(β) But, furthermore, the expression cannot rest alone in this result, however successful, in so far as it is for others a free overflooding of buoyant delight, or the resolution and reconciliation of grief in song and lyric, or the yet profounder impulse, which issues in the most serious emotions of heart and the most far-reaching views of intelligence. The man who sings and can write poetry has a necessary vocation thereto. He composes because hecannot do otherwise.At the same time the external incentive, the direct invitation and the like are by no means excluded. The great lyric poet, however, in such a case soon swerves aside from such an external stimulus. His supreme object is himself. To take the example once more to which we have constantly recurred, Pindar was frequently invited to celebrate this or that laurel-crowned victor, nay, he frequently accepted payment therefor; and yet, for all that, it is he himself, the minstrel, who changes places with his hero. He combines freely his own unfettered imagination with his praise of the exploits of ancestors, or it maybe his memory of myths; or, when he gives voice to his profound views of life, of wealth, of mastery, of all that is great and deserving, of the supremacy and loveliness of the Muses, and above all of the high vocation of the singer. It is not so much the hero in the renown that he spreads far and wide, that he honours in his poems. We are invited to listen to him, the poet. The honour is not to him in that he celebrates the victor, but rather to the victor that he is celebrated by Pindar. And it is this emphatic personal sense of greatness which constitutes the nobility of the lyric poet. Homer, as an individual person, is in his Epos so entirely sacrificed that people nowadays are loth to admit that he ever existed at all. His heroes live on for ever. Pindar's heroes are for us little better than empty names. He himself, however, the self-celebrated and self-honoured, remains before us immortal as the poet. The fame which his heroes claim is merely an appanage to that of the lyric singer. Even among theRomans the lyric poet to some extent aspires to such an independent position. Suetonius tells us, for instance, that Augustus wrote these works to Horace;an vereris, ne apud posteros tibi infame sit, quod videaris familiaris nobis esse.Horace, however, with the exception of those times, easily demonstrable, where he writes in anex officiomanner of Augustus, betrays for the most part a precisely similar proud self-consciousness. His fourteenth ode of the third book, for example, opens with a reference to the return of Augustus from Spain after his victory over the Cantabrians. But the poet goes on to celebrate the fact, that on account of the tranquillity, which the emperor has given the world, he himself as poet is able quietly to enjoy his easy-going leisure and his muse; he calls for garlands, unguents, and venerable wine to celebrate the occasion, and invites in all haste his mistress—in a word, he is simply preoccupied with the arrangements for his own banquet. We hear, however, at this time less of his love difficulties than in his youth, when Plaucus was consul, an occasion where he expressly says to the messenger he despatches:
Si per invisum mora janitoremFiet, abito.
We may regard it as an even more honourable trait of Klopstock, that he felt in his day the independent worth of the singer, and by his free expression of this and his regulation of his behaviour consonantly thereto, disengaged the poet from his subservience to a court and any or every patron,[8]as also from a tedious and useless toying with trifles, which is the ruin of a man. However, the fact remains that it was no other than this very Klopstock whom, in the first instance, the bookseller regarded as his poet. It was Klopstock's publisher in Halle who paid him one or two thaler, it appears, for the manuscript of his Messias, adding over and above this, however, an order for a waistcoat and breeches, and introduced him thus set up into society, letting it clearly be seen from the nature of such a get up that he was responsible therefor. In some contrast to this, so at least we are informed at a later date on evidence, however, that is not irreproachable,[9]the Athenians erected a statue to Pindar, because he had celebrated them in one of his poems, and sent him, moreover, twice the amount of the fine[10]the Thebans refused to exempt him from on account of the inordinate praise he had lavished on an alien city. Indeed we have the statement that Apollo himself declared through the mouth of the Pythian prophetess that Pindar was worthy of receiving half of all the gifts which the whole of Hellas, as in custom bound, brought to the Pythian games.
(γ) Throughout the entire compass of lyric poetry the synthetic unity of a single personality asserts its presence in virtue of its poetic soul-movement. The lyric poet is, in fact, moved to express everything that assumes a poetic form either in his emotional or intelligent life in the song. In this type of composition Goethe is pre-eminently noteworthy, who in all the variety of his full life was thus continuously creative. He was unquestionably in this respect a quite exceptional model. It is rarely that we find an artistic personality, who, while retaining as Goethe's did, an interest so active on all sides and is able to live a life, despite all such self-expansion, so entirely self-possessed, so ready to transmute everything it touches into the poetic vision. His life in its public relations, the peculiar nature of his heart, which rather impressed with its reserve than the ease of its approach, the indefatigable effort of his scientific pursuits and enquiry, the general conclusions of his trained and practical experience, his ethical maxims, the impressions, which the varied and conflicting facts of his times made upon him, the inferences he deduced from such, the effervescent joy of life and courage of his youth, the well-organized force and ideal beauty of his manhood, the comprehensive genial wisdom of his old age—all this passed into the magic crucible of his lyrics, where the most delicate play of emotion, no less than the most severe and painful conflicts of spirit, alike find their expression and by this means their deliverance.
(b)The Lyric Work of Art
Secondly, in respect to the lyric poem as a poetic work of art, we are no doubt in general not able to advance much.The fortuitous character of the abundance of its many modes of expression, and the forms of its equally varied and incalculable content make this inevitable. The peculiarly personal nature of this class of work, however much the same is imperatively subject to the general principles of beauty and art, none the less brings with it the necessary result, that the range of the formal and melodious possibilities of its exposition admit of no theoretic definition. For our purpose, therefore, the only question of importance is the nature of the distinction of artistic type that obtains between the lyric and the epic product.
Upon this I will briefly draw attention to the following points of importance:
First, the unity of the lyric composition.
Secondly,the nature of its progressive disclosure.
Thirdly, the external aspect of its verse-measure and general exhibition.
(α) The importance, which the Epos possesses for art lies, as already observed, and pre-eminently so, in the case of the primitive Epopaea, in the consummate elaboration of the perfected artistic form, which as from the repository of the full embrace of the national spirit, places before our vision one and the same composition in all the wealth of a completely evolved content.
(αα) The true lyric work of art will not undertake to present thus before us a synthesized whole of such extension. The principle of personality can no doubt proceed to a comprehension of subject-matter of universal pretensions. To be able truly to enforce itself, however, in its individual independence, it necessarily implies the collateral principle of disintegration and isolation. At the same time a variety of truth, phenomenal or ideal, derived from natural environment, the memory of one's own or another's experience, from mythical and historical events, and the like, is not therefore excluded: but such an extension of view must not be permitted, as with the Epos, on the ground that it belongs to the unifiedcomplexusof a given sphere of reality, but is rather solely justifiable for the reason that it springs to renewed life in the memory of the poet, andin his impulse and gift of vivid association.
