CONCEPTIONS OF _VOLK_ IN HERDER’S DISCUSSION OF “OSSIAN’S PEOPLE” AND OF
THE ANCIENT HEBREWS
Herder has discussed, in connection with two groups of poetry which he
distinctly calls _Volkspoesie_, each race from which the particular
collection arose. Both directly and indirectly he presents in each of
these peoples the peculiar characteristics by which he identifies a
community with his ideal conception of _Volk_.
In his collection of _Volk_ songs he has presented literature from many
and varied peoples of the earth, but he has discussed at length, to show
the traits which stamp their _Volkspoesie_ as such, only two of these
groups.
An examination of the common factors which the author sees as essential
elements of each of these races ought to give us in one form his
conception of _Das Volk_.
The two races are: (1) Those whom he believes to be the ancient Gauls,
from whom we have the collection known as “The Songs of Ossian”[10]; (2)
the ancient Hebrews.[11]
OSSIAN
Herder places the people among whom this body of literature arose in the
islands known as the “Hebrides,” in the highlands of Scotland, and in
Ireland.
Rugged mountains covered with roaring forests or spotted with desert
tracts surround the inhabitants. Mists and clouds, midnight and storm,
abound both on mountain tops and in the intervening valleys. Their huts
are bordered by rocks and narrowly shut in by foggy darkness or from
rough cliffs; they overlook the sea.
At the time at which we see them these highland dwellers look often upon
wilderness full of sacred views, upon battlefields, lonesome graves, and
blotted-out footsteps.
These old Highlanders believed in an all-high Being, whom they conceived
to be self-existing. The cloud was the dwelling place of patriotism and
love. The voice of renown, that is of song sung by friends yet alive to
the honor of their departed ones, still highly esteemed, introduced these
departed to their ancestors. With a sigh and tear as password, they were
received at once into the smiling presence of their forefathers, who had
clear, transparent figures like to the curled clouds. Their hands were
weak, their voices deep and soft. They swayed themselves over the entire
abode of their race and rejoiced in boundless space. Space they prized
above everything else. Fright and horror were considered as narrow and
shut in. Hence they called the grave the narrow house, and weak courage,
the breath of a narrow soul.
The noble dead never became old, but grew constantly wiser because they
conversed with the good of other times. On the other hand, the souls of
the wicked were driven whirling into a thick fog which always hung over
an offensive smelling morass. They never came out of this fog, and never
saw the sun. One did not know the name of the other. The black water of
the morass lake was their only converse; the voice of the Heron and the
quacking of ducks their music.
Ossian’s folk attributed every sudden death to an invisible hand which
threw a stone out of the clouds and which they called an “arrow of the
destroying woman.”
“Their chief conception of the highest being was that it governs the
clouds and heavenly bodies and rejoices at bravery and fortune of
mankind; that it remained ever invisible ... that the entire earth out of
fear would like to catch and imprison it.”
The dead were mourned in funeral dirges sung on the graves of the
departed; in the case of heroes, often amid battle tumult, these songs
were directed to ancestral heroes who awaited the dead in the clouds.
One of their myths which Herder extracts from Ossian shows a certain
phase of their religion:
“As they sing in the moonlight to the moon goddess, Mona, this maiden of
the heavens comes with gentle movement, with silent, beautiful cheek; her
playmates, the stars, stand in rows to receive her; the clouds bordered
with gold trip before them as servants; she outshines all her rivals so
that they blush and conceal themselves in veils. On such an occasion as
this the hero Ossian turns his sad song to the thought, How would it be
if she should once disappear from the heavens, if she should then go
into her little hut to cry and cry as he does? He wonders if she like
him has lost friends, and he begins to comfort the beautiful girl and to
cheer her up so that she quite joyfully smiles again.”
The family feeling is strong, and it is the foundation of nearly all
good feeling toward fatherland and friend, tribe and neighbor. There
are common among these people scenes full of innocence, of friendship,
of fatherly, brotherly, in fact family, love in general. Fingal is hero
and leader but also lover, bridegroom, husband, friend, father. Ossian
is warrior, but also son of noble Fingal, and in this very relation the
singer of the praises of his ancestors, of his friends, of his brothers,
of his sons.
It is out of the sadness of separated loved ones that we hear the most
touching tones and the harp is made to resound to praises sung to
ancestors. Although these tribes are said to be wild, they are in many
respects closely bound to customs and forms. The harp is their musical
instrument to whose touching tones their legends are fitted into song.
Herder points out that the stage in the history of Ossian’s people from
which this collection of poetry wins its character is the time of the
extinction of the race of heroes of whom Ossian the brave is the chief
and sad singer. He is the last of his courageous tribe; the witness
to the deeds of noted Fingal and his colleagues; the departing voice
of a heroic age to its weaker descendants. His mournful strains are
accompanied by no awakening call for an age yet to come. His race was
not, like Homer’s on Ionian shores, a growing people in the dawn of
splendor looking toward a flowering in the future.
