huntsman looked shyly from under his great eyebrows; the pastor tried to put on a sanctimonious look. . . ." In the same novelette, the religious pilgrimage to the shrine of 'Poems, 285. 'XXIII., 37-8. »XXVI.. 105. 38 \ the Virgin is connected with a renewal of the nature sense of the peasants as well as of their other feelings. Yet again and even more explicitly: the conversion of Mazel in the story- takes place through a desire to explain the wonders of the visible world and with the same nature imagery that was noticed in connection with the extract from "Genoveva," "... my heart sprang open like the rose from the bud on a spring morning, and the Lord was in me."' So Tieck con- nects nature and God in many ways : the thorn may be a sign of the resurrection of Christ and the Eternal may speak to man in the terrors of the night or in the howling of the storm. Nature may be conceived as more than merely suggest- ing God. It may in a thousand forms reveal the Deity to man and yet not be identical with that Deity. Nature may interpret God as something apart from itself or He may melt into it through various intermediary stages. In this aspect nature is conceived as the vestment of God, as the dead mass which is vivified by His breath, as the home of God, and its mysteri- ous springs are united with the innermost soul of man, but it never quite becomes God.'' The real personal relation between man and nature is that which leads to the Deity. This is illustrated by several passages from the earlier works. So Omar in "Abdallah" says : "The power of healing issues from a thousand plants, but the Creator does not appear immediately before us; feeble human nature would be too terrified before Him; He puts aside his fearfulness and in beautiful blossoms the reason of man finds the power of the Good." In "Sternbald," for example, it is more clearly stated. Here God is represented as clothing Himself in love in order not to terrify man, just as love is represented as uniting with nature in the same way. More definite and with such strong reminiscence of Boehme that the excerpt is better left untrans- lated, in order that the linguistic minutiae may be unimpaired, is another statement in the same novel: "So hat sich der grossmachtige Schopfer heimlicher und kindlicherweise 'XXVI,, 297. 'XIX.. 53; cf. XXVIL, 11. 39 durch seine Natur unsern schwachen Sinnen offenbart, er ist es nicht selbst, der zu uns spricht, weil wir dermalen zu schwach sind ihn zu verstehn ; aber er winkt uns zu sich, und in jedem Moose, in jeglichem Gesteine ist eine heimliche Zif- fer verborgen." Later on in the same interview between Franz and the old painter, nature is spoken of as the cover- ing of the subHme. The poem "Die Tone" has a lyric expres- sion of the same thought : "In Form, Gestalt, wohin dein Auge sah. In Farbenglanz ist der Ew'ge nah, Doch wie ein Ratsel steht er vor dir da, Er ist so nah und doch so weit zuruck, Du siehst and fiihlst, dann flieht er deinem Blick, Dem korperschweren Blick kann's nie gelingen. Sich in den Unsichtbaren Blick kann's nie gelingen, Entfemter noch um mehr gesucht zu sein. ' f Verbarg er in die Tone sich hinein. ..." i The same idea is categorically stated in a poem to Novalis, "So giebt Natur uns tausend Liebesblickc, Damit der Mensch der Gottheit Liebe leme," In "Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen" Edmond feels the revelation and understands the deep lament of forest and mountain and stream and learns that it is the Word of the Eternal which he hears. In "Dichterleben" there is the somewhat Biblical idea expressed that the Eternal does not manifest Himself in the storm but in the soft rustling of the trees and in the "Thanksgiving hymn of the forest." The same thought occurs in "Tod des Dichters." Here the inspired prophet is said to have understood the ineffable Jehovah not in the storm but "im sanften linden Sauseln." In the same book the general thought finds two expressions: "What are fruits and flowers, rock and sea, animals and men other than significant signs and tokens in which the eternally creative force has written its thoughts and registered them there?" And finally Christoforo says that he suffers from the malady of wishing to bring his whole faith into accord with all nature. These illustrative passages will serve to show how Tieck makes nature develop an idea of God in man and how religion 40 is interwoven with God as an illuminating power. It is not merely external suggestion but reaction after suggestion, an attempt to portray the desire of the soul to approximate divin- ity through that which impinges on the consciousness of man. The last stage is an absolute identification of God with nature. It is more than a mere seeing of God in the manifes- tations of the universe^ this fore-stage which has been dis- cussed and through which Tieck was continually passing. Such an identification was a part of Boehme's doctrine and Tieck was no doubt confirmed in his ideas by what he read in the works of the shoemaker mystic, but it is going too far to say that he drew all of his ideas from him. In "Le Paysan Perverti" of Retif de la Bretonne, the source which Tieck himself assigns for "William Lovell/' there are several pas- sages which might have led him to such ideas independently of Boehme. So the Abbe says, "God, the universal principle, nature, are three words which express the same thing"; he continues to expand the thought in a rationalistic strain and speaks of "Nature or God" and of the world as an emanation of God. In Tieck there was a natural inclination to see the universe in this way. In the young Tieck one notices a continual struggle with these ideas, and nowhere is the struggle more apparent than in "Abdallah." Abdallah, like Faust, wishes all nature for his province and like Faust tries to approach the kernel of the world through a series of material pleasures, but finds in these no salvation and in the end thoroughly deceived, loses all where he had hoped to gain all. He makes the whole object of his existence the possession of the Sultan's daughter. To obtain her he commits murder and parricide, and finally cheated of his pleasure by the horrified woman, dies of a diseased imag- ination in an access of madness and dread. His teacher and tempter is Omar who, baffled in his desire to find wisdom and the key to the universe, becomes a pupil of Mondal, who is a part of Tieck's machinery of terror and an attempt to put into concrete form his passionate youthful misanthropy. As 41 punishment for a good deed done in a moment of relaxation, Omar is made to cause the sin of parricide, the instrument of which is the unlucky Abdallah. Around this plot, developed by Omar to undermine the already wavering character of the young dreamer and enthusiast, is woven a philosophy of life purely hedonistic and selfishly sensual. As part of this is an idea of nature somewhat as follows, — confused and not vivisectionable, but with a certain thread of consistency running through it. Nature is God, and yet God as God stands outside of nature, though when He is nature as nature. He is as much God. Na- ture as nature, however, is itself apart from God and in this as- pect is a beneficent force. The God who stands outside of na- ture is not the beneficient deity, and against him man is help- ' less. But since God is the world, that is not only the visible universe, but also the immaterial and intangible world of ideas and morals, therefore everything is from Him and there can \ be no evil. Yet again, God stands outside of nature and is ; malign; therefore it must be concluded that to struggle against this all-powerful spirit is impossible. Tieck now unites these two conceptions, first that there is no evil, and ' second, that man cannot struggle, into the afore-mentioned sensualism, arriving at this philosophy by a process of reason- ing which deduces from the postulate that man is no better than the beast, the conclusion that whatever he does is right. Abdallah for a time makes a show of resistance to this doc- trine, but in the end meets a fate which the pursuance of it implies. But while it is held that God equals God with the attend- ant circumstances of divinity, at the same time Tieck feels that nature equals nature without any reference to its iden- tity with God. As mere nature, it has special powers to make man happy or miserable, but especially, as will be shown in the remarks on animism, Tieck sees in nature a certain sym- ■ pathy with man in each varying mood. In this aspect nature ' has a separate living organism. The keynote, however, of the 42 nature philosophy of "Abdallah," if it can be said to have a philosophy of nature, is that the world is God. To illustrate . "Where should the Unending find a place for Himself in cre- ation? He embraces and permeates the world, the world is Gk)d ; in one primal substance He stands before us in a million forms; we ourselves are a part of His being." Nothing can be more plainly pantheistic; the world in its million mani- festations is God. In another place: "In rock and thicket the Incomprehensible stands before me — brought nearer to me, and yet in that way all the farther off." The reason for this is given later on where Abdallah says that the Creator does not manifest Himself directly to us, but only through the flowers does the human mind find Him. Tieck means by "nearer and yet farther off" that God in such a view of Him can no longer be the gracious all-forgiving Father ; by being brought nearer to Him in this actual physical sense the pious youth who was or might be accustomed to flee to Him for rest and comfort is deprived of this spiritual solace. The corollary idea that in a worship of nature the young man is compensated for that which he loses by this approach to God, is not developed. The nearest that Tieck comes to this is where he has Abdal- lah cry: "O that I could plunge myself into the sea of the immeasurable Godhead, draw these myriad treasures into my bosom," though here again it is rather a desire to identify himself entirely with that nature of which he says that he is a ray, than a real worship. Nature then is God, and the fiery human soul exhibits a desire to become one with it. But when nature is outside of God and has a separate living organism with feelings like those of man, there is a curious duality of conception; it is even, in this stage, something vivified by God's breath : "One vital force flies through nature and millions of creatures re- ceive like alms a spark of life— they are— and surrender their life again and become dead dust." In the end and under it 43 all there is nothing but a grinning skeleton. Even in this God has a part: "Is it not His breath which vivifies the dust? All actions come back to Him and announce themselves as belong- ing to Him : His shadow wanders about in a thousand forms ; where He looks, there He sees only Himself." So then God, while conceived as identical with nature, is held to be so out- side of it that He can breathe into it the breath of life and in punishing it can punish only Himself: "Soil er, kann er sich selber strafen?" The bearing on the ethical trend of Omar's teachings is obvious. The idea is carried even farther : "We are but a stuff in which unfamiliar forces become visible — a great game ruled by a strange Power," a thought which is as old as man and which finds its most modern expression in Fitz Gerald's version of the "Rubaiyat," "But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days." The confusion in Tieck's mind and the effort to clarify his ideas will at once be apparent from the foregoing summary. The residuum seems to have been a tendency to see the unity of all creation under various forms, but without essential dif- ferences. Omar impresses this on his pupil's mind, and in "Wald, Garten und Berg," there are two expressions of the same idea. "Der Wald" is made to say, "Verschiedenheit ist nur Schein" and the "Quellen" sing: "Alles alles ist verbunden Ein Herz nur, das alles re get." Such an idea may easily develop into the omnipresence of God, especially in so religious a work as "Genoveva,'* where the heroine prays to the Almighty and omnipresent One who is in the grass and the stars and whose dwelling is the firma- ment. How this doctrine, interwoven with Platonic princi- ples took form in a later novelette, can be seen from the fol- lowing: "As every appearance, every form is perishable and lives only in disappearing, so it is just on that account eternal, for down to the very worm, to the thinnest moss on the rock, 44 everything has grown up in accordance with a primal form in accordance with an immortal idea, and every thread in creation, every smallest insect indicates a fundamental thought, the copy, the picture, the temporal, the imperishable. Thus \ve see and perceive oracles ever, and it is a great phrase when we call the Invisible the Omnipresent." So in **Vittoria Accorombona" Ottavio says that man seeks God in the world and in temple and palace and yet He is close beside him always and ever. Another passage in the same story approaches the thought from a different stand- point and develops the idea with emphasis on the love-ele- ments. The most definite expression of the doctrine is in the words of William, the weak-minded boy of "Der fiinf- zehnte November." He sees in the whole external universe, in the very movements of the brute beasts, the real being of the Deity, and since Tieck tries to express through him the ultimate teaching of the novelette, his sayings are all the more significant. So all through his life Tieck placed stress on the permeating presence of God, not as a purely religious tenet, but as part of his poetic confession of faith, as part of that which he drew from his sources, and a great share of that which he really drew from nature itself. CHAPTER THREE TIECK'S NATURALISTIC INTERPRETATIONS OF NATURE The interpretations here set forth predicate nothing but the simple every-day attitude toward nature; they are not pe- culiar to Tieck. He expresses with a certain naive open- ness of mind the interaction of the commonest phenomena and man, and of these the most patent are touched in this chapter. It is hardly to be hoped that it will offer anything new except the Tieckian flavor of the general congeries of interpretations. Before the more complicated relations between man and nature are possible, he must observe. Tieck typifies this first stage, the simple value of direct observation, in the lines from "Der Autor:" "Die Sonne schaut auf dich, so schaue sie auch an. Die Erde auch betrachtet, so hast du wohl gethan." Such direct