(ββ) We must consequently regard the intimate personal life as the true integrating principle of the lyric poem. This inward life, taken simply, is in part the wholly formal unity of the self-conscious self; in part also it is split up and dispersed in the most varied particularity, and the most diverse content of ideas, feelings, impressions, and perceptions, whose power of combination is solely due to the fact that it is one and the selfsame personal identity which serves essentially as their vehicle. In order therefore that this selfidentical subject may form the focal centre of the work of art, it must, on the one hand, have reached the point where the mood or situation isdefinedin itsconcreteness, and on the other it mustaffiliateitself with this isolation of its own possessions as with itself to the extent that it feels and pictures itself in the same. It is only by this means that it becomes an essentially defined whole of such a personal character, and exclusively expresses that which is emphasized by reason of such definition, and is yet coalescent with it.
(γγ) Lyrical in the most pertinent sense is in this connection the emotional mood or colour as concentrated in a concrete condition, inasmuch as the sensitive heart is that which is the most vital and personal factor of the subjective lips. Reflection and a contemplation which is mainly absorbed in generalization very readily tend to the didactic, or are likely to assert what is substantive and positive in the content under an epic mode.
(β) With respect to oursecondpoint, viz., the progressive disclosure of the lyric subject-matter, speaking generally, exact definition is here too out of the question. I shall, therefore, restrict myself to a few searching observations.
(αα) The progressive exposition of the Epos is of a dilatory description, and it expands throughout in the display of an actual world of diversified character. In the Epos the poet projects himself into theobjectiveworld, which is set before us in the independent form and movement of its own reality. In contrast thereto it is the emotions and reflection which in the lyric composition absorb the given world into themselves, animate the same within this ideal element, and, only after it is itself converted into a constituent of this personal life, give form and expression to it in language. In contrast to the epic principle of extension we have therefore in the Lyric that ofassimilation,[11]and have above all to seek for our effect by means of the implied ideal depth of expression rather than the diffuseness of descriptive or explanatory detail. None the less, however, between the extremes of an almost speechless conciseness and the idea worked out into absolute lucidity of speech every conceivable sort of nuance and degree of clarity is still possible. To as little extent is it necessary that a ban be placed on all reflection of external objects. On the contrary genuinely concrete lyric compositions disclose the individual in his external conditions; they accept, therefore, as an essential feature of their content, natural and local environment. In fact there are poems entirely limited to such descriptions. In such cases, however, it is not so much the reality in its objective presence and its plastic presentment, as the accord with which such objects affect the soul, the mood excited by them, the feelings of the heart under such positive conditions, which are, in fact, the lyric result. It is in short not this or that object as presented to our eyes, in its several features, which ought mainly to impress our inward vision, but the emotional forces which are made vital in the same, and which have for their aim a similar state of feeling and contemplation in ourselves. Romances and ballads are perhaps the most obvious illustration of this, which, as I have previously maintained, approach the lyrical type in proportion as they exclusively emphasize those characteristics of a given event which are consistent with the state of the inner life, in which the poet writes, and disclose the course of his narrative in such a way, that we receive a distinct and life-like echo back again of this personal temper. For such reasons all out and out reproduction of material objects, even though stamped with considerable emotion, nay, even the diffuse characterization of emotional states, can only be of subordinate effect in lyrical effort, if compared with concise concentration of effect and the vivid and significant expression.
(ββ) We may add thatepisodesare permissible as well to the lyric poet; but he ought to employ them on othergrounds than those which justify their epic use. In the latter case they are implied in the notion of the externally independent collocation of the different aspects contained; and, in respect to the advance of the epic action, they also are significant as points of retardation and hindrance. Their lyrical justification is rather subjective in its character. The living personality in short surveys his private world more rapidly; his memory recurs to the most varied subjects on equally various occasions; he combines material of the most divergent nature; and, without departing from his true and fundamental emotional state, or the object of his thought, gives free play on all sides to his imagination and contemplation. An animating spirit of the same kind pervades the inner poetical life, although for the most part it is impossible to say whether this or that feature in a lyric poem is to be understood as episodical or not. As a general rule, however, digressions, so long as they do not violate the unity, and above all unexpected changes, witty combinations and sudden, or even violent transitions are peculiarly appropriate to the Lyric.
(γγ) On account of this the nature of the forward movement and bond of connection in this domain of poetry may be various, and in some measure marked by excessive contrast. Generally no doubt the Lyric, quite as little as the Epos, adopts the caprices of ordinary conscious life, or the purely scientific consequences, or the speculative process of philosophical thought in its necessary development. It requires indeed a freedom and self-subsistency in its single features. But whereas, in the case of the Epos, this relative isolation is referable to the form of the phenomenal reality, in the type of which its realization is centered, the lyric poet, on the contrary, communicates to the particular emotions and ideas, in which he is himself expressed, the character of a free self-assertion. Each and all, although equally distrained from similar modes of feeling and observation, nevertheless, as viewed separately, absorb his spirit, which remains concentrated upon each severally, until it is diverted to other points of view or other emotional states. The movement of the whole may therefore have little to arrest its tranquil flow, but with equal right we may find it pass without any mediation, and in one bound to material of a totally different character. The poet, instead of followingthe logical current of his thought, becomes, it would seem, in this sudden flight of ecstatic intoxication mastered by a force, the pathos of which rules and carries him away in spite of himself. The impulse and conflict of such passionate intensity is so characteristic a feature of certain forms of lyric composition, that, for example, Horace in many of his poems is at pains to harmonize with deliberate artistic means such apparently dislocating breaks in the poem's connection. For the rest I must entirely pass over the various intermediate phases of treatment, which fall between the extremes of the most lucid connection and most even flow on the one side, and that of the unrestrained impetuosity of passion and enthusiasm on the other.
(γ)Finally, of our above three divisions of the immediate subject, we have left us to discuss theexternal formand actual presentment of the lyric composition. Above all we shall have to deal withmetreand themusical accompaniment.
(αα) It is obvious enough that the hexameter in its even, sustained and none the less life-like forward movement is most exceptionally fitted as the measure of the Epic. The demand of the Lyric is rather for an extremevarietyof metres with every kind of co-ordination in their form. The material of the lyric poem in short is not the object in the form wherein it unveils itself in Nature, but the movement of the poet's own soul, the regularity or change of which, its perturbation or repose, its peaceful flow or tumultuous wave and leap, must find expression in the time-movement of the word-length, in which such inward life is asserted. The nature of the prevailing mood and the mode of imaginative conception throughout ought to meet with an echo in the verse-measure itself. The lyric effusion indeed is placed in a far more intimate relation to time, regarded as the external medium of its communication, than the epic narrative, which consigns its phenomenal facts to the past, and associates or interweaves them under a mode of extension more analogous to that of spatial condition. The Lyric, in contrast to this, displays the momentary emergence of emotion and idea in the temporal juxta-position of their origin and elaboration. It has therefore to clothe in artistic form the varied temporal movement itself. To this distinctive character belongs, in thefirstplace, themore diverse sequence of long and short syllables in a more strongly emphasized inequality of rhythmical feet; and,secondly, the more varied use of the caesura verse—andthirdlythe rounding off of the strophes, which not only admit of abundant alternation in respect to the comparative length of particular lines, but also relatively to the rhythmic configuration of these on their own account and in their immediate sequence to each other.