The cause of the mournful strain in the life of Ossian’s race may have
been subjection by a foreign power or the invasion of monks bringing the
Christian religion. The poems suggest both. Ossian’s songs must have had
a powerful effect upon the people out of whose midst they grew. As long
as there were bards this people’s strength was irrepressible. But now we
see a patient, subject race trying to revive itself on the renown and
happy existence of departed ancestors.
When Herder brings to our attention the difference between the mournful
tones of Ossian and the arousing strains of Homer, when he reminds us of
the differing stages of history commemorated by each, the points entirely
unlike at which each writer halts and from which he extracts for his art
character, he sets forth a definite theory; namely, that each writer,
speaking as his people would speak, characterizes his poetry with the
individual content and feeling of his race; that each race has its
personality, and each spontaneously expresses this personality in its
song:
Und Ossian? Es ist ungerecht von einem Baume Früchte zu
erwarten, die er, seiner Art nach, nicht bringen kann; Ossian
sei an seinem Orte das was Homer war; nur stand er auf einer
ganz andern Stelle. In jedem Lande bildet sich der Volksgesang
nach innnern und äussern Veranlassungen der Nation.
The eye and the ear of these people are wide open to every sight and
sound which their physical environment presents. The ear is strong,
quick, lasting; the eye keen, embracing, receptive. A certain perceptual
power expressed in alertness, boldness, and noble aspect pervaded their
entire being. According to Herder’s philosophy, as expressed in _Erkennen
und Empfinden_, the senses present to the mind pictures which receive the
stamp of feeling and which in turn are given back through some medium of
expression.
In Ossian, the material for these pictures is first and foremost Nature;
Nature robed in the peculiar majesty of the north. The sun is a rash
youth, the moon a maiden who has had as sisters other moons in the
heavens. The evening star is a lovely boy who comes out, winks, and goes
away again. All objects are personified, filled with life and movement,
whether it be wind or wave, or even the down of a thistle. As soon as
possible the object itself becomes a voice, and we hear moanings of
sadness and songs of the harp. These figures are often of the mist,
coming out of clouds through which the stars twinkle.
Ossian sings, also, deeds, happenings of history, the bygone fates of
forefathers, and old legends.
In outline all these pictures are delineations, which are snappy,
strong, manly, abrupt, wild, lively. They are not painted in detail,
and their content does not stream forth slowly in regular and measured
intervals. Less harsh and wild are they, however, than the songs of the
so-called “Northmen,” because Ossian’s soul possesses a charm giving out
lonesomeness, love, and gentleness mingled with courage and strength of
feeling.
The language is crisp, short, true, and exact, and penetrates by its
simplicity. A single word literally seizes a whole thought and the two
break forth together upon a voice tender and sad. When the singer would
exhort his comrades to courage, he painted his pictures through tones
that fell upon the ear.
In general, Ossian makes us see and hear the living world in scenes
that pass quickly, singly, one by one, without arranging themselves
in a regular and formal procession. Rough, strong sublimity is their
character. The colors which burst upon the eye and the tones which storm
the ear come forth without premeditation and polish; the natural outlet
of a people to whom nature has given an eye and heart and mind for wild
beauty, and in whom manners, customs, and language of civilization have
wrought no marring effects. These peoples see and feel, but they do not
think and ponder. Here Herder makes spontaneity a child of unwarped
nature.
THE ANCIENT HEBREWS
Herder applies his studies to the Hebrew people as he finds them in
their earliest habitations. From his analysis of formative forces and
of the peculiar personality resulting from these influences we have
what follows: The physical features of the lands with which the Hebrews
were familiar were varied enough to give them a rather complete natural
history of the earth. They understood the subsiding of water that left
mountains above them and valleys in between these. They saw that waters
coursed through the valleys and made fertile plains. They knew how
springs gush forth from rocks and trees grow on the banks of rivers. They
knew both the sea and the desert. The summer sun brought calm waters and
the cold winds forged fetters of ice. The palm tree and the cedar, the
olive and the grape, grew in these lands. The variety of animals seems to
imply a wide and varied expanse of territory.
The crane, the turtledove, the eagle, the raven, the stork, the ostrich,
the lion, the wild ox, perhaps the elephant and the rhinoceros, as well
as most of our common domestic birds and other animals, frequented these
environments.
Herder conceives of this entire milieu as a world in which the dawn of
human life was arising out of dark night, and giving way to the broad
daylight in which water and air, earth and sea, mountain and forest, were
in the fullest view and most powerful working. The strong contrasts of
oriental skies wrought through light and darkness their sharpest outlines.
