I here mention, by the way, another evil by which students are much embarrassed. Professors, as well as other men in office, cannot all be of the same age; but when the younger ones teach, in fact, only that they may learn, and moreover, it they have talent, anticipate their age, they acquire their own cultivation altogether at the cost of their hearers, since these are not instructed in what they really need, but in that whichthe professor finds it necessary to elaborate for himself. Among the oldest professors, on the contrary, many are for a long time stationary; they deliver on the whole only fixed views, and, in the details, much that time has already condemned as useless and false. Between the two arises a sad conflict, in which young minds are dragged hither and thither, and which can scarcely be set right by the middle-aged professors, who, though sufficiently instructed and cultivated, always feel within themselves an active endeavour after knowledge and reflection.
Now as in this way I learned to know much more than I could digest, whereby a constantly increasing uncomfortableness was forced upon me, so also from life I experienced many disagreeable trifles, as indeed one must always pay one's footing when one changes one's place and comes into a new position. The first thing that the ladies blamed in me related to my dress; for I had come from home to the university rather oddly equipped.
Domestic Tailoring.
My father, who detested nothing so much as when something happened in vain, when any one did not know how to make use of his time, or found no opportunity for turning it to account, carried his economy of time and abilities so far, that nothing gave him greater pleasure than to kill two birds with one stone.[2]He had therefore never engaged a servant who could not be useful to the house in something else. Now, as he had always written everything with his own hand, and had, latterly, the convenience of dictating to the young inmate of the house, he found it most advantageous to have tailors for his domestics, who were obliged to make good use of their time, as they not only had to make their own liveries, but the clothes for my father and the children, besides doing all the mending. My father himself took pains to have the best cloths and stuffs, by getting fine wares of the foreign merchants at the fair, and laying them up in store. I still remember well that he always visited the Herrn von Löwenicht, of Aix-la-Chapelle, and from my earliest youth made me acquainted with these and other eminent merchants.
Care was also taken for the fitness of the stuff, and there was a plentiful stock of different kinds of cloth, serge, and Götting stuff, besides the requisite lining, so that, as far as the materials were concerned, we might well venture to be seen.But the form spoiled almost everything. For if one of our home-tailors was anything of a clever hand at sewing and making up a coat which had been cut out for him in masterly fashion, he was now obliged also to cut out the dress for himself, which did not always succeed to perfection. In addition to this my father kept whatever belonged to his clothing in very good and neat order, and preserved more than used it for many years. Thus he had a predilection for certain old cuts and trimmings, by which our dress sometimes acquired a strange appearance.
In this same way had the wardrobe which I took with me to the university been furnished: it was very complete and handsome, and there was even a laced suit amongst the rest. Already accustomed to this kind of attire, I thought myself sufficiently well dressed; but it was not long before my female friends, first by gentle raillery, then by sensible remonstrances, convinced me that I looked as if I had dropped down out of another world. Much as I felt vexed at this, I did not at first see how I could help myself. But when Herr von Masuren, the favourite poetical country squire, once entered the theatre in a similar costume, and was heartily laughed at, more by reason of his external than his internal absurdity, I took courage, and ventured at once to exchange my whole wardrobe for a new-fashioned one, suited to the place, by which, however, it shrunk considerably.
After this trial was surmounted, a new one was to make its appearance, which proved to be far more unpleasant, because it concerned a matter which one does not so easily put off and exchange.
I had been born and bred in the Upper-German dialect, and although my father always laboured after a certain purity of language, and, from our youth upwards, had made us children attentive to what may be really called the defects of that idiom, and so prepared us for a better maimer of speaking, I retained nevertheless many deeper-seated peculiarities, which, because they pleased me by theirnaïveté, I was fond of making conspicuous, and thus every time I used them incurred a severe reprimand from my new fellow-townsmen. The Upper-German, and perhaps chiefly he who lives by the Rhine and Maine (for great rivers, like the sea-coast, always have something animating about them), expresses himself much in similes and allusions, and makes use of proverbial sayings with a nativecommon-sense aptness. In both cases he is often blunt, but when one sees the drift of the expression, it is always appropriate; only something, to be sure, may often slip in, which proves offensive to a more delicate ear.
Provincial Dialect.
Every province loves its own dialect: for it is, properly speaking, the element in which the soul draws its breath. But every one knows with what obstinacy the Misnian dialect has contrived to domineer over the rest, and even, for a long time, to exclude them. We have suffered for many years under this pedantic tyranny, and only by reiterated struggles have all the provinces again established themselves in their ancient rights. What a lively young man had to endure from this continual tutoring, may be easily inferred by any one who reflects that modes of thought, imagination, feeling, native character, must be sacrificed with the pronunciation which one at last consents to alter. And this intolerable demand was made by men and women of education, whose convictions I could not adopt, whose injustice I believed I felt, though I was unable to make it plain to myself. Allusions to the pithy biblical texts were to be forbidden me, as well as the use of the honest-hearted expressions from the Chronicles. I had to forget that I had read theKaiser von Geisersberg, and eschew the use of proverbs, which nevertheless, instead of much fiddle-faddle, just hit the nail upon the head;—all this, which I had appropriated to myself with youthful ardour, I was now to do without; I felt myself paralyzed to the core, and scarcely knew any more how I had to express myself on the commonest things. I was told, besides, that one should speak as one writes, and write as one speaks; while, to me, speaking and writing seemed once for all two different things, each of which might well maintain its own rights. And even in the Misnian dialect had I to hear many things which would have made no great figure on paper.
Every one who perceives in this the influence which men and women of education, the learned, and other persons who take pleasure in refined society, so decidedly exercise over a young student, would be immediately convinced that we were in Leipzig, even if it had not been mentioned. Each one of the German universities has a particular character: for, as no universal cultivation can pervade our fatherland, every place adheres to its own fashion, and carries out, even to the last,its own characteristic peculiarities; exactly the same thing holds good of the universities. In Jena and Halle roughness had been carried to the highest pitch: bodily strength, skill in fighting, the wildest self-help was there the order of the day; and such a state of affairs can only be maintained and propagated by the most universal riot. The relations of the students to the inhabitants of those cities, various as they might be, nevertheless agreed in this, that the wild stranger had no regard for the citizen, and looked upon himself as a peculiar being, privileged to all sorts of freedom and insolence. In Leipzig, on the contrary, a student could scarcely be anything else than polite, as soon as he wished to stand on any footing at all with the rich, well-bred, and punctilious inhabitants.
