antiquated pastoral and cloistral Romanticism was an abomination.
In an essay entitled _Goethe, Uhland, und Prometheus_ he made a
violent attack on those poets who sought and "found their creed in
their certificates of baptism, their morals in conventionality, their
principles in established custom, and their poetry in the poetry of
other people." What have you to offer us? he cried. Evening walks in
the setting sun. Where is your effort to keep pace with the times?
Meanwhile the reaction against the Revolution of July was in full
progress everywhere. The policy of Prussia, as well as that of Austria,
was controlled by Metternich; and when the youth of Germany began to
understand on what side the power and the energy were, and probably
would be for long to come, they went over to that side. Gutzkow says,
that out of every hundred students at the University of Berlin at that
time, ninety-seven were strong Conservatives; and every meeting with an
old school or college companion, more especially if he happened to be a
civil servant or an officer, left a most painful impression on his mind.
In such circumstances it often happens that high-spirited, able young
men lose their heads and commit rash actions for which they are blamed
all their lives.
Schleiermacher was dead, laid to rest with great ceremonial, mourned
as a father of the Protestant Church, one of the saints of theology.
It had long ago been said, and well said, of him, that his character
answered to his name (Schleiermacher = veilmaker). By dint of
ambiguities and uncertain utterances he had kept himself popular to the
end of his days. No one had brought up against him that Romantic sin of
his youth, the _Vertrauliche Briefe um Lucinde_ ("Confidential Letters
on the Subject of Lucinde.")
But now Gutzkow, who erroneously concluded that this forgotten book
would be omitted from the edition of Schleiermacher's works then in
preparation, could not resist the temptation to republish it, and to
defend himself and his friends against the perpetual accusations of
godless immorality by showing that their erotic views, and even their
doctrine of the rehabilitation of the flesh, had been held by that man
of God who was the revered lord and master of the theologians.
This might have been a good tactical move if the youth, for he was
still only twenty-three, had not written a foolish, boyish preface to
the book. In it he addresses himself to the "watchmen of Zion," scoffs
at their sanctimoniousness and spiritual coquetry, and thus adjures
them:--"For one moment cast your priestly robes from you, forget that
a man whom you still perpetually crucify was God, and listen to what
happened once on a time elsewhere, in the world of liberty, youth, and
fancy!"
What had happened was the publication of Schlegel's _Lucinde_, that
lewd skeleton, which in Gutzkow's eyes is glorious and classic, and of
Schleiermacher's letters about it, which in Gutzkow's estimation are
divine. The Letters speak for themselves. They absurdly over-estimate
_Lucinde_, but the genuine human feeling in them is beautiful and
courageous. In Gutzkow's preface everything is emphasised in a
disagreeably defiant manner. He avers that love is of the nature of
genius, maintains that priestly action neither adds to nor takes from
the sacredness of marriage, tauntingly declaims against the cold
prose of the ordinary marriage, "the water-soup weddings, the sordid
procreation of children and struggle for mouldy bread." He winds up
flippantly with: "Now tell me truly, Rosalie! Is it not since you
have worn spurs on your little silk boots, since I have taught you
how to throw your cloak over your shoulder, since I have invented a
new sort of inexpressibles for you, so that every one takes you to be
my youngest, dearly loved brother, is it not since then that you know
what I meant by: I love you?" And not content with this female wearer
of breeches, who is the realisation of his idea of the emancipation
of woman, Gutzkow last of all plays out an atheistic trump; "Where is
Franz?--Come here, dear boy. I know they baptized you secretly. Who is
God? What! you don't know, you innocent atheist, you philosophic child!
Oh, if the world too had only not known about God, how much happier it
would have been!"
No specially acute critical faculty is needed to detect the unreality
in this student's braggadocio. The original of the Rosalie who was to
follow Gutzkow about in page's dress was more probably the Kaled of
Byron's _Lara_ than any Heidelberg or Berlin seamstress. It is easy to
imagine what effect such a preface to such a book would produce on the
general public and on orthodox journalism.