observation begins with the smallest and ends with the largest phenomena. Abdallah, for example, is sur- rounded by a silence so intense that he hears the worm crawl- ing through the grass, while the whole activity of a square foot of earth is pictured in "Peter Lebrecht": "How remarkable a square foot of earth can appear to one ! If we confine our attention to this small space, we discover even here wonderful events and remarkable revolutions. Black insects busily and eagerly take long pilgrimages to their distant homes ; they toil, too, through the blades of grass without knowing whither they are going — just like man ; ants writhe on the ground and drag about little stones and grains of sand Wonderful grasses stand all around and are to these dwellers of the earth great forests." The passage continues at some 46 length in the same strain and mingles observation with various moral reflections/ Probably nowhere more than in "Die Vogelscheuche," that novel in which Tieck almost more than in any other work loosed the bonds of his fancy, gave free rein to his imagin- ation and wove truth and unreality so madly together that it is impossible to disengage the one from the other in the ludicrous tapestry, is found the sense of the minute in nature. Here the real world, the sober every-day world of Philistin- ism, is visited by the maddest and most fantastic of elves, elves who have a real existence in this world and are a part of its daily doings. A scarecrow is conceived as the home of a comet which, too, is an elf fleeing from pursuit; the scare- crow becomes the symbol of the Aufkldrung, is freed from the elf's presence, remains human flesh and blood, solves mysteries by the aid of second sight, marries the daughter of its fabricator, and in the end boldly confides to her that it is still a scarecrow. The variety of fantastic impressions grows with each word, in spite of the fact that the whole is a ve- hicle for Tieck's satire and for an expression of his dislike of certain schools and creeds, for he betrays besides this ten- dentiousness a fine sense of attention to and feeling for the great mass of creeping and budding things that man does not usually notice. His sympathy with the bee and bird and his insight into the life of the smallest living creature are almost unrivaled. Tieck himself is the fairy Heimchen who sees the wonderful juices make their way up from the roots of the tree into the pulpy mass of the cherry, and he is that fairy who knows the relation of sparrow and swallow in their nest- making; all of his observation is made with true poetic feel- ing. From mere observation to appreciation is a short step. This appreciation, which may arise from the simple joy of living, is usually found associated in Tieck with the joy of motion, of coursing through field and forest, of riding out into 'XV., 25. Cf. Werther's Leiden, letter of May 10. For literary satire on direct observation, X., 118. 47 the open. Both the countess in "Franz Sternbald" and Mar- cebille in "Kaiser Octavianus," types of Tieck's young and full-blooded heroines, are imbued with this feeling, which is generally characteristic of "Sternbald," the "musical"' wan- derings of whose hero through the world are attended by notes like this: "Wohlauf es ruft der Sonnenschein, Hinaus in Gottes freie Welt! Geht munter in das Land hinein, Und wandelt iiber Berg und Feld."' And so on through the whole poem. Young Peter in "Magelone,"* is roused by the words of the strange harper into saying, "No greater joy for the young knight than to ride out through vale and field;" while in "Die Elfen" the joy arises from a sense of well-being and hap- piness in the generosity of nature: "It is so green here, the whole hamlet is splendid with thickly planted fruit-trees, the earth is laden with beautiful plants and flowers, all the houses are cheerful and clean, the inhabitants well-to-do, yes, it seems to me that the forests here are more beautiful and the skies bluer, and as far as the eye can see one can gaze his fill in the joy and pleasure of generous nature."* How all the ele- ments unite to bring gladness to the heart of man is well- expressed in "Musikalische Leiden und Freuden :" "It is a de- light to see and to feel the curve of the hills, the little river, the magnificent green, and then the lights and shades. Is there any pleasure like this or even approximating it?"' In a thoroughly minor key, with the feeling that "home-keep- ing hearts are happiest," is the expression in "Die Gesellschaft auf dem Lande,"' and like this the state of mind attributed to the martyr Brousson in "Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen,"' whose desire once more to visit his beloved mountains, ra- vines and clear streams is in a large measure the cause of his *The word is Goethe's. See Donner, Der Einfluss Wilhelm Meis- ters auf den Roman der Romantiker, p. 61. ^XVI., 103-4. ^"IV., 297. nv., 366. 'XVII., 342. "XXIV., 406. ^^XXVI., 210. 48 fall. Indeed, it hardly need be said that the appreciation of nature by the characters in Tieck is a constant factor. His young men and women are all imbued with it and even the old countess in "Der Schutzgeist" can speak of "Die plotz- liche Freude an der Natur" as one of the nameless causeless emotions of early youth which enrich our lives.^ The whole basis of the novel "Waldeinsamkeit" is just this feeling; the inability to indulge it is felt as a lack, so that sick men long to be out in nature, and one of the first sentiments after a severe illness is the nature sense. So for instance, in "Abend- gesprache :" "My longing was all the stronger because I had just recovered from an attack of typhoid fever ;*'^ and in "Vittoria Accorombona" Pepoli says: "Only two kinds of people know how to appreciate the happiness of the air, of the landscape and of the clear weather : the sick man and the prisoner." ^ Such pleasure is a part of the inner being of man. Tieck feels and makes his characters feel that nature is too sacred to be treated lightly, and that one must be equal to, and ready for the enjoyment, and not expect to have it turned on by a tap. And so he says in "Der Mondsiichtige :" "One cannot at all times absorb nature and art — but alas for him who has no longing for them!"* In "Tod des Dichters" he symbolizes this in the person of the child who had her regular hours for the enjoyment and contemplation of nature. The ever-insis- tent note of fun is found with a reminiscence of Touchstone in "Das Zauberschloss" in the contrast of the fine view and the weary legs."^ Theodore in "Phantasus" emphasizes the method of enjoy- ment which is "Zerstreutsein, da es doch in einfachen Men- schen oft nur das wahre Beisammensein mit der Natur ist,"" but who afterwards cries out that they are forgetting to enjoy nature in the very discussion of it. Ernst adds to this, "Alles tont auch unbewusst in unsere Seele ein." Quite parallel to ^XXV., 45; note how often this sudden joy is expressed in Tieck. ^"XXV., 206.— ^Part 1, 221, Cf. Antonio in Phantasus. ^*XXL, 110. »XXI.,226. nV., 13, Cf. XXV., 85; Vitt. Ace. 1, 76, for eflFect. 49 this is a remark made in "Der junge Tischlermeister :" "There is a quiet passivity which without observing and with- out being itself conscious of the impression, often enjoys na- ture the most worthily."^ In thorough keeping with these ex- cerpts is the statement in "Musikalische Leiden und Freu- den" : "Believe me, the romantic environment plays and shimmers unconsciously, but on that acount all the more pleas- antly in our souls."* The desire to enjoy nature, especially in this way, suggests a return to it and brings to mind the great exponent of the doctrine of the return, Rousseau. According to Tieck's own statement," he became acquainted with the "Nouvelle Heloise" on his trip to the Harz in 1792, but after the first flush of en- thusiasm had passed away, he conceived a dislike for the whole on account of the colorlessness of its conclusion. Even in his earlier years, however, Tieck stresses in one way or another, the effort to get close to nature, though without any attempt to do away with civilization or to ameliorate aught but the individual. The desire to enjoy is a part of the return which is accompanied by all of Tieck's longing for the wide view, with the entire Romantic projection of self toward the unat- tainable. The desire to get away from city life and its distractions and to live more largely, closer to nature, is found, for exam- ple, in "Der Abschied" where Louise says: "The great world? Was it not always my heart's desire to live in the country, for you and for lovely nature ? The little great world where one whirls around forever in a circle of ennui, affecta- tion and hollow compliments — ah no, I feel that it is better here. I have nothing left to wish for."* And her husband goes on to praise the sweet monotony, the gradual growing to know nature as the most delightful features of their life. So too Amalia in the midst of London's noise wants to be out in Blondley, and Lovell longs to rest "in the lap of a rural soli- tude," while Mortimer plans for a country life in which he 'XXVIIL, 147. 'XVIII., 343. "Kopke I., 225. *II., 279. 50 and Karl Wilmot can read, chat, ride and hunt together.' Somewhat differently does Doris portray his life in the quiet of the country, "So leb ich hier in ewig gleicher Ruhe, Den einen Tag so wie den andern fort. Fernab vom weltlichen Getiimmel schleichen Mir Wochen, Monden, Jahre sanft dahin. Kein Wunsch stort hier mein Leben. . . . Die Sehnsucht zieht mich nicht nach fremder Gegend."^ This is the quiet peace of the countryman who lives in na- ture from choice, and so, too, Heinrich cannot contain himself for joy at the thought of the attainment of his happiness, which is simply the farmer's life with its romantic complement of songs in the evening.^ Prince Aldrovan would exchange his hopes for a shepherd's hut and his kingdom for a grass- plot and a shady wood/ while Andalosia in "Fortunat" feels when in prison that the farmer for all his hard toil is better off in his simplicity than he with his strivings and disappoint- ments/ Again, the peasant who lives immediately with nature draws his joys and sorrows from her at first hand," but Tieck never insists that it is the countryman who has the closest feeling for natural beauty, for he knew no doubt that he, like the Swiss mountaineer, loses by contact and familiarity that spiritual uplift which the sight and sense of nature give those more unaccustomed to it. For Tieck's attitude toward the return in general, the epi- sode of Helicanus and the Waldhruder in "Zerbino" is impor- tant.^ The young man wishes to leave the world and live in the solitude of the forest because of love. The hermit cau- tions him not to be too rash, to give civilization a chance, and urges him not to rail at mortality until he has been a mortal among mortals, since it may be that it is not the world that is unworthy of him, but that he is unworthy of the world. *VI., 27, 87, 103. ^*X., 39, XXVI., 486. ^'II., 161. ^*XI., 161. »III., 480. ^^XXVIII., 114. ^'X., 71, 75, 325; Poems, 87. So Emmeline in "Eigensinn und Laune" flees to nature after her ruin is complete; not even the utmost degradation can destroy her feeling for nature. 51 Finally the Waldhruder decides to put his theory into practice and to return to the world, while the young man who proves by one of those romantic recognitions, so calmly indifferent to probability, to be his son, decides to remain. There is a cer- tain very clear element of common-sense in the hermit in spite of his flight to the woods. But man is influenced by his environment; nature affects him in manifold ways and he, says Tieck, who is not touched thereby is a dolt. Men experience a sense of delight in the pleasant landscape ; it is the simple action of the most approx- imate thing upon them, and almost universally they react in their turn upon it. So in Tieck if nature is beautiful man has a sense of physical wellbeing when encompassed thereby. Ab- dallah says to his friend Raschid, ''Come with me into the beautiful out-of-door world ; spring will make you more cheer- ful." * Lila in "Zerbino" feels the pleasure of the quiet even- ing,'' and Felicitas, in a passage of extreme poetic power, finds complete happiness in idyllic surroundings.* In "Tod des Dichters," in the midst of trees and flowers, the simple whis- pering of a fountain causes joy.* Charlotte in "Eigensinn und Laune" gets real comfort from nature and says : "When I was very sad, I was comforted by the leaping water and by the odor of the flowers."' Nature refreshes and inspires Cleon in "Zerbino" ' and in "William Lovell" directly drives away moodiness and makes for happiness on the trip from Lyons to Chambrey : "Everywhere the most beautiful landscape which will suffer no sad or misanthropic sentiments ; the fine climate, sunshine, — everything had put me into a state of sensuous in- toxication in which I often forgot myself and like a child felt only the happy sensation of an inspired existence." ' The muse of "Der Autor" tells her protege in the same manner: "Es fliehn die schweren, dumpfen Traume, Wie Thai und Wald sich rings in Friihlingspracht verschonen." ' And so from the sunlight, at the sight of which the child Lini 'VIII., 44. Cf. Vitt. Ace, I., 89. ''X., 79. ^'I., 112. *XIX., 259. »XXIV., 357. 'X., 256-7. 'VI., 105. «XIII.. 282. 52 cries out, "How good I feel again,'" to the landscape of his younger days, in which the duke in "Vittoria Accorombona" feels rejuvenated,* this note is heard throughout Tieck's work. It is found even as satire on itself in the list of pleasures which the dog Stallmeister enumerates in "Zerbino."' It may be well to observe here, in connection with Tieck's love of his fatherland, this sense of elevation as exemplified by the association of nature with freedom. This manifests itself as early as *'Alla Moddin,"* where for example, Amelni dreams of freedom and her dream is full of nature imagery. When liberty is taken from Alia Moddin, seemingly for the last time, his language is of the same kind. The poems offer two striking instances of the same point of view. Tieck re- turned to Germany from Italy in the dark days of 1806, the events of which he commemorates in the following fiery verses : "Aber driickend ziehn die Wolken Nah und naher das .finstere Wetter, Schon vernehm' ich den Sturm, Schon blitzt es in der Feme. Und bald entladet sich krachend Der Orkan seiner verderblichen Funken, Friihling und Sommer entflohn. Der Herbst glanzt uns vielleicht Im letzten schonen heitern Tag, Und die gute Zeit des Jahres 1st auf immer dahin! O ware Wahnsinn meine Furcht, Und Kleinmuth meine Angst: — Was soil mir Kraft und Gesundheit, Wenn mein theures, innigst geliebtes, Wenn mein Vaterland zum Tode erkrankt? 