Having thus considered the general character of the content of lyric
poetry, and the mode of its expression, as also the varied grades
of culture which are more or less consonant with its fundamental
principle, it will be our further task to examine these general points
of view more nearly in the _detail_ of their more important features
and relations.
Here, too, I ought at starting once again to emphasize the distinction
which obtains between epic and lyrical poetry. In our consideration
of the former we directed our attention above all to the primitive
national Epos, and merely referred incidentally to the inadequate
collateral branches, as also to the poet in his creative capacity.
This we are unable to do in the case of the type under discussion. On
the contrary, we shall find that subjects of the greatest importance
invite our review as respects the individual creative power; and,
on the other hand, in respect to the classification of the several
types in which lyrical poetry, whose general principle it is to
disintegrate and isolate the content and its configurations, is
respectively differentiated. We may define the subsequent course of our
investigation as follows:
_First,_ our attention will be directed to the lyrical poet himself.
_Secondly_, we propose to examine the lyrical work of art as the
creation of the individual poet's imagination.
_Thirdly_, we shall classify the types which are deducible from the
general notion of lyrical composition.
(_a_) _The Lyric Poet_
(_α_) Now the content of the Lyric embraces, as we have seen, first,
a type of contemplation, which connects the universal quality of
determinate being with its conditions, and, secondly, the manifold
character of its detailed aspects. Regarded, however, as pure
generalizations and particular points of view of emotional condition
these constituents, both of them, are nothing more than abstractions.
In order that these may acquire a vital lyrical individuality, a
principle of combination is necessary which can only be of an ideal, in
other words really personal[7] character. Consequently the creatively
concrete person, the _poet_ himself, must be further presupposed as the
focus and in fact realized content of lyrical poetry. He must be there,
however, in a form which is not carried to the point of definitive act
and deed, or to that of the evolved movement of dramatic conflicts. His
exclusive expression and activity is on the contrary restricted to the
fact that he endows his inner experience with an articulate speech such
as portrays the spiritual significance of himself as subject in his
self-expression, whatever the material selected may be, and endeavours
to arouse in and keep the hearer alive to the like meaning and spirit,
the same soul-state, the similar course of reflection.
(_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 he _cannot 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 the Romans 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 an _ex officio_ manner 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 janitorem_
_Fiet, 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 unified _complexus_ of 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, and in 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 is _defined_ in its _concreteness_, and on the other it must
_affiliate_ itself 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 our _second_ point, 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 the _objective_ world, 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 of _assimilation_,[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 that _episodes_ are permissible as well to the lyric
poet; but he ought to employ them on other grounds 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 following the 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 the _external form_ and actual presentment
of the lyric composition. Above all we shall have to deal with _metre_
and the _musical 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 extreme _variety_ of 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 the _first_ place,
the more 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--and _thirdly_ the 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, is the 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 of
_music_, 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 the _first_ instance,
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 more _personal_ aspect 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.
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.
The _prophets_, 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 the _personal life_ of 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 the _personal
enthusiasm_ in 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, as _his_ work, 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, is
rather 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 the
_song_, 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_, the _genuine song_ intended 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. And yet 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 century strikes 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 in _them,_ 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, the _folk-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 the nation 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 a greater or less extent,
to every member of the Christian Church.
(_ββ_) We may further return to another division of this class, the
_sonnet, 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_) The _third_ type 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 Erdenleben
Soll sie im blauen Himmelszelt,
Die Nachbarin des Donners, schweben
Und grenzen an die Sternen weit,
Soll eine Stimme seyn von oben,
Wie der Gestirne helle Schaar,
Die ihren Schöpfer wandelnd toben
Und führen das bekränzte Jahr.
Nur ewigen und ernsten Dingen
Sei ihr metall'ner Mund geweiht,
Und stündlich mit den schnellen Schwingen
Berühr' im Fluge sie die Zeit.[16]