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GERMAN LITERATURE
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See also:GERMAN LITERATURE . Compared with other literatures, that of the German-speaking peoples presents a strangely broken and interrupted course; it falls into more or less isolated See also:groups, separated from each other by periods which in intellectual darkness and ineptitude are virtually without a parallel in other See also:European lands. The explanation of this irregularity of development is to be sought less in the chequered See also:political See also:history of the German people—although this was often See also:reason enough—than in the strongly marked, one might almost say, provocative See also:character of the See also:national mind as expressed in literature. The Germans were not able, like their partially latinized See also:English cousins—or even their Scandinavian neighbours—to adapt themselves to the various waves of See also:literary See also:influence which emanated from See also:Italy and See also:France and spread with irresistible See also:power over all See also:Europe; their literary history has been rather a struggle for See also:independent expression, a See also:constant warring against outside forces, even when the latter—like the influence of English literature in the 18th See also:century and of Scandinavian at the See also:close of the 19th—were hailed as friendly and not hostile. It is a peculiarity of German literature that in those ages when, owing to its own poverty and See also:impotence, it was reduced to borrowing its ideas and its poetic forms from other lands, it sank to the most servile See also:imitation; while the first sign of returning See also:health has invariably been the repudiation of See also:foreign influence and the assertion of the right of See also:genius to untrammelled expression. Thus See also:Germany's periods of literary efflorescence rarely coincide. with those of other nations, and See also:great European movements, like the See also:Renaissance, passed over her without producing a single great poet. This chequered course, however, renders the grouping of German literature and the task of the historian the easier. The first and simplest See also:classification is that afforded by the various stages_ of linguistic development. In accordance with the three divisions in the history of the High German See also:language, there is an Old High German, a See also:Middle High German and a New High German or See also:Modern High German literary See also:epoch. It is obvious, however, that the last of these divisions covers too enormous a See also:period of literary history to be regarded as analogous to the first two. The See also:present survey is consequently divided into six See also:main sections: I. The Old High German Period, including the literature of the Old Saxon See also:dialect, from the earliest times to the middle of the 11th century. II. The Middle High German Period, from the middle of the I1th to the middle of the 14th century. IV. The Period of Renaissance and Pseudo-classicism, from the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 18th. V. The Classical Period of Modern German literature, from the middle of the 18th century to See also:Goethe's See also:death in 1832. VI. The Period from Goethe's death to the present See also:day. I. THE OLD HIGH GERMAN PERIOD (c. 750—1050) Of all the Germanic races, the tribes with which we have more particularly to See also:deal here were the latest to attain intellectual maturity. The Goths had, centuries earlier, under their famous See also:bishop See also:Ulfilas or Wulfila, possessed the See also:Bible in their See also:vernacular, the See also:northern races could point to their See also:Edda, the Germanic tribes in See also:England to a See also:rich and virile Old English See also:poetry, before a written German literature of any consequence existed at all. At the same See also:time, these See also:continental tribes, in the epoch that See also:lay
between the Migrations of the 5th century and the See also:age of See also: In fact, for the only genuine poetry of this epoch we have to look, not to the High German but to the See also:Low German races. They alone seemed able to give literary expression to the memories handed down in oral tradition from the 5th century; to Saxon tradition we owe the earliest extant fragment of a national See also:saga, the Lay of See also:Hildebrand (Hildebrandslied, c. 800), and a Saxon poet was the author of a vigorous alliterative version of the Gospel See also:story, the See also:Heliand (c. 83o), and also of See also:part of the Old Testament (See also:Genesis). This alliterative epic—for epic it may be called—is the one poem of this age in which the Christian tradition has been adapted to German poetic' needs. Of the existence of a lyric poetry we only know by hearsay; and the See also:drama had nowhere in Europe yet emerged from its earliest purely liturgic See also:condition. Such as it was, the vernacular literature of the Old High German period enjoyed but a brief existence, and in the loth and 11th centuries darkness again closed over it. The dominant "German" literature in these centuries is in Latin; but that literature is not without national interest, for it shows in what direction the German mind was moving. The Lay of See also:Walter (Waltharilied, c. 930), written in elegant hexameters by Ekkehard of St See also:Gall, the moralizing dramas of See also:Hrosvitha (Roswitha) of See also:Gandersheim, the Ecbasis captivi (c. 940), earliest of all the Beast epics, and the romantic adventures of See also:Ruodlieb (c. 1030), form a literature which, Latin although it is, foreshadows the future developments of German poetry. H. THE MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN PERIOD (1o50-135o)
(a) Early Middle High German Poetry.—The beginnings of Middle High German literature were hardly less tentative than those of the preceding period. The Saxon emperors, with their Latin and even See also:Byzantine tastes, had made it extremely difficult to take up the See also:thread where Notker let it drop. Williram of Ebersherg, the commentator of the See also:Song of Songs (c. 1063), did certainly profit by Notker's example, but he stands alone. The See also: 1o6o), a spirited lay by a monk of See also:Bamberg on the life, miracles and death of See also:Christ, and in the Annolied (c. ro8o), a poem in praise of the See also:archbishop See also:Anno of See also:Cologne, we find, however, some traces of a higher poetic See also:imagination. The transition from this rigid ecclesiastic spirit to a freer, more imaginative literature is to be seen in the lyric poetry inspired by the Virgin, in the legends of the See also:saints which bulk so largely in the poetry of the 12th century, and in the See also:general trend towards See also:mysticism. Andreas, See also:Pilatus, Aegidius, Albanius are the heroes of monkish romances of that age, and the stories of See also:Sylvester and Crescentia form the most attractive parts of the Kaiserchronik (c. 1130-1150), a long, confused See also:chronicle of the See also:world which contains many elements See also:common to later Middle High German poetry. The national sagas, of which the poet of the Kaiserchronik had not been oblivious, soon began to assert themselves in the popular literature. The wandering Spielleute, the lineal descendants of the jesters and minstrels of the dark ages, who were now rapidly becoming a See also:factor of importance in literature, were here the innovators; to them we owe the See also:romance of See also:Konig Rother (c. 116o), and the kindred stories of See also:Orendel, See also:Oswald and Salomon and Markolf (Salman and Morolf). All these poems See also:bear See also:witness to a new See also:element, which in these years kindled the German imagination and helped to counteract the austerity of the religious faith—the See also:Crusades. With what alacrity the Germans revelled in the wonderland of the See also:East is to be seen especially in the Alexanderlied (c. 1130), and in See also:Herzog See also:Ernst (c. 1180), romances which point out the way to another important development of German See also:medieval literature, the See also:Court epic. The latter type of romance was the immediate product of the social conditions created by See also:chivalry and, like chivalry itself, was determined and influenced by its See also:French origin; so also was the version of the Chanson de See also:Roland (Rolandslied, c. 1135), which we owe to another See also:priest, Konrad of See also:Regensburg, who, with considerable See also:probability, has been identified with the author of the Kaiserchronik.
The Court epic was, however, more immediately ushered in by Eilhart von Oberge, a native of the neighbourhood of See also:Hildesheim who, in his Tristant (c. 1170), See also:chose that Arthurian type of romance which from now on was especially cultivated by the poets of the Court epic; and of equally early origin is a knightly romance of See also:Floris and Blanchefiur, another of the favourite love stories of the middle ages. In these years, too, the Beast epic, which had been represented by the Latin Ecbasis captivi, was reintroduced into Germany by an Alsatian monk, Heinrich der Glichezxre, who based his See also:Reinhart See also:Fuchs (c. 118o) on the French See also:Roman de Renart. Lastly, we have to consider the beginning of the Minnesang, or lyric, which in the last decades of the 12th century burst out with extraordinary vigour in See also:Austria and See also:South Germany. The origins are obscure, and it is still debatable how much in the German Minnesang is indigenous and national, how much due to French and Provencal influence; for even in its earliest phases the Minnesang reveals correspondences with the contemporary lyric of the south of France. The freshness and originality of the early South German singers, such as Kurenberg, Dietmar von Eist, the Burggraf of Rietenburg and Meinloh von Sevelingen, are not, however, to be questioned; in spite of foreign influence, their verses make the impression of having been a spontaneous expression of German lyric feeling in the 12th century. The Spruchdichtung, a form of poetry which in this period is represented by at least two poets who See also:call themselves Herger and " Der Spervogel," was less dependent on foreign See also:models; the pointed and satirical strophes of these poets were the forerunners of a vast literature which did not reach its highest development until after literature had passed from the hands of the See also:noble-See also:born See also:knight to those of the burgher of the towns.
(b) The Flourishing of Middle High German Poetry.—Such was the preparation for the extraordinarily brilliant, although brief epoch of German medieval poetry, which corresponded to the reigns of the See also:Hohenstaufen emperors, See also:Frederick I.
See also:Barbarossa, See also: Docile pupils of French chivalry, the Germans had no sooner learned their See also:lesson than they found themselves in the position of being able to dictate to the world of chivalry. In the same way, the German poets, who, in the 12th century, had been little better than clumsy translators of French romances, were able, at the beginning of the 13th, to substitute for French chansons de geste epics based on national sagas, to put a completely German imprint on the French Arthurian romance, and to sing German songs before which even the lyric of See also:Provence paled. National epic, Court epic and Minnesang—these three types of medieval German literature, to which may be added as a subordinate See also:group didactic poetry comprise virtually all that has come down to us in the Middle High German See also:tongue. A Middle High German prose hardly existed, and the drama, such as it was, was still essentially Latin. The first place among the National or Popular epics belongs to the See also:Nibelungenlied, which received its present form in Austria about the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. Combining, as it does, elements from various cycles of sagas—the See also:lower Rhenish See also:legend of Siegfried, the Burgundian saga of See also:Gunther and See also:Hagen, the See also:Gothic saga of See also:Dietrich and Etzel—it stands out as the most representative epic of German medieval life. And in literary power, dramatic intensity and singleness of purpose its See also:eminence is no less unique. The vestiges of See also:gradual growth—of irreconcilable elements imperfectly welded together—may not have been entirely effaced, but they in no way lessen the impression of unity which the poem leaves behind it; whoever the welder of the sagas may have been, he was clearly a poet of lofty imagination and high epic gifts (see NIBELUNGENLIED). Less imposing as a whole, but in parts no less powerful in its See also:appeal to the modern mind, is the second of the German national epics, See also:Gudrun, which was written early in the 13th century. This poem, as it has come down to us, is the work of an See also:Austrian, but the subject belongs to a See also:cycle of sagas which have their See also:home on the shores of the See also:North See also:Sea. It seems almost a freak of See also:chance that Siegfried, the See also:hero of the Rhineland, should occupy so prominent a position in the Nibelungenlied, whereas Dietrich von See also:Bern (i.e. of See also:Verona), the name under which See also:Theodoric the Great had been looked up to for centuries by the German See also:people as their national hero, should have See also:left the See also:stamp of his See also:personality on no single epic of the See also:intrinsic See also:worth of the Nibelungenlied. He appears, however, more or less in the background of a number of romances—Die Rabenschlacht, Dielrichs Flueht. Alpharts See also:Tod, Biterolf and Dietlieb, Laurin, &c.—which make up what is usually called the See also:Heldenbuch. It is tempting, indeed, to see in this very unequal collection the basis for what, under more favourable circumstances, might have See also:developed into an epic even more completely representative of the German nation than the Nibelungenlied. While the influence of the romance of chivalry is to be traced on all these popular epics, something of the manlier, more See also:primitive ideals that animated German national poetry passed over to the second great group of German medieval poetry, the Court epic. The poet who, following Eilhart von Oberge's tentative beginnings, established the Court epic in Germany was Heinrich von Veldeke, a native of the See also:district of the lower See also:Rhine; his Eneit, written between 1173 and 1186, is based on a French See also:original. Other poets of the time, such as Herbort von See also:Fritzlar, the author of a Liet von Troye, followed Heinrich's example, and selected French models for German poems on See also:antique themes; while Albrecht von See also:Halberstadt translated. about the See also:year 1210 the Metamorphoses of See also:Ovid into German verse. With the three masters of the Court epic, Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von Strassburg—all of them contemporaries—the Arthurian cycle became the recognized theme of this type of romance, and the accepted embodiment of the ideals of the knightly classes. Hartmann was a Swabian, Wolfram a Bavarian, Gottfried presumably anative of See also:Strassburg. Hartmann, who in his Erec and Iwein, Gregorius and Der See also:acme Heinrich combined a tendency towards religious asceticism with a See also:desire to imbue the worldly life of the knight with a moral and religious spirit, provided the Court epic of the age with its best models; he had, of all the medieval court poets, the most delicate sense for the formal beauty of poetry, for language, verse and style. Wolfram and Gottfried, on the other hand, represent two extremes of poetic temperament. Wolfram's Parzival is filled with mysticism and obscure spiritual significance; its flashes of See also:humour irradiate, although they can hardly be said to illumine, the gloom; its hero is, unconsciously, a See also:symbol and See also:allegory of much which to the poet himself must have been mysterious and inexplicable; in other words, Parzival—and Wolfram's other writings, Willehalm and Titurel, point in the same direction—is an instinctive or, to use See also:Schiller's word, a " naive " work of genius. Gottfried, again, is hardly less gifted and original, but he is a poet of a wholly different type. His See also:Tristan is even more lucid than Hartmann's Iwein, his See also:art is more See also:objective; his delight in it is that of the conscious artist who See also:sees his work growing under his hands. Gottfried's poem, in other words, is See also:free from the obtrusion of those subjective elements which are in so high a degree characteristic of Parzival; in spite of the tragic character of the story, Tristan is radiant and serene, and yet uncontaminated by that See also:tone of frivolity which the Renaissance introduced into lgve stories of this kind. Parzival and Tristan are the two poles of the German Court epic, and the subsequent development of that epic stands under the influence of the three poets, Hartmann, Wolfram and Gottfried; according as the poets of the.13th century tend to imitate one or other of these, they fall into three classes. To the followers and imitators of Hartmann belong See also:Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, the author of a Lanzelet (c. 1195); Wirnt von Gravenberg, a Bavarian, whose Wigalois (c. 1205) shows considerable imaginative power; the versatile Spielmann, known as " Der Stricker,"; and Heinrich von dem Tiirlin, author of an unwieldy epic, See also:Die Krone (" the See also:crown of all adventures," c. 1220). The See also:fascination of Wolfram's mysticism is to be seen in Der jiingere Titurel of a Bavarian poet, Albrecht von Scharfenberg (c. 1270), and in the still later See also:Lohengrin of an unknown poet; whereas Gottfried von Strassburg dominates the Flore and Blanscheflur of Konrad Fleck (c. 1220) and the voluminous romances of the two See also:chief poets of the later 13th century, See also:Rudolf von See also:Ems, who died in 1254, and Konrad von Wiirzburg, who lived till 1287. Of these, Konrad alone carried on worthily the traditions of the great age, and even his art, which excels within the narrow limits of romances like Die Herzemoere and Engelhard, becomes diffuse and wearisome on the unlimited See also:canvas of Der Trojanerkrieg and Partonopier and Meliur. The most conspicuous changes which came over the narrative poetry of the 13th century were, on the one hand, a steady encroachment of See also:realism on the See also:matter and treatment of the epic, and, on the other, a leaning to didacticism. The substitution of the " history " of the chronicle for the confessedly imaginative stories of the earlier poets is to be seen in the work of Rudolf von Ems, and of• a number of See also:minor chroniclers like Ulrich von Eschenbach, Berthold von Holle and Jans Enikel; while for the growth of realism we may look to the Pfaffe Amis, a collection of comic anecdotes by " Der Stricker," the admirable See also:peasant romance Meier Helmbrecht, written between 1236 and 1250 by Wernher der Gartenaere in See also:Bavaria, and to the adventures of Ulrich von Lichtenstein, as