1st die Nacht unabwendbar. So lass mich giitig auch die Morgenrothe Nach unter gesunkener Sonne Wieder froh und gestarkt erscheinen." This is an intimate personal expression of Tieck's deepest feel- ing and therefore the nature imagery is of especial interest. The darkness of the foregoing picture may be contrasted with the entirely different tone of the poem "To a Lover" written ^XI., 279. ^»Vol. I., 325. ^"X., 218. ^*XL. 279, 297. ^'Poems. 347. 53 in 1 8 14 at a time when the fate of the fatherland was not so hopeless : "Wonne glanzt von alien Zweigen Mutig regt sich jedes Reis, Blumenkranz' aus Baumen steigen, Purpurroth und silberweiss. Und bewegt wie Harfensaiten 1st die Welt ein Jubelklang, Durch der Welten Dunkelheiten Tont der Nachtigall Gesang. Warum leuchten so die Felder? Nie hab' ich dies Griin gesehn ! Lustgesang dringt durch die Walder, Rauschend wie ein Sturmeswehn. Sieg und Freiheit bliihn die Baume, Heil dir, Vaterland ! erschallt Jubelnd durch die griinen Raume, Freiheit! braust der Eichenwald."* But nature does more than make a man feel merely happy and comfortable ; it is represented as giving him a firmer hold on himself. The morning scene brings Abdallah hope,' and in "Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen'" nature inspires and gives strength. The intoxication of nature is spoken of in "Eine Sommerreise"* and again in "Der Mondsiichtige ;"° the flight to the mountains in "Die Klausenburg" is not only to distract but to strengthen." Luis in "Tod des Dichters" has his spirits raised and his past years brought back to him by a walk along the shore, where a view of the distant city with its reflected lights, the odors, the stars, the echo of the winds, all combine to fill the scene.' In "Das alte Buch" the more beautiful the landscape, the more Athelstan's spirits rise," while in "Eigen- sinn und Laune," the company is so impressed by nature that it can scarcely tear itself away from the scene." This ad- vances in Tieck to an expression of the full accord with nature in the words, "To feel the heart of the world in my own heart."" 'Poems, 428. »VIII, 127. ^»XXVI., 125. ^*XXIII., 27. "XXL, 84. 'XXV., 85. 'XIX. 252. ^^XXIV., 114. ^*V., 498. "Poems, 238. 54 This sense of accord, of intoxication and of uplift is not the only phase felt by Tieck. Or rather, the accord may be sad and the sentiment shades into pensiveness and elegy. In "Der Runenberg," there is a "siisser Wehmuth" spoken of at the sight of gardens, cottages and cornfields,^ while Tom Thumb says that lovely romantic nature is something quite excellent for *'es weckt sensiichtige Gedanken, dass man dort sein mochte, sich einwohnen, der Natur leben.''" "Die Berge," one of the Italian poems, expresses this very concretely: "Wehmuth thaiit von Himmel nieder, Aus den Wolken, dunkel schwer, Sinkt ein dustrer Traum hernieder, Und von Hoffnung bleibt die Seele leer." ^ The romantic and sentimental glorification of this "Wehmuth" is found in "Peter Lebrecht" ; "These times of pure sadness are the high feast-days of the soul on which it visits a holy temple and purifies itself from all that is earthly."* The rust- ling of the trees and the soft murmur of a waterfall cause Edmond's soul to melt into a soft and tender emotion in which he forgets in dreaming his plans and struggles.' In "Eine Sommerreise"* traveling brings from nature a noble senti- ment which is characterized as "Wehmuth"; this is rather at variance with the bright romantic glamor thrown about travel in the earlier works. It is interesting to see in connection with the note of longing that in the discussion of the effect of colors on the senses in "Phantasus," this is the predominating feature, for the distant blue of the sky causes longing, the purple of the evening touches, the yellow tints comfort, and j only in the green is there untiring delight to the eye.^ Tieck neither emphasises nor develops to any very great extent the direct education of nature as such. LoveU's father remarks on this power in a letter to his son, though he stresses the purely external and gymnastic sides rather than the inner or spiritual.* The amusing attempt of the mother of the two ^IV., 226. ^'V., 498. ^'Poems, 238. ^*XV., 24 ff. "^XXVI., 287. ^^XXIIL, 106. ^IV., 75. Tieck's women often wear green dresses, but Little Red Ridinghood despises the color. ^^VL, 21. 55 model children in "Die verkehrte Welt" is to be taken as satire. She requests that her offspring be taken into the gar- den that they may feel nature and let themselves be smiled at by the roses, a proceeding which is evidently to have a salu- tary effect on them/ A significant passage is found in *Than- tasus" ; in it the dual relation of man to nature and of nature to man is brought out. Ernst remarks that it had been his wish to investigate, among other things, "what environment surrounds each human stock, moulds it and is moulded by it. . . . The noble race of the Austrians, . . who in their fruit- ful land and behind their delightful mountains preserve their ancient light-heartedness ; the friendly, clever and inventive Swabians in the garden of their land, . . . the volatile cheer- ful Franks in their romantic ever-changing surroundings."* Here, as can be seen at once, is an attempt to account for the tribal differences and the race characteristics of several Ger- man stocks by reference to the environment in which they live. The morning is for the poet conventionally the time of joy ; it is the time when man feels anew the touch of life, when hopes begin and larger relations with the world are again pos- sible. It is for this reason that in "Die Sommernacht"* Titania prophesies for Shakespere that he shall greet this period of the day with rapture. Even a character like the councillor Kliemann, whom Tieck wishes to make ridiculous, can hon- estly say that he feels better at sunrise. Again in "William Lovell,"* morning is called the picture of an active life, a note that runs through Tieck's work to "Der junge Tischlermeis- ter," where he speaks of the refreshing odor of the morning, or as in "Der Mondsiichtige," where in the morning when one draws into one's lungs the fresh air after it has rustled through the trees and over flower-beds, all is "Jauchzen, Freundschaft, Verstandniss." Elsewhere Tieck definitely con- trasts "entziickender Morgen" and "sehnsuchtsvoller Abend." On the other hand, the bright morning may bring sorrow or fail to cheer the observer. In "Die Freunde," the spring morn- ly., 385. »IV., 15. 'N. S., I., 15. *VII., 17. 56 ing with its cheerful sunshine gleaming on the soft green bushes, the birds twittering and the larks singing in the fleecy clouds, the odors from the meadows and fruit-trees in the gardens, cause an intoxication and a desire to widen the bonds of the soul; the feeling does not last; the revulsion at the thought of a sick friend sets in and nature becomes power- less to drive away sorrow ."^ Franz Sternbald is saddened at the sight of the sun rising over Nuremberg,'' while Golo's whole woe, his torture and pain, are brought back by the bright morning.* In direct contrast to the joy of the morning is the sorrow of 'the night. So for example in "Abdallah," the sad, lonesome night is spoken of, while in "Der getreue Eckart," the night brings with it emotions of terror quite opposed to the feelings of the day. Then too, in the sexual sphere : the night is the time when Genoveva, the otherwise perfectly faithful wife, feels attracted to Golo ; in the day-time this inclination passes away.* Lovell is sad in the evening; later on in the same novel the connection between the falling of the night and this internal sadness is consciously expressed: "Night is coming on and my melancholy increases."^ Sternbald strikes the same note: "The redder the evening grew, the more melancholy grew his reveries."^ The feeling develops into self-pity. An- other example is found in 'IDeiLRunenberg:" "A cool twilight crept over the earth, and only the tips of the trees and the round mountain tops were gilded by the evening glow. Chris- tian's spirit grew ever sadder. . . ." So also Leonard "felt himself oppressed as the shadows spread everywhere." So for example in the cycle of poems, "Morgen," "Mittag." "Abend," the culminating strain is the fleeting moment's sadness. An- other good example is the description of Sternbald's activity at the beginning of the novel, where each new picture shows a corresponding change of mood. In "Der Dichter und die Stimme," a poem which expresses 'XIV., 143. ^'XVI., 4. ^'IL, 11. *II., 89. ^'VII.. 354; VI., 125; cl XXL, 91. "XVI., 19. 57 Tieck's early philosophy of sense, there is the following lament : "O ware nur der triibe Tag zu Ende, Dass ich im Abendscheine wandeln konntc, Und unter dichten Eichen, dunklen Buchen Dem Unmuth fliehn, dich Einsamkeit zu suchcn."* This shows that for Tieck man's reaction upon the night is more than the merely conventional feelings of sadness, lone- someness and terror ; it is seldom the time for great activity or festivity, but it has, as well as the day, a cheering power. So for example in "Sternbald," Franz becomes mellow with the approach of evening: "As evening came on and the red gleam hung trembling on the bushes his feelings became softer and more beautiful." ' In "Phantasus" the night with its beauty, the moon-beams on the fountains and the faint-echo- ing Waldhorn are felt by all to be a fitting close to the day, like the last accords of a perfect harmony. In the evening too, after a full and active day in Kenilworth, every breast is said to heave more freely and more courageously.' In "Der Mond- siichtige" an even stronger expression of this feeling is given. The time is night ; a brook, a stray bird and a steep mountain- side make up the landscape, the atmosphere of which aflFects the speaker thus: "Mir war so wohl, so innigst beseligt, dass ich ohne Wehmuth und Schmerz meine Thranen fiihlte."* In the same novel one of the characters says of an evening on the tower of the Strassburg Minster: "I lay long in day- dreams and reveries there aloft, while the gleam of the moon rested on the landscape. From all the well-springs of nature there came to me refreshment, well-being and comfort and it suited me that life is an enigma."* The most iniportant statement of this phase is in tiie excellent "Seelen zu kiinfti- gen Gedichten" in "Tod des Dichters:" "Man always says cheerful, light, when he wishes to designate the joyful and happy. O to-night, as I wandered in the cypress grove and then rested in the rock-grotto, surrounded by darkness and gloom, how happy, how blissful I felt. Ich sog an der duften- ^Poems. ZZ. ^'XVL, 58. ^^XVIII, 31. *XXI., 87, 116. 58 den Blume der Nacht, und himmlische Empfindungen trau- felten in meinen Busen und loschten den Durst der Sehnsucht. ... In dieser Nacht erschien mir das Leben des Tages matt und unbedeutend."^ The passage is redolent of romantic long- ing and the thought is almost crystallized into a dogma by the definiteness of the statement. That night should be the time of love is only natural. In "Sternbald" Tieck says that night is better for thoughts of love. So Peter Lebrecht receives his first kiss as the sun goes down behind the pine-covered mountain f again the rec- ollection of the loved one comes with the evening, as is suc- cinctly expressed in the lines from "Trennung:" "Seh' ich in die Abendrothe, Denk' ich briinstichlich an dich." ^ It is in the evening too that Helicanus meets Lila and falls in love with her, while in "Der Mondsiichtige," love and night- time are constantly interwoven. The night of this novelette is, however, the old familiar "Mondbeglantze Zaubernacht" of the "Kaiser Octavianus," whose hazy romanticism is fore- shadowed as early as "William Lovell," where the protest is against the "garish day" of modernity.* It is this night which "bedews the senses with fantasies" and which is a constant invitation to compose poetry ; and it may be said that however much Tieck affected to despise the moonshine poetry of Matthison, there is a good deal of flickering, hovering moon- light in both his poetry and his prose, with a tremendous effect on the susceptible young persons who people his pages. The importance of the forest in Tieck's writings can hardly be overestimated. To quote from a French critic: "There is in fact, 'no drama, no poem or novel of Tieck that does not contain some marvellous description of the sentiments inspired by the solitude of the great forests."' This is more or less exaggerated by enthusiasm, but the woods do form a back- ground for many a picture and give tone to many a varied mood. So in several works the atmosphere is altogether that 'XIX., 268-9. 'XIV., 50. 'Poems, 82. *VI., 51. ''Homme de Rien, p. 26. 59 OF UNlVERSiTV Of of the forest, just as the setting is entirely within its confines. It is not only the soft gray shimmer of the "beechen green" but also the deeper and more solemn note of the pine forest with its hush, its haze and its mystery. The whole tendency is summed up in that oft-cited word invented by Tieck to sig- nify in brief just this emotion, Waldeinsamkeit, over the form of which there was so much controversy among Tieck's friends and which has found its echo in Emerson's poems and in the weird conceptions of Bocklin. This term gives the key- note of the story "Pej^WondeJEckbert," and is afterwards used as the title of one of~Tieck's latest novels, in which the love of the woods is carried almost beyond the bounds of com- mon-sense. Between these two chronological extremes, the note is struck in a myriad ways, from a casual and somewhat Philistine expression in "Peter Lebrecht" or in "Abraham Tonelli" to a sustained and poetic use in the enthusiasm of the more important works. The love of the forest-life is expressed strongly in "Die Freunde," where the life of the dwellers in the wood is rhap- sodized in contrast to the more toilsome existence of man.* In "Posthornsschall," the romantic longing for the distant scene has a pessimistic tinge. The poem opens with the lines, "Weg, weg, welt weg. Von alien Schmerzen weg, Durch die Wiilder mocht' ich eilen."* Not merely operatic nor conventionally Anacreontic is the comparison in "Das Ungeheuer und der verzauberte Wald," "Ausser Wein nicht andere Wonne als der dunkle griine Wald,'" for Tieck elsewhere lays a certain stress on the im- portance of drinking. So he says of wine in "Die Gemalde:" "This golden and purple flood pours into and expands a sea of harmony in us and the old image of Memnon, which up to that time has stood silently in the dark night, begins to sing. Through blood and brain runs and hastens rejoicing the joyous cry, "Spring is here!"