“Und so schwingt sich, zum Genie erklärt,Strephon kühn auf Yorick’s Steckenpferd.Trabt mäandrisch über Berg und Auen,Reist empfindsam durch sein Dorfgebiet,Oder singt die Jugend zu erbauenGanz Gefühl dem Gartengott ein Lied.Gott der Gärten, stöhnt die Bürgerin,Lächle gütig, Rasen und SchasminHaucht Gerüche! Fliehet Handlungssorgen,Dass mein Liebster heute noch in RuhSein Mark-Einsaz-Lomber spiele—Morgen,Schliessen wir die Unglücksbude zu!”A passage at the end of the appendix to the twelfth Reisebrief is further indication of his opposition to and his contempt for the frenzy of German sentimentalism.The poems of Goeckingk contain allusions30to Sterne, to be sure partly indistinctive and insignificant, which, however, tend in the main to a ridicule of the Yorick cult and place their author ultimately among the satirical opponents of sentimentalism. In the “Epistel an Goldhagen in Petershage,” 1771, he writes:“Doch geb ich wohl zu überlegen,Was für den Weisen besser sey:Die Welt wie Yorick mit zu nehmen?Nach Königen, wie Diogen,Sich keinen Fuss breit zu bequemen,”—a query which suggests the hesitant point of view relative to the advantage of Yorick’s excess of universal sympathy. In “Will auch ’n Genie werden” the poet steps out more unmistakably as an adversary of the movement and as a skeptical observer of the exercise of Yorick-like sympathy.“Doch, ich Patronus, merkt das wohl,Geh, im zerrissnen Kittel,Hab’ aber alle Taschen vollYorickischer Capittel.Doch lass’ ich, wenn mir’s Kurzweilschafft,Die Hülfe fleh’nden ArmenDurch meinen Schweitzer, Peter Kraft,Zerprügeln ohn’ Erbarmen.”Goeckingk openly satirizes the sentimental cult in the poem “Der Empfindsame”“Herr Mops, der um das dritte WortEmpfindsamkeit im Munde führet,Und wenn ein Grashalm ihm verdorrt,Gleich einen Thränenstrom verlieret—........Mit meinem Weibchen thut er schierGleich so bekannt wie ein Franzose;All’ Augenblicke bot er ihrToback aus eines Bettlers DoseMit dem, am Zaun in tiefem SchlafEr einen Tausch wie Yorik traf.Der Unempfindsamkeit zum HohnHielt er auf eine Mück’ im GlaseBeweglich einen Leichsermon,Purrt’ eine Flieg’ ihm an der Nase,Macht’ er das Fenster auf, und sprach:Zieh Oheim Toby’s Fliege nach!Durch Mops ist warlich meine MagdNicht mehr bey Trost, nicht mehr bey SinnenSo sehr hat ihr sein Lob behagt,Dass sie empfindsam allen SpinnenZu meinem Hause, frank und freyVerstattet ihre Weberey.Er trat mein Hündchen auf das Bein,Hilf Himmel! Welch’ ein Lamentiren!Es hätte mögen einen SteinDer Strasse zum Erbarmen rühren,Auch wedelt’ ihm in einem NuDas Hündgen schon Vergebung zu.Ach! Hündchen, du beschämst mich sehr,Denn dass mir Mops von meinem LebenDrey Stunden stahl, wie schwer, wie schwer,Wird’s halten, das ihm zu vergeben?Denn Spinnen werden oben einWohl gar noch meine Mörder seyn.”This poem is a rather successful bit of ridicule cast on the over-sentimental who sought to follow Yorick’s foot-prints.The other allusions to Sterne31are concerned with his hobby-horse idea, for this seems to gain the poet’s approbation and to have no share in his censure.The dangers of overwrought sentimentality, of heedless surrender to the emotions and reveling in their exercise,—perils to whose magnitude Sterne so largely contributed—were grasped by saner minds, and energetic protest was entered against such degradation of mind and futile expenditure of feeling.Joachim Heinrich Campe, the pedagogical theorist, published in 177932a brochure, “Ueber Empfindsamkeit und Empfindelei in pädagogischer Hinsicht,” in which he deprecates the tendency of “Empfindsamkeit” to degenerate into “Empfindelei,” and explains at some length the deleterious effects of an unbridled “Empfindsamkeit” and an unrestrained outpouring of sympathetic emotions which finds no actual expression, no relief in deeds. The substance of this warning essay is repeated, often word for word, but considerably amplified with new material, and rendered more convincing by increased breadth of outlook and positiveness of assertion, the fruit of six years of observation and reflection, as part of a treatise, entitled, “Von der nöthigen Sorge für die Erhaltung des Gleichgewichts unter den menschlichen Kräften: Besondere Warnung vor dem Modefehler die Empfindsamkeit zu überspannen.” It is in the third volume of the “Allgemeine Revision des gesammten Schul- und Erziehungswesens.”33The differentiation between “Empfindsamkeit” and “Empfindelei” is again and more accessibly repeated in Campe’s later work, “Ueber die Reinigung und Bereicherung der deutschen Sprache.”34In the second form of this essay (1785) Campe speaks of the sentimental fever as an epidemic by no means entirely cured.His analysis of “Empfindsamkeit” is briefly as follows: “Empfindsamkeit ist die Empfänglichkeit zu Empfindnissen, in denen etwas Sittliches d. i. Freude oder Schmerz über etwas sittlich Gutes oder sittlich Böses, ist;” yet in common use the term is applied only to a certain high degree of such susceptibility. This sensitiveness is either in harmony or discord with the other powers of the body, especially with the reason:if equilibrium is maintained, this sensitiveness is a fair, worthy, beneficent capacity (Fähigkeit); if exalted over other forces, it becomes to the individual and to society the most destructive and baneful gift which refinement and culture may bestow. Campe proposes to limit the use of the word “Empfindsamkeit” to the justly proportioned manifestation of this susceptibility; the irrational, exaggerated development he would designate “überspannte Empfindsamkeit.” “Empfindelei,” he says, “ist Empfindsamkeit, die sich auf eine kleinliche alberne, vernunftlose und lächerliche Weise, also da äussert, wo sie nicht hingehörte.” Campe goes yet further in his distinctions and invents the monstrous word, “Empfindsamlichkeit” for the sentimentality which is superficial, affected, sham (geheuchelte). Campe’s newly coined word was never accepted, and in spite of his own efforts and those of others to honor the word “Empfindsamkeit” and restrict it to the commendable exercise of human sympathy, the opposite process was victorious and “Empfindsamkeit,” maligned and scorned, came to mean almost exclusively, unless distinctly modified, both what Campe designates as “überspannte Empfindsamkeit” and “Empfindelei,” and also the absurd hypocrisy of the emotions which he seeks to cover with his new word. Campe’s farther consideration contains a synopsis of method for distinguishing “Empfindsamkeit” from “Empfindelei:” in the first place through the manner of their incitement,—the former is natural, the latter is fantastic, working without sense of the natural properties of things. In this connection he instances as examples, Yorick’s feeling of shame after his heartless and wilful treatment of Father Lorenzo, and, in contrast with this, the shallowness of Sterne’s imitators who whimpered over the death of a violet, and stretched out their arms and threw kisses to the moon and stars. In the second place they are distinguished in the manner of their expression: “Empfindsamkeit” is “secret, unpretentious, laconic and serious;” the latter attracts attention, is theatrical, voluble, whining, vain. Thirdly, they are known by their fruits, in the one case by deeds, in the other by shallow pretension. In the latter partof his volume, Campe treats the problem of preventing the perverted form of sensibility by educative endeavor.The word “Empfindsamkeit” was afterwards used sometimes simply as an equivalent of “Empfindung,” or sensation, without implication of the manner of sensing: for example one finds in theMorgenblatt35a poem named “Empfindsamkeitenam Rheinfalle vom Felsen der Galerie abgeschrieben.” In the poem various travelers are made to express their thoughts in view of the waterfall. A poetcries, “Ye gods, what a hell of waters;” a tradesman, “away with the rock;” a Briton complains of the “confounded noise,” and so on. It is plain that the word suffered a generalization of meaning.A poetical expression of Campe’s main message is found in a book called “Winterzeitvertreib eines königlichen preussischen Offiziers.”36A poem entitled “Das empfindsame Herz” (p. 210) has the following lines:“Freund, ein empfindsames Herz ist nicht für diese Welt,Von Schelmen wird’s verlacht, von Thoren wirds geprellt,Doch üb’ im Stillen das, was seine Stimme spricht.Dein Lohn ist dir gewiss, nur hier auf Erden nicht.”In a similar vein of protest is the letter of G. Hartmann37to Denis, dated Tübingen, February 10, 1773, in which the writer condemns the affected sentimentalism of Jacobi and others as damaging to morals. “O best teacher,” he pleads with Denis, “continue to represent these performances as unworthy.”Möser in his “Patriotische Phantasien”38represents himself as replying to a maid-in-waiting who writes in distress about her young mistress, because the latter is suffering from “epidemic” sentimentalism, and is absurdly unreasonable in her practical incapacity and her surrender to her feelings. Möser’s sound advice is the substitution of genuine emotion. The whole section is entitled “Für die Empfindsamen.”Knigge, in his “Umgang mit Menschen,” plainly has those Germans in mind who saw in Uncle Toby’s treatment of thefly an incentive to unreasonable emphasis upon the relations between man and the animal world, when, in the chapter on the treatment of animals, he protests against the silly, childish enthusiasm of those who cannot see a hen killed, but partake of fowl greedily on the table, or who passionately open the window for a fly.39A work was also translated from the French of Mistelet, which dealt with the problem of “Empfindsamkeit:” it was entitled “Ueber die Empfindsamkeit in Rücksicht auf das Drama, die Romane und die Erziehung.”40An article condemning exaggerated sentimentality was published in theDeutsches Museumfor February, 1783, under the title “Etwas über deutsche Empfindsamkeit.”Goethe’s “Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit” is a merry satire on the sentimental movement, but is not to be connected directly with Sterne, since Goethe is more particularly concerned with the petty imitators of his own “Werther.” Baumgartner in his Life of Goethe asserts that Sterne’s Sentimental Journey was one of the books found inside the ridiculous doll which the love-sick Prince Oronaro took about with him. This is not a necessary interpretation, for Andrason, when he took up the first book, exclaimed merely “Empfindsamkeiten,” and, as Strehlke observes,41it is not necessary here to think of a single work, because the term was probably used in a general way, referring possibly to a number of then popular imitations.The satires on “Empfindsamkeit” began to grow numerous at the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties, so that theAllgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung, in October, 1785, feels justified in remarking that such attempts are gradually growing as numerous as the “Empfindsame Romane” themselves, and wishes, “so may they rot together in a grave of oblivion.”42Anton Reiser, the hero of Karl Philipp Moritz’s autobiographical novel (Berlin, 1785–90), begins a satire on affected sentimentalism, which was to bring shafts of ridicule to bear on the popular sham, and to throw appreciative light on the real manifestation of genuine feeling.43A kindred satire was “Die Geschichte eines Genies,” Leipzig, 1780, two volumes, in which the prevailing fashion of digression is incidentally satirized.44The most extensive satire on the sentimental movement, and most vehement protest against its excesses is the four volume novel, “Der Empfindsame,”45published anonymously in Erfurt, 1781–3, but acknowledged in the introduction to the fourth volume by its author, Christian Friedrich Timme. He had already published one novel in which he exemplified in some measure characteristics of the novelists whom he later sought to condemn and satirize, that is, this first novel, “Faramond’sFamiliengeschichte,”46is digressive and episodical. “Der Empfindsame” is much too bulky to be really effective as a satire; the reiteration of satirical jibes, the repetition of satirical motifs slightly varied, or thinly veiled, recoil upon the force of the work itself and injure the effect. The maintenance of a single satire through the thirteen to fourteen hundred pages which four such volumes contain is a Herculean task which we can associate only with a genius like Cervantes. Then, too, Timme is an excellent narrator, and his original purpose is constantly obscured by his own interest and the reader’s interest in Timme’s own story, in his original creations, in the variety of his characters. These obtrude upon the original aim of the book and absorb the action of the story in such a measure that Timme often for whole chapters and sections seems to forget entirely the convention of his outsetting.His attack is threefold, the centers of his opposition being “Werther,” “Siegwart” and Sterne, as represented by their followersand imitators. But the campaign is so simple, and the satirist has been to such trouble to label with care the direction of his own blows, that it is not difficult to separate the thrusts intended for each of his foes.Timme’s initial purpose is easily illustrated by reference to his first chapter, where his point of view is compactly put and the soundness of his critical judgment and the forcefulness of his satirical bent are unequivocally demonstrated: This chapter, which, as he says, “may serve instead of preface and introduction,” is really both, for the narrative really begins only in the second chapter. “Every nation, every age,” he says, “has its own doll as a plaything for its children, and sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit) is ours.” Then with lightness and grace, coupled with unquestionable critical acumen, he traces briefly the growth of “Empfindsamkeit” in Germany. “Kaum war der liebenswürdige Sterne auf sein Steckenpferd gestiegen, und hatte es uns vorgeritten; so versammelten sich wie gewöhnlich in Teutschland alle Jungen an ihn herum, hingen sich an ihn, oder schnizten sich sein Steckenpferd in der Geschwindigkeit nach, oder brachen Stecken vom nächsten Zaun oder rissen aus einem Reissigbündel den ersten besten Prügel, setzten sich darauf und ritten mit einer solchen Wut hinter ihm drein, dass sie einen Luftwirbel veranlassten, der alles, was ihm zu nahe kam, wie ein reissender Strom mit sich fortris, wär es nur unter den Jungen geblieben, so hätte es noch sein mögen; aber unglücklicherweise fanden auch Männer Geschmack an dem artigen Spielchen, sprangen vom ihrem Weg ab und ritten mit Stok und Degen und Amtsperüken unter den Knaben einher. Freilich erreichte keiner seinen Meister, den sie sehr bald aus dem Gesicht verloren, und nun die possirlichsten Sprünge von der Welt machen und doch bildet sich jeder der Affen ein, er reite so schön wie der Yorick.”47This lively description of Sterne’s part in this uprising is, perhaps, the best brief characterization of the phenomenon and is all the more significant as coming from the pen of a contemporary, and written only about a decade after the inception of the sentimental movement as influenced andfurthered by the translation of the Sentimental Journey. It represents a remarkable critical insight into contemporaneous literary movements, the rarest of all critical gifts, but it has been overlooked by investigators who have sought and borrowed brief words to characterize the epoch.48The contribution of “Werther” and “Siegwart” to the sentimental frenzy are even as succinctly and graphically designated; the latter book, published in 1776, is held responsible for a recrudescence of the phenomenon, because it gave a new direction, a new tone to the faltering outbursts of Sterne’s followers and indicated a more comprehensible and hence more efficient, outlet for their sentimentalism. Now again, “every nook resounded with the whining sentimentality, with sighs, kisses, forget-me-nots, moonshine, tears and ecstasies;” those hearts excited by Yorick’s gospel, gropingly endeavoring to find an outlet for their own emotions which, in their opinion were characteristic of their arouser and stimulator, found through “Siegwart” a solution of their problem, a relief for their emotional excess.Timme insists that his attack is only on Yorick’s mistaken followers and not on Sterne himself. He contrasts the man and his imitators at the outset sharply by comments on a quotation from the novel, “Fragmente zur Geschichte der Zärtlichkeit”49as typifying the outcry of these petty imitators against the heartlessness of their misunderstanding critics,—“Sanfter, dultender Yorick,” he cries, “das war nicht deine Sprache! Du priesest dich nicht mit einer pharisäischen Selbstgenügsamkeit und schimpftest nicht auf die, die dir nicht ähnlich waren, ‘Doch! sprachst Du am Grabe Lorenzos, doch ich bin so weichherzig wie ein Weib, aber ich bitte die Welt nicht zu lachen, sondern mich zu bedauern!’RuhedeinemStaube, sanfter, liebevoller Dulter! und nur einen Funken deines Geistes deinen Affen.”50He writes not for the “gentle, tendersouls on whom the spirit of Yorick rests,”51for those whose feelings are easily aroused and who make quick emotional return, who love and do the good, the beautiful, the noble; but for those who “bei dem wonnigen Wehen und Anhauchen der Gottheithaltenden Natur, in huldigem Liebessinn und himmelsüssem Frohsein dahin schmelzt . . die ihr vom Sang der Liebe, von Mondschein und Tränen euch nährt,” etc., etc.52In these few words he discriminates between the man and his influence, and outlines his intentions to satirize and chastise the insidious disease which had fastened itself upon the literature of the time. This passage, with its implied sincerity of appreciation for the real Yorick, is typical of Timme’s attitude throughout the book, and his concern lest he should appear at any time to draw the English novelist into his condemnation leads him to reiterate this statement of purpose and to insist upon the contrast.Brükmann, a young theological student, for a time an intimate of the Kurt home, is evidently intended to represent the soberer, well-balanced thought of the time in opposition to the feverish sentimental frenzy of the Kurt household. He makes an exception of Yorick in his condemnation of the literary favorites, the popular novelists of that day, but he deplores the effects of misunderstood imitation of Yorick’s work, and argues his case with vehemence against this sentimental group.53Brükmann differentiates too the different kinds of sentimentalism and their effects in much the same fashion as Campe in his treatise published two years before.54In all this Brükmann may be regarded as the mouth-piece of the author. The clever daughter of the gentleman who entertains Pank at his home reads a satirical poem on the then popular literature, but expressly disclaims any attack on Yorick or “Siegwart,” and asserts that her bitterness is intended for their imitators. Lotte, Pank’s sensible and unsentimental, long-sufferingfiancée, makes further comment on the “apes” of Yorick, “Werther,” and “Siegwart.”The unfolding of the story is at the beginning closely suggestive of Tristram Shandy and is evidently intended to follow the Sterne novel in a measure as a model. As has already been suggested, Timme’s own narrative powers balk the continuity of the satire, but aid the interest and the movement of the story. The movement later is, in large measure, simple and direct. The hero is first introduced at his christening, and the discussion of fitting names in the imposing family council is taken from Walter Shandy’s hobby. The narrative here, in Sterne fashion, is interrupted by a Shandean digression55concerning the influence of clergymen’s collars and neck-bands upon the thoughts and minds of their audiences. Such questions of chance influence of trifles upon the greater events of life is a constant theme of speculation among the pragmatics; no petty detail is overlooked in the possibility of its portentous consequences. Walter Shandy’s hyperbolic philosophy turned about such a focus, the exaltation of insignificant trifles into mainsprings of action. Shandy bristles with such discussions.In Shandy fashion the story doubles on itself after the