In its first period, Romanticism is distinctly non-political. It exalts
the established order of things (_vide_ Novalis), it submissively
acknowledges the authority of the king and of the Church, but in its
purely literary productions it is, generally speaking, politically
colourless.
Take Tieck's satiric comedies. In their outward form there is something
Aristophanic; but their satire is never directed against any political
character or tendency. It is aimed at "enlightenment;" and from Tieck's
biographer we learn exactly what the poet understood by this word. At
that time, says Köpke, the most prominent and respected men in Berlin,
those who were still the leaders of public opinion, were of the school
of Frederick the Great. The prevailing opinions of the eighteenth
century had become their second nature. They were moral, conscientious
men, who, in all the different departments of administration,
science, and literature, devoted themselves zealously, and often
with extraordinary industry, to their duties. Whether government
officials, theologians, teachers, critics, popular philosophers, or
poets, they all aimed at making religion and science useful, and at
educating mankind by external provisions and rules. Intelligibility
and popularity being to them all-important, they naturally diluted
and levelled everything to one general plane of mediocrity. A certain
blameless philistinism became their moral ideal, an ideal which seemed
poor and tame in comparison with the old fervour of faith. Lessing was
their prophet, and they believed themselves to be perpetuating his
tradition. We can readily understand that they fell foul of Goethe,
which indeed Lessing himself had done, and that they had a narrow
conception of the significance and value of imagination. To them it was
only the handmaid of utility, and of no value except as an instrument
in the service of morality.
Everywhere throughout Tieck's writings we come upon mockery of this
moral literary tendency. Take, for instance, _Der Gestiefelte Kater_
("Puss in Boots").--Hinze, the cat, is taking an evening walk, absorbed
in melancholy thought. He begins to sing a hunting song. A nightingale
strikes up in a bush close at hand. "She sings magnificently, this
songstress of the groves," says Hinze; "but think how delicious she
must _taste_! Happy indeed are the great of the earth; they can eat as
many nightingales and larks as they fancy. We poor common people have
to be content with the song, with the beauty, with the indescribably
sweet harmony.--It is terrible that I cannot hear anything sing without
wanting to eat it."
Hisses from the pit. The worthy audience is shocked by the cat's
ignoble train of thought. So Hinze lets the nightingale alone; but
presently, when a rabbit comes bounding by, he catches him adroitly
and puts him into his bag. It is his intention, by the gift of this
rabbit, to win the king's heart for his master. "The creature," he
reflects aloud, "is a sort of cousin of mine; but it's the way of the
world nowadays--kinsman against kinsman, brother against brother!" He
is presently strongly tempted to eat the rabbit himself, but overcomes
the desire, and cries: "Fie! for shame, Hinze! Is it not the duty of
the truly noble to sacrifice themselves and their inclinations to the
happiness of their fellow-creatures? It is the end for which we were
created, and he who cannot do it--oh! it were better for him that he
had never been born!" He is about to retire, but loud applause and
cries of _Da Capo_! oblige him to repeat the last speech, after which
he bows, and goes off with the rabbit. The audience is in the seventh
heaven of delight--Hinze's speech is as effective as one of Iffland's
tirades.
The satire in Tieck's _Däumling_ ("Hop o' my Thumb") is also of a
literary nature, being directed against the neo-classic tendency,
and in particular against Goethe. Such a theme, treated, as it
was in part, in the dignified metre of Greek tragedy, afforded
many opportunities for drollery. All the incidents of the medieval
fairy-tale are viewed from the antique standpoint. Of the seven-league
boots, for instance, we read: "Trust me; I see quite well that these
boots have come down to us from old Greek times. No man in our day
produces work like that--so strong, so simple, such noble lines, such
stitching! No, no! this is the work of Phidias, there is no doubt
about it. Look! When I place the one in this position--how noble, how
plastic, how grand in its simplicity! No superfluity, no ornament, no
Gothic detail, none of the romantic medley of our days--when sole,
leather, flaps, folds, blacking, varnish, must all contribute to
produce variety, brilliancy, a dazzling resplendence in which there is
nothing ideal. Nowadays the leather must shine, the sole must creak
when one sets one's foot down: wretched rhyming trickery of which
the ancients knew nothing." Several of Goethe's favourite words are
employed in this more sarcastic than witty description.
Tieck shows most wit in defending himself against the accusation of
exaggerated sentimentality. His satire might quite well apply to the
modern admirers of Prosper Mérimée. He revenges himself upon his
critics by placing their objections in the mouth of Leidgast, the
cannibal, who comes home, smells human flesh, and determines to eat Hop
o' my Thumb and his brothers and sisters for breakfast next morning.
In the meantime they are to be kept in the garret. "But what if your
own three little ones should awake?" objects his wife. "Well, what
then?" "The strange children would not be safe. Yours are so eager for
human flesh that they have lately actually tried to suck my blood."
"You don't say so? I should never have credited them with so much sense
and understanding." His wife weeps. "Be done with this sentimentality,
wife. I cannot bear an effeminate education. I have strictly forbidden
them all these prejudices, superstitions, and enthusiasms. Untutored,
unadulterated nature! that's the thing for me."
However varied the objects of Tieck's satire may be, it is always
literary satire; it never crosses the boundary between literature
and life. Iffland and Kotzebue, the bombastic classic style
and narrow-minded philistine criticism, the text of _The Magic
Flute_, Nicolai's travellers' tales, academic pedantry and the
_Litteraturzeitung_--these are the unfailing scapegoats.
Occasionally, in striking at "enlightenment" and everything thereto
pertaining, he has a half accidental thrust at the powers that be.
The king in _Puss in Boots_, for instance, who places the court
scientist on the same level with the court fool, who lives for military
parades, loves to listen to repetitions of the figures arrived at in
astronomical calculations, and bestows his favour in return for a tasty
rabbit, certainly does not represent royalty in the most advantageous
light. But this happened half accidentally. In the same play the law
goes by the name of Popanz (the bogey-man), is changed into a mouse,
creeps into a mouse-hole, and is eaten by Hinze, who, not long after,
shouts: 'Long live the Tiers Etat!' But this is no more nor less than a
specimen of real Romantic nonsense, with no meaning in it at all. The
only trace of real political satire to be found, is in one of Tieck's
early works, _Hanswurst als Emigrant_, Hanswurst being no other than
the Prince d'Artois, who, in his character of poor, stupid emigrant,
has to ride on his servant's back for want of a horse. But this work
remained unpublished during Tieck's lifetime.
It does not surprise us that Kotzebue failed in his attempts to get
Tieck into disgrace for writing political satire. Having succeeded,
in 1802, in gaining admission to the court, he, Kotzebue, endeavoured
to revenge himself on his adversary by reading the parade scene from
_Zerbino_ to the king, interspersing malicious hints. It was an
ineffectual endeavour, for the king took no notice. And Tieck was
pleased and proud to be able to prove his innocence--the play had
been written in 1790, under totally different conditions, and was
founded entirely upon youthful impressions. His satisfaction was so
far justifiable; for abusive personal satire is out of place in art.
Nevertheless, the anecdote affects us tragi-comically. The poetry
was harmless enough, heaven knows. There was no cause for any king or
government in the world to be in the least disturbed by such satire.
Unluckily, the best satirical poetry is not of the kind that leaves
every one unscathed. The comedies of Aristophanes, with which Tieck's
admirers thought his worthy of comparison, were considerably less
innocent and innocuous; and all the really great satirical works of
later days, such as Molière's _Tartuffe_ or Beaumarchais' _Figaro_,
have one characteristic in common--their action does not take place in
the moon; they make war on something besides inept poets and moralising
poetry.
Romanticism, however, did not long maintain this aloofness from life
and politics.
The year 1806 was a critical year for Prussia and Germany.[1] The
country was entirely in the power of the foreign conqueror. But this is
the very reason why all the great reforms trace their origin to this
year. The depth of adversity reached was so great that an energetic
upward struggle had become imperative. The indefatigable Baron von
Stein began the reorganisation of Prussian public institutions;
Scharnhorst remodelled the army; the state of the universities was
inquired into; and as one result of this last proceeding Fichte was
called to Berlin in 1807. The appointment was a remarkable one in many
respects. It was intended to show that henceforth a new and different
spirit was to rule. When, in 1792, Fichte wrote his first work,
_Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung_ ("An Attempt at a Criticism
of all Revelation"), he was afraid to publish it otherwise than
anonymously. When, somewhat later, he brought out his _Zurückforderung
der Denkfreiheit_ ("Demand for the Restoration of Freedom of Thought"),
he dared not even name the town in which the book was printed. It
was published in "Heliopolis"--also anonymously. From his post of
professor at Jena he was dismissed on a charge of atheism. But now that
the day of need had come, he was suddenly appealed to, to rouse the
youth of Germany. As every one is aware, his _Reden an die Deutsche
Nation_ ("Addresses to the German Nation") surpassed all expectation.
It had been no bad idea, this thrusting of the German flag into the
hand of the persecuted philosopher. At the University of Berlin,
with French bayonets gleaming outside the windows and French drums
drowning his words, he delivered the memorable addresses which sounded
the _réveille_ in the ears of Germany, and did their part in driving
those drums and bayonets out of the country. For from these lectures
a general and powerful revulsion of feeling may be dated. In them
Fichte's philosophy became a kind of national poetry. And what wonder
that this poetry proved a torch, at which many other poetical torches
were kindled--Körner's, Schenkendorf's, and Arndt's among the rest?
The long-prepared-for war broke out in 1813, and ended, after various
vicissitudes, in the downfall of foreign rule. But the War of
Liberation, as it was called, has two aspects. It was a revolt against
a monstrous tyranny, but a tyranny which represented many of the ideas
of the Revolution. It was a war for hearth and home, but waged at the
command of the old dynasties. The revolutionary tyranny was opposed
in the interest of reactionary princes. Moreover, even in the ardour
with which the struggle was maintained, there were two very different
elements, which were so closely commingled that in the beginning it
occurred to no one to distinguish between them, but which soon betrayed
their opposite characters. The one element was national hatred of the
French people--the national prejudice which seems to be inseparably
connected with patriotism, and which led in this case to enthusiasm
for everything German and contempt for everything French. The other
element was pure love of freedom--the determination to attain political
independence, to fight, not only in the name of Germany, but in the
name of humanity, for human rights and privileges.
This dual feeling may be traced even in Fichte's addresses. He affirmed
that only a people that had been a people from of old, a people that
understood the depths of its own spirit, its own language, i.e. itself,
could be free, and the liberators of the world; "_and_" he added, "_the
Germans are such a people_." Teutonic national arrogance lay dormant
in these words. And the seed soon began to grow. The young, healthy
love of freedom found expression in Theodor Körner's bold lyrics. It
was Schiller's lyre that he touched, but the genius of a new era had
tuned its strings in a new key. The patriotism of a whole group of
other poets took the form of enthusiasm for the German Empire and a
German Emperor, that is to say, for the Germany of the Middle Ages; and
these made the glories of the past their theme. Max von Schenkendorf
sang mournfully and longingly of the days when--
"Die hohen adligen Gestalten
Am Rheinstrom auf und nieder wallten,"[2]
and when predatory nobles ruled town and country from their fortified
castles. He wrote odes to the old cathedrals, groped with tremulous awe
among the skeletons of saints and knights buried in their chapels.
One of the most famous of the patriotic poets was Ernst Moritz Arndt.
With Arndt hatred of everything French became a fixed idea. His _Geist
der Zeit_ ("Spirit of the Times"), the first part of which appeared in
1806, had a very powerful influence on the minds of his countrymen. And
while he was writing his manly, vigorous songs in praise of freedom, he
was also occupied in attacking the French language and French fashions;
he even went the length of attempting to introduce a German national
dress. At this same moment, Jahn, the famous introducer of gymnastics,
the "Turnvater," as he is called, was earnestly engrossed with the idea
of making the whole youth of Germany fit for war by means of physical
exercises. In 1811, at Hasenhaide, near Berlin, he started his school
of gymnastics; but previous to this, following Arndt's example, he
had published writings, in which, in affectedly violent language, he
tried to inflame the spirit of patriotism. The old German mythology and
heroic sagas, Hermann and the Teutoburgerwald, Wodan and the Druids,
the sacred oaks, the divine primitive German warrior in his boldness
and uncouthness, his unkempt hair flowing over his shoulders and a
club grasped in his gigantic fists, were anew elevated to the place of
honour. German uncouthness was supposed to testify to German morality.
It was not long till all these patriotic ideas and enterprises were
pressed into the service of reaction. The object of worship became,
not the freedom that was to be won, but Germany's vanished past. Men
began to study the history of their country with an ardour with which
it had never been studied before, and a keen eye for all peculiarly
German traits. With the brothers Grimm at their head, they turned their
attention to the history and grammar of their own language, and in this
domain, as in every other, fell foolishly in love with the past and its
childish naïveté. Important as the results of these investigations have
been to science, it is certain that in Germany they produced some of
the worst enemies of liberty, men who sided with the past against the
present.
The patriotic and the religious party soon made common cause. French
immorality had been confronted with a peculiarly German morality;
now French free-thought was confronted with a peculiarly German
Christianity. Because the religion of Germany's enemies paid homage to
the human mind, with its lucidity and freedom, the religion of Germany
was to be ecclesiastical Christianity, with its obscurity and tyranny.
Believing that they were becoming more religious, they in reality
became less so. For it is an indisputable truth, one that holds good in
all ages and all countries, that, true religion being enthusiasm for
the living spirit and idea of the times, as yet unrealised by the many,
he who is filled with that living spirit will seem irreligious, but
really be religious, whilst he who is filled with the spirit or faith
of a bygone, a defunct age, will be most irreligious, but seem and be
called religious.
The immature intellects of the War of Liberation were caught in the
snares of Romanticism. It is significant that men who, like Arndt
and Görres, were regarded as the champions of liberty, soon began to
express most anti-liberal opinions. Arndt made a bitter attack upon
what he called industrialism, i.e., modern industrial conditions, as
opposed to the old guild system, and was loud in his condemnation of
machinery and steam, which robbed human feet of their right (to walk),
the labourer of his work, and mountain and valley of their meaning. He
was anxious that any future additions to the ranks of the aristocracy
should be prevented by the inscription of all noble names in a final
roll, a "golden book;" and he advocated entail and primogeniture as
the one sure defence against the general break-up of society by an
inundation of the proletariat. Görres, who for a time retained some
remembrance of the days when he edited _Das rothe Blatt_, ultimately
became the author of _Christian Mysticism_, and such a fierce
reactionary that he attacked the pietistic policy of Prussia as not
sufficiently thorough-going, and brought on himself a reproof from Leo
XII.
The Christian-Germanic reaction which was one of the results of the
War of Liberation found very characteristic literary expression in a
series of tales by a nobleman who had fought in the war as a cavalry
officer, Baron de la Motte Fouqué. Fouqué is principally known to the
reading world at large by his charming little story, _Undine_. As a
specimen of Romantic "Naturpoesie" at its best, this tale is only
inferior to Tieck's _Elfenmärchen_ ("The Elves"). But Undine is the
one really living figure which Fouqué has produced. The cause of his
success in this case probably lay in the fact that he was depicting
a being who was only half human, half an element of nature--a wave,
spray, the cool freshness and wild movement of water--a being without a
soul. Until Undine has given herself to the Knight, she stands in some
magic relationship to the restless, soulless sea; it is she who flings
its spray against the window, and makes it rise until the peninsula is
changed into an island, and the Knight is a captive in the fisherman's
hut. Fouqué, who was a poet without being a psychologist, found a
subject exactly suited to his imaginative talent in this being, which
corresponded to one of the elements, and hence itself consisted of
but one life-element. (It was in Undine's image that Hans Christian
Andersen created "The Little Mermaid.") The bridal night brings a soul
to Undine, and she is changed into the model German wife, obedient,
tender, and sentimental. Her husband's harshness kills her. In her
magnanimity she has caused the castle well to be covered with an
enormous stone, in order to block up the only way by which her uncle,
the water-spirit, Kühleborn, can enter the castle and avenge her. When,
despite every warning, the Knight is faithless and marries again, and
his arrogant bride has the stone removed from the well, inexorable
fate compels Undine to rise out of its depths and bring him death in
a kiss. Although the theme is genuinely medieval (borrowed, in fact,
from Paracelsus, whose theory of the elemental spirits is founded upon
old popular beliefs), and although in the course of its elaboration
the author often relapses into sentimental piety, yet, to its decided
advantage, a fresh pagan note is predominant in the story. Undine's
originality lies in her pagan nature, as it reveals itself before she
is baptized; and there is something genuinely Greek in the idea of its
not being the skeleton with the scythe which comes for the dying man,
but an elemental spirit which brings him death in a loving kiss.
But at the same time that Fouqué was embodying such originality and
genius as he possessed in this little tale, he was also, under the
influence of the great national movement, projecting the long series
of romances of chivalry which began with _Der Zauberring_ ("The Magic
Ring"), published in 1815. To the romantic reactionaries _The Magic
Ring_ became a sort of gospel. Nobles and squires saw themselves
reflected in all these old burnished shields and coats of mail, and
rejoiced at the sight. But it was not a faithful historical picture
which Fouqué exhibited. His age of chivalry is an imaginary age, in
which stately, high-born men, clad in armour of burnished silver or of
some dull metal inlaid with gold, and wearing silver helmets, plumed
or unplumed, or iron helmets surmounted by golden eagles' wings, the
visors sometimes raised, sometimes lowered, ride forth upon fiery
chargers of all breeds and all colours, shiver each other's lances, and
yet sit as if moulded in the saddle, or else fall to the earth only to
rise as quick as lightning and draw a two-edged sword. The knights
are proud and brave, the faithful squires give their lives for their
masters, the slender demoiselles award the prizes at the tourneys, and
love their knights "_minniglich_." Everything is ordered according to
the exact prescriptions of the book of the laws of chivalry.
Everything is conventional--first and foremost, the mawkish,
languishing style, supposed to be peculiarly adapted to the
glorification of this high-born society. Only examples can give any
idea of it. Bertha, sitting by a rivulet, sees her reflection in
the water. "Bertha blushed so brightly that it seemed as if a star
had been kindled in the water." "They sang a morning song so sweet
and pleasurable that it seemed as though the setting sun must rise
again, drawn by the yearning harmonies." There is a plentiful use of
embellishing adjectives: "The youth's heart burned with _charming_
(_anmutig_) curiosity." "Two crystal-clear drops fell from the eyes of
the old knight." Great importance is attached to the description of
splendid clothes and armour and ornaments: "He was beautiful to look
upon in his armour of the darkest blue steel, magnificently chased and
ornamented with gold; beautiful were his dark brown hair, his trim
moustache, and the fresh young mouth smiling below it, disclosing two
rows of pearly white teeth." A noble lady, pouring forth the tale of
her misfortunes, takes time to interlard it with descriptions like
the following: "I paced distractedly up and down my room, would hear
nothing of the games in which the other noble maidens invited me to
take part in the evening, and impatiently waved my maid away when she
brought me a beautiful fishing-rod, _inlaid with mother-of-pearl_, with
a _golden_ line and _silver_ hook." It is strange that the inhabitants
of a world where all utensils seem to be made of mother-of-pearl, gold,
and silver, should think it necessary specially to mention that the
gift offered her was composed of these peerless materials.
The emotions are of the same material, all mother-of-pearl and cloth of
gold--not one breath of unrestrained natural feeling, not one action
dictated by pure, unreflecting passion. All the emotions and passions
are as carefully trained as the knights' chargers. We know beforehand
how everything will happen. The knights talk to and treat each other
with that distinguished courtesy which is peculiar to the privileged
classes. One of them inadvertently lets fall a word (about a lady or
a joust) which makes it necessary for another to challenge him to
mortal combat. Without showing a trace of petty rancour or ill-feeling,
the two combatants arm and leap on their snorting chargers; their
attendants form a circle round them, holding torches if it is night,
and they thrust and hew at each other with all their might. When the
one sinks bleeding to the earth, the other throws himself down beside
him and binds his wounds with brotherly tenderness and practised
surgical skill; then he gives him his arm, and they march off together,
their armour clanking bravely.--It is an attempt to resolve the whole
rich life of the human soul into a few conventional elements--honour,
loyalty, devout and humble love.
In combination with these fine feelings we have the greatest contempt
for all except the privileged classes. The hero, Sir Otto, is at a
masquerade at the house of his friend, the young merchant, Tebaldo. A
troupe of mummers appear and give a performance. In one of the scenes
a warrior in armour comes on the stage, bows to Plutus, the god of
wealth, and repeats the following lines:--
"Für Beulen Silber, Gold für Blut
Herr, gieb Dein Gut, so schlag ich gut."[3]
"Plutus was about to give some ingenious answer, but Otto von
Trautwangen rose in wrath, laid his hand on his sword and cried:
'Yonder knave disgraces his armour, and I will prove it on his head,
if so be he has the courage to meet me.' Half amused, half alarmed,
the company gazed at the wrathful young knight, while Tebaldo angrily
dismissed the astounded mummers, upbraiding them with the baseness
of their shameful inventions, and forbidding them to enter his house
again. Hereupon, blushing with shame, he returned to Otto, and in
well-chosen, courtly words prayed his guest not to lay it to his charge
that the scurvy crew had thought to flatter the rich merchant by thus
_outrageously comparing_ his calling with that of arms." The same
evening Otto meets at his inn a certain Sir Archimbald, and is seized
by the fancy to exchange armour with him, "which, methinks, we may
readily do, since we are both of the old High-German heroic stature."
In exchange for his coat of silver mail Otto receives a black one. An
entire change comes over him with the change of armour, which does not
surprise us when we remember the important part dress plays throughout.
As a matter of fact, these knights are not much more than stuffed suits
of armour. They affect one much as do the figures one sees riding upon
armoured wooden horses in the Tower of London or the great armoury in
Dresden.
From the description of one of Otto's earliest single combats we gain
an idea of the extraordinary influence attributed to attire. His
opponent, Sir Heerdegen, wears a rusty suit of armour, and his rusty
voice shouts from behind the bars of his _rusty_ helmet: "Bertha!
Bertha!" while from Otto's _silver_ helmet comes in _silvery_ tones the
cry: "Gabriele! Gabriele!" When Otto goes back to Tebaldo in his new
armour, he has become so much handsomer and more manly, that the young
merchant, who happens at the moment to be measuring costly fabrics in
his storehouse, is almost ashamed to appear before him. "Then Otto von
Trautwangen raised his visor. Tebaldo, half affrighted, fell back,
exclaiming: 10 heavens! how you have gained in dignity even since
yesterday! And here must I stand before you with an ell-wand in my
hand!' Thereupon he flung his beautiful measuring rod against a pillar,
shattering it into fragments. It was made of ivory and gold, and his
servants could not but believe that this had happened by mischance."
They attempt to console their master, but he does not listen to them;
all his desire now is to give up his merchant's calling and be allowed
to follow Otto as his squire. May not something very like all this be
observed to-day in the mutual feelings and demeanour of a Prussian
cavalry officer and a Prussian merchant?
This literature is really literature for cavalry officers. The
horses are the only creatures in the book whose psychology Fouqué
has successfully mastered, and this for the same reason that he was
successful with Undine, namely, that it is elementary psychology. In
the romances of our Danish author, Ingemann, the milk-white palfrey
and the steel-clad black charger also play important parts. When the
Lord High Constable is shown us attired in a scarlet cloak edged with
ermine and a white-plumed hat, mounted on a tall iron-grey stallion,
his swarthy little squire standing beside him holding the bridle of
a nimble, restless Norwegian pony, the author has exhausted all his
capacity of character drawing. In the description of the tall iron-grey
stallion and the nimble little Norwegian pony we have life-like
portraits of the Lord High Constable and his squire.
It is exactly the same with Fouqué. Sir Folko's horse is described as a
slender-necked, light-footed, silver-grey stallion. "At a signal from
his rider he approached Gabriele and bent his forelegs, then leaped
into the air and caracoled so lightly back to his place that he seemed
to be flying, the golden bells on his harness ringing sweet chimes.
Perfectly still and obedient he stood, only turning his beautiful
head, under its rich trappings, to look caressingly and inquiringly at
his master, as if asking: 'Have I done well?'"--Gallantry, sense of
honour, loyalty! What more is there in the knights themselves?
"Sir Archimbald's steed presented a strange contrast. Flecked with
white foam, rearing and kicking, he seemed to be about to break the
silver chain by which two men-at-arms were holding him back with all
their might. His eyes flamed so fiercely that they might well be
likened to burning torches, and with his right forefoot he pawed the
earth as though he were digging a grave for his master's enemies."
--Audacious valour, ardent longing for the fight, indomitable strength!
What is there more in the knights?
Sir Otto's father presents him with a horse. "The youth, hastening
down, saw a crowd of men-at-arms collected round a bright brown horse
with golden trappings. 'Mount,' said his father, 'and make essay if so
noble an animal is content to be your property.' Then the young knight
Otto von Trautwangen, controlling the animal with a powerful hand,
put him through his paces in such a manner that the soldiers, filled
with astonishment, felt assured that the noble steed must recognise
his destined master, and that in the knight's power over him there lay
some strange significance. Sir Otto sprang from his horse and threw
himself into his father's arms. Then the charger snorted and kicked
wildly at the retainers who grasped at his bridle, and, breaking away
from them, followed his young master and laid his head caressingly
upon his shoulder."--Invincibility until the destined master, he whose
power over the heart is felt to be "of strange significance," appears,
and from that moment onwards absolute devotion and the most tender
caresses! What else, what more is there in Fouqué's young maidens of
high degree?
It was the fault of the sea-king Arinbjörn that, at the critical
moment, Otto lost his beloved and the magic ring. Arinbjörn is riding
along a solitary road. A wild bay stallion comes galloping up and
makes a furious attack upon the sea-king's horse, and throws him down
before his rider can spring from the saddle. Man and horse, lying in a
confused heap, are mercilessly kicked by the furious stallion. When we
know that the following extraordinary speech of Otto's is made of so
sagacious and devoted a horse as this, it does not astonish us so much
as it otherwise might: "My horse's colour makes him specially dear to
me. For this bright brown is in my eyes a colour of angelic beauty; my
blessed mother had great, bright brown eyes, and, as all heaven looked
out of them, the colour has always seemed to me like a greeting from
heaven."
Thus does the psychology of the romance of chivalry
culminate--psychology of the patrician, or psychology of the horse,
call it which you will. In its portraiture of knights hailing from
all the ends of the earth, _The Magic Ring_, as Gottschall aptly
remarks, confines itself to primary types of humanity and the colouring
produced by the sun--we are able to distinguish a Moor from a Finn.
This book was followed by many others of the same description,
amongst which _Die Fahrten Thiodolfs des Isländers_ ("The Expeditions
of Thiodolf the Icelander") is the best known. Thiodolf had been
forecast by an earlier work of Fouqué's, the great trilogy, _Der Held
des Nordens_ ("The Hero of the North"), which consists of _Sigurd the
Serpent Slayer_, _Sigurd's Revenge_, and _Aslauga_. _Der Held des
Nordens_ is dedicated to Fichte, and is evidently inspired by the
enthusiasm which he had aroused for the olden days of Germany, and for
everything characteristically national. The three lyrical-rhetorical
"reading-dramas" of which it consists are written in iambics; and where
the language becomes particularly impressive or impassioned, short
lines are employed, the rhythm and alliteration of which are intended
to recall the old Northern metre. The general impression is much the
same as that produced by the texts of such of Richard Wagner's operas
as deal with the legends of the North.
The verse, though sometimes laboured, generally rings well, the
sentiments are noble and chivalrous, the greatness portrayed is
superhuman, yet puerile, the light is not the light of day. The hero's
bodily strength and endurance are prodigious. He splits an anvil with
one blow; he climbs the outer wall of a high tower, and, when he has
looked in at the topmost casement and seen all that he wishes to see,
jumps lightly down again. Intellectually he is less remarkable.
Of this dramatised version of the Volsung Saga Heine writes: "_Sigurd
the Serpent Slayer_ is a spirited work, in which the old Scandinavian
Saga, with its giants and its witchcraft, is reflected. The hero,
Sigurd, is a mighty figure. He is as strong as the Norwegian cliffs,
and as wild as the sea that breaks upon them. He has the courage of a
hundred lions and the wit of two asses." We may take this last remark
as applying to all Fouqué's knightly figures. They are all national
portraits, like those we read of in Brentano's story, _Die Mehreren
Wehmüller_, those thirty-nine Hungarian types, painted by the artist
before he went to Hungary, from amongst which every one afterwards
selected his own portrait. In Arnim's and Brentano's writings
everything is specialised and characteristic, the situations as well as
the personalities; here everything is generalised. A king is always a
hero or a stage-king; a queen is either dark and haughty or gentle and
fair, &c., &c. The general type is there once for all; the individual
features of the "national portraits" are added later.
The national type, of course, varies with the country. In Denmark,
under Frederick VI., the romance of chivalry is patriotic and loyal. In
Germany, after the War of Liberation, it is patriotic and aristocratic.
In _The Magic Ring_ we read: "The Stranger had seen much of the
world, but had remained a true, pious German; nay, it was in foreign
lands that he had become one; for distance had revealed to him what a
glorious country that old Germany was."
In both countries the political tendency of Romanticism is the same.
[1] Ruge, _Werke_, ii. 60, &c.
[2] "When men of noble, knightly mien trod the banks of the Rhine."
[3] "Silver for bruises, gold for blood! Pay me well, Plutus, and I'll
fight well for you."