The mild climate was perhaps the most beautiful in the world, and
produced the simplest needs of life with little labor on the part of the
inhabitants. With fertile river valleys in addition, which furnished
grazing lands, it was natural that one of the earliest grades of
civilization should arise here—the shepherd folk.
Although these people had a civilization that was early circumscribed, it
nevertheless presupposes some cultivation. Even the shepherd state cannot
exist without arts and fixed customs. The Hebrews in this shepherd state
had developed family bonds and fixed the ruling power of the father
in domestic life. They had domesticated animals, and developed tender
feelings toward them.
Let us look at the moral and mental traits due to this physical and
social environment.
The eye developed clearness and acuteness, a vivid sensitiveness; it saw
every leaf, every blade of grass, the plains and valleys, the waters in
outline and expanse, the planets and the broad ether in which they hung,
and it distinguished every movement. The ear heard the delicate rustlings
of branches and bows, as well as the roar of winds, the smallest
raindrop, and the rush of mighty waters. Every sense was thus developed
to a finesse which left no phenomenon of nature unobserved.
These sense impressions were impregnated with the feelings and carrying
these effects of feelings they passed onward to the mind and made mental
pictures of a kind which correspond to the character of the imprint made
by the feelings. Then these made-over pictures were given back to the
world in the sublime language found in the Old Testament. It is in these
pictures, in this investing of free nature with the power to feel, that
we see the texture and depth of feeling which are an essential part of
the personality of this group.
They saw the dawn rising out of darkness. They felt that the phenomenon
was due to a cause superior to any power in man. They could not account
for the beginnings of mankind. The consciousness of limitations of their
own knowledge and the awe for the unknown first cause turned the actual
darkness and dawn and full daylight into chaotic emptiness, a ray of
light at the beginning of creation and a completed work at the end of
six days—a wonderful personality directing it all. They saw the trees
and the plants thriving in their own spheres, and they attributed to
them life impulses given them by the sympathy and love and directing
force of special geniuses, the messengers of God. The stars were light;
they had undeceiving brightness and constant courses. They stamped the
sense impression of them with the feeling of worshipful joy, of rhythm
which became music and dancing, and so it was that the stars became the
daughters that shouted about the throne of the Great Ruler. At times they
assigned to them the sense of power for defense in well-ordered numbers
of individuals, and the stars became an army ready to do battle for God.
Again they were his willing servants and messengers. They saw the heavens
stretching from horizon to horizon, and everything in creation working in
its own sphere with regularity and order. Their own feeling for system,
harmonious working in family and tribal circles, pictured God in paternal
relations; a householder who stretched his great tent by fastening it
to the outmost borders of the earth, and opened and arranged therein
the treasures of his household. They heard a light rustle of leaves and
imprinted upon it the feeling of gentleness and kindness, and it became a
messenger of God, an angel. They heard the thunder and their shuddering
gloom translated it into the voice of an angry God. They listened to
their own heartbeats and transferred their rhythm to their own speech,
for we may account for the free light rhythm in their songs by comparing
it with the systole and diastole of the heart and the movements of the
breath in the physiological processes of inspiration and expiration.
Their national pride and national joy found expression in collective song
which might either glorify God or invoke their own well-being. Such song
is at one and the same time inspiration and expression.
In general, their poetic language draws concise analogy between the
objects of creation and the qualities and attributes of the creator of
these things. It lingers over single images, repeats them, wonders at
them, and finally gives them forth with a vigorous tongue incapable of
empty words.
These souls so entirely formed by the sights and sounds of nature blended
with inner feeling give a secret, mystical significance touched with
the finest spiritual sense to the pictures and parallels which they
produce. We have here a peculiar race type living close to crude nature,
an individuality which is shaped by this primitive milieu and which
expresses itself in sharp and strong outlines in its art. The most marked
feature of this individuality is the spontaneity in its expression.
The common factors to be drawn from this exposition, which contribute to
the interpretation of Herder’s general conception of _Volk_ are:
1. The physical environment of both groups was primeval nature; i.e.,
a material world that had undergone very few of the changes which may
be wrought by the arts and crafts of what we term higher stages of
civilization.
Kurz wir sind mit Denkart, Sprache, Sitten des Jahrhunderts
so weit aus Ossians Natur heraus, als unsre Städte, Höfe,
Palläste, Schulgebäude keine Schottische rauhen Gebürge, unsre
Gesellschaftskreise und Zerstreuungen im Museum kein Tanz unter
rauschenden Bäumen.[12]
Als Gesetzgeber wirkte Moses auf den Geist seines Volks mit
Riesenstärke. Dass er sie zum Acker- und Hirtenvolk machte,
und so viel es seyn konnte, Handel u. Eroberung ausschloss.