All politeness, indeed, when it does not present itself as the flowering of a great and comprehensive mode of life, must appear restrained, stationary, and from some points of view, perhaps, absurd; and so those wild huntsmen from the Saale[3]thought they had a great superiority over the tame shepherds on the Pleisse.[4]Zachariä'sRenommistwill always be a valuable document, from which the manner of life and thought at that time rises visibly forth; as in general his poems must be welcome to every one who wishes to form for himself a conception of the then prevailing state of social life and manners, which was indeed feeble, but amiable on account of its innocence and childlike simplicity.
All manners which result from the given relations of a common existence are indestructible, and, in my time, many things still reminded us of Zachariä's epic poem. Only one of our fellow-academicians thought himself rich and independent enough to snap his fingers at public opinion. He drank acquaintance with all the hackney-coachmen, whom he allowed to sit inside the coach as if they were gentlemen, while he drove them on the box, thought it a great joke to upset them now and then, and contrived to satisfy them for their smashed vehicles as well as for their occasional bruises; but otherwise he did no harm to any one, seeming only to make a mock of the publicen masse.Once, on a most beautiful promenade-day, he and a comrade of his seized upon the donkeysof the miller in St. Thomas's-square; well-dressed, and in their shoes and stockings, they rode around the city with the greatest solemnity, stared at by all the promenaders, with whom the glacis was swarming. When some sensible persons remonstrated with him on the subject, he assured them, quite unembarrassed, that he only wanted to see how the Lord Christ might have looked in a like case. Yet he found no imitators, and few companions.
Student-life at Leipzig.
For the student of any wealth and standing had every reason to show himself attentive to the mercantile class, and to be the more solicitous about the proper external forms, as the colony[5]exhibited a model of French manners. The professors, opulent both from their private property and from their liberal salaries, were not dependent upon their scholars, and many subjects of the state, educated at the Government schools or other gymnasia, and hoping for preferment, did not venture to throw off the traditional customs. The neighbourhood of Dresden, the attention paid to us from thence, and the true piety of the superintendent of the course of study, could not be without a moral, nay, a religious influence.
At first this kind of life was not repugnant to me; my letters of introduction had given me theentréeinto good families, whose circle of relatives also received me well. But as I was soon forced to feel that the company had much to find fault with in me, and that after dressing myself in their fashion, I must now talk according to their tongue also, and as, moreover, I could plainly see that I was, on the other hand, but little benefited by the instruction and mental improvement I had promised myself from my academical residence, I began to be lazy, and to neglect the social duties of visiting, and other attentions, and indeed I should have sooner withdrawn from all such connexions, had not fear and esteem bound me fast to Hofrath Böhme, and confidence and affection to his wife. The husband, unfortunately, had not the happy gift of dealing with young people, of winning their confidence, and of guiding them, for the moment, as occasion might require. When I visited him I never got any good by it; his wife, on the contrary, showed a genuine interest in me. Her ill healthkept her constantly at home. She invited me to spend many an evening with her, and knew how to direct and improve me in many little external particulars; for my manners were good, indeed, but I was not yet master of what is properly termedétiquette.Only one female friend spent the evenings with her; but she was more dictatorial and pedantic, for which reason she displeased me excessively, and, out of spite to her, I often resumed those unmannerly habits from which the other had already weaned me. Nevertheless she always had patience enough with me, taught me piquet, ombre, and similar games, the knowledge and practice of which is held indispensable in society.
But it was in the matter of taste that Madame Böhme had the greatest influence upon me; in a negative way truly, yet one in which she agreed perfectly with the critics. The Gottsched waters[6]had inundated the German world with a true deluge, which threatened to rise up even over the highest mountains. It takes a long time for such a flood to subside again, for the mire to dry away; and as in any epoch there are numberless aping poets, so the imitation of the flat and watery produced a chaos, of which now scarcely a notion remains. To find out that trash was trash was hence the greatest sport, yea, the triumph of the critics of those days. Whoever had only a little common sense, was superficially acquainted with the ancients, and was somewhat more familiar with the moderns, thought himself provided with a standard scale which he could everywhere apply. Madame Böhme was an educated woman, who opposed the trivial, weak, and commonplace; she was, besides, the wife of a man who lived on bad terms with poetry in general, and would not even allow that of which she perhaps might have somewhat approved. She listened, indeed, for some time, with patience, when I ventured to recite to her the verse or prose of famous poets, who already stood in good repute,—for then, as always, I knew by heart everything that chanced in any degree to please me; but her complaisance was not of long duration. The first whom she outrageously abused were the poets of the Weisse school, who were just then often quoted with great applause, and had delighted me very particularly. If I looked moreclosely into the matter, I could not say she was wrong. I had sometimes even ventured to repeat to her, though anonymously, some of my own poems; but these fared no better than the rest of the set. And thus, in a short time, the beautiful variegated meadows at the foot of the German Parnassus, where I was fond of luxuriating, were mercilessly mowed down, and I was even compelled to toss about the drying hay myself, and to ridicule that as lifeless which, a short time before, had given me such lively joy.
German Poetry.
Without knowing it, Professor Morus came to strengthen her instructions. He was an uncommonly gentle and friendly man, with whom I became acquainted at the table of Hofrath Ludwig, and who received me very pleasantly when I begged the privilege of visiting him. Now while making inquiries of him concerning antiquity, I did not conceal from him what delighted me among the modems; when he spoke about such things with more calmness, but, what was still worse, with more profundity than Madame Böhme; and he thus opened my eyes, at first to my greatest chagrin, but afterwards to my surprise, and at last to my edification.
Besides this, there came theJeremiads, with which Gellert, in his course, was wont to warn us against poetry. He wished only for prose essays, and always criticised these first. Verses he treated as a sorry addition, and what was the worst of all, even my prose found little favour in his eyes; for, after my old fashion, I used always to lay, as the foundation, a little romance, which I loved to work out in the epistolary form. The subjects were impassioned, the style went beyond ordinary prose, and the contents probably did not display any very deep knowledge of mankind in the author; and so I stood in very little favour with our professor, although he carefully looked over my labours as well as those of the others, corrected them with red ink, and here and there added a moral remark. Many leaves of this kind, which I kept for a long time with satisfaction, have unfortunately, in the course of years, at last disappeared from among my papers.
