are indestructible, and, in my time, many things still reminded us
of Zachariä's epic poem. Only one of our fellow-academicians thought
himself rich and independent enough to snap his fingers at public
opinion. He drank acquaintance with all the hackney-coachmen, whom he
allowed to sit inside the coach as if they were gentlemen, while he
drove them on the box, thought it a great joke to upset them now and
then, and contrived to satisfy them for their smashed vehicles as well
as for their occasional bruises; but otherwise he did no harm to any
one, seeming only to make a mock of the public _en masse._ Once, on a
most beautiful promenade-day, he and a comrade of his seized upon the
donkeys of the miller in St. Thomas's-square; well-dressed, and in
their shoes and stockings, they rode around the city with the greatest
solemnity, stared at by all the promenaders, with whom the glacis was
swarming. When some sensible persons remonstrated with him on the
subject, he assured them, quite unembarrassed, that he only wanted to
see how the Lord Christ might have looked in a like case. Yet he found
no imitators, and few companions.
[Side-note: Student-life at Leipzig.]
For the student of any wealth and standing had every reason to
show himself attentive to the mercantile class, and to be the more
solicitous about the proper external forms, as the colony[5] exhibited
a model of French manners. The professors, opulent both from their
private property and from their liberal salaries, were not dependent
upon their scholars, and many subjects of the state, educated at the
Government schools or other gymnasia, and hoping for preferment, did
not venture to throw off the traditional customs. The neighbourhood
of Dresden, the attention paid to us from thence, and the true piety
of the superintendent of the course of study, could not be without a
moral, nay, a religious influence.
At first this kind of life was not repugnant to me; my letters of
introduction had given me the _entrée_ into good families, whose
circle of relatives also received me well. But as I was soon forced
to feel that the company had much to find fault with in me, and that
after dressing myself in their fashion, I must now talk according to
their tongue also, and as, moreover, I could plainly see that I was,
on the other hand, but little benefited by the instruction and mental
improvement I had promised myself from my academical residence, I began
to be lazy, and to neglect the social duties of visiting, and other
attentions, and indeed I should have sooner withdrawn from all such
connexions, had not fear and esteem bound me fast to Hofrath Böhme,
and confidence and affection to his wife. The husband, unfortunately,
had not the happy gift of dealing with young people, of winning their
confidence, and of guiding them, for the moment, as occasion might
require. When I visited him I never got any good by it; his wife, on
the contrary, showed a genuine interest in me. Her ill health kept
her constantly at home. She invited me to spend many an evening with
her, and knew how to direct and improve me in many little external
particulars; for my manners were good, indeed, but I was not yet master
of what is properly termed _étiquette._ Only one female friend spent
the evenings with her; but she was more dictatorial and pedantic, for
which reason she displeased me excessively, and, out of spite to her, I
often resumed those unmannerly habits from which the other had already
weaned me. Nevertheless she always had patience enough with me, taught
me piquet, ombre, and similar games, the knowledge and practice of
which is held indispensable in society.
But it was in the matter of taste that Madame Böhme had the greatest
influence upon me; in a negative way truly, yet one in which she agreed
perfectly with the critics. The Gottsched waters[6] had inundated the
German world with a true deluge, which threatened to rise up even
over the highest mountains. It takes a long time for such a flood to
subside again, for the mire to dry away; and as in any epoch there
are numberless aping poets, so the imitation of the flat and watery
produced a chaos, of which now scarcely a notion remains. To find out
that trash was trash was hence the greatest sport, yea, the triumph
of the critics of those days. Whoever had only a little common sense,
was superficially acquainted with the ancients, and was somewhat
more familiar with the moderns, thought himself provided with a
standard scale which he could everywhere apply. Madame Böhme was an
educated woman, who opposed the trivial, weak, and commonplace; she
was, besides, the wife of a man who lived on bad terms with poetry
in general, and would not even allow that of which she perhaps might
have somewhat approved. She listened, indeed, for some time, with
patience, when I ventured to recite to her the verse or prose of famous
poets, who already stood in good repute,--for then, as always, I knew
by heart everything that chanced in any degree to please me; but her
complaisance was not of long duration. The first whom she outrageously
abused were the poets of the Weisse school, who were just then often
quoted with great applause, and had delighted me very particularly. If
I looked more closely into the matter, I could not say she was wrong.
I had sometimes even ventured to repeat to her, though anonymously,
some of my own poems; but these fared no better than the rest of the
set. And thus, in a short time, the beautiful variegated meadows at the
foot of the German Parnassus, where I was fond of luxuriating, were
mercilessly mowed down, and I was even compelled to toss about the
drying hay myself, and to ridicule that as lifeless which, a short time
before, had given me such lively joy.
[Side-note: German Poetry.]
Without knowing it, Professor Morus came to strengthen her
instructions. He was an uncommonly gentle and friendly man, with whom I
became acquainted at the table of Hofrath Ludwig, and who received me
very pleasantly when I begged the privilege of visiting him. Now while
making inquiries of him concerning antiquity, I did not conceal from
him what delighted me among the modems; when he spoke about such things
with more calmness, but, what was still worse, with more profundity
than Madame Böhme; and he thus opened my eyes, at first to my greatest
chagrin, but afterwards to my surprise, and at last to my edification.
Besides this, there came the _Jeremiads_, with which Gellert, in his
course, was wont to warn us against poetry. He wished only for prose
essays, and always criticised these first. Verses he treated as a sorry
addition, and what was the worst of all, even my prose found little
favour in his eyes; for, after my old fashion, I used always to lay,
as the foundation, a little romance, which I loved to work out in the
epistolary form. The subjects were impassioned, the style went beyond
ordinary prose, and the contents probably did not display any very
deep knowledge of mankind in the author; and so I stood in very little
favour with our professor, although he carefully looked over my labours
as well as those of the others, corrected them with red ink, and here
and there added a moral remark. Many leaves of this kind, which I kept
for a long time with satisfaction, have unfortunately, in the course of
years, at last disappeared from among my papers.
If elderly persons wish to play the pedagogue properly, they should
neither prohibit nor render disagreeable to a young man anything which
gives him pleasure, of whatever kind it may be, unless, at the same
time, they have something else to put in its place, or can contrive a
substitute. Everybody protested against my tastes and inclinations;
and, on the other hand, what they commended to me, lay either so far
from me that I could not perceive its excellencies, or stood so near me
that I thought it not a whit better than what they inveighed against.
I thus became thoroughly perplexed on the subject, and promised myself
the best results from a lecture of Ernesti's on _Cicero de Oratore._ I
learned something, indeed, from this lecture, but was not enlightened
on the subject which particularly concerned me. I required a standard
of opinion, and thought I perceived that nobody possessed it; for no
one agreed with another, even when they brought forward examples; and
where were we to get a settled judgment, when they managed to reckon
up against a man like Wieland so many faults in his amiable writings,
which so completely captivated us younger folks?
Amid this manifold distraction, this dismemberment of my existence and
my studies, it happened that I took my dinners at Hofrath Ludwig's. He
was a medical man, a botanist, and his company, with the exception of
Morus, consisted of physicians just commencing or near the completion
of their studies. Now during these hours I heard no other conversation
than about medicine or natural history, and my imagination was drawn
over into quite a new field. I heard the names of Haller, Linnæus,
Buffon, mentioned with great respect; and even if disputes often arose
about mistakes into which it was said they had fallen, all agreed in
the end to honour the acknowledged abundance of their merits. The
subjects were entertaining and important, and enchained my attention.
By degrees I became familiar with many names and a copious terminology,
which I caught up the more willingly as I was afraid to write down a
rhyme, however spontaneously it presented itself, or to read a poem,
for I was fearful that it might please me at the time, and that perhaps
immediately afterwards, like so much else, I should be forced to
pronounce it bad.
[Side-note: Destruction of Juvenile Poems.]
This uncertainty of taste and judgment disquieted me more and more
every day, so that at last I fell into despair. I had brought with me
those of my youthful labours which I thought the best, partly because I
hoped to get some credit by them, partly that I might be able to test
my progress with greater certainty; but I found myself in the miserable
situation in which one is placed when a complete change of mind is
required,--a renunciation of all that one has hitherto loved and found
good. However, after some time, and many struggles, I conceived so
great a contempt for my labours, begun and ended, that one day I burnt
up poetry and prose, plans, sketches, and projects all together on the
kitchen hearth, and threw our good old landlady into no small fright
and anxiety by the smoke which filled the whole house.
[1] This word, which signifies something like our "bully," is specially
used to designate a fighting student.--_Trans._
[2] Literally: "to strike two flies with one flapper."--_Trans._
[3] The river on which Halle is built.--_Trans._
[4] The river that flows by Leipzig.--_Trans._
[5] Leipzig was so called, because a large and influential portion of
its citizens were sprung from a colony of Huguenots, who settled there
after the revocation of the edict of Nantes_.--American Note._
[6] That is to say, the influence of Gottsched on German literature, of
which more is said in the next book.--_Trans._
SEVENTH BOOK.
About the condition of German literature at that time so much has
been written, and that so sufficiently, that every one who takes any
interest in it can be completely informed; the judgments of it are now
pretty well agreed; and what at present I intend to say piece-meal
and disconnectedly concerning it, relates not so much to how it was
constituted in itself, as to how it stood towards me. I will therefore
first speak of those things by which the public is particularly
excited; of those two hereditary foes of all comfortable life, and
of all cheerful, self-sufficient, living poetry:--I mean, satire and
criticism.
In quiet times every one will live after his own fashion; the citizen
will carry on his trade or his business, and enjoy the fruits of it
afterwards; thus will the author too willingly compose something,
publish his labours, and since he thinks he has done something good
and useful, hope for praise, if not reward. In this tranquillity the
citizen is disturbed by the satirist, the author by the critic, and
peaceful society is thus put into a disagreeable agitation.
The literary epoch in which I was born was developed out of the
preceding one by opposition. Germany, so long inundated by foreign
people, interpenetrated by other nations, directed to foreign languages
in learned and diplomatic transactions, could not possibly cultivate
her own. Together with so many new ideas, innumerable strange words
were obtruded necessarily and unnecessarily upon her, and even for
objects already known, people were induced to make use of foreign
expressions and turns of language. The German, having run wild for
nearly two hundred years in an unhappy tumultuary state, went to school
to the French to learn manners, and to the Romans in order to express
himself properly. But this was to be done in the mother-tongue, when
the literal application of those idioms, and their half-Germanization,
made both the social and business style ridiculous. Besides this,
they adopted without moderation the similes of the southern languages,
and employed them most extravagantly. Just so they transferred the
stately deportment of the prince-like citizens of Rome to the learned
German small-town officers, and were at home nowhere, least of all with
themselves.
But as in this epoch works of genius had already appeared, the German
sense of freedom and joy also began to stir itself. This, accompanied
by a genuine earnestness, insisted that men should write purely and
naturally, without the intermixture of foreign words, and as common
intelligible sense dictated. By these praiseworthy endeavours,
however, the doors and gates were thrown open to an extended national
insipidity, nay, the dike was dug through by which the great deluge was
shortly to rush in. Meanwhile, a stiff pedantry long stood its ground
in all the four faculties, until at last, much later, it fled for
refuge from one of them into another.
Men of parts, children of nature looking freely about them, had
therefore two objects on which they could exercise themselves, against
which they could labour, and, as the matter was of no great importance,
give a vent to their petulance; these were: a language disfigured by
foreign words, forms, and turns of speech on the one hand, and the
worthlessness of such writings as had been careful to keep themselves
free from those faults on the other, though it occurred to nobody, that
while they were battling against one evil, the other was called on for
assistance.
[Side-note: Liskow.]
LISKOW, a daring young man, first ventured to attack by name a shallow,
silly writer, whose awkward demeanour soon gave him an opportunity
to proceed still more severely. He then went further, and constantly
aimed his scorn at particular persons and objects, whom he despised and
sought to render despicable, nay, even persecuted them with passionate
hatred. But his career was short; for he soon died, and was gradually
forgotten as a restless, irregular youth. The talent and character
shown in what he did, although he had accomplished little, may have
seemed valuable to his countrymen: for the Germans have always shown a
peculiar pious kindliness to talents of good promise, when prematurely
cut off. Suffice it to say, that Liskow was very early praised and
recommended to us as an excellent satirist, who could have attained a
rank even above the universally-beloved Rabener. Here, indeed, we saw
ourselves no better off than before: for we could discover nothing in
his writings, except that he had found the silly, silly, which seemed
to us quite a matter of course.
RABENER, well educated, grown up under good scholastic instruction,
of a cheerful, and by no means passionate or malicious disposition,
took up general satire. His censure of the so-called vices and follies
springs from the clear views of a quiet common sense, and from a fixed
moral conception of what the world ought to be. His denunciation of
faults and failings is harmless and cheerful; and in order to excuse
even the slight boldness of his writings, it is supposed that the
improving of fools by ridicule is no fruitless undertaking.
Rabener's personal character will not easily appear again. As an able,
punctual man of business, he does his duty, and thus gains the good
opinion of his fellow-townsmen and the confidence of his superiors:
along with which, he gives himself up to the enjoyment of a pleasant
contempt for all that immediately surrounds him. Pedantic _literati_,
vain youngsters, every sort of narrowness and conceit, he banters
rather than satirizes, and even his banter expresses no contempt. Just
in the same way does he jest about his own condition, his misfortune,
his life, and his death.
There is little of the æsthetic in the manner in which this writer
treats his subjects. In external forms he is indeed varied enough, but
throughout he makes too much use of direct irony, namely, in praising
the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy, whereas this figure of
speech should be used but extremely seldom; for, in the long run, it
becomes annoying to clear-sighted men, perplexes the weak, while indeed
it pleases the great middle class, who, without any special expense
of mind, can fancy themselves more knowing than others. But all that
he brings before us, and however he does it, alike bears witness to
his rectitude, cheerfulness, and equanimity, so that we always feel
prepossessed in his favour. The unbounded applause of his own times was
a consequence of such moral excellencies.
[Side-note: Rabener.]
That people looked for originals to his general descriptions and found
them, was natural; that individuals complained of him, followed from
the above; his over-long apologies that his satire is not personal,
prove the spite which has been provoked. Some of his letters crown him
at once as a man and an author. The confidential epistle in which
he describes the siege of Dresden, and how he loses his house, his
effects, his writings, and his wigs, without having his equanimity
in the least shaken or his cheerfulness clouded, is highly valuable,
although his contemporaries and fellow-citizens could not forgive him
his happy turn of mind. The letter where he speaks of the decay of his
strength and of his approaching death is in the highest degree worthy
of respect, and Rabener deserves to be honoured as a saint by all
cheerful intelligent men, who cheerfully resign themselves to earthly
events.
I tear myself away from him reluctantly, yet I would make this remark:
his satire refers throughout to the middle-class; he lets us see here
and there that he is also well acquainted with the higher ranks, but
does not hold it advisable to come in contact with them. It may be
said, that he has had no successor, that no one has been found who
could consider himself equal, or even similar to him.
Now for criticism! and first of all for the theoretic attempts. It is
not going too far when we say that the ideal had, at that time, escaped
out of the world into religion; it scarcely even made its appearance in
moral philosophy; of a highest principle of art no one had a notion.
They put Gottsched's _Critical Art of Poetry_ into our hands; it was
useful and instructive enough, for it gave us a historical information
of all the kinds of poetry, as well as of rhythm and its different
movements; the poetic genius was presupposed! But besides that the poet
was to have acquirements and even learning, he should possess taste,
and everything else of that kind. They directed us at last to Horace's
_Art of Poetry_; we gazed at single golden maxims of this invaluable
work, but did not know in the least what to do with it as a whole, or
how we should use it.
The Swiss stepped forth as Gottsched's antagonists; they must
take it into their heads to do something different, to accomplish
something better: accordingly we heard that they were, in fact,
superior. BREITINGER'S _Critical Art of Poetry_ was taken in hand.
Here we reached a wider field, but, properly speaking, only a greater
labyrinth, which was so much the more tiresome, as an able man, in
whom we had confidence, was driving us about in it. Let a brief review
justify these words.
For poetry in itself they had been able to find no fundamental axiom;
it was too spiritual and too volatile. Painting, an art which one could
hold fast with one's eyes, and follow step by step with the external
senses, seemed more favourable for such an end; the English and French
had already theorized about plastic art, and by a comparison drawn from
this, it was thought that poetry might be grounded. The former placed
images before the eyes, the latter before the fancy; poetical images,
therefore, were the first thing which was taken into consideration.
People began with comparisons, descriptions followed, and only that was
expressed which had always been apparent to the external senses.
Images, then! But where should these images be got except from nature?
The painter professedly imitated nature; why not the poet also? But
nature, as she lies before us, cannot be imitated: she contains
so much that is insignificant and worthless, that one must make a
selection; but what determines the choice? one must select that which
is important; but what is important?
To answer this question the Swiss may have taken a long time to
consider: for they came to a notion, which is indeed singular, but
clever, and even comical, inasmuch as they say, the new is always the
most important: and after they have considered this for a while, they
discover that the marvellous is always newer than everything else.
They had now pretty well collected their poetical requisitions; but
they had still to consider that the marvellous might also be empty and
without relation to man. But this relation, demanded as necessary, must
be a moral one, from which the improvement of mankind should manifestly
follow, and thus a poem had reached its utmost aim when, with
everything else accomplished, it was useful besides. They now wished to
test the different kinds of poetry according to all these requisites;
those which imitated nature, besides being marvellous, and at the same
time of a moral aim and use, were to rank as the first and highest. And
after much deliberation this great preeminence was at last ascribed,
with the highest degree of conviction, to Æsop's fables!
Strange as such a deduction may now appear, it had the most decided
influence on the best minds. That GELLERT and subsequently LICHTWER
devoted themselves to this department, that even LESSING attempted to
labour in it, that; so many others turned their talents towards it,
speaks for the confidence which this species of poetry had gained.
Theory and practice always act upon each other; one can see from their
works what is the men's opinion; and, from their opinions, predict what
they will do.
[Side-note: Bodmer--Breitinger--Guenther.]
Yet we must not dismiss our Swiss theory without doing it justice.
BODMER, with all the pains he took, remained theoretically and
practically a child all his life. BREITINGER was an able, learned,
sagacious man, whom when he looked rightly about him, the essentials
of a poem did not all escape; nay, it can be shown that he may have
dimly felt the deficiencies of his system. Remarkable, for instance,
is his query:--"Whether a certain descriptive poem by König, on the
_Review-camp of Augustus the Second_, is properly a poem?" and the
answer to it displays good sense. But it may serve for his complete
justification that he, starting from a false point, on a circle almost
run out already, still struck upon the main principle, and at the end
of his book finds himself compelled to recommend as additions, so to
speak, the representation of manners, character, passions, in short,
the whole inner man; to which, indeed, poetry pre-eminently belongs.
It may well be imagined into what perplexity young minds felt
themselves thrown by such dislocated maxims, half-understood laws,
and shivered up dogmas. We adhered to examples, and there, too, were
no better off; foreigners as well as the ancients stood too far
from us, and from the best native poets always peeped out a decided
individuality, to the good points of which we could not lay claim, and
into the faults of which we could not but be afraid of falling. For him
who felt anything productive in himself it was a desperate condition.