Land- und Hirtenmässig ist ihre Poesie dem grössten Theile
nach. Ländlich sind ihre Bilder, im Hirten- und Ackerleben der
grösste Reichtum ihrer Sprache.[13]
2. Both races were subject to powerful control by this physical
environment:
Alle Gesänge solcher wilden Völker weben um daseiende
Gegenstände, Handlungen, Begebenheiten, um eine lebendige
Welt.[14]
Und alle hat das Auge gesehen! Die Seele stellt sie sich vor!
Das setzt Sprünge und Würfe:[15]
Ihre Ideen sind voll starker Contraste, voll Licht und
Dunkel, voll Ruhe und Arbeit: dies ist der Character des
morgenländischen Himmels, und des Genius seiner Nationen.[16]
Wenn die Biblischen Dichter von den Schneegüssen des Libanon;
vom Thau des Hermon; von den Eichen Basans; vom prächtigen
Libanon, und angenehmen Carmel reden; so geben sie Bilder, die
ihnen die Natur selbst vorgestellt hat.[17]
3. Among both, their ideas of God and their religion were interwoven with
personified nature:
Darthula. Ein Gesang an die Mondgöttin (Mona, Mana, μήνη)
vielleicht der schönste, der je im Mondschein gesungen
worden.[18]
Solche Bilder und Ideen, als uns auch nur die ersten Kapitel
Moses gewähren. Hier ist als ob Einer der Elohim selbst, der
Genius der Menschheit unsichtbar lehrte .... und singet den
Menschen, seinem unsichtbaren Vater und Schöpfer gleich.[19]
4. Both were races of people with keen, strong, exact senses:
.... der rauhe Schotte Ossian? Er sang lebendig, und stürmte
also in den kurzen Augenblicken lebendiger Stimme auf Herz und
Ohr; für matte Augen im Lehnstuhl, .... wollte er nie in der
Welt solche schöne klassische Augenweide schaffen.[20]
Bilderrede und Gesang also sind die beiden Hauptforten der
Poesie der Ebräer; .... sie sind Poesie fürs Auge und Ohr,
durch welche beide sie das Herz besänftigen oder bestürmen.[21]
5. The members of both races had, as innate characteristics, rapid
and direct interaction between sensation, feeling, imagination, and
expression:
Wir sind freilich in der ganzen Denkart unsres Jahrhunderts
zu weit von Ossian ab. Mehr an eine Kette raffinirter
Vorstellungen, leichter Abstraktionen angenehmer _Pensées_
und Reflexionen gewöhnt, fals an den rauhen Schrei der
Leidenschaft, kühner Hinwürfe einer starkgetrofnen Einbildung,
und einer wüsten, starken Gestalt der Seele.[22]
Seine Muse ist Tochter der Natur auf ihren wildesten Höhen
erzogen, aber rasch, kühn, edeln Ansehens, nur mit natürlichem
Reitze geschmückt und im Tanze der Natur hinfliegend.[22]
Sehen Sie Hiob. Die Erde war ein Pallast.... Der Ocean ward,
wie ein Kind, gebohren und gewindelt: das Morgenroth handelte,
die Blitze sprachen.[23]
6. In general, the texture resulting from control of the individual by
forces of nature unchanged by human interference is in both peoples
fitly correlated with functioning; i.e., spontaneity is innately and
intrinsically their nature.
Homers Rhapsodien und Ossians Lieder waren gleichsam
impromptus, weil man damals noch von Nichts als impromptus der
Rede wusste.[24]
Nun ist bei den Ebräern beinahe Alles Verbum: d.i. alles lebt
und handelt.[25] Alles in ihr ruft: ... ich lebe, bewege
mich, wirke. Mich erschuffen Sinne und Leidenschaften, nicht
abstrakte Denken und Philosophen.[26]
With all these points in common, Ossian’s people and the ancient Hebrews,
as portrayed in Herder’s analysis of their poetry, differ from each
other as races in religion and in social customs. They show us different
habitats. They depict different historical epochs and scenes. But that
which is common in all this difference is, according to Herder, that each
has a personality of its own which characterizes its art.
In jedem Lande bildet sich der Volksgesang nach innern und
äussern Veranlassungen der Nation. Ossians Gedichte bezeichnen
den Herbst seines Volkes. Die Blätter färben und krümmen sich;
sie falben und fallen. Der Lufthauch, der sie ablöset, hat
keine Erguickung des Frühlinges in sich; sein Spiel indessen
ist traurig ... angenehm mit den sinkenden Blättern.[27]
Gesetzt, wir konnten alles dies wissen; singen wir denn
für Juden die sich für das einzige Volk Gottes hielten?...
Von allen Völkern der Erde abgesondert, brachte es seinem
Schutzgott Nationalgesänge.[28]
Es verdient fast nicht bemerkt zu werden ... dass man die
poetischen Bilder und Empfindungen keines Volks und keiner Zeit
nach dem Regelmaas eines andern Volks, einer andern Zeit zu
beurteilen, zu tadeln, zu verwerfen habe.[29]