introduction and gives minute details of young Kurt’s family and the circumstances prior to his birth. The later discussion56in the family council concerning the necessary qualities in the tutor to be hired for the young Kurt is distinctly a borrowing from Shandy.57Timme imitates Sterne’s method of ridiculing pedantry; the requirements listed by the Diaconus and the professor are touches of Walter Shandy’s misapplied, warped, and undigested wisdom. In the nineteenth chapter of the third volume58we find a Sterne passage associating itself with Shandy rather more than the Sentimental Journey. It is a playful thrust at a score of places in Shandy in which the author converses with the reader about the progress of the book, and allows the mechanism of book-printing and thevagaries of publishers to obtrude themselves upon the relation between writer and reader. As a reminiscence of similar promises frequent in Shandy, the author promises in the first chapter of the fourth volume to write a book with an eccentric title dealing with a list of absurdities.59But by far the greater proportion of the allusions to Sterne associate themselves with the Sentimental Journey. A former acquaintance of Frau Kurt, whose favorite reading was Shandy, Wieland’s “Sympatien” and the Sentimental Journey, serves to satirize the influence of Yorick’s ass episode; this gentleman wept at the sight of an ox at work, and never ate meat lest he might incur the guilt of the murder of these sighing creatures.60The most constantly recurring form of satire is that of contradiction between the sentimental expression of elevated, universal sympathy and broader humanity and the failure to seize an immediately presented opportunity to embody desire in deed. Thus Frau Kurt,61buried in “Siegwart,” refuses persistently to be disturbed by those in immediate need of a succoring hand. Pankraz and his mother while on a drive discover an old man weeping inconsolably over the death of his dog.62The scene of the dead ass at Nampont occurs at once to Madame Kurt and she compares the sentimental content of these two experiences in deprivation, finding the palm of sympathy due to the melancholy dog-bewailer before her, thereby exalting the sentimental privilege of her own experience as a witness. Quoting Yorick, she cries: “Shame on the world! If men only loved one another as this man loves his dog!”63At this very moment the reality of her sympathy is put to the test by the approach of a wretched woman bearing a wretched child, begging for assistance, but Frau Kurt, steeped in the delight of her sympathetic emotion, repulses her rudely. Pankraz, ongoing home, takes his Yorick and reads again the chapter containing the dead-ass episode; he spends much time in determining which event was the more affecting, and tears flow at the thought of both animals. In the midst of his vehement curses on “unempfindsame Menschen,” “a curse upon you, you hard-hearted monsters, who treat God’s creatures unkindly,” etc., he rebukes the gentle advances of his pet cat Riepel, rebuffs her for disturbing his “Wonnegefühl,” in such a heartless and cruel way that, through an accident in his rapt delight at human sympathy, the ultimate result is the poor creature’s death by his own fault.In the second volume64Timme repeats this method of satire, varying conditions only, yet forcing the matter forward, ultimately, into the grotesque comic, but again taking his cue from Yorick’s narrative about the ass at Nampont, acknowledging specifically his linking of the adventure of Madame Kurt to the episode in the Sentimental Journey. Frau Kurt’s ardent sympathy is aroused for a goat drawing a wagon, and driven by a peasant. She endeavors to interpret the sighs of the beast and finally insists upon the release of the animal, which she asserts is calling to her for aid. The poor goat’s parting bleat after its departing owner is construed as a curse on the latter’s hardheartedness. Frau Kurt embraces and kisses the animal. During the whole scene theneighboringvillage is in flames, houses are consumed and poor people rendered homeless, but Frau Kurt expresses no concern, even regarding the catastrophe as a merited affliction, because of the villagers’ lack of sympathy with their domestic animals. The same means of satire is again employed in the twelfth chapter of the same volume.65Pankraz, overcome with pain because Lotte, his betrothed, fails to unite in his sentimental enthusiasm and persists in common-sense, tries to bury his grief in a wild ride through night and storm. His horse tramples ruthlessly on a poor old man in the road; the latter cries for help, but Pank, buried in contemplation of Lotte’s lack of sensibility, turns a deaf ear to the appeal.In the seventeenth chapter of the third volume, a sentimental journey is proposed, and most of the fourth volume is an account of this undertaking and the events arising from its complications. Pankraz’s adventures are largely repetitions of former motifs, and illustrate the fate indissolubly linked with an imitation of Sterne’s related converse with the fair sex.66The journey runs, after a few adventures, over into an elaborate practical joke in which Pankraz himself is burlesqued by his contemporaries. Timme carries his poignancy and keenness of satire over into bluntness of burlesque blows in a large part of these closing scenes. Pankraz loses the sympathy of the reader, involuntarily and irresistibly conceded him, and becomes an inhuman freak of absurdity, beyond our interest.67Pankraz is brought into disaster by his slavish following of suggestions aroused through fancied parallels between his own circumstances and those related of Yorick. He finds a sorrowing woman68sitting, like Maria of Moulines, beneath a poplar tree. Pankraz insists upon carrying out this striking analogy farther, which the woman, though she betrays no knowledge of the Sentimental Journey, is not loath to accede to, as it coincides with her own nefarious purposes. Timme in the following scene strikes a blow at the abjectly sensual involved in much of the then sentimental, unrecognized and unrealized.Pankraz meets a man carrying a cage of monkeys.69He buys the poor creatures from their master, even as Frau Kurt had purchased the goat. The similarity to the Starling narrative in Sterne’s volume fills Pankraz’s heart with glee. The Starling wanted to get out and so do his monkeys, and Pankraz’s only questions are: “What did Yorick do?” “Whatwould he do?” He resolves to do more than is recorded of Yorick, release the prisoners at all costs. Yorick’s monolog occurs to him and he parodies it. The animals greet their release in the thankless way natural to them,—a point already enforced in the conduct of Frau Kurt’s goat.In the last chapter of the third volume Sterne’s relationship to “Eliza” is brought into the narrative. Pankraz writes a letter wherein he declares amid exaggerated expressions of bliss that he has found “Elisa,” his “Elisa.” This is significant as showing that the name Eliza needed no further explanation, but, from the popularity of the Yorick-Eliza letters and the wide-spread admiration of the relation, the name Eliza was accepted as a type of that peculiar feminine relation which existed between Sterne and Mrs. Draper, and which appealed to Sterne’s admirers.Pankraz’s new Order of the Garter, born of his wild frenzy70of devotion over this article of Elisa’s wearing apparel, is an open satire on Leuchsenring’s and Jacobi’s silly efforts noted elsewhere. The garter was to bear Elisa’s silhouette and the device “Orden vom Strumpfband der empfindsamen Liebe.”The elaborate division of moral preachers71into classes may be further mentioned as an adaptation from Sterne, cast in Yorick’s mock-scientific manner.A consideration of these instances of allusion and adaptation with a view to classification, reveals a single line of demarkation obvious and unaltered. And this line divides the references to Sterne’s sentimental influence from those to his whimsicality of narration, his vagaries of thought; that is, it follows inevitably, and represents precisely the two aspects of Sterne as an individual, and as an innovator in the world of letters. But that a line of cleavage is further equally discernible in the treatment of these two aspects is not to be overlooked. On the one hand is the exaggerated, satirical, burlesque; on the other the modified, lightened, softened. And these two lines of division coincide precisely.The slight touches of whimsicality, suggesting Sterne, are a part of Timme’s own narrative, evidently adapted with approval and appreciation; they are never carried to excess, satirized or burlesqued, but may be regarded as purposely adopted, as a result of admiration and presumably as a suggestion to the possible workings of sprightliness and grace on the heaviness of narrative prose at that time. Timme, as a clear-sighted contemporary, certainly confined the danger of Sterne’s literary influence entirely to the sentimental side, and saw no occasion to censure an importation of Sterne’s whimsies. Pank’s ode on the death of Riepel, written partly in dashes and partly in exclamation points, is not a disproof of this assertion. Timme is not satirizing Sterne’s whimsical use of typographical signs, but rather the Germans who misunderstood Sterne and tried to read a very peculiar and precious meaning into these vagaries. The sentimental is, however, always burlesqued and ridiculed; hence the satire is directed largely against the Sentimental Journey, and Shandy is followed mainly in those sections, which, we are compelled to believe, he wrote for his own pleasure, and in which he was led on by his own interest.The satire on sentimentalism is purposeful, the imitation and adaptation of the whimsical and original is half-unconscious, and bespeaks admiration and commendation.Timme’s book was sufficiently popular to demand a second edition, but it never received the critical examination its merits deserved. Wieland’sTeutscher Merkurand theBibliothek der schönen Wissenschaftenignore it completely. TheGothaische Gelehrte Zeitungenannounces the book in its issue of August 