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FROM GOETHE TO 
 HAUPTMANN 
 
 Studies in a Changing Culture 
 
 BY 
 
 Camillo von Klenze 
 
 College of the City of New York 
 
 THE VIKING PRESS Mcmxxvi 
 
 New York 
 
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COPYRIGHT, 
 
 1926, 
 
 BY THE VIKING PRESS, INC. 
 
 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. 
 
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Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Renaissance Vision: Goethe’s Italy 3 
 
 A Romantic View of Art: German Predecessors 
 
 of Ruskin 67 
 
 Realism and Romanticism in Two Great Narra- 
 tors : Keller and Meyer 105 
 
 Naturalism in German Drama from Schiller to 
 
 Hauptmann 159 
 
 Hauptmann’s Treatment of the Lower Classes: 
 
 A Twentieth-Century Vision 223 
 
A RENAISSANCE VISION 
 GOETHE’S ITALY 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 Goethe’s Italy 
 
 If Thomas Mann is right in maintaining that 
 Goethe’s sojourn in Rome constitutes even more 
 than Luther’s a momentous event in the higher life 
 of the German-speaking races, a critical study of the 
 message which the capital of the Ancient World had 
 for the greatest poet of modern times becomes an 
 almost inevitable duty for the student of European 
 culture. Closer scrutiny, however, soon reveals 
 that such a study cannot profitably be undertaken 
 without examining the interpretation which Goethe 
 put upon the entire peninsula, of which Rome is but 
 one centre of attraction, which had enthralled so 
 many brilliant minds before him, and which since 
 his day has proved a lodestar and a source of uplift 
 to representatives of all possible shades of tempera- 
 ment. For the question instantly arises, why 
 Goethe could rest satisfied with an intimate knowl- 
 edge of Rome and show so little interest in other 
 centres of culture, when after him men of the highest 
 distinction discovered in Florence or in Venice quali- 
 
 [ 3 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision : 
 
 ties superior to those of the home of the Csesars. 
 How does it happen, we are further bound to ask, 
 that all those smaller Italian towns, like Siena, 
 Perugia, Orvieto, Assisi, Ravenna, Lecce, and twenty 
 others could be wholly void of meaning to the most 
 catholic-minded of poets, while they seemed fraught 
 with exquisite charm and full of subtle significance 
 to a Byron, a Platen, a Gregorovius, a Faure? Did 
 Goethe stand alone in his comparatively narrow 
 vision of the most suggestive country on earth or 
 was perhaps his whole generation inhibited by cer- 
 tain intellectual or artistic preconceptions which we 
 moderns have transcended, so that we have in some 
 respects become more wide-eyed than even Goethe 
 with all his cloudless, boundless view? On the 
 other hand, does our gain — if indeed there be one — 
 imply, like all gains, a certain loss, and have we 
 perhaps fallen into a neglect of those influences 
 which could induce him to rewrite his Iphigenia and 
 compose his Tasso ? 
 
 The answers to these questions will help to reveal 
 the temper not merely of Goethe at the time of his 
 visit to the south, but of his predecessors as well 
 and of those who followed him, and might thus 
 prove a contribution to a deeper understanding of 
 the full meaning of that enchanting land whose 
 
 [4] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 ability to inspire has so far proved inexhaustible. 
 
 Modern writers speak of the “legends” which clus- 
 ter about great poets, artists, and thinkers, meaning 
 thereby those groups of associations which their 
 names evoke in different ages or in different places. 
 They point out that Goethe has one message for 
 Germany, and another for France, that Kant’s in- 
 fluence in his native land was by no means the same 
 as it was west of the Rhine, that the name of Dante 
 called up in Voltaire the picture of a barbarous and 
 untutored individual while we see in him one of the 
 world’s great seers, that Michelangelo and Shake- 
 speare were little better than barbarians to the con- 
 temporaries of Racine, that Byron has virtually 
 passed from the consciousness of the Anglo-Saxon 
 races while to the continent he still is le grand 
 Byron, and that even Richard Wagner is already 
 beginning to have a different meaning for us today 
 from the one he had to the generation that was first 
 swept by the strains of Tristan and Isolde. 
 
 If individuals are thus capable of variously affect- 
 ing various groups of men, if in other words they 
 have their “legends,” how much more a country 
 which, strewn as it is with the wreckage of many 
 civilizations, offers the richest assemblage of inter- 
 esting “human documents” in either hemisphere. 
 
 [ 5 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision : 
 
 We may then glean no little profit from a study 
 of the “legends” of Italy and may find as a result 
 that we shall be in a position to do fuller justice 
 to one of the maturest books that ever came from 
 Goethe’s pen: his Journey to Italy. 
 
