I tried, while I was in Paris, to understand something of the
development of French literature since the beginning of the century, to
arrange it in stages, and note the order of their succession; I wanted,
at the same time, to form for myself a similar general view of Danish
literature, and institute parallels between the two, being convinced
beforehand that the spirit of the age must be approximately the same in
two European countries that were, so to speak, intellectually allied.
This was my first naïve attempt to trace The Main Currents in
Nineteenth Century Literature.
The French poetry of the nineteenth century seemed to me to fall into
three groups: Romanticism, the School of Common Sense, the Realistic
Art. I defined them as follows:
I. What the French call _Romanticism_ has many distinguishing marks. It
is, firstly, a _break with Graeco-Roman antiquity_. It therefore harks
back to the Gallic, and to the Middle Ages. It is a resurrection of the
poets of the sixteenth century. But the attempt is a failure, for
Ronsard and the Pleiad [Footnote: The poets who formed the first and
greater Pleiad were, besides Ronsard, Dubellay, Remi, Belleau, Jodelle,
Dorat, Baif and Pontus de Thiard.] are also Greek-taught, are
Anacreontics. If we except the _Chanson de Roland_, there is no
original mediaeval literature that can be compared with the Icelandic.
For that reason the choice of subjects is extended from the Middle Ages
in France to the Middle Ages in other countries, for instance, Germany,
whence Victor Hugo derives his drama _Les Burgraves_. The poets select
foreign matter, Alfred de Vigny treats Chatterton and Musset Italian
and Spanish themes. Mérimée harks back to the French Middle Ages (The
Peasant Rising), but as he there finds too little originality, he
flees, as a poet, to less civilised nationalities, Spaniards, South
Americans, Corsicans, Russians, etc. Romanticism becomes ethnographical.
Its second distinguishing mark is _tempestuous violence_. It is
connected with the 1830 revolution. It attacks society and the
conditions of property (Saint Simon, Fourier, Proudhon), attacks
marriage and the official verdict upon sexual relations (Dumas) Antony
Rousseau's old doctrine that Nature is good, the natural state the
right one, and that society alone has spoilt everything. George Sand in
particular worships Rousseau, and writes in essential agreement with
him.
In the later French literature the influence of Voltaire and that of
Rousseau are alternately supreme. Voltaire rules until 1820, Rousseau
again until 1850, then Voltaire takes the reins once more with About,
Taine, and Sarcey. In Renan Voltaire is merged with Rousseau, and now,
later still, Diderot has taken the place of both.
II. The _School of Common Sense_ (_l'école de bon sens_) follows upon
Romanticism. As the latter worshipped passion, so the School of Common
Sense pays homage to sound human intelligence. In certain individuals
it is possible to trace the transition--Musset's _Un Caprice_ in
contrast with the wanton works of his youth. George Sand's village
novels, in contrast with her novels on Marriage. The popular tone and
the landscape drawing here, which, for that matter, are all derived
from Rousseau, lead on into a tranquil idyl. Works like Ponsard's
_Lucrèce_ and Augier's _Gabrielle_ show the reaction from Romanticism.
In the tragedy it is Lucrèce, in the modern play, Gabrielle, upon whom
the action hinges. In Ponsard and Augier common sense, strict justice,
and a conventional feeling of honour, are acclaimed. Marriage is
glorified in all of Ponsard, Augier and Octave Feuillet's dramas.
Literature has no doubt been influenced in some degree by the ruling
orders of the monarchy of July. Louis Philippe was the bourgeois King.
An author like Scribe, who dominates the stages of Europe, is animated
by the all-powerful bourgeois spirit, educated and circumscribed as it
was. Cousin, in his first manner, revolutionary Schellingism,
corresponded to romanticism; his eclecticism as a moralising
philosopher corresponds to the School of Common Sense. The distinctive
feature which they have in common becomes a so-called Idealism. Ponsard
revives the classical traditions of the seventeenth century. In
criticism this endeavour in the direction of the sensible and the
classical, is represented by Nisard, Planche, and Sainte-Beuve in his
second manner.
III. The third tendency of the century Is _Realistic Art_, with
physiological characteristics. It finds its support in positivist
philosophy; Herbart in Germany, Bentham and Mill in England, Comte and
Littré in France. In criticism, Sainte-Beuve's third manner. On the
stage, the younger Dumas. In novels, the brothers Goncourt, and
Flaubert. In Art, a certain brutality in the choice of subject, _Gérôme
and Régnault_. In politics, the accomplished fact (_le fait accompli_),
the Empire, the brutal pressure from above and general levelling by
universal suffrage from below. In lyric poetry, the strictly technical
artists of form of the _Parnasse_, Coppée, who describes unvarnished
reality, and the master workmen (_les maîtres de la facture_), Leconte
Delisle, Gautier and his pupils, who write better verse than Lamartine
and Hugo, but have no new thoughts or feelings--the poetic language
materialists.
In conclusion, a great many indistinct beginnings, of which it is as
yet impossible to say whither they are tending.
This, my first attempt to formulate for myself a general survey of one
of the great literatures of the nineteenth century, contained much that
was true enough, but revealed very plainly the beginner's lack of
ability to estimate the importance of phenomena, an inclination to
over-estimate purely evanescent apparitions, and a tendency to include
that which was merely externally similar, under one heading. The
insignificant School of Common Sense could not by any means be regarded
as marking an epoch. Neither, with any justice, could men like Augier
and Dumas be placed in different groups. The attempt to point out
realism in the lyric art was likewise exceedingly audacious.
However, this division and grouping seemed to me at that time to be a
great discovery, and great was my disappointment when one day I
consulted Chasles on the subject and he thought it too forced, and
another day submitted it to Renan, who restricted himself to the reply:
"No! no! Things do not proceed so systematically!"
As this survey of the literature of France was also intended to guide
me with regard to the Danish, I groped my way forward in the following
manner:
I. _Romanticism_. Oehlenschläger's attitude towards the past
corresponds exactly to Victor Hugo's; only that the resurrection of the
Middle Ages in poetry is much more successful (_Earl Hakon, The Gods of
the North_), by reason of the fresh originality in Snorre and the
_Edda_. Grundtvig's _Scenes from the Lives of the Warriors of the
North_ likewise owes all its value to the Edda and the Sagas.
Oehlenschläger's _Aladdin_ is the Northern pendant to Hugo's _Les
Orientales_. Gautier, as a poet, Delacroix as a painter, affect the
East, as Oehlenschläger does in _Ali and Gulhyndi_. Steffens and
Sibbern, as influenced by Schelling, correspond to Cousin. Hauch not
infrequently seeks his poetic themes in Germany, as do Nodier and
Gérard de Nerval. Ingemann's weak historical novels correspond to the
French imitations of Sir Walter Scott (Alfred de Vigny's _Cinq-Mars_,
Dumas' _Musketeers_). Oehlenschläger's tragedies correspond to the
dramas of Victor Hugo. With the Danes, as with the French, hatred of
intelligence, as cold; only that the Danes glorify imagination and
enthusiasm, the French, passion. Romanticism lasts in Denmark (without
Revolutions and Restorations) until about 1848, as in France.
II. The _School of Common Sense_ is in Denmark partly a worship of the
sound sense of the people, partly a moralising tendency. Grundtvig,
with his popular manner, his appreciation of the unsophisticated
peasant nature, had points of contact with the pupils of Rousseau.
Moralising works are Heiberg's _A Soul after Death_, Paludan-Müller's
_Adam Homo_, and Kierkegaard's _Either-Or_. The funny thing about the
defence of marriage contained in this last book is that it defends what
no one in Denmark attacks. It can only be understood from the
contemporary movement in the intellectual life of Europe, which is now
asserting the universal validity of morality, as it formerly did the
right of passion. Its defence of Protestantism corresponds to Octave
Feuillet's defence of Catholicism, only that Feuillet is conciliatory,
Kierkegaard vehement. Björnson's peasant novels, which are a
continuation of Grundtvig and Blicher, are, by their harmony and their
peaceable relations to all that is, an outcome of love of common sense;
they have the same anti-Byronic stamp as the School of Common Sense.
The movement comes to us ten years later. But Björnson has
simultaneously something of Romanticism and something of Realism. We
have not men to place separately in the various frames.
III. _Realistic Art_. There is so far only an attempt at a realistic
art.
Thus, in Björnson's _Arne_ and _Sigurd Slembe_. Note also an attempt in
Bergsöe's clumsy use of realistic features, and in his seeking after
effect. Richardt corresponds in our lyric art as an artist in language
to the poets of the _Parnasse_, while Heiberg's philosophy and most of
his poetry may be included in the School of Common Sense. Bröchner's
_Ideal Realism_ forms the transitional stage to the philosophy of
Reality. Ibsen's attack upon the existing state of things corresponds
to realism in the French drama. He is Dumas on Northern soil. In the
_Love Comedy_, as a scoffer he is inharmonious. In _Peer Gynt_, he
continues in the moralising tendency with an inclination to coarse and
brutal realistic effects (relations with Anitra).
In Germany we find ourselves at the second stage still, sinking deeper
and deeper into dialect and popular subjects (from Auerbach to Claus
Groth and Fritz Reuter).
It is unnecessary to point out to readers of the present day how
incomplete and arbitrary this attempt at a dissection of Danish
literature was. I started from the conviction that modern intellectual
life in Europe, in different countries, must necessarily in all
essentials traverse the same stages, and as I was able to find various
unimportant points of similarity in support of this view, I quite
overlooked the fact that the counterbalancing weight of dissimilarities
rendered the whole comparison futile.