BY DR. OSCAR LEVY
PREFACE
THE GOD OF SCHELLING. The German philosopher Schelling (1775-1854) was at first a follower of Spinoza, and had published in his youth a pantheistic philosophy which had made him famous. In later life he began to doubt his former beliefs, and promised to the world another and more Christian explanation of God and the universe. The promised book, however, never appeared.
The gap, thus left by Schelling, has since been filled up by a host of more courageous, if less conscientious, investigators.
"SEA-SURROUNDED SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN" OYSTERS. "Schleswig-Holstein Meerumschlungen (sea-surrounded)" was the German Marseillaise after 1846 and again in 1863-64.
ARNOLD RUGE (1802-1880) was the leader of the New Hegelian school, and publishedcertain famous annuals for art and science at Halle. In 1848 he was elected to the Parliament at Frankfort, but was forced to flee to London, where he struck up a fast friendship with Mazzini. In the Revolutionary Committee of London he represented Germany, as Ledru-Rollin represented France and Mazzini Italy.
CHRISTIAN-GERMANIC. One of the favourite phrases and shibboleths of the Romantic School, which may still be heard in the Germany of to-day.
FERDINAND FREILIGRATH (1810-1876). A well-known poet and skilful translator of French and English poets, such as Burns, Byron, Thomas Moore, and Victor Hugo. His own poems betray his dependence upon Hugo. Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, bestowed a pension upon him in 1842. When his friends, however, charged him with having sold himself to the Government, the poet refused the pension.Thereafter he devoted himself more and more to the democratic party and wrote many political poems. In 1848 he went abroad, living in London the greater part of the time. He returned to Germany in 1868, and in 1870 published several patriotic poems which met with great acclaim.
The sudden conversion from international Democracy to Nationalism is easily explained. Modern states have become democratic, and democrats—but they alone—find it easy to feel comfortable and patriotic in such a milieu.
CANTO I
DON CARLOS. After the death of Ferdinand VII of Spain (1833) a lengthy civil war broke out between his younger brother, Don Carlos, and the Queen-widow Christina, who had assumed the regency for her daughter Isabella.
SCHNAPPHAHNSKI. A comic word composed of the German word "schnappen," tosnap, and "hahn," cock. It has also been incorporated into French in the form "chenapan." It is applied here to Prince Felix Lichnowski (1814-1848), who left the Prussian Army in 1838 and entered the service of Don Carlos, who appointed him a brigadier-general. After his return from Spain, Lichnowski wrote his "Reminiscences," the publication of which involved him in a duel in which he was badly wounded. The "Reminiscences" are couched in Heine's own style, and their hero is called Schnapphahnski.
JULIET. Juliet is to be understood as referring to Heine's mistress and subsequent wife, Mathilde.
CANTO II
QUEEN MARIA CHRISTINA. She was the wife of Ferdinand VII and assumed the regency after his death. Soon after the king's demise, she married a member of her bodyguard, one Don Ferdinand Muñoz, who was afterwards given the title of Duke of Rianzares. She bore him several children.
PUTANA. Italian for strumpet.
CANTO IV
MASSMANN. A German philologist and one of Heine's favourite butts. He was one of the most enthusiastic advocates of German gymnastics. Athletics was one of the pet ideas of the German patriots; the Government, however, held it in suspicion, inasmuch as the so-called "Turner" (gymnasts) cherished political ambitions. In time, however, the exercise of the muscles cured the revolutionary brain-fag, and the Government was enabled to assume a sort of protectorship over gymnastics. Though enthusiastically carried on to this very day in Germany, the movement no longer has any political significance.
FRESH, PIOUS, GAY, AND FREE. FRISCH, FROMM, FRÖHLICH, FREI—the four F's—formed the motto of the German "Turner."
CANTO V
BATAVIA. Apparently a well-known female ape in Heine's day, trained in theatrical feats of skill.