 At first blush it might seem as if we were ad- 
 dressing ourselves to too momentous an adventure 
 in attempting to discuss the various interpretations 
 put upon Italy since the days of the ancients. But 
 a closer scrutiny of the records soon reveals that 
 our task is greatly simplified by the fact that the 
 Middle Ages were too inarticulate and the Age of 
 the Renaissance and even the seventeenth century 
 yield too little material to claim more than a 
 cursory survey. 
 
 To the Humanists of the sixteenth century, of 
 course, the country of Cicero, Livy, and Virgil, and 
 of great universities like Padua and Bologna, ap- 
 peared as a veritable sanctuary of culture. Yet 
 none of them felt impelled to give to the world an 
 important record of his impressions. Nevertheless, 
 one Italian scholar, Leandro Alberti, published in 
 Bologna in 1550 a large and erudite volume in his 
 mother tongue, entitled Description of All Parts of 
 Italy and the Islands Pertaining Thereto, which on 
 account of its store of historical and other informa- 
 [ 6 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 tion found favor and, for the convenience of the 
 learned of all countries, was soon translated into 
 Latin. At about the same time one of the most 
 graceful poets of the French Renaissance, Joachim 
 du Bellay, was filled with enough enthusiasm for 
 the monuments of ancient Rome and all they repre- 
 sented to his imagination to write a series of charm- 
 ing sonnets extolling their grandeur. How far even 
 the best minds of the generation of Joachim were 
 from grasping the rich message of Italy appears 
 from the diary of Michel de Montaigne, one of the 
 great sages of all times, who spent several months 
 (1580—81) in the peninsula at the time when many 
 of her cities had just passed the zenith of their glory. 
 He finds the Venice of Tintoretto less fascinating 
 than her fame, sees little in Florence worthy of 
 praise, but shares with du Bellay veneration for 
 Rome as the centre of antique greatness. On the 
 whole his record is wholly unworthy of the subject. 
 
 If even a Montaigne was capable of so meagre a 
 response to the multitudinous appeal of Italy, we 
 can hardly expect any subtlety of interpretation 
 from a vastly inferior personality like Thomas Cory- 
 ate, — that curious mixture of vivid intelligence and 
 offensive buffoonery. In a book, entitled Crudities 
 Hastily gobbled up in Five Moneths Travells . . . 
 
 [ 7 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 (1611) he exhibits a childlike delight in various 
 sights and customs with which he came in contact in 
 northern Italy. He, like his predecessors, is indif- 
 ferent to the charm of Italian painting and archi- 
 tecture but collects so much information, important 
 and vacant, that his curious volume grew for 
 many years after its appearance to be regarded as a 
 sort of authority by a generation which as yet lacked 
 works of solid worth on the subject. 
 
 The records so far discussed do so little justice to 
 the matter under treatment that they could have 
 been altogether omitted from our picture, were it 
 not that on the pages of Alberti and Coryate, of du 
 Bellay and Montaigne are foreshadowed two tend- 
 encies which mark the characteristic treatises on 
 Italy of the major part of the eighteenth century: 
 a desire for information and veneration for Roman 
 antiquity. For we have now arrived on the very 
 threshold of one of the greatest movements in the in- 
 tellectual life in Europe: Rationalism. In other 
 words we are now entering on that “Age of En- 
 lightenment” which, governed by minds of the 
 calibre of a Bayle, a Voltaire, a Diderot, and but- 
 tressed by great discoveries in mathematics, as- 
 tronomy, physics, and physiology, was destined to 
 put to rout many creeds outworn and to bring about 
 [ 8 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 a new conception of human society and the physical 
 universe. As ignorance was felt by the leaders of 
 this gallant onslaught on moribund medievalism to 
 be the source of all evil and knowledge the fountain- 
 head of progress and of liberty, the new age clam- 
 ored for information, more information, and still 
 more information. Naturally, generations filled 
 with so overmastering an intellectual curiosity 
 would approach the problem of interpreting Italy 
 in a wholly new spirit; would, in fact, be the first 
 to betray something like a definite method of deal- 
 ing with it. Italy, rich and complex, would stimu- 
 late the desire for knowledge and all the older 
 books on the subject, not excluding Alberti, would 
 of necessity soon appear strangely inadequate. 
 
