one that didactic poetry is valuable for the sake of its popular
appeal. Even the most talented poet should feel himself honored to
have treated in this style a chapter of useful knowledge. The English
have some highly praiseworthy examples of this style. With jest and
seriousness they curry favor with the crowd, and then discuss in
explanatory notes whatever the reader must know in order to understand
the poem. The teacher in the field of æsthetics, ethics, or history has
a fine chance to systematize and clarify this chapter and acquaint his
students with the merit of the best works of this kind, not according
to the utility of their contents, but with reference to the greater or
less degree of their poetical value.
This subject should properly be quite omitted from a course on
æsthetics, but for the sake of those who have studied poetry and
rhetoric, it might be presented in special lectures, perhaps public.
Here a true comprehension, as everywhere, will prove of great advantage
to practice; for many people will grasp the difficulty of weaving
together a piece out of knowledge and imagination, of binding two
opposed elements together into a living bodily whole. The lecturer
should reveal the means by which this reconciliation can be made, and
his auditors, thereby guarded against mistakes, might each attempt in
his own way to produce a similar effect.
Among the many ways and means of effecting such a fusion, good humor is
the most certain, and could also be considered the most suitable, were
pure humor not so rare.
No more singular undertaking could easily be thought of than to
turn the geology of a district into a didactic, and indeed highly
imaginative, poem; yet this is what a member of the Geological Society
of London has done, in an attempt to popularize in this way a subject,
and promote a study usually insufferable to the thought of travelers.
SUPERSTITION AND POETRY
(1823)
Superstition is the poetry of life; both build an imaginary world, and
between the things of the actual, palpable world they anticipate the
most marvelous connections. Sympathy and antipathy govern everywhere.
Poetry is ever freeing itself from such fetters as it arbitrarily
imposes upon itself; superstition, on the contrary, can be compared
to the magic cords which draw together ever the tighter, the more
one struggles against them. The time of greatest enlightenment is
not secure from it; let it strike an uncultured century or epoch,
and the clouded mind of poor humanity begins to strive after the
impossible, to endeavor to have intercourse with and influence the
supernatural, the far-distant, the future. A numerous world of marvels
it constructs for itself, surrounded with a circle of darkness and
gloom. Such clouds hang over whole centuries, and grow thicker and
thicker. The imagination broods over a waste of sensuality; reason
seems to have turned back like Astræa to its divine origin; wisdom
is in despair, since she has no means of successfully asserting her
rights. Superstition does not harm the poet, for he knows how to make
its half-truths, to which he gives only a literary validity, count in
manifold ways for good.
THE METHODS OF FRENCH CRITICISM
I (1817)
A wealth of terms for unfavorable criticism:--
A. abandonnée, absurde, arrogance, astuce.
B. bafoué, bête, bêtise, bouffissure, bouquin, bourgeois,
boursouflure, boutade, brisé, brutalité.
C. cabale, cagot, canaille, carcan, clique, contraire, créature.
D. déclamatoire, décrié, dégoût, dénigrement, dépourvu, déprayé,
désobligeant, détestable, diabolique, dur.
E. échoppe, enflure, engouement, ennui, ennuyeux, énorme, entortillé,
éphémères, épluché, espèce, étourneau.
F. factice, fadaise, faible, fainéant, fané, fastidieux, fatigant,
fatuité, faux, forcé, fou, fourré, friperie, frivole, furieux.
G. gâte, gauchement, gaucher, grimace, grossier, grossièrement.
H. haillons, honnêtement, honte, horreur.
I. imbécile, impertinence, impertinent, impuissant, incorrection,
indécis, indéterminé, indifférence, indignités, inégalité,
inguérissable, insipide, insipidité, insoutenable, intolérant,
jouets, irréfléchi.
L. laquais, léger, lésine, louche, lourd.
M. maladresse, manque, maroud, mauvais, médiocre, mépris, méprise,
mignardise, mordant.
N. négligé, négligence, noirceur, non-soin.
O. odieux.
P. passable, pauvreté, pénible, petites-maisons, peupropre,
pie-grièche, pitoyable, plat, platitude, pompeux, précieux,
puérilités.
R. rapsodie, ratatiné, rebattu, réchauffé, redondance, rétréci,
révoltant, ridicule, roquet.
S. sans succès, sifflets, singerie, somnifère, soporifique, sottise,
subalterne.
T. terrassé, tombée, traînée, travers, triste.
V. vague, vexé, vide, vieillerie, volumineux.
A scanty store for praise:--
A. animé, applaudie.
B. brillant.
C. charmant, correct.
E. esprit.
F. facile, finesse.
G. goût, grâce, gracieux, grave.
I. invention, justesse.
L. léger, légèreté, libre.
N. nombreux.
P. piquant, prodigieux, pur.
R. raisonnable.
S. spirituel.
V. verve.
“Words are the image of the soul; yet not an image, but rather a
shadow! Expressing roughly, and signifying gently, all that we have,
all that we have had in our experience! What was,--where has it gone?
and what is that which is with us now? Ah! we speak! Swiftly we catch
and seize the gifts of life as they fleet by us.”
* * * * *
The insight and character of a man express themselves most clearly in
his judgments. In what he rejects, and what he accepts, he confesses
to what is alien to him and what he has need of; and so each year
designates unconsciously its present spiritual state, the compass of
its past life.
Thus is it also with nations; their praise and censure must always be
strictly consonant to their situation. We possessed Greek and Roman
terminology of this sort; the foregoing would give an occasion for
examining recent criticism. Like the individual man, the nation rests
on traditional ideas, foreign more often than native, both inherited
and original. But only in so far as a people has a native literature
can it judge and understand the past as it does the present. The
Englishman clings earnestly and stubbornly to classic antiquity, and
will not be convinced that the Orient has produced poets, unless he can
be shown parallel passages from Horace. What advantages, on the other
hand, Shakespeare’s independent genius has brought to the nation can
hardly be expressed.
The French by the introduction of badly understood classical principles
and an over-nice sense of form so constrained their poetry that it must
finally quite disappear, since it could not become more similar to
prose. The German was on the right road and will find it again, as soon
as he gives up the unhappy attempt to rank the _Nibelungen_ with the
_Iliad_.
* * * * *
The favorable opinion which an excellent foreign writer has concerning
us Germans may be appropriately related here. The Privy Councilor
of the Russian Empire, Count Uvaroff, speaks thus in our honor, in a
preface addressed to an old friend and partner, and contained in his
valuable work on _Nonnus of Panopolis, the Poet_ (St. Petersburg,
1817): “The renaissance of archæology belongs to the Germans. Other
peoples may have contributed preparatory work, but if the more advanced
philological studies are ever developed to a complete whole, such a
palingenesis or regeneration could only take place in Germany. For
this reason, certain new views can hardly be expressed in any other
language, and on that account I have written in German. I hope we have
now given up the perverse notion of the political preëminence of this
or that language. It is time that every one, unconcerned about the
instrument itself, should select the language which fits most closely
the circle of ideas in which his thought is moving.”
Here speaks an able, talented, intellectual man, whose mind is above
the petty limitations of a cold literary patriotism, and who, like
a master of musical art, draws the stops of his well-equipped organ
which express the thought and feeling of each moment. Would that all
cultivated Germans would take thankfully to heart these excellent
and instructive words of his, and that intellectual youths would
be inspired to make themselves proficient in several languages, as
optional instruments of life!
II (1820)
In my article on “Urteilsworte französischer Kritiker,” a large number
of unfavorable epithets used by French critics were set off against a
scanty number of favorable words. In connection with this, the _Vrai
Liberal_ of February 4, 1819, lodges a complaint against me and accuses
me of an injustice towards the French nation. It does this with so much
civility and charm as to make me ashamed of myself, were it not for the
fact that behind my presentation of those words there lay a secret,
which I hasten to reveal to it and to my readers at this time.
I admit without hesitation that the Brussels correspondent of the _Vrai
Liberal_ is quite right when he points out how among the words of
censure which I gave there appear many peculiar ones which one would
not exactly expect; and in addition, that in the list of favorable
words, several are lacking which ought to occur to every one. In order
to explain this, and make the story clearer, I shall relate how I was
induced to make this particular list.