* In the "Seelen zu kiinftigen 'XIV., 145. 'Poems. 41 ; cf. 44. ^'V, 132. *XVII. 6o Gedichten " wine is spoken of enthusiastically as the finest concretion of the spirit of nature, and the spirit of the wine is represented as longing for man just as man longs for the in- visible/ So when Tieck couples this with his love of the forest, it can be regarded as part of his real feeling. To be connected with his patriotism already mentioned, is a passage from "Eine Sommerreise :" "The German still has his joy in the magnificence of the forests ; the Italian shudders at these vistas which delight us, and the other nations scarcely feel that sacred awe or that solemn reverent mood which seize us in the dark forest or in wooded mountain regions.^" This is equally true today; though the basis of their cultivation is economic rather than esthetic and sentimental, it is cer- tainly true that nowhere do the forests afford so much pleas- ure to native and traveler alike as in Germany. Of the love of the forest in the individual. Linden in "Waldeinsamkeit" says: "The green of the forest, the pale twilight, the pious rustling of the many tree-tops, all this attracted me from my earliest youth as if by magic into this solitude. How gladly I wandered off, got lost even as a boy in the woods around my home. In the inmost almost inaccessible parts I felt my- self indescribably happy and entirely separated from the world, and was glad to forget school, my parental roof and my noon-day meal."* The effect of the forest is expressed by Tieck in various ways. The meditations of "Peter Lebrecht" when lost in the woods are quite in keeping with the general character of the nature descriptions of that book.* There is a mixture of rath- er dull detail which leads into equally dull moral reflection; often there is a certain element of satire. In this instance, Peter explains that his fancy was aroused by his being lost in the forest, and that various exciting stories of adventures which might happen to him in such a situation came to his mind. He was frightened and soon began to feel as if some- 'XIX., 272. Tieck had a violent aversion for tobacco. ^"XXIII., 127; XXVI., 486, where the German woods with their special types of ti-ees are mentioned. 'XXVI., 479. ^*XIV., 209 ff. 6i thing were about to occur. The conclusion is that a man who had no adventures on such an occasion had no autobiography worth writing. The whole is kept, perhaps purposely, thor- oughly banal and indicates the lowest stage of Tieck's nature feeling, though in general this story is far better than its reputation, and the critics who see in it only the banality, miss the important elements that indicate the dawning of a larger period in Tieck's career. Far different, though still more or less as a back-ground, is the attitude observable in "Fortunat" at the crisis where the hero is almost dying in the woods. Here the wretchedness and loneliness of the situation are all the more forced on him by his environment, and his hunger and misery are inter- twined with the mood of the forest, until forgetfulness of the present enters with recollections of childhood and of past pleasure, just as recollection follows "Der Autor" when he wishes to wend his way to the forest. The forest is the place for quiet and meditation and man longs to surrender himself to the shade, to the mysterious si- lence and to the breezeless stillness of the situation.* Occa- sionally the mystery has the upper hand, and then man is rep- resented as leaving his melancholy behind as he steps out of the forest, since, says Tieck, the pictures in us are often only reflexes of outer objects.' So, too, the knight Albert has a "Grauen" in the forest.' In "Liebeszauber" walking in the forest causes a solemn mood.* "Sternbald" is perhaps the most replete of any of Tieck's works, not even excepting "Waldeinsamkeit," with the spirit of the forest and exhibits various interesting phases. For instance the reaction after creative labor takes the form of a flight to the woods, just as in a later novelette the forest is the environment where verses are written ;" in "Sternbald" this is consciously expressed. Night in the forest brings a catharsis of passion.' The forest with mountain and sea is regarded by Tieck as one of the larger phases of nature' which affects man as no ^IV., 238. ^»XIV., 147. n., 111. ^*IV., 272. ^»XXI., 262. •XVI., 80, 61. 'IV., 123. 62 garden can. It is the wood-covered hill which raises one's spirits/ and happiness may be found while merely riding through the woods." The opening note of "Wald, Garten und Berg" is activity and freedom from care in the shade of the trees ; and its admonition, "Riihre dich, o Menschenkind," calls to mind the effect of bright nature on man as so often indicated by Tieck. So in one place in "Eigensinn und Laune" the conversation plays into the tone of the forest and becomes more cheerful and poetic.^ Various love scenes take place in the forest as, for instance, the first meeting of Octavian and Felicitas and of their son Leo and Lealia. This is poetically consummated in the lines which like a refrain form the opening and closing notes of that great poem, "Der Liebe Tempel sei im Walde." The "Waldnacht" with its consequent "J^g^^^st" melt into love in the "Waldlied" from "Zerbino," which of all the plays has the most scenes in the woods and with "Sternbald" contains the greater proportion of Tieck's woodland lyrics. In "Stern- bald" the connection of love with plastic images is to be noticed in the thoughts raised in the minds of Franz and Flor- estan as the latter remarks that if he were a painter he would preferably paint woodland scenes. Then the woodland mood becomes one of voluptuous passion ; bathing nymphs fill the imagination of the young man and the images descend by logical steps from the overwrought excitement of such scenes to the subsequent elegiac touch of an Acteon or an Adonis. As was said a moment ago, of all the plays, "Zerbino" has the most scenes in the woods. Proportionately to the whole number of scenes, "Rothkappchen" and "Daumchen" have more scenes, and a larger part of "Octavianus" takes place in the wood than a comparatively small number of scenes there might indicate. Of the out-of-door settings in the plays, those in the forest are of slightly more frequent occurrence than any others, but the figures do not indicate the real fre- quency of the forest note, because the poetic atmosphere is ^XXIIL, 73. '^V, 441. 'XIX.. 373. 63 often extended over several scenes without change, as was remarked of *'Octavianus." Nearly one-tenth of all the scenes in the plays are in the woods, while whole plays like "Rothkappchen" have their important action there. "Das Ungeheuer und der verzauberte Wald" lays, as the title in- dicates, an important stress on a wood, though that wood is no normal prosaic one. Out of a total of 374 scenes in 18 plays, there are 210 in- terior and 164 exterior scenes. Of these the former were not further subdivided, but the exterior showed the following categories : Mere external setting but in natural surroundings such as "Schlosshof," "Vor dem Hause," etc., 30; "Walde," 32; "Feld," 30; "Gardens," 20; "Moorland waste and similar scenes, 16, a surprisingly large number; Street scenes defi- nitely so characterized or surely such from the context, and different from mere external scenes, 21 ; "Spaziergange," which are also to be distinguished from streets and which were evidently "alleys" or more adorned places than the open street; Mountains, 4; Sea, sea-coast and storm, 5. These figures are interesting when it is remembered that, even though the number of interior scenes is larger than the number of exterior, this does not invalidate the figures. The drama deals naturally with the relations of man to man, and such relations may be expected to exist in artificial sur- roundings. The significant thing seems rather to be that nearly one-half of the whole number of scenes take place out of doors. When the additional fact is taken into considera- tion that many of Tieck's plays are largely literary satires, the proportion is all the more striking and conclusive. CHAPTER FOUR MYSTIC AND SYMBOLIC INTERPRETATIONS Such interpretations involve more than that which is felt by the common man in his daily life, though they are always in- telligible to him as part of his heritage from past ages. Then they were matters of belief and not of poetry. They imply an imagination able to cope with the mystic and transcendental forces of the universe; an imagination which sees natural forces as living personalities and reads into natural events symbolic meanings. Here it is nature which is vital, and just as man reacted on the external world in the illustrations of the preceding chapter, so here nature takes the initiative and is the significant and living being. Tieck's whole genius was imbued with these ideas. The world lives for him and means to him more than the matter of which it is composed. Dark, desolate or terrible nature is a background for man's actions. Prospero worrying over the absence of his son in "Das Reh," finds all the world in a tumult; the sun has fled, the air moans, the storm is unchained, and never before has the sky been so heavy over the kingdom. Quite in accord with this are the restless days of "Peter Lebrecht,' though they are satirically meant. Such a day is full of vexatious trials. It is announced by various aspects of the heavens and by strange conduct of mortals ; all sorts of comic things happen, and one does well to avoid his fellow-man as much as possible. In "Lovell," the robbery in which Ferdinand, the girl in the dis- guise of a page, wins distinction as a rescuer, takes place on a dull, cloudy morning, and the surrounding landscape is in keeping with the events which occur there. In "Genoveva", the morning on which the heroine is to be taken to the woods to be killed is described in exactly the same 65 way, while in "Vittoria Accorombona" a terrible storm arises before the killing of Isabella, and the murder of Peretti hap- pens in the rain. Even wilder is the day on which KrWIjfirt kills Walther, and the ballad "Die Zeichen im Walde" has an atmosphere consistent with the gloomy subject, so that the murderer says of himself, "Wild zur Wildniss ging ich iiber," and the storm rages as the devil appears. The night corre- sponds to the deed of the gardener in "Der Pokal", and a blood-red streak of light at dawn reminds Selim of the pur- pose of the conspirators in "Abdallah." More subjectively: Abdallah after his terrible experience with the spirits finds himself in a broad, empty desolate region with pale moonlight, dark clouds, cutting rain and wind. Golo pursued by his crime lives a martyr to his thoughts in a deso- late region. Tannhauser is driven out into wilder nature by his feelings at the marriage of his rival, and the night of the wedding is so a reflection of his feelings that it can be de- scribed as terrible. Even more subjectively used than these is the violent storm on the night that the elves leave in "Die Elfen," while in "Die Ahnenprobe" the hero and the Baron answer a mysterious summons in a thin, cold and cutting rain. Theodore in "Die Klausenburg" arrives at the foot of the gloomy old castle on a changeable night in which clouds, woods, mountains, rain and wind are all mingled, only to be succeeded by a solemn quiet. All this is used not merely as a background, but the man feels that it is also a picture of his own life. \ The constant reflex of nature in its wilder and more terrible I aspects is found even in the metaphor, especially in the early yiM^^' works. 'Sternbald writes that his soul is like a rough land- / scape where the bridges are torn away by the rushing moun-./ tain torrents ; numerous passages figure life itself under vari- ous natural aspects, all cheerless and drear. In "Die sieben Weiber des Blaubart" the world seems like a desert, unculti- vated waste and in "William Lovell," man is compared to a twig driven about in the floods and whirlpools of this raging 66 life. Less strong but in a more melancholy vein is the passage where Lovell compares his whole life to a stubble-field which has been mowed oflF, and over which in the approaching autumn the fog grows thicker and thicker as the last ray of the sun dies out behind the distant mountains. To him the world appears as a garden, where thistles and weeds grow un- hindered, and there are many other references to the dead ap- pearance of the world as a symbol of life, all with a pessimistic tinge. From this it is an easy step to regard the world as a grave and a prison, and man as a caged nightingale, until finally life itself becomes only a wish for death, and death a flower blooming out of life. However closely these aspects of nature are interwoven with the inner life of man, there is in their description a cer- tain conventionality in spite of a very evident effort on Tieck's part to be Titanic. Such attempts are characteristic of the earlier poems where, for example, the night is dark and dark stars burn through the thin veil of cloud as the lullabys of the owl cry out a grewsome welcome, or when the storm rages and rock splits against rock. Much of the paraphernalia of terror is in line with what was being written at that time in the robber romances and ghost stories of authors like Spiess and Cramer. Tieck's young imagination fired with such reading and reacting as well upon "Gotz von Berlichingen," which played a great part not merely as a prototype for this brand of literature, but as an inspiration for him as a boy, worked it over into the atmosphere of "Abdallah" and "William Lovell." So the description of the pathway to Mondal's den is through a region that "nature seems finally to have created in lassi- tude." In "Die Freunde" the situation is that of a romantic mountain "where the wild and clinging ivy had grown up the rocky walls. Cliff towered over cliff, and terror and huge- ness seemed to rule this kingdom." The fairy-tale "Die sieben Weiber des Blaubart" is full of such passages. The treeless waste without hills, or with sparse woods and bushes, a wide 67 and dreary expanse, alternates with the wild and uncanny- mountain region with deep rocky valley through which a stream presses, foams, and groans its way between the cliffs as if terrified ; just as the brook in Spiess' "Hans