 Besides, because of its passion for logic and 
 mathematics, Rationalism was of necessity power- 
 fully drawn to that civilization of antiquity, that is, 
 the Roman, which stood out conspicuously as one of 
 lawgivers. In addition to the Romans’ enviable 
 gift for lucid reasoning, their sinewy virtues, the 
 majesty of their prose, and the ripe wisdom em- 
 bedded in much of their verse, were bound to de- 
 light an eminently intellectual and eminently aris- 
 tocratic period. What wonder then, if Rome rather 
 than Athens connoted far into the eighteenth cen- 
 
 [9] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 tury all that is most precious in European culture. 
 What wonder further if the Middle Ages with their 
 riot of mysticism and their supposed shocking ig- 
 norance would merely offend and if even the early 
 Renaissance, before art had thoroughly assimilated 
 the gospel of Antiquity, should be treated with 
 patronizing leniency as merely a time of laudable 
 attempts. Only the age of Raphael — of course the 
 Raphael of the second manner — of Correggio, Tit- 
 ian, and Tintoretto, and of Palladio — that great 
 disciple of Vitruvius — mellowed and matured as it 
 was held to be by complete absorption of the message 
 of the classical past, could seem worthy of compari- 
 son with the time of the great Ancients. Unfortu- 
 nately, even the painters and sculptors who fol- 
 lowed upon the masters just named (that is, even 
 the Bolognese of the seventeenth century — Guido 
 Reni, the Carracci, Guercino, and that prince of 
 technicians among sculptors, Bernini) could delight 
 the contemporaries of Madame de Pompadour, a 
 generation all too prone to worship mere elegance 
 and to overlook the difference between vacant 
 though flawless executants and artists to whom a 
 great technique was purely ancillary. 
 
 That the Italy determined by the inclinations 
 just described must differ widely from the picture 
 [10] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 to which the critics, poets, and scholars of later 
 times have accustomed us becomes at once manifest. 
 But for the present we must defer a more detailed 
 comment in order first to occupy ourselves with some 
 of the most influential books which, though often 
 void of spice or inspiration, traced the route for 
 travelers in the days of Rationalistic culture. 
 
 Most of them — and we naturally can discuss only 
 those that found general favor and hence directly 
 or indirectly influenced Goethe — are satisfied with 
 mere description. They describe customs, institu- 
 tions, cities, palaces, churches, pictures, and what 
 not, with impartial ardor and often undifferentiating 
 zeal. So the French Huguenot Misson’s New 
 Journey to Italy undertaken in the Year 1688 (the 
 first edition appeared in 1691), enormously popular 
 at the time, often reprinted and translated into vari- 
 ous languages, was the first to unfold Italy with 
 some minuteness to a large international public. 
 Yet how unworthy it was of such a privilege appears 
 from the author’s uninstructed remarks on art and 
 history, his uncritical spirit, and the multitude of in- 
 accuracies which mar his chapters. Misson’s faults 
 were so glaring that soon other writers arose anxious 
 to satisfy the demands of a public rapidly maturing 
 in intellectual standards. The Englishman John 
 
 [n] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 Breval, in Remarks on Several Farts of Europe: 
 Relating chiefly to the History, Antiquities and 
 Geography, of those Countries through which the 
 Author has travel' d . . . (London 1726) and Re- 
 marks on Several Farts of Europe, relating chiefly 
 to their Antiquities and History . . . (1728), aims 
 at giving historical information. The German 
 Keyssler’s Recent Journeys through Germany, Bo- 
 hemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy and Lorraine 
 . . . (Hannover 1740, frequently republished, Eng- 
 lished in 1756— 57) even outstrips Misson in the 
 vaulting ambition to record everything worth know- 
 ing in Italy. The diplomatist de Blainville in his 
 Travels through Holland, Germany, Sicily, hut espe- 
 cially Italy (three volumes originally written in 
 French but published for the first time in English 
 translation in 1757) stresses discussion of the gov- 
 ernments of the various states in the peninsula and, 
 wherever he can, attempts to correct Misson, while 
 P. J. Grosley’s New Memoirs or Observations . . . 
 (written in French and published in 1764) which 
 attained extraordinary popularity, occupies a special 
 niche in the Rationalistic literature on Italy, because 
 of the attention the author bestows on the lives of 
 the humbler classes and the interest he evinces in 
 Italian music. 
 
 [12] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 To what extent the music of Italy was — in spite 
 of the rise of Gluck — still occupying the public 
 mind, appears from the letters of the poet Thomas 
 Gray, who spent a large portion of two years (1739- 
 41) in Florence, and especially from Charles Bur- 
 ney’s The Present State of Music in Prance and 
 Italy (London 1771). Both remind us how much 
 Pergolese and Cimarosa and all the masters of hel 
 canto added to the sunny charm of that southern 
 life which yearly drew hundreds of travelers across 
 the Alps. 
 
