PREFACE.
WHENthe Clarendon Press undertook to publish a translation of Professor W. Scherer’s History of German Literature, it was suggested that an Historical Reading-Book, containing extracts from the principal writers of prose and poetry treated in that History, would form a useful companion volume. My ‘German Classics from the Fourth to the Nineteenth Century,’ published in 1858, had long been out of print, and I had no time to undertake a new edition. Professor Scherer, whom I consulted on the subject, suggested Professor Franz Lichtenstein of Breslau as fully qualified to revise and rearrange my volume, so as to adapt it to the new purpose for which it was intended, namely, to supply thepièces justificativesfor the new History of German Literature.
Professor Lichtenstein devoted himself most zealously to this arduous task, and, with the assistance of Professor Scherer himself, his part of the work was nearly finished, when a sudden death,—he was drowned while bathing in the Baltic,—put an end to the bright career of this most conscientious and hard-working scholar. Professor Scherer, who had himself taken an active part in the selection of new extracts, now commissioned Dr. Joseph to superintend the printing of this Historical Reading-Book, to whom therefore all the credit for the correctness both of the texts and the translations is due.
On the whole the Reading-Book follows Scherer’s History step by step, though in order to keep extracts from the same author together, or to gain some other small advantages, certain deviationsbecame necessary. The Headings are intended to recall the periods as established in Scherer’s History. Only Herder, Goethe, and Schiller have been treated separately as Classics, in the highest sense of the word, and some of their contemporaries, whose works, though of smaller value, had to be discussed in conjunction with them in the eleventh and twelfth chapters of the History, have shared the same honour.
The principles of selection with regard to extracts not contained in my ‘German Classics,’ were agreed upon between Professors Scherer and Lichtenstein. For the specimens of Goethe’s prose and poetry, however, Professor Scherer is alone responsible, as he wished to illustrate the development of Goethe’s various styles, without binding himself strictly to a chronological order.
I myself can claim but little credit in this new edition, but it has been a real pleasure to me to revive once more the recollection of my earlier studies, and to observe how rapid and how solid has been the progress which the knowledge of German Literature has made during the last thirty years, thanks chiefly to the labours of Professor Scherer, the worthy successor of Grimm, Lachmann and Gervinus.
F. MAX MÜLLER.
OXFORD,July, 1886.
The last sheet of this work had been ordered for Press, when the news reached me of Professor Scherer’s sudden death. He had been ailing for some time, but no one could persuade him to take any rest, and his interest in this collection of extracts, to serve as a companion volume to his History of German Literature, did not flag till almost the last moment of his life. Thus a double sadness has been spread over this book, first by the death of Dr. Lichtenstein, and now by the death of his friend and teacher, Professor Scherer—both taken away from us in the prime and in the full maturity of life, while I, whose life has nearly reachedits natural limit and whose power of doing useful work is well-nigh exhausted, have been spared.
Wilhelm Scherer was by birth an Austrian, having been born at Schönborn in Lower Austria on the 26th April, 1841. His first University education too he received at Vienna, where he devoted himself chiefly to the study of German philology and literature. Professor Franz Pfeiffer, whose favourite pupil he became, gave a decided direction to his studies, though Scherer proved the independence of his mind by entering, as quite a young man, on a controversy with Franz Pfeiffer on the question of the origin of theNibelungenlied. He afterwards continued his studies at Berlin, where he attended chiefly the lectures of Bopp, Haupt, and Müllenhoff. In conjunction with Müllenhoff he began to edit theDenkmäler der Deutschen Poesie und Prosa aus dem achten bis zwölften Jahrhundert(1864), and theAlt-deutsche Sprachproben. In 1864 he becamePrivat-docentat Vienna. His literary activity was astounding, and such was the good opinion entertained of his writings that, in 1868, when only 27 years of age, the Austrian Government appointed him to succeed Franz Pfeiffer as Professor of German Language and Literature in the University of Vienna. His success there was very great, for though a thorough German professor and a most critical and painstaking scholar, he knew how to appeal to wider human sympathies and to attract large audiences both of young and old to his lectures. Success, however, as usual, produced envy, and as Scherer was German rather than Austrian in his political sympathies, his position at Vienna, particularly after the great events of 1870 and 1871, became more and more unpleasant. In order to avoid further conflicts with his colleagues and the Government, he accepted, in 1872, the chair of German Philology in the newly founded University of Strassburg, and after five years of successful labour there, he was called to fill a similar chair at Berlin.
What distinguishes Scherer as an historian of German literature is his being a philologist first, and an historian afterwards. How well he knew the growth of the German language in its successive phases he proved by his workZur Geschichte der DeutschenSprache, published in 1868. These philological studies formed the solid foundation on which he erected afterwards the work by which his name will live longest, the ‘History of German Literature’. This book passed in a short time through three editions, and has become a truly national work in Germany. He lived long enough to witness the recognition which the English translation of his History received from the best scholars in England and America, and he looked forward with a deep interest to the publication of these ‘German Classics,’ with a hope that they would render possible a careful and fruitful study of his History, not only in England, but in Germany also.
He has done a good work. He has well earned his fame, and now—his rest.
F. M. M.
OXFORD,Aug.7, 1886.