Heiling" hastens away from an uncanny region as if on purpose. In the later novels this type of landscape becomes rarer. In **Das alte Buch," the home of the gnomes and dwarfs is described as a curious mountainous region filled with single unconnected hills, upon which single pine trees stood. In all of these pic- tures there is an element of confusion, of fragmentariness ; the regular course of nature is interrupted and there results a / landscape whose key-note is revolt and oppression. ^ The relation of such landscapes to the human spirit is in general what might be expected. Indeed it may be inferred from the frequency with which they occur that Tieck uses / / them as a part of his conscious imagery to produce or heighten H the effect. Crude and with teleological connotation is the use of the storm as a sign from heaven in "Alia Moddin" ; in "Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen" this motive is applied almost the- atrically. Here at the mention of the providence of God, there is a sudden flash of lightning which illuminates the vineyards with a strange glow and then follows a resounding thunder- clap which shakes the whole house and frightens all the in- mates. Allied to this but entirely objective and hence with a somewhat satirical application, is the appearance of the great comet in "Tod des Dichters." But this type of nature offers other relations with man. In "Die Sommernacht," the benediction of Oberon to the boy Shakespere, a passage which evinces real inspiration, tells how the latter will display a joy in the storm, the nocturnal tem- pest and many of the wilder and more terrible aspects of na- ture. Such, too, is ♦ the kind of scene that Lovell seeks as a refuge from a sinful life, but as he knows only too well, in vain : "There is many a time when I should like to travel away from here and seek a strange scene with its wonders ; to climb steep rocks and to creep down into dizzy abysses, to lose my- 68 self in caverns and to hear the dull roar of subterranean waters." The old woman in the "Sieben Weiber" brings Peter to a wild and rocky chasm to test him: "The coward who shudders at these vertiginous depths and who trembles at the omnipotence of the far-lying world, who trembles when he becomes aware of the great limbs of nature, is not made for fame. But he whose eye gleams, whose heart expands and who learns to know himself and all his forces in this place, he is a man." The poetic uplift of the wild country about Wunsiedel, with its cliff piled on cliff in rebellious confusion, is expressed in very definite terms in "Eine Sommerreise." On the other hand, the desolate region around Guben in the same novel increases the "Mismuth," and the hypochondriac Tieck, going to Italy, can see only the personified terrors of insomnia in a desolate region at Radicofano. The phase does not escape Tieck's humorous touch. In "Abendgesprache" a man is found jumping up and down a hill in search of a place to be melancholy in. The place is not where flowers bloom but where the granite is solid under one's feet. The storm as such is found all through Tieck. Purely ex- ternal and prosaic are uses like that in "Die Gemalde" where the driving snowstorm cools off Edmond's ardor and makes him see his former enthusiasm in a calmer light. The storm as a cause of evil is found in "Der getreue Eckart" where the rolling of thunder frightens the horse of the duke, and from this all the subsequent evils arise, and in "Dichterleben," where the sudden thunderstorm brings Shakespere and Jo- hanna together. Sometimes, however, it is the strength and fury of the storm which develop man's power of resistance and defiance, though it is significant to notice that the power is used not to resist evil but rather to foster it, or at least to make man feel a hatred of life. The vivifying force of the storm-spirit is brought out in the song of the poem, "Wald, Garten und Berg" : 69 "Mein belebender Othcm geht durch die Nattir, Besuche die griinen Walder, die Gebiische, Die hohen Berge, die niedre Flur, Mit mir geht Kraft und Lebensfrische. Mit Wolken ist in Liiften mein Spielcn, Auf Erden find' ich Gras und Laub, Doch oft, wenn mir die Bliithen gefielen, Sind sie audi meines Zornes Raub. Doch bring* ich den Regen zur Nahrung der Wiescn, Ich jage die Nebel ins Saatfeld hinein, Ich lasse die Stroma durch Walddunkel fliessen. Muss Wechsel und Kampf allgegenwartig scin." Two rather curious developments of the idea are found in the poems "Lebenselemente" and "Trennung und Finden." In the first, the rest which follows the strife of the storm is em- phasized, while in the second, the thought is carried over into the realm of love, and the peace which succeeds a quarrel is described with imagery from the storm. Enough has been said to show how Tieck portrays the co- incidence of man's spirit with the elements and with nature in general, joy in joy, and sorrow in sorrow; it remains to mention briefly how he expresses the contrast of nature and the feelings. The lowest form is the lyric expression of such lines as: "Was schadet's, wenn der Donner grollt, Wenn nur der rothe Mund nicht schmollt?" Sometimes it is merely the situation of man in contrast to the happiness and beauty of nature as in the Italian poems, or it may be an actual dullness to the scene because of preoccupa- tion, or some kindred state of mind. So for example, the poet may at the moment of composition be totally oblivious to the nature around him. Marlow in "Dichterleben" goes even so far as to say that in becoming a poet, man tears himself away from the bonds of nature and lives independently of her laws. ^/ If there be any one aspect of man's emotional life which is to be intimately connected with nature, it is love. So true and so general is the affinity of the two, that much that is said and written about them has become stereotyped, and a cant termi- 70 nology has arisen around this most universal and beautiful relation which makes anything written about it seem thread- bare. The figures of speech have become universal figures and the phrases bywords with almost humorous connotation, but the relation is not impaired and the poets as unanimously turn to nature for setting and inspiration for their love scenes now as in bygone ages. Tieck is not the first poet in whose poems the maid is kissed to the accompaniment of the night- ingale's song, or for whom that bird is the symbol of the lov- er's melancholy joy and of the strength of his passion, or for whom the cycling change of day and seasons means a change of love. Like all true poets, Tieck both consciously and un- consciously feels the whole subtle range of this relation and uses it in all of its degrees. It is thus that spring, the traditional time of love, comes to have a value for him quite distinct from and greater than that of the other seasons. This is perfectly natural from the pres- ent standpoint as well as from that mentioned in a previous chapter, when the whole trend of Tieck's poetry is taken into consideration. Tieck's is the poetry of longing and of un- realization, just as spring is the season of hopes and unful- filled emotions. So closely is the feeling for the spring inter- mingled with the feelings of man that a sense of anticipation, of projecting the soul out to meet the coming awakening of the year arises, the result finally in that perception of the Vor- friihling which made Shelley cry, "O winds if winter comes, can spring be far behind?" and which reverberates through the other seasons. This phase of feeling went with Tieck all through his life, as can be seen from the poems "Trennung" (1804) and the poem to greet the new year in 1825. The for- mer begins: "Ich wusste nicht wie mir geschah, Als von dem Busch ein Bliittchen that ausscheinen, Ich musste weinen, Als ich das erste Grun ersah: Wie musst du ohne dein Verschulden Den bosen Frost, die kalten Nachte dulden? Du meinst es treu und gut, 71 Du armes Blut, Und musst an deiner Lieb' und Treu verscheiden: Du blickst umher mit Liebesaugen, Den warmen Schimmer einzusaugen, Ach! dich wird noch die Friihlingsonne meiden." — Again in the "Improvisirtes Lied" (1806), "Und in defer Wintemacht Lacht und wacht urn mich des Friihlingspracht. . . ." The new yearns poem implies rather than expresses the feel- ing at its height, but the sense of it is there as also in the purely figurative lines from the poem written in memory of Goethe in 1832, *'In diesem Wettersturm, der Friihlingsnahe . . . kiindigt." Tieck although continuing the tradition of what Vernon Lee calls "three pathetic centuries of endless spring," makes of the season more than an expression of merely poetic plaus- ibility ; to him it was a real live experience. Thus in one of his very latest novels, "Der Schutzgeist," he has the Countess say : "One always experiences spring for the first time again : my soul always is astonished anew at the miracle which un- folds itself before my eyes. In my younger years it was my delight to watch from minute to minute this awakening of nature, or consciously to dream this sweet dream with it." She goes on to compare the two attitudes toward nature en- joyment, the objective which regards nature as a work of art, and the subjective which delights "like the flower and blos- som on the tree to unfold the heart with its feelings." So in "Phantasus:" "When spring expands with all its treasures, and the flowers in crowds laugh all about you, you cannot in your touching joy prevent yourself from observing their forms and coupling many a recollection with these." And in "Die Gesellschaft auf dem Lande:" "Spring is everywhere a lovely miracle wherever trees but blow and bud and flowers raise their eyes from the grass." How vividly Tieck felt the spring can be seen from his many personifications of the season under the figure of a child or boy. This motive, conventional enough, has its value in 72 the reality and fervor of the expression. Spring is a beautiful boy with golden locks, blue eyes and a mischievous smile, who gathers together the toys that winter has scattered; under whose foot and at whose awaking the valley gleams with flowers, and whom Marcebille wishes to press to her bosom in her delight. The "Seelen zu kiinftigen Gedichten'* describe his coming thus : "There comes spring with light and dew and warmth, he brings song and the odor of flowers and color. He wanders through the woods all decked with garlands, all dangling with flowery chains and in his hair are violets twined. One hardly recognises the form, he is so thickly covered with fluttering colors. Now the drunken earth and wood and gar- den feel his joy-giving presence, the spirits of nature struggle to meet him, and in a happy swoon each bush frees the bud- ding roses and the garden is roseate and odorous, the lily opens her splendor, the bloom of the trees dances in the sunlight and all nature dreams a wondrous dream." The rapture, the fulness and glory of the awakening of spring are detailed with a great wealth of imagery but without personification in the poem "Friihlings und Sommerlust," where the whole gamut is run from the first appearance of the birds on the barren branches, to the very spring-time of spring with its wealth of all flowers and longings. And Tieck knew how spring does come. That surprise, that sensation which comes to everyone in each succeeding year when suddenly the realization of the new season is upon one, he has concentrated into the line, "Nun rauscht's und alle stehn in gruner Pracht." The culmination of the poem is in the line, "Hoher kann das Jahr sich nicht erschwingen." So too in "Kaiser Octavianus," Lealia, speaking of the suddenness of love, compares it to the spring which, "Wenn er kommt so kleine Morgen schon Wald sich griin zusammen fiiget." 73 The month is May/ which Hebbel calls a categorical impera- tive of joy. The spring has pre-eminently two notes: that of love and that of regret. It is love or the recollection of love that brings with it or grants to the lovers a "himmlisch-belohnend ent- ziickender Kuss." ' The mood may be that of unknown long- ing, of lack of sorrow and of consciousness of the joys of love until in fact, all spring becomes a yearning for love ; * this atmosphere prevades the specifically lyric portions of "Kaiser Octavianus" and it might almost be mathematically deduced from Tieck that since both spring and love are miracles, as he so vividly felt, they must be the same thing. Two other minor moments may be noticed, the desire of the awakened world in spring to express itself as love, and the converse, the awaken- ing of spring in the soul by love, as for example, in the sonnet cycle to Alma, Tieck's passionate expression of some concrete emotion : "Darf sich mein Mund an ihre Rothe schmiegen. So saug sich trunken Friihling, Diifte alien Klang und den Geist der himmlischen Gesange."* The change of seasons follows the natural course of the year; spring succeeds winter, and summer, spring. To Amelni in "Alia Moddin" the change is a picture of hope.' In "William Lovell" there is one reference, meteorological and cosmogonic, which stands apart from the other use of the idea in its prosaic quality if not in its pessimism.* Here Lovell speaks of the crumbling of the mountains as the seasons change and feels how like this is man, who has in him the death worm of decay. The idea of Zerhrechlichkeit which he found fully developed in Boehme is here hinted at. So too in a speech of Leo in "Kaiser Octavianus" : "So schwinden Tage, Monden, Jahre schnell. Verganglichkeit, du pliinderst unser Leben ! Noch leuchtet um uns Sonnenschimmer hell, Plotzlich sind wir der finstern Nacht gegeben." 'Poems, 161;XIX., 4; I., 6. ^h., 100. Cf.. XIV., 240; lb., 47. •lb., 51; L, 307. ^*Ib., 365. 'XL, 300. ^'XII., 26. 74 The progress of Golo's passion with its general effect on his disposition is shown very plainly by his general attitude toward nature, and especially toward spring. In the begin- ning of the play he cries out a glowing description of the new life of the season with its blossoms and birds and the stir of the world in the glamor of earth, "when Heaven tries Earth if it be in tune/' and feels, too, the glitter and glisten of the manifold colors of the ever-expanding season. As his love grows madder, his attitude toward nature grows less sympa- thetic; as spring passes, his love goes with it and he finally accuses Genoveva thus: "Sonst war dein Blick milde, da prangte die Welt um mich im Friihlingsschein." ^ The same pessimism that runs through all the early works is due to a large extent to this motive. So in "Trauer," ' where without much attention to the detail of the process, spring is repre- sented as yielding to winter at whose approach love and its dreams depart. In the prolog to "Octavianus" the change of seasons brings to the lover a change of faith. Fall is the season of boldness and winter of broken troth, but it is spring which binds the lover once more to his old vows.' There is a certain trace of the idea at the bottom of the novel, "Der junge Tischlermeister," though in a thoroughly intangible way. The most graceful expression of the motive and without the pes- simism of faithlessness is in Lila's song from "Zerbino," one of Tieck's simplest and withal most effective lyrics : "Doch, als ich Blatter fallen sah, Da sagt ich: Ach! der Herbst ist da, Der Sommergast, die Schwalbe, zieht, Vielleicht so Lieb und Sehnsucht flieht, Weit ! weit ! Rasch mit der Zeit. Doch riickwarts kam der Sonnenschein, Dicht zu mir drauf das Vogelein, Es sah mein thranend Angesicht, Und sang: die Liebe wintert nicht, Nein ! nein ! Ist und bleibt Friihlingsschein."* 'IL, 76, 150. Toems, 18. n., 9. *X.. 82; Poems. 26. 75 As spring is the season of love so the rose is its flower, and with this flower Tieck enters into the most intimate relations. Other flowers are mentioned and understood ; they are a part of the great living organism of nature and themselves have a life separate from this animate mass, but none of them is as dear to Tieck as the rose. Not even the lily, its constant as- sociate in tradition, means so much to him. To be sure the literary history of the rose goes back to the early classic times. Its pathos was first felt by Ausonius and figures found in Tieck can be met with in Politian and Tasso,^ while even in the bombast of Lohenstein,' the praise of the rose is sung. So too the Romaunt of the Rose, the Wars of the Roses, and even so prosaic a document as the fourteenth century garden-roll of the Norwich priory, which mentions only the rose and the lily, indicate how this flower took part in the life and litera- ture of the early peoples. From the Gul and Bulbul of Per- sian poetry to Herrick and the modern lyric, the rose has been a symbol of love and a companion of mankind in its progress. So for Tieck nothing could be more significant than his un- conscious choice of the rose as his flower. It marks at once a diflFerence between him and Novalis, whose blue flower em- bodies an ideality both of love and of life far more spiritual than the plasticity of Tieck. Tieck presents all flowers not en masse but with a continued emphasis on their individuality. Perhaps only the "Nelken," with the consequent rhyme "welken," become stereotyped, while the tulip alone with its flaming masses of color has a purely decorative eff'ect. The flowers constantly recur not merely as concomitants of spring, but in close connection with the mind and soul of man. They are related to him, can be- come his friends or enemies, and whoever does not love them, is godless and loveless. So in the figurative language the soul "entbliiht zu Gotte" and death is only "ein bliithenvoUes Leben." Of all the flowers it is, however, the rose which appears 'Symonds, Pathos of the Rose in Poetry. ^*Biese, 273-4. 76 most frequently and for which the most passionate longing is felt. One of Tieck's heroes^ is represented as having an almost pathological love of this flower and an equally strong hatred of all others, and in fact, the rose is bound up with the deep- est phases of Tieck's poetry. He attributes to it a peculiar femininity and this appears in his imagery where in the most passionate language the bosom and breast of the rose are con- stantly referred to. It is the symbol of sexual love and its desire is contrasted with the more ideal love which the lily betokens. So, for example, in "Wald, Garten und Berg" : "Bist du kommen um zu lieben So nimm unsre Bliithe wahr, Wir sind rothend stehn geblieben Prangen in dem Friihlingsjahr. Als ein Zeichen sind die Biische Mit den Rosen iiberstreut Dass die Liebe sich erfrische, Ewig jung sich stets erneut. Wir sind Lippen, rothe Kiisse, Rothe Wangen, sanfte Glut, Wir bedeuten Liebesmuth, Wir bezeichnen, so wie siisse Herz und Herz zusammenneigt, Liebesgunst aus Lippen steigt, Kiisse sind verschonte Rosen Der Geliebten Bliithezeit. Und ihr siisses siisses Kosen 1st der Wiinsche schon Geleit, Wie die Rose Kuss bedeut't So bedeut't der edle Kuss Selbst der Liebe herrlichsten Genuss." Again from "Kaiser Octavianu:" "Rose, siisse Bliithe, der Blumen Blum*, Der Kuss ist auf deinen Lippen gemalt, O Ros' auf deinem Munde strahlt Der kiissenden Lieb Andacht und Heiligtum." Or from 'Trennung und Finden:" "Aus Rosen kam zuerst dein susses Blicken, In ihnen bliithen meine ersten Kiisse Wie sollt' ich nicht dir heute Rosen schicken, Dass ihre Rothe riihrend dich begrusse: Liebst du noch, freundlich Wesen, Magst du noch in unserm Scham-Errothen Sehnsucht lesen?" *In Liebeszauber. IV., 252. 77 With stress on the femininity of the flower are all the glowing words of Marcebille. She praises Persia, the land of the birth of the rose, calls it the maiden flower and finally says ; "Nicht umsonst bist du erst quillend Eingehiillt in deiner Knospe; Also schlaft des Madchens Busen. Eh, die Liebe ihn erhoben. Und das Roth ein heimlich Feuer, Bricht hervor siiss angeschwoHen, Und wie ein verstohlen Kiisschen Hangst du an dem Zweig gebogen: Aber inniger entbrennen Lufte die dich aufgesogen, Immer susser traumst du Liebe, Hast die Luft in dich gezogen, Immer buhlerischer kiisset Dich das Licht, das dich gewogen, Und du lassest nun die Schaam, Und es drangt zu deinem Schoose Alle Kraft des heiligen Aethers. . . ." Another and later reference is equally vivid : O du schadenfrohe rothe Rose, Auch du kommst an, muthwillige, du lose? 1st das mein Dank, Dass ich so viel zu deinem Ruhme sang? Musst du mir die siissen Lippen zeigen, Willst du den Kuss, den Kuss mir nicht verschwcigen? Und in Ubermuth Malet euch an mit voller dunkler Gluth? Und die kleinen Knospen sind nicht minder Dreist und frech, die ungezogenen Kinder, Sie zeigen schon Des zarten Busens Spitzen mir zum Hohn, Wenn Kuss und Wollust, liebliches Gekose, Den ganzen Busen zeigt die wohlerwachsene Rose. . . ." Thus Tieck's love-poetry culminates in the rose as a symbol of all longing and voluptous passion. Yet he shows that for him love has a deeper significance in respect to the created world ; it is in the words of Abdallah, the end of all creation, or as in "Peter Lebrecht," the primal moving force which de- velops the capabilities of man, and the power which holds the entire "world-building" together. In "Kaiser Octavianus" it makes all things possible and explains all natural phenomena, II 78 while in the "Herzensergiessungen" it explains not merely nature but man as well. Love's power over nature is expressed in many poetic images. So in the duet between Franz Sternbald and Ru- dolph, love is said to have opened spring like a tent in the blooming world : "Der Liebe ist nur so schones Werk gelun- gen " The intimate connection of this with spring and the romantic paraphernalia is found in one of the Alma series: when love came, then first appeared the joy of the season lured from its hiding place. A constant figure is the awakening of the flowers under the feet of the loved one. In "Lied der Sehnsucht" it is her tread which makes the spring, just as in "Genoveva" her coming brings joy to the heart of the rose and causes the fire-fly to light its lamp, or as Golo says to his mistress: "Ihr schreitet her und weckt aus verborgenen Tiefen Die hohen Wunder auf, die unten schliefen. Schaut um euch, Holde, wo ihr geht, Ein dichtgedrangter Blumengarten steht; Die Baume ziehn euch nach, unter euren Fiissen Dringt kindisch griines Gras, den Fuss zu kiissen; Die Blumen erwachen Vom tiefen Schlaf und lachen, Und rother wird der Rosen Mund. ..." Another passage is from "Tod des Dichters" : "Where she wan- dered through the garden, the flowers shimmered more beau- tifully and a sweet odor permeated the air." A few pages later in the same novelette, it seems as if flowers must spring up from the earth to meet her glance. So too the old Magis- ter in "Der junge Tischlermeister" expresses this power of the loved one over the senses quite in the romantic mood with its emphasis on sensation and the sheen of the world, when he says that wherever Hedwig stood there seemed to be a red light almost like the light of dawn burning in the room. Nature brings the loved one to mind in a vivid manner. So the image of Amalia alone fills Lovell's soul and eyes so that he sees her everywhere, in every green bush, from every path, between the cornfields, in each phenomenon of the world. For 79 Cleon in "Zerbino" all nature spells Lila's name, is she, while in "Genoveva" all the world speaks to Golo of his loved one, but mocks him when she does not love him. Zulma, too, says that where love is not, there is no nature. Leo says of Lealia : "Es war als leuchtete um sie der Wald, Als hallten Himmel, Erde nur sie wieder. . . . Die Welle singt von ihr, auf alien Wegen Erscheint nur sie, tritt aus einsamer Wildniss, In allem Denken will nur sie sich regen. . . . So, too, in "Der griechische Kaiser," Ferdinand's love-lyric with its "Allenthalb ihr siisses Bild" brings out the same idea. Two places in "Tod des Dichters" carry out the thought : "But I feel her and her magnificence in the breath of the night, the gleam of the stars; the recollection of her penetrates all my vital forces." The other extract contains one of those conceits with which all poets delight to toy: "After she had stood on the sea-shore, I ran secretly thither to see in the mir- ror of the waters her picture and to hold it with my eye ; the picture was still there for I see it always and everywhere." The interrelation of love and nature is a spiritualization of Tieck's tendency to see in nature sexual symbols. Not merely is the image of the loved one everywhere in the visible world, but nature itself comes to be regarded as a woman, in whose embrace the happy mortal perishes "in a sea of wonder" and ecstasy. As early as "Die Sommernacht" he expresses the impulse to enclose all nature in his arms; Abdallah not only wishes to do this but sees nature lying there before him in her woman's beauty. Even more physically expressed is the mention in "Dei ^ Runenbe rg" : "Wer die Erde wie eine geliebte Braut an sich zu driicken vermochte, dass sie ihm in Angst und Liebe gem ihr Kostbares gonnte!" In "Eine Sommerreise" Tieck speaks of the mysterious "Liebesverhalt- niss" with nature and remarks on the same relation in the poems of the Jesuit Spee. This motive takes the form of images in which heaven and earth embrace each other, in general with sexual intent. It did not originate with Tieck since it lies too near the surface ii 8o of the thought to have escaped attention. So Logau writes of May, "Dieser Monat ist ein Kuss den der Himmel giebt der Erde, Dass sie jetso seine Braut kiinftig eine Mutter werde." Tieck says in "Sternbald :" "Die Sonne schein blass und gleich- sam blode auf die warme, dampfende Erde hernieder, die das erste neue Gras aus ihrem Schoose gebar." In "Octavianus" it is the waves in the brook which kiss each other, as well as the sky and earth, which in an early speech of Felicitas hold each other fast. Lealia sings : "Und die Erde siissumfangen Glanzt und giebt die Kiisse trunken Wieder die auf sie gesunken, Und entbrannt ganz in Verlangen Beben die Hiigel ; Holde Sehnsucht, siiss Erfiillen zwingt Alle ihre Lebensadern und die Liebe dringt Durch die ganze Seele. . . ." In the prolog to the drama "Magelone" the flowers say of the water and light that they "wollen sich begatten," while the poem written for the New Year 1800, the earth feels the sun's love and returns it with the recollection of lofty marriage hymns. Again, in "Der griechische Kaiser:" "Der Himmel ist in die Erde gedrungen." And so Tieck lays continual stress on the connection of sexuality with nature. As early as "Das Reh,'* he says that all nature is subject to this desire, and the motive force of passion so emphasized by later psy- chologists was well understood by him. It was given strength and trend by his study of Boehme. Thus Tieck progresses from the voluptuous pictures in natural setting of the early works to the gloomy and sensual demonism of his version of the Tannhauser saga and to distortions of fancy such as are found in "Das Donauweib" and in "Der greichische Kaiser," where all nature is represented as offering a series of volup- tuous forms to the intoxicated eye of the sensualist. On the other hand, in "Octavianus," the delicate interlacing of the two elements is wrought out with infinite skill and with great 8i luxuriousness of language and imagery, so that one feels that here are signs of power and life. Such figures are deeply rooted in the human mind in its most primitive stages, and are the outgrowth of man's primi- tive animism, now no longer held as belief, but persisting as poetic ornament. In Tieck this animism occupies so large a place that it demands special attention. The earliest and basic images in primitive man seem to be intimately connected with nature-worship and take form not merely in connection with sex, as in the spring festivals of the primitive world, but have a larger and more general demonism ; or as Schiller puts it, it is the "streitendes Gestalenheer" which prevents man from realizing as a totality the beautiful soul of nature. Tieck runs the whole gamut of these visions from the mildest personifica- tion to the uttermost mad terror in the face of the demonic forces of nature working against him ; from the play of fancy around a rose-bud to the uncanny mystery of mere external form, and from that to the mystery and wonder of self, as self especially when all nature is identified with self. There r seems to be in Tieck a titanic wrestling with nature, not as Jacob wrestled with God for a blessing, or even with the dis- couraged horror of one like Antenor struggling with a monster whose strength is renewed at every fall to the earth, but with . a savage rebellion at the mystery, and with a feeling of the I hopelessness of a strife against one's own most intimate ter- ) rors. Here at least it may be said that Tieck rises to the level j : of a great poet, since in a feeling for and in an expression of '/ the psychology of mystery he is unsurpassed. Haym has noted the sources of this feeling in Schelling's nature-philosophy, though he has not detailed the various phases of the motives. In passing, one may mention mere personification, such as is often a part of the poet's apparatus. Such