(ββ) Yet more lyrical in its effect—a second feature this—is the musical sound of words and syllables simply. The most important examples of this are alliteration, rhyme and assonance. In the system of versification under discussion what is predominant, as I have already explained in a previous passage, is, on the one hand, the ideal significance of syllables, the accent of the meaning, which disjoins itself from the purely natural element, as taken by itself, of their assured quantity, and then defines under the direction of the mind their duration, emphasis and subordination; which, from a further point of view, asserts itself in isolation as the expressly concentrated sound of definite letters, syllables, and words. The Lyric is pre-eminently associated with this spiritualizing process effected by ideal significance, no less than this emphatic insistence of sound. It in fact not merely restricts its acceptance and expression of all that positively is or appears to the meaning which such possesses for the inward life, but also lays hold of sound and musical tone as the significant medium of its communication. No doubt in this sphere, too, the element of rhythm may associate with rhyme; but even here this is effected in a manner which is closely related to the time-beat of music. Strictly speaking, therefore, the poetic use of assonance, alliteration and rhyme is limited to the province of the Lyric. For although the Epos of the Middle Ages is, in accordance with the nature of more modern languages, unable to keep itself aloof from these forms, this is mainly permitted for the reason that here, too, the lyrical element is throughout more insistently active within the domain of epic poetry itself, and effects a more forceful entrance where the subject-matter consists of heroic songs, romances, ballads, tales, and the like. And we find the same thing in dramatic poetry. What, however, is the peculiar possession of the Lyric, isthe diversified configuration of rhyme, which is elaborated and perfected by means of the recurrence of similar or the alternation of different letters, syllables and verbal quantity in variously organized and alternated strophes of rhyme. Such differentiation is also of undoubted service both to epic and dramatic poetry, but only on the same ground that rhyme itself is not excluded altogether. The Spaniards, for instance, in the most cultured epoch of their dramatic development, gave the freest play to such craft in the expression of passion by no means appropriate to the genuine drama, interweaving octave rhymes, sonnets and the like with more usual verse-measures. By so doing they at least testify, in the continuity of such assonances and rhymes, their predilection for the musical element in language.
(γγ)Finally, lyric poetry, to a far more considerable extent than is possible with the unassisted aid of rhyme, avails itself ofmusic, by means of which the uttered word becomes veritable melody and song. Such a leaning may, moreover, be completely justified. Or, in other words, the less lyric subject-matter and content possess on their own account independence and objective stability, but are rather, above all, of an ideal character, rooted exclusively in the personal life, while at the same time an external medium of articulate arrest is essential, to that extent is the demand for a decisive medium of communication more insistent. Precisely for the reason that it remains of ideal intention, the means it employs as a stimulus to others must be the more effective. Such an excitant of our emotional life can only be music.
We find consequently, even in respect to external execution, that lyric poetry is almost invariably associated with musical accompaniment. At the same time we should note an essential gradation in this power of combination. The romantic and above all the modern lyric, no doubt more exceptionally so in such songs, in which the temper, the emotional mood is predominant, and the function of music is to emphasize and expand this inner beat of soul-life in actual melody—are no doubt most readily adapted to such melodic fusion. The folk-song is an obvious example which both delights in and demands a musical accompaniment. We shall find in modern times more rarely a composer for the canzonet, elegy, epistle, or even the sonnet. The reason of this is that in cases where idea, reflection, nay, even emotion are made completely explicit in the poetry, and increasingly liberated from the bare point of spiritual selfconcentration, and, further, from the sensuous medium of the art, the Lyric already secures, in its deliverance as speech, a greater self-stability, and lends itself less simply to a free association with the vague definition of music. On the other hand in proportion as the inner life expressed is not made explicit to that extent the aid of melody is required. How it came about, however, that the ancients, despite the pellucid clarity of their diction, availed themselves of music in its actual delivery, and the measure in which they did thus make use of it, I shall have occasion to deal with subsequently.
(c)Types of the Genuine Lyric
With regard to specific types, in which we may classify lyrical composition, I have already referred with more detail to some which form the transition step from the narrative form of the Epos to the more subjective mode of exposition. From a contrary point of view it might seem desirable in the same way to demonstrate the beginnings of the dramatic. This inclination, however, of passage to the animation of the drama is exclusively and in essentials restricted to the circumstance that the lyric poem too as conversation, without, however, carrying the movement of action to the point of actual conflict, may itself accept the external form of dialogue. We shall nevertheless omit further allusion to these intermediate and hybrid stages, and restrict our cursory examination to those forms in which the real principle of the Lyric fully asserts itself. The main cause of this distinction is to be found in the attitude, which the artistic consciousness assumes relatively to its object.
(α) To be more definite the poet—this at least is one direction—annuls the particularity of his emotion and idea, and is absorbed in the general contemplation of God or gods, whose greatness and might permeates the whole of the personal life, and causes the poet as an individual person to vanish. Hymns, dithyrambs, paeans, psalms, all belong to this class, which are moreover quite differently treated by different peoples. I propose merely to draw general attention to the following characteristic of such poetry.
(αα) The poet, who is raised above the narrow limitation of his own purely personal life and external conditions, or the ideas which are therewith associated, replacing these with that which appears to him and his people as absolute and divine, may, in thefirstinstance, completely depict the divine in an objective presentment, and set forth this, as thus projected and executed for the spiritual vision of others, to the honour and power of the glorified god. The hymns which are ascribed to Homer are of this character. They contain above all mythological situations and histories of the divine Being, in whose celebration they are composed, which are not merely conceived in the ideas of symbolism, but are clothed in the downright objectivity of the Epos.
(ββ) In contrast to this,secondly, the dithyrambic impulse, in its morepersonalaspect of an exalted divine service—overwhelmed, as it is, by the power of its object, shattered and stunned to its soul-foundations—cannot, by reason of the general diffusion of its emotional state, go so far as to present an objective image and form. It is more akin to the lyrical absorbtion. We have here simply ecstatic rapture of soul. The singer breaks out and forth from himself; he is so exalted directly into the Absolute, steeped in the being and might of whom he exultantly sings his praise of the Infinite, into the depth whereof he plunges, or that of the natural world, in whose splendour the profound wealth of the Godhead is declared.