described in his Frauendienst (1255) and Frauenbuch (1257). More than any single poet of the Court epic, more even than the poet of the Nibelungenlied, See also:Walther von der Vogelweide summed up in himself all that was best in the group of poetic literature with which he was associated—the Minnesang. The early Austrian singers already mentioned, poets like Heinrich von Veldeke, who in his lyrics, as in his epic, introduced the French conception of Minne, or like the manly See also:Friedrich von Hausen, and the Swiss imitator of Provencal See also:measures, Rudolf von Fenis appear only in the See also:light of forerunners. Even more original poets, like Heinrich von Morungen and Walther's own See also:master, Reinmar von See also:Hagenau, the author of harmonious but monotonously elegiac verses, or among immediate contemporaries, Hartmann von Aue and Wolfram von Eschenbach, whose few lyric strophes are as deeply stamped with his individuality as his epics—seem only tributary to the full rich stream of Walther's genius. There was not a form of the German Minnesang which Walther did not amplify and deepen; songs of courtly love and lowly love, of religious faith and delight in nature, patriotic songs and political Spriiche—in all he was a master. Of Walther's life we are somewhat better informed than in the See also:case of his See also:con-temporaries: he was born about I17o and died about 1230; his art he learned in Austria, whereupon he wandered through South Germany, a welcome See also:guest wherever he went, although his vigorous championship of what he regarded as the national cause in the political struggles of the day won him foes as well as See also:friends. For centuries he remained the accepted exemplar of German lyric poetry; not merely the Minnesinger who followed him, but also the See also:Meistersinger of the 15th and 16th centuries looked up to him as one of the founders and lawgivers of their art. He was the most influential of all Germany's lyric poets, and in the breadth, originality and purity of his See also:inspiration one of her greatest (see WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE). The development of the German Minnesang after Walther's death and under his influence is easily summed up. Contemporaries had been impressed by the dual character of Walther's lyric; they distinguished a higher courtly lyric, and a lower more outspoken form of song, free from the constraint of social or literary conventions. The later Minnesang emphasized this See also:dualism. Amongst Walther's immediate contemporaries, high-born poets, whose lives were passed at courts, naturally cultivated the higher lyric; but the more gifted and original singers of the time rejoiced in the freedom of Walther's poetry of niedere Minne. It was, in fact, in accordance with the spirit of the age that the latter should have been Walther's most valuable See also:legacy to his successors; and the greatest of these, Neidhart von Reuental (c. 118o–c. 1250), certainly did not allow himself to be hampered by aristocratic prejudices. Neidhart sought the themes of his hofische Dorfpoesie in the See also:village, and, as the See also:mood happened to dictate, depicted the peasant with humorous banter or biting See also:satire. The lyric poets of the later r3th century were either, like Burkart von Hohenfels, Ulrich von Winterstetten and Gottfried von Neifen, echoes of Walther von der Vogelweide and of Neidhart, or their originality was confined to some particular form of lyric poetry in which they excelled. Thus the See also:singer known as " Der Tannhiuser " distinguished himself as an imitator of the French pastourelle; Reinmar von Zweter was purely a Spruchdichter. More or less common to all is the consciousness that their own ideas and surroundings were no longer in harmony with the aristocratic world of chivalry, which the poets of the previous See also:generation had glorified. The solid advantages, material prosperity and increasing comfort of life in the German towns appealed to poets like Steinmar von Klingenau more than the unworldly ideals of self-effacing See also:knighthood which Ulrich von Lichtenstein and Johann Hadlaub of See also:Zurich clung to so tenaciously and extolled so warmly. On the whole, the Spruchdichter came best out of this See also:ordeal of changing fashions; and the increasing interest in the moral and didactic applications of literature favoured the development of this form of verse. The confusion of didactic purpose with the lyric is common to all the later poetry, to that of the learned Marner, of Boppe, Rumezland and Heinrich von See also:Meissen, who was known to later generations as " See also:Frauenlob." The Spruchdichtung, in fact, was one of the connecting links between the Minnesang of the 13th and the lyric and satiric poetry of the 15th and 16th centuries. The disturbing and disintegrating element in the literature of the 13th century was thus the substitution of a utilitarian didacticism for the See also:idealism of chivalry. In the early decades of that century, poems like Der Winsbeke, by a Bavarian, and Der welsche Gast, written in 1215–1216 by Thomasin von Zirclaere (Zirclaria), a native of See also:Friuli, still See also:teach with uncompromis-See also:ing idealism the duties and virtues of the knightly life. But in the Bescheidenheit (c. 1215—1230) of a wandering singer, who called himself See also:Freidank, we find for the first time an active antagonism to the unworldly See also:code of chivalry and an unmistakable reflection of the changing social See also:order, brought about by the rise of what we should now call the middle class. Freidank is the spokesman of the See also:Burger, and in his terse, witty verses may be traced the germs of German intellectual and literary development in the coming centuries—even of the See also:Reformation itself. From the See also:advent of Freidank onwards, the satiric and didactic poetry went the way of the epic; what it gained in quantity it lost in quality and concentration. The satires associated with the name of Seifried Helbling, an Austrian who wrote in the last fifteen years of the 13th century, and Der Renner by See also:Hugo von Trimberg, written at the very end of the century, may be taken as characteristic of the later period, where terseness and incisive wit have given place to diffuse moralizing and allegory. There is practically no Middle High German literature in prose; such prose as has come down to us—the tracts of See also:David of See also:Augsburg, the powerful sermons of Berthold von Regensburg (d. 1272), Germany's greatest medieval preacher, and several legal codes, as the Sachsenspiegel and Schwabenspiegel—only prove that the Germans of the 13th century had not yet realized the possibilities of prose as a See also:medium of literary expression. M. THE TRANSITION PERIOD (1350–1600) (a) The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.—As is the case with all transitional periods of literary history, this epoch of, German literature may be' considered under two aspects: on the one hand, we may follow in it the decadence and disintegration of the literature of the Middle High German period; on the other, we may study the beginnings of modern forms of poetry and the preparation of that spiritual revolution, which meant hardly less to the Germanic peoples than the Renaissance to the Latin races—the See also:Protestant Reformation. By the middle of the 14th century, knighthood with its chivalric ideals was rapidly declining, and the conditions under which medieval poetry had flourished were passing away. The social change rendered the courtly epic of See also:Arthur's See also:Round Table in great measure incomprehensible to the younger generation, and made it difficult for them to understand the spirit that actuated the heroes of the national epic; the tastes to which the lyrics of the great See also:Minnesingers had appealed were vitiated by the more See also:practical demands of the rising middle classes. But the stories of chivalry still appealed as stories to the people, although the old way of telling them was no longer appreciated. The feeling for beauty of form and expression was lost; the craving for a moral purpose and didactic aim had to be satisfied at the cost of See also:artistic beauty; and sensational incident was valued more highly than See also:fine character-See also:drawing or inspired poetic thought. Signs of the decadence are to be seen in the Karlmeinet of this period, stories from the youth of Charlemagne, in a continuation of Parzival by two Alsatians, Claus Wisse and Philipp See also:Colin (c. 1335), in an See also:Apollonius von Tyrus by Heinrich von Neuenstadt (c. 1315), and a Konigstochter von Frankreich by Hans von Buhel (c. 1400). The story of Siegfried was retold in a rough ballad, Das Lied von hurnen Seyfried, the Heldenbuch was recast in Knittelvers or doggerel (1472), and even the Arthurian epic was parodied. A no less marked symptom of decadence is to be seen in a large See also:body of allegorical poetry analogous to the Roman de la See also:rose in France; Heinzelein of See also:Constance, at the end of the 13th, and Hadamar von Laber and See also:Hermann von Sachsenheim, about the middle of the 15th century, were representatives of this movement. As time went on, prose versions of the old stories became more general, and out of these developed the Volksbucher, such as Loher and Mailer, Die Haimonskinder, Die schone Magelone, Melusine, which formed the favourite See also:reading of the German people for centuries. As the last monuments of the decadent narrative. literature of the middle ages, we may regard the See also:Buck der Abenteuer of Ulrich Fuetrer, written at the end of the 15th century, and Der See also:Weiss, konig and Teuerdank by the See also:emperor See also:Maximilian I. (1459—1519) of the See also:play was removed to the See also:churchyard or the See also:market-place; thus the opportunity arose in the 14th and 15th centuries for developing the Weihnachtsspiel, Osterspiel and Passionsspiel on See also:secular lines. The enlargement of the See also:scope of the religious play to include legends of the saints implied a further step in the direction of a complete separation of the drama from ecclesiastical ceremony. The most interesting example of this encroachment of the secular spirit is the Spiel von Frau Jutten—Jutta being the notorious See also:Pope Joan—by an Alsatian, Dietrich Schernberg, in 1480. Meanwhile, in the 15th century, a beginning had been made of a drama entirely independent of the church. The mimic representations—originally allegorical in character with which the people amused themselves at the great festivals of the year, and more especially in See also:spring, were interspersed with See also:dialogue, and performed on an improvised See also:stage. This was the beginning of the Fastnachtsspiel or Shrovetide-play, the subject of which was a comic See also:anecdote similar to those of the many collections of Schwdnke. Amongst the earliest cultivators of the Fastnachtsspiel were Hans Rosenplut (fl. c. 1460) and Hans Folz (fl. c. 1510), both of whom were associated with See also:Nuremberg. (b) The Age of the Reformation.—Promising as were these literary beginnings of the 15th century, the real significance of the period in Germany's intellectual history is to be sought outside literature, namely, in two forces which immediately prepared the way for the Reformation—mysticism and See also:humanism. The former of these had been a more or less constant factor in German religious thought throughout the middle ages, but with Meister See also:Eckhart (? 1260-1327), the most powerful and. original of all the German mystics, with Heinrich Seuse or See also:Suso (c. 13o0-1366), and Johannes See also:Tauler (c. 1300-1361), it became a clearly defined See also:mental attitude towards See also:religion; it was an essentially See also:personal See also:interpretation of See also:Christianity, and, as such, was naturally conducive to the individual freedom which. Protestantism ultimately realized. It is thus not to be wondered at that we should owe the early translations of the Bible into German—one was printed at Strassburg in 1466—to the mystics. Johann See also:Geiler von Kaisersberg (1445–1510), a See also:pupil of the humanists and a friend of See also:Sebastian See also:Brant, may be regarded as a See also:link between Eckhart and the earlier mysticists and See also:Luther. Humanism was transplanted to German See also:soil with the See also:foundation of the university of See also:Prague in 1348, and it made even greater strides than mysticism. Its immediate influence, however, was restricted to the educated classes; the pre-Reformation humanists despised the vernacular and wrote and thought only in Latin. Thus although neither Johann See also:Reuchlin of See also:Pforzheim (1455–1522), nor even the patriotic Alsatian, See also:Jakob Wimpfeling (or Wimpheling) (1450–1528)—not to mention the great Dutch humanist See also:Erasmus of See also:Rotterdam (1466–1536)—has a place in the history of German literature, their See also:battle for liberalism in thought and scholarship against the narrow orthodoxy of the Church cleared the way for a healthy national literature among the German-speaking peoples. The incisive wit and See also:irony of humanistic satire—we need only instance the Epistolae obscurorum virorum (1515–1517)—prevented the German satirists of the Reformation age from sinking entirely into that coarse brutality to which they were only too prone. To the influence of the humanists we also owe many translations from the Latin and See also:Italian dating from the 15th century. Prominent among the writers who contributed to the group of literature were Niklas von Wyl, See also:chancellor of See also:Wurttemberg, and his immediate contemporary Albrecht von Eyb (1420–1475).
See also: 1 250–1318) and Heinrich von Miigeln in the 14th century, like Muskatblut and See also:Michael Beheim (1416–c. 1480) in the 15th, the Minnesang thus passed over into the Meistergesang. In the later 15th and in the 16th centuries all the south German towns possessed flourishing Meistersinger See also:schools in which the art of writing verse was taught and practised according to complicated rules, and it was the ambition of every gifted See also:citizen to rise through the various grades from Schuler to Meister and to distinguish himself in the " singing contests " instituted by the schools. Such are the decadent aspects of the once rich literature of the Middle High German period in the 14th and 15th centuries. Turning now to the more See also:positive side of the literary movement, we have to See also:note a revival of a popular lyric poetry—the Volkslied —which made the futility and artificiality of the Meistergesang more apparent. Never before or since has Germany been able to point to such a rich See also:harvest of popular poetry as is to be seen in the Volkslieder of these two centuries. Every form of popular poetry is to be found here—songs of love and See also:war, See also:hymns and drinking-songs, songs of spring and See also:winter, historical See also:ballads, as well as lyrics in which the old motives of the Minnesang reappear stripped of all artificiality. More obvious ties with the literature of the preceding age are to be seen in the development of the Schwank or comic anecdote. Collections of such stories, which range from the practical jokes of Till See also:Eulenspiegel (1515), and the coarse witticisms of the Pfaffe vom Kalenberg (end of 14th century) and See also:Peter Leu (1550), to the religious and didactic anecdotes of J. See also:Pauli's Schimpf and Ernst (1522) or the more literary Rollwagenbuchlein (1555) of Jorg See also:Wickram and the Wendunmut (1563 ff.) of H. W. Kirchhoff—these dominate in large measure the literature of the 15th and 16th centuries; they are the literary descendants of the medieval Pfaffe Amis, Markolf and Reinhart Fuchs. An important development of this type of popular literature is to be seen in the Narrenschiff of Sebastian Brant (1457–1521), where the humorous anecdote became a vehicle of the bitterest satire; Brant's own contempt for the vulgarity of the ignorant, and the deep, unsatisfied craving of all strata of society for a wider intellectual See also:horizon and a more humane and dignified life, to which Brant gave See also:voice, make the Narrenschiff, which appeared in 1494, a landmark on the way that led to the Reformation. Another form—the Beast See also:fable and Beast epic—which is but sparingly represented in earlier times, appealed with See also:peculiar force to the new generation. At the very close of the Middle High German period, Ulrich See also:Boner had revived the Aesopic fable in his Edelstein (1349), translations of See also:Aesop in the following century added to the popularity of the fable (q.v.), and in the century of the Re-formation it became, in the hands of Burkard Waldis (Esopus, 1548) and Erasmus See also:Alberus (See also:Buch von der Tugend and Weisheit, 1550), a favourite See also:instrument of satire and polemic. A still more attractive form of the Beast fable was the epic of Reinke de Vos, which had been cultivated by Flemish poets in the 13th and 14th centuries and has come down to, us in a Low Saxon See also:translation, published at See also:Lubeck in 1498. This, too, like Brant's poem, is a powerful satire on human folly, and is also, like the Narrenschiff, a See also:harbinger of the coming Reformation. A complete innovation was the drama (q.v.), which, as we have seen, had practically no existence in Middle High German times. As in all European literatures, it emerged slowly and with difficulty from its original subservience to the church liturgy. As time went on, the vernacular was substituted for the original Latin, and with increasing demands for pageantry, the See also:scene Babylonica ecclesiae, and Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen (1520), Luther laid down his principles of reform, and in the following year resolutely refused to recant his heresies in a dramatic scene before the See also:Council of See also:Worms. Luther's Bible (1522-1534) had unique importance not merely for the religious and intellectual welfare of the German people, but also for their literature. It is in itself a literary See also:monument, a German classic, and the See also:culmination and See also:justification of that movement which had supplanted the medieval knight by the burgher and swept away Middle High German poetry. Luther, well aware that his translation of the Bible must be the See also:keystone to his work, gave himself endless pains to produce a thoroughly German work—German both in language and in spirit. It was important that the dialect into which the Bible was translated should be comprehensible over as wide an See also:area as possible of the German-speaking world, and for this reason he took all possible care in choosing the vocabulary and forms of his Gemeindeutsch. The language of the Saxon See also:chancery thus became, thanks to Luther's initiative, the basis of the modern High German literary language. As a hymn-writer (Geistliche Lieder, 1564), Luther was equally mindful of the importance of adapting himself to the popular tradition; and his hymns form the starting-point for a vast development of German religious poetry which did not reach its highest point until the following century.