stock expressions as sleeping moonshine, as greeting and kissing moonlight and sunlight, laughing flowers and sun, of trees and flowers nodding and greeting, howling winds and weeping springs, are common enough in Tieck; but besides 82 these, there is a distinctly heightened series of cases where the natural phenomena are conceived as doing human things of a less stereotyped sort, and expressed in a less hackneyed way. For instance, in ''Abdallah," the walk of the wind for pleasure is mentioned, and in another passage the wind is represented as cHmbing. So, too, in "Sternbald," the moon appears to wish to climb the mountain, while in ''Eine Som- merreise" it is the climbing dawn which impresses Tieck. The same passage allegorizes the combat between night and dawn which is given in the prolog to *'Magelone" with such vivid personification. In the poem "Morgen" the morning mists creep away as the sun climbs up into the sky. Abdallah with its untamed language offers the following: "Mit lautem Geb- riill sank die (Feuer) Kugel," "Der Donner briillt/' "Die ges- palteten Klippen grinzten," "Die Nacht sog begierig den Schein in sich," and so on."" The clouds, which in the poem merely nestle at the feet of the sun are in the "Mondscheinlied" pict- ured as awkward with an attempt to represent this in the verse : "Kommen und gehen die Schatten, Wolken bleiben noch spilt auf Und Ziehen mit schwerem unbeholfnem Lauf Ueber die erfrischfen Matten." Two other passages assign an even more interesting role to the clouds. In "Lovell" they are represented as a wandering comedy troupe, and the conceit is carried still farther in "Das alte Buch" where they are called the most entertaining jesters who have no scruples at mimicking horse, camel or man. *The tendency to vivify abstract ideas is very noticeable in Tieck's earlier works, where there is a whole series of similar expressions. In the letters to Wackenroder (300 Bfe. 46) "Vorsatze winken" ; from Abdallah : "Ein Schauern springt aus dem Walde und packt ihn an mit eiskalter Hand"; "Der Jammer prinp^ neben ims und reichte uns etc. ;" "Die Vergangenheit trat freundlich. . . ." "Das Gliick hat uns seine Hand zum ewigen Abschiede crereicht"; "Das Liebliche und die Grasslichkeit sahen sich an und wollten sich die Hande reichen," and so on. In "Magelone," God's blessing begins its journey, misfortune howls and there are any number of such vivid personifications all con- ceived in a very live way as the continual references to hands in Abdallah will at once show. 83 Nothing shows more clearly the intensity of Tieck's feeling for the life of the world about him and his sense of being sur- rounded by a nature animated and anthropomorphic than the many passages which assign to nature eyes and sight. The externally impinging lowers and lurks at every turn, and man seems never able to escape the fixed and watchful eye of the universe. In "Das Reh'' it is darkness itself that looks out from behind the trees ; in one of the poems the last red of the evening glances in parting at the meadow. In "Lovell'* the moon looks tearfully down on the veiled world; whereas in "Genoveva" the moonlight peeps in at the window. In "Der blonde Eckbert" is is the night which does this, the night which again in "Genoveva," has an earn- est face, and whose eye is the fire. A number of passages deal with trees and flowers and the latter especially watch man. Sometimes they have large earnest eyes or again dark angry ones, and in one place in "Zerbino" the trees stand with an astonished look. The gaze of the flowers is several times mentioned as sweet or loving. Even walls and weapons have / eyes. ' There is perhaps less to be said of the sounds that Tieck ) hears in nature because so many of these have become hack- / neyed and because, too, for his earlier period at least, the characteristic notes are those of the horn and shawm which sound through "Sternbald" almost to excess. But these exot- ics are not the only sound-givers ; Tieck hears especially the / talking waters and trees. Thus from the tale "Magelone:" ' "The fountains splashed more strongly and carried on loud conversations from the remotest parts of the garden." Al- most the opening note of "Der Runenberg** is this: "He listened to the changing melody of the water and it seemed as if the waves said in incomprehensible language a thousand things to him that were so important, and he felt thoroughly saddened that he could not understand their speeches." Old Wolf in "Genoveva" says: 84 "Da fangt der Rhein an seine Ufer zu klatschen. So dacht' ich innerlich : ist's doch nicht anders Als fiihrt, das Wasser mif den Baumen Gesprache, Was mogen sie sich doch erzahlen, die beiden, Der alte Rhein und diese alten Eichen?" From the sonnet "Erstes Finden/' "O siisse heilige Nacht, als hohe Baume Mit Geisterstimmen durch das Dunkel rauschten, Gesprach und Wort dort mit dem Strome tauschten." In "Zerbino" twigs are tongues and carry on conversations, and in "Vittoria Accorombona" each tree has its own singing voice. The erstwhile silent walls in "Das Donauweib" stand before the count as ''Schwatzer." So for all nature: Stern- bald stands and listens as if he understood, for nature, says Tieck, "appears indeed to address us in a foreign language, but we have a premonition of the meaning of her words and gladly listen to her wonderful accents." But nature is endowed with mental as well as physical at- tributes. The trees shake their heads with an inner joy, and nod as if pious ; the oak-tree is delighted or solemn. Solem- nity also characterizes the advancing night and the stars. In "Das Reh," when heaven is threatening no blade of grass dares to raise its head. Tieck kept this figure in mind and used it in "Abdallah" of the field : "The frightened field did not dare to move under the scourging hail." In "Magelone," the time appointed for the rendezvous is given the same feeling. Sim- ilar to this is the fear that the sea has of the storm, in "Lov- ell," where the main features of the emotion are fright and rebellion. Individual are some of the lesser traits and human motives with which Tieck invests his nature, as for example the "freche Berge" of Abdallah," or when the landscape quietly and with a sense of inner satisfaction gazes at its own reflection in the mirror of the waters, a motive which in "Ab- dallah" is given with a love-touch in the line, "The stream glowed in purple, blushing from the kiss of heaven." * The trees vie with each other from a very joy of living as spring approaches, and May itself consciously adorns itself to greet a *A transcription of the old Latin epigram on the miracle at Cana. 85 returning traveler. The separate personality of material ob- jects, juxtaposed and acting on each other independently of man, is well brought out in the passage from "Der griechische Kaiser :" 'There fall often from the mountains the large four- cornered stones into the woodland stream. . . . Das rennt mit den Wellen hiniiber und zankt und grollt mit dem Stein, schmeichelt ihm dann wieder, platschert und liigt ihm vor, wie hiibsch er da so niedlich und friedlich lage keinem Wasser- tropfen im Wege." Even the highest human attributes, such as will and mem- ory, are assigned to natural objects. In the Schildburger chronicle this ludicrous folk wonders at the understanding of a huge log, which voluntarily hastens to its destination. Many other references are without a trace of this burlesque; from the poem "Friihlingsreise," "Nie vergisst aber Friahling wie- derzukommen," and in "Genoveva," '*0 sieh, die Sonne will nicht wieder scheinen/' and again, "Der Friihling will nicht kommen." From "Octavianus," "Die Sonne zeigt dass sie der Welt gedenkt." There are, moreover, a number of places where the more indefinite longing is expressed in animistic terms. In "Lovell" there is a typical case of a brook which without rest feels itself dragged to the abyss, a symbol of Lov- ell's own unsatisfied nature. In "Sternbald" the evening clouds are full of longing, and in "Der Runenberg" the streams of water filled with "Wehmuth." In one of the Italian poems the mountains have a premonition of the coming of the morning. It is perfectly natural that the relation of such objects to man should be both friendly and hostile, and so Lini can anx- iously ask whether his favorite tree will know him when he returns to Sulu, and Balder can write to Lovell : "The bushes nod to me to come to them and to speak a word with them for they all think a good deal of me. . . . The flowers here would feel very badly if I were to move away." The brooks and flowers lament the departure of Magelone and wish her a tender farewell, and Sternbald is comforted by the trees and bushes in his misanthropy. It is to these that Genoveva cries 86 out for pity which in turn "Der Autor" wishes from the sun. He also recollects the time when tree and flower considered him their equal and played with him. The prolog to "Magelone" is filled with the sympathy of this kind expressed with Tieck's entire wealth and vagueness of language. In "Tod des Dichters" all nature mourns the fall of a kingdom and in ''Das alte Buch," Gottfried von Strassburg calls nature a friend, while in "Vittoria Accorombona" nature takes Vit- toria by the hand and tells her "such heart-felt, touching, in- spiring and merry things ... as are found in no book and no manuscript." The hostility of nature is expressed for example, in its anger. Flowers can become "angefeindet" as was mentioned before; the grass can raise itself against man and the trees can scold. The morning sun also shines angrily. Christian in '^^Q^X^MxiXienbeT^' has drawn the hostility of all green things to himself by his conduct. Even in so banal a story as "Ulrich der Empfindsame," the idea crops out with an element of satire ;" . . . even inanimate nature rebels against me, flint, tinder, fuel, waist-coat and satin stockings," while in "Klage und Trost" the very road is faithless and leads the lover from his mistress. This enmity can become so strong that Lovell under the influence of terror can feel that the world itself holds him fast and that all nature points at him in scorn. So, too, in an Alma sonnet, "Oft will die Erde mich ziirnend erfassen;" while in "Der Zornige" the abysses are greedy for him, the storm scolds and the lightning reaches out to seize him. Golo, too, says that time is indifferent to our joys and sorrows and leads us into a fearful labyrinth from which we escape as best we may. The favorite aspects under which Tieck conceives the world-body are its sleep and its awaking from sleep. In "Lov- ell" there is the continual effort to slip from this being its garment, to pry into its secrets, to learn the reason for the life lying behind it; it seems to be merely a disguise for some- thing behind and that, in Lovell's philosophy, is self. Not merely the universal world-soul but the spirits in each individ- 87 ual portion play a role. So the fruits and flowers have a soul, and so each landscape. In the water there is a "Wesen" as in many another natural object. These speak to Athelstan's listening ear just as to the youth in "Thanatopsis." It is only because Tieck was so at home in such a nature that it did not rouse in him more of that abject terror that might be expected from one who presented it on this side so constantly. Conventionalities like the enigma of the moon- light, the terror of the dark that the daylight drives away, or of woods and ruins, fade into insignificance before the reality of the interpretation of the Tannhauser saga, or before the de- monism of "D>er_bloJideJ^ckbert" and of " Per R unfn^^^g" This is the subtle power of such novels as "Der Wasser- mensch," "Der Mondsiichtige," and "Waldeinsamkeit," and is of importance in understanding "Karl von Berneck." The love ravings of Golo as expressed in that song around which the whole drama was written, "Dicht von Felsen eingeschlos- sen," convey a sense of abandon to these forces which amounts, in the words of Hettner, to pure nature fatalism. It may in general be said that Tieck's attitude shows him to be in a transition stage. He is not absolutely on the plan^e of the moderns, for he lays too much stress on the traditional phases of the lighter and happier sides of nature, and the mood of Richard Jefferies, "Nature is beautiful always," is in the main foreign to him ; he is, however, distinctly modern in his antagonism to mere utilitarianism in nature, since he wished its beauty to be enjoyed for its own sake. His distinct con- tribution is a vivid spiritualization, not merely of the forces of nature but of nature itself. To a certain extent as time goes on, Tieck progresses be- yond this in its most romantic forms, and there is discernible an effort to leave or discount all sick phases of nature-feeling, as for example in "Eigensinn und Laune." This story has a peculiar interest in being Tieck's version of the "Harlot's Progress" and presents the character of the heroine as strong- ly influenced by her nature-sense. The world of the story is ( i^^^ 88 the same as that of all of his tales of real life, the world of the well-to-do mediocre people of the middle class or there- abouts, who bask in the sun of aristocracy and who respect it as little as they care for those below them. It is a reaction- ary society and one closed to new impressions, rigid in its prejudices, but capricious, selfish and in consequence, weak. Into this milieu Tieck has introduced two strong ideas. The first shows a woman who has a distinct distrust of man's love, who fears him because of his physical passions and who is disgusted by the fate to which she as a woman must submit. This idea Tieck has used elsewhere, but in Emmeline he has carried it farther and has shown that not obstinacy and ca- price are at the bottom of her ruin but a deeper psychological state, based on physical causes. Tieck hints at heredity, but the real reason has its being in the roots of all womanhood. Emmeline is the natural woman ; she is the primal type before the new world of herself, her ego, dawns upon her senses. Just at this juncture, Tieck brings in his second idea, namely the great influence that nature has on the impressionable soul of this young girl. The observation of the beauties of natural scenery awakens her senses and gives a new and feverish im- pulse to her activities. From this point which indicates a dis- tinct change due to a moulding force, she falls, and nature has had its share in the work. It is a question whether Tieck saw the full significance of these ideas; for him the point of the story was rather the feeling of the