The Greeks, in the solemnities of their worship, have not limited themselves for long to such mere outcries and appeals. They have sought to intermingle with such ecstasies the narrative of, definite mythical situations and actions. Such expositions interposed between the effusion of lyric poetry, became gradually of most importance, and created the drama, such narratives being asserted as action in its lifelike form, and independently on its own account, a drama, which again in its turn received as a constituent feature the lyrics of its choruses.
Even more searching in its utterance is this impulse of exultation, this adoration, jubel and outcry of soul to the One; wherein the individual discovers the end of conscious life and the true object of all might and truth, no less than glory and praise, as we meet it in many of the sublime psalms of the Old Testament. Take the words of the thirty-third psalm, for example:
"Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright."Praise the Lord with harp: sing unto him with psaltery and an instrument of ten strings."Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise."For the word of the Lord is right; and all his works are done in truth."He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord."By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth."[12]Or take the twenty-ninth psalm: "Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength."Give unto the Lord the honour due unto his name: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness."The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the Lord is upon great waters."The voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is full of majesty."The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon."He maketh them to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn."The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire."The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh," etc.
"Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright.
"Praise the Lord with harp: sing unto him with psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.
"Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.
"For the word of the Lord is right; and all his works are done in truth.
"He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth."[12]
Or take the twenty-ninth psalm: "Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength.
"Give unto the Lord the honour due unto his name: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
"The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the Lord is upon great waters.
"The voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
"The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
"He maketh them to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.
"The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.
"The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh," etc.
An exaltation and lyric sublimity such as the above contain a power of personal detachment,[13]and is consequently less adapted to self-absorbtion in the concrete content, wherein the imagination can lay hold of the fact in tranquil satisfaction. It is rather inclined to soar up in an indefinite enthusiasm, which strains to make present to feeling and perception what is unutterable for the intelligence. In this atmosphere of indeterminacy the individual soul is unable to envisage its unreachable object in quiescent beauty, or enjoy its self-expression in a work of art. Instead of a tranquil picture the imagination sets forth external phenomena without co-ordination and in fragments; and, inasmuch as it does not succeed with emotional effort in any consistent articulation of its separate ideas, in its positive artistic form, too, it employs a somewhat arbitrary and insurgent rhythm.
Theprophets, who oppose the mass of the community, partly in the fundamental tones of grief and lamentation over the condition of their people, partly, too, in this feeling of alienation and decadence, carry to yet a further extreme this type of paranetic lyric in the sublime flame of their emotion and political indignation.
In a more modern age of imitation this sublime passion, however, is exchanged for a more artificial warmth, which easily cools and becomes abstract. Thus, for example, we have much hymn and psalm-writing of Klopstock, which possesses neither depth of thought, nor the tranquil development of any religious content whatever. What is expressed is, above all, an effort of this exaltation to the Infinite, which, agreeably with modern scientific ideas, merely discloses the empty incommeasurability and inconceivable might, greatness, and splendour of God, in its contrast to the very intelligible impotence and finitude of the poet.
(β) From a second point of view, we have those types of lyric poetry which may be described generally as odes, in the more modern meaning of the term. In these, as distinguished from the type above described, it is thepersonal lifeof the poet, in its independence, which asserts itself as a fundamental feature. It is, indeed, the culmination, which may be enforced in a twofold manner.
(αα) From one point of view the poet may, within this new mode of expression, select, as he previously did, a subjective matter itself of essential importance, such as the glory and celebration of gods, heroes, princes, love, beauty, art, friendship, and the like, while he displays his inner life as so completely steeped and carried away by this content and its concreteness, that it appears as though, in this impulse of enthusiasm, the subject has wholly mastered his soul, and is present in it now, as the one predominant power. If this was entirely so the facts which master him might secure, in their independence, the plastic form, motion, and stability of an epic sculpturesque image.
Or, as a converse case, it is just the personal life of the poet himself and its greatness which he seeks to express and make real on its own account. As for the object itself, it is that whereof he makes himself master; he assimilates this in his own life, expresses himself in and through this. By so doing he freely and without reserve breaks up the more positive course of his subject with his own emotion or reflection; he illuminates it from within; he changes it; and the final result is that it is not so much the subject, but rather thepersonal enthusiasmin which it has steeped him, which is most effective. In this connection, however, we have two distinct aspects to consider. First, there is the compelling force of the subject-matter; secondly, we have that independent freedom of the poet which flashes into view in its conflict with that which would otherwise master it. It is above all the stress of this opposition, which renders inevitable the swing and the boldness of utterance and image, the apparent absence of order in the ideal construction and course of the poem, its digressions,lacunae, and sudden transitions, and which preserves the ideal elevation of the poet, by means of the mastery with which he is enabled, through the artistic perfection of his work, to overcome this disunion, and to produce an' essentially harmonious whole, which places him, ashiswork, in relief above the greatness of his subject.
It is to such a type of lyric enthusiasm that many of the Pindaric odes are referable, whose triumphant, albeit personal glory is disclosed in a mode of rhythm equally conspicuous for its varied movement, and yet for all that stringently regulated measure. Horace, on the contrary, more especially where he aims most at self-assertion, israther lacking in warmth and insipid. We detect here an imitative artificiality, which vainly endeavours to conceal the purely technical preciosity of his composition. The enthusiasm of Klopstock in the same way is never entirely genuine. It too frequently gives the impression of laboured artifice, despite the fact that many of his odes are rich in true and genuine emotion, and stamped with an engaging masculine worth and force of expression.
(ββ) From another point of view, however, it is not at all necessary that the content itself should be substantial or important. The poet is himself, in his own personality, of such weight that he can attach to even the more trifling objects worth, nobility, or at least in a general way a more exalted interest owing to the fact that they are embodied in his poetic work. Many of the Odes of Horace are of this type. Klopstock, too, with many another, may be included in such a category. In such cases it is not the importance of the material itself, which engages the poet's effort, but on the contrary that of the process in virtue of which he exalts what is on its own account insignificant, either in external facts or petty occurrences, to the height of the emotion and idea they excite in himself.
(γ) In conclusion, the entire infinite multiplicity of lyrical mood and reflection reaches its fullest compass in the sphere of thesong, in which consequently differences of national custom and creative individuality have their freest play. Characteristics of every extreme of diversity meet together here, and the task of adequate classification is beset with difficulty. We will restrict ourselves to pointing out a few of the most general character.
(αα) We have, then,first, thegenuine songintended for singing or purely musical practice,[14]whether in private or before others. Much intelligible content, ideal greatness and loftiness is not necessary. On the contrary, worth, nobility, weight of thought can only prove an obstacle to the desire of direct self-expression. Imposing ideas or reflections, or sublime emotions compel the artist to detach himself from his immediate personality and its interests. Andyet it is precisely this immediacy of joy and sorrow, what we may call the unrestricted and momentary personal experience, which ought to find its expression in the song. And it is on this account that every folk is in a peculiar way at home and at ease in its songs. Despite the unlimited variety of content and of melodic exposition that offers itself here, every song is without exception distinct from types previously considered by virtue of the simplicity of its subject-matter, movement, metre, verbal expression, and images. The point of departure is direct from the soul; the movement of inspiration is not so much from one object to another, but is, generally speaking, centered exclusively in one and the same content, whether it be a single emotional state, or any definite expression of delight or sorrow, that mood, in short, the effect of which carries the heart with it. In this emotion or temper the song persists with no interruption in its flight and impression, quietly and simply abiding therein without any strikingly bold contrast or transitions of idea; and it creates thereby in the even flow of its images this one perfected whole, sometimes without any interruption or disunion, at others in a more expansive and consequential survey, employing therewith rhythms adapted to song or the recurrence of rhymes easily intelligible and without any considerable complexity. Inasmuch, however, as it possesses for the most part as its content what is essentially transitory we are not to suppose that a nation is likely to sing the same songs over and over again, for a hundred or a thousand years. A people which can at all claim progressive development is neither so poor nor so so barren as only to possess poets of the song at one period of its life. It is just the poetry of the song, which, in contrast to the Epopaea, does not so much die as it is forever being awakened anew. This field of blossom starts up afresh every spring; and it is only in the case of oppressed peoples, peoples precluded from every advance, which are unable to experience the ever requickened delight in poetic composition, that the old and the oldest songs are retained. The particular song, just like the particular mood, arises, and then passes; it animates, delights, and is forgotten. Whoever knows or sings, for example, the songs which fifty years ago were everywhere known and beloved? Every centurystrikes its own particular keynote; the previous one sounds out of tune, until it stops altogether. None the less, however, must every song possess not so much a revelation of the personality of the singer as a certain community of sentiment, which meets with response from all sides; which excites in others a like emotion and so, too, passes from mouth to mouth. Songs which are not generally current as such in their time are seldom of the genuine stamp. As an essential distinction in the composition of song I will merely emphasize two main aspects which I have already referred to. On the one hand the poet may express his inner life in its emotions quite openly and without reserve, more especially the feelings and state of joyfulness, and so that he communicates completely all that he experiences. On the other hand, and in extreme contrast to this, he may only suffer us to surmise through his very speechlessness, what is brought to a focus in the unopened chamber of his heart. The first type belongs mainly to the East, and more especially to the careless hilarity and contented expansiveness of Mohammedan poetry, the splendid outlook of which loves to dilate itself hither and thither in all the breadth of sensuous perception and witty conceit. The second type, on the contrary, applies with more force to our Northern self-concentration and intimacy of soul-life, which in its compressed tranquillity is often only able to seize hold of objects which are wholly external and to put suggestions inthem,while the essentially suppressed spirit is unable to express itself or find a bent, but rather, like the child with whom that father in the Erl King rides through the night and the wind, dies away with its glow on the wick. The distinction above noticed applies also in a broader sense to other forms of lyrical composition such as the folk-song and more elaborate poetry; it recurs again in the simple song with many shades and intermediate links in its variety. With regard to particular forms applicable to this class of composition I will restrict myself to the following examples.
We may mention, to start with, thefolk-song, which, on account of its direct appeal, is mainly of the nature of the simple song, being also generally adapted to singing, or, rather, requiring the musical accompaniment. Its subject-matter is in part national exploit and event, in which thenation is emotionally made aware of and recalls again its most essential life; in part, too, feelings and situations are directly expressed which relate to particular classes. It associates, in short, civic life with its natural condition and its closest human relations, and it does so with every variety of note, whether of exultation or sorrow, which may duly harmonize with such. In contrast to the above, we have, secondly, songs of a more various and enriched culture, a culture which finds its entertainment in the companionable amusement of all kinds of pleasantry, graceful turns of phrase, casual occurrences, or polite modes of address, or, with more intensity of feeling, recurs to the pathos or necessities of less favoured conditions of life, describing therein both the facts and the consequent feelings they excite, the poet always making his appeal from his own breast and the facts of his own sympathetic experience. If such songs go no further than the bare narrative, more particularly of natural phenomena, the result is likely to be trivial and to betray the lack of imaginative resources. The bare description of emotional states, moreover, not unfrequently fares little better. The truth is that our poet in such descriptions, whether of objective facts or emotions, must not restrict his survey to the narrow outlook of direct wishes and desires, but must already in the freedom of his intelligence have raised himself into a more serene atmosphere wherein the main thing of importance to himself is the satisfaction which the exercise of his imagination has afforded. An undisturbed sense of freedom such as this, through expansion of heart and delight in conceptive idea on its own account, confers on many songs of Anacreon, as also certain poems of Hafis and the Westöstliche Divan of Goethe the rarest charm of an unfettered creative gift.
There is a yet further type of composition of this general class, to which we must concede a more exalted or, at least, a more widely embracing content. The large majority of Protestant hymns composed for spiritual edification are essentially songs. They express the yearning after God, the plea for His grace, repentance, hope, trust, doubts, faith, and the like of the religious heart; no doubt, in the first instance, to meet the importunity of the individual soul, but at the same time in a manner of general significance, wherein such feelings and states of soul may or ought to apply, to agreater or less extent, to every member of the Christian Church.
(ββ) We may further return to another division of this class, thesonnet, sestine, elegy, epistle, and a few other such modes. These latter assert themselves as distinct from the ordinary sphere of song previously discussed. The immediacy of feeling and expression is emphasized in this class as a mediating bond with reflection, and a contemplation which, while remaining alert to many features of its subject, conceives the particular detail of perception and soul-experience under more general points of view. Science, learning, and, in short, a wide culture may be here effective; and if also in all the relations thus established the personal life, which connects and mediates in itself the particular fact with the general concept, is and remains the insistent and predominant factor, yet the standpoint presupposed is of a wider and more universal import than that of the ordinary song. The Italians in particular have given us splendid examples of a highly sensitive type of feeling and reflection in their sonnets and sestines. Such not only directly expresses in a given situation states of yearning, grief, longing, and the like, or the counterfeit of external objects, with a peculiarly intimate concentration, but includes many a diversion, many a shrewd glance into mythology and history, whether past or present, while remaining throughout able to return upon itself, true to the fundamental demand of selfrestriction and concentration. The simplicity of the song is incompatible with a culture of this kind. The exalted character of the ode is equally disallowed. As a primary consequence of this the possibility of actual musical delivery vanishes; but, on the other hand, as some set-off to the absence of musical accompaniment, the verbal expression itself, in its sound and composed rhymes, becomes a melodic flow of speech. The Elegy, moreover, may, in the measure of its syllables, its meditation, its comments, and the descriptive display of emotional life, assume the form of the Epic.
(γγ) Thethirdtype of composition in this class is characterized by a mode of treatment which in recent times is most clearly represented among us Germans in the work of Schiller. The majority of his lyrical poems, such as those named by him Resignation, the Ideals, the realm of Shades, Artists, the Ideal and Life, are just as little songs in the true sense as they are odes or hymns, epistles, or elegies in the classic sense. Their position, on the contrary, is distinct from all these types. Their significance consists above all in the imposing fundamental thought of their content by the force of which, however, the poet neither appears to be carried away as a dithyrambic poet might be, nor in the press of his enthusiasm is there any appearance of conflict with the greatness of his subject. He remains rather throughout completely master of the same, and unfolds all that is therein implied from every point of view with his own poetic reflection. And he does this in the full impulse of genuine feeling, no less than with the comprehensive breadth of his intelligence, expressed with a compelling force in the most admirable and full-toned utterance and image, and yet, withal, for the most part in quite simple, if really arresting rhythms and rhymes. These great thoughts and fundamental interests, to which his entire life was dedicate,appear consequently as the most intimate possession of his spirit. But he does not sing so much as one tranquilly self-absorbed,[15]or to a circle of companions, as the rich-songed mouth of Goethe was wont to do, but as a singer who delivers himself of what is on its own account intrinsically of worth in a storehouse of all that is most excellent and distinguished. His songs ring out, in fact, much as he says of his bell:
Hoch über'm niedern ErdenlebenSoll sie im blauen Himmelszelt,Die Nachbarin des Donners, schwebenUnd grenzen an die Sternen weit,Soll eine Stimme seyn von oben,Wie der Gestirne helle Schaar,Die ihren Schöpfer wandelnd tobenUnd führen das bekränzte Jahr.Nur ewigen und ernsten DingenSei ihr metall'ner Mund geweiht,Und stündlich mit den schnellen SchwingenBerühr' im Fluge sie die Zeit.[16]
It will already have sufficiently appeared from what I have pointed out in relation to the general character, as also the more detailed features discussed with reference to the poet, the lyrical composition and the several types of the art that to a singular degree in this province of poetry a concrete treatment is only possible which accepts the historical narrative as a constituent feature. The universal, which can be set forth in its independence, does not merely remain restricted in its compass, but is also abstract in its valid worth. And this isso because in no other art to the like extent does the particularity of the time, condition, and nationality, no less than the specific idiosyncracy of individual genius, supply the determinating factor of the content and form of the artistic product. But in proportion as the strength of the demand forces itself on our attention that such an historical exposition should be avoided, I feel myself obliged, in the interests of the very variety of material comprised in the embrace of lyric composition, to limit myself exclusively to a very partial survey of all that I am acquainted of in this particular class of work, and in which my lively interest could have been extended.
As the basis of our general classification of the varied national and more personal lyric compositions, as in the case of epic poetry, we cannot do better than follow the order of those radical types under which artistic creation generally is unfolded, and which we now know as symbolic, classic, and romantic art. As the main division, therefore, of our present subject-matter, we may, in other words, adopt a similar sequence from Oriental compositions to the Lyric of the Greeks and Romans, and then from this to the Slavonic, Romance, and German peoples.
(a) Taking, then, the Oriental lyric first, we may observe that it differs essentially from the lyrical composition of the West through its inability to attach to it the independent personality and free spirit of the poet, or that unity whichcharacterizes every content of romantic art, its essential infinity, reflecting, in fact, the potential depth of the romantic soul. Such a distinction is only in keeping with the universal principle of the East. The individual conscious life is here, referably to its content, directly absorbed in the detail of external fact, expressing itself under the condition and specific relations of this inseparable unity. And, from a further point of view, it asserts itself, without being able to secure a firm ground of stability in itself, as opposed to what it conceives to be of potency and substance in Nature and the conditions of human existence, which it wrestles to reach whether through emotion or imagination, at one time situated towards it rather in the relation of pure opposition, at another with more freedom, but in either case with ultimate failure. What we find here, therefore, if we confine our attention toform, is not so much the poetic expression of independent ideas over objects or their connections, as it is the bare mirror of this unreflecting absorption,[17]wherein the individual consciousness does not disclose itself in its own self-concentration as free personality,[18]but rather in its self-annulment[19]before the external object or condition. Thus regarded, the Oriental lyric frequently, particularly in its contrast to the romantic, assumes a more objective tone. Here we shall often enough find that the poet does not so much express facts and conditions as they affect him, but rather as they are in themselves, a disclosure which frequently bestows on them an independent soul of vitality of their own. For illustration we may take that exclamation of Hafis:
"Come, O come! The nightingale passeth from the soul of Hafis once again over the scent of the roses of delight."
Regarded in another light, the tendency of this lyrical poetry, by freeing the poet from the limitations of his private individuality, is to replace this with a kind of primitive expansion of soul, which, however, very easily loses itself in mere boundlessness, or is merged in a deliberate effort to express that which it accepts as object but cannot fully penetrate, because this content is itself the formless substance. For this reason, speaking generally, the lyric of the East, more especially among the Hebrews, Arabs, and Persians, possesses the character of hymns of exaltation. With spendthrift prodigality all greatness, might, and glory are lavished upon the creature, in order to make all such transitory splendour vanish before the unspeakable majesty of God; or, at least, it never is tired of stringing together in some precious chain everything that is lovable or fair, in order to present the same as a thankoffering to the object, be it Sultan, the beloved, or the wine-shop, which the poet has set himself above all things to celebrate.
In conclusion, if we look more closely at form of expression in this type of poetry, we shall find that it is mainly themetaphor, theimage, and thesimilewhich are favoured. For, in the first place, on account of the fact that he is not himself wholly free to express his own personal life, the poet can only disclose himself in something else, something external to himself, with the aid of life that can compare with himself. And also we may observe that what is here universal and substantive remains abstract; that is to say, it is unable to merge itself in the definite form of a free individuality, so that now, even on its own account, it is only in comparisons with the varied phenomena of the world that it is able to envisage itself; and we may add that both these cases, in the last instance, only possess the worth of being able to assist some comparable approach to that One which alone possesses significance, and is worthy of honour and praise. These metaphors, images, and similes, however, in which the individual soul, as it asserts itself, is exclusively identified almost to the point of visibility, are not the actual feeling and spiritual state itself, but rather a mode of expression which is wholly personal and of the poet's composition. What, therefore, the lyrical artist here loses in the concreteness of his spiritual freedom, this we find is replaced by the freedom of his expression, which moves forward through all the most manifold phases; that is, from the naïve simplicity of its images and similes to every conceivable audacity and the acutest ingenuity of novel and surprising combinations. As regards particular nations in which we find this Oriental type of lyric represented, we may mention, first, the Chinese; secondly, the Hindoos; thirdly, and to a pre-eminent degree, the Hebrews, Arabs, and Persians. I cannot, however, enter into any closer description of these.
