When the Clarendon Press undertook to publish a translation of
Professor W. Scherer’s History of German Literature, it was suggested
that an Historical Reading-Book, containing extracts from the principal
writers of prose and poetry treated in that History, would form a
useful companion volume. My ‘German Classics from the Fourth to the
Nineteenth Century,’ published in 1858, had long been out of print,
and I had no time to undertake a new edition. Professor Scherer, whom
I consulted on the subject, suggested Professor Franz Lichtenstein
of Breslau as fully qualified to revise and rearrange my volume, so
as to adapt it to the new purpose for which it was intended, namely,
to supply the _pièces justificatives_ for the new History of German
Literature.
Professor Lichtenstein devoted himself most zealously to this arduous
task, and, with the assistance of Professor Scherer himself, his part
of the work was nearly finished, when a sudden death,--he was drowned
while bathing in the Baltic,--put an end to the bright career of this
most conscientious and hard-working scholar. Professor Scherer, who
had himself taken an active part in the selection of new extracts, now
commissioned Dr. Joseph to superintend the printing of this Historical
Reading-Book, to whom therefore all the credit for the correctness both
of the texts and the translations is due.
On the whole the Reading-Book follows Scherer’s History step by step,
though in order to keep extracts from the same author together, or to
gain some other small advantages, certain deviations became necessary.
The Headings are intended to recall the periods as established in
Scherer’s History. Only Herder, Goethe, and Schiller have been treated
separately as Classics, in the highest sense of the word, and some of
their contemporaries, whose works, though of smaller value, had to be
discussed in conjunction with them in the eleventh and twelfth chapters
of the History, have shared the same honour.
The principles of selection with regard to extracts not contained in
my ‘German Classics,’ were agreed upon between Professors Scherer and
Lichtenstein. For the specimens of Goethe’s prose and poetry, however,
Professor Scherer is alone responsible, as he wished to illustrate
the development of Goethe’s various styles, without binding himself
strictly to a chronological order.
I myself can claim but little credit in this new edition, but it has
been a real pleasure to me to revive once more the recollection of my
earlier studies, and to observe how rapid and how solid has been the
progress which the knowledge of German Literature has made during the
last thirty years, thanks chiefly to the labours of Professor Scherer,
the worthy successor of Grimm, Lachmann and Gervinus.