2, 1780, but the book itself is not reviewed in its columns. TheJenaische Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachenaccords it a colorless and unappreciative review in which Timme is reproached for lack of order in his work (a censure more applicable to the first volume), and further for his treatment of German authors then popular.72The latter statement stamps the review as unsympathetic with Timme’ssatirical purpose. In theErfurtische gelehrte Zeitung,73in the very house of its own publication, the novel is treated in a long review which hesitates between an acknowledged lack of comprehension and indignant denunciation. The reviewer fears that the author is a “Pasquillant oder gar ein Indifferentist” and hopes the public will find no pleasure (Geschmack) in such bitter jesting (Schnaken). He is incensed at Timme’s contention that the Germans were then degenerate as compared with their Teutonic forefathers, and Timme’s attack on the popular writers is emphatically resented. “Aber nun kömmt das Schlimme erst,” he says, “da führt er aus Schriften unserer grössten Schenies, aus den Lieblings-büchern der Nazion, aus Werther’s Leiden, dem Siegwart, den Fragmenten zur Geschichte der Zärtlichkeit, Müller’s Freuden und Leiden, Klinger’s Schriften u.s.w. zur Bestätigung seiner Behauptung, solche Stellen mit solcher Bosheit an, dass man in der That ganz verzweifelt wird, ob sie von einem Schenie oder von einem Affen geschrieben sind.”In the number for July 6, 1782, the second and third volumes are reviewed. Pity is expressed for the poor author, “denn ich fürchte es wird sich ein solches Geschrey wider ihn erheben, wovon ihm die Ohren gällen werden.” Timme wrote reviews for this periodical, and the general tone of this notice renders it not improbable that he roguishly wrote the review himself or inspired it, as a kind of advertisement for the novel itself. It is certainly a challenge to the opposing party.TheAllgemeine deutsche Bibliothek74alone seems to grasp the full significance of the satire. “We acknowledge gladly,” says the reviewer, “that the author has with accuracy noted and defined the rise, development, ever-increasing contagion and plague-like prevalence of this moral pestilence; . . . that the author has penetrated deep into the knowledge of this disease and its causes.” He wishes for an engraving of the Sterne hobby-horse cavalcade described in the first chapter, and begs for a second and third volume, “aus deutscher Vaterlandsliebe.” Timme is called “Our German Cervantes.”The second and third volumes are reviewed75with a brief word of continued approbation.A novel not dissimilar in general purpose, but less successful in accomplishment, is Wezel’s “Wilhelmine Arend, oder die Gefahren der Empfindsamkeit,” Dessau and Leipzig, 1782, two volumes. The book is more earnest in its conception. Its author says in the preface that his desire was to attack “Empfindsamkeit” on its dangerous and not on its comic side, hence the book avoids in the main the lighthearted and telling burlesque, the Hudibrastic satire of Timme’s novel. He works along lines which lead through increasing trouble to a tragicdénouement.The preface contains a rather elaborate classification of kinds of “Empfindsamkeit,” which reminds one of Sterne’s mock-scientific discrimination. This classification is according to temperament, education, example, custom, reading, strength or weakness of the imagination; there is a happy, a sad, a gentle, a vehement, a dallying, a serious, a melancholy, sentimentality, the last being the most poetic, the most perilous.The leading character, Wilhelmine, is, like most characters which are chosen and built up to exemplify a preconceived theory, quite unconvincing. In his foreword Wezel analyzes his heroine’s character and details at some length the motives underlying the choice of attributes and the building up of her personality. This insight into the author’s scaffolding, this explanation of the mechanism of his puppet-show, does not enhance the aesthetic, or the satirical force of the figure. She is not conceived in flesh and blood, but is made to order.The story begins in letters,—a method of story-telling which was the legacy of Richardson’s popularity—and this device is again employed in the second volume (Part VII). Wilhelmine Arend is one of those whom sentimentalism seized like a maddening pestiferous disease. We read of her that she melted into tears when her canary bird lost a feather, that she turned white and trembled when Dr. Braun hacked worms to pieces in conducting a biological experiment. On one occasion she refused to drive home, as this would take the horses outin the noonday sun and disturb their noonday meal,—an exorbitant sympathy with brute creation which owes its popularity to Yorick’s ass. It is not necessary here to relate the whole story. Wilhelmine’s excessive sentimentality estranges her from her husband, a weak brutish man, who has no comprehension of her feelings. He finds a refuge in the debasing affections of a French opera-singer, Pouilly, and gradually sinks to the very lowest level of degradation. This all is accomplished by the interposition and active concern of friends, by efforts at reunion managed by benevolent intriguers and kindly advisers.The advice of Drs. Braun and Irwin is especially significant in its sane characterization of Wilhelmine’s mental disorders, and the observations upon “Empfindsamkeit” which are scattered through the book are trenchant, and often markedly clever. Wilhelmine holds sentimental converse with three kindred spirits in succession, Webson, Dittmar, and Geissing. The first reads touching tales aloud to her and they two unite their tears, a sentimental idea dating from the Maria of Moulines episode. The part which the physical body, with its demands and desires unacknowledged and despised, played as the unseen moving power in these three friendships is clearly and forcefully brought out. Allusion to Timme’s elucidation of this principle, which, though concealed, underlay much of the sentimentalism of this epoch, has already been made. Finally Wilhelmine is persuaded by her friends to leave her husband, and the scene is shifted to a little Harz village, where she is married to Webson; but the unreasonableness of her nature develops inordinately, and she is unable ever to submit to any reasonable human relations, and the rest of the tale is occupied with her increasing mental aberration, her retirement to a hermit-like seclusion, and her death.The book, as has been seen, presents a rather pitiful satire on the whole sentimental epoch, not treating any special manifestation, but applicable in large measure equally to those who joined in expressing the emotional ferment to which Sterne, “Werther” and “Siegwart” gave impulse, and for which they secured literary recognition. Wezel fails as a satirist, partlybecause his leading character is not convincing, but largely because his satirical exaggeration, and distortion of characteristics, which by a process of selection renders satire efficient, fails to make the exponent of sentimentalism ludicrous, but renders her pitiful. At the same time this satirical warping impairs the value of the book as a serious presentation of a prevailing malady. The book falls between two stools.A precursor of “Wilhelmine Arend” from Wezel’s own hand was “Die unglückliche Schwäche,” which was published in the second volume of his “Satirische Erzählungen.”76In this book we have a character with a heart like the sieve of the Danaids, and to Frau Laclerc is attributed “an exaggerated softness of heart which was unable to resist a single impression, and was carried away at any time, wherever the present impulse bore it.” The plot of the story, with the intrigues of Graf. Z., the Pouilly of the piece, the separation of husband and wife, their reunion, the disasters following directly in the train of weakness of heart in opposing sentimental attacks, are undoubtedly children of the same purpose as that which brought forth “Wilhelmine Arend.”Another satirical protest was, as one reads from a contemporary review, “Die Tausend und eine Masche, oder Yoricks wahres Shicksall, ein blaues Mährchen von Herrn Stanhope” (1777, 8o). The book purports to be the posthumous work of a young Englishman, who, disgusted with Yorick’s German imitators, grew finally indignant with Yorick himself. TheAlmanach der deutschen Musen(1778, pp. 99–100) finds that the author misjudges Yorick. The book is written in part if not entirely in verse.In 1774 a correspondent of Wieland’sMerkurwrites, begging this authoritative periodical to condemn a weekly paper just started in Prague, entitled “Wochentlich Etwas,” which is said to be written in the style of Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey, M . . . R . . . and “die Beyträge zur Geheimen Geschichte des menschlichen Herzens und Verstandes,” and thereby is a shame to “our dear Bohemia.”In this way it is seen how from various sources and in various ways protest was made against the real or distorted message of Laurence Sterne.
“Und so schwingt sich, zum Genie erklärt,Strephon kühn auf Yorick’s Steckenpferd.Trabt mäandrisch über Berg und Auen,Reist empfindsam durch sein Dorfgebiet,Oder singt die Jugend zu erbauenGanz Gefühl dem Gartengott ein Lied.Gott der Gärten, stöhnt die Bürgerin,Lächle gütig, Rasen und SchasminHaucht Gerüche! Fliehet Handlungssorgen,Dass mein Liebster heute noch in RuhSein Mark-Einsaz-Lomber spiele—Morgen,Schliessen wir die Unglücksbude zu!”
“Und so schwingt sich, zum Genie erklärt,
Strephon kühn auf Yorick’s Steckenpferd.
Trabt mäandrisch über Berg und Auen,
Reist empfindsam durch sein Dorfgebiet,
Oder singt die Jugend zu erbauen
Ganz Gefühl dem Gartengott ein Lied.
Gott der Gärten, stöhnt die Bürgerin,
Lächle gütig, Rasen und Schasmin
Haucht Gerüche! Fliehet Handlungssorgen,
Dass mein Liebster heute noch in Ruh
Sein Mark-Einsaz-Lomber spiele—Morgen,
Schliessen wir die Unglücksbude zu!”
A passage at the end of the appendix to the twelfth Reisebrief is further indication of his opposition to and his contempt for the frenzy of German sentimentalism.
