native land of his _poetic_ powers and poetic action is the good,
noble, and beautiful, which is confined to no particular province or
country, and which he seizes upon and forms wherever he finds it.
Therein is he like the eagle, who hovers with free gaze over whole
countries, and to whom it is of no consequence whether the hare on
which he pounces is running in Prussia or in Saxony.
And, then, what is meant by love of one’s country? what is meant by
patriotic deeds? If the poet has employed a life in battling with
pernicious prejudices, in setting aside narrow views, in enlightening
the minds, purifying the tastes, ennobling the feelings and thoughts of
his countrymen, what better could he have done? how could he have acted
more patriotically?
_Poetry and History_
Manzoni wants nothing except to know what a good poet he is, and what
rights belong to him as such. He has too much respect for history,
and on this account always adds explanations to his pieces, in which
he shows how faithful he has been to detail. Now, though his facts
may be historical, his characters are not so, any more than my Thoas
and Iphigenia. No poet has ever known the historical characters which
he has painted; if he had, he could scarcely have made use of them.
The poet must know what effects he wishes to produce, and regulate
the nature of his characters accordingly. If I had tried to make
Egmont as history represents him, the father of a dozen children, his
light-minded proceedings would have appeared very absurd. I needed an
Egmont more in harmony with his own actions and my poetic views; and
this is, as Clara says, _my_ Egmont.
What would be the use of poets, if they only repeated the record of
the historian? The poet must go further, and give us, if possible,
something higher and better. All the characters of Sophocles bear
something of that great poet’s lofty soul; and it is the same with the
characters of Shakespeare. This is as it ought to be. Nay, Shakespeare
goes farther, and makes his Romans Englishmen; and there, too, he is
right; for otherwise his nation would not have understood him.
Here again the Greeks were so great that they regarded fidelity to
historic facts less than the treatment of them by the poet. We have
a fine example in Philoctetes, which subject has been treated by all
three of the great tragic poets, and lastly and best by Sophocles. This
poet’s excellent play has, fortunately, come down to us entire, while
of the Philoctetes of Æschylus and Euripides only fragments have been
found, although sufficient to show how they have managed the subject.
If time permitted, I would restore these pieces, as I did the Phäeton
of Euripides; it would be to me no unpleasant or useless task.
In this subject the problem was very simple, namely, to bring
Philoctetes, with his bow, from the island of Lemnos. But the manner
of doing this was the business of the poet, and here each could show
the power of his invention, and one could excel another. Ulysses must
fetch him; but shall he be recognized by Philoctetes or not? and if
not, how shall he be disguised? Shall Ulysses go alone, or shall he
have companions, and who shall they be? In Æschylus the companion is
unknown; in Euripides, it is Diomed; in Sophocles, the son of Achilles.
Then, in what situation is Philoctetes to be found? Shall the island be
inhabited or not? and, if inhabited, shall any sympathetic soul have
taken compassion on him or not? And so with a hundred other things,
which are all at the discretion of the poet, and in the selection and
omission of which one may show his superiority in wisdom to another.
This is the important point, and the poets of to-day should do like the
ancients. They should not be always asking whether a subject has been
used before, and look to south and north for unheard-of adventures,
which are often barbarous enough, and merely make an impression as
incidents. But to make something of a simple subject by a masterly
treatment requires intellect and great talent, and these we do not find.
_Originality_
The Germans cannot cease to be Philistines. They are now squabbling
about some distichs, which are printed both in Schiller’s works and
mine, and fancy it is important to ascertain which really belong to
Schiller and which to me; as if anything could be gained by such
investigation--as if the existence of such things were not enough.
Friends like Schiller and myself, intimate for years, with the same
interests, in habits of daily intercourse, and under reciprocal
obligations, live so completely in one another that it is hardly
possible to decide to which of the two the particular thoughts belong.
We have made many distichs together; sometimes I gave the thought, and
Schiller made the verse; sometimes the contrary was the case; sometimes
he made one line, and I the other. What matters the mine and thine?
One must be a thorough Philistine, indeed, to attach the slightest
importance to the solution of such questions.
We are indeed born with faculties; but we owe our development to a
thousand influences of the great world, from which we appropriate to
ourselves what we can, and what is suitable to us. I owe much to the
Greeks and French; I am infinitely indebted to Shakespeare, Sterne,
and Goldsmith; but in saying this I do not exhaust the sources of my
culture; that would be an endless as well as an unnecessary task.
We might as well question a strong man about the oxen, sheep, and
swine which he has eaten, and which have given him strength. What is
important is to have a soul which loves truth, and receives it wherever
it finds it.
Besides, the world is now so old, so many eminent men have lived
and thought for thousands of years, that there is little new to be
discovered or expressed. Even my theory of colors is not entirely new.
Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, and many other excellent men, have before
me found and expressed the same thing in a detached form: my merit is
that I have found it also, that I have said it again, and that I have
striven to bring the truth once more into a confused world.
The truth must be repeated over and over again, because error is
repeatedly preached among us, not only by individuals, but by the
masses. In periodicals and cyclopedias, in schools and universities,
everywhere, in fact, error prevails, and is quite easy in the feeling
that it has a decided majority on its side.
* * * * *
People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As
soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us, and this goes
on to the end. And, after all, what can we call our own except energy,
strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to
great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small
balance in my favor.
However, the time of life in which we are subjected to a new and
important personal influence is, by no means, a matter of indifference.
That Lessing, Winckelmann, and Kant were older than I, and that the
first two acted upon my youth, the latter on my advanced age,--this
circumstance was for me very important. Again, that Schiller was so
much younger than I, and engaged in his freshest strivings just as I
began to be weary of the world--just, too, as the brothers von Humboldt
and Schlegel were beginning their career under my eye--was of the
greatest importance. I derived from it unspeakable advantages.
What seduces young people is this. We live in a time in which so much
culture is diffused that it has communicated itself, as it were, to
the atmosphere which a young man breathes. Poetical and philosophic
thoughts live and move within him, he has sucked them in with his very
breath, but he thinks they are his own property, and utters them as
such. But after he has restored to the time what he has received from
it, he remains poor. He is like a fountain which plays for a while with
the water with which it is supplied, but which ceases to flow as soon
as the liquid treasure is exhausted.
* * * * *
The critic of _Le Temps_ has not been so wise. He presumes to point
out to the poet the way he should go. This is a great fault; for one
cannot thus make him better. After all, there is nothing more foolish
than to say to a poet: “You should have done this in this way--and that
in that.” I speak from long experience. One can never make anything
of a poet but what nature has intended him to be. If you force him to
be another, you will destroy him. Now, the gentlemen of the _Globe_,
as I said before, act very wisely. They print a long list of all the
commonplaces which M. Arnault has picked up from every hole and corner;
and by doing this they very cleverly point out the rock which the
author has to avoid in future. It is almost impossible, in the present
day, to find a situation which is thoroughly new. It is merely the
manner of looking at it, and the art of treating and representing it,
which can be new, and one must be the more cautious of every imitation.
_Personality in Art_
You have before you the works of very fair talents, who have learned
something, and have acquired no little taste and art. Still, something
is wanting in all these pictures--the _Manly_. Take notice of this
word, and underscore it. The pictures lack a certain urgent power,
which in former ages was generally expressed, but in which the present
age is deficient, and that with respect not only to painting, but to
all the other arts. We have a more weakly race, of which we cannot say
whether it is so by its origin, or by a more weakly training and diet.
Personality is everything in art and poetry; nevertheless, there are
many weak personages among the modern critics who do not admit this,
but look upon a great personality in a work of poetry or art merely as
a kind of trifling appendage.
However, to feel and respect a great personality one must be something
oneself. All those who denied the sublime to Euripides were either
poor wretches incapable of comprehending such sublimity, or shameless
charlatans, who, by their presumption, wished to make more of
themselves, and really did make more of themselves than they were.
_The Subject-Matter of Poetry_
The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you
can never want occasions for poems. But they must all be occasional
poems; that is to say, reality must give both impulse and material for
their production. A particular case becomes universal and poetic by
the very circumstance that it is treated by a poet. All my poems are
occasional poems, suggested by real life, and having therein a firm
foundation. I attach no value to poems snatched out of the air.
Let no one say that reality wants poetical interest; for in this the
poet proves his vocation, that he has the art to win from a common
subject an interesting side. Reality must give the motive, the points
to be expressed, the kernel, as I may say; but to work out of it a
beautiful, animated whole, belongs to the poet. You know Fürnstein,
called the Poet of Nature; he has written the prettiest poem possible
on the cultivation of hops. I have now proposed to him to make songs
for the different crafts of working-men, particularly a weaver’s
song, and I am sure he will do it well, for he has lived among such
people from his youth; he understands the subjects thoroughly, and
is therefore master of his material. That is exactly the advantage
of small works; you need only choose those subjects of which you are
master. With a great poem, this cannot be: no part can be evaded;
all which belongs to the animation of the whole, and is interwoven
into the plan, must be represented with precision. In youth, however,
the knowledge of things is only one-sided. A great work requires
many-sidedness, and on that rock the young author splits.
* * * * *
I especially warn you against great inventions of your own; for then
you would try to give a view of things, and for that purpose youth is
seldom ripe. Further, character and views detach themselves as sides
from the poet’s mind, and deprive him of the fullness requisite for
future productions. And, finally, how much time is lost in invention,
internal arrangement, and combination, for which nobody thanks us, even
supposing our work is happily accomplished.
With a _given_ material, on the other hand, all goes easier and better.
Facts and characters being provided, the poet has only the task of
animating the whole. He preserves his own fullness, for he needs to
part with but little of himself, and there is much less loss of time
and energy, since he has only the trouble of execution. Indeed, I would
advise the choice of subjects which have been worked before. How many
Iphigenias have been written! yet they are all different, for each
writer considers and arranges the subject differently; namely, after
his own fashion.
* * * * *
The majority of our young poets have no fault but this, that their
subjectivity is not important, and that they cannot find matter in
the objective. At best, they only find a material which is similar to
themselves, which corresponds to their own subjectivity; but as for
taking the material on its own account; merely because it is poetical,
even when it is repugnant to their subjectivity, such a thing is never
thought of.
* * * * *
Our German æstheticians are always talking about poetical and
unpoetical objects; and, in one respect, they are not quite wrong; yet,
at bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use
it properly.
_The Influence of Environment_
If a talent is to be speedily and happily developed, the great point is
that a great deal of intellect and sound culture should be current in a
nation.
We admire the tragedies of the ancient Greeks; but, to take a correct
view of the case, we ought rather to admire the period and the nation
in which their production was possible than the individual authors; for
though these pieces differ a little from each other, and one of these
poets appears somewhat greater and more finished than the other, still,
taking all things together, only one decided character runs through the
whole.
This is the character of grandeur, fitness, soundness, human
perfection, elevated wisdom, sublime thought, clear, concrete vision,
and whatever other qualities one might enumerate. But when we find
all these qualities, not only in the dramatic works that have come
down to us, but also in lyrical and epic works, in the philosophers,
the orators, and the historians, and in an equally high degree in the
works of plastic art that have come down to us, we must feel convinced
that such qualities did not merely belong to individuals, but were the
current property of the nation and the whole period.
Now, take up Burns. How is he great, except through the circumstance
that the old songs of his predecessors lived in the mouth of the
people,--that they were, so to speak, sung at his cradle; that, as a
boy, he grew up amongst them, and the high excellence of these models
so pervaded him that he had therein a living basis on which he could
proceed further? Again, why is he great, but from this, that his own
songs at once found susceptible ears amongst his compatriots; that,
sung by reapers and sheaf-binders, they at once greeted him in the
field; and that his boon-companions sang them to welcome him at the
alehouse? Something was certainly to be done in this way.
On the other hand, what a pitiful figure is made by us Germans! Of our
old songs--no less important than those of Scotland--how many lived
among the people in the days of my youth? Herder and his successors
first began to collect them and rescue them from oblivion; then they
were at least printed in the libraries. Then, more lately, what songs
have not Bürger and Voss composed! Who can say that they are more
insignificant or less popular than those of the excellent Burns? but
which of them so lives among us that it greets us from the mouth of
the people?--they are written and printed, and they remain in the
libraries, quite in accordance with the general fate of German poets.
Of my own songs, how many live? Perhaps one or another of them may be
sung by a pretty girl at the piano; but among the people, properly so
called, they have no sound. With what sensations must I remember the
time when passages from Tasso were sung to me by Italian fishermen!
We Germans are of yesterday. We have indeed been properly cultivated
for a century; but a few centuries more must still elapse before so
much mind and elevated culture will become universal amongst our people
that they will appreciate beauty like the Greeks, that they will be
inspired by a beautiful song, and that it will be said of them “it is
long since they were barbarians.”
_Culture and Morals_
The audacity and grandeur of Byron must certainly tend towards Culture.
We should take care not to be always looking for it in only what is
decidedly pure and moral. Everything that is great promotes cultivation
as soon as we are aware of it.
_Classic and Romantic_
A new expression occurs to me which does not ill define the state of
the case. I call the classic _healthy_, the romantic _sickly_. In this
sense, the _Nibelungenlied_ is as classic as the _Iliad_, for both are
vigorous and healthy. Most modern productions are romantic, not because
they are new, but because they are weak, morbid, and sickly; and the
antique is classic, not because it is old, but because it is strong,
fresh, joyous, and healthy. If we distinguish “classic” and “romantic”
by these qualities, it will be easy to see our way clearly.
* * * * *
This is a pathological work; a superfluity of sap is bestowed on some
parts which do not require it, and drawn out of those which stand in
need of it. The subject was good, but the scenes which I expected were
not there; while others, which I did not expect, were elaborated with
assiduity and love. This is what I call pathological, or “romantic,”
if you would rather speak according to our new theory.
* * * * *
The French now begin to think justly of these matters. Both classic and
romantic, say they, are equally good. The only point is to use these
forms with judgment, and to be capable of excellence. You can be absurd
in both, and then one is as worthless as the other. This, I think, is
rational enough, and may content us for a while.
* * * * *
The idea of the distinction between classical and romantic poetry,
which is now spread over the whole world, and occasions so many
quarrels and divisions, came originally from Schiller and myself. I
laid down the maxim of objective treatment in poetry, and would allow
no other; but Schiller, who worked quite in the subjective way, deemed
his own fashion the right one, and to defend himself against me, wrote
the treatise upon _Naïve and Sentimental Poetry_. He proved to me that
I myself, against my will, was romantic, and that my _Iphigenia_,
through the predominance of sentiment, was by no means so classical and
so much in the antique spirit as some people supposed.
The Schlegels took up this idea, and carried it further, so that it
has now been diffused over the whole world; and every one talks about
classicism and romanticism--of which nobody thought fifty years ago.
_Taste_
This is the way to cultivate what we call taste. Taste is only to be
educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good, but of the
truly excellent. I therefore show you only the best works; and when
you are grounded in these, you will have a standard for the rest,
which you will know how to value, without overrating them. And I show
you the best in each class, that you may perceive that no class is to
be despised, but that each gives delight when a man of genius attains
its highest point. For instance, this piece, by a French artist, is
_galant_, to a degree which you see nowhere else, and is therefore a
model in its way.
_Style_
On the whole, philosophical speculation is injurious to the Germans,
as it tends to make their style abstract, difficult, and obscure. The
stronger their attachment to certain philosophical schools, the worse
they write. Those Germans who, as men of business and actual life,
confine themselves to the practical, write the best. Schiller’s style
is most noble and impressive whenever he leaves off philosophizing, as
I observe every day in his highly interesting letters, with which I am
now busy.
There are also among the German women talented beings who write a
really excellent style, and, indeed, in that respect surpass many of
our celebrated male writers.
The English almost always write well, being born orators and practical
men, with a tendency to the real.
The French, in their style, remain true to their general character.
They are of a social nature, and therefore never forget the public whom
they address; they strive to be clear; that they may convince their
reader--agreeable, that they may please him.
Altogether, the style of a writer is a faithful representative of his
mind; therefore, if any man wishes to write a clear style, let him
first be clear in his thoughts: and if any would write in a noble
style, let him first possess a noble soul.
_Intellect and Imagination_
I wonder what the German critics will say [of this poetic
inconsistency]. Will they have freedom and boldness enough to get over
this? Intellect will stand in the way of the French; they will not
consider that the imagination has its own laws, to which the intellect
cannot, and should not, penetrate.
If imagination did not originate things which must ever be problems to
the intellect, there would be but little for the imagination to do. It
is this which separates poetry from prose; and it is in the latter that
the intellect always is, and always should be, at home.
_Definition of Poetry_
What need of much definition? Lively feeling of situations, and power
to express them, make the poet.
_Definition of Beauty_
I cannot help laughing at the æstheticians, who torment themselves in
endeavoring, by some abstract words, to reduce to a conception that
inexpressible thing to which we give the name of beauty. Beauty is a
primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the
reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of
the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.
_Architecture and Music_
I have found a paper of mine among some others, in which I call
architecture “petrified music.”[14] Really there is something in this;
the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of
music.
_Primitive Poetry_
From these old German gloomy times we can obtain as little as from the
Servian songs, and similar barbaric popular poetry. We can read it and
be interested about it for a while, but merely to cast it aside, and
let it lie behind us. Generally speaking, a man is quite sufficiently
saddened by his own passions and destiny, and need not make himself
more so by the darkness of a barbaric past. He needs enlightening and
cheering influences, and should therefore turn to those eras in art and
literature, during which remarkable men obtained perfect culture, so
that they were satisfied with themselves, and able to impart to others
the blessings of their culture.
_Weltliteratur_
We [Germans] are weakest in the æsthetic department, and may wait
long before we meet such a man as Carlyle. It is pleasant to see that
intercourse is now so close between the French, English, and Germans,
that we shall be able to correct one another. This is the greatest use
of a World Literature, which will show itself more and more.
Carlyle has written a life of Schiller, and judged him as it would be
difficult for a German to judge him. On the other hand, we are clear
about Shakespeare and Byron, and can, perhaps, appreciate their merits
better than the English themselves.
_French Critics_
I am now really curious to know what the gentlemen of the _Globe_
will say of this novel. They are clever enough to perceive its
excellencies; and the whole tendency of the work is so much grist to
the mill of these liberals, although Manzoni has shown himself very
moderate. Nevertheless, the French seldom receive a work with such pure
kindliness as we; they cannot readily adapt themselves to the author’s
point of view, but, even in the best, always find something which is
not to their mind, and which the author should have done otherwise.
* * * * *