The most powerful and virile literature of this age was the satire with which the losing side retaliated on the Protestant leaders. Amongst Luther's henchmen, Philipp See also:Melanchthon (1497-1560), the " praeceptor Germaniae," and Ulrich von See also:Hutten (1488-1523) were powerful See also:allies in the cause, but their intellectual sympathies were with the Latin humanists; and with the exception of some vigorous German prose and still more vigorous German verse by Hutten, both wrote in Latin. The satirical dramas of Niklas See also:Manuel, a Swiss writer and the polemical fables of Erasmus Alberus (c. 1500-1553), on the other hand, were insignificant compared with the fierce See also:assault on Protestantism by the Alsatian monk, See also: The day of a personal and brutal type of satire was clearly over, and the writers of the later 16th century reverted more and more to the finer methods of the humanists. The satire of Bartholomaeus Ringwaldt (1530-1599) and of Georg Rollenhagen (1542-1609), author of the Froschmeuseler (1595), was more " literary " and less actual than even Fischart's. On the whole, the form of literature which succeeded best in emancipating itself from the trammels of religious controversy in the 16th century was the drama. Protestantism proved favourable to its intellectual and literary development, and the humanists, who had always prided themselves on their imitations of Latin See also:comedy, introduced into it a sense for form and proportion. The Latin school comedy in Germany was founded by J. Wimpfeling with his Stylpho (1470) and by J. Reuchlin with his witty See also:adaptation of Maitre Potelin in his Henne (1498). In the 16th century the chief writers of Latin dramas were Thomas Kirchmair or Naogeorgus (1511-1563), Caspar Brulow (1585-1627), and Nikodemus See also:Frischlin (1547-1590), who also wrote dramas in the vernacular. The work of these men bears testimony in its form and its choice of subjects to the closerelationship between Latin and German drama in the 16th century. One of the earliest focusses for a German drama inspired by the Reformation was See also:Switzerland. In See also:Basel, See also:Pamphilus Gengenbach produced moralizing Fastnachtsspiele in 1515-1516; Niklas Manuel of Bern (1484-153o)—who has just been mentioned—employed the same type of play as a vehicle of pungent satire against the See also:Mass and the See also:sale of indulgences. But it was not long before the German drama benefited by the humanistic example: the Parabell vam vorlorn Szohn by Burkard Waldis (1527), the many dramas on the subject of Susanna—notably those of Sixt Birck (1532) and PaulRebhun (153 5)—and Frischlin's German plays are attempts to treat Biblical themes according to classic methods. In another of the important literary centres of the 16th century, however, in Nuremberg, the drama developed on indigenous lines. Hans See also:Sachs (1494-1576), the Nuremberg cobbler and Meistersinger, the most productive writer of the age, went his own way; a voracious reader and an unwearied story-See also:teller, he left behind him a vast literary legacy, embracing every form of popular literature from Spruch and Schwank to complicated Meistergesang and lengthy drama. He laid under contribution the rich Renaissance literature with which the humanistic translators had flooded Germany, and he became himself an ardent See also:champion of the " Wittembergisch Nachtigall " Luther. But in the progressive movement of the German drama he played an even smaller role than his Swiss and Saxon con-temporaries; for his tragedies and comedies are deficient in all dramatic qualities; they are only stories in dialogue. In the Fastnachtsspiele, where dramatic form is less essential than anecdotal point and brevity, he is to be seen at his best. Rich as the 16th century was in promise, the conditions for the development of a national drama were unfavourable. At the close of the century the influence of the English drama —brought to Germany by English actors—introduced the deficient dramatic and theatrical force into the humanistic and " narrative " drama which has just been considered. This is to be seen in the work of Jakob See also:Ayrer (d. 16os) and See also:Duke Henry See also:Julius of See also:Brunswick (1564-1613). But unfortunately these beginnings had hardly made themselves See also:felt when the full current of the Renaissance was diverted across Germany, bringing in its See also:train the Senecan tragedy. Then came the See also:Thirty Years' War, which completely destroyed the social conditions indispensable for the See also:establishment of a See also:theatre at once popular and national. The novel was less successful than the drama in extricating itself from satire and religious controversy. Fischart was too dependent on foreign models and too erratic—at one time adapting Rabelais, at another translating the old heroic romance of Amadis de See also:Gaul a—to create a national form of German fiction in the 16th century; the most important novelist was a much less talented writer, the Alsatian Meistersinger and dramatist Jorg Wickram (d. c. 156o), who has been already mentioned as the author of a popular collection of anecdotes, the Rollwagenbiichlein. His longer novels, Der Knabenspiegel (1554) and Der Goldfaden (1557), are in form, and especially in the importance they attach to psychological developments, the forerunners of the movement to which we owe the best See also:works of German fiction in the 18th century. But Wickram stands alone. So inconsiderable, in fact, is the fiction of the Reformation age in Germany that we have to regard the old Volksbucher as its See also:equivalent; and it is significant that of all the prose writings of this age, the book which affords the best insight into the See also:temper and spirit of the Reformation was just one of these crude Volksbucher, namely, the famous story of the magician See also:Doctor Johann See also:Faust, published at See also:Frankfort in 1587. IV. THE RENAISSANCE (I600-1740) The 17th century in Germany presents a complete contrast to its predecessor; the fact that it was the century of the Thirty Years' War, which devastated the See also:country, crippled the prosperity of the towns, and threw back by many generations the social development of the people, explains much, but it can hardly be held entirely responsible for the intellectual apathy, the See also:slavery to foreign customs and foreign ideas, which stunted the growth of the nation. The freedom of Lutheranism degenerated into a paralyzing Lutheran orthodoxy which was as hostile to the " Freiheit eines Christenmenschen " as that Catholicism it had superseded; the idealism of the humanists degenerated in the same way into a dry, pedantic See also:scholasticism which held the German mind in fetters until, at the very close of the century, See also:Leibnitz set it free. Most disheartening of all, literature which in the 16th century had been so full of promise and had conformed with such aptitude to the new ideas, was in all its higher manifestations blighted by the dead hand of pseudo-classicism. The unkempt literature of the Reformation age admittedly stood in need of guidauce and discipline, but the 17th century made the fatal See also:mistake of trying to impose the See also:laws and rules of Romance literatures on a people of a purely Germanic stock. There were, however, some branches of German poetry which escaped this foreign influence. The church hymn, continuing the great Lutheran traditions, rose in the 17th century to extra-See also:ordinary richness both in quality and quantity. See also:Paul See also:Gerhardt (1607–1676), the greatest German hymn-writer, was only one of many Lutheran pastors who in this age contributed to the German hymnal. On the See also:Catholic side, See also:Angelus Silesius, or Johann Scheffler (1624–1677) showed what a See also:wealth of poetry lay in the mystic speculations of Jakob See also:Boehme, the gifted shoemaker of See also:Gorlitz (1575–1624), and author of the famous See also:Aurora, See also:oder Morgenrote See also:im Aufgang (1612); while Friedrich von Spee (1591–1635), another leading Catholic poet of the century, cultivated the See also:pastoral allegory of the Renaissance. The revival of mysticism associated with Boehme gradually spread through the whole religious life of the 17th century, Protestant as well as Catholic, and in the more specifically Protestant form of See also:pietism, it became, at the close of the period, a force of moment in the literary revival. Besides the hymn, the Volkslied, which amidst the struggles and confusion of the great war See also:bore witness to a steadily growing sense of patriotism, lay outside the domain of the literary theorists and dictators, and developed in its own way. But all else—if we except certain forms of fiction, which towards the end of the 17th century rose into prominence—stood completely under the sway of the Latin Renaissance. The first See also:focus of the movement was See also:Heidelberg, which had been a centre of humanistic learning in the sixteenth century. Here, under the leadership of J. W. Zincgref (1591–1635), a number of scholarly writers carried into practice that interest in the vernacular which had been shown a little earlier by the German translator of See also:Marot, Paul Schede or Melissus, librarian in Heidelberg. The most important forerunner of Opitz was G. R. See also:Weckherlin (1584–1653), a native of Wurttemberg who had spent the best part of his life in England; his Oden and Gesange (1618–1619) ushered in the era of Renaissance poetry in Germany with a promise that was bttt indifferently fulfilled by his successors. Of these the greatest, or at least the most influential, was Martin Opitz (1597-1639). He was a native of See also:Silesia and, as a student in Heidelberg, came into See also:touch with Zincgref's circle; subsequently, in the course of a visit to See also: Meanwhile the poetic centre of gravity in Germany had shifted from Heidelberg to the extreme north-east, to See also:Konigsberg, where a group of See also:academic poets gave practical expression to the Opitzian theory. Chief among them was See also:Simon See also:Dach (1605–1659), a See also:gentle, elegiac writer on whom the laws of the Buck von der deutschen Poeterey did not See also:lie too heavily. He, like his more manly and vigorous contemporary Paul See also:Fleming (1609–1640), showed, one might say, that it was possible to write See also:good and sincere poetry notwithstanding Opitz's mechanical rules.
In the previous century the most advanced form of literature had been satire, and under the new conditions the satiric vein still proved most productive; but it was no longer the full-blooded satire of the Reformation, or even the rich and luxuriant satiric See also:fancy of Fischart, which found expression in the 17th century. Satire pure and simple was virtually only cultivated by two Low German poets, J. Lauremberg (1590–1658) and J. See also:Rachel (1618–1669), of whom at least the latter was accepted by the Opitzian school; but the satiric spirit rose to higher things in the powerful and scathing sermons of J. B. Schupp (1610–1661), an outspoken See also:Hamburg preacher, and in the scurrilous wit of the Viennese monk See also:Abraham a Sancta See also:Clara (1644-1709), who had inherited some of his predecessor Murner's intellectual gifts. Best of all are the epigrams of the most gifted of all the Silesian group of writers, Friedrich von See also:Logau (1604–1655). Logau's three thousand epigrams (Deutsche Sinngedichte, 1654) afford a See also: Logau is an epigrammatist of the first See also:rank, and perhaps the most remarkable product of the Renaissance movement in Germany.