When Herr von Grimm forty years ago achieved an honorable entrance
into Parisian society, at that time extraordinarily talented and
intellectual, and was recognized practically as a member of this
distinguished company, he decided to send a written bulletin of
literary and other interesting matters to princely personages
and wealthy people in Germany, in order to entertain them, for a
considerable remuneration, with the characteristic life of Paris
circles, in regard to which they were curious in the outside world,
because they could well consider Paris as the centre of the cultured
world. These letters were to contain not merely news; but the best
works of Diderot, _The Nun_, _Jacques the Fatalist_, etc., were by
degrees inserted in such small portions that curiosity, attention, and
eagerness were kept alive from number to number.
Through the favor of distinguished patrons I was permitted to peruse
these bulletins regularly, and I did not neglect to study them with
great deliberation and ardor. Now, if I may be permitted to say it
to my credit, I always cheerfully recognized the superiority of
the writers and their works, treasured and admired them, and also
thankfully profited by them. For this reason I was soon struck in this
correspondence of Grimm’s with the fact that in the stories, anecdotes,
delineation of character, description, criticism, one noticed more of
censure than of praise, more derogatory than laudatory terminology. One
day in good humor, for my own consideration and edification, I began to
take down the complete expressions, and later, half in jest and half
in earnest, to split them up and arrange them alphabetically; and thus
they remained on my desk for many years.
When finally the correspondence of Grimm was published, I read it as
the document of a past age, but with care, and soon came upon many
an expression which I had noticed before; and I was convinced anew
that the censure by far exceeded the praise. Then I hunted up the
earlier work of mine and had it printed, for the sake of intellectual
edification, which did not fail me. At the moment I was not able to
give further attention to the matter; and it is therefore not unlikely
that in so voluminous a work many a word of praise and blame that has
escaped me may be found.
But in order that this reproach, which appeared to concern a whole
nation, may not be left clinging to a single author, I shall reserve
the privilege of discussing this important literary topic on more
general lines in the near future.
ON CRITICISM
(1821-24)
I
Criticism is either destructive or constructive. The former is very
easy; for one need only set up some imaginary standard, some model or
other, however foolish this may be, and then boldly assert that the
work of art under consideration does not measure up to that standard,
and therefore is of no value. That settles the matter, and one can
without any more ado declare that the poet has not come up to one’s
requirements. In this way the critic frees himself of all obligations
of gratitude toward the artist.
Constructive criticism is much harder. It asks: What did the author
set out to do? Was his plan reasonable and sensible, and how far did
he succeed in carrying it out? If these questions are answered with
discernment and sympathy, we may be of real assistance to the author
in his later works, for even in his first attempts he has undoubtedly
taken certain preliminary steps which approach the level of our
criticism.
Perhaps we should call attention to another point which is altogether
too frequently overlooked, namely, that the critic must judge a work
of art more for the sake of the author than of the public. Every day
we see how, without the least regard for the opinions of reviewers,
some drama or novel is received by men and women in the most divers
individual ways, is praised, found fault with, given or refused a
place in the heart, merely as it happens to appeal to the personal
idiosyncrasy of each reader.
II
Criticism is a practice of the Moderns. What does this mean? Just this:
If you read a book and let it work upon you, and yield yourself up
entirely to its influence, then, and only then, will you arrive at a
correct judgment of it.
III
Some of my admiring readers have told me for a long time that instead
of expressing a judgment on books, I describe the influence which they
have had on me. And at bottom this is the way all readers criticize,
even if they do not communicate an opinion or formulate ideas about it
to the public. The scholar finds nothing new in a book, and therefore
cannot praise it, while the young student, eager for knowledge, finds
that knowledge increased, and a stimulus given to his culture. The
one is stirred, while the other remains cold. This explains why the
reception of books is so varied.
IV
I am more and more convinced that whenever one has to express an
opinion on the actions or on the writings of others, unless this be
done from a certain one-sided enthusiasm, or from a loving interest
in the person and the work, the result is hardly worth considering.
Sympathy and enjoyment in what we see are in fact the only reality; and
from such reality, reality as a natural product follows. All else is
vanity.
ON SHAKESPEARE
WILHELM MEISTER’S CRITIQUE OF _HAMLET_
(1795)
Wilhelm had scarcely read one or two of Shakespeare’s plays, till their
effect on him became so strong that he could go no farther. His whole
soul was in commotion. He sought an opportunity to speak with Jarno;
to whom, on meeting with him, he expressed his boundless gratitude for
such delicious entertainment.
“I clearly enough foresaw,” said Jarno, “that you would not remain
insensible to the charms of the most extraordinary and most admirable
of all writers.”
“Yes,” exclaimed our friend, “I cannot recollect that any book,
any man, any incident of my life, has produced such important
effects on me, as the precious works to which by your kindness I
have been directed. They seem as if they were performances of some
celestial genius, descending among men, to make them, by the mildest
instructions, acquainted with themselves. They are no fictions! You
would think, while reading them, you stood before the unclosed awful
Books of Fate, while the whirlwind of most impassioned life was howling
through the leaves, and tossing them fiercely to and fro. The strength
and tenderness, the power and peacefulness, of this man, have so
astonished and transported me, that I long vehemently for the time when
I shall have it in my power to read farther.”
“Bravo!” said Jarno, holding out his hand, and squeezing our friend’s.
“This is as it should be! And the consequences, which I hope for, will
likewise surely follow.”
“I wish,” said Wilhelm, “I could but disclose to you all that is going
on within me even now. All the anticipations I ever had regarding man
and his destiny, which have accompanied me from youth upwards, often
unobserved by myself, I find developed and fulfilled in Shakespeare’s
writings. It seems as if he cleared up every one of our enigmas to
us, though we cannot say, Here or there is the word of solution. His
men appear like natural men, and yet they are not. These, the most
mysterious and complex productions of creation, here act before us as
if they were watches, whose dial plates and cases were of crystal,
which pointed out, according to their use, the course of the hours and
minutes; while, at the same time, you could discern the combination of
wheels and springs that turned them. The few glances I have cast over
Shakespeare’s world incite me, more than anything beside, to quicken
my footsteps forward into the actual world, to mingle in the flood
of destinies that is suspended over it, and at length, if I shall
prosper, to draw a few cups from the great ocean of true nature, and
to distribute them from off the stage among the thirsting people of my
native land.”...
* * * * *
Seeing the company so favorably disposed, Wilhelm now hoped he might
further have it in his power to converse with them on the poetic merit
of the plays which might come before them. “It is not enough,” said he
next day, when they were all again assembled, “for the actor merely to
glance over a dramatic work, to judge of it by his first impression,
and thus, without investigation, to declare his satisfaction or
dissatisfaction with it. Such things may be allowed in a spectator,
whose purpose it is rather to be entertained and moved than formally to
criticize. But the actor, on the other hand, should be prepared to give
a reason for his praise or censure; and how shall he do this, if he
have not taught himself to penetrate the sense, the views, the feelings
of his author? A common error is to form a judgment of a drama from a
single part in it, and to look upon this part itself in an isolated
point of view, not in its connection with the whole. I have noticed
this within a few days so clearly in my own conduct that I will give
you the account as an example, if you please to hear me patiently.
“You all know Shakespeare’s incomparable _Hamlet_; our public reading
of it at the castle yielded every one of us the greatest satisfaction.
On that occasion we proposed to act the play; and I, not knowing what
I undertook, engaged to play the prince’s part. This I conceived that
I was studying, while I began to get by heart the strongest passages,
the soliloquies, and those scenes in which force of soul, vehemence and
elevation of feeling have the freest scope, where the agitated heart is
allowed to display itself with touching expressiveness.
“I further conceived that I was penetrating quite into the spirit of
the character, while I endeavored, as it were, to take upon myself
the load of deep melancholy under which my prototype was laboring,
and in this humor to pursue him through the strange labyrinths of
his caprices and his singularities. Thus learning, thus practising, I
doubted not but I should by and bye become one person with my hero.