narrowness of a human sphere, since Emmeline never comes out of her circle. Un- consciously, however, he has shown a tendency to depart from the over-valuation of the pathological influence of nature on man in making the punishment follow on the wrong. His sense of poetic justice did not desert him. CONCLUSION The foregoing pages present no complete scheme of Tieck's nature sense. They aim rather to be suggestive of Hnes along which larger studies of the whole attitude of Tieck's circle toward nature must be studied. In general only those phases in Tieck's writings are touched upon which appealed to the author because of a certain more universal or poetic note that seemed to run through them. The main results may be summed up as follows: Tieck had a morbid disposition, but this did not prevent him from observing and appreciating a nature with which he grew to be very well acquainted, but with which he personally lived less and less as time went on. The truth of his feeling is at- tested by his satire on mawkish manifestations and by his ef- fort so ever-recurring, to win a wide view. Indeed, this wide view is the first significant feature of Tieck's nature sense and is a striking proof of the ultimate poetic quality of his vision, which in spite of each limitation in his creative faculty and each failure in execution, did aim to see life whole. Besides the wide view, there recurs constantly a stress on color and light. It is the sheen and shimmer of the world in early spring with a succession of bright landscapes ; the flow- ers and birds appeal to Tieck, and the fleecy clouds and sun- light are important factors. Yet the brightness of the whole atmosphere is romantically tempered by a forest-like still- ness, and is toned down by the mellow golden glow of the moon. This is never the sharp clear-cut moon of colder, northern skies. But the observation of such landscapes as well as of dark and stormy ones by a man of Tieck's temperament leads to more than a mere enjoyment of the scene. As soon as he re- flects or lets his personality play into the passing panorama, 90 he sees in it a deeper symbolism which he unites in a thousand subtle ways to the mood o£ man. Not only does nature be- come a reflection of man's spirit, but the soul of man is af- fected by nature or nature by man. So there comes into Tieck's writings an atmosphere of what may be called for want of a better term, dem^usm, a feeling of the vitality of all nature, and often with the additional idea of the hostility of this living organism. It arises primarily from an imag-ination so subtle and often so morbid that the ordinary mind refuses to follow the intricate paths to their end, just as in its sphere, the legerdemain of Tieck's satire with its airy fancies is difficult to grasp and hold. The causes of such demonism are not to be found in a dull fatalism which accepts blindly each stroke of an adverse for- tune; rather all pessimism and all fatalism have a common origin in an overwhelming egoism which insists on its own importance in the universe and which personifies its individual misfortunes either mental or physical, into contrary powers of nature work adversely. So, too, in Tieck, the demonism is based on an egotistic philosophy, and as his mind ripens and includes more spheres of life, so this demonism, the revolt against the subliminal stream of the world, grows less and less pronounced. His pessimism, which after all is nothing but the world weariness of one who did not know the world, whose battles were all with self and who only faintly discerned that it was a shadow-life that he was leading, gave way not to a brutal cynicism but to a certain philistine complacency with the purely mundane order of things. There is still romance, but it is the romance of the everyday world, it is a perfectly com- prehensible romance, which is as conventional in its raptures as the appreciation that most of the world shows for art or, as a matter of fact, as the homage most men pay to God. Now and again the old fire bursts forth; it is as if the in- terests, ever the same, smouldered on, to be fanned from time to time into a flame. In the main, Tieck accepted life, ac- 91 cepted the existing order of things, degrees, orders, ill health, disappointment, family worries; and this acceptance of life is mirrored in his nature-sense which no longer storms madly in revolt against the ever-present Godhead of the world, but which sees in all nature a narrow ever-present circle, the con- fines of which man for all his striving, is never able to over- step. A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF TIECK'S WRITINGS (so far as they are used in the present work ) 1789. Die Sommernacht. 1790. Das Reh. Alia Moddin. Paramythien. Gruss dem Friihling (lyric.) 1791 Abdallah begun. 1792. Der Abschied. Abdallah finished. First plan of Lovell. Learns of the stor^' of Vittoria Accorombona. Der Ungetreue (lyric.) 1793. Herr von Fuchs. Adaptation of Shakespere's Tempest. First version of Karl von Berneck. The first two and part of the third book of Lovell. The lyrics: Melancholic. Der Egoist. 1794. The third and fourth books of Lovell completed. The lyrics : Der Arme und die Liebe. Schrecken des Zweifels. Tod. Blum en. Spruch. 1795. Peter Lebrecht. Karl von Berneck. First plan of the novel, Der junge Tischlermeister. Lovell: books five to eight. The lyrics : Trauer. Leben. Rausch und Wahn. 1796. Ninth and tenth books of Lovell. Lovell published. Der Fremde. 93 Ulrich der Empfindsame. Der Naturfreund, Ritter Blaubart. Der Blonde Eckbert. Wundef^ame' Liebesgeschichte der schonen Mage- lone und des Grafen Peter aus der Provence. Ein Prolog. The first three acts of Zerbino. First plan of the ballad, Die Zeichen im Walde. The lyrics: ;'Der netie Friihling. Nacht. Auf der Reise. Herbstlied. Morgen. Mittag. Abend. Sehnen nach Italien. 1797. Der gestiefelte Kat-er. Die sieben Weiber des Blaubart. Die Freunde. Die verkehrte Welt. Herzensergiessungen eines kunstliebenden Kloster- bruders. The fourth and fifth acts of Zerbino. Beginning of the novel Alma (never completed). The lyrics: Sehnsucht. Friihlingsreise. Gefiihl der Liebe. Schalmeiklang. Posthornsschall. Waldhommelodie. Der Dichter und die Stimme. Verio rene Jugend. Zuversicht. Im Walde. 1798. Prinz Zerbino. Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen. Phantasien uber die Kunst. Merkwiirdige Lebensgeschichte Sr. Majcstat Abra- ham Tonelli. Das Ungeheuer und der verzauberte Wald. 94 The lyrics : Friihling und Leben. Wettgesang. Die Phantasie. Andacht. Lied von der Einsamkeit. Waldlied. Friihlings-und Sommerlust. Mondscheinlied. Wald, Garten, Berg. Der Jiingling und das Leben. 1799. Genoveva. Der getreue Eckart und der Tannhauser. Das jiingste Gericht. The lyrics: Der Trostlose. Andenken. 1800. Der Autor. Twenty sonnets to friends: those to Novalis and Wackenroder are especially referred to. Lebenselemente. Trost. Klage. Hochzeitlied. 1801. First part of Octavianus. «JDfitJ8.une nberg. ^'Plan of Das Donauweib. The lyrics: Begeisterung. Die Zeichen im Walde. 1802. Octavianus completed (not published till 1804). The lyrics : Jagdlied. Die Blumen. Die Heimat. Gedichte iiber die Musik. Gesang. Der Garten. 1803. Prolog to the drama Magelone. The sonnets from the novel Alma. Das Wasser, Die Rose, Die Lilie, from Octavianus. 1804. Plan of the story of the returning Greek emperor. The lyrics: Trennung. Trennung und Finden. 95 1805. The first portion of the poems on the Italian jour- ney. 1806. The remaining Italian poems. Riickkehr des Genesenden. Improvisiertes Lied. Brief der Minna aus Alma. Episte, aus Alma. 1807. Melusine, dramatic fragment. 1808. Das Donauweib. Erstes Finden. 1811. Phantasus. Liebeszauber. Die Elfen. Der Pokal. Leben und Thaten des kleinen Thomas, genannt Daumchen. Heimliche Liebe. Phantasus. 1814. An einen Liebenden. Phantasus. 1816. Fortunat. The lyrics: Klage im Walde. Des Madchens Klage. Frohsinn. 1819. The printing of Der junge Tischlermeister begins. 1820. The beginning of "Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen.'* 1821. Die Gemalde. / 1822. Die Verlobung. Die Reisenden. r Musikalische Leiden und Freuden. 1823. Der Geheimnissvolle. 1824. Die Gesellschaft auf dem Lande. 1825. Dichterleben. Part one. Pietro von Abano. Poem to the New Year 1825. 1826. Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen. Gliick gibt Verstand. 1826. Poem to the New Year 1826. 1827. Der fiinfzehnte November. 1828. Der Alte vom Berge. Das Fest zu Kenilworth. 1829. Das Zauberschloss. Dichterleben. Part two. Die Wundersiichtigen. 96 1830. Der widerkehrende griechische Kaiser. 1831. Der Jahrmarkt. Der Hexensabbath. Der Mondsiichtige. 1832. Die Ahnenprobe. Epilog zum Andenken Goethes. 1833. Eine Sommerreise. Tod des Dichters. 1834. Die Vogelscheuche. Das alte Buch und die Reise ins Blaue hinein. Der Wassermensch. 1835. Eigensinn und Laune. 1836. Der junge Tischlermeister. Wunderlichkeiten. Die Klausenburg. 1839. Der Schutzgeist. Abendgesprache. Die Glocke von Arragon. 1840. Waldeinsamkeit. Vittoria Accorombona. 1848. Kritische Schriften. This is a collection of the scattered articles which T'ieck had written be- ginning with the year 1793. BIBLIOGRAPHY Adam, Julie. Der Natursinn in der deutschen Dichtung. Wien, '06. Amherst, Alicia. History of Gardening in England. London, 1896. Beers, H. A. English Romanticism. New York, 1901. Biese, A. Die Entwickelung des Naturgefiihls im Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit, Leipzig, 1892. Blaze de Bury, H. Louis Tieck: Ecrivains et Poetes de V Allemagne. Paris, 1846. Jakob Boehme. Sammtliche Werke (Schiebler.) Leipzig, 1842, Brandes, Georg. Die romantische Schule in Deutschland. Leipzig, 1892. Danton, G. H. Jacob Boehme and the Romantic School in Germany. Bulletin of Western Reserve University, Nov., 1905. De Laprade, V. Le Sentiment de la Nature chez les Modernes. Paris, 1870. Ederheimer, E. Jakob Boehme und die romantische Schule. Hei- delberg, 1904. Friesen, Hermann Freilierr von. Ludwig Tieck. Erinnerungen eines alten Freundes. Wien, 1871. Gallerie des Contemporains. Illustres par un Homme de Rien: M. Tieck. Paris, without year. Goethe Gcsellschaft : Schriften der. Goethe und die Romantik, in Vol- umes 13 and 14. Schiiddekopf und Walzel. Haym, R. Die romantische Schule. Berlin, 1870. Hettner, Hermann. Die romantische Schule in ihrem Zusammen- hang mit Goethe und Schiller. Braunschweig, 1850. Holtei, K. Dreihundert Briefe aus zwci Jahrhunderten. Hannover, 1872. Huch, Ricarda. Bliithezeit der Romantik. Leipzig, 1905. Klee, Gotthold. Tiecks Leben und Werke. Leipzig und Wien, 1894. Klee, Gotthold. Zu Ludwig Tieck's germanistischen Studien. Pro- gram. Bautzen, 1895. Koldewey, P. Wackenroder und Tieck. Gottingen, 1903. Kopke, R. Ludwig Tieck. 2 Bande. Leipzig, 1855. Lee, Vernon. Euphorion. London, 1884. Especially the chapter on the "Outdoor Poetry." Meissner, W. Ludwig Tiecks Lyrik. Berlin, 1902. Petrich, H. Drei Kapitel vom romantischen Styl. Leipzig, 1878. 98 Ranftl, J. Tieck's Genoveva als romantische Dichtung. Graz, 1899. Retif de la Bretonne, N. E. Le Paysan Perverti. A la Haie, 1776. Reynolds, Myra. The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry between Pope and Wordsworth. Chicago, 1896. Richter, Bernhard, Die Entwickelung der Naturschilderung in der deutschen geographischen Reisebeschreibungen mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Naturschilderung in der ersten Halfte des 19ten Jahrhunderts : in Euphorion, Erganzungsheft 5, I. Royce, J. The Spirit of Modern Philosophy. Boston and New York, 1892. Schmidt, F. W. A. His poems edited by Geiger under the title "Musen und Grazien in der Mark." Berlin, 1889. Sieveking, A. F. Gardens Ancient and Modern. London, 1899. Solger: Nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel. Herausgegeben von L. Tieck. Leipzig, 1826. Symonds, J. A. Essays Speculative and Suggestive. London, 1893. Especially "The Pathos of the Rose in Poetry." Tieck, Ludwig. Gedichte. Third edition. Berlin, 1841. Tieck, Ludwig. Kritische Schriften. Leipzig, 1848. Tieck, Ludwig. Nachgelassene Schriften. Herausgegeben von R. Kopke. Leipzig, 1855. Tieck, Ludwig, and Wackenroder. Herzensergiessungen eines Kunst- liebenden Klosterbruders. Berlin, 1797. Tieck, Ludwig, and Wackenroder. Phantasien iiber die Kunst. Ham- burg, 1799. Tieck, Ludwig. Schriften. Berlin, 1828-1854. Tieck und Wackenroder. Werke in D. N. L. Edited by J. Minor. Berlin u. Stuttgart. "~ Varnhagen. Briefe. Leipzig, 1867. Bd. I. von Sybel. Erinnerungen an Fried, von Uechtritz. Leipzig, 1884. Zimmer, H. J. G. Zimmer und die Romantiker. Frankfurt, 1888. This bibliography does not claim to be exhaustive. It contains only the titles of works which were actually used and found serviceable. VITA. The writer, George Henry Danton, was born in New York City, May 31, 1880. Son of Henry and Lucinda Danton. Public Schools: New York City, Lyndhurst, Rutherford and Passaic, N. J. 1898-1902 undergraduate in Columbia Col- lege, New York City; A. B., 1902. Assistant in Comparative Literature, Columbia University, 1902-03. Austin Teaching Fellow in German, Harvard University, 1903-04. Otten- dorfer Memorial Fellow, New York University, and student in Germany 1904-05. Winter Semester 1904-05, Berlin. (Erich Schmidt, Roethe, Roediger, R. M. Meyer) Spring Semester 1905, Munich (Paul, Muncker.) 1905-1907, Instructor in German, College for Women, Western Re- serve University, Cleveland, Ohio. It is a privilege to acknowledge a debt of deep gratitude to Professors Hervey, W. H. Carpenter, Calvin Thomas, A. V. W. Jackson and George Edward Woodberry for constant aid and inspiration during five years' residence at Columbia, and since that time, and to Professors Bierwith, Walz, von Jagemann and Francke for uniform kindness and help while at Harvard. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GERMANIC STUDIES No. 3. EDWARD YOUNG IN GERMANY. Historical Surveys. Influence upon German Literature. Bibli- ography. By John Louis Kind, Ph.D. 8vo, paper, pp. xiv. + 180. Price, $1.00 net. Vol. Ill No. I. HEBBEL'S NIBELUNGEN. Its Sources, Meth- od, and Style. By Annina Periam, Ph.D. 8vo, paper, pp. xiv + 219. Price, $1.00 net. Xo. 2. THE NATURE SENSE IN THE WRITINGS OF LUDWIG TIECK. By George Henry Dan- ton, Ph.D. 8vo, paper, pp. v + 98. Price, $1.00 net. THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS. The Macmillan Company, Agents, 66 Fifth Avenue, New York. OCT .9 ^^• i^"" ^ RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT \0<^ 202 Main Library . TOAN PERIOD I l^"~ 1 FORM NO. DD6, ^j^^^^^^^^^^^^^^NlA, BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 ^^ m