 However rich in information the foregoing 
 records may appear, no discussion of the literature 
 on Italy published during the Age of Rationalism 
 can be complete without some reference to the grow- 
 ing interest of scientists in a country which hitherto 
 had attracted mainly the art-lover or the antiqua- 
 rian. It is significant that the great “Father of 
 Natural History,” John Ray, should have put out 
 (in 1673) Observations made in a Journey . . . 
 (second ed. 1738) in which a description of all the 
 natural phenomena in Italy was attempted. 
 
 We have advisedly left to the last a consideration 
 of the attitude of the Rationalistic mind on Italian 
 art and its effect on the interpretation of the country 
 of Giotto and Raphael. For a discussion of that 
 
 [ 13 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 subject will more clearly than anything else help us 
 to appreciate the advantages and the limitations of 
 the temperament that produced a Voltaire. 
 
 Of the many treatises in this field one only — as 
 written by the leader of taste about the middle of 
 the eighteenth century — need here concern us. 
 Charles Nicolas Cochin’s Journey to Italy, or Col- 
 lection of Notes on the Works in Tainting and Sculp- 
 ture to he Seen in the Principal Cities There (Paris 
 1758, often reprinted and in 1776 translated into 
 German) reflects complete contempt for Gothic ar- 
 chitecture and medieval painting and even for the 
 pictorial art of the early Renaissance from Giotto 
 to Botticelli and Bellini, but mature understanding 
 of the masters of the High Renaissance, Andrea del 
 Sarto, especially Raphael, Correggio, Titian, and 
 Tintoretto. Superior to all, however, are the paint- 
 ers of Bologna — Guido Reni, the Carracci, Guer- 
 cino, Domenichino, etc. Through them art touched 
 the zenith of its greatness. 
 
 That a mind so biased should see an Italy wholly 
 different from the Italy we moderns visit is, as we 
 pointed out before, inevitable. Towns which the 
 lover of Simone Martini, Giotto, Benozzo Gozzoli, 
 or Pinturicchio approaches with awe and leaves with 
 regret, are absent from Cochin’s canvas; while Bo- 
 [H] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 logna, which since the days of the German Pre- 
 Raphaelites and of Ruskin has had to take a humbler 
 place among her sisters, assumes with Cochin a posi- 
 tion in importance second only to Rome herself. 
 
 With all their admirable desire for increase of 
 knowledge, the vast majority of writers from Mon- 
 taigne down suffer, as we have already hinted, from 
 lack of imagination and are wholly wanting in the 
 sense of the picturesque. When dealing with mate- 
 rial as capable of inspiring treatment as is Italy, the 
 Rationalistic mind only too often exhibits an un- 
 fortunate gift for wilting what it touches, leaving 
 the reader with a parched feeling on the tongue. 
 Hence it is most grateful to come upon the records 
 
 of two stylists who may be said to have been the 
 first to enrich literature when treating of a country 
 which animated a Misson, a Grosley, or even a 
 
 I Cochin to little more than the publication of a cata- 
 , logue of interesting facts. 
 
 John Addison went to the south in 1701, and in 
 ,1705 published his Remarks on Several Paris of 
 Italy . . . He sees in Italy little more than the 
 
 WCl 
 
 haunt of those Latin poets and prose-writers whom 
 
 "i 
 
 he worshiped throughout his life. Every spot he 
 visits reminds him of Virgil, Horace, Lucan, or Silius 
 
 Italicus, whereas no place where these have not left 
 
 [ 15 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 a trace is able to arrest his attention. Rome is to 
 him, of course, merely the centre of Roman civiliza- 
 tion, while the Christian antiquities there fill him 
 with disgust. Yet this picture with its vast exclu- 
 sions is far from unattractive, being painted with 
 superior workmanship and reflecting a fine and cul- 
 tivated intelligence. So great was the charm of the 
 Remarks to the men of Addison’s time and the subse- 
 quent two generations, that the volume went through 
 many editions, was in translation made accessible 
 to the French public and is quoted by all travelers 
 of the eighteenth century who make the least pretense 
 to culture. 
 
 Even readers of the twentieth century may turn to 
 Addison’s pages with some pleasure, but they will 
 read with delight the President de Brosses’s Intimate 
 Letters Written from Italy in 1739 and 1740. 
 These did not reach print until after their author’s 
 death — though they are now easily accessible in 
 Colomb’s Le President de Brosses en Italie (Paris 
 1858) — so that the contemporaries of this disciple 
 of Voltaire were bereft of the most characteristic 
 and altogether the most brilliant interpretation of 
 Italy, conceived in the spirit of the Philosopher of 
 Femey. 
 
 Charles de Brosses, President of the Parliament of 
 [16] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 Dijon, was a noble of great intelligence and so 
 deeply interested in Roman letters that he undertook 
 his voyage for the express purpose of collecting 
 material for an edition of Sallust. Nothing can 
 better characterize this distinguished personage and 
 his betters than Stendhal’s appellation “the Voltaire 
 of Italian travelers.” For although he later, as Vol- 
 taire’s neighbor in the country, bitterly quarreled 
 with him, he everywhere exhibits the same irritation 
 at all manifestations of mysticism, the same love of 
 clarity and elegance, and a keenness of vision, a wit, 
 and a brilliance of style which are not altogether 
 unworthy of the author of Candid e. 
 
 From what has just been said it will not appear 
 surprising that the haunting charm of the smaller 
 Italian towns never touched him; that Florence — 
 since all Italian painting prior to Raphael could 
 have no message for such a temperament — means 
 little; that Venice — w'here even St. Mark’s becomes 
 the object of gay and frivolous exclamations — is 
 merely curious; and that in Rome his attention is 
 attracted only by the works of Raphael and by the 
 remnants of the ancient world. These fill him with 
 respect and awe. That Roman world, full of force 
 and dignity, the creation of a powerful race of ad- 
 ministrators and jurists, so completely satisfies this 
 
 [ 17 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 President of the Parliament of Dijon that nothing 
 else can, in his estimation, bear comparison with it. 
 Only Bologna, the workshop of artists like Guido 
 Reni, appears to him not void of charm, and Turin 
 with its regularly laid out streets commends itself to 
 him as one of the prettiest places in Europe. It is 
 characteristic of a person of de Brosses’ propensities 
 that in Rome the older churches — Sant’ Agnese fuori 
 le Mura, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria in Cosmedin, 
 those appealing voices from an age of innocence — 
 cannot presume to claim his notice, while the prod- 
 ucts of the High Renaissance (except indeed the 
 works of the turbulent Michelangelo) fill him 
 with profound satisfaction; and that the great 
 Jesuit temple, S. Gesu, — that veritable palazzo 
 of God, resplendent with marble and lapis lazuli 
 — seems to him “altogether beautiful both inside 
 and out.” 
 
 Before de Brosses’ death (1777) the tide of inter- 
 est in all things Italian had mounted so high that 
 the need of small encyclopedias, comprising all neces- 
 sary information for intelligent travel, became im- 
 perative. 
 
 Of these, two compel respect because of their com- 
 pleteness and their scholarly spirit. The French 
 Abbe Richard in 1766 put out his Historical and 
 
 [18] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 Critical Descriptions of Italy , or New Memoirs on 
 the Actual State of Her Governments , Scholarship, 
 Commerce, Population, and Natural Resources in 
 six volumes, which altogether distances former at- 
 tempts, like Misson’s, in wealth of material, accu- 
 racy, and maturity of judgment. With this author, 
 as with everyone else writing on Italy at this time, 
 Cochin constitutes the last court of appeal in matters 
 of art, and the route suggested is therefore the one 
 which we already know. In spite of its conspicuous 
 merits this work was soon superseded by another of 
 the same kind, by the famous French astronomer La- 
 lande’s A Frenchman’s Trip in Italy, Undertaken in 
 the Years 176$ and 1766 : Treating of the History 
 and the most characteristic Facts referring to Italy 
 and Containing a Description of the Country: Its 
 Customs and Usages, its Government and Commerce, 
 its Titerature and Art, its Flora and Fauna , its An- 
 tiquities, etc.” (Paris and Venice 1769, eight vol- 
 umes, followed in the same year by another edition 
 in six volumes, corrected by J. E. Bertrand; the 
 last edition appeared in 1790). Lalande, though 
 less attractive than Richard as a stylist, offers more 
 information even than the other, especially in mat- 
 ters referring to natural history and to Italian schol- 
 arship and literature, without, however, neglecting 
 
 [ 19 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 the history and the government of the various Italian 
 states. His evaluations of painting, sculpture, and 
 architecture, as is inevitable in a Frenchman of that 
 period, derive from Cochin. 
 
 This book became for years the great Rationalistic 
 encyclopedia on Italy and it was therefore a happy 
 thought on the part of a German author, J. J. Volk- 
 mann, to furnish his compatriots with what may be 
 called an abbreviated translation combined with 
 chapters based on Richard. He called this lumber- 
 ing but useful compilation Historical and Critical 
 Notes on Italy , Giving an Accurate Description of 
 the Country , its Customs and Manners , its Govern- 
 ment , Commerce . . . and especially its Art . . . 
 (Leipzig 1770—71, 3 vols.; second ed. with addi- 
 tions, 1777-78). Although these volumes are 
 wholly void of literary charm, they found many 
 readers, among them no less a person than Goethe, 
 who took the first edition with him on his trip. 
 
 Because the picture of Italy drawn by Rationalism 
 left deep traces upon Goethe, let us recall its salient 
 characteristics. We may say that at its best Ra- 
 tionalism composed a portrait of the peninsula 
 greatly resembling that of a certain kind of noble- 
 man of the ancien regime: ample and calm, not free 
 from a touch of hauteur and expressive of a mag- 
 [20] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 nificent worldiness; hence callous to the appeal of 
 humility and of the homely vigor of middle-class 
 life, but suggestive of almost heroic dignity, great 
 breeding, and a virile intellectuality. It is only 
 natural that in such a conception of Italy, Rome 
 with her Pantheon, her palaces, and her Raphaels 
 should throne, a queen of incomparable majesty; 
 that Bologna should bulk large because of the wealth 
 of her Guido Renis and her Carraccis; and that 
 Florence and other cities and towns should seem com- 
 paratively meagre and undistinguished, while Venice 
 should attract merely as oddly situate on a few 
 islands in a shallow sea and as the haunt of elegant 
 corruption, enriched, to be sure, by some fine works 
 from the brush of a Titian, of a Tintoretto, and 
 particularly of that master painter of glorified flesh, 
 Paolo Veronese. 
 
 Goethe’s Italy, however closely it may be filiated 
 with that of Cochin, Lalande, and de Brasses, was 
 bound to transcend it. For even before Voltaire 
 had reached the zenith of his influence, the atten- 
 tion of the world had begun to be deflected from 
 Rationalism, drawn off by a deeper tide of life. 
 Since the middle of the eighteenth century, the fiery 
 eloquence of Rousseau had with mounting emphasis 
 centred attention on emotion and intuition as well 
 
 [ 21 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 as on the humble and unpretentious. Tenets once 
 deemed contemptible as the birth of a disordered 
 mind now grew in fascination as the expression of 
 rare sensitiveness. Things in confusion, or at least 
 defiant of all canons of logic, began to charm as they 
 never had before. Landscape revealed a new 
 beauty: high mountains, cataracts, moonlit plains 
 and hills touch a new chord in the human heart, 
 while ruins and all symbols of decay fill the imag- 
 ination with exquisite melancholy. Simple souls, 
 hitherto ridiculous or unimportant, come forward as 
 the humble carriers of a divine message. 
 
 In this new atmosphere the great classical herit- 
 age was bound to undergo complete reinterpretation. 
 Roman culture now pales before the healthier sim- 
 plicity of the Greek: Homer triumphs over Virgil. 
 But as Greece was inaccessible and the chief rem- 
 nants of Hellenic art were to be found in Italy, par- 
 ticularly in Rome, the Eternal City becomes from 
 a new point of view more than ever the cynosure of 
 all eyes. Strangely enough, however, the gospel of 
 Cochin retains its potency even under circumstances 
 so largely altered. The Raphael of the second 
 manner, Titian, Tintoretto, and Correggio, even the 
 Bolognese, still hold sway, while Giotto, Fra Angel- 
 ico, and other representatives of the Early Renais- 
 [ 22 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 sance remain mute to all but a very few daring 
 spirits. Here and there a pioneer discovers a Bel- 
 lini or a Mantegna and thus points to a new vision. 
 Similarly an occasional traveler has the courage to 
 flaunt his bad taste in the face of a shocked genera- 
 tion by expressing admiration for Romanesque or 
 Gothic churches, like S. Zeno in Verona or the Cathe- 
 dral of Milan. Thus the picture of Italy is some- 
 what widened and Goethe, though carrying with 
 him Volkmann, sees an Italy subtler and richer than 
 did de Brosses. 
 
 One of the most attractive spokesmen of this 
 period of transition between Lalande and Byron — 
 that is, between Rationalism and Romanticism — is 
 the Sir Galahad of Neo-Hellenism, Winckelmann, 
 who from 1755 on spent the fullest years of his life 
 in Rome. As Addison saw naught but Roman an- 
 tiquity in Italy, so Winckelmann has eyes exclusively 
 for the works which the Greek genius has left there. 
 Hence Florence and even Bologna claim little of 
 his time, while, he tells us in his letters, Rome be- 
 comes his “true home,” and, as she is the place of 
 all places where “beauty and excellence prevail” and 
 where “the mind is trained in noble thoughts,” he 
 here feels “clarified and ennobled.” 
 