“But the farther I advanced, the more difficult did it become for me
to form any image of the whole, in its general bearings; till at last
it seemed as if impossible. I next went through the entire piece,
without interruption; but here, too, I found much that I could not
away with. At one time the characters, at another time the manner of
displaying them, seemed inconsistent; and I almost despaired of finding
any general tint, in which I might present my whole part with all its
shadings and variations. In such devious paths I toiled, and wandered
long in vain; till at length a hope arose that I might reach my aim in
quite a new way.
“I set about investigating every trace of Hamlet’s character, as it had
shown itself before his father’s death; I endeavored to distinguish
what in it was independent of this mournful event, independent of the
terrible events that followed; and what most probably the young man
would have been had no such thing occurred.
“Soft, and from a noble stem, this royal flower had sprung up under the
immediate influences of majesty: the idea of moral rectitude with that
of princely elevation, the feeling of the good and dignified with the
consciousness of high birth, had in him been unfolded simultaneously.
He was a prince, by birth a prince; and he wished to reign, only that
good men might be good without obstruction. Pleasing in form, polished
by nature, courteous from the heart, he was meant to be the pattern of
youth and the joy of the world.
“Without any prominent passion, his love for Ophelia was a still
presentiment of sweet wants. His zeal in knightly accomplishments was
not entirely his own: it needed to be quickened and inflamed by praise
bestowed on others for excelling in them. Pure in sentiment, he knew
the honorable-minded, and could prize the rest which an upright spirit
tastes on the bosom of a friend. To a certain degree he had learned
to discern and value the good and the beautiful in arts and sciences;
the mean, the vulgar, was offensive to him; and, if hatred could take
root in his tender soul, it was only so far as to make him properly
despise the false and changeful insects of a court, and play with them
in easy scorn. He was calm in his temper, artless in his conduct,
neither pleased with idleness, nor too violently eager for employment.
The routine of a university he seemed to continue when at court. He
possessed more mirth of humor than of heart: he was a good companion,
pliant, courteous, discreet, and able to forget and forgive an injury,
yet never able to unite himself with those who overstepped the limits
of the right, the good, and the becoming.
“When we read the piece again, you shall judge whether I am yet on the
proper track. I hope at least to bring forward passages that shall
support my opinion in its main points.”
This delineation was received with warm approval; the company imagined
they foresaw that Hamlet’s manner of proceeding might now be very
satisfactorily explained; they applauded this method of penetrating
into the spirit of a writer. Each of them proposed to himself to take
up some piece, and study it on these principles, and so unfold the
author’s meaning....
Loving Shakespeare as our friend did, he failed not to lead round
the conversation to the merits of that dramatist. Expressing, as he
entertained, the liveliest hopes of the new epoch which these exquisite
productions must form in Germany, he erelong introduced his _Hamlet_,
which play had busied him so much of late.
Serlo declared that he would long ago have represented the play had it
at all been possible, and that he himself would willingly engage to act
Polonius. He added, with a smile, “An Ophelia, too, will certainly turn
up, if we had but a Prince.”
Wilhelm did not notice that Aurelia seemed a little hurt at her
brother’s sarcasm. Our friend was in his proper vein, becoming copious
and didactic, expounding how he would have _Hamlet_ played. He
circumstantially delivered to his hearers the opinions we before saw
him busied with; taking all the trouble possible to make his notion of
the matter acceptable, skeptical as Serlo showed himself regarding it.
“Well, then,” said the latter finally, “suppose we grant you all this,
what will you explain by it?”
“Much, everything,” said Wilhelm. “Conceive a prince such as I have
painted him, and that his father suddenly dies. Ambition and the love
of rule are not the passions that inspire him. As a king’s son, he
would have been contented; but now he is first constrained to consider
the difference which separates a sovereign from a subject. The crown
was not hereditary; yet his father’s longer possession of it would have
strengthened the pretensions of an only son, and secured his hopes of
succession. In place of this, he now beholds himself excluded by his
uncle, in spite of specious promises, most probably forever. He is now
poor in goods and favor, and a stranger in the scene which from youth
he had looked upon as his inheritance. His temper here assumes its
first mournful tinge. He feels that now he is not more, that he is less
than a private nobleman; he offers himself as the servant of every one;
he is not courteous and condescending, he is needy and degraded.