FREILIGRATH (see above). As a refuge from the crassness of his times, Freiligrath usually chose exotic themes for his poems, frequently African in nature, as, for instance, in his "Löwenritt." The allusion to the mule (in German "camel," which bears the same opprobrious meaning as "ass") gives us reason to believe that Heine's preface must not be taken too seriously and that his opinion of the poet Freiligrath was by no means a high one.
FRIEDRICH LUDWIG GEORG VON RAUMER (1781-1873). A well-known German historian, author of the "History of the Hohenstaufens."
CANTO VIII
TUISKION. The god whom the Germans, according to Tacitus (vide "Germania," cap.ii) regard as the original father of their race.
LUDWIG FEUERBACH (1804-1872). An honest thinker, who recognised that there was an unbridgable gulf between philosophy and theology. He left the Hegelian school, which can be so well adapted to the need of theologians, and considered as the only source of religion—the human brain. "The Gods are only the personified wishes of men," he used to say. He brought German philosophy down from the clouds to cookery by declaring: "Der Mensch ist, was er isst" ("Man is what he eats"). He was a believer in what he called "Healthy sensuality," which made him the philosopher of artists in the 'thirties and 'forties of the last century, amongst others of Richard Wagner. The latter, however,afterwards repented, and, by way of Schopenhauer, turned Christian.
Feuerbach came from a family that would have been the delight of Sir Francis Galton, author of "Hereditary Genius." Feuerbach's father was a famous jurist, who had five sons, all of whom attained the honour of appearing in the German Encyclopædias. The philosopher was the fourth son. Again: the famous painter Anselm Feuerbach was his nephew, the son of his eldest brother.
BRUNO BAUER (1809-1882). A destructive commentator of the New Testament. He belonged to the school of "higher" criticism which has done so much to "lower" Christianity in the eyes of savants and professors and so little in those of mankind at large. His "Critique of the Evangelistic History of Saint John" (1840) and his "Critique of the Evangelistic Synoptists" (1841-42) had just been published when Heine wrote "Atta Troll."
CANTO IX
MOSES MENDELSOHN (1729-1786). Grandfather of the famous composer. He was a Jewish philosopher and a friend of Lessing's, who, it is supposed, took him as his model for "Nathan the Wise." He freed his German co-religionaries from the oppressive influence of the Talmud.
CANTO X
PROPERTY IS THEFT. A dictum of Prudhon.
CANTO XII
REIGN OF DWARFS. The approaching rule of clever little trades-people, whose turn it will soon be if democracy progresses as at present. Compare Nietzsche's "Zarathustra," Part III, 49, "The Bedwarfing Virtue": "I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open: they have becomesmaller, and ever becomesmaller: the reason thereof is their doctrine of happiness and virtue."
THIS CONCLUSION. "Lo, I kiss, therefore I live"—a witty travesty of Descartes' "Cogito, ergo sum."
CANTO XIV
SO I TOOK TO HUNTING BEARS. Heine considers Atta Troll, the bear bred by the French Revolution, as a much greater and more dangerous foe, and therefore a worthier opponent of his than the sorry German bears—or patriots—with whom he was forced to contend in his native country and who incessantly worried (and still worry) him.
CANTO XV
CAGOTS. The remnant of an ancient tribe, driven out of human society as unclean—Cagot fromCanis gothicus. The Cagots may still be found in obscure parts of the French Pyrenees; they have their own language and are distinguished by their yellow skins from the peoples of Western Europe.In the Middle Ages they were persecuted as heretics and were excluded from all contact with their neighbours. They were forced to bear a tag upon their clothes so that they might be known as inferiors. Even to-day, despite the fact that they possess the same rights as other Frenchmen, they are considered as somewhat debased and unclean.
CANTO XVIII
THE WILD HUNT which Heine describes in this canto is an old German legend which poets and painters have found to be a fertile source of inspiration. The wild huntsman must ride through the world every night, followed by all evil-doers, and wherever he appears, thither, according to old folk-belief, does misfortune come. Tradition herds all the foes of Christianity among this rout of evil-doers; for this reason does Heine include Goethe—the "great pagan," as the Germans call him—in that crew. There have been other foes of Christianity since, and somevery great figures amongst them, so that in time the Wild Huntsman's Company may become quite presentable.