 Such reverent ecstasy over the Empire City of the 
 
 [ 23 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 ancient world is shared by comparatively few trav- 
 elers of our day. For modern Rome, with its cal- 
 low structures, its Baedekered and Murrayed throng, 
 its raucous bustle, oddly contrasts with the autumnal 
 ripeness of the Rome of Winckelmann or of Goethe, 
 from which everything was absent that could jangle 
 the memories of a marvelous past, where Italian 
 grands seigneurs like Cardinal Albani and great art- 
 ists and scholars and diplomats combined to create 
 an atmosphere of distinction and culture to which a 
 picturesquely patriarchal and easy-going government 
 added the quality of luxurious relaxation. 
 
 The landscape of Italy to whose beauty even La- 
 lande and Richard had not been quite insensitive, 
 calls out paeans of joy from Winckelmann, who 
 feels that nothing on earth can compare with the in- 
 effable charm of the surroundings of the Eternal 
 City. 
 
 Wilhelm Heinse, a disciple of Winckelmann, but 
 at the same time a great forerunner of the German 
 Romanticists, almost two decades after the death 
 of the great archaeologist trod the same paths (be- 
 tween 1780 and 1783), but exhibited a markedly 
 more advanced spirit. Like his predecessor, Heinse 
 passes unmoved through Venice and Florence and 
 despises Florentine art. Like him he is charmed 
 
 [H\ 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 by the loveliness of Italian scenery. But character- 
 istically for this Pre-Romanticist, it is the foaming 
 cataracts near Tivoli that fill him with delight and 
 make him speak of the “voluptuous” way in which 
 the “romantic” valley near the Cascatella sinks be- 
 tween the mountains. Of course the Pantheon, the 
 Capitol, the Colosseum, the Foro Boario deeply in- 
 terest him. But he apprehends their beauty emo- 
 tionally rather than intellectually. Of the Forum 
 he writes : “Everything about me in the moonlight 
 breathed mystery and stillness. Few people were 
 to be seen and the shadows of the trees made a spec- 
 tral scene. My imagination recreated the temples 
 of Jupiter Maximus and Tonans . . . and my eyes 
 filled with tears at the sight of the fragments strewn 
 about me.” “The grandeur of decay” which every- 
 where meets him in Rome makes him feel his own 
 pettiness in the midst of this “devouring abyss of 
 the ages.” But more significant even for the spirit 
 of his time is Heinse’s genuine admiration for the 
 venerable Romanesque church, S. Zeno in Verona, 
 for which none of his predecessors in Italy had 
 shown any interest, for the Cathedral of Milan, 
 which all art-criticism before him had regarded 
 merely as a confused medley of columns and statues, 
 and for the Bellini in S. Zaccharia in Venice, whose 
 
 [ 25 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 simple loveliness had escaped worldlier generations. 
 
 It was inevitable that the new temper should 
 place a new interpretation on the most picturesque 
 and most romantic city in Christendom, Venice. 
 Among the earliest “discoverers” of the beauty of 
 the City of the Doges, Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi, 
 Dr. Johnson’s friend, emotional and erratic, stands 
 foremost. Her Observations and Reflections made 
 in the Course of a Journey through France , Italy , 
 and Germany (London 1789) record no new vision 
 of Italian art but pulsate with vivacity and, what 
 is more, overflow with rapture over the charm of 
 Venice. The sparkling night life in St. Mark’s 
 Square makes her exclaim of Venice what Milton’s 
 Eve says to Adam: “With thee conversing I for- 
 get all time.” And although she, too, is incapable 
 of grasping the meaning of early Venetian painting 
 or even the peculiar poetical quality of the narrow 
 streets, little squares, nooks, and crannies, the gaiety 
 of this “beautiful spot” makes her cry out “Alas!” 
 upon leaving it. 
 