If elderly persons wish to play the pedagogue properly, they should neither prohibit nor render disagreeable to a young man anything which gives him pleasure, of whatever kind it may be, unless, at the same time, they have something else to put in its place, or can contrive a substitute. Everybodyprotested against my tastes and inclinations; and, on the other hand, what they commended to me, lay either so far from me that I could not perceive its excellencies, or stood so near me that I thought it not a whit better than what they inveighed against. I thus became thoroughly perplexed on the subject, and promised myself the best results from a lecture of Ernesti's onCicero de Oratore.I learned something, indeed, from this lecture, but was not enlightened on the subject which particularly concerned me. I required a standard of opinion, and thought I perceived that nobody possessed it; for no one agreed with another, even when they brought forward examples; and where were we to get a settled judgment, when they managed to reckon up against a man like Wieland so many faults in his amiable writings, which so completely captivated us younger folks?
Amid this manifold distraction, this dismemberment of my existence and my studies, it happened that I took my dinners at Hofrath Ludwig's. He was a medical man, a botanist, and his company, with the exception of Morus, consisted of physicians just commencing or near the completion of their studies. Now during these hours I heard no other conversation than about medicine or natural history, and my imagination was drawn over into quite a new field. I heard the names of Haller, Linnæus, Buffon, mentioned with great respect; and even if disputes often arose about mistakes into which it was said they had fallen, all agreed in the end to honour the acknowledged abundance of their merits. The subjects were entertaining and important, and enchained my attention. By degrees I became familiar with many names and a copious terminology, which I caught up the more willingly as I was afraid to write down a rhyme, however spontaneously it presented itself, or to read a poem, for I was fearful that it might please me at the time, and that perhaps immediately afterwards, like so much else, I should be forced to pronounce it bad.
Destruction of Juvenile Poems.
This uncertainty of taste and judgment disquieted me more and more every day, so that at last I fell into despair. I had brought with me those of my youthful labours which I thought the best, partly because I hoped to get some credit by them, partly that I might be able to test my progress with greater certainty; but I found myself in the miserable situationin which one is placed when a complete change of mind is required,—a renunciation of all that one has hitherto loved and found good. However, after some time, and many struggles, I conceived so great a contempt for my labours, begun and ended, that one day I burnt up poetry and prose, plans, sketches, and projects all together on the kitchen hearth, and threw our good old landlady into no small fright and anxiety by the smoke which filled the whole house.
[1]This word, which signifies something like our "bully," is specially used to designate a fighting student.—Trans.
[1]This word, which signifies something like our "bully," is specially used to designate a fighting student.—Trans.
[2]Literally: "to strike two flies with one flapper."—Trans.
[2]Literally: "to strike two flies with one flapper."—Trans.
[3]The river on which Halle is built.—Trans.
[3]The river on which Halle is built.—Trans.
[4]The river that flows by Leipzig.—Trans.
[4]The river that flows by Leipzig.—Trans.
[5]Leipzig was so called, because a large and influential portion of its citizens were sprung from a colony of Huguenots, who settled there after the revocation of the edict of Nantes.—American Note.
[5]Leipzig was so called, because a large and influential portion of its citizens were sprung from a colony of Huguenots, who settled there after the revocation of the edict of Nantes.—American Note.
[6]That is to say, the influence of Gottsched on German literature, of which more is said in the next book.—Trans.
[6]That is to say, the influence of Gottsched on German literature, of which more is said in the next book.—Trans.
Leipzig(continued)—German Literature
About the condition of German literature at that time so much has been written, and that so sufficiently, that every one who takes any interest in it can be completely informed; the judgments of it are now pretty well agreed; and what at present I intend to say piece-meal and disconnectedly concerning it, relates not so much to how it was constituted in itself, as to how it stood towards me. I will therefore first speak of those things by which the public is particularly excited; of those two hereditary foes of all comfortable life, and of all cheerful, self-sufficient, living poetry:—I mean, satire and criticism.
In quiet times every one will live after his own fashion; the citizen will carry on his trade or his business, and enjoy the fruits of it afterwards; thus will the author too willingly compose something, publish his labours, and since he thinks he has done something good and useful, hope for praise, if not reward. In this tranquillity the citizen is disturbed by the satirist, the author by the critic, and peaceful society is thus put into a disagreeable agitation.
The literary epoch in which I was born was developed out of the preceding one by opposition. Germany, so long inundated by foreign people, interpenetrated by other nations, directed to foreign languages in learned and diplomatic transactions, could not possibly cultivate her own. Together with so many new ideas, innumerable strange words were obtruded necessarily and unnecessarily upon her, and even for objects already known, people were induced to make use of foreign expressions and turns of language. The German, having run wild for nearly two hundred years in an unhappy tumultuary state, went to school to the French to learn manners, and to the Romans in order to express himself properly. But this was to be done in the mother-tongue, when the literal application of those idioms, and their half-Germanization, made both the social and business style ridiculous. Besides this,they adopted without moderation the similes of the southern languages, and employed them most extravagantly. Just so they transferred the stately deportment of the prince-like citizens of Rome to the learned German small-town officers, and were at home nowhere, least of all with themselves.
But as in this epoch works of genius had already appeared, the German sense of freedom and joy also began to stir itself. This, accompanied by a genuine earnestness, insisted that men should write purely and naturally, without the intermixture of foreign words, and as common intelligible sense dictated. By these praiseworthy endeavours, however, the doors and gates were thrown open to an extended national insipidity, nay, the dike was dug through by which the great deluge was shortly to rush in. Meanwhile, a stiff pedantry long stood its ground in all the four faculties, until at last, much later, it fled for refuge from one of them into another.
Men of parts, children of nature looking freely about them, had therefore two objects on which they could exercise themselves, against which they could labour, and, as the matter was of no great importance, give a vent to their petulance; these were: a language disfigured by foreign words, forms, and turns of speech on the one hand, and the worthlessness of such writings as had been careful to keep themselves free from those faults on the other, though it occurred to nobody, that while they were battling against one evil, the other was called on for assistance.
Liskow.