Only a drop was needed to fill the cup of public indignation, and
that drop Gutzkow did not fail to add. In 1835 he wrote _Wally, die
Zweiflerin_ ("The Sceptic"), which is an exceedingly weak story, with a
positively burlesque crucial episode, but which nevertheless influenced
the course of events more powerfully than any other German literary
work of the day.
Strauss's _Life of Jesus_ had lately come out, and its resolution of
the historical element in that life into myths, bold and fanciful to
the verge of folly as the hypothesis was, had violently perturbed the
thinking minds of Germany. Indignation was universal. A thousand-voiced
cry of condemnation rose from the Eider to Switzerland. For many a
year, in the public mind, there was a dark stain on the name of David
Strauss.
The book was talked about everywhere, and Gutzkow one evening began to
discuss its problem with a young girl to whom he was attached. "Don't
let us talk about that," she said, "the very thought drives me mad!"
These words made a strong impression on him.
Strauss's book itself had not satisfied him. Rationalist as he was, he
felt the need for a historic Jesus, and betook himself to the study of
Reimarus's old _Wolfenbüttel Fragments_, to which Lessing before him
had devoted so much attention. He determined to publish a selection
from these, but it was in vain that he applied with this intention to
the most courageous of the German publishers, Campe. In spite of his
bold political attitude, Campe dared not expose himself to the rancour
of the Hamburg clergy, Pastor Goetze's successors in the cure of souls.
It was about this time that the noble Charlotte Stieglitz committed
suicide. The impression produced by this tragic event combined itself
in Gutzkow's mind with the impressions made by his young friend's
remark and by Reimarus's Biblical criticism--and _Wally, the Sceptic_,
was the result.
It is a childish book, this _Wally_, but it is innocent, honest, and
artless. The heroine is a young lady moving in good society, who, in
despair at not being able to overcome the religious doubts awakened
in her mind by the man she loves, the sceptical, _blasé_ Cæsar, kills
herself with a dagger.
Gutzkow had been unable to withstand the temptation of reminding the
venerable lights and defenders of the Church, the dignitaries of all
the different classes of the Order of the Red Eagle, that there had
once lived men named Hume, Voltaire, Lessing, &c. There was something
fascinating to a young man in the idea of reminding such grand folks of
such forgotten existences. But it ought to have been done with talent.
In Gutzkow's novel the plot was a mere excuse for ventilating theories,
_Wally_ was a weak imitation of _Lélia_, the last novel which George
Sand had published.
But its author was in the spring-tide of his youth. It seemed to him
as if the whole world were growing young again. The glow of Hegel's
sinking sun still illuminated the horizon, Bettina arose like a morning
star, the ever-young wisdom of Rahel was scattered abroad over the
earth after her death like fruitful dew, Lenau's and Rückert's early
poems were like the song of the lark, Ruge's first critical articles
and Feuerbach's first philosophic writings were like fresh spring
breezes that cleared the air--the time seemed to him so sunny, so
promising, so laden with fruit, that it was as it were symbolised by
the two glorious summers of 1834 and 1835, with their rich harvests of
corn and wine. And it was then he committed his first great youthful
blunder.
He was not satisfied with embodying his religious heterodoxy in his
book; he also proclaimed his moral heterodoxy, his defiance of the
accepted code of sexual morality--a very clumsy and immature defiance.
But the best idea of how very innocently Gutzkow interpreted that
watchword, "the emancipation of the flesh," which he himself employs,
is to be gained from the notorious scene in _Wally_, which was intended
by the author to express his worship of beauty.
Wally loves Cæsar and is loved by him, but they cannot marry each
other, because Wally has been obliged to betroth herself to the
Sardinian ambassador. Cæsar entreats her that she will as it were
symbolically celebrate a spiritual marriage with him by showing herself
to him in all her naked beauty the night before her wedding. In an
old German ballad, the heroine, Sigune, thus displays herself to
Tchionatulander.