Opitz found difficulty in providing Germany with a drama according to the classic See also:canon. He had not himself ventured beyond translations of See also:Sophocles and See also:Seneca, and Johann See also:Rist (1607–1667) in Hamburg, one of the few contemporary dramatists, had written plays more in the manner of Duke Heinrich Julius of Brunswick than of Opitz. It was not until after the latter's death that the chief dramatist of the Renaissance movement came forward in the See also:person of Andreas See also:Gryphius (1616–1664). Like Opitz, Gryphius also was a Silesian, and a poet of no mean ability, as is to be seen from his lyric poetry; but his tragedies, modelled on the stiff Senecan See also:pattern, suffered from the lack of a theatre, and from his See also:ignorance of the existence of a more highly developed drama in France, not to speak of England. As it was, he was content with Dutch models. In the See also: J. Christoffel von See also:Grimmelshausen(c 1625-'676), is a picaresque novel, but one that owed little more than its form to the Spaniards. It is in great measure the autobiography of its author, and describes with uncompromising realism the social disintegration and the horrors of the Thirty Years' War. But this remarkable book stands alone; Grimmelshausen's other writings are but further contributions to the same theme, and he left no disciples worthy of carrying on the tradition he had created. Christian Weise (1642-1708), See also:rector of the See also:Zittau gymnasium, wrote a few satirical novels, but his realism and satire are too obviously didactic. He is seen to better See also:advantage in his dramas, of which he wrote more than fifty for performance by his scholars. The real successor of Simplicissimus in Germany was the English See also:Robinson Crusoe, a novel which, on its See also:appearance, was immediately translated into German (1721); it called forth an extraordinary See also:flood of imitations, the so-called " Robinsonaden," the See also:vogue of which is even still kept alive by Der schweizerische Robinson of J. R. Wyss (1812 ff.). With the exception of J. G. Schnabel's Insel Felsenburg (1731-1743), the literary value of these imitations is slight. They represented, however, a healthier and more natural development of fiction than the " galant " romances which were introduced in the train of the Renaissance movement, and cultivated by writers like Philipp von Zesen (1619-1689), Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick (1633-1714), A. H. Buchholtz (1607-1671), H. A. von Ziegler (1653-1697)—author of the famous Asiatische Banise (1688)— and D. C. von Lohenstein (1635-1683), whose See also:Arminius (1689-169o) is on the whole the most pr6mising novel of this group. The last mentioned writer and Christian See also:Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau (1617-1679) are sometimes regarded as the leaders of a " second Silesian school," as opposed to the first school of Opitz. As the cultivators of the bombastic and Euphuistic style of the Italians See also:Guarini and See also:Marini, and of the See also:Spanish writer Gongora, Lohenstein and Hofmannswaldau touched the lowest point to which German poetry ever sank. But this See also:aberration of See also:taste was happily of See also:short duration. Although socially the recovery of the German people from the desolation of the war was slow and laborious, the intellectual life of Germany was rapidly recuperating under the influence of foreign thinkers. See also:Samuel See also:Pufendorf (1632-1694), Christian See also:Thomasius (1655-1728), Christian von See also:Wolff (1679-1754) and, above all, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716), the first of the great German philosophers, laid the See also:foundations of that See also:system of See also:rationalism which dominated Germany for the better part of the 18th century; while German religious life was strengthened and enriched by a revival of pietism, under mystic thinkers like Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705), a revival which also left its traces on religious poetry. Such hopeful signs of convalescence could not but be accompanied by an improvement in literary taste, and this is seen in the first instance in a substitution for the bombast and conceits of Lohenstein and Hofmannswaldau, of poetry on the stricter and soberer lines laid down by Boileau. The so-called " court poets " who opposed the second Silesian school, men like Rudolf von See also:Canitz (1654-1699), Johann von Besser (1654-1729) and See also:Benjamin Neukirch (1665-1729), were not inspired, but they had at least a certain " correctness " of taste; and from their midst sprang one gifted lyric genius, Johann Christian Gunther (1695-1723),' ,who wrote love-songs such as had not been heard in Germany since the days of the Minnesang. The methods of Hofmannswaldau had obtained considerable vogue in Hamburg, where the Italian See also:opera kept the decadent Renaissance poetry alive. Here, however, the incisive wit of Christian Wernigke's (1661-1725) epigrams was an effective antidote, and Barthold Heinrich See also:Brockes.(168o-1747), a native of Hamburg, who had been deeply impressed by the appreciation of nature in English poetry, gave the artificialities of the Silesians their death-See also:blow. But the influence of English literature was not merely destructive in these years; in the translations and imitations of the English Spectator, Taller and Guardian—the so-called moralische Wochenschriften—it helped to regenerate literary taste, and to implant healthy moral ideas in the German middle classes. The chief representative of the literary movement inaugurated by the Silesian " court poets " was Johann Christoph See also:Gottsched (1700-1766), who between 1724 and 1740 succeeded in establishing in See also:Leipzig, the See also:metropolis of German taste, literary reforms modelled on the principles of French 17th-century classicism. He reformed and purified the stage according to French ideas, and provided it with a repertory of French origin; in his Kritische Dichtkunst (1730) he laid down the principles according to which good literature was to be produced and judged. As Opitz had reformed German letters with the help of Ronsird, so now Gottsched took his standpoint on the principles of Boileau as interpreted by contemporary French critics and theorists. With Gottsched, whose services in purifying the German language have stood the test of time better than his literary or dramatic reforms, the period of German Renaissance literature reaches its culmination and at the same time its close. The movement of the age advanced too rapidly for the Leipzig dictator; in 1740 a new epoch opened in German poetry and he was soon left hopelessly behind. V. THE CLASSICAL PERIOD OF MODERN GERMAN LITERATURE (1740-1832) (a) From the Swiss Controversy to the " See also:Sturm and Drang."—Between Opitz and Gottsched German literature passed successively through the various stages characteristic of all Renaissance literatures—from that represented by Trissino and the French Pleiade, by way of the aberrations of Marini and the estilo culto, to the art poetique of Boileau. And precisely as in France, the next advance was achieved in a battle between the " ancients " and the " moderns," the German " ancients " being represented by Gottsched, the " moderns " by the Swiss literary reformers, J. J. See also:Bodmer (1698-1783) and J. J. Breitinger (r701-1776). The latter in his Kritische Dichtkunst (1739) maintained doctrines which were in opposition to Gottsched's standpoint in his treatise of the same name, and Bodmer supported his friend's initiative; a pamphlet war ensued between Leipzig and Zurich, with which in 1740-1741 the classical period of modern German literature may be said to open. The Swiss, men of little originality, found their theories in the writings of Italian and English critics; and from these they learned how literature might be freed from the fetters of pseudo-classicism. Basing their arguments on See also:Milton's See also:Paradise Lost, which Bodmer had translated into prose (1732), they demanded room for the play of genius and inspiration; they insisted that the imagination should not be hindered in its attempts to rise above the world of reason and common sense. Their victory was due, not to the skill with which they presented their arguments, but to the fact that literature itself was in need of greater freedom. It was in fact a See also:triumph, not of personalities or of leaders, but of ideas. The effects of the controversy are to be seen in a group of Leipzig writers of Gottsched's own school, the See also:Bremer Beitrager as they were called after their literary See also:organ. These men—C. F. See also:Gellert (1715-1769), the author of graceful fables and tales in verse, G. W. See also:Rabener (1714-1771), the mild satirist of Saxon provinciality, the dramatist J. See also:Elias See also:Schlegel (1719-1749), who in more ways than one was See also:Lessing's forerunner, and a number of minor writers—did not set themselves up in active opposition to their master, but they tacitly adopted many of the principles which the Swiss had advocated. And in the Bremer Beitrage there appeared in 1748 the first See also:instalment of an epic by F. G. See also:Klopstock (1724-1803), Der Messias, which was the best See also:illustration of that lawlessness against which Gottsched had protested. More effectively than Bodmer's dry and uninspired theorizing, Klopstock's Messias, and in a still higher degree, his Odes, laid the foundations of modern German literature in the 18th century. His immediate followers, it is true, did not help to advance matters; Bodmer and J. K. See also:Lavater (1741-1801), whose " physiognomic " investigations interested Goethe at a later date, wrote dreary and now long forgotten epics on religious themes. Klopstock's rhapsodic dramas, together with See also:Macpherson's See also:Ossian, which in the 'sixties awakened a widespread See also:enthusiasm throughout Germany, were responsible for the so-called " bardic " movement; but the noisy rhapsodies of the leaders of this movement, the " bards " H. W. von Gersten-See also:berg (1737–1823), K. F. Kretschmann (1738–1809) and Michael See also:Denis (1729–1800), had little of the poetic inspiration of Klopstock's Odes. The indirect influence of Klopstock as the first inspired poet of modern Germany and as the realization of Bodmer's theories can, however, hardly be over-estimated. Under Frederick the Great, who, as the docile pupil of French culture, had little sympathy for unregulated displays of feeling, neither Klopstock nor his imitators were in favour in See also:Berlin, but at the university of See also:Halle considerable interest was taken in the movement inaugurated by Bodmer. Here, before Klopstock's name was known at all, two See also:young poets, J. I. Pyra (1715–1744) and S. G. See also:Lange (1711–1781), wrote Freundschaftliche Lieder (1737), which were See also:direct forerunners of Klopstock's rhymeless lyric poetry; and although the later Prussian poets, J. W. L. See also:Gleim (1719–1803), J. P. Uz (1720–1796) and J. N. Gotz (1721–1781), who were associated with Halle, and K. W. See also:Ramler (1725–1798) in Berlin, cultivated mainly the Anacreontic and the Horatian ode—artificial forms, which kept strictly within the classic canon—yet Friedrich von See also:Hagedorn (1708–1754) in Hamburg showed to what perfection even the Anacreontic and the lighter vers de societe could be brought. The Swiss physiologist Albrecht von See also:Haller (1708–1777) was the first German poet to give expression to the beauty and sublimity of Alpine scenery (Die Alpen, 1734), and a Prussian officer, See also:Ewald Christian von See also:Kleist (1715-1 759), author of Der 'Friihling (1749), wrote the most inspired nature-poetry of this period. Klopstock's supreme importance lay, however, in the fact that he was a forerunner of the movement of Sturm and Drang. But before turning to that movement we must consider two writers who, strictly speaking, also belong to the age under consideration—Lessing and See also:Wieland. As Klopstock had been the first of modern Germany's inspired poets, so Gotthold See also:Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) was the first critic who brought See also:credit to the German name throughout Europe. He was the most liberal-minded exponent of 18th-century rationalism. Like his predecessor Gottsched, whom he vanquished more effectually than Bodmer had done, he had unwavering faith in the classic canon, but " classic " meant for him, as for his contemporary, J. J. See also:Winckelmann (1717-1768), See also:Greek art and literature, and not the products of French pseudo-classicism, which it had been Gottsched's See also:object to foist on Germany. He went, indeed, still further, and asserted that See also:Shakespeare, with all his irregularities, was a more faithful observer of the spirit of See also:Aristotle's laws, and consequently a greater poet, than were the French classic writers. He looked to England and not to France for the regeneration of the German theatre, and his own dramas were See also:pioneer-work in this direction. See also:Miss Sara See also:Sampson (1755) is a biirgerliche Tragodie on the lines of See also:Lillo's See also:Merchant of See also:London, Minna von Barnhelm (1767), a comedy in the spirit of See also:Farquhar; in See also:Emilia Galotti (1772), again with English models in view, he remoulded the "tragedy of common life " in a form acceptable to the Sturm and Drang; and finally in Nathan der Weise (1779) he won See also:acceptance for See also:iambic See also:blank verse as the medium of the higher drama. His two most promising disciples—J. F. von Cronegk (1731–1758).. and J. W. von Brawe (1738–1758)—unfortunately died young, and C. F. See also:Weisse (1726–1804) was not gifted enough to advance the drama in its literary aspects. Lessing's name is associated with Winckelmann's in Laokoon (1766), a treatise in which he set about defining the boundaries between See also:painting, See also:sculpture and poetry, and with those of the Jewish philosopher, See also:Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) and the Berlin bookseller C. F. See also:Nicolai (1733–1811) in the famous Lileraturbriefe. Here Lessing identifiedhimself with the best See also:critical principles of the rationalistic movement—principles which, in the later years of his life, he employed in a fierce onslaught on Lutheran orthodoxy and intolerance. To the widening and deepening of the German imagination C. M. Wieland (1733–1813) also contributed, but in a different way. Although no enemy of pseudo-classicism, he See also:broke with the stiff dogmatism of Gottsched and his friends, and tempered the pietism of Klopstock by introducing the Germans to the lighter poetry of the south of Europe. With the exception of his See also:fairy epic See also:Oberon (1780), Wieland's work has fallen into neglect; he did, however, excellent service to the development of German prose fiction with his psychological novel, See also:Agathon (1766–1767), which may be regarded as a forerunner of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, and with his humorous satire Die Abderiten (1774). Wieland had a considerable following, both among poets and prose writers; he was particularly looked up to in Austria, towards the end of the 18th century, where the literary movement advanced more slowly than in the north. Here Aloys Blumauer (1755–1789) and J. B. von Alxinger (1755–1797) wrote their travesties and epics under his influence. In See also:Saxony, M. A. von Thiimmel (1738-1817) showed his adherence to Wieland's school in his comic epic in prose, Wilhelmine (1764), and in the general tone of his prose writings; on the other hand, K. A. Kortum (1745–1824), author of the most popular comic epic of the time, Die Jobsiade (1784), was but little influenced by Wieland. The German novel owed much to the example of Agathon, but the groundwork and form were borrowed from English models; Gellert had begun by imitating See also:Richardson in his Schwedische Grafan (1747–1748), and he was followed by J. T. See also:Hermes (1738–1821), by Wieland's friend Sophie von Laroche (1730–1807), by A. von See also:Knigge (1752–1796) and J. K. A. See also:Musaus (1735–1787), the last mentioned being, however, best known as the author of a collection of Volksmdrehen (1782–1786). Meanwhile a rationalism, less materialistic and strict than. that of Wolff, was spreading rapidly through educated middle-class society in Germany. Men like Knigge, Moses Mendelssohn, J. G. See also:Zimmermann (1728–1795), T. G. von See also:Hippel (1741–1796), Christian Garve (1742–1798), J. J. See also:Engel (1741–1802), as well as the educational theorists J. B. See also:Basedow (1723–1790) and J. H. See also:Pestalozzi (1746–1827), wrote books and essays on "popular See also:philosophy " which were as eagerly read as the moralische Wochenschriften of the preceding epoch; and with this group of writers must also be associated the most brilliant of German 18th-century satirists, G. C. See also:Lichtenberg (1742–1799). Such was the milieu from which sprang the most advanced pioneer of the classical epoch of modern German literature, J. G. See also:Herder (1744–1803). The transition from the popular philosophers of the Aufklirung to Herder was due in the first instance to the influence of See also: L. H. C. May (1748-1776) and J. M. See also:Miller (1750-1814), again, excelled in simple lyrics in the tone of the Volkslied. Closely associated with the Gottingen group were M. See also:Claudius (174o-1815), the Wandsbecker Bote—as he was called after the See also:journal he edited—an even more unassuming and homely representative of the German peasant in literature than Voss, and G. A. Burger (1748-1794) who contributed to the Gottinger Musenalmanach ballads, such as the famous Lenore (1774), of the very first rank. These ballads were the best products of the Gottingen school, and, together with Goethe's Strassburg and Frankfort songs, represent the highest point touched by the lyric and ballad poetry of the period. But the Gottingen " See also:Blind" stood somewhat aside from the main movement of literary development in Germany; it was only a phase of Sturm and Drang, and quieter, less turbulent than that on which Goethe had set the stamp of his personality. Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) had, as a student in Leipzig (1765-1768), written lyrics in the Anacreontic vein and dramas in alexandrines. But in Strassburg, where he went to continue his studies in 1770-1771, he made the personal acquaintance of Herder, who won his interest for the new literary movement. Herder imbued him with his own ideas of the importance of primitive history and Gothic See also:architecture and inspired him with a See also:pride in German See also:nationality; Herder convinced him that there was more genuine poetry in a simple Volkslied than in all the ingenuity of the German imitators of See also:Horace or See also:Anacreon; above all, he awakened his enthusiasm for Shakespeare. The pamphlet Von deutscher Art and Kunst (1773), to which, besides Goethe and Herder, the historian Justus See also:Moser (1720-1794) also contributed, may be regarded as the manifesto of the Sturm and Drang. The effect on Goethe of the new ideas was instantaneous; they seemed at once to set his genius free, and from 1771 to 1775 he was extraordinarily fertile in poetic ideas and creations. His Gotz von See also:Berlichingen (1771-1773), the first drama of the Sturm and Drang, was followed within a year by the first novel of the movement, Werthers See also:Leiden (1774); he dashed off Clavigo and Stella in a few See also:weeks in 1774 and 1775, and wrote a large number of Singspiele, dramatic satires and fragments—including Faust in its earliest form (the so-called Urfaust)—not to mention love-songs which at last fulfilled the promise of Klopstock. Goethe's lyrics were no less epoch-making than his first drama and novel, for they put an end to the artificiality which for centuries had fettered German lyric expression. In all forms of literature he set the See also:fashion to his time; the Shakespearian restlessness of Gotz von Berlichingen found enthusiastic imitators in J. M. R. See also:Lenz (1751-1792), whose Anmerkungenubers Theater (1774) formulated theoretically the laws, or See also:defiance of laws, of the new drama, in F. M. von See also:Klinger (1752-1831), J. A. Leisewitz (1752-1806), H. L. See also:Wagner (1747-1779) and Friedrich See also: See also:Heinse (1749-1803), author of Ardinghello (1787), Klinger, K. Ph. See also:Moritz (1757-1793), whose Anton Reiser (1785) clearly fore°hadows Wilhelm Meister, it reflected not merely the sentimentalism, but also the philosophic and artistic ideas of the period. With the See also:production of Die Rituber (1781) by Johann Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), the drama of the Sturm and Drang enteredupon a new develi pment. Although hardly less turbulent in spirit than the work of Klinger and Leisewitz, Schiller's tragedy was more skilfully adapted to the exigencies of the theatre; his succeeding dramas, See also:Fiesco and Kabale and Liebe, were also admirable stage-plays, and in Don See also:Carlos (1787) he abandoned prose for the iambic blank verse which Lensing had made accept-able in Nathan der Weise. The " practical " character of the new drama is also to be seen in the work of Schiller's contemporary, O. von Gemmingen (1755-1836), the imitator of See also:Diderot, in the excellent domestic dramas of the actors F. L. See also:Schroder (1744-1816) and A. W. Iffland (1759-1814), and even in the popular medieval plays, the so-called Ritterdramen of which Gotz von Berlichingen was the See also:model. Germany owes to the Sturm and Drang her national theatre; permanent theatres were established in these years at Hamburg, See also:Mannheim, See also:Gotha, and even at See also:Vienna, which, as may be seen from the dramas of C. H. von Ayrenhoff (1733-1819), had hardly then advanced beyond Gottsched's ideal of a national literature. The Hofburgtheater of Vienna, the greatest of all the German stages, was virtually founded in 1776. (b) German Classical Literature.—The See also:energy of the Sturm and Drang, which was essentially iconoclastic in its methods, soon exhausted itself. For Goethe this phase in his development came to an end with his departure for See also:Weimar in 1775, while, after writing Don Carlos (1787), Schiller turned from poetry to the study of history and philosophy. These subjects occupied his attention almost exclusively for several years, and not until the very close of the century did he,under the stimulus of Goethe's friendship, return to the drama. The first ten years of Goethe's life in Weimar were comparatively unproductive; he had left the Sturm and Drang behind him; its developments, for which he himself had been primarily responsible, were distasteful to him; and he had not yet formed a new creed. Under the influence of the Weimar court, where classic or even pseudo-classic tastes prevailed, he was gradually finding his way to a form of literary art which should reconcile the humanistic ideals of the 18th century with the poetic models of See also:ancient See also:Greece. But he did not arrive at clearness in his ideas until after his sojourn in Italy (1786-1788), an See also:episode of the first importance for his mental development. Italy was, in the first instance, a See also:revelation to Goethe of the antique; he had gone to Italy to find realized what Winckelmann had taught, and here he conceived that ideal of a classic literature, which for the next twenty years dominated German literature and made Weimar its metropolis. In Italy he gave Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787) its final form, he completed See also:Egmont (1788)—like the exactly con-temporary Don Carlos of Schiller, a kind of See also:bridge from Sturm and Drang to classicism—and all but finished Torquato See also:Tasso (179o). Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795-1796) bears testimony to the clear and decisive views which he had acquired on all questions of art and of the practical conduct of life. Long before Wilhelm Meister appeared, however, German thought and literature had arrived at that stability and self-confidence which are the most essential elements in a great literary period. In the year of Lessing's death, 1781, Immanuel See also:Kant (1724-1804), the great philosopher, had published his Kritik der reinen Vernunft, and this, together with the two later See also:treatises, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788) and Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790), placed the Germans in the front rank of thinking nations. Under the influence of Kant, Schiller turned from the study of history to that of philosophy and more especially See also:aesthetics. His philosophic lyrics, his treatises on Anmut and Wiirde, on the Asthetische Erziehung des Menschen (1795), and Uber naive and sentimentalische Dichtung (1795) show, on the philosophic and the critical side, the movement of the century from the irresponsible subjectivity of Sturm and Drang to the See also:calm idealism of classic attainment. In the same way, German historical writing had in these years, under the leadership of men like Justus Moser, Thomas Abbt, I. Iselin, F. C. See also:Schlosser, Schiller himself and, greatest of all, Johannes von Muller (1752-1809), advanced from disconnected, unsystematic chronicling to a clearly thought-out philosophic and scientific method. J. G. Weimar, with which its leaders were in essential sympathy, but against the shallow, utilitarian rationalism of Berlin. See also:Ludwig See also:Tieck (1773-1853), a leading member of the school, was in reality a belated Sturmer and Dranger, who in his early years had chafed under the unimaginative tastes of the Prussian See also:capital, and sought for a positive faith to put in their place. Friedrich See also:Holderlin (1770--1843), one of the most gifted poets of this age, demonstrates no less clearly than Tieck the essential See also:affinity between Sturm and Drang and Romanticism; he, too, forms a bridge from the one individualistic movement to the other. The theoretic basis of Romanticism was, however, established by the two brothers, See also:August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel (1767-1845 and 1772-1829), who, accepting, in great measure, Schiller's aesthetic conclusions, adapted them to the needs of their own more subjective attitude towards literature. While Schiller, like Lessing before him, insisted on the critic's right to sit in judgment according to a definite code of principles, these Romantic critics maintained that the first See also:duty of See also:criticism was to understand and appreciate; the right of genius to follow its natural See also:bent was sacred. The Herzensergiessungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders by Tieck's school-friend W. H. Wackenroder (1773-1798) contained the Romantic art-theory, while the hymns and fragmentary novels of Friedrich von See also:Hardenberg (known as See also:Novalis, 1772-1801), and the dramas and fairy tales of Tieck, were the characteristic products of Romantic literature. The universal sympathies of the movement were exemplified by the many admirable translations—greatest of all, Schlegel's Shakespeare (1797-181o)—which were produced under its auspices. Romanticism was essentially conciliatory in its tendencies, that is to say, it aimed at a reconciliation of poetry with other provinces of social and intellectual life; the hard and fast boundaries which the older critics had set up as to what poetry might and might not do, were put aside, and the domain of literature was regarded as co-extensive with life itself; painting and See also:music, philosophy and See also:ethics, were all accepted as constituent elements of or See also:aids to Romantic poetry. See also:Fichte, and to a much greater extent, F. W. J. von See also:Schelling (1775-1854) were the exponents of the Romantic See also:doctrine in philosophy, while the theologian F. 'E. D. See also:Schleiermacher (1768-1834) demonstrated how vital the revival of See also:individualism was for religious thought. The Romantic school, whose chief members were the brothers Schlegel, Tieck, Wackenroder and Novalis, was virtually founded in 1798, when the Schlegels began to publish their journal the See also:Athenaeum; but the actual existence of the school was of very short duration. Wackenroder and Novalis died young, and by the year 1804 the other members were widely separated. Two years later, however, another phase of Romanticism became associated with the See also:town of Heidelberg. The leaders of this second or younger Romantic school were K. See also:Brentano (1778-1842), L. A. von See also:Arnim (1781-1831) and J. J. von See also:Gorres (1776-1848), their organ, corresponding to the Athenaeum, was the Zeitung See also:fur Einsiedler, or Trost-Einsamkeit, and their most characteristic production the collection of Volkslieder, published under the See also:title Des Kna See also:ben Wunderhorn (1805-1808). Compared with the earlier school the Heidelberg writers were more practical and realistic, more faithful to nature and the See also:commonplace life of everyday. They, too, were interested in the German past and in the middle ages, but they put aside the idealizing glasses of their predecessors and kept to historic truth; they wrote historical novels, not stories of an imaginary medieval world as Novalis had done, and when they collected Volkslieder and Volksbiicher, they refrained from decking out the simple tradition with musical effects, or from heightening the poetic situation by " Romantic irony." Their immediate influence on German intellectual life was consequently greater; they stimulated and deepened the interest of the German people in their own past; and we owe to them the foundations of the study of German See also:philology and medieval literature, both the brothers Jakob and Wilhelm See also:Grimm (1785-1863 and 1786-1859) having been in touch with this circle in their early days. Again, the Heidelberg poets strengthened the national and patriotic spirit
A. See also:Forster (1754-1794), who had accompanied See also:Cook round the world, and See also: Men like Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767--1835) and the philosopher J. G. Fichte (1762-1814) were, in two widely different See also:spheres, representative of this type of intellectual eminence. Meanwhile, in 1794, that friendship between Goethe and Schiller had begun, which lasted, unbroken, until the younger poet's death in 1805. These years See also:mark the See also:summit of Goethe and Schiller's classicism, and the great epoch of Weimar's history as a literary focus. Schiller's treatises had provided a theoretical basis; his new journal, Die Horen, might be called the literary organ of the movement—although in this respect the subsequent Musenalmanach, in which the two poets published their magnificent ballad poetry, had more value. Goethe, as director of the ducal theatre, could to a great extent See also:control dramatic production in Germany. Under his encouragement, Schiller turned from philosophy to poetry and wrote the splendid See also:series of classic dramas beginning with the trilogy of See also:Wallenstein and closing with Wilhelm Tell and the fragment of See also:Demetrius; while to Goethe we owe, above all, the epic of Hermann and Dorothea. Less important were the latter's severely classical plays Die naiiirliche Tochter and See also:Pandora; but it must not be forgotten that it was chiefly owing to Schiller's stimulus that in those years Goethe brought the first part of Faust(r8o8)to a conclusion. Although acknowledged leaders of German letters, Goethe and Schiller had considerable opposition to contend with. The Sturm and Drang had by no means exhausted itself, and the representatives of the once dominant rationalistic movement were particularly arrogant and overbearing. The literature associated with both Sturm and Drang and rationalism was at this period palpably decadent; no comparison could be made between the magnificent achievements of Goethe and Schiller, or even of Herder and Wieland with the " See also:family " dramas of Iffland, still less with the extraordinarily popular plays of A. von See also:Kotzebue (1761-1819), or with those bustling medieval Ritterdramen, which were especially cultivated in south Germany. There is a wide See also:gap between Moritz's Anton Reiser or the philosophic novels which Klinger wrote in his later years, and Goethe's Meister; nor can the once so fervently admired novels of See also:Jean Paul See also:Richter (1763--1825) take a very high place. Neither the fantastic humour nor the penetrating thoughts with which Richter's books are strewn make up for their lack of artistic form and interest; they are essentially products of Sturm and Drang. Lastly, in the See also:province of lyric and epic poetry, it is impossible to regard poets like the gentle F. von See also:Matthisson (1761-1831), or the less inspired G. L. Kosegarten (1758-1818) and C. A. Tiedge (1752-1841), as worthily seconding the masterpieces of Goethe and Schiller. Thus when we speak of the greatness of Germany's classical period, we think mainly of the work of her two chief poets; the distance that separated them from their immediate contemporaries was enormous. Moreover, at the very close of the 18th century a new literary movement arose in admitted opposition to the classicism of Weimar, and to this movement, which first took definite form in the Romantic school, the sympathies of the younger generation turned. Just as in the previous generation the Sturm and Drang had been obliged to make way for a return to classic and impersonal principles of literary composition, so now the classicism of Goethe and Schiller, which had produced masterpieces like Wallenstein and Hermann and Dorothea, had to yield to a revival of individual-ism and subjectivity, which, in the form of Romanticism, profoundly influenced the literature of the whole 19th century. (c) The Romantic Movement.—The first Romantic school, however, was founded, not as a protest against the classicism of of their people; they prepared the way for the rising against See also:Napoleon, which culminated in the year 1813, and produced that outburst of patriotic song, associated with E. M. See also:Arndt (1769-1860), K. Th. Korner (1791-1813) and M. von Schenkendorf (1783-1817). The subsequent history of Romanticism stands in close relation to the Heidelberg school, and when, about 1809, the latter broke up, and Arnim and Brentano settled in Berlin, the Romantic movement followed two clearly marked lines of development, one north German, the other associated with Wurttemberg. The Prussian capital, hotbed of rationalism as it was, had, from the first, been intimately associated with Romanticism; the first school had virtually been founded there, and north Germans, like Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) and See also:Zacharias See also:Werner (1768-1823) had done more for the development of the Romantic drama than had the members of either Romantic school. These men, and more especially Kleist, See also:Prussia's greatest dramatic poet, showed how the capricious Romantic ideas could be brought into harmony with the classic tradition established by Schiller, how they could be rendered serviceable to the national theatre. At the same time, Berlin was not a favourable soil for the development of Romantic ideas, and the circle of poets which gathered round Arnim and Brentano there, either themselves demonstrated the decadence of these ideas, or their work contained elements which in subsequent years hastened the downfall of the movement. Friedrich de la Motte See also:Fouque (1777-1843), for instance, shows how easy it was for the medieval tastes of the Romanticists to degenerate into mediocre novels and plays, hardly richer in genuine poetry than were the productions of the later Sturm and Drang; and E. T. A. See also:Hoffmann (1776-1822), powerful genius though he was, cultivated with preference in his stories, a morbid super-See also:naturalism, which was only a decadent form of the early Romantic delight in the world of fairies and See also:spirits. The lyric was less sensitive to baleful influences; but even here the north German Romantic circle could only point to one lyric poet of the first rank, J. von See also:Eichendorff (1788-1857); while in the poetry of A. von See also:Chamisso (1781-1838) the volatile Romantic spirituality is too often wanting. Others again, like Friedrich See also:Ruckert (1788-1866), sought the inspiration which Romanticism was no longer able to give, in the East; still another group, of which Wilhelm Muller (1794-1827) is the chief representative, followed See also:Byron's example and awakened German sympathy for the oppressed Greeks and Poles. Apart from Eichendorff, the vital lyric poetry of the third and last phase of Romanticism must be looked for in the Swabian school, which gathered round See also:Uhland. Ludwig Uhland (1787-1862) was himself a See also:disciple of the Heidelberg poets, and, in his lyrics and especially in his ballads, he succeeded in grafting the lyricism of the Romantic school on to the traditions of German ballad poetry which had been handed down from Burger, Schiller and Goethe. But, as was the case with so many other disciples of the Heidelberg Romanticists, Uhland's interest in the German past was the serious interest of the scholar rather than the purely poetic interest of the earlier Romantic poets. The merit of the Swabian circle, the chief members of which were J. See also:Kerner (1786-1862), G. Schwab (1792-1850), W. Waiblinger (1804-183o), W. See also:Hauff (1802-1827) and, most gifted of all, E. See also:Morike (1804-1875) was that these writers preserved the Romantic traditions from the disintegrating influences to which their north German contemporaries were exposed. They introduced few new notes into lyric poetry, but they maintained the best traditions intact, and when, a generation later, the See also:anti-Romantic movement of " Young Germany " had run its course, it was to Wurttemberg Germany looked for a revival of the old Romantic ideas. Meanwhile, in the background of all these phases of Romantic evolution, through which Germany passed between 1798 and r832, stands the majestic and imposing figure of Goethe. Personally he had in the early stages of the movement been opposed to that reversion to subjectivity and lawlessness which the first Romantic school seemed to him to represent; to the end of his life he regarded himself as a "classic," not a " romantic"poet. But, on the other hand, he was too liberal-minded a thinker and critic to be oblivious to the fruitful influence of the new movement. Almost without exception he judged the young poets of the new century fairly, and treated them sympathetically and kindly; he was keenly alive to the new—and for the most part " unclassical "—development of literature in England, France and Italy; and his own published work, above all, the first part of Faust (18o8), Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809), Dichtung and Wahrheit (1811-1814, a final See also:volume in 1833), Westostlicher See also:Divan (1819), Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (1821-1829) and the second part of Faust (published in 1832 after the poet's death), stood in no antagonism to the Romantic ideas of their time. One might rather say that Goethe was the See also:bond between the two fundamental literary movements of the German classical age; that his work achieved that reconciliation of " classic " and " romantic " which, rightly regarded, was the supreme aim of the Romantic school itself.
VI. GERMAN LITERATURE SINCE GOETHE (1832-1906)
(a) Young Germany.—With Goethe's death a great age in German poetry came to a close. Long before 1832 Romanticism had, as we have seen, begun to lose ground, and the See also:July revolution of 183o, the effects of which were almost as keenly felt in Germany as in France, gave the movement its death-blow. Meanwhile the See also: The transference of Romantic ideas to the domain of practical religion and politics had proved reactionary in its effects; Romanticism became the cloak for a kind of Neocatholicism, and Romantic politics, as enunciated by men like F. von See also:Gentz (1764-1832) and See also:Adam Muller (1779-1829), served as an See also:apology for the Metternich regime in Austria. Only at the universities—in Gottingen, Heidelberg and Berlin—did the movement continue, in the best sense, to be productive; German philology, German historical science and German See also:jurisprudence benefited by Romantic ideas, long after Romantic poetry had fallen into decay. The day of Romanticism was clearly over; but a return to the classic and humanitarian spirit of the 18th century was impossible. The social condition of Europe had been profoundly altered by the French Revolution; the rise of industrialism had created new economic problems, the march of science had overturned old prejudices. And in a still higher degree were the ideas which lay behind the social upheaval of the July revolution incompatible with a reversion in Germany to the conditions of Weimar classicism. There was, moreover, no disguising the fact that Goethe himself did not stand high with the younger generation of German writers who came into power after his death. " Young Germany " did not form a school in the sense in which the word was used by the early Romanticists; the bond of union was rather the consequence of political persecution. In See also:December 183 5 the German " Bund " issued a See also:decree suppressing the writings of the " literary school " known as " Young Germany," and mentioned by name Heinrich See also:Heine, Karl See also:Gutzkow, See also:Ludolf Wienbarg, Theodor See also:Mundt and Heinrich See also:Laube. Of these men, Heine (1797-1856) was by far the most famous. He had made his reputation in 1826 and 1827 with Die Harzreise and Das Buck der Lieder, both of which books show how deeply he was immersed in the Romantic traditions. But Heine felt perhaps more acutely than any other man of his time how the ground was slipping away from beneath his feet; he repudiated the Romantic movement and hailed the July revolution as the first stage in the " liberation of humanity "; while ultimately he sought in France the freedom and intellectual stimulus which Germany withheld from him. Heine suffered from having been born in an age of transition; he was unable to realize in a whole-hearted way all that was good in the new movement, which he had embraced so warmly; his optimism was counteracted by doubts ' as to whether, after all, life had not been better in that old Romantic Germany of his childhood for which, to the last, he retained so warm an See also:affection. Personal disappointments and unhappiness added to the bitterness of Heine's nature, and the supremely gifted lyric poet and the hardly less gifted satirist were overshadowed by the cynic from whose biting wit nothing was safe. Heine's contemporary and—although he was not mentioned in the decree against the school—fellow-fighter, Ludwig See also:Borne (1786–1837), was a more characteristic representative of the " Young German " point of view; for he was free from Romantic prejudices. Borne gave vent to his enthusiasm for France in eloquent Briefe aus See also:Paris (1830-1833), which form a landmark of importance in the development of German prose style. With Karl Gutzkow (1811–1878), who was considerably younger than either Heine or Borne, the more positive aspects of the " Young German " movement begin to be apparent. He, too, had become a man of letters under the influence of the July revolution, and with an early novel, Wally, die Zweiflerin (1835), which was then regarded as atheistic and immoral, he fought in the battle for the new ideas. His best literary work, however, was the comedies with which he enriched the German stage of the 'forties, and novels like Die See also:Ritter vom Geiste (1850—1851), and. Der Zauberer von Rom (1858–1861), which have to be considered in connexion with the later development of German fiction. Heinrich Laube (1806–1884), who, as the author of lengthy social novels, and Reisenovellen in the style of Heine's Reisebilder, was one of the leaders of the new movement, is now only remembered as Germany's greatest theatre-director. Laube's connexion (1850–1867) with the Burgtheater of Vienna forms one of the ,most brilliant periods in the history of the modern stage. Heine and Borne, Gutzkow and Laube—these were the leading spirits of " Young Germany " ; in their train followed a See also:host of lesser men, who to the present generation are hardly even names. In the domain of scholarship and learning the " Young German " movement was associated with the supremacy of Hegelianism, the leading spirits being D. F. See also:Strauss (1808–1874), author of the Leben Jesu (1835), the historians G. G. See also:Gervinus (1805–1871) and W. See also:Menzel (1798–1873), and the philosopher L. A. See also:Feuerbach (1804–1872), who, although a disciple of Hegel, ultimately helped to destroy the latter's influence. Outside the immediate circle of "Young Germany," other tentative efforts were made to provide a substitute for the discredited literature of Romanticism. The historical novel, for instance, which Romanticists like Arnim had cultivated, fell at an early date under the influence of See also:Sir Walter See also:Scott; Wilhelm Hauff, Heinrich See also:Zschokke (1771–1848) and K. Spindler (1796–18G5) were the most prominent amidst the many imitators of the Scottish novelist. The drama, again, which since Kleist and Werner. had been without definite principles, was, partly under Austrian influence, finding its way back to a condition of stability. In Germany proper, the men into whose hands it fell were, on the one hand, undisciplined geniuses such as C. D. See also:Grabbe (1801–1836), or, on the other, poets with too little theatrical See also:blood in their See also:veins like K.L. See also:Immermann (1796–1840), or with too much, like E. von See also:Raupach (1784–1852), K. von See also:Holtei (1798–1880) and Adolf See also:Milliner (1774–1829}—the last named being the chief representative of the so-called Schicksalstragodie. In those years the Germans were more seriously interested in their opera, which, under C. M. See also:Weber, H. A. Marschner, A. See also:Lortzing and O. Nicolai, remained faithful to the Romantic spirit. In Austria, however, the drama followed lines of its own; here, at the very beginning of the century, H. J. von See also:Collin (1771–1811) attempted in See also:Regulus and other works to substitute for the lifeless pseudo-classic tragedy of Ayrenhoff the classic style of Schiller. His attempt is the more interesting, as the long development that had taken place in Germany between Gottsched and Schiller was virtually unrepresented in Austrian literature. M. von Collin (1779–1824), a younger, See also:brother of H. J. von Collin, did a similar service for the Romantic drama. See also:Franz See also:Grillparzer (1791–1872), Austria's greatest poet, began in the school of See also:Mullner with a " See also:fate drama," but soon won an independent place for himself; more successfully than any other dramatist of the century, he carried out that task which Kleist had first seriously faced, the reconciliation of the classicism of Goethe and Schiller with the Romantic and modern spirit of the 19th century. It is from this point of view that works like Das goldene Vliess (1820), Honig Ottokars See also:Gluck and Elide (1825), Der Traum, ein Leben (18J4) and Des Mecres and der Liebe Wellen (1831) must be regarded. As far as the poetic drama was concerned, Grillparzer stood alone, for E. F. J. von Munch–Bellinghausen (1806–1871), his most promising contemporary, once so popular under the See also:pseudonym of Friedrich See also:Halm, soon fell back into the trivial sentimentality of the later Romanticists. In other forms of dramatic literature Austria could point to many distinguished writers, notably the comedy-writer, E. von See also:Bauernfeld (1802–1890), while a host of playwrights, chief of whom were F. See also:Raimund (179o–1836) and J. Nestroy (1801–1862), cultivated the popular Viennese farce and fairy-play. Thus, in spite of Metternich's censorship of the drama, the Viennese theatre was, in the first See also:half of the 19th century, in closer touch with literature than that of any other German centre. The transitional character of the age is best illustrated by two eminent writers whom outward circumstances rather than any similarity of character and aim have classed together. These were K. L. Immermann, who has been already mentioned, and A. von Platen-Hallermund (1796–1835). Immermann's dramas were of little practical value to the theatre, but one at least, See also:Merlin (1832), is a dramatic poem of great beauty. In his novels, however, Die Epigonen (1836) and Miinchhausen (1838-1839),) Immermann was the spokesman of his time.. He looked back-wards rather than forwards; he saw himself as the belated follower of. a great literary age rather than as the pioneer of a new one. The See also:bankruptcy of Romanticism and the poetically arid era of " Young Germany " left him little confidence in the future. Platen, on the other hand, went his own way; he, too, was the antagonist both of Romanticism and " Young Germany," and with Immermann himself he came into See also:sharp conflict. But in his poetry he showed himself indifferent to the strife of contending literary schools. He began as an imitator of the German See also:oriental poets—the only Romanticists with whom he had any personal sympathy—and with his matchless Sandie aus Venedig (1825) he stands out as a master in the art of verse-writing and as the least subjective of all German lyric poets. In the imitation of Romance metres he sought a See also:refuge from the extravagances and excesses of the Romantic decadence. Meanwhile the political side of the " Young German " movement, which the German Bund aimed at stamping out, gained rapidly in importance under the influence of the unsettled political conditions between the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. The early 'forties were in German literature marked by an extraordinary outburst of political poetry, which may be aptly compared with the national and patriotic lyric evoked by the year 1813. The principles which triumphed in France at the revolution of 1848 were, to a great extent, fought out by the German singers of 1841 and 1842. Begun by mediocre talents like N. See also:Becker (1809–1845) and R. E. See also:Prutz (1816–1872), the movement found a vigorous champion in Georg See also:Herwegh (1817–1875) , who in his turn succeeded in winning See also: The political lyric culminated in and ended with the year 1848; the revolutionists of the 'forties were, if not appeased, at least silenced by the revolution which in their eyes had effected so little. If Freiligrath be excepted, the chief lyric poets of this epoch stood aside from the revolutionary movement; even E. See also:Geibel (1815–1884), the representative poet of the succeeding age, was only temporarily interested in the political 1870. (b) See also:Mid-Century Literature.—When once the revolution of 1848 was over, a spirit of tranquillity came over German letters; but it was due rather to the See also:absence of confidence in the future than to any hopefulness or real content. The literature of the middle of the century was not wanting in achievement, but there was nothing buoyant or youthful about it; most significant of all, the generation between 1848 and 188o was either oblivious or indifferent to the good work and to the new and germinating ideas which it produced. Hegel, who held the earlier half of the 19th century in his See also:ban, was still all-powerful in the See also:universities, but his power was on the wane in literature and public life. The so-called " Hegelian Left " had advanced so far as to have become incompatible with the original Hegelianism; the new social and economic theories did not See also:fit into the See also:scheme of Hegelian See also:collectivism; the interest in natural science—fostered by the popular books of J. Moleschott (1822–1893), Karl See also:Vogt (1817–1895) and Ludwig See also:Buchner (1824–1899)—created a healthy antidote to the Hegelian metaphysics. In literature and art, on which Hegel, as we have seen, had exerted so blighting an influence, his place was taken by the chief exponent of philosophic See also:pessimism, Arthur See also:Schopenhauer (1788–1860). Schopenhauer's antagonism to Hegelianism was of old See also:standing, for his chief work, Die Welt als Wille and Vorstellung, had appeared as far back as 180; but the century was more than half over before the movement of ideas had, as it were, caught up with him, before pessimism became a dominant force in intellectual life. The literature produced between 185o and 1870 was pre-eminently one of prose fiction. The beginnings which the " Young German " school had made to a type of novel dealing with social problems—the best example is Gutzkow's. Ritter vom Geiste—developed rapidly in this succeeding epoch. Friedrich See also:Spielhagen (born 1829) followed immediately in Gutzkow's footsteps, and in a series of romances from Problematische Naluren (r86o) to Sturmflut (1876), discussed in a militant spirit that recalls Laube and Gutzkow the social problems which agitated German life in these decades. Gustav See also:Freytag (1816-1895), although an older man, freed himself more success-fully from the " Young German " tradition; his romance of German commercialism, See also:Soli and Haben (1855), is the master-piece of mid-century fiction of this class. Less successful was Freytag's subsequent attempt to See also:transfer his method to the milieu of German academic life in Die verlorene Handschrift (1864). As was perhaps only natural in an age of social and political interests, the historical novel occupies a subordinate place. The influence of Scott, which in the earlier period had been strong, produced only one writer, Wilhelm Haring (" Willi-bald See also:Alexis," 1798–1871), who was more than a See also:mere imitator of the Scottish master. In the series of six novels, from Der Roland von Berlin to Dorothe, which Alexis published between 184o and 1856, he gave Germany, and more particularly Prussia, a historical fiction which might not unworthily be compared with the Waverley Novels. But Alexis had no successor, and the historical novel soon made way for a type of fiction in which the accurate See also:reproduction of remote conditions was held of more See also:account than poetic inspiration or artistic power. Such are the " antiquarian " novels of ancient See also:Egyptian life by Georg See also:Ebers 0837–1868), and those from primitive German history by See also:Felix See also:Dahn (born 1834). The vogue of historical fiction was also transferred to some extent, as in English literature, to novels of See also:American life and See also:adventure, of which the chief German cultivators were K. A. Postl, who wrote under the pseudonym of Charles See also:Sealsfield (1793–1864) and Friedrich See also:Gerstacker (1816-1872). movement, and his best work is of a purely lyric character. M. von See also:Strachwitz's (1822-1847) promising See also:talent did not flourish in the political See also:atmosphere; Annette von Droste-Hulshoff (1797–1848), and the Austrian, Nikolaus See also:Lenau (1802-1850), both stand far removed from the world of politics; they are imbued with that pessimistic resignation which is, more or less, characteristic of all German literature between 1850 and Of greater importance was the fiction which owed its inspiration to the Romantic traditions that survived the " Young German " age. To this group belongs the novel of peasant and provincial life, of which Immermann had given an excellent example in Der Oberhof, a story included in the See also:arabesque of Munchhausen. A Swiss pastor, Albrecht See also:Bitzius, better known by his pseudonym " Jeremias Gotthelf " (1797–1854), was, however, the real founder of this class of romance; and his simple, unvarnished and naively didactic stories of the Swiss peasant were followed not long afterwards by the more famous Schwarzwdlder Dorfgeschichten (1843–1854) of Berthold See also:Auerbach (1812–1882). Auerbach is not by any means so naive and realistic as Gotthelf, nor is his work free from tendencies and ideas which recall " Young German " rationalism rather than the unsophisticated life of the See also:Black See also:Forest; but the Schwarzwdlder Dorfgeschichten exerted a decisive influence; they were the forerunners of a large body of peasant literature which described with affectionate sympathy and with a liberal admixture of dialect, south German village life. With this group of writers may