Liskow, a daring young man, first ventured to attack by name a shallow, silly writer, whose awkward demeanour soon gave him an opportunity to proceed still more severely. He then went further, and constantly aimed his scorn at particular persons and objects, whom he despised and sought to render despicable, nay, even persecuted them with passionate hatred. But his career was short; for he soon died, and was gradually forgotten as a restless, irregular youth. The talent and character shown in what he did, although he had accomplished little, may have seemed valuable to his countrymen: for the Germans have always shown a peculiar pious kindliness to talents of good promise, when prematurely cut off. Suffice it to say, that Liskow was very early praised and recommended to us as an excellent satirist, who could have attained a rank even above the universally-beloved Rabener. Here, indeed,we saw ourselves no better off than before: for we could discover nothing in his writings, except that he had found the silly, silly, which seemed to us quite a matter of course.
Rabener, well educated, grown up under good scholastic instruction, of a cheerful, and by no means passionate or malicious disposition, took up general satire. His censure of the so-called vices and follies springs from the clear views of a quiet common sense, and from a fixed moral conception of what the world ought to be. His denunciation of faults and failings is harmless and cheerful; and in order to excuse even the slight boldness of his writings, it is supposed that the improving of fools by ridicule is no fruitless undertaking.
Rabener's personal character will not easily appear again. As an able, punctual man of business, he does his duty, and thus gains the good opinion of his fellow-townsmen and the confidence of his superiors: along with which, he gives himself up to the enjoyment of a pleasant contempt for all that immediately surrounds him. Pedanticliterati, vain youngsters, every sort of narrowness and conceit, he banters rather than satirizes, and even his banter expresses no contempt. Just in the same way does he jest about his own condition, his misfortune, his life, and his death.
There is little of the æsthetic in the manner in which this writer treats his subjects. In external forms he is indeed varied enough, but throughout he makes too much use of direct irony, namely, in praising the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy, whereas this figure of speech should be used but extremely seldom; for, in the long run, it becomes annoying to clear-sighted men, perplexes the weak, while indeed it pleases the great middle class, who, without any special expense of mind, can fancy themselves more knowing than others. But all that he brings before us, and however he does it, alike bears witness to his rectitude, cheerfulness, and equanimity, so that we always feel prepossessed in his favour. The unbounded applause of his own times was a consequence of such moral excellencies.
Rabener.
That people looked for originals to his general descriptions and found them, was natural; that individuals complained of him, followed from the above; his over-long apologies that his satire is not personal, prove the spite which has been provoked. Some of his letters crown him at once as a man andan author. The confidential epistle in which he describes the siege of Dresden, and how he loses his house, his effects, his writings, and his wigs, without having his equanimity in the least shaken or his cheerfulness clouded, is highly valuable, although his contemporaries and fellow-citizens could not forgive him his happy turn of mind. The letter where he speaks of the decay of his strength and of his approaching death is in the highest degree worthy of respect, and Rabener deserves to be honoured as a saint by all cheerful intelligent men, who cheerfully resign themselves to earthly events.
I tear myself away from him reluctantly, yet I would make this remark: his satire refers throughout to the middle-class; he lets us see here and there that he is also well acquainted with the higher ranks, but does not hold it advisable to come in contact with them. It may be said, that he has had no successor, that no one has been found who could consider himself equal, or even similar to him.
Now for criticism! and first of all for the theoretic attempts. It is not going too far when we say that the ideal had, at that time, escaped out of the world into religion; it scarcely even made its appearance in moral philosophy; of a highest principle of art no one had a notion. They put Gottsched'sCritical Art of Poetryinto our hands; it was useful and instructive enough, for it gave us a historical information of all the kinds of poetry, as well as of rhythm and its different movements; the poetic genius was presupposed! But besides that the poet was to have acquirements and even learning, he should possess taste, and everything else of that kind. They directed us at last to Horace'sArt of Poetry; we gazed at single golden maxims of this invaluable work, but did not know in the least what to do with it as a whole, or how we should use it.
The Swiss stepped forth as Gottsched's antagonists; they must take it into their heads to do something different, to accomplish something better: accordingly we heard that they were, in fact, superior.Breitinger'sCritical Art of Poetrywas taken in hand. Here we reached a wider field, but, properly speaking, only a greater labyrinth, which was so much the more tiresome, as an able man, in whom we had confidence, was driving us about in it. Let a brief review justify these words.
For poetry in itself they had been able to find no fundamentalaxiom; it was too spiritual and too volatile. Painting, an art which one could hold fast with one's eyes, and follow step by step with the external senses, seemed more favourable for such an end; the English and French had already theorized about plastic art, and by a comparison drawn from this, it was thought that poetry might be grounded. The former placed images before the eyes, the latter before the fancy; poetical images, therefore, were the first thing which was taken into consideration. People began with comparisons, descriptions followed, and only that was expressed which had always been apparent to the external senses.
Images, then! But where should these images be got except from nature? The painter professedly imitated nature; why not the poet also? But nature, as she lies before us, cannot be imitated: she contains so much that is insignificant and worthless, that one must make a selection; but what determines the choice? one must select that which is important; but what is important?
To answer this question the Swiss may have taken a long time to consider: for they came to a notion, which is indeed singular, but clever, and even comical, inasmuch as they say, the new is always the most important: and after they have considered this for a while, they discover that the marvellous is always newer than everything else.
They had now pretty well collected their poetical requisitions; but they had still to consider that the marvellous might also be empty and without relation to man. But this relation, demanded as necessary, must be a moral one, from which the improvement of mankind should manifestly follow, and thus a poem had reached its utmost aim when, with everything else accomplished, it was useful besides. They now wished to test the different kinds of poetry according to all these requisites; those which imitated nature, besides being marvellous, and at the same time of a moral aim and use, were to rank as the first and highest. And after much deliberation this great preeminence was at last ascribed, with the highest degree of conviction, to Æsop's fables!
Strange as such a deduction may now appear, it had the most decided influence on the best minds. ThatGellertand subsequentlyLichtwerdevoted themselves to this department, that evenLessingattempted to labour in it, that;so many others turned their talents towards it, speaks for the confidence which this species of poetry had gained. Theory and practice always act upon each other; one can see from their works what is the men's opinion; and, from their opinions, predict what they will do.
Bodmer—Breitinger—Guenther.
Yet we must not dismiss our Swiss theory without doing it justice.Bodmer, with all the pains he took, remained theoretically and practically a child all his life.Breitingerwas an able, learned, sagacious man, whom when he looked rightly about him, the essentials of a poem did not all escape; nay, it can be shown that he may have dimly felt the deficiencies of his system. Remarkable, for instance, is his query:—"Whether a certain descriptive poem by König, on theReview-camp of Augustus the Second, is properly a poem?" and the answer to it displays good sense. But it may serve for his complete justification that he, starting from a false point, on a circle almost run out already, still struck upon the main principle, and at the end of his book finds himself compelled to recommend as additions, so to speak, the representation of manners, character, passions, in short, the whole inner man; to which, indeed, poetry pre-eminently belongs.
It may well be imagined into what perplexity young minds felt themselves thrown by such dislocated maxims, half-understood laws, and shivered up dogmas. We adhered to examples, and there, too, were no better off; foreigners as well as the ancients stood too far from us, and from the best native poets always peeped out a decided individuality, to the good points of which we could not lay claim, and into the faults of which we could not but be afraid of falling. For him who felt anything productive in himself it was a desperate condition.
When one considers closely what was wanting in the German poetry, it was a material, and that, too, a national one; there was never a lack of talent. Here we make mention only ofGuenther, who may be called a poet in the full sense of the word. A decided talent, endowed with sensuousness, imagination, memory, the gifts of conception and representation, productive in the highest degree, ready at rhythm, ingenious, witty, and of varied information besides;—he possessed, in short, all the requisites for creating, by means of poetry, a second life within life, even within common real life. We admire the great facility with which, in his occasionalpoems, he elevates all circumstances by the feelings, and embellishes them with suitable sentiments, images, and historical and fabulous traditions. Their roughness and wildness belong to his time, his mode of life, and especially to his character, or if one would have it so, his want of fixed character. He did not know how to curb himself, and so his life, like his poetry, melted away from him.
By his vacillating conduct, Günther had trifled away the good fortune of being appointed at the court of Augustus the Second, where, in addition to every other species of ostentation, they were also looking about for a court-poet, who could give elevation and grace to their festivities, and immortalize a transitory pomp.Von Koenigwas more mannerly and more fortunate; he filled this post with dignity and applause.
In all sovereign states the material for poetry comes downwards from above, and theReview-camp at Mühlberg(Das Lustlager bei Mühlberg) was, perhaps, the first worthy object, provincial, if not national, which presented itself to a poet. Two kings saluting one another in the presence of a great host, their whole courts and military state around them, well-appointed troops, a mock-fight,fêtesof all kinds,—this is business enough for the outward sense, and overflowing material for delineating and descriptive poetry.
This subject had, indeed, the internal defect, that it was only pomp and show, from which no real action could result. None except the very first distinguished themselves, and even if they had done so, the poet could not render any one conspicuous lest he should offend the others. He had to consult theCourt and State Calendar, and the delineation of the persons therefore went off pretty drily; nay, even his contemporaries very strongly reproached him with having described the horses better than the men. But should not this redound to his credit, that he showed his art just where an object for it presented itself? The main difficulty, too, seems soon to have manifested itself to him—since the poem never advanced beyond the first canto.
Schlosser.
Amidst such studies and reflections, an unexpected event surprised me, and frustrated my laudable design of becoming acquainted with our new literature from the beginning. My countryman,John George Schlosser, after spending his academical years with industry and exertion, had repaired toFrankfort-on-the-Maine, in the customary profession of an advocate; but his mind, aspiring and seeking after the universal, could not reconcile itself to this situation for many reasons. He accepted, without hesitation, an office as private secretary to the DukeLudwigofWurtemberg, who resided in Treptow; for the Prince was named among those great men who, in a noble and independent manner, purposed to enlighten themselves, their families, and the world, and to unite for higher aims. It was this Prince Ludwig who, to ask advice about the education of his children, had written to Rousseau, whose well-known answer began with the suspicious-looking phrase—"Si j'avais le malheur d'être né prince."
Not only in the affairs of the Prince, but also in the education of his children, Schlosser was now willingly to assist in word and deed, if not to superintend them. This noble young man, who harboured the best will, and laboured after a perfect purity of morals, would have easily kept men from him by a certain dry austerity, if his fine and rare literary cultivation, his knowledge of languages, and his facility at expressing himself by writing, both in verse and prose, had not attracted every one, and made living with him more agreeable. It had been announced to me that he would pass through Leipzig, and I expected him with longing. He came and put up at a little inn or wine-house that stood in theBrühl(Marsh), and the host of which was named Schönkopf. This man had a Frankfort woman for his wife, and although he entertained few persons during the rest of the year, and could lodge no guests in his little house, yet at fair-time he was visited by many Frankforters, who used to eat, and, in case of need, even take quarters there also. Thither I hastened to seek after Schlosser, when he had sent to inform me of his arrival. I scarcely remembered having seen him before, and found a young, well-formed man, with a round, compressed face, without the features losing their sharpness on that account. The form of his rounded forehead, between black eyebrows and locks, indicated earnestness, sternness, and perhaps obstinacy. He was, in a certain measure, the opposite of myself, and this very thing doubtless laid the foundation of our lasting friendship. I had the greatest respect for his talents, the more so as I very well saw that in the certainty with which he acted and produced, he was completely my superior. The respect andthe confidence which I showed him confirmed his affection, and increased the indulgence he was compelled to have for my lively, impetuous, and ever-excitable disposition, in such contrast with his own. He studied the English writers diligently; Pope, if not his model, was his aim, and in opposition to that author'sEssay on Man, he had written a poem in like form and measure, which was to give the Christian religion the triumph over the deism of the other work. From the great store of papers which he carried with him, he showed me poetical and prose compositions in all languages, which, as they challenged me to imitation, once more gave me infinite disquietude. Yet I contrived to help myself immediately by activity. I wrote German, French, English and Italian poems, addressed to him, the subject-matter of which I took from our conversations, which were always important and instructive.
Schlosser did not wish to leave Leipzig without having seen face to face the men who had a name. I willingly took him to those I knew; with those whom I had not yet visited, I in this way became honourably acquainted, since he was received with distinction as a well-informed man of education, of already established character, and well knew how to pay for the outlay of conversation. I cannot pass over our visit toGottsched, as it exemplifies the character and manners of that man. He lived very respectably in the first story of the Golden Bear, where the elder Breitkopf, on account of the great advantage which Gottsched's writings, translations, and other aids had brought to the trade, had promised him a lodging for life.
We were announced. The servant led us into a large chamber, saying his master would come immediately. Now whether we misunderstood a gesture which he made, I cannot say; it is enough, we thought he directed us into an adjoining room. We entered, and to a singular scene; for, on the instant, Gottsched, that tall, broad, gigantic man, came in at the opposite door in a morning-gown of green damask lined with red taffeta; but his monstrous head was bald and uncovered. This, however, was to be immediately provided for; the servant sprang in at a side-door with a great full-bottomed wig in his hand (the curls came down to the elbows), and handed the head-ornament to his master with gestures of terror. Gottsched, without manifesting the least vexation,raised the wig from the servant's arm with his left, hand, and while he very dexterously swung it up on his head, gave the poor fellow such a box on the ear with his right paw, that the latter, as often happens in a comedy, went spinning out at the door; whereupon the respectable old grandfather invited us quite gravely to be seated, and kept up a pretty long discourse with good grace.
Fellow-boarders at Leipzig.
As long as Schlosser remained in Leipzig, I dined daily with him, and became acquainted with a very pleasant set of boarders. Some Livonians, and the son ofHermann(chief court-preacher in Dresden), afterwards burgermaster in Leipzig, and their tutor,Hofrath Pfeil, author of theCount von P., a continuation of Gellert'sSwedish Countess;Zachariæ, a brother of the poet; andKrebel, editor of geographical and genealogical manuals; all these were polite, cheerful, and friendly men. Zachariä was the most quiet; Pfeil, an elegant man, who had something almost diplomatic about him, yet without affectation, and with great good-humour; Krebel, a genuine Falstaff, tall, corpulent, fair, with prominent, merry eyes, as bright as the sky, always happy and in good spirits. These persons all treated me in the most handsome manner, partly on Schlosser's account—partly, too, on account of my own frank good-humour and obliging disposition; and it needed no great persuasion to make me partake of their table in future. In fact, I remained with them after Schlosser's departure, deserted Ludwig's table, and found myself so much the better off in this society, which was limited to a certain number, as I was very well pleased with the daughter of the family, a very neat, pretty girl, and had opportunities to exchange friendly glances with her,—a comfort which I had neither sought nor found by accident since the mischance with Gretchen. I spent the dinner-hours with my friends cheerfully and profitably. Krebel, indeed, loved me, and continued to teaze me and stimulate me in moderation; Pfeil, on the contrary, showed his earnest affection for me by trying to guide and settle my judgment upon many points.
During this intercourse, I perceived through conversation, through examples, and through my own reflections, that the first step in delivering ourselves from the wishy-washy, long-winded, empty epoch, could be taken only by definiteness, precision, and brevity. In the style which had hitherto prevailed,one could not distinguish the commonplace from what was better, since all were brought down to a level with each other. Authors had already tried to escape from this widespread disease, with more or less success.HallerandRamlerwere inclined to compression by nature;LessingandWielandwere led to it by reflection. The former became by degrees quite epigrammatical in his poems, terse inMinna, laconic inEmilia Galotti,—it was not till afterwards that he returned to that serenenaïvetéwhich becomes him so well inNathan.Wieland, who had been occasionally prolix inAgathon,Don Sylvio, and theComic Tales, becomes condensed and precise to a wonderful degree, as well as exceedingly graceful, inMusarionandIdris.Klopstock, in the first cantos of theMessiah, is not without diffuseness; in hisOdesand other minor poems he appears compressed, as also in his tragedies. By his emulation of the ancients, especially Tacitus, he sees himself constantly forced into narrower limits, by which he at last becomes obscure and unpalatable.Gerstenberg, a fine but eccentric talent, also distinguishes himself; his merit is appreciated, but on the whole he gives little pleasure.Gleim, diffuse and easy by nature, is scarcely once concise in his war-songs.Ramleris properly more a critic than a poet. He begins to collect what the Germans have accomplished in lyric poetry. He now finds that scarcely one poem fully satisfies him; he must leave out, arrange, and alter, that the things may have some shape or other. By this means he makes himself almost as many enemies as there are poets and amateurs, since every one, properly speaking, recognizes himself only in his defects; and the public interests itself sooner for a faulty individuality than for that which is produced or amended according to a universal law of taste. Rhythm lay yet in the cradle, and no one knew of a method to shorten its childhood. Poetical prose came into the ascendant.GessnerandKlopstockexcited many imitators: others, again, still demanded an intelligible metre, and translated this prose into rhythm. But even these gave nobody satisfaction; for they were obliged to omit and add, and the prose original always passed for the better of the two. But the more, with all this, conciseness is aimed at, the more does a judgment become possible, since that which is important, being more closely compressed, allows a certain comparison at last. It happened,also, at the same time, that many kinds of truly poetical forms arose; for as they tried to represent only what was necessary in the objects they wished to imitate, they were forced to do justice to every one of these; and in this manner, though no one did it consciously, the modes of representation multiplied themselves, among which, indeed, were some which were really caricatures, while many an attempt proved unsuccessful.
Wieland.
Without question,Wielandpossessed the finest natural gifts of all. He had early cultivated himself thoroughly in those ideal regions where youth so readily lingers; but when, by what is called experience, by the events of the world and women, these were rendered distasteful to him, he threw himself on the side of the actual, and pleased himself and others with the contest of the two worlds, where, in light skirmishing between jest and earnest, his talent displayed itself most beautifully. How many of his brilliant productions fall into the time of my academic years!Musarionhad the most effect upon me, and I can yet remember the place and the very spot where I got sight of the first proof-sheet, which Oeser gave me. Here it was that I believed I saw antiquity again living and fresh. Everything that is plastic in Wieland's genius here showed itself in its highest perfection; and when that Phanias-Timon, condemned to an unhappy insipidity, finally reconciles himself to his mistress and to the world, one can well, with him, live through the misanthropical epoch. For the rest, we willingly conceded to these works a cheerful aversion from those exalted sentiments, which, by reason of their easy misapplication to life, are often open to the suspicion of dreaminess. We pardoned the author for prosecuting with ridicule what we held as true and reverend, the more readily, as he thereby gave us to understand that it caused him continual trouble.