HENGSTENBERG (1802-1869). A fanatical theologian professor at Berlin who made an attack upon Goethe's "Elective Affinities," which then had not yet become a classic, and was thus still liable to the attacks of the "learned."
FRANZ HORN. A contemporary of Heine's of no particular importance, a poet of the Romantic School and a verbose literary historian. He wrote a work in five volumes upon Shakespeare's plays. In this he interprets the poet in a wholly romantic sense and winds up by presenting him as an enthusiastic Christian.
CANTO XIX
ABUNDA—in the Celtic (Breton) folk-lore Dame Abonde and even Dame Habonde. The Celtic element (as, for instance, the legendof King Arthur's Round Table) played a great part in the romantic poetry of Germany, and later in the music dramas of Wagner. Romanticism is therefore represented in Heine's poem by the fairy Abunda, in contradistinction to the Greek and Semitic inspiration—represented by Diana and Herodias. Heine's conception of Herodias as being in love with the Baptist and taking her revenge on him for his Josephian attitude towards her, has, no doubt, influenced later writers on the subject, especially Flaubert and Oscar Wilde, save that these had not the courage (nor perhaps the insight) to regard the hero in question as a "block-head."
CANTO XX
SIX-AND-THIRTY KINGS. At once an allusion to Shakespeare's "A kingdom for a horse!" ("Richard III") and a side-stroke glancing at the various kings and princes of Germany—some thirty-six in Heine's time.
CANTO XXI
HELLISH HERBS. The foul and mouldy herbs and medicines in Uraka's hut represent a collection of remedies for the cure and preservation of decaying feudalism and Christian mediævalism, which, however, no remedy can restore to health. The smell in Uraka's hut is the smell of the "rotting past," that, in spite of all nostrums and artificial revivals, goes on decomposing. The stuffed birds which glare so fixedly and forlorn, and have long bills like human noses, are members of Heine's own race. These stuffed birds are the symbols of Judaism which according to our Hellenistic poet, possesses, as religion, as little life as the Christianity that is based upon it.
CANTO XXII
A SWABIAN BARD. The Swabian school of poetry, of which Uhland was the leader, was the chief representative of German Chauvinism in Heine's day. W. Menzel, the critic who denounced "Young Germany" to the Government, belonged to this school. Börne answered him in his "Menzel der Franzosenfresser" ("The Gallophobe"), and Heine mocked at him in his paper "The Denunciator." Gustav Pfizer (who had provoked Heine) and Karl Meyer were members of the Swabian school, and prided themselves particularly upon their morality and religiosity, for which reason they set themselves in antagonism to the "heathen" Goethe. Goethe, on his part, estimated this school as little as did Heine. In a letter to Zelter dated October 5, 1831, Goethe writes thus of Pfizer: "...I read a poem lately by Gustav Pfizer ... the poet appears to have real talent and is evidently a very good man. But as I read I was oppressed by a certain poverty of spirit in the piece and put the little book away at once, for with the advance of the cholera it is well to shield oneself against all debilitating influences. The work is dedicated to Uhland, and one might well doubt if anything exciting, thorough, or humanly compelling could be produced from those regions in which he is master. I will therefore not rail at the work, but simply leave it alone.It is really marvellous how these little men are able to throw their goody-religious-poetic beggar's cloak so cleverly about their shoulders that, whenever an elbow happens to stick out, one is tempted to consider this as a deliberate poetic intention."
METZEL-SOUP. A Swabian soup of the country districts, glorified in the poetry of Uhland. It is usually prepared from the "insides" of pigs.
CHRISTOPHER FRIEDRICH K. VON KÖLLE (1781-1848). A Privy Councillor of the Legation of Würtemberg—composer of many poems and political pamphlets.