The poems of Goeckingk contain allusions30to Sterne, to be sure partly indistinctive and insignificant, which, however, tend in the main to a ridicule of the Yorick cult and place their author ultimately among the satirical opponents of sentimentalism. In the “Epistel an Goldhagen in Petershage,” 1771, he writes:
“Doch geb ich wohl zu überlegen,Was für den Weisen besser sey:Die Welt wie Yorick mit zu nehmen?Nach Königen, wie Diogen,Sich keinen Fuss breit zu bequemen,”—
“Doch geb ich wohl zu überlegen,
Was für den Weisen besser sey:
Die Welt wie Yorick mit zu nehmen?
Nach Königen, wie Diogen,
Sich keinen Fuss breit zu bequemen,”—
a query which suggests the hesitant point of view relative to the advantage of Yorick’s excess of universal sympathy. In “Will auch ’n Genie werden” the poet steps out more unmistakably as an adversary of the movement and as a skeptical observer of the exercise of Yorick-like sympathy.
“Doch, ich Patronus, merkt das wohl,Geh, im zerrissnen Kittel,Hab’ aber alle Taschen vollYorickischer Capittel.Doch lass’ ich, wenn mir’s Kurzweilschafft,Die Hülfe fleh’nden ArmenDurch meinen Schweitzer, Peter Kraft,Zerprügeln ohn’ Erbarmen.”
“Doch, ich Patronus, merkt das wohl,
Geh, im zerrissnen Kittel,
Hab’ aber alle Taschen voll
Yorickischer Capittel.
Doch lass’ ich, wenn mir’s Kurzweilschafft,
Die Hülfe fleh’nden Armen
Durch meinen Schweitzer, Peter Kraft,
Zerprügeln ohn’ Erbarmen.”
Goeckingk openly satirizes the sentimental cult in the poem “Der Empfindsame”
“Herr Mops, der um das dritte WortEmpfindsamkeit im Munde führet,Und wenn ein Grashalm ihm verdorrt,Gleich einen Thränenstrom verlieret—........Mit meinem Weibchen thut er schierGleich so bekannt wie ein Franzose;All’ Augenblicke bot er ihrToback aus eines Bettlers DoseMit dem, am Zaun in tiefem SchlafEr einen Tausch wie Yorik traf.Der Unempfindsamkeit zum HohnHielt er auf eine Mück’ im GlaseBeweglich einen Leichsermon,Purrt’ eine Flieg’ ihm an der Nase,Macht’ er das Fenster auf, und sprach:Zieh Oheim Toby’s Fliege nach!Durch Mops ist warlich meine MagdNicht mehr bey Trost, nicht mehr bey SinnenSo sehr hat ihr sein Lob behagt,Dass sie empfindsam allen SpinnenZu meinem Hause, frank und freyVerstattet ihre Weberey.Er trat mein Hündchen auf das Bein,Hilf Himmel! Welch’ ein Lamentiren!Es hätte mögen einen SteinDer Strasse zum Erbarmen rühren,Auch wedelt’ ihm in einem NuDas Hündgen schon Vergebung zu.Ach! Hündchen, du beschämst mich sehr,Denn dass mir Mops von meinem LebenDrey Stunden stahl, wie schwer, wie schwer,Wird’s halten, das ihm zu vergeben?Denn Spinnen werden oben einWohl gar noch meine Mörder seyn.”
“Herr Mops, der um das dritte Wort
Empfindsamkeit im Munde führet,
Und wenn ein Grashalm ihm verdorrt,
Gleich einen Thränenstrom verlieret—
........
Mit meinem Weibchen thut er schier
Gleich so bekannt wie ein Franzose;
All’ Augenblicke bot er ihr
Toback aus eines Bettlers Dose
Mit dem, am Zaun in tiefem Schlaf
Er einen Tausch wie Yorik traf.
Der Unempfindsamkeit zum Hohn
Hielt er auf eine Mück’ im Glase
Beweglich einen Leichsermon,
Purrt’ eine Flieg’ ihm an der Nase,
Macht’ er das Fenster auf, und sprach:
Zieh Oheim Toby’s Fliege nach!
Durch Mops ist warlich meine Magd
Nicht mehr bey Trost, nicht mehr bey Sinnen
So sehr hat ihr sein Lob behagt,
Dass sie empfindsam allen Spinnen
Zu meinem Hause, frank und frey
Verstattet ihre Weberey.
Er trat mein Hündchen auf das Bein,
Hilf Himmel! Welch’ ein Lamentiren!
Es hätte mögen einen Stein
Der Strasse zum Erbarmen rühren,
Auch wedelt’ ihm in einem Nu
Das Hündgen schon Vergebung zu.
Ach! Hündchen, du beschämst mich sehr,
Denn dass mir Mops von meinem Leben
Drey Stunden stahl, wie schwer, wie schwer,
Wird’s halten, das ihm zu vergeben?
Denn Spinnen werden oben ein
Wohl gar noch meine Mörder seyn.”
This poem is a rather successful bit of ridicule cast on the over-sentimental who sought to follow Yorick’s foot-prints.
The other allusions to Sterne31are concerned with his hobby-horse idea, for this seems to gain the poet’s approbation and to have no share in his censure.
The dangers of overwrought sentimentality, of heedless surrender to the emotions and reveling in their exercise,—perils to whose magnitude Sterne so largely contributed—were grasped by saner minds, and energetic protest was entered against such degradation of mind and futile expenditure of feeling.
Joachim Heinrich Campe, the pedagogical theorist, published in 177932a brochure, “Ueber Empfindsamkeit und Empfindelei in pädagogischer Hinsicht,” in which he deprecates the tendency of “Empfindsamkeit” to degenerate into “Empfindelei,” and explains at some length the deleterious effects of an unbridled “Empfindsamkeit” and an unrestrained outpouring of sympathetic emotions which finds no actual expression, no relief in deeds. The substance of this warning essay is repeated, often word for word, but considerably amplified with new material, and rendered more convincing by increased breadth of outlook and positiveness of assertion, the fruit of six years of observation and reflection, as part of a treatise, entitled, “Von der nöthigen Sorge für die Erhaltung des Gleichgewichts unter den menschlichen Kräften: Besondere Warnung vor dem Modefehler die Empfindsamkeit zu überspannen.” It is in the third volume of the “Allgemeine Revision des gesammten Schul- und Erziehungswesens.”33The differentiation between “Empfindsamkeit” and “Empfindelei” is again and more accessibly repeated in Campe’s later work, “Ueber die Reinigung und Bereicherung der deutschen Sprache.”34In the second form of this essay (1785) Campe speaks of the sentimental fever as an epidemic by no means entirely cured.
His analysis of “Empfindsamkeit” is briefly as follows: “Empfindsamkeit ist die Empfänglichkeit zu Empfindnissen, in denen etwas Sittliches d. i. Freude oder Schmerz über etwas sittlich Gutes oder sittlich Böses, ist;” yet in common use the term is applied only to a certain high degree of such susceptibility. This sensitiveness is either in harmony or discord with the other powers of the body, especially with the reason:if equilibrium is maintained, this sensitiveness is a fair, worthy, beneficent capacity (Fähigkeit); if exalted over other forces, it becomes to the individual and to society the most destructive and baneful gift which refinement and culture may bestow. Campe proposes to limit the use of the word “Empfindsamkeit” to the justly proportioned manifestation of this susceptibility; the irrational, exaggerated development he would designate “überspannte Empfindsamkeit.” “Empfindelei,” he says, “ist Empfindsamkeit, die sich auf eine kleinliche alberne, vernunftlose und lächerliche Weise, also da äussert, wo sie nicht hingehörte.” Campe goes yet further in his distinctions and invents the monstrous word, “Empfindsamlichkeit” for the sentimentality which is superficial, affected, sham (geheuchelte). Campe’s newly coined word was never accepted, and in spite of his own efforts and those of others to honor the word “Empfindsamkeit” and restrict it to the commendable exercise of human sympathy, the opposite process was victorious and “Empfindsamkeit,” maligned and scorned, came to mean almost exclusively, unless distinctly modified, both what Campe designates as “überspannte Empfindsamkeit” and “Empfindelei,” and also the absurd hypocrisy of the emotions which he seeks to cover with his new word. Campe’s farther consideration contains a synopsis of method for distinguishing “Empfindsamkeit” from “Empfindelei:” in the first place through the manner of their incitement,—the former is natural, the latter is fantastic, working without sense of the natural properties of things. In this connection he instances as examples, Yorick’s feeling of shame after his heartless and wilful treatment of Father Lorenzo, and, in contrast with this, the shallowness of Sterne’s imitators who whimpered over the death of a violet, and stretched out their arms and threw kisses to the moon and stars. In the second place they are distinguished in the manner of their expression: “Empfindsamkeit” is “secret, unpretentious, laconic and serious;” the latter attracts attention, is theatrical, voluble, whining, vain. Thirdly, they are known by their fruits, in the one case by deeds, in the other by shallow pretension. In the latter partof his volume, Campe treats the problem of preventing the perverted form of sensibility by educative endeavor.
The word “Empfindsamkeit” was afterwards used sometimes simply as an equivalent of “Empfindung,” or sensation, without implication of the manner of sensing: for example one finds in theMorgenblatt35a poem named “Empfindsamkeitenam Rheinfalle vom Felsen der Galerie abgeschrieben.” In the poem various travelers are made to express their thoughts in view of the waterfall. A poetcries, “Ye gods, what a hell of waters;” a tradesman, “away with the rock;” a Briton complains of the “confounded noise,” and so on. It is plain that the word suffered a generalization of meaning.