also be associated the German Bohemian, A. See also:Stifter (1805–1868), who has called up unforgettable pictures and impressions of the life and scenery of his home. Meanwhile, the Low German peoples also benefited by the revival of an interest in dialect and peasant life; it is to the credit of Fritz See also:Reuter (1810–1874) that he brought See also:honour to the Plattdeutsch of the north, the dialects of which had played a fitful, but by no means negligible role in the earlier history of German letters. His See also:Mecklenburg novels, especially Ut de Franzosentid (1860), Ut mine Festungstid (1863) and Ut mine Stromtid (1862–1864), are a faithful reflection of Mecklenburg life and temperament, and hold their place beside the best German fiction of the period. What Reuter did for Plattdeutsch prose, his contemporary, Klaus See also:Groth (1819–1899), the author of See also:Quick born (1852), did for its verse. We owe, however, the best German prose fiction of these years to two writers, whose affinity with the older Romanticists was closer. The north German, Theodor See also:Storm (1817–1888) is the author of a series of short stories of delicate, lyric inspiration, steeped in that elegiac Romanticism which harmonized so well with mid-century pessimism in Germany. Gottfried See also:Keller (1819–1890), on the other hand, a native of Zurich, was a modern Romanticist of a robuster type; his magnificent autobiographical novel, Der griine Heinrich (1854–1855), might be described as the last in the great See also:line of Romantic fiction that had begun with Wilhelm Meister, and the short stories, Die Leute von Seldwyla (1856–1874) and Zuricher Novellen (1878) are masterpieces of the first rank. In the dramatic literature of these decades, at least as it was reflected in the repertories of the German theatres, there was little promise. French influence was, in general, predominant; French translations formed the mainstay of the theatre-See also:directors, while successful German playwrights, such as R. See also:Benedix (1811–1873) and See also:Charlotte See also:Birch-See also:Pfeiffer (1800-1868), have little claim to See also:consideration in a literary survey. Gustav Freytag's admirable comedy, Die Journalisten (1852), was one of the rare exceptions. But the German drama of this epoch is not to be judged solely by the theatres. At the middle of the century Germany could point to two writers who, each in his way, contributed very materially to the development of the modern drama. These were Friedrich See also:Hebbel (1813–1863) and See also:Otto Ludwig (1813–1865). Both of these men, as a later generation discovered, were the pioneers of that dramatic literature which at the close of the century accepted the canons of realism and aimed at superseding outward effects by psychological conflicts and problems of social life. Hebbel, especially, must be regarded as the most original and revolutionary German dramatist of the 19th century. Unlike his contemporary Grillparzer, whose aim had been to reconcile the " classic " and the " romantic " drama with the help of Spanish models, Hebbel laid the foundations of a psychological and social drama, of which the most modern interpreter has been Henrik See also:Ibsen. Hebbel's first tragedy, See also:Judith, appeared in 1840, his masterpieces, Herodes and Marianne, See also:Agnes See also:Bernauer, See also:Gyges and sein See also:Ring, and the trilogy of Die Nibelungen between 185o and 1862. In this period of somewhat confused literary striving, there is, however, one body of writers who might be grouped together as a school, although the designation must be regarded rather as an outward See also:accident of union than as implying conformity of aims. This is the group which Maximilian II. of Bavaria gathered round him in See also:Munich between 1852 and 186o. A leading spirit of the group was Emanuel Geibel, who, as we have seen, set a model to the German lyric in this age; F. von See also:Bodenstedt (1819-1892), the popular author of Mirza Schaffy; and J. V. von See also:Scheffel (1826–1886), who, in his verse-romance, Der Trompeter von Slickingen (1854), broke a See also:lance for a type of literature which had been cultivated somewhat earlier, but with no very conspicuous success, by men like O. von See also:Redwitz (1823–1891) and G. See also:Kinkel (1815–1882). The romance was, in fact, one of the favourite vehicles of poetic expression of the Munich school, its most successful exponents being J. Wolff (b. 1834) and R. See also:Baumbach (184o–1905); while others, such as H. Lingg (1820-1905) and R. See also:Hamerling (183o–1889) devoted themselves to the more ambitious epic. The general tone of the literary movement was pessimistic, the hopelessness of the spiritual outlook being most deeply engrained in the verse of H. Lorm (pseudonym for Heinrich Landesmann, 1821–1902) and H. Leuthold (1827–1879). On the whole, the most important member of the Munich group is Paul See also:Heyse (b. 1830), who, as a writer of " Novellen " or short stories, may be classed with Storm and Keller. An essentially Latin genius, Heyse excels in stories of Italian life, where his lightness of touch and sense of form are shown to best advantage; but he has also written several long novels. Of these, Kinder der Welt (1873) and, in a lesser degree, lm Paradiese (1875), sum up the spirit and tendency of their time, just as, in earlier decades, Die Ritter vom Geiste, Problematische Naturen and Soil and Haben were characteristic of the periods which produced them. (c) German Literature after 187o.—In the years immediately following the Franco-German War, the prevailing conditions were unfavourable to literary production in Germany, and the re-establishment of the See also:empire left comparatively little trace on the national literature. All minds were for a time engrossed by the Kulturkampf, by the See also:financial difficulties—the so-called Grundertum—due to unscrupulous See also:speculation, and, finally, by the rapid rise of social See also:democracy as a political force. The intellectual basis of the latter movement was laid by Ferdinand See also:Lassalle (1825–1864) and Karl See also:Marx (1818–1883), author of Das Kapital (vol.1,1867). But even had such disturbing elements been wanting, the general tone of German intellectual life at that time was not buoyant enough to inspire a vigorous literary revival. The influence of Hegel was still strong, and the " historical " method, as enunciated in Der alte and der neue Glaube (1872) by the Hegelian D. F. Strauss, was generally accepted at the German universities. To many the See also:compromise which H. See also:Lotze (1817–1880 had attempted to establish between science and metaphysics, came as a See also:relief from the Hegelian tradition, but in literature and art the dominant force was still, as before the war, the philosophy of Schopenhauer. In his Philosophie des Unbewussten (1869), E. von Hartmann (1842–1906) endeavoured to bring pessimism into harmony with ideal-ism. In lyric poetry, the dull monotony was broken by the excitement of the war, and the singers of the revolution of 1848 were among the first to welcome the triumph and unification of Germany. At the same time, men of the older generation, like Herwegh, Freiligrath and Geibel could See also:ill conceal a certain disappointment with the new regime; the See also:united Germany of 1871 was not what they had dreamed of in their youth, when all hopes were set on the Frankfort See also:parliament. . The novel continued to be what it was before 1870, the most vigorous form of German literature, but the novelists who were popular in the early 'seventies were all older men. Laube, Gutzkow and Auerbach - were still writing; Fritz Reuter was a universal favourite; while among the writers of short stories, Storm, who, between 1877 and 1888; put the crown to his workwith his Chroniknovellen, and Paul Heyse were the acknowledged masters. It was not until at least a decade later that the genius of Gottfried Keller was generally recognized. The historical novel seemed, in those days, beyond See also:hope of revival. Gustav Freytag, it is true, had made the attempt in Die Ahnen (1872-1881), a number df independent historical romances linked together to form an ambitious prose epic; but there was more of the spirit of Ebers and Dahn in Freytag's work than of the spacious art of Scott, or of Scott's disciple, Willibald Alexis. The drama of the 'seventies was in an even less hopeful condition than during the preceding period. The classical iambic. tragedy was cultivated by the Munich school, by A. See also:Wilbrandt (b. 1837), A. Lindner (1831–1888), H. Kruse (1815–1902), by the Austrian F. Nissel (1831–1893), and A. Fitger (b. 184o); but it was characteristic of the time that Halm was popular, while Hebbel and Grillparzer were neglected, it might even be said ignored. The most gifted German dramatist belonging exclusively to the decade between 187o and 188o was an Austrian, Ludwig See also:Anzengruber (1839–1889), whose Pfarrer von Kirchfeld (1870) recalled the controversies of the Kulturkampf. This was Anzengruber's first drama, and it was followed by a series of powerful plays dealing with the life of the Austrian peasant; Anzengruber was, indeed, one of the ablest exponents of that village life, which had attracted so many gifted writers since the days of Gotthelf and Auerbach. But the really popular dramatists of this epoch were either writers who, like Benedix in the older generation, cultivated the bourgeoise comedy—A. L'Arronge (b. 1838), G. von Moser (1825–1903), F. von Schonthan (b. 1849) and O. See also:Blumenthal (b. 1852)—or playwrights, of whom P. See also:Lindau (b. 1839) may be regarded as representative, who imitated French models. The only sign of progress in the dramatic history of this period was the marked improvement of the German stage, an improvement due, on the one hand, to the artistic reforms introduced by the duke of See also:Meiningen in the Court theatre at Meiningen, and, on the other hand, to the ideals of a national theatre realized at See also:Bayreuth by See also:Richard Wagner (1813–1883). The greatest composer of the later 19th century is also one of Germany's leading dramatists; and the first performance of the trilogy Der Ring der Nibelungen at Bayreuth in the summer of 1876 may be said to have inaugurated the latest epoch in the history of the German drama. The last fifteen or twenty years of the 19th century were distinguished in Germany by a remarkable literary activity. Among the younger generation, which was growing up as citizens of the united German empire, a more hopeful and optimistic spirit prevailed. The influence of Schopenhauer was on the wane, and at the universities Hegelianism had lost its former hold. The See also:sponsor of the new philosophic movement was Kant, the master of 18th-century " enlightenment," and under the influence of the " neo-Kantian " movement, not merely German school philosophy, but See also:theology also, was imbued with a healthier spirit. L. von See also:Ranke (1795–1886) was still the dominant force in German historical science, and between 1881 and 1888 nine volumes appeared of his last great work, Weltgeschichte. Other historians of the period were H. von See also:Sybel (1817–1895) and H. von See also:Treitschke (1834–1896), the latter a vigorous and inspiring spokesman of the new political conditions; while J. See also:Burckhardt (1818–1807), author of the masterly Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (186o) and the friend of See also:Nietzsche, exerted an influence on German thought which was not confined to academic circles. Literary criticism perhaps benefited most of all by the dethronement of Hegel and the more objective attitude towards Schopenhauer; it seemed as if in this epoch the Germans first formed definite ideas—and ideas which were acceptable and accepted `outside Germany—as to the rank and merits of their great poets. A marked change came over the nation's attitude towards Goethe, a poet to whom, as we have seen, neither the era of Hegel nor that of Schopenhauer had been favourable; Schiller was regarded with less national See also:prejudice, and—most important of all—amends were made by the new generation for the earlier neglect of Kleist, Grillparzer, Hebbel and Keller. The thinker and poet who most completely embodies the spirit of this period—who dealt the Hegelian metaphysics its death-blow as far as its wider influence was concerned--was Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Nietzsche had begun as a disciple of Schopenhauer and a friend of Wagner, and he ultimately became the champion of an individualistic and optimistic philosophy which formed the sharpest possible contrast to mid-century pessimism. The individual, not the race, the Herrenmensch, not the slave, self-assertion, not self-denying renunciation—these are some of the ideas round which this new optimistic ethics turns. Nietzsche looked forward to the human See also:rate emerging from an effete culture, burdened and clogged by tradition, and re-establishing itself on a basis that is in harmony with man's primitive instincts. Like Schopenhauer before him, Nietzsche was a stylist of the first rank, and his literary master-piece, Also sprach Zarathustra (1883–1891), is to be regarded as the most important imaginative work of its epoch. Nietzschean individualism was only one of many factors which contributed to the new literary development. The realistic movement, as it had manifested itself in France under See also:Flaubert, the Goncourts, See also:Zola and See also:Maupassant, in See also:Russia under See also:Dostoievsky and Tolstoi, and in See also:Norway under Ibsen and See also:Bjornson, was, for a time, the dominant force in Germany, and the younger generation of critics hailed it with undisguised See also:satisfaction; most characteristic and significant of all, the centre of this revival was Berlin, which, since it had become the imperial capital, was rapidly establishing its claim to be also the literary metropolis. It was the best testimony to the vitality of the movement that it rarely descended to slavish imitation of the realistic masterpieces of other literatures; realism in Germany was, in fact, only an episode of the 'eighties, a stimulating influence rather than an accepted principle or See also:dogma. And its suggestive character is to be seen not merely in the writings of the young Sturmer and Dranger of this time, but also in those of the older generation who, in temperament, were naturally more inclined to the ideals of a past age. Of the novelists of the latter class, A. Wilbrandt, who has already been mentioned as a dramatist, has shown, since about 189o, a remarkable power of adapting himself, if not to the style and artistic methods of the younger school, at least to the ideas by which it was agitated; F. Spielhagen's attitude towards the realistic movement has been invariably sympathetic, while a still older writer, Theodor See also:Fontane (1819–1898), wrote between 188o and 1898 a series of works in which the finer elements of French realism were grafted on the German novel. To the older school belong Wilhelm See also:Jensen (b. 1837), and that fine humorist, Wilhelm See also:Raabe (b. 1831), with whom may be associated as other humorists of this period, H Seidel (1842-1906) and W. See also:Busch (1832–1908). Some of the most interesting examples of See also:recent German fiction come, however, from Austria and Switzerland. The two most eminent Austrian authors, See also:Marie von See also:Ebner-Eschenbach" (b. 1830), and Ferdinand von See also:Saar (1833–1906), both excel as writers of Novellen or short stories—the latter especially being an exponent of that pessimism which is Austria's peculiar heritage from the previous generation of her poets. Austrians too, are Peter See also:Rosegger (b. 1843), who has won popularity with his novels of peasant life, K. E. See also:Franzos (1848–1904) and L. von Sacher-Masoch (1835–1895). German prose fiction is, in Switzerland, represented by two writers of the first rank: one of these, Gottfried Keller, has already been 'mentioned; the other, Konrad Ferdinand See also:Meyer (1825-1898), turned to literature or, at least, made his reputation, comparatively See also:late in life. Although, like Keller, a writer of virile, original verse, Meyer is best known as a novelist; he, too, was a master of the short story. His themes are drawn by preference from the epoch of the Renaissance, and his method is characterized by an objectivity of standpoint and a purity of style exceptional in German writers. The realistic novels of the period were written by H. Conradi (1862-189o), Max Kretzer (b. 1854), M. G. See also:Conrad (b. 1846), H. See also:Heiberg (b. 1840), K. Bleibtreu (b. 1859), K. See also:Alberti (pseudonym for Konrad Sittenfeld, b. 1862) and Hermann See also:Sudermann (b. 1857). A want of stability was, however, as has been alreadyindicated, characteristic of the realistic movement in Germany; the idealistic trend of the German mind proved itself ill-adapted to the uncompromising realism of the French school, and the German realists, whether in fiction or in drama, ultimately sought to See also:escape f_om the logical consequences of their theories. Even Sudermann, whose Frau Sorge (1887), Der Katzensteg (1889), and the brilliant, if somewhat sensational romance, Es war (1894), are among the best novels of this period, has never been a consistent realist. It is consequently not surprising to find that, before long, German fiction returned to psychological and emotional problems, to the poetical or symbolical presentation of life, which was more in harmony with the German temperament than was the robuster realism of Flaubert or Zola. This trend is noticeable in the work of Gustav Frenssen (b. 1863), whose novel Jorn Uhl (1901) was extraordinarily popular; it is also to be seen in the studies of See also:child life and educational problems which have proved so attractive to the younger writers of the present day, such as Hermann See also:Hesse (b. 1877), Emil Strauss (b. 1866), Rudolf Huch (b. 1862) and Friedrich Huch (b. 1873). One might say, indeed, that at the beginning of the loth century the traditional form of German fiction, the Bildungsroman, had come into its ancient rights again. Mention ought also to be made of J. J. David (1859–1907), E. von Keyserling (b. 1858), W. Hegeler (b. 1870), G. von Ompteda; (b. 1863), J. Wassermann (b. 1873), Heinrich See also:Mann (b. 1871) and Thomas Mann (b. 1895). Buddenbrooks (1902) by the last mentioned is one of the outstanding novels of the period. Some of the best fiction of the most recent period is the work of See also:women, the most distinguished being Helene Bohlau (b. 1859), Gabriele Reuter (b. 1859), Clara Viebig (C. See also:Cohn-Viebig, b. 186o) and See also:Ricardo. Huch (b. 1864). Whether the latest movement in German poetry and fiction, which, under the catch-word Heimatkunst, has favoured the province rather than the See also:city, the dialect in preference to the language of the educated classes, will prove a permanent gain, it is still too soon to say, but the movement is at least a protest against the decadent tendencies of naturalism. At no period of German letters were literature and the theatre in closer touch than at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the loth centuries; more than at any previous time has the theatre become the See also:arena in which the literary battles of the day are fought out. The general improvement in the artistic, technical and economic conditions of the German stage have already been indicated; but it was not until 1889 that the effects of these improvements became apparent in dramatic literature. Before that date, it is true, Ernst von See also:Wildenbruch (1845–1909) had attempted to revive the historical tragedy, but the purely literary qualities of his work were handicapped by a too effusive patriotism and a Schillerian pathos; nor did the talent of Richard Voss (b. 1851) prove strong enough to effect any lasting reform. In October 1889, however, Gerhart See also:Hauptmann's play, Vor Sonnenaufgang, was produced on the then recently founded Freie Buhne in Berlin; and a See also:month later, Die Ehre by Hermann Sudermann met with a more enthusiastic reception in Berlin than had fallen to the See also:lot of any German play for more than a generation. Hauptmann (b. 1862), the most original of contemporary German writers, stands, more or less, alone. His early plays, the most powerful of which is Die Weber (1892), were written under the influence either of an uncompromising realism, or of that modified form of realism introduced from Scandinavia; but in Hanneles Himmelfahrt (1893) he combined realism with the poetic mysticism of a child's See also:dream, in See also:Florian Geyer (1895) he adapt( d the methods of realism to an historical subject, and in the ;See also:ear 1896 he, to all appearance, abandoned realism to write an allegorical dramatic poem, Die versunkene Glocke. Hauptmann's subsequent work has oscillated between the extremes marked out by these works—from the See also:frank naturalism of Fuhrmann See also:Henschel (1888) and Rose Berndt (1903), to the fantastic mysticism of Der arme Heinrich (1902) and Und Pippa tanzt! (1906). The dramatic talent of Hermann Sudermann has developed on more even lines; the success of Die Ehre was due in the first instance to the ability which Sudermann had shown in adapting the ideas of his time and the new methods of dramatic presentation to the traditional German burgerliches Drama. This is the characteristic of the See also:majority of the many plays which followed of which Heimat (1893), Das Gluck im Winkel (1896) and Es lebe das Leben! (1902) may be mentioned as typical. With less success Sudermann attempted in Johannes (1898) a tragedy on lines suggested by Hebbel. A keen observer, a writer of brilliant and suggestive ideas, Sudermann is, above all, the practical playwright; but it is unfortunate that the theatrical element in his work too often overshadows its literary qualities. Since 1889, the drama has occupied the foreground of interest in Germany. The permanent repertory of the German theatre has not, it is true, been much enriched, but it is at least to the credit of contemporary German playwrights that they are unwilling to See also:rest content with their successes and are constantly experimenting with new forms. Besides Hauptmann and Sudermann, the most talented dramatists of the day are Max Halbe (b. 1865), O. E. Hartleben (1864-1905), G. Hirschfeld (b. 1873), E. Rosmer (pseudonym for Elsa See also:Bernstein, b. 1866), Ludwig See also:Fulda (b. 1862), Max Dreyer (b. 1862), Otto Ernst (pseudonym for O. E. See also:Schmidt, b. 1862) and Frank Wedekind (b. 1864). In Austria, notwithstanding the preponderant influence of Berlin, the drama has retained its national characteristics, and writers like Arthur Schnitzler (b. 1862), Hermann See also:Bahr (b. 1863), Hugo von Hofmannsthal (b. 1874) and R. See also:Beer-Hofmann (b. 1866) have introduced symbolistic elements and peculiarly Austrian problems, which are foreign to the theatre of north Germany. The German lyric of recent years shows a remarkable variety of new tones and pregnant poetic ideas; it has, as is natural, been more influenced by the optimism of Nietzsche—himself a lyric poet of considerable gifts—than has either novel or drama. Detlev von See also:Liliencron (1844–1909) was one of the first to break with the traditions of the lyric as handed down from the Romantic epoch and cultivated with such facility by the Munich poets. An See also:anthology of specifically modern lyrics, Moderne Dichtercharaktere (1885) by W. Arent (b. 1864), may be regarded as the manifesto of the movement in lyric poetry corresponding to the period of realism in fiction and the drama. Representative poets of this movement are Richard Dehmel (b. 1863), K. Henckell (b. 1864), J. H. See also:Mackay (b. 1864 at See also:Greenock), G. See also:Falke (b. 1853), F. See also:Avenarius (b. 1856), F. Evers (b. 1871), F. Dormann (b. 1870) and K. Busse (b. 1872). A later development of the lyric—a return to mysticism and symbolism—is to be seen in the poetry of Hofmannsthal, already mentioned as a dramatist, and especially in Stefan See also:George (b. 1868). Epic poetry, although little in harmony with the spirit of a realistic age, has not been altogether neglected. Heinrich See also:Hart (1855–1906), one of the leading critics of the most advanced school, is also the author of an ambitious Lied der Menschheit (vols. 1-3, 1888–1896) ; more conservative, on the other hand, is See also:Robespierre (1894), an epic in the style of Hamerling by an Austrian, Marie delle Grazie (b. 1864). Attention may also be drawn to the popularity which, for a few years, the so-called Uberbrettl or cabaret enjoyed, a popularity which has left its mark on the latest developments of the lyric. Associated with this movement are O. J. Bierbaum (1865–1910), whose lyrics, collected in Der Irrgarten der Liebe (1901), have been extraordinarily popular, E. von Woizogen (b. 1855) and the dramatist F. Wedekind, who has been already mentioned. Whether or not the work that has been.produced in such rich measure since the year 1889—or however much of it—is to be regarded as a permanent addition to the storehouse of German national literature, there can be no question of the serious artistic earnestness of the writers; the conditions for the production of literature in the German empire in the early years of the 20th century were eminently healthy, and herein lies the best promise for the future. E. Goetze and others, in 9 vols., 1884 ff.) ; W. Menzel, Deutsche Dichtung von der altesten bis auf die neueste Zeit (1858–1859) ; H. See also:Kurz, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur mit ausgewdhlten Slacken (3 vols., 1857–1859; 7th ed., 4 vols., 1876–1882); O. Roquette, Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung (2 vols., 1862 ; 3rd ed., 1878--1879) ; W. See also:Scherer, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur (1883; loth ed., 1905). English translation by Mrs F. C. See also:Conybeare (2 vols., 1885; new ed., 1906); Kuno See also:Francke, German Literature as determined by Social Forces (1896; 6th ed., 1903); F. Vogt and M. See also:Koch, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur (1897; 2nd ed., 2 vols., 1903); J. G. See also:Robertson, History of German Literature (1902) ; A. See also:Bartels, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur (2 vols., 1901–1902), with the accompanying See also:bibliographical See also:summary, Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Literatur (1906). There are also histories of the literature of See also:separate countries and districts, such as J. Bachtold, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur in der Schweiz (1887); R. Krauss, Schwdbische Literaturgeschichte (2 vols., 1897–1899) ; J. W. Nagl and J. Zeidler, Deutschosterreichische Literaturgeschichte (2 vols., 1899 if.). The most comprehensive collection of German literature in selections is J. Kiirschner, Deutsche Nationalliteratur (222 vols., 1882–1898). Of general anthologies mention may be made of W. Wackernagel, Deutsches Lesebuch (4 vols., 1835–1872; new ed., 1882 ff.), and F. Max Muller, The German See also:Classics from the See also:Fourth to the Nineteenth Century (1858; ed. .by F. Lichtenstein, 2 vols., 1886; new ed., 1906). For illustrations to the history of German literature, see G. Konnecke, Bilderatlas zur Geschichte der deutschen Nationalliteratur (1887; 2nd ed., 1895). (b) See also:Special Periods: i. Old High German and Middle High German Periods: R. Kugel and W. See also:Bruckner, " Geschichte der althochdeutschen Literatur," and F. Vogt, "Geschichte der mittelhochdeutschen Literatur," in H. Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie (2nd ed., vol. ii. pt. i., 1901); F. Khull, Geschichte der altdeutschen Dichtung (1886); J. Kelle, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, i.-ii. (1892–1896); R. Kugel, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur his zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, i. (1894–1897) ; W. Golther, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den ersten Anfdngen bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters (in Kiirschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur, vol. 163, pt. i., 1892) ; W. Scherer, Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung im 11, and 12. Jahrhundert, and by the same author, Geistliche Poeten der deutschen Kaiserzeit (both works in Quellen and Forschungen, 1874–1875) ; O. See also:Lyon, Minne- and Meistersang (1882). There are numerous series of See also:editions of medieval texts: K. Mullenhoff and W. Scherer, Denkmdler deutscher Poesie and Prosa aus den 8.-12. Jahrhundert (2 vols., 3rd ed., 1892) ; M. See also:Heyne, Bibliothek der dltesten deutschen Literaturdenkmdler (14 vols., begun 1858); F. Pfeiffer, Deutsche Klassiker des Mittel-alters (12 vols., begun 1865), with the supplementary Deutsche Dichtungen des Mittelalters, edited by K. Bartsch (7 vols., 1872 ff.) ; K. Goedeke, Deutsche Dichtung im Mittelalter (2nd ed., 1871); J. Zacher, Germanistische Handbibliothek (9 vols., begun 1869) ; H. Paul, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek (16 vols., begun 1882); Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters, ed. by the Berlin See also:Academy (1904 ff.). Convenient editions of the Minnesang are K. See also:Lachmann and M. See also:Haupt, Des Minnesangs Friihling (4th ed. by F. Vogt, 1888), and K. Bartsch, Deutsche Liederdichter des 12. bis 14. Jahrh. (4th ed. by W. Golther, 1903). ii. From 1350–1700.—L. Geiger, Renaissance and Humanismus in Italien and Deutschland (1882; 2nd ed. 1899); K. Borinski, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters (In Kiirschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur, vol. 163, ii., 1898) ; H. See also:Palm, Beitrdge zur Geschichte der deutschen Literatur des 16. and 17. Jahrhunderts (1877) ; C. H. See also:Herford, Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century (1886); C. Lemcke, Von Opitz bis Klopstock, i. (1871; 2nd ed. 1882) ; M. von Waldberg, Deutsche Renaissance-Lyrik (1888), and Die galante Lyrik (1885) ; F. Bobertag, Geschichte des See also:Romans in Deutschland, i. (to 1700) (1877–1884); K. Borinski, Die Poetik der Renaissance and die Anfdnge der literarischen Kritik in Deutschland (1886). A vast quantity of the literature of these centuries has been republished by the Stuttgarter literarischer Verein (founded in 1839), whose publications now number considerably over two hundred volumes; further, W. Braune, Neudrucke deutscher Literaturwerke des 16. and 17. Jahrhunderts (begun 1882) ; K. Goedeke and J. Tittmann, Deutsche Dichter des 16. Jahrhunderts (i8 vols., 1867 ff.), and Deutsche Dichter des 17. Jahrhunderts (15 vols., 1869 ff.). A valuable anthology is K. Goedeke's See also:Elf See also:Bucher deutscher Dichtung von Sebastian Brant bis auf die Gegenwart (2 vols., 1849). Since 1890 the Jahresberichte fur neuere deutsche Literaturgeschichte have provided an exhaustive survey of all publications dealing with modern German literature. A useful practical bibliography for English readers, covering this and the succeeding periods, is J. S. Nollen, A See also:Chronology and Practical Bibliography of Modern German Literature (1903). iii. The Eighteenth Century.—J. Schmidt, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von Leibniz bis auf unsere Zeit (4 vols., 1862-1867; 2nd ed. 1886-189o) ; J. See also:Hillebrand, Die deutsche Nationalliteratur im 18. and 19. Jahrhundert (3 vols., 1845-1846; 3rd ed. 1875); H. See also:Hettner, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert (4 vols., 1862-1870; 4th ed. by O. See also:Harnack, 1893-1895); J. W. Schafer, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur des i8. Jahrhunderts (1855-186o; See also:gnu ed. by F. Muncker, 1881); J. K. Morikofer, Die schweizerische Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts (1861); J. W. Lobell, Entwickelung der deutschen Poesie von Klopstock bis zu Goethes Tod (3 vols., 1856-1865). There are also innumerable more special treatises, such as A. Eloesser, Das bii.rgerliche Drama (1898) ; O. Brahm, Das deutsche Ritterdrama des i8. Jahrhunderts (i88o), &c. Of collections of the literature of this and the following century, reference need only be made to the Bibliothek der deutschen Nationalliteratur des 18. and 19. Jahrhunderts, published by See also:Brockhaus (44 vols., 1868-1891), and Deutsche Literaturdenkmale des z8. and 19. Jahrhunderts, edited first by B. Seuffert (1882-1894), and subsequently by A. Sauer. iv. The Nineteenth Century.—T h. Ziegler, Die geistigen and sozialen Stromungen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (1899; 2nd ed. 1901) ; R. von See also:Gottschall, Die deutsche Nationalliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts (1854; 7th ed., 4 vols., 1900-1902); R. M. Meyer, Die deutsche Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts (1899; 4th ed. 1910) ; R. M. Meyer, Grundriss der neueren deutschen Literaturgeschichte (1902); C. Busse, Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (1901); R. See also:Haym, Die romantische Schule (187o; 2nd ed. 1906) ; G. See also:Brandes, " Den romantiske Skole i Tyskland " (1873), and " Det unge Tyskland" (189o), in Hovedstromninger i del i9de Aarhundredes Litteratur, vols. ii. and vi. (German translations, 1887 and 1891; several subsequent editions,. Danish' and German; English translations, ii. 1903, and vi. 1905) ; R. Huch, Die Bliitezeil der Romantik (2nd ed. 1901), and Ausbreitung and Verfall der Romantik (1902); F. Wehl, Das junge Deutschland (1886); J. Proelss, Das junge Deutschland (1892); A. Bartels, Die deutsche Dichtung der Gegenwart (7th ed., 1907); A. von Hanstein, Das jiingste Deutschland (2nd ed., 1901); J. F. Coar, Studies in German Literature in the Nineteenth Century (1903) ; Ch. Petzet, Die Bl'atezeit der deutschen potitischen Lyrik (1903); H. Mielke, Der deutsche Roman des 19. Jahrhunderts (4th ed., 1900) ; S. See also:Friedmann, Das deutsche Drama des i9. Jahrhunderts (2 vols., 1900-1903) ; B. Litzmann, Das deutsche Drama in den literarischen Bewegungen der Gegenwart (4th ed., 1898). (J. G. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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