(b) In the case of the second principal division of our present poetic type, that is in the Lyric of the Greeks and Romans, it is the principle ofclassicindividuality which, above all, distinguishes its character. In accordance with this principle, the artistic consciousness, which seeks for lyrical expression, neither loses itself in the facts of the natural world, nor exalts itself over itself to the height of that Sublime outcry to all creation: "Let all that hath breath praise the Lord!" Nor is it absorbed, after divesting itself joyfully from all the bonds of finite existence, in that One Being in which all live and move. Rather the poet here is freely merged in the Universal, regarded as the very substance of his own spirit; and in this personal union within himself attains his self-conscious poetic activity.
And just as the Lyric of the Greeks and Romans is distinct from that of theOrientals, so too, from another point of view, it differs from theromantic.In other words, instead of unveiling its depths in the intimacy of particular moods and states of feeling, it rather elaborates, to the point of the most explicit definition, this inward life of its individual passion and meditation. And by doing so it even retains, even as the expression of this inward spirit, so far as this is permitted to the Lyric, the plastic type of classic art. All that it communicates, in short, of the views and maxims of life and wisdom, despite all the penetration of its general principle, nevertheless does not dispense with the free individuality of independent thought and conception. It expresses itself less in the wealth of image and metaphor, than directly and categorically. At the same time, also, the personal feeling, at one time in more general relations, at another in the form of vision itself, is on its own account objective. In the same mode of individuality the particular types may be classified as distinct from each other in conception, expression, phraseology, and verse-measure, until they reach the culminating point of their independent elaboration. And as we have found it true of the soul itself and its ideas, so, too, the external presentment is of more plastic type. In other words, from a musical point or view, it emphasizes less the ideal soul-melody of emotion than the sensuous verbal quantity in the rhythmical measure of its movement, to which it may further attach the complex mazes of the dance.
(α) With the richest originality this artistic form of Greek lyric poetry is perfected. In the first instance we may trace it in thosehymnspossessing a content as yet more akin to the epic mode, which do not so much express in their epic metre a personal enthusiasm as they set before us a plastic image of gods in deliberately objective outlines. The next step, so far as metre is concerned, we mark in theelegiacsyllabic measure, which associates the pentameter with the hexameter, which, in the regular recurrence of its ending after the hexameter, and with its two equally divided sections, opens the way to the complete singularity of the verse strophe. The elegy is also throughout in its tone of the lyric type. This is so in the case of the political elegy no less than the erotic, although, particularly as gnomic elegy, it still closely approaches the epic insistence upon and expression of the substantive as such, and for this reason almost exclusively belongs to the Ionians, with whom the objective point of view was generally predominant. In respect also to its musical side, it is primarily the aspect of rhythm which is here successfully worked out. And, on parallel lines with it, we may observe, thirdly, the development of theIambicpoem in a novel verse-measure. This, however, is, by reason of the keenness of its invectives, from the first of a more subjective or personal tendency. The genuine mode of lyrical reflection and passion, however, receives for the first time its full development in the so-calledMelisian[20]lyric. The metres are more varied, more capable of change; the strophes are more rich; the suggestions of musical accompaniment are more complete in virtue of the nature of the accepted modulation. Each poet creates a syllabic measure which corresponds with his or her lyrical nature. Thus Sappho adapts one to a type of composition which is sensuous, inspired with the glow of passion and expressed with an effect which works up to a supreme crisis. Alcaeus moulds one in harmony with his masculine and bolder odes. To an exceptional degree, too, the Scoliasts supply many indications of the finer nuances of diction and metre by reason of the variety of their content and melodic utterance.
Last of all, the lyric of thechorusis richest of all in the wealth of what it unfolds, and not merely so in what concerns idea and thought, boldness of transition and connection or the like, but also relatively to its external presentment. The choral song may be interchanged for the single voice, and the ideal movement is not merely satisfied with the bare rhythm of speech and the modulations of music, but summons as its associate the plastic pose and movement of the dance. The ideal aspect of the Lyric is consequently balanced to perfection with the sensuous character of its delivery. The subject-matter of this type of inspired verse is the most substantive and weighty. Such poems celebrate the power and glory of the gods, or that of victors in the games. Greeks, who not unfrequently were divided in their political relations, found in them the positive vision of their national unity. And, partly for this reason, aspects of their ideal construction are not wanting which approach the objective standpoint of the Epic. Pindar, for example, who reaches the highest point of attainment in this type of composition, moves with ease, as I have already pointed out, from the external motives of his compositions to profound observations upon the general nature of ethical principle and divine matters, or it may be upon heroes, heroic exploit, the foundations of States, and the like. His creative gift possesses, in short, the plastic sense of realization quite as much as the individual sweep of imaginative energy. On this very account, however, it is not so much the facts which follow their independent course in the epic manner, as the personal enthusiasm, carried away by its object so completely that the latter appears to be the burden and product of the soul.
Later lyric verse of the Alexandrines is less an independent development and more a mere scholastic imitation and affectation of elegance and correctness of expression, until finally it dissipates itself in trifling graces and pleasantries, or seeks to bind up afresh flowers of art and life already to hand in a garland of tender feeling and conceit, and the witty experiment of eulogy or satire.
(β) Among the Romans lyric poetry finds a soil no doubt fashioned for it in various ways, but of less original productive qualities. The period of its splendour is limitedmainly to the age of Augustus, in which it is cultivated as the elaborate expression and relaxation of cultured society; or indeed, to a considerable degree, it is rather an affair of the clever translator or copyist, and the fruit of taste and research, than that of spontaneous feeling and really original conception. At the same time it must be admitted that, despite the learning and an alien mythology, to say nothing of the preferred imitation of Alexandrine models, where the warmth of life is least apparent, yet as a rule the characteristics of Roman personality no less than the individual genius of particular poets, do assert an independent position, and, so long as we put entirely on one side the most intimate soul and expression of the art of poetry, have accomplished sterling and consummate results, not merely in the province of the ode, but also in that of epistles, satires, and elegy. On the other hand, the later type of satire, which follows as a kind of supplement, in its bitterness toward the decadence of the times, its goaded indignation and virtuous declamation, fails to represent the genuine sphere of an unperturbed poetical vision just in the degree that it possesses nothing whatever to oppose to its picture of a demoralized present save this very indignation and abstract rhetoric of virtuous excitement.
(c) For this reason, consequently, it is only after more modern nationalities have appeared that a really original content and spirit are communicated to lyrical composition, as we have previously seen, was the case, too, with the Epic. This is due to the German, Romance, and Slavonic peoples, which already, in their previous pagan days, but principally after their conversion to Christianity, both in the Middle Ages and in more recent times, have brought into being, and continuously elaborated in various ways, athirdfundamental revival of lyrical creation in what we may generally characterize as theromanticart-type.
In this third branch of its activity, lyric poetry is of so overwhelming an importance that its principle is enforced, more —especially in the first instance, relatively to the Epos, but consequently in its more modern development and relatively to the drama, with a far profounder significance than was possible with either Greek or Roman. Indeed, among certain nations, even genuine epic materials are treated exclusively under the type of the lyric narrative; in this way we have compositions as to which we may find real difficulty in deciding the class to which they more truly belong. The cause of this conspicuous tendency towards lyric composition is mainly due to the fact that the entire evolution of the life of these nations is based on this very principle of subjectivity, which is constrained to assert and clothe what is substantive and objective as its own from its own resources, and grows more and more self-conscious of this penetration into its own personal wealth. Such a principle declares its vigour in its least perturbed and most complete character among the German peoples. The Slavonic races have, on the contrary, first to wrestle forth from the Oriental absorption in the substantive One and Universal. Between the two we may place the Romance stock, which are confronted, in the conquered provinces of the Roman Empire, not merely with the residue of Roman science and culture, but a social system more elaborate from every point of view. In the process of self-fusion with such conditions, they inevitably lose a part of their original character. As for the subject-matter of this poetry, we may describe it as dealing with pretty nearly every phase of national or individual development, capable of expressing either the religious or secular life of these nations as it expands in ever widening range, and through the process of the centuries reflects in varied condition and emotional state the heart of its spiritual substance. And the fundamental type of it is either the expression of an emotional state, concentrated to the most intimate self-possession, whether the immediate object of attraction be national and other events, Nature and external environment, or simply and solely itself, or whether it be of the nature of reflection, both searching and self-introspective, upon all that is implied for itself in such an extension of culture. Regarded on its formal side, the plastic character of rhythmical versification is exchanged for the music of alliteration, assonance, and manifold alternations of rhyme. These novel elements it makes use of sometimes in a quite simple and unassuming manner; in other connections with much art and invention of modes of versification wholly distinct in character. At the same time the external delivery becomes increasingly more elaborate in its powers of adaptation to the accompaniment of vocal and instrumental music.
In our classification of the extensive compass of this group, we cannot do better than follow that we accepted inthe case of epic poetry.
Firstswe have the lyric composition of these modern nations while still in the state of primitive paganism.
Secondly, there is the richer development of this type in the Christian Middle Ages.
Thirdly, there is that lyric art based in some measure on the reawakened study of ancient art, and in part on the fundamental principle of modern Protestantism, a principle essential to its final elaboration.
In the present work, however, I shall be unable to discuss with more detail the characteristics of the above development. I will, by way of conclusion, merely draw attention to one German poet, whose influence has given in modern times a quite extraordinary impetus to the lyric poetry of our own fatherland, and whose services in this respect are by no means appreciated by contemporary criticism as they deserve to be. I refer to the poet of the Messias. Klopstock is among the great Germans, who have inaugurated the new artistic epoch of their people. He is a great figure, who, by means of courageous enthusiasm and superb self-respect, wrested our poetry from the stupendous insignificance of the Gottsched[21]period, which with its blockish superficiality had completely destroyed the life of all that is noble and of worth in the genius of our race; who has, in short, given us poems fully awake to the highest demand of the poet's vocation, in a form of thorough artistic excellence, if also somewhat austere, the majority of which are stamped with the permanency of a classic. Some of the odes of his youth are dedicated to a generousfriendship, which was to him at once symbolic of nobility, staunchness, honour, the pride of his soul, a temple of his spirit. Others have reference to apersonalattachment of real emotional depth, although it is precisely in this field that we meet with many compositions which a critical sense can only regard as so much prose. "Selmar and Selma" is a poem of thisclass, a gloomy and tedious altercation between lovers, which, not without many tears, woe, empty yearning, and useless feats of melancholy emotion, revolves round the one mouldy and musty question, which of the two, Selmar or Selma, is first to die. But in Klopstock we find at least a genuine impulse of patriotism alive in every pore. As a good Protestant the Christian mythology, with its sacred legends and so forth—we must except the angels, for whom he retained as a poet a profound respect, although they can only appear abstract and lifeless in a type of poetry such as his, which claimed the realism of life—neither satisfied his sense of the ethical seriousness of art, nor yet the vigour of life and an intelligence, which aspired to something more than blind wailing and self-abasement, was, in short, both self-respecting and actively religious. The need of some mythology, however, and one connected with Germany impressed him strongly as a poet, in order that he might have definite names and characters ready to hand as a stable basis of his imaginative creation. It is impossible to associate such patriotic sentiments with the gods of Greece. Consequently Klopstock attempted, we may justly say from genuine national pride, to give a renewed life to the old mythology of Wodan, Hertha and the rest. He was unfortunately as little able to carry his aim to the point of objective effect and sufficiency by this adoption of names of gods, which are no longer really Germanic, however much they may have been so, as, let us say, the imperial museum in Regensburg is qualified to stand for the ideal of our present political life. However strongly, then, he may have felt the need to be able to realize in poetry and as fact in a national form a general folk-mythology, the truth of Nature and conscious life, these twilight gods remain entirely devoid of essential truth; we may add there is a kind of childish self-flattery in the belief that either reasonable people or the national faith could take such an attempt seriously. Apart from this, as objects of interest to the imagination, the figures of Greek mythology are elaborated in ways with incomparably more variety, infinitely stronger appeal to our aesthetic taste, our sense of delight and freedom. In lyric poetry, however, it is the self-revelation of the poet that is all-important. We ought at least to honour in our patriotic poet this hissolicitude and effort, an effort which was sufficiently effective to bear subsequent fruit, and, even in the field of poetry, to stimulate by its suggestion composition on similar subjects. We have, however, to conclude our review, no word to say against the purity, excellence, and admirable influence of this patriotic sentiment of Klopstock as expressed in his enthusiasm for the honour and value of our German speech, and certain characters of our former history, that of Herrmann, for example, and above all particular German Kaisers, who in some instances have even been self-celebrated in song. Vital in him throughout is his justifiable pride in the German muse, and his faith in her increasing courage to contend on equal terms and in high-spirited self-reliance with that of the Greek, the Roman, and the Englishman. And no less a genuine reflection of his patriotism is the nature of his survey of the royal princes of Germany, the expectations which their character have or had it in their power to arouse on all that generally concerns honour, art, and science, questions of public import and spiritual objects of essential value. On the one hand we find him expressing his contempt of our princes, who, as he tells us, remain on their comfortable chairs, surrounded with the tobacco smoke of courtiers, buried in present obscurity and yet deeper to be buried in the future. Or he may express his feelings in the lament that even Frederick II
Nicht sah, dass Deutschland's Dichtkunst sich schnell erhob,Aus fester Wurzel daurendem Stamm, und weit,Der Æste Schalten wurf![22]