JUSTINUS KERNER (1786-1862) was also a poet of the Swabian school. He believed in spirits, and made many observations and experiments in his house at Weinsburg inorder to obtain some knowledge of the supernatural world. Thousands of those who believed, or wished to believe, came to his "séances." He worked in conjunction with a celebrated medium of his time, and later published a very successful book about this lady. Heine, no doubt, had this medium in mind when he mentioned Kerner.
CANTO XXIII
BALDOMERO ESPARTERO (1792-1879). A celebrated Spanish general who fought against Don Carlos on the side of Maria Christina. He was later given the title of Duke of Vittoria.
EMILIA GALOTTI. This refers to the heroine of Lessing's drama of the same name, in which old Odoardo Galotti slays his daughter in order to protect her from dishonour. The theme is derived from the story of Virginia and Tarquin.
"NO ROSE WOULD HE PLUCK, ETC." Lessing's drama closes thus: "Odoardo: 'God! what have I done!'Emilia: 'Thou hast merely plucked a rose ere the storm reft it of its petals.'"
CANTO XXIV
GANELON OF MAINZ was the stepfather of Roland, against whom he bore a grudge. He contrived to bring about his destruction by betraying him to the Saracens, who over-powered and killed him in the Valley of Roncesvalles, as related in the well-known "Chanson de Roland."
VALHALLA'S HALL. King Ludwig I of Bavaria ordered a Greek temple to be built on the banks of the Danube near Regensburg, to which he gave the name of Valhalla. In this the busts of all great Germans are placed—as, for instance, with great ceremony, that of Bismarck some years ago, and recently that of Wagner. Atta Troll's epitaph isa satirical imitation of the poetic effusions of Ludwig I, who considered himself a poet but was nothing more than an affected versifier. His mania for compression and for participial forms (not to be tolerated in German) more than once drew the arrows of Heine's wit. The last line: "Talent none, but character," has become a familiar phrase in Germany.
CANTO XXV
PYRENEEAN LAFAYETTE. Lafayette fought for the Revolution in France as well as in America.
"THAT WHICH SONG WOULD MAKE ETERNAL," &c. A quotation in a semi-satiric vein from Schiller's "The Gods of Greece."
CANTO XXVI
DROVE THE SNAKES AND LIONS FAR. A burlesque quotation from Freiligrath'spoem "Der Löwenritt," from which also the reference later on to the crocodile is taken.
CANTO XXVII
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE (1785-1858). After abandoning his career as a diplomat, von Ense married the celebrated Rahel. He lived in Berlin, where the salon of his wife became the meeting-ground for artists and writers. In his youth he associated closely with the romantics—de la Motte Fouqué, Chamisso, and Clemens Brentano, the brother of Bettina von Arnim. Though imitating the heavy and cautious style of the later Goethe he was a good writer, and his biographies of celebrated men belong to the best in German literature. He endeavoured, but without success, to win over the all-powerful Austrian Minister Metternich to the cause of "Young Germany."
OTHER TIMES AND OTHER BIRDS! These words refer to the new generation of poets—Georg Herwegh, Friedrich Freiligrath,Dingelstedt, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, and Anastasius Grün—who came upon the scene about 1840, cherished mechanic-democratic ideals and brought about the Revolution of 1848. Heine, by nature an aristocratic poet, who instinctively dreaded the competition of "noble bears," saw all his loftiest principles trodden into the mire by these Utopian hot-heads and the crew of politicians that came storming after them. This doctrinaire and numerical interpretation of the rights of man—for which rights in their proper application the poet himself had fought so valiantly—caused him great unhappiness. He now saw his fairest concepts (as is made clear in his own introduction) distorted as in some crooked mirror, and so, filled with anger, grief and disgust, he conceived and wrote his lyrico-satiric masterpiece, "Atta Troll." The poem has been misunderstood to this very day, for the mechanics and theorists have practically won.The day it is understood, their reign will be over.
PRINTED ATTHE BALLANTYNE PRESSLONDON
Notes of the transcriber of this etext: