As an artist, Paludan-Müller presents the contradiction that in
his entire intellectual tendency he is a pronounced spiritualist,
with a marked bias for the supernatural and abstract, while in his
unquestionably most important and most vital work, which would surely
preserve his name from oblivion, even had he written nothing else,
he proved himself a decided realist, and looked actual life in the
face with a persistence that is very rare in Danish poetry. Now this
contradiction in itself indicates still another, as follows:--
Only reluctantly, as a rule, did he approach earth, and yet it was
extremely seldom that he engaged in spiritual poetry according to the
traditional acceptation of the phrase. His Pegasus bore him quite as
often to the heathen Elysium as to the Christian heaven, and even
where he seems to be directly expressing the Christian ideal, he is
merely touching upon it to leave it in the next breath. "Kalanus," for
instance, appears at the first glance as though it should properly be
called a Christian poem; for it unquestionably arouses the thought in
the reader's mind that if Kalanus, instead of being the contemporary
of Alexander, had been a contemporary of Christ, and if the latter,
as the orthodox maintain, had called himself God, all the hopes and
aspirations of the ascetic would assuredly have been fulfilled. If
we regard it a little more closely, however, we shall find that the
poem contains rather an Indian than a Christian enthusiasm for death.
Suicide, which Christianity has always condemned, is represented as
the one absolutely ideal action, and even if the flames of the funeral
pyre be accepted as a purgatory, similar to that with which "Adam Homo"
ends, it is, nevertheless, extremely singular that the sole dogma which
seems to exercise an inspiring influence upon this Protestant poet is
the dogma of purgatory that has been rejected by Protestantism, just as
the sole moral type which he passionately extols is that of the hermit
which Protestantism has discountenanced.
It was an honest and true remark that the brother of the poet uttered
over his coffin, when, after the attempt made by Bishop Martens en to
claim Paludan-Müller as the poet of the official Protestant Church, he
said that he who had never employed his poetry in the service of the
Church could not, without some reservation, be called a Christian poet.
With all his private orthodoxy, Paludan-Müller never wrote a single
hymn. With all his poetic predilection for the Bible and Christian
legends, he always turned back to the heathen myth as to the mirror
of his soul. He was a Christian because he was spiritual by nature,
not the reverse, and his spirituality, therefore, accorded quite as
fully with the withdrawal from earth in the holy Nirvana, and with the
classical enthusiasm for Venus Urania, as with the Christian enthusiasm
for saints and martyrs. Under all forms, self-abnegation, penance,
mortification of the flesh and blood were dear to him.
He might well, like the Greek philosopher of old, have borne the
surname Peisithanatos. He belonged, like Leopardi, to that little
group of spirits that may justly be called the lovers of death. When
his contemporary, the great Danish erotic poet, Christian Winther,
became old, he wrote a poem in which he gave expression to his love
of life, and declared that when his last hour should strike, he would
"place himself in Charon's boat with sullen mien and deep chagrin";
Paludan-Müller, on the contrary, wanted to cry to Charon, like that
Adonis about whom he wrote his last poem, "Take me, too!" and, before
the ferryman could distinguish whence the voice came, he wanted to
spring into the boat.
I do not speak here of his personal faith as a man; I know that he
believed in a life after death; I even remember how, when he learned
that David Strauss had dedicated a book to the memory of his deceased
brother, he, in his naïve orthodoxy, conceived this to be a proof
that Strauss had not been able to tear himself free from the idea of
personal immortality. I merely wish to speak of Paludan-Müller as
a thinker, as a poet; and as such he loved death, not immortality.
How weary, how deadly weary of life is Tithon! With what earnestness
Kalanus asks of Alexander: "O tell me, what can better be than death?"
With what rapture does not Ahasuerus take refuge in his sheltered grave
at the moment when all other poor mortals must arise from theirs, and
with what blissful joy does not he repeat his refrain, "Away to repose,
eternal!"
As an old man, Paludan-Müller wrote his lengthy novel "Ivar Lykke,"
which contains a beautiful testimony of his ardent patriotic love and
his upright mode of thought, but which otherwise is a work of but
little poetic merit. He, who for thirty years had lived the life of a
recluse, could not write novels. The colossal work in three volumes is
completely outbalanced by the short poem, occupying but comparatively
few pages, "Adonis," which was his parting word to the reading world.
The latter is a heathen apotheosis of death. Wearied of Venus and of
her restless pleasures, Adonis takes refuge in the realm of Proserpine,
and there reposes in a state of eternal meditation. Proserpine accosts
him in the following tender words:--
"Consolation seek with me!
None of passion's fancies learning,
No regrets, no sighs, no yearning--
Meditation first shall be."