No one will deny that Cæsar's request is insane and its fulfilment
ridiculous. But the intention of the scene was so chaste and its
execution so inoffensive, that only positive low-mindedness could have
made it the occasion of calling for the assistance of the police. We
read; "The cloak slips from the young hero's shoulders; his hair waves
freely and luxuriantly. To the left there appears out of the sun-mist
an image of intoxicating beauty--Sigune, displaying herself more
bashfully than the Medicean Venus hides her nakedness. She stands there
helpless, dazzled by the glamour of the love that besought this favour;
her will is gone; she is the personification of shame, innocence, and
self-abandonment. And in sign that this is a consecrated, holy scene,
no roses bloom, but a high-stemmed lily has shot upwards close to her
body, symbolically covering her as the flower of chastity. It all
happened in one breathless, silent moment--it was sacrilege, but the
sacrilege of innocence and of woeful, eternal renunciation." This is
all.
The relations between Gutzkow and Menzel were no longer what they had
been. Now and again, in some preface or article, Gutzkow had ventured
to make a small joke at the expense of his former patron, or a modest
protest against one or other of his utterances. And in a more practical
way Gutzkow had for some time past been a thorn in the side to Menzel.
His literary supplement to the Frankfort newspaper, _Phoenix_, was a
dangerous rival to Menzel's _Litteraturblatt._ But there was worse than
this. Gutzkow had gradually got into friendly correspondence with the
leaders of the new literature, Laube, Wienbarg, Mundt, &c, men who were
rapidly taking possession of all the more important literary organs
in Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfort, and Hamburg. When, in 1835, Gutzkow
and Wienbarg issued the prospectus of a literary review in the style
of _Revue des Deux Mondes_, with almost all the most eminent literary
names in Germany on its list of contributors--university professors
like Boeckh, influential writers like Varnhagen, not to mention a
talented author like Börne and a genius like Heine--Menzel felt the
necessity for striking a telling blow.
An invitation to subscribe to the _Deutsche Revue_ had been published.
It was written by Gutzkow, in flowery, metaphoric language--declares
that science is longing to escape from musty class-rooms into the free
open air, that the bird of Minerva is no longer the owl, which is
afraid of the light, but the eagle, which gazes steadfastly into the
sun, &c., &c.
Instead of confining his attack to this programme, which was
inoffensive and in some respects promising, Menzel, in his
_Litteraturblatt_ of the 11th and 13th September 1835, published a
general manifesto against the company of young authors headed by
Karl Gutzkow. The apology for this action, which he makes as an
old man (in his _Memoirs_, p. 304), shows unquestionable proof of
narrow-mindedness, but not of any honest conviction. To emphasise
the cosmopolitan tendencies and French sympathies of Young Germany,
he wrote of it as "La jeune Allemagne." He directed his principal
attack against _Wally_, from which book he quoted a few disconnected
passages to show that the whole novel was immoral and sacrilegious; the
insignificant sensual element in the story, the Sigune scene, is made
its main feature.
"Only in the deepest mire of immorality, only in brothels, are such
atheistic views hatched. They were in vogue among the philosophical
parasites of the old French court. In the Palais Royal they were
translated from the language of the court into that of the Jacobins.
Herr Gutzkow has taken it upon himself to transplant once again into
Germany that infamous French ape who, in the arms of a harlot, mocks
at God, but he has done it in an age which, praise be to God, is more
mature and more manly than the age of Voltaire. Even then vice was
foiled by the natural disposition of our nation; now it will be even
more impossible for it to effect an entrance. Literature will expel
it, public opinion brand it.... If such a school for the most impudent
immorality and the most refined falsehood is allowed to establish
itself in Germany, if all the noble minds of the nation do not set
themselves against it, if German publishers do not beware, but venture
to offer such poison for sale and to praise their wares, we shall soon
see the result.... But I will tread down your filth, though I know
that I shall defile myself by doing so; I will bruise the head of the
serpent that warms itself in the hot-bed of sensuality.... As long as
I live, such infamous dishonouring of German literature shall not go
unpunished....
And Menzel, the practical journalist, was not satisfied, like the
ordinary author, with saying a thing once for all. He repeated his
accusations in one number after another of his paper with growing
emphasis, more abusive language, more venomous imputations, appealing
more and more plainly to the State to interfere while it was yet time.
On the 26th of October he wrote: "I know that their war against
Christianity, against morality, against marriage is of no more
significance than the war of young owls against the old sun. But
a spark may give rise to a conflagration.... Upon the new literary
judgment-seat in Frankfurt, Venus vulgivaga will be enthroned in place
of justice ... never will these men, who only believe in the flesh, these
priests of foulness, forgive an author for being purer than they are....
Is it possible to sit still and allow them to propagate French morality
among us by word and deed? Under the mask of French republicanism,
this libellous, infamous new Frankfurt school is introducing the most
frightful immorality. The flesh, unbridled sensuality, the abolition
of marriage, are their watchwords, and they not only write obscene
books themselves, but serve up the old ones afresh.... They are to a
certain extent disciples of Saint-Simon, they proclaim a still more
dissolute republicanism, without any virtue, a hetæra-republic on
the grandest scale.... As yet these principles are confined to the
narrower, aristocratic circles of literature.... But to what do these
doctrines appeal but to the bestiality and ferocity which, though they
are still slumbering, would be so easily aroused in the great capitals
and manufacturing towns, with their obscene haunts of drunkenness and
depravity."
On the 11th of November Menzel directly denounces the Prussian
university professors who have been rash enough to promise Gutzkow
their co-operation in his review: "Are the universities not State
institutions? Does the Prussian State no longer protect Christianity,
morality, marriage? We have heard so much of the moral, religious,
Conservative spirit that prevails in Prussia. Are we now to see the
most eminent professors of Berlin, Königsberg, and Halle following at
the heels of an obscene Marat, who, like the real Marat, literally
preaches the sacrament of 'the irresistible moment' and a republic of
sans-culottes and sans-chemises? Are we to hear them raving with him
against Christianity, morality, marriage, the family, modesty, against
God and immortality, against German nationality and the established
order of things?" And he concluded his outburst by applying the
designation of a Jewish party to the good Germans, Gutzkow, Wienbarg,
Laube, Mundt, and Kühne, because of their sympathy with the ideas of
Börne and Heine. Young Germany, he declared, was in reality Young
Palestine.
As a consequence of this denunciation, Karl Gutzkow was arrested on
a charge of blasphemy and lewd writing, and Menzel was dishonourable
enough to go on exciting public indignation against him whilst he was
in confinement and the case was being tried at Mannheim. The sentence
pronounced was, however, only ten weeks' imprisonment for attacking the
existing religious institutions of Baden.
But fear of the revolutionary movements which Menzel maintained would
be the result of the teaching of Young Germany, induced the German
Confederation to take action, and on the 10th of December 1835 the
Federal Diet passed a resolution, which aimed at nothing less than
the annihilation of the whole group of authors, young and old, which
it comprehends under the designation Young Germany. It reads as
follows: "In view of the fact that a school of literature has lately
come into existence in Germany, a school now known by the name of
'Young Germany,' or 'the young literature,' whose aim is, by means of
belletristic writings, accessible to all classes of readers, impudently
to attack the Christian religion, to discredit the existing conditions
of society, and to subvert all discipline and morality, the Council
of the German Confederation (Bundesversammlung) ... has unanimously
passed the following resolutions: (1) All the German Governments bind
themselves to bring the penal and police statutes of their respective
countries and the regulations regarding the abuse of the press in their
strictest sense to bear against the authors, publishers, printers, and
disseminators of the writings of the literary school known as 'Young
Germany' or 'the young literature,' to which notably belong Heinrich
Heine, Karl Gutzkow, Heinrich Laube, Ludolf Wienbarg, and Theodor
Mundt, as also by all lawful means to prevent the dissemination of the
writings of this school by booksellers, lending libraries, or other
means," &c., &c.
It was in this manner that the appellation Young Germany first became
familiar to the general public. It was the German Police-Confederation
which, constituting itself a critical authority, stigmatised a group of
authors, mentioned by name, as an immoral and injurious "school"--and
this on the information of one single rival of these men in the favour
of the reading public.
Menzel was to Young Germany what Southey in his day was to the
"Satanic school" in English literature, _alias_ Byron and Shelley,
or Katkóf, a generation later, to the "traitorous school" in Russian
literature--Herzen, Ogarev, and Bakunin. In disturbed times the
informer is as necessary an appendage to the foreground figures as the
envious rival and spy was to the hero of the old tragedies.
[1] See Ludwig Geiger: _Das junge Deutschland und die preussische
Censur_. Berlin, 1900.
[2] "Wundersam ist es, wie sich diese Herrlein einen gewissen
sittig-religiös-poetischen Bettlermantel so geschickt umzuschlagen
wissen, dass, wenn auch der Ellenbogen herausguckt, man diesen Mangel
für eine poetische Intention halten muss."
The fellows manage to throw a kind of moral-religious-poetic beggar's
cloak so cleverly round them, that, even if the bare elbow shows, we
are obliged to consider this defect a poetic intention.
XXII
GUTZKOW, LAUBE, MUNDT
The determination of the Federal Council to suppress the writings
of Young Germany not only nipped the _Deutsche Revue_ in the bud,
but also put an end to the existence of Mundt's _Litterarischer
Zodiacus_, published in Leipzig, and prevented the publication of
Laube's _Mitternachtszeitung_, which was to have appeared in Brunswick.
Immediately after Menzel's first attack on Gutzkow and his friends,
Mundt, with the valour of the prudent man, had written a series of
severe articles against Heine, Gutzkow, and Wienbarg--but all to no
purpose; his fate was sealed.
It seemed for a time as if the resolution were intended not only to
affect everything that the proscribed authors had already written, but
everything that they might write in the future.
An edict of the Prussian Government, dated 11th December 1835,
expressly provides that "the _future_ literary productions of Heinrich
Heine, wherever they may be published and in whatever language, are
to be subject to the same regulations as the writings of Gutzkow,
Wienbarg, Laube, and Mundt." And not only was every possible measure
taken to silence the obnoxious authors, but (as in Russia, when a man
is in disgrace with the Government) it was made illegal, even for those
who desired to write disparagingly of them, to print their names.
Mundt's name was erased from the list of contributors to the _Berliner
Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik_, and in the announcements of
Varnhagen and Mundt's edition of Knebel's _Literary Remains_, Varnhagen
alone might be named as editor.
Excessively strict precautions were at the same time taken with
regard to foreign publications. A few inoffensive English and French
newspapers were countenanced. In the case of all the others the
expedient was resorted to of requiring the same postage to be paid for
them as for letters, thereby raising the cost of such papers to at
least 500 thalers (£75) per annum.[1]
To the leaders of Young Germany the Government thus offered the
compulsory choice between biding their time in defiant silence and
purchasing other conditions for themselves by disowning their past
and making humiliating promises for the future. No one who has
had any experience of the average valour of the denizens of the
literary world can feel surprised that few stood this test, that many
accepted the second alternative. Neither Heine, Wienbarg, nor Gutzkow
gave in; but many others made pitiable exhibitions of themselves.
Crowds of the young authors who had plumed themselves upon their
revolutionary-philosophical, their oppositionist-political ideas, now
hastened to prove their philosophic commonplaceness, their political
innocuousness. The name "Young Germany" had been an honourable name;
but now that those who had borne it found themselves the objects of
special police surveillance, they refused to acknowledge it, each
declaring that he, at least, did not belong to the party, and that if
he ever had done so, it was an old story, and he had since then become
a most respectable member of society. In this case, as so often, it
was proved that modern high-class education only provides desultory
knowledge, does not form character, and least of all amongst those who
make their living by their pens.
August Lewald, who to all intents and purposes belonged to the group,
procured the annulment of the prohibition of his periodical, _Europa_,
by making a declaration that he had never printed anything inimical
to the Government, to religion, or to morality, and was consequently
in no wise compromised by any of the mischievous proceedings of Young
Germany. Eduard Duller, who had been co-editor with Gutzkow of the
paper, _Phoenix_, publicly disclaimed all sympathy with the aims of
Young Germany and declared his principles to be perfectly different
from those of his former fellow-workers. Theodor Mundt professed
that he had always kept clear of "that manufactured category," Young
Germany, as it was plain that such an appellation must sooner or later
become a literary nickname (Ekelname); and in the preface to his
new periodical, _Dioskuren für Wissenschaft und Kunst_, he declared
that his aim was to counteract the literary excesses of recent times
by the display of a settled conviction devoid of any principle of
destructiveness (_worin nichts Verheerendes wuchert_).