How miserably criticism then received such labours may be seen from the first volumes of theUniversal German Library.Of theComic Talesthere is honourable mention; but there is no trace of any insight into the character of the kind of poetry. The reviewer, like every one at that time, had formed his taste on examples. He never takes it into consideration that, in a judgment of such parodistical works, one must first of all have before one's eyes the original noble, beautiful object, in order to see whether the parodist has really gotten from it a weak and comical side, whether he has borrowedanything from it, or, under the appearance of such an imitation, has perhaps given us an excellent invention of his own. Of all this there is not a notion, but the poems are praised and blamed by passages. The reviewer, as he himself confesses, has marked so much that pleased him, that he cannot quote it all in print. When they even meet the highly meritorious translation of Shakspeare with the exclamation: "By rights, a man like Shakspeare should not have been translated at all!" it will be understood, without further remark, how infinitely theUniversal German Librarywas behindhand in matters of taste, and that young people, animated by true feeling, had to look about them for other guiding stars. The material which, in this manner, more or less determined the form, the Germans sought everywhere. They had handled few national subjects, or none at all. Schlegel'sHermannonly showed the way. The idyllic tendency extended itself without end. The want of distinctive character with Gessner, with all his great gracefulness and childlike heartiness, made every one think that he could do something of the same kind. Just in the same manner, out of the more generally human, some snatch those poems which should have portrayed a foreign nationality, as, for instance, the Jewish pastoral poems, those on the patriarchs altogether, and whatever else related to the Old Testament. Bodmer'sNoachidewas a perfect symbol of the watery deluge that swelled high around the German Parnassus, and which abated but slowly. The leading-strings of Anacreon likewise allowed innumerable mediocre geniuses to reel about at large. The precision of Horace compelled the Germans, though but slowly, to conform to him. Comic heroic poems, mostly after the model of Pope'sRape of the Lock, did not serve to bring in a better time.
Yet I must here mention a delusion, which operated as seriously as it must be ridiculous when one examines it more closely. The Germans had now sufficient historical knowledge of all the kinds of poetry in which the different nations had distinguished themselves. This pigeon-hole work, which, properly speaking, totally destroys the inner conception of poetry, had been already pretty completely hammered together by Gottsched in hisCritical Art of Poetry, and it had been shown at the same time that German poets, too, had already known how to fill up all the rubrics with excellent works. And thusit ever went on. Each year the collection was more considerable, but every year one work pushed another out of the place in which it had hitherto shone. We now possessed, if not Homers, yet Virgils and Miltons; if not a Pindar, yet a Horace; of Theocrituses there was no lack; and thus they weighed themselves by comparisons from without, whilst the mass of poetical works always increased, so that at last there could be a comparison from within.
Popular Philosophy.
Now, though matters of taste stood on a very uncertain footing, there could be no dispute but that, within the Protestant part of Germany and of Switzerland, what is generally called common-sense began to bestir itself briskly at that epoch. The scholastic philosophy—which always has the merit of propounding according to received axioms, in a favourite order, and under fixed rubrics, everything about which man can at all inquire,—had, by the frequent darkness and apparent uselessness of its subject-matter, by its unseasonable application of a method in itself respectable, and by its too great extension over so many subjects, made itself foreign to the mass, unpalatable, and at last superfluous. Many a one became convinced that nature had endowed him with as great a portion of good and straightforward sense as, perchance, he required to form such a clear notion of objects that he could manage them and turn them to his own profit, and that of others, without laboriously troubling himself about the most universal problems, and inquiring how the most remote things which do not particularly affect us may hang together. Men made the trial, opened their eyes, looked straight before them, observant, industrious, active, and believed that when one judges and acts correctly in one's own circle, one may well presume to speak of other things also, which lie at a greater distance.
In accordance with such a notion, every one was now entitled, not only to philosophize, but also by degrees to consider himself a philosopher. Philosophy, therefore, was more or less sound and practised common sense, which ventured lo enter upon the universal, and to decide upon inner and outer experiences. A clear-sighted acuteness and an especial moderation, while the middle path and fairness to all opinions was held to be right, procured respect and confidence for writings and oral statements of the sort, and thus at last philosophers were found in all the faculties, nay, in all classes and trades.
In this way the theologians could not help inclining to what is called natural religion, and when the discussion was how far the light of nature may suffice to advance us in the knowledge of God and the improving and ennobling of ourselves, they commonly ventured to decide in its favour without much scruple. According to the same principle of moderation, they then granted equal rights to all positive religions, by which they all became alike indifferent and uncertain. For the rest, they let everything stand, and since the Bible is so full of matter, that, more than any other book, it offers material for reflection and opportunity for meditation on human affairs, it could still, as before, be always laid as the foundation of all sermons and other religious treatises.
But over this work, as well as over the whole body of profane writers, was impending a singular fate, which, in the lapse of time, was not to be averted. Hitherto it had been received as a matter of implicit faith, that this book of books was composed in one spirit; that it was even inspired, and, as it were, dictated by the Divine Spirit. Yet already for a long time the discrepancies of the different parts of it had been now cavilled at, now apologized for, by believers and unbelievers. English, French, and Germans had attacked the Bible with more or less violence, acuteness, audacity, and wantonness; and just as often had it been taken under the protection of earnest, sound-thinking men of each nation. As for myself, I loved and valued it: for almost to it alone did I owe my moral culture, and the events, the doctrines, the symbols, the similes, had all impressed themselves deeply upon me, and had influenced me in one way or another. These unjust, scoffing, and perverting attacks, therefore, disgusted me; but people had already gone so far as very willingly to admit, partly as a main ground for the defence of many passages, that God had accommodated himself to the modes of thought and power of comprehension in men; that even those moved by the Spirit had not on that account been able to renounce their character, their individuality, and that Amos, a cow-herd, did not wield the language of Isaiah, who is said to have been a prince.
State of Theology.
Out of such views and convictions, especially with a constantly increasing knowledge of languages, was very naturally developed that kind of study by which it was attempted to examine more accurately the oriental localities, nationalities,natural products, and phenomena, and in this manner to make present to one's-self that ancient time. Michaelis employed the whole strength of his talents and his knowledge on this side. Descriptions of travels became a powerful help in explaining the Holy Scriptures, and later travellers, furnished with numerous questions, were made, by the answers to them, to bear witness for the prophets and apostles.
But whilst they were on all sides busied to bring the Holy Scriptures to a natural intuition, and to render peculiar modes of thought and representation in them more universally comprehensible, that by this historico-critical aspect many an objection might be removed, many offensive things effaced, and many a shallow scoffing be made ineffective, there appeared in some men just the opposite disposition, since these chose the darkest, most mysterious writings as the subject of their meditations, and wished, if not to elucidate them, yet to confirm them through internal evidence, by means of conjectures, calculations, and other ingenious and strange combinations, and so far as they contained prophecies, to prove them by the results, and thus to justify a faith in what was next to be expected.
The venerableBengelhad procured a decided reception for his labours on the Revelations of St. John, from the fact that he was known as an intelligent, upright, God-fearing, blameless man. Deep minds are compelled to live in the past as well as in the future. The ordinary movements of the world can be of no importance to them, if they do not, in the course of ages up to the present, revere prophecies which have been revealed, and in the immediate, as well as in the most remote futurity, predictions still veiled. Hence arises a connexion that is wanting in history, which seems to give us only an accidental wavering backwards and forwards in a necessarily limited circle. DoctorCrusiuswas one of those whom the prophetic part of Scripture suited more than any other, since it brings into action the two most opposite qualities of human nature, the affections, and the acuteness of the intellect. Many young men had devoted themselves to this doctrine, and already formed a respectable body, which attracted the more attention, asErnestiwith his friends threatened, not to illuminate, but completely to disperse the obscurity in which these delighted. Hence arose controversies, hatred, persecution and much thatwas unpleasant. I attached myself to the lucid party, and sought to appropriate to myself their principles and advantages, although I ventured to forebode, that by this extremely praiseworthy, intelligent method of interpretation, the poetic contents of the writings must at last be lost along with the prophetical.
But those who devoted themselves to German literature and thebelles lettreswere more nearly concerned with the efforts of such men, who, asJerusalem, Zollikofer, andSpalding, tried, by means of a good and pure style in their sermons and treatises, to gain even among persons of a certain degree of sense and taste, applause and attachment for religion, and for the moral philosophy which is so closely related to it. A pleasing manner of writing began to be everywhere necessary; and since such a manner must, above all, be comprehensible, so did writers arise, on many sides, who undertook to write about their studies and their professions clearly, perspicuously, and impressively, and as well for the adepts as for the multitude.
After the example of Tissot, a foreigner, the physicians also now began to labour zealously for the general cultivationHaller, Unzer, Zimmermanhad a very great influence, and whatever may be said against them in detail, especially the last, they produced a very great effect in their time. And mention should be made of this in history, but particularly in biography: for a man remains of consequence, not so far as he leaves something behind him, but so far as he acts and enjoys, and rouses others to action and enjoyment.
The jurists, accustomed from their youth upwards to an abstruse style, which, in all legal papers, from the petty court of the Immediate Knight up to the Imperial Diet at Ratisbon, was still maintained in all its quaintness, could not easily elevate themselves to a certain freedom, the less so as the subjects of which they had to treat were most intimately connected with the external form, and consequently also with the style. Yet the youngerVon Moserhad already shown himself an independent and original writer, andPutter, by the clearness of his delivery, had also brought clearness into his subject, and the style in which he was to treat it. All that proceeded from his school was distinguished by this. And even the philosophers, in order to be popular, now found themselves compelledto write clearly and intelligibly.MendelsohnandGarveappeared, and excited universal interest and admiration.
With the cultivation of the German language and style in every department, the capacity for forming a judgment also increased, and we admire the reviews then published of works upon religious and moral, as well as medical subjects; while, on the contrary, we remark that the judgments of poems, and of whatever else may relate to thebelles lettres, will be found, if not pitiful, at least very feeble. This holds good of theLiterary Epistles(Literaturbriefen), and of theUniversal German Library, as well as of theLibrary of the Belles Lettres, notable instances of which could easily be produced.
The "Image-Hunt."
No matter in how motley a manner all this might be confused, still for every one who contemplated producing anything from himself, who would not merely take the words and phrases out of the mouths of his predecessors, there was nothing further left but, early and late, to look about him for some subject-matter which he might determine to use. Here, too, we were much led astray. People were constantly repeating a saying ofKleist, which we had to hear often enough. He had sportively, ingeniously, and truly replied to those who took him to task on account of his frequent lonely walks: "that he was not idle at such times,—he was going to the image hunt." This simile was very suitable for a nobleman and soldier, who by it placed himself in contrast with the men of his rank, who did not neglect going out, with their guns on their shoulders, hare-hunting and patridge-shooting, as often as an opportunity presented itself. Hence we find in Kleist's poems many such individual images, happily seized, although not always happily elaborated, which in a kindly manner remind us of nature. But now they also recommended us, quite seriously, to go out on the image-hunt, which did not at last leave us wholly without fruit, although Apel's Garden, the kitchen-gardens, the Rosenthal, Golis, Raschwitz and Konnewitz, would be the oddest ground to beat up poetical game in. And yet I was often induced by that motive to contrive that my walk should be solitary, and, because many objects neither beautiful nor sublime met the eye of the beholder, and in the truly splendid Rosenthal, the gnats, in the best season of the year, allowed no tender thoughts to arise, so,did I, by unwearied, persevering endeavour, become extremely attentive to the small life ofnature, (I would use this word after the analogy of "still life,") and since the pretty events which one perceives within this circle represent but little in themselves, so I accustomed myself to see in them a significance, which inclined now towards the symbolical, now towards the allegorical side, accordingly as intuition, feeling, or reflection had the preponderance. I will relate one incident, in place of many.
I was, after the fashion of humanity, in love with my name, and, as young uneducated people commonly do, I wrote it down everywhere. Once I had carved it very handsomely and accurately on the smooth bark of a linden-tree of moderate age. The following autumn, when my affection for Annette was in its fullest bloom, I took the trouble to cut hers above it. Towards the end of the winter, in the meantime, like a capricious lover, I had wantonly sought many opportunities to teaze her and cause her vexation; in the spring I chanced to visit the spot, and the sap, which was rising strongly in the trees, had welled out through the incisions which formed her name, and which were not yet crusted over, and moistened with innocent vegetable tears the already hardened traces of my own. Thus to see her here weeping over me,—me, who had so often called up her tears by my ill-conduct, filled me with confusion. At the remembrance of my injustice and of her love, even the tears came into my eyes, I hastened to implore pardon of her, doubly and trebly, and I turned this incident into an idyl[1], which I never could read to myself without affection, or to others without emotion.