A poetical expression of Campe’s main message is found in a book called “Winterzeitvertreib eines königlichen preussischen Offiziers.”36A poem entitled “Das empfindsame Herz” (p. 210) has the following lines:
“Freund, ein empfindsames Herz ist nicht für diese Welt,Von Schelmen wird’s verlacht, von Thoren wirds geprellt,Doch üb’ im Stillen das, was seine Stimme spricht.Dein Lohn ist dir gewiss, nur hier auf Erden nicht.”
“Freund, ein empfindsames Herz ist nicht für diese Welt,
Von Schelmen wird’s verlacht, von Thoren wirds geprellt,
Doch üb’ im Stillen das, was seine Stimme spricht.
Dein Lohn ist dir gewiss, nur hier auf Erden nicht.”
In a similar vein of protest is the letter of G. Hartmann37to Denis, dated Tübingen, February 10, 1773, in which the writer condemns the affected sentimentalism of Jacobi and others as damaging to morals. “O best teacher,” he pleads with Denis, “continue to represent these performances as unworthy.”
Möser in his “Patriotische Phantasien”38represents himself as replying to a maid-in-waiting who writes in distress about her young mistress, because the latter is suffering from “epidemic” sentimentalism, and is absurdly unreasonable in her practical incapacity and her surrender to her feelings. Möser’s sound advice is the substitution of genuine emotion. The whole section is entitled “Für die Empfindsamen.”
Knigge, in his “Umgang mit Menschen,” plainly has those Germans in mind who saw in Uncle Toby’s treatment of thefly an incentive to unreasonable emphasis upon the relations between man and the animal world, when, in the chapter on the treatment of animals, he protests against the silly, childish enthusiasm of those who cannot see a hen killed, but partake of fowl greedily on the table, or who passionately open the window for a fly.39A work was also translated from the French of Mistelet, which dealt with the problem of “Empfindsamkeit:” it was entitled “Ueber die Empfindsamkeit in Rücksicht auf das Drama, die Romane und die Erziehung.”40An article condemning exaggerated sentimentality was published in theDeutsches Museumfor February, 1783, under the title “Etwas über deutsche Empfindsamkeit.”
Goethe’s “Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit” is a merry satire on the sentimental movement, but is not to be connected directly with Sterne, since Goethe is more particularly concerned with the petty imitators of his own “Werther.” Baumgartner in his Life of Goethe asserts that Sterne’s Sentimental Journey was one of the books found inside the ridiculous doll which the love-sick Prince Oronaro took about with him. This is not a necessary interpretation, for Andrason, when he took up the first book, exclaimed merely “Empfindsamkeiten,” and, as Strehlke observes,41it is not necessary here to think of a single work, because the term was probably used in a general way, referring possibly to a number of then popular imitations.
The satires on “Empfindsamkeit” began to grow numerous at the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties, so that theAllgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung, in October, 1785, feels justified in remarking that such attempts are gradually growing as numerous as the “Empfindsame Romane” themselves, and wishes, “so may they rot together in a grave of oblivion.”42Anton Reiser, the hero of Karl Philipp Moritz’s autobiographical novel (Berlin, 1785–90), begins a satire on affected sentimentalism, which was to bring shafts of ridicule to bear on the popular sham, and to throw appreciative light on the real manifestation of genuine feeling.43A kindred satire was “Die Geschichte eines Genies,” Leipzig, 1780, two volumes, in which the prevailing fashion of digression is incidentally satirized.44
The most extensive satire on the sentimental movement, and most vehement protest against its excesses is the four volume novel, “Der Empfindsame,”45published anonymously in Erfurt, 1781–3, but acknowledged in the introduction to the fourth volume by its author, Christian Friedrich Timme. He had already published one novel in which he exemplified in some measure characteristics of the novelists whom he later sought to condemn and satirize, that is, this first novel, “Faramond’sFamiliengeschichte,”46is digressive and episodical. “Der Empfindsame” is much too bulky to be really effective as a satire; the reiteration of satirical jibes, the repetition of satirical motifs slightly varied, or thinly veiled, recoil upon the force of the work itself and injure the effect. The maintenance of a single satire through the thirteen to fourteen hundred pages which four such volumes contain is a Herculean task which we can associate only with a genius like Cervantes. Then, too, Timme is an excellent narrator, and his original purpose is constantly obscured by his own interest and the reader’s interest in Timme’s own story, in his original creations, in the variety of his characters. These obtrude upon the original aim of the book and absorb the action of the story in such a measure that Timme often for whole chapters and sections seems to forget entirely the convention of his outsetting.
His attack is threefold, the centers of his opposition being “Werther,” “Siegwart” and Sterne, as represented by their followersand imitators. But the campaign is so simple, and the satirist has been to such trouble to label with care the direction of his own blows, that it is not difficult to separate the thrusts intended for each of his foes.
Timme’s initial purpose is easily illustrated by reference to his first chapter, where his point of view is compactly put and the soundness of his critical judgment and the forcefulness of his satirical bent are unequivocally demonstrated: This chapter, which, as he says, “may serve instead of preface and introduction,” is really both, for the narrative really begins only in the second chapter. “Every nation, every age,” he says, “has its own doll as a plaything for its children, and sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit) is ours.” Then with lightness and grace, coupled with unquestionable critical acumen, he traces briefly the growth of “Empfindsamkeit” in Germany. “Kaum war der liebenswürdige Sterne auf sein Steckenpferd gestiegen, und hatte es uns vorgeritten; so versammelten sich wie gewöhnlich in Teutschland alle Jungen an ihn herum, hingen sich an ihn, oder schnizten sich sein Steckenpferd in der Geschwindigkeit nach, oder brachen Stecken vom nächsten Zaun oder rissen aus einem Reissigbündel den ersten besten Prügel, setzten sich darauf und ritten mit einer solchen Wut hinter ihm drein, dass sie einen Luftwirbel veranlassten, der alles, was ihm zu nahe kam, wie ein reissender Strom mit sich fortris, wär es nur unter den Jungen geblieben, so hätte es noch sein mögen; aber unglücklicherweise fanden auch Männer Geschmack an dem artigen Spielchen, sprangen vom ihrem Weg ab und ritten mit Stok und Degen und Amtsperüken unter den Knaben einher. Freilich erreichte keiner seinen Meister, den sie sehr bald aus dem Gesicht verloren, und nun die possirlichsten Sprünge von der Welt machen und doch bildet sich jeder der Affen ein, er reite so schön wie der Yorick.”47
This lively description of Sterne’s part in this uprising is, perhaps, the best brief characterization of the phenomenon and is all the more significant as coming from the pen of a contemporary, and written only about a decade after the inception of the sentimental movement as influenced andfurthered by the translation of the Sentimental Journey. It represents a remarkable critical insight into contemporaneous literary movements, the rarest of all critical gifts, but it has been overlooked by investigators who have sought and borrowed brief words to characterize the epoch.48
The contribution of “Werther” and “Siegwart” to the sentimental frenzy are even as succinctly and graphically designated; the latter book, published in 1776, is held responsible for a recrudescence of the phenomenon, because it gave a new direction, a new tone to the faltering outbursts of Sterne’s followers and indicated a more comprehensible and hence more efficient, outlet for their sentimentalism. Now again, “every nook resounded with the whining sentimentality, with sighs, kisses, forget-me-nots, moonshine, tears and ecstasies;” those hearts excited by Yorick’s gospel, gropingly endeavoring to find an outlet for their own emotions which, in their opinion were characteristic of their arouser and stimulator, found through “Siegwart” a solution of their problem, a relief for their emotional excess.
Timme insists that his attack is only on Yorick’s mistaken followers and not on Sterne himself. He contrasts the man and his imitators at the outset sharply by comments on a quotation from the novel, “Fragmente zur Geschichte der Zärtlichkeit”49as typifying the outcry of these petty imitators against the heartlessness of their misunderstanding critics,—“Sanfter, dultender Yorick,” he cries, “das war nicht deine Sprache! Du priesest dich nicht mit einer pharisäischen Selbstgenügsamkeit und schimpftest nicht auf die, die dir nicht ähnlich waren, ‘Doch! sprachst Du am Grabe Lorenzos, doch ich bin so weichherzig wie ein Weib, aber ich bitte die Welt nicht zu lachen, sondern mich zu bedauern!’RuhedeinemStaube, sanfter, liebevoller Dulter! und nur einen Funken deines Geistes deinen Affen.”50He writes not for the “gentle, tendersouls on whom the spirit of Yorick rests,”51for those whose feelings are easily aroused and who make quick emotional return, who love and do the good, the beautiful, the noble; but for those who “bei dem wonnigen Wehen und Anhauchen der Gottheithaltenden Natur, in huldigem Liebessinn und himmelsüssem Frohsein dahin schmelzt . . die ihr vom Sang der Liebe, von Mondschein und Tränen euch nährt,” etc., etc.52In these few words he discriminates between the man and his influence, and outlines his intentions to satirize and chastise the insidious disease which had fastened itself upon the literature of the time. This passage, with its implied sincerity of appreciation for the real Yorick, is typical of Timme’s attitude throughout the book, and his concern lest he should appear at any time to draw the English novelist into his condemnation leads him to reiterate this statement of purpose and to insist upon the contrast.
Brükmann, a young theological student, for a time an intimate of the Kurt home, is evidently intended to represent the soberer, well-balanced thought of the time in opposition to the feverish sentimental frenzy of the Kurt household. He makes an exception of Yorick in his condemnation of the literary favorites, the popular novelists of that day, but he deplores the effects of misunderstood imitation of Yorick’s work, and argues his case with vehemence against this sentimental group.53Brükmann differentiates too the different kinds of sentimentalism and their effects in much the same fashion as Campe in his treatise published two years before.54In all this Brükmann may be regarded as the mouth-piece of the author. The clever daughter of the gentleman who entertains Pank at his home reads a satirical poem on the then popular literature, but expressly disclaims any attack on Yorick or “Siegwart,” and asserts that her bitterness is intended for their imitators. Lotte, Pank’s sensible and unsentimental, long-sufferingfiancée, makes further comment on the “apes” of Yorick, “Werther,” and “Siegwart.”
The unfolding of the story is at the beginning closely suggestive of Tristram Shandy and is evidently intended to follow the Sterne novel in a measure as a model. As has already been suggested, Timme’s own narrative powers balk the continuity of the satire, but aid the interest and the movement of the story. The movement later is, in large measure, simple and direct. The hero is first introduced at his christening, and the discussion of fitting names in the imposing family council is taken from Walter Shandy’s hobby. The narrative here, in Sterne fashion, is interrupted by a Shandean digression55concerning the influence of clergymen’s collars and neck-bands upon the thoughts and minds of their audiences. Such questions of chance influence of trifles upon the greater events of life is a constant theme of speculation among the pragmatics; no petty detail is overlooked in the possibility of its portentous consequences. Walter Shandy’s hyperbolic philosophy turned about such a focus, the exaltation of insignificant trifles into mainsprings of action. Shandy bristles with such discussions.
In Shandy fashion the story doubles on itself after the introduction and gives minute details of young Kurt’s family and the circumstances prior to his birth. The later discussion56in the family council concerning the necessary qualities in the tutor to be hired for the young Kurt is distinctly a borrowing from Shandy.57Timme imitates Sterne’s method of ridiculing pedantry; the requirements listed by the Diaconus and the professor are touches of Walter Shandy’s misapplied, warped, and undigested wisdom. In the nineteenth chapter of the third volume58we find a Sterne passage associating itself with Shandy rather more than the Sentimental Journey. It is a playful thrust at a score of places in Shandy in which the author converses with the reader about the progress of the book, and allows the mechanism of book-printing and thevagaries of publishers to obtrude themselves upon the relation between writer and reader. As a reminiscence of similar promises frequent in Shandy, the author promises in the first chapter of the fourth volume to write a book with an eccentric title dealing with a list of absurdities.59
But by far the greater proportion of the allusions to Sterne associate themselves with the Sentimental Journey. A former acquaintance of Frau Kurt, whose favorite reading was Shandy, Wieland’s “Sympatien” and the Sentimental Journey, serves to satirize the influence of Yorick’s ass episode; this gentleman wept at the sight of an ox at work, and never ate meat lest he might incur the guilt of the murder of these sighing creatures.60
The most constantly recurring form of satire is that of contradiction between the sentimental expression of elevated, universal sympathy and broader humanity and the failure to seize an immediately presented opportunity to embody desire in deed. Thus Frau Kurt,61buried in “Siegwart,” refuses persistently to be disturbed by those in immediate need of a succoring hand. Pankraz and his mother while on a drive discover an old man weeping inconsolably over the death of his dog.62The scene of the dead ass at Nampont occurs at once to Madame Kurt and she compares the sentimental content of these two experiences in deprivation, finding the palm of sympathy due to the melancholy dog-bewailer before her, thereby exalting the sentimental privilege of her own experience as a witness. Quoting Yorick, she cries: “Shame on the world! If men only loved one another as this man loves his dog!”63At this very moment the reality of her sympathy is put to the test by the approach of a wretched woman bearing a wretched child, begging for assistance, but Frau Kurt, steeped in the delight of her sympathetic emotion, repulses her rudely. Pankraz, ongoing home, takes his Yorick and reads again the chapter containing the dead-ass episode; he spends much time in determining which event was the more affecting, and tears flow at the thought of both animals. In the midst of his vehement curses on “unempfindsame Menschen,” “a curse upon you, you hard-hearted monsters, who treat God’s creatures unkindly,” etc., he rebukes the gentle advances of his pet cat Riepel, rebuffs her for disturbing his “Wonnegefühl,” in such a heartless and cruel way that, through an accident in his rapt delight at human sympathy, the ultimate result is the poor creature’s death by his own fault.
In the second volume64Timme repeats this method of satire, varying conditions only, yet forcing the matter forward, ultimately, into the grotesque comic, but again taking his cue from Yorick’s narrative about the ass at Nampont, acknowledging specifically his linking of the adventure of Madame Kurt to the episode in the Sentimental Journey. Frau Kurt’s ardent sympathy is aroused for a goat drawing a wagon, and driven by a peasant. She endeavors to interpret the sighs of the beast and finally insists upon the release of the animal, which she asserts is calling to her for aid. The poor goat’s parting bleat after its departing owner is construed as a curse on the latter’s hardheartedness. Frau Kurt embraces and kisses the animal. During the whole scene theneighboringvillage is in flames, houses are consumed and poor people rendered homeless, but Frau Kurt expresses no concern, even regarding the catastrophe as a merited affliction, because of the villagers’ lack of sympathy with their domestic animals. The same means of satire is again employed in the twelfth chapter of the same volume.65Pankraz, overcome with pain because Lotte, his betrothed, fails to unite in his sentimental enthusiasm and persists in common-sense, tries to bury his grief in a wild ride through night and storm. His horse tramples ruthlessly on a poor old man in the road; the latter cries for help, but Pank, buried in contemplation of Lotte’s lack of sensibility, turns a deaf ear to the appeal.
In the seventeenth chapter of the third volume, a sentimental journey is proposed, and most of the fourth volume is an account of this undertaking and the events arising from its complications. Pankraz’s adventures are largely repetitions of former motifs, and illustrate the fate indissolubly linked with an imitation of Sterne’s related converse with the fair sex.66
The journey runs, after a few adventures, over into an elaborate practical joke in which Pankraz himself is burlesqued by his contemporaries. Timme carries his poignancy and keenness of satire over into bluntness of burlesque blows in a large part of these closing scenes. Pankraz loses the sympathy of the reader, involuntarily and irresistibly conceded him, and becomes an inhuman freak of absurdity, beyond our interest.67
Pankraz is brought into disaster by his slavish following of suggestions aroused through fancied parallels between his own circumstances and those related of Yorick. He finds a sorrowing woman68sitting, like Maria of Moulines, beneath a poplar tree. Pankraz insists upon carrying out this striking analogy farther, which the woman, though she betrays no knowledge of the Sentimental Journey, is not loath to accede to, as it coincides with her own nefarious purposes. Timme in the following scene strikes a blow at the abjectly sensual involved in much of the then sentimental, unrecognized and unrealized.
Pankraz meets a man carrying a cage of monkeys.69He buys the poor creatures from their master, even as Frau Kurt had purchased the goat. The similarity to the Starling narrative in Sterne’s volume fills Pankraz’s heart with glee. The Starling wanted to get out and so do his monkeys, and Pankraz’s only questions are: “What did Yorick do?” “Whatwould he do?” He resolves to do more than is recorded of Yorick, release the prisoners at all costs. Yorick’s monolog occurs to him and he parodies it. The animals greet their release in the thankless way natural to them,—a point already enforced in the conduct of Frau Kurt’s goat.
In the last chapter of the third volume Sterne’s relationship to “Eliza” is brought into the narrative. Pankraz writes a letter wherein he declares amid exaggerated expressions of bliss that he has found “Elisa,” his “Elisa.” This is significant as showing that the name Eliza needed no further explanation, but, from the popularity of the Yorick-Eliza letters and the wide-spread admiration of the relation, the name Eliza was accepted as a type of that peculiar feminine relation which existed between Sterne and Mrs. Draper, and which appealed to Sterne’s admirers.
Pankraz’s new Order of the Garter, born of his wild frenzy70of devotion over this article of Elisa’s wearing apparel, is an open satire on Leuchsenring’s and Jacobi’s silly efforts noted elsewhere. The garter was to bear Elisa’s silhouette and the device “Orden vom Strumpfband der empfindsamen Liebe.”
The elaborate division of moral preachers71into classes may be further mentioned as an adaptation from Sterne, cast in Yorick’s mock-scientific manner.
A consideration of these instances of allusion and adaptation with a view to classification, reveals a single line of demarkation obvious and unaltered. And this line divides the references to Sterne’s sentimental influence from those to his whimsicality of narration, his vagaries of thought; that is, it follows inevitably, and represents precisely the two aspects of Sterne as an individual, and as an innovator in the world of letters. But that a line of cleavage is further equally discernible in the treatment of these two aspects is not to be overlooked. On the one hand is the exaggerated, satirical, burlesque; on the other the modified, lightened, softened. And these two lines of division coincide precisely.
The slight touches of whimsicality, suggesting Sterne, are a part of Timme’s own narrative, evidently adapted with approval and appreciation; they are never carried to excess, satirized or burlesqued, but may be regarded as purposely adopted, as a result of admiration and presumably as a suggestion to the possible workings of sprightliness and grace on the heaviness of narrative prose at that time. Timme, as a clear-sighted contemporary, certainly confined the danger of Sterne’s literary influence entirely to the sentimental side, and saw no occasion to censure an importation of Sterne’s whimsies. Pank’s ode on the death of Riepel, written partly in dashes and partly in exclamation points, is not a disproof of this assertion. Timme is not satirizing Sterne’s whimsical use of typographical signs, but rather the Germans who misunderstood Sterne and tried to read a very peculiar and precious meaning into these vagaries. The sentimental is, however, always burlesqued and ridiculed; hence the satire is directed largely against the Sentimental Journey, and Shandy is followed mainly in those sections, which, we are compelled to believe, he wrote for his own pleasure, and in which he was led on by his own interest.
The satire on sentimentalism is purposeful, the imitation and adaptation of the whimsical and original is half-unconscious, and bespeaks admiration and commendation.
Timme’s book was sufficiently popular to demand a second edition, but it never received the critical examination its merits deserved. Wieland’sTeutscher Merkurand theBibliothek der schönen Wissenschaftenignore it completely. TheGothaische Gelehrte Zeitungenannounces the book in its issue of August 2, 1780, but the book itself is not reviewed in its columns. TheJenaische Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachenaccords it a colorless and unappreciative review in which Timme is reproached for lack of order in his work (a censure more applicable to the first volume), and further for his treatment of German authors then popular.72The latter statement stamps the review as unsympathetic with Timme’ssatirical purpose. In theErfurtische gelehrte Zeitung,73in the very house of its own publication, the novel is treated in a long review which hesitates between an acknowledged lack of comprehension and indignant denunciation. The reviewer fears that the author is a “Pasquillant oder gar ein Indifferentist” and hopes the public will find no pleasure (Geschmack) in such bitter jesting (Schnaken). He is incensed at Timme’s contention that the Germans were then degenerate as compared with their Teutonic forefathers, and Timme’s attack on the popular writers is emphatically resented. “Aber nun kömmt das Schlimme erst,” he says, “da führt er aus Schriften unserer grössten Schenies, aus den Lieblings-büchern der Nazion, aus Werther’s Leiden, dem Siegwart, den Fragmenten zur Geschichte der Zärtlichkeit, Müller’s Freuden und Leiden, Klinger’s Schriften u.s.w. zur Bestätigung seiner Behauptung, solche Stellen mit solcher Bosheit an, dass man in der That ganz verzweifelt wird, ob sie von einem Schenie oder von einem Affen geschrieben sind.”
In the number for July 6, 1782, the second and third volumes are reviewed. Pity is expressed for the poor author, “denn ich fürchte es wird sich ein solches Geschrey wider ihn erheben, wovon ihm die Ohren gällen werden.” Timme wrote reviews for this periodical, and the general tone of this notice renders it not improbable that he roguishly wrote the review himself or inspired it, as a kind of advertisement for the novel itself. It is certainly a challenge to the opposing party.
TheAllgemeine deutsche Bibliothek74alone seems to grasp the full significance of the satire. “We acknowledge gladly,” says the reviewer, “that the author has with accuracy noted and defined the rise, development, ever-increasing contagion and plague-like prevalence of this moral pestilence; . . . that the author has penetrated deep into the knowledge of this disease and its causes.” He wishes for an engraving of the Sterne hobby-horse cavalcade described in the first chapter, and begs for a second and third volume, “aus deutscher Vaterlandsliebe.” Timme is called “Our German Cervantes.”
The second and third volumes are reviewed75with a brief word of continued approbation.
A novel not dissimilar in general purpose, but less successful in accomplishment, is Wezel’s “Wilhelmine Arend, oder die Gefahren der Empfindsamkeit,” Dessau and Leipzig, 1782, two volumes. The book is more earnest in its conception. Its author says in the preface that his desire was to attack “Empfindsamkeit” on its dangerous and not on its comic side, hence the book avoids in the main the lighthearted and telling burlesque, the Hudibrastic satire of Timme’s novel. He works along lines which lead through increasing trouble to a tragicdénouement.
The preface contains a rather elaborate classification of kinds of “Empfindsamkeit,” which reminds one of Sterne’s mock-scientific discrimination. This classification is according to temperament, education, example, custom, reading, strength or weakness of the imagination; there is a happy, a sad, a gentle, a vehement, a dallying, a serious, a melancholy, sentimentality, the last being the most poetic, the most perilous.
The leading character, Wilhelmine, is, like most characters which are chosen and built up to exemplify a preconceived theory, quite unconvincing. In his foreword Wezel analyzes his heroine’s character and details at some length the motives underlying the choice of attributes and the building up of her personality. This insight into the author’s scaffolding, this explanation of the mechanism of his puppet-show, does not enhance the aesthetic, or the satirical force of the figure. She is not conceived in flesh and blood, but is made to order.
The story begins in letters,—a method of story-telling which was the legacy of Richardson’s popularity—and this device is again employed in the second volume (Part VII). Wilhelmine Arend is one of those whom sentimentalism seized like a maddening pestiferous disease. We read of her that she melted into tears when her canary bird lost a feather, that she turned white and trembled when Dr. Braun hacked worms to pieces in conducting a biological experiment. On one occasion she refused to drive home, as this would take the horses outin the noonday sun and disturb their noonday meal,—an exorbitant sympathy with brute creation which owes its popularity to Yorick’s ass. It is not necessary here to relate the whole story. Wilhelmine’s excessive sentimentality estranges her from her husband, a weak brutish man, who has no comprehension of her feelings. He finds a refuge in the debasing affections of a French opera-singer, Pouilly, and gradually sinks to the very lowest level of degradation. This all is accomplished by the interposition and active concern of friends, by efforts at reunion managed by benevolent intriguers and kindly advisers.
The advice of Drs. Braun and Irwin is especially significant in its sane characterization of Wilhelmine’s mental disorders, and the observations upon “Empfindsamkeit” which are scattered through the book are trenchant, and often markedly clever. Wilhelmine holds sentimental converse with three kindred spirits in succession, Webson, Dittmar, and Geissing. The first reads touching tales aloud to her and they two unite their tears, a sentimental idea dating from the Maria of Moulines episode. The part which the physical body, with its demands and desires unacknowledged and despised, played as the unseen moving power in these three friendships is clearly and forcefully brought out. Allusion to Timme’s elucidation of this principle, which, though concealed, underlay much of the sentimentalism of this epoch, has already been made. Finally Wilhelmine is persuaded by her friends to leave her husband, and the scene is shifted to a little Harz village, where she is married to Webson; but the unreasonableness of her nature develops inordinately, and she is unable ever to submit to any reasonable human relations, and the rest of the tale is occupied with her increasing mental aberration, her retirement to a hermit-like seclusion, and her death.
The book, as has been seen, presents a rather pitiful satire on the whole sentimental epoch, not treating any special manifestation, but applicable in large measure equally to those who joined in expressing the emotional ferment to which Sterne, “Werther” and “Siegwart” gave impulse, and for which they secured literary recognition. Wezel fails as a satirist, partlybecause his leading character is not convincing, but largely because his satirical exaggeration, and distortion of characteristics, which by a process of selection renders satire efficient, fails to make the exponent of sentimentalism ludicrous, but renders her pitiful. At the same time this satirical warping impairs the value of the book as a serious presentation of a prevailing malady. The book falls between two stools.
A precursor of “Wilhelmine Arend” from Wezel’s own hand was “Die unglückliche Schwäche,” which was published in the second volume of his “Satirische Erzählungen.”76In this book we have a character with a heart like the sieve of the Danaids, and to Frau Laclerc is attributed “an exaggerated softness of heart which was unable to resist a single impression, and was carried away at any time, wherever the present impulse bore it.” The plot of the story, with the intrigues of Graf. Z., the Pouilly of the piece, the separation of husband and wife, their reunion, the disasters following directly in the train of weakness of heart in opposing sentimental attacks, are undoubtedly children of the same purpose as that which brought forth “Wilhelmine Arend.”
Another satirical protest was, as one reads from a contemporary review, “Die Tausend und eine Masche, oder Yoricks wahres Shicksall, ein blaues Mährchen von Herrn Stanhope” (1777, 8o). The book purports to be the posthumous work of a young Englishman, who, disgusted with Yorick’s German imitators, grew finally indignant with Yorick himself. TheAlmanach der deutschen Musen(1778, pp. 99–100) finds that the author misjudges Yorick. The book is written in part if not entirely in verse.
In 1774 a correspondent of Wieland’sMerkurwrites, begging this authoritative periodical to condemn a weekly paper just started in Prague, entitled “Wochentlich Etwas,” which is said to be written in the style of Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey, M . . . R . . . and “die Beyträge zur Geheimen Geschichte des menschlichen Herzens und Verstandes,” and thereby is a shame to “our dear Bohemia.”
In this way it is seen how from various sources and in various ways protest was made against the real or distorted message of Laurence Sterne.