Chapter XIII: Introduction: To the Propylæa (7)

As a result of discussions, examples, and my own reflection, I came to see that the first step towards escape from the wishy-washy, long-winded, empty epoch could be taken only by definiteness, precision, and brevity. In the style which had hitherto prevailed, it was impossible to distinguish the commonplace from what was better, since a uniform insipidity prevailed on all hands. Authors had already tried to escape from this widespread disease, with more or less success. Haller and Ramler were inclined to compression by nature; Lessing and Wieland were led to it by reflection. The former became by degrees quite epigrammatic in his poems, terse in _Minna_, laconic in _Emilia Galotti_,--it was not till later that he returned to that serene _naïveté_ which becomes him so well in _Nathan_. Wieland, who had been occasionally prolix in _Agathon_, _Don Sylvio_, and the _Comic Tales_, became wonderfully condensed and precise, as well as exceedingly graceful, in _Musarion_ and _Idris_. Klopstock, in the first cantos of the _Messiah_, is not without diffuseness; in his _Odes_ and other minor poems he appears concise, as also in his tragedies. By his emulation of the ancients, especially Tacitus, he was constantly forced into narrower limits, so that at last he became obscure and unpleasing. Gerstenberg, a rare but eccentric genius, also concentrated his powers; one feels his merit, but on the whole he gives little pleasure. Gleim, by nature diffuse and easy-going, was scarcely once concise in his war-songs. Ramler was properly more of a critic than a poet. He began to collect what the Germans had accomplished in lyric poetry. He discovered that scarcely one poem entirely satisfied him; he was obliged to omit, rearrange, and alter, so that the things might assume some sort of form. By this means he made 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 takes greater interest in a faulty individuality than in what is produced or amended in accordance with a universal law of taste. Rhythm was still in its cradle, and no one knew of a method to shorten its childhood. Poetical prose was gaining ground. Gessner and Klopstock found many imitators; others, again, still put in a plea for metre, and translated this prose into intelligible rhythms. But even these emended versions gave nobody satisfaction; for they were obliged to omit and add, and the prose original always passed for the better of the two. But in all these attempts, the greater the conciseness aimed at, the more possible is it to criticize them, since whatever is significant when presented in a condensed form, in the end admits of definite comparison. Another result was the simultaneous appearance of a number of truly poetical forms; for while attempting to reproduce solely whatever was essential in any one subject, it was necessary to do justice to every subject chosen for treatment, and hence, though none did it consciously, the modes of representation were multiplied; though some were grotesque enough, and many an experiment proved unsuccessful.

Without question, Wieland possessed the finest natural gifts of all. He had developed early in those ideal regions in which youth loves to linger; but when so-called experience, contact with the world and women, spoilt his delight in those realms, he turned to the actual, and derived pleasure for himself and others from the conflict between the two worlds, where, in light encounters, half in earnest, half in jest, his talent found fullest scope. How many of his brilliant productions appeared during my student days! _Musarion_ had the greatest effect upon me, and I can yet remember the place and the very spot where I looked at the first proof-sheet, which Oeser showed me. It was here that I seemed to see antiquity living anew before me. Everything that is plastic in Wieland’s genius showed itself here in the highest perfection; and since the Timon-like hero Phanias, after being condemned to unhappy abstinence, is finally reconciled to his mistress and to the world, we may be content to live through the misanthropic epoch with him. For the rest, we were not sorry to recognize in these works a cheerful aversion to exalted sentiments, which are apt to be wrongly applied to life, and then frequently fall under the suspicion of fanaticism. We pardoned the author for pursuing with ridicule what we held to be true and venerable, the more readily, as he thereby showed that he was unable to disregard it.

What a miserable reception was accorded such efforts by the criticism of the time may be seen from the first volumes of the _Universal German Library_. Honorable mention is made there of the _Comic Tales_, but there is no trace of any insight into the character of the literary species. The reviewer, like every one at that time, had formed his taste on examples. He never takes into consideration that in criticizing such parodistical works, it is necessary first of all to have the noble, beautiful original before one’s eyes, in order to see whether the parodist has really discovered in it a weak and comical side, whether he has borrowed anything from it, or whether, under the pretense of imitation, he has given us an excellent invention of his own. Of all this there is not a word, but isolated passages in the poems are praised or blamed. The reviewer, as he himself confesses, has marked so much that pleased him, that he cannot quote it all in print. When they go so far as to greet the exceedingly meritorious translation of Shakespeare with the exclamation: “By rights, a man like Shakespeare should not have been translated at all!” it will be understood, without further remark, how immeasurably the _Universal German Library_ was behindhand in matters of taste, and that young people, animated by true feelings, had to look about them for other guiding stars.

The subject-matter which in this manner more or less determined the form was sought by the Germans in the most varied quarters. They had handled few national subjects, or none at all. Schlegel’s _Hermann_ only pointed the way. The idyllic tendency had immense vogue. The want of distinctive character in Gessner, with all his gracefulness and childlike sincerity, made every one think himself capable of the like. In the same manner, those poems which were intended to portray a foreign nationality were founded merely on a common humanity, as, for instance, the _Jewish Pastoral Poems_, all those on patriarchal subjects, and any others based on the Old Testament. Bodmer’s _Noachide_ was a perfect type of the watery deluge that swelled high around the German Parnassus, and abated but slowly. Anacreontic dallyings likewise made it possible for numberless mediocre writers to meander aimlessly in a vague prolixity. The precision of Horace compelled the Germans, though but slowly, to conform to him. Neither did the burlesques, modeled, for the most part, on Pope’s _Rape of the Lock_, succeed in inaugurating better times.

Yet I must here mention a delusion, which was taken as seriously as it appears ridiculous on closer inspection. The Germans had now an adequate historical knowledge of all the kinds of poetry in which the various nations had excelled. This assignment of poetry to its respective pigeon-holes--a process in reality fatal to its true spirit--had been accomplished with approximate completeness by Gottsched in his _Critical Art of Poetry_, and at the same time he had shown that in all the divisions were to be found excellent works by German poets. And so it went on. Every year the collection became more considerable, but every year one work ousted some other from 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 soothed themselves by comparisons from abroad, whilst the mass of poetical works constantly increased, so that at last it was possible to make comparisons at home.

With the cultivation of the German language and style in every department, the power of criticism also increased; but while the reviews then published of works upon religious and ethical as well as medical subjects were admirable, the critiques of poems, and of whatever else relates to _belles lettres_, will be found, if not pitiful, at least very feeble. This holds good of the _Literary Epistles_ and the _Universal German Library_, as well as of the _Library of Belles Lettres_, and might easily be verified by notable instances.

However great the confusion of these varied efforts, the only thing to be done by any one who contemplated producing anything original, and was not content to take the words and phrases out of the mouths of his predecessors, was to search unremittingly for some subject-matter for treatment. Here, too, we were greatly misled. People were constantly repeating a saying of Kleist’s, who had replied playfully, with humor and truth, to those who took him to task on account of his frequently lonely walks: “that he was not idle at such times--he was hunting for images.” This simile was very suitable for a nobleman and soldier, for in it he contrasted himself with men of his own rank, who never missed an opportunity of going out, with their guns on their shoulders, to shoot hares and partridges. Accordingly we find in Kleist’s poems many such individual images, happily seized, although not always happily elaborated, which remind us pleasantly of nature. But now we, too, were admonished quite seriously to go out hunting for images, and in the end to some slight purpose, although Apel’s Garden, the Cake Gardens, the Rosental, Gohlis, Raschwitz and Konnewitz, were the oddest ground in which to beat up poetical game. And yet I was often induced from this motive to contrive that my walk should be solitary. But few either beautiful or sublime objects met the eye of the beholder, and in the truly splendid Rosental the gnats in summer made all gentle thoughts impossible, so by dint of unwearied, persevering endeavor, I became extremely attentive to the small life of nature (I should like to use this word after the analogy of “still life”). Since the charming little incidents to be observed within this circle are but unimportant in themselves, I accustomed myself to see in them a significance, tending now towards the symbolical and now towards the allegorical, according as intuition, feeling, or reflection predominated.

Whilst I was playing the part of shepherd on the Pleisse, and was childishly absorbed in such tender subjects, always choosing such only as I could easily recapture and lock in my heart, greater and more important themes had long before been provided for German poets.

It was Frederick the Great and the events of the Seven Years’ War which first gave to German literature a real and noble vitality. All national poetry cannot fail to be insipid, or inevitably becomes so, if it is not based on the man who stands first among men, upon the experiences which come to the nations and their leaders, when both stand together as one man. Kings should be represented in the midst of warfare and danger, for there they are made to appear the highest, just because the fate of the lowest depends upon them and is shared by them. In this way they become far more interesting than the gods themselves, who, when they have decided the destinies of men, do not share them. In this sense every nation that wishes to count for anything ought to possess an epic, though not necessarily in the form of an epic poem.

The war-songs first sung by Gleim deserve their high place in German poetry, because they were the outcome of and contemporary with the events they celebrate; and furthermore, because the felicitous form, suggestive of a combatant’s utterance in the thick of the fray, impresses us with its absolute effectiveness.

Ramler sings in different but dignified strains the exploits of his king. All his poems are thoughtful, and fill our minds with great and elevating subjects, and on that account alone possess an indestructible value.

For the significance of the subject treated of is the Alpha and Omega of art. Of course, no one will deny that genius, or cultivated artistic talent, can by its method of treatment make anything out of anything, and render the most refractory subject amenable. But on close inspection the result is rather an artistic feat than a work of art, which latter should be based on a fitting subject, so that in the end the skill, the care, the diligence of the artist’s treatment only brings out the dignity of the subject in greater attractiveness and splendor.

Prussians, and with them Protestant Germany, therefore gained a treasure-trove for their literature, which was lacking to the other party, who have not been able to repair the deficiency by subsequent efforts. In the high idea which they cherished of their King, the Prussian writers first found inspiration, and fostered it all the more zealously because he in whose name they did everything would have nothing whatever to say to them. French civilization had been widely introduced into Prussia at an earlier date by the French colony, and again later by the King’s preference for French culture and French financial methods. The effect of this French influence was to rouse the Germans to antagonism and resistance--a result decidedly beneficial in its operation. Equally fortunate for the development of literature was Frederick’s antipathy to German. They did everything to attract the King’s attention, not indeed to be honored, but only to be noticed by him; yet they did it in German fashion, from inner conviction; they did what they held to be right, and desired and wished that the King should recognize and prize this as right. That did not and could not happen; for how can it be expected that a king, who wishes to live and enjoy himself intellectually, should waste his years waiting to see what he thinks barbarous developed and rendered enjoyable too late? In matters of trade and manufacture, it is true, he pressed upon himself, but especially upon his people, very mediocre substitutes instead of excellent foreign wares; but in this department of life everything is perfected more rapidly, and it does not take a man’s life-time to bring such things to maturity.

But I must here, first of all, make honorable mention of one work, the most genuine product of the Seven Years’ War, altogether North German in its national sentiment; it is the first dramatic work founded upon important events of specific contemporary value, and therefore produced an incalculable effect--_Minna von Barnhelm_. Lessing, who, unlike Klopstock and Gleim, was fond of laying aside his personal dignity, because he was confident that he could resume it at any moment, delighted in a dissipated, worldly life and the society of taverns, as he always needed some strong external excitement to counterbalance his exuberant intellectual activity; and for this reason also he had joined the suite of General Tauentzien. It is easy to see how this drama was generated betwixt war and peace, hatred and affection. It was this production which successfully opened to the literary and middle-class world, in which poetic art had hitherto moved, a view into a higher, more significant world.

The hostile relations in which Prussians and Saxons had stood towards each other during this war, could not be removed by its termination. The Saxon now felt for the first time the whole bitterness of the wounds which the upstart Prussian had inflicted upon him. Political peace could not immediately reëstablish a peace between their hearts. But the establishment of this peace was represented symbolically in Lessing’s drama. The grace and amiability of the Saxon ladies conquer the worth, the dignity, and the stubbornness of the Prussians, and, in the principal as well as in the subordinate characters, a happy union of bizarre and contradictory elements is artistically represented.

If I have caused my readers some bewilderment by these cursory and desultory remarks on German literature, I have succeeded in giving them a conception of the chaotic condition of my poor brain at a time when, in the conflict of two epochs so important for the national literature, so much that was new crowded in upon me before I could come to terms with the old, so much that was old still maintained its hold upon me, though I already believed I might with good reason renounce it altogether.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] About 1765-68.

EXTRACTS FROM GOETHE’S CONVERSATIONS WITH ECKERMANN

EXTRACTS FROM THE CONVERSATIONS WITH ECKERMANN

(1822-32)

_The Universality of Poetry_

Within the last few days I have read many and various things; especially a Chinese novel, which occupies me still, and seems to me very remarkable. The Chinese think, act, and feel almost exactly like ourselves; and we soon find that we are perfectly like them, excepting that all they do is more clear, more pure and decorous than with us.

With them all is orderly, simple, without great passion or poetic flight; and there is a strong resemblance to my _Hermann and Dorothea_, as well as to the English novels of Richardson. They differ from us, however, inasmuch as with them external nature is always associated with human figures. You always hear the goldfish splashing in the pond, the birds are always singing on the bough, the day is always serene and sunny, the night is always clear. There is much talk about the moon, but it does not alter the landscape, its light is conceived to be as bright as day itself; and the interior of the houses is as neat and elegant as their pictures. For instance, “I heard the lovely girls laughing, and when I got a sight of them, they were sitting on cane chairs.” There you have, at once, the prettiest situation; for cane chairs are necessarily associated with the greatest lightness and elegance. Then there is an infinite number of legends which are constantly introduced into the narrative, and are applied almost like proverbs; as, for instance, one of a girl, who was so light and graceful on her feet that she could balance herself on a flower without breaking it; and then another, of a young man so virtuous and brave that in his thirtieth year he had the honor to talk with the Emperor; then there is another of two lovers who showed such great purity during a long acquaintance that when they were on one occasion obliged to pass the night in the same chamber, they occupied the time with conversation, and did not approach one another.

And in the same way, there are innumerable other legends, all turning upon what is moral and proper. It is by this severe moderation in everything that the Chinese Empire has sustained itself for thousands of years, and will endure hereafter.

I am more and more convinced that poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere, and at all times, in hundreds and hundreds of men. One makes it a little better than another, and swims on the surface a little longer than another--that is all. Herr von Matthisson must not think he is the man, nor must I think that I am the man; but each must say to himself that the gift of poetry is by no means so very rare, and that nobody need think very much of himself because he has written a good poem.

But, really, we Germans are very likely to fall too easily into this pedantic conceit, when we do not look beyond the narrow circle which surrounds us. I therefore like to look about me in foreign nations, and advise every one to do the same. National literature is now rather an unmeaning term; the epoch of World Literature is at hand, and every one must strive to hasten its approach. But, while we thus value what is foreign, we must not bind ourselves to anything in particular, and regard it as a model. We must not give this value to the Chinese, or the Servian, or Calderon, or the Nibelungen; but if we really want a pattern, we must always return to the ancient Greeks, in whose works the beauty of mankind is constantly represented. All the rest we must look at only historically, appropriating to ourselves what is good, so far as it goes.

_Poetry and Patriotism_[13]

To write military songs, and sit in a room! That would have suited me! To have written them in the bivouac, when the horses at the enemy’s outposts are heard neighing at night, would have been well enough; however, that was not my life and not my business, but that of Theodor Körner. His war-songs suit him perfectly. But to me, who am not of a warlike nature, and who have no warlike sense, war-songs would have been a mask which would have fitted my face very badly.

I have never affected anything in my poetry. I have never uttered anything which I have not experienced, and which has not urged me to production. I have only composed love-songs when I have loved. How could I write songs of hatred without hating! And, between ourselves, I did not hate the French, although I thanked God that we were free from them. How could I, to whom culture and barbarism are alone of importance, hate a nation which is among the most cultivated of the earth, and to which I owe so great a part of my own culture?

Altogether, national hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture. But there is a degree where it vanishes altogether, and where one stands to a certain extent _above_ nations, and feels the weal or woe of a neighboring people, as if it had happened to one’s own. This degree of culture was conformable to my nature, and I had become strengthened in it long before I had reached my sixtieth year.

* * * * *

It is better for us moderns to say with Napoleon, “Politics are Destiny.” But let us beware of saying, with our latest literati, that politics are poetry, or a suitable subject for the poet. The English poet Thomson wrote a very good poem on the Seasons, but a very bad one on Liberty, and that not from want of poetry in the poet, but from want of poetry in the subject.

If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that he is lost as a poet; he must bid farewell to his free spirit, his unbiased view, and draw over his ears the cap of bigotry and blind hatred.

The poet, as a man and citizen, will love his native land; but the native land of his _poetic_ powers and poetic action is the good, noble, and beautiful, which is confined to no particular province or country, and which he seizes upon and forms wherever he finds it. Therein is he like the eagle, who hovers with free gaze over whole countries, and to whom it is of no consequence whether the hare on which he pounces is running in Prussia or in Saxony.

And, then, what is meant by love of one’s country? what is meant by patriotic deeds? If the poet has employed a life in battling with pernicious prejudices, in setting aside narrow views, in enlightening the minds, purifying the tastes, ennobling the feelings and thoughts of his countrymen, what better could he have done? how could he have acted more patriotically?

_Poetry and History_

Manzoni wants nothing except to know what a good poet he is, and what rights belong to him as such. He has too much respect for history, and on this account always adds explanations to his pieces, in which he shows how faithful he has been to detail. Now, though his facts may be historical, his characters are not so, any more than my Thoas and Iphigenia. No poet has ever known the historical characters which he has painted; if he had, he could scarcely have made use of them. The poet must know what effects he wishes to produce, and regulate the nature of his characters accordingly. If I had tried to make Egmont as history represents him, the father of a dozen children, his light-minded proceedings would have appeared very absurd. I needed an Egmont more in harmony with his own actions and my poetic views; and this is, as Clara says, _my_ Egmont.

What would be the use of poets, if they only repeated the record of the historian? The poet must go further, and give us, if possible, something higher and better. All the characters of Sophocles bear something of that great poet’s lofty soul; and it is the same with the characters of Shakespeare. This is as it ought to be. Nay, Shakespeare goes farther, and makes his Romans Englishmen; and there, too, he is right; for otherwise his nation would not have understood him.

Here again the Greeks were so great that they regarded fidelity to historic facts less than the treatment of them by the poet. We have a fine example in Philoctetes, which subject has been treated by all three of the great tragic poets, and lastly and best by Sophocles. This poet’s excellent play has, fortunately, come down to us entire, while of the Philoctetes of Æschylus and Euripides only fragments have been found, although sufficient to show how they have managed the subject. If time permitted, I would restore these pieces, as I did the Phäeton of Euripides; it would be to me no unpleasant or useless task.

In this subject the problem was very simple, namely, to bring Philoctetes, with his bow, from the island of Lemnos. But the manner of doing this was the business of the poet, and here each could show the power of his invention, and one could excel another. Ulysses must fetch him; but shall he be recognized by Philoctetes or not? and if not, how shall he be disguised? Shall Ulysses go alone, or shall he have companions, and who shall they be? In Æschylus the companion is unknown; in Euripides, it is Diomed; in Sophocles, the son of Achilles. Then, in what situation is Philoctetes to be found? Shall the island be inhabited or not? and, if inhabited, shall any sympathetic soul have taken compassion on him or not? And so with a hundred other things, which are all at the discretion of the poet, and in the selection and omission of which one may show his superiority in wisdom to another. This is the important point, and the poets of to-day should do like the ancients. They should not be always asking whether a subject has been used before, and look to south and north for unheard-of adventures, which are often barbarous enough, and merely make an impression as incidents. But to make something of a simple subject by a masterly treatment requires intellect and great talent, and these we do not find.

_Originality_

The Germans cannot cease to be Philistines. They are now squabbling about some distichs, which are printed both in Schiller’s works and mine, and fancy it is important to ascertain which really belong to Schiller and which to me; as if anything could be gained by such investigation--as if the existence of such things were not enough. Friends like Schiller and myself, intimate for years, with the same interests, in habits of daily intercourse, and under reciprocal obligations, live so completely in one another that it is hardly possible to decide to which of the two the particular thoughts belong.

We have made many distichs together; sometimes I gave the thought, and Schiller made the verse; sometimes the contrary was the case; sometimes he made one line, and I the other. What matters the mine and thine? One must be a thorough Philistine, indeed, to attach the slightest importance to the solution of such questions.

We are indeed born with faculties; but we owe our development to a thousand influences of the great world, from which we appropriate to ourselves what we can, and what is suitable to us. I owe much to the Greeks and French; I am infinitely indebted to Shakespeare, Sterne, and Goldsmith; but in saying this I do not exhaust the sources of my culture; that would be an endless as well as an unnecessary task. We might as well question a strong man about the oxen, sheep, and swine which he has eaten, and which have given him strength. What is important is to have a soul which loves truth, and receives it wherever it finds it.

Besides, the world is now so old, so many eminent men have lived and thought for thousands of years, that there is little new to be discovered or expressed. Even my theory of colors is not entirely new. Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, and many other excellent men, have before me found and expressed the same thing in a detached form: my merit is that I have found it also, that I have said it again, and that I have striven to bring the truth once more into a confused world.

The truth must be repeated over and over again, because error is repeatedly preached among us, not only by individuals, but by the masses. In periodicals and cyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere, in fact, error prevails, and is quite easy in the feeling that it has a decided majority on its side.

* * * * *

People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end. And, after all, what can we call our own except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.

However, the time of life in which we are subjected to a new and important personal influence is, by no means, a matter of indifference. That Lessing, Winckelmann, and Kant were older than I, and that the first two acted upon my youth, the latter on my advanced age,--this circumstance was for me very important. Again, that Schiller was so much younger than I, and engaged in his freshest strivings just as I began to be weary of the world--just, too, as the brothers von Humboldt and Schlegel were beginning their career under my eye--was of the greatest importance. I derived from it unspeakable advantages.

What seduces young people is this. We live in a time in which so much culture is diffused that it has communicated itself, as it were, to the atmosphere which a young man breathes. Poetical and philosophic thoughts live and move within him, he has sucked them in with his very breath, but he thinks they are his own property, and utters them as such. But after he has restored to the time what he has received from it, he remains poor. He is like a fountain which plays for a while with the water with which it is supplied, but which ceases to flow as soon as the liquid treasure is exhausted.

* * * * *

The critic of _Le Temps_ has not been so wise. He presumes to point out to the poet the way he should go. This is a great fault; for one cannot thus make him better. After all, there is nothing more foolish than to say to a poet: “You should have done this in this way--and that in that.” I speak from long experience. One can never make anything of a poet but what nature has intended him to be. If you force him to be another, you will destroy him. Now, the gentlemen of the _Globe_, as I said before, act very wisely. They print a long list of all the commonplaces which M. Arnault has picked up from every hole and corner; and by doing this they very cleverly point out the rock which the author has to avoid in future. It is almost impossible, in the present day, to find a situation which is thoroughly new. It is merely the manner of looking at it, and the art of treating and representing it, which can be new, and one must be the more cautious of every imitation.

_Personality in Art_

You have before you the works of very fair talents, who have learned something, and have acquired no little taste and art. Still, something is wanting in all these pictures--the _Manly_. Take notice of this word, and underscore it. The pictures lack a certain urgent power, which in former ages was generally expressed, but in which the present age is deficient, and that with respect not only to painting, but to all the other arts. We have a more weakly race, of which we cannot say whether it is so by its origin, or by a more weakly training and diet.

Personality is everything in art and poetry; nevertheless, there are many weak personages among the modern critics who do not admit this, but look upon a great personality in a work of poetry or art merely as a kind of trifling appendage.

However, to feel and respect a great personality one must be something oneself. All those who denied the sublime to Euripides were either poor wretches incapable of comprehending such sublimity, or shameless charlatans, who, by their presumption, wished to make more of themselves, and really did make more of themselves than they were.

_The Subject-Matter of Poetry_

The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never want occasions for poems. But they must all be occasional poems; that is to say, reality must give both impulse and material for their production. A particular case becomes universal and poetic by the very circumstance that it is treated by a poet. All my poems are occasional poems, suggested by real life, and having therein a firm foundation. I attach no value to poems snatched out of the air.

Let no one say that reality wants poetical interest; for in this the poet proves his vocation, that he has the art to win from a common subject an interesting side. Reality must give the motive, the points to be expressed, the kernel, as I may say; but to work out of it a beautiful, animated whole, belongs to the poet. You know Fürnstein, called the Poet of Nature; he has written the prettiest poem possible on the cultivation of hops. I have now proposed to him to make songs for the different crafts of working-men, particularly a weaver’s song, and I am sure he will do it well, for he has lived among such people from his youth; he understands the subjects thoroughly, and is therefore master of his material. That is exactly the advantage of small works; you need only choose those subjects of which you are master. With a great poem, this cannot be: no part can be evaded; all which belongs to the animation of the whole, and is interwoven into the plan, must be represented with precision. In youth, however, the knowledge of things is only one-sided. A great work requires many-sidedness, and on that rock the young author splits.

* * * * *

I especially warn you against great inventions of your own; for then you would try to give a view of things, and for that purpose youth is seldom ripe. Further, character and views detach themselves as sides from the poet’s mind, and deprive him of the fullness requisite for future productions. And, finally, how much time is lost in invention, internal arrangement, and combination, for which nobody thanks us, even supposing our work is happily accomplished.

With a _given_ material, on the other hand, all goes easier and better. Facts and characters being provided, the poet has only the task of animating the whole. He preserves his own fullness, for he needs to part with but little of himself, and there is much less loss of time and energy, since he has only the trouble of execution. Indeed, I would advise the choice of subjects which have been worked before. How many Iphigenias have been written! yet they are all different, for each writer considers and arranges the subject differently; namely, after his own fashion.

* * * * *

The majority of our young poets have no fault but this, that their subjectivity is not important, and that they cannot find matter in the objective. At best, they only find a material which is similar to themselves, which corresponds to their own subjectivity; but as for taking the material on its own account; merely because it is poetical, even when it is repugnant to their subjectivity, such a thing is never thought of.

* * * * *

Our German æstheticians are always talking about poetical and unpoetical objects; and, in one respect, they are not quite wrong; yet, at bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.

_The Influence of Environment_

If a talent is to be speedily and happily developed, the great point is that a great deal of intellect and sound culture should be current in a nation.

We admire the tragedies of the ancient Greeks; but, to take a correct view of the case, we ought rather to admire the period and the nation in which their production was possible than the individual authors; for though these pieces differ a little from each other, and one of these poets appears somewhat greater and more finished than the other, still, taking all things together, only one decided character runs through the whole.

This is the character of grandeur, fitness, soundness, human perfection, elevated wisdom, sublime thought, clear, concrete vision, and whatever other qualities one might enumerate. But when we find all these qualities, not only in the dramatic works that have come down to us, but also in lyrical and epic works, in the philosophers, the orators, and the historians, and in an equally high degree in the works of plastic art that have come down to us, we must feel convinced that such qualities did not merely belong to individuals, but were the current property of the nation and the whole period.

Now, take up Burns. How is he great, except through the circumstance that the old songs of his predecessors lived in the mouth of the people,--that they were, so to speak, sung at his cradle; that, as a boy, he grew up amongst them, and the high excellence of these models so pervaded him that he had therein a living basis on which he could proceed further? Again, why is he great, but from this, that his own songs at once found susceptible ears amongst his compatriots; that, sung by reapers and sheaf-binders, they at once greeted him in the field; and that his boon-companions sang them to welcome him at the alehouse? Something was certainly to be done in this way.

On the other hand, what a pitiful figure is made by us Germans! Of our old songs--no less important than those of Scotland--how many lived among the people in the days of my youth? Herder and his successors first began to collect them and rescue them from oblivion; then they were at least printed in the libraries. Then, more lately, what songs have not Bürger and Voss composed! Who can say that they are more insignificant or less popular than those of the excellent Burns? but which of them so lives among us that it greets us from the mouth of the people?--they are written and printed, and they remain in the libraries, quite in accordance with the general fate of German poets. Of my own songs, how many live? Perhaps one or another of them may be sung by a pretty girl at the piano; but among the people, properly so called, they have no sound. With what sensations must I remember the time when passages from Tasso were sung to me by Italian fishermen!

We Germans are of yesterday. We have indeed been properly cultivated for a century; but a few centuries more must still elapse before so much mind and elevated culture will become universal amongst our people that they will appreciate beauty like the Greeks, that they will be inspired by a beautiful song, and that it will be said of them “it is long since they were barbarians.”

_Culture and Morals_

The audacity and grandeur of Byron must certainly tend towards Culture. We should take care not to be always looking for it in only what is decidedly pure and moral. Everything that is great promotes cultivation as soon as we are aware of it.

_Classic and Romantic_

A new expression occurs to me which does not ill define the state of the case. I call the classic _healthy_, the romantic _sickly_. In this sense, the _Nibelungenlied_ is as classic as the _Iliad_, for both are vigorous and healthy. Most modern productions are romantic, not because they are new, but because they are weak, morbid, and sickly; and the antique is classic, not because it is old, but because it is strong, fresh, joyous, and healthy. If we distinguish “classic” and “romantic” by these qualities, it will be easy to see our way clearly.

* * * * *

This is a pathological work; a superfluity of sap is bestowed on some parts which do not require it, and drawn out of those which stand in need of it. The subject was good, but the scenes which I expected were not there; while others, which I did not expect, were elaborated with assiduity and love. This is what I call pathological, or “romantic,” if you would rather speak according to our new theory.

* * * * *

The French now begin to think justly of these matters. Both classic and romantic, say they, are equally good. The only point is to use these forms with judgment, and to be capable of excellence. You can be absurd in both, and then one is as worthless as the other. This, I think, is rational enough, and may content us for a while.

* * * * *

The idea of the distinction between classical and romantic poetry, which is now spread over the whole world, and occasions so many quarrels and divisions, came originally from Schiller and myself. I laid down the maxim of objective treatment in poetry, and would allow no other; but Schiller, who worked quite in the subjective way, deemed his own fashion the right one, and to defend himself against me, wrote the treatise upon _Naïve and Sentimental Poetry_. He proved to me that I myself, against my will, was romantic, and that my _Iphigenia_, through the predominance of sentiment, was by no means so classical and so much in the antique spirit as some people supposed.

The Schlegels took up this idea, and carried it further, so that it has now been diffused over the whole world; and every one talks about classicism and romanticism--of which nobody thought fifty years ago.

_Taste_

This is the way to cultivate what we call taste. Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good, but of the truly excellent. I therefore show you only the best works; and when you are grounded in these, you will have a standard for the rest, which you will know how to value, without overrating them. And I show you the best in each class, that you may perceive that no class is to be despised, but that each gives delight when a man of genius attains its highest point. For instance, this piece, by a French artist, is _galant_, to a degree which you see nowhere else, and is therefore a model in its way.

_Style_

On the whole, philosophical speculation is injurious to the Germans, as it tends to make their style abstract, difficult, and obscure. The stronger their attachment to certain philosophical schools, the worse they write. Those Germans who, as men of business and actual life, confine themselves to the practical, write the best. Schiller’s style is most noble and impressive whenever he leaves off philosophizing, as I observe every day in his highly interesting letters, with which I am now busy.

There are also among the German women talented beings who write a really excellent style, and, indeed, in that respect surpass many of our celebrated male writers.

The English almost always write well, being born orators and practical men, with a tendency to the real.

The French, in their style, remain true to their general character. They are of a social nature, and therefore never forget the public whom they address; they strive to be clear; that they may convince their reader--agreeable, that they may please him.

Altogether, the style of a writer is a faithful representative of his mind; therefore, if any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts: and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.

_Intellect and Imagination_

I wonder what the German critics will say [of this poetic inconsistency]. Will they have freedom and boldness enough to get over this? Intellect will stand in the way of the French; they will not consider that the imagination has its own laws, to which the intellect cannot, and should not, penetrate.

If imagination did not originate things which must ever be problems to the intellect, there would be but little for the imagination to do. It is this which separates poetry from prose; and it is in the latter that the intellect always is, and always should be, at home.

_Definition of Poetry_

What need of much definition? Lively feeling of situations, and power to express them, make the poet.

_Definition of Beauty_

I cannot help laughing at the æstheticians, who torment themselves in endeavoring, by some abstract words, to reduce to a conception that inexpressible thing to which we give the name of beauty. Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.

_Architecture and Music_

I have found a paper of mine among some others, in which I call architecture “petrified music.”[14] Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.

_Primitive Poetry_

From these old German gloomy times we can obtain as little as from the Servian songs, and similar barbaric popular poetry. We can read it and be interested about it for a while, but merely to cast it aside, and let it lie behind us. Generally speaking, a man is quite sufficiently saddened by his own passions and destiny, and need not make himself more so by the darkness of a barbaric past. He needs enlightening and cheering influences, and should therefore turn to those eras in art and literature, during which remarkable men obtained perfect culture, so that they were satisfied with themselves, and able to impart to others the blessings of their culture.

_Weltliteratur_

We [Germans] are weakest in the æsthetic department, and may wait long before we meet such a man as Carlyle. It is pleasant to see that intercourse is now so close between the French, English, and Germans, that we shall be able to correct one another. This is the greatest use of a World Literature, which will show itself more and more.

Carlyle has written a life of Schiller, and judged him as it would be difficult for a German to judge him. On the other hand, we are clear about Shakespeare and Byron, and can, perhaps, appreciate their merits better than the English themselves.

_French Critics_

I am now really curious to know what the gentlemen of the _Globe_ will say of this novel. They are clever enough to perceive its excellencies; and the whole tendency of the work is so much grist to the mill of these liberals, although Manzoni has shown himself very moderate. Nevertheless, the French seldom receive a work with such pure kindliness as we; they cannot readily adapt themselves to the author’s point of view, but, even in the best, always find something which is not to their mind, and which the author should have done otherwise.

* * * * *

What men these writers in the _Globe_ are! One has scarcely a notion how much greater and more remarkable they become every day, and how much, as it were, they are imbued with one spirit. Such a paper would be utterly impossible in Germany. We are mere individuals; harmony and concert are not to be thought of; each has the opinions of his province, his city, and his own idiosyncrasy; and it will be a long while before we have attained an universal culture.

_The Construction of a Good Play_

When a piece makes a deep impression on us in reading, we think that it will do the same on the stage, and that such a result can be obtained with little trouble. But this is by no means the case. A piece that is not originally, by the intent and skill of the poet, written for the boards, will not succeed; but whatever is done to it will always remain something unmanageable. What trouble have I taken with my _Goetz von Berlichingen_! Yet it will not quite do as an acting play; it is too long; and I have been forced to divide it into two parts, of which the last is indeed theatrically effective, while the first is to be looked upon as a mere introduction. If the first part were given only once as an introduction, and then the second repeatedly, it might succeed. It is the same with _Wallenstein_; the _Piccolomini_ does not bear repetition, but _Wallenstein’s Death_ is always seen with delight.

The construction of a play must be symbolical; that is to say, each incident must be significant in itself, and lead to another still more important. The _Tartuffe_ of Molière is, in this respect, a great example. Only think what an introduction is the first scene! From the very beginning everything is highly significant, and leads us to expect something still more important which is to come. The beginning of Lessing’s _Minna von Barnhelm_ is also admirable; but that of _Tartuffe_ is absolutely unique: it is the greatest and best thing that exists of the kind.

In Calderon you find the same perfect adaptation to the theatre. His pieces are throughout fit for the boards; there is not a touch in them which is not directed towards the required effect. Calderon is a genius who had also the finest understanding.

Shakespeare wrote his plays direct from his own nature. Then, too, his age and the existing arrangements of the stage made no demands upon him; people were forced to put up with whatever he gave them. But if Shakespeare had written for the court of Madrid, or for the theatre of Louis XIV, he would probably have adapted himself to a severer theatrical form. This, however, is by no means to be regretted, for what Shakespeare has lost as a theatrical poet he has gained as a poet in general. Shakespeare is a great psychologist, and we learn from his pieces what really moves the hearts of men.

_Dramatic Unities_

He [Byron] understood the purpose of this law no better than the rest of the world. Comprehensibility [_das Fassliche_] is the purpose, and the three unities are only so far good as they conduce to this end. If the observance of them hinders the comprehension of a work, it is foolish to treat them as laws, and to try to observe them. Even the Greeks, from whom the rule was taken, did not always follow it. In the _Phaethon_ of Euripides, and in other pieces, there is a change of place, and it is obvious that good representation of their subject was with them more important than blind obedience to law, which, in itself, is of no great consequence. The pieces of Shakespeare deviate, as far as possible, from the unities of time and place; but they are comprehensible--nothing more so--and on this account the Greeks would have found no fault in them. The French poets have endeavored to follow most rigidly the laws of the three unities, but they sin against comprehensibility, inasmuch as they solve a dramatic law, not dramatically, but by narration.

_The Theatre_