 Emotional spontaneity need perhaps not surprise 
 us in a person of Mrs. Piozzi’s make-up, but must 
 give us pause, especially if carried almost to the 
 point of hysteria, when found in the record of a dis- 
 tinguished French jurist of noble descent. Charles 
 [26] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 Marguerite Jean Baptiste Dupaty in his Letters on 
 Italy (1785) reveals himself so completely a disci- 
 ple of the author of Emile and the Nouvelle Heloise 
 that he might well be called the Rousseau of Italian 
 Travelers as contrasted with their Voltaire, de 
 Brosses. His art-tenets are merely a copy of those 
 accepted by all the cultured of his day, but he gives 
 them expression in language which in its emotional- 
 ity at times marches with childishness. So, of Guido 
 Reni’s “Assumption” he exclaims “What a vir- 
 gin! What angels! What an ascent to heaven!” 
 Rome rouses him to a state of frenzy. He cannot 
 sleep during his first night there, and cannot restrain 
 his tears at the thought that he is breathing the same 
 air “which reverberated with the eloquence of 
 Cicero.” The river which forms the cascades at 
 Tivoli “roars, then falls, falls!” “How this river, 
 in hurling itself forward, is dashed to foam !” he ex- 
 ■ claims. These utterances may remind us of con- 
 temporary travelers like Heinse, but Dupaty leaves 
 all beaten paths when he, Rousseau-like, exhibits a 
 I social conscience sensitive to the sight of poverty 
 and squalor in Rome and Naples. To him beggars 
 and lazzaroni are not merely picturesque details in 
 a picturesque setting, they are the mortifying vic- 
 tims of a vicious social system. Thus he erects 
 
 [27] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 finger-posts pointing to the new time which so soon 
 was to be ushered in by the Great Revolution. 
 
 However intimate an acquaintance with different 
 parts of the Italian peninsula the various books dis- 
 cussed — particularly those of Richard and Lalande j 
 ■ — may presuppose, it is noteworthy that an appreci- 
 ation of Sicily as a great repository of works of 
 beauty did not dawn upon the world until late in 
 the eighteenth century. Up to that time the lovely 
 island was not felt to be an integral part of the j 
 phenomenon “Italy.” Goethe was the first to 
 grasp its full import when he called it the key to 
 Italy. Yet he was by no means the first to visit or 
 even to describe it. Before him Baron Riedesel, a ; 
 friend of Winckelmann, had published A Journey 
 Through Sicily and Magna Gracia (Zurich 1771), 
 in which he exhibits profound appreciation of the 
 monuments of Greek antiquity in Segesta, Girgenti, 
 and elsewhere, but, as a true follower of his mas- 
 ter, either overlooks or scorns the works of the me- 
 dieval and the Saracen periods. Hence the magnifi- 
 cent Cathedral of Monreale with its exquisite mosa- J 
 ics and its poignant reminders of Hohenstaufen 
 glory in Sicily gives him no thrill, and the monu- 
 ments of the Norman and the Arab genius here and 
 elsewhere evoke no important comments from him. 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 Many decades had to elapse before these products of 
 a past so foreign to the Rationalistic soul could find 
 sympathetic interpreters. Meagre as Riedesel’s ac- 
 count of the fairest and richest island on earth must 
 seem to us, we cannot deny that his book acted as an 
 entering wedge and caused others — among them 
 Goethe — to visit a spot which up to his time seemed 
 inaccessible. 
 
 Riedesel lacks the ability to see, or at least to ren- 
 der in adequate language, the entrancing beauty of 
 Sicilian landscape. The French traveler St. Non, 
 though lagging behind Riedesel in knowledge of the 
 past, distances him in sensitiveness to the beauties 
 of nature, as is evinced by the admirable plates of 
 his work, A Picturesque Voyage or Description of 
 the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily (Paris 1 78 1 — 
 86) . The great popularity of the book carried the 
 picture of Sicily as a place of ineffable loveliness 
 into a large circle of readers all over Europe and 
 hence deserves a conspicuous place in the history of 
 Italian travel. 
 
 Our investigation has so far shown, then, that 
 when Goethe crossed the Brenner in 1786 and en- 
 tered the enchanted land of his dreams there to find 
 new strength and a new vision of life and art, every 
 part of the country — her flora, her fauna, the vari- 
 
 [ 29 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: & 
 ■ " r 
 
 ous governments, the customs of her people, most of 
 the art treasures — had, thanks mainly to the efforts ill 
 of Rationalism, been made familiar to the intelli- ai 
 gent traveler; that furthermore within two decades oi 
 of Goethe’s arrival, revived Hellenism, of which Et 
 Winckelmann was the most inspired proponent, had tst 
 invested the products of the Greek genius — in Rome! In 
 and elsewhere — with a new radiance; while the fa 
 great wave of emotionalism which found in Rous- mi 
 seau so fervid an apostle, had suddenly shed light' it 
 in places where darkness had hitherto prevailed,; to 
 without, however, importantly modifying the art-1 
 tenets borrowed from an austerer age. tv- 
 
 It is high time that we now apply ourselves to aflPe 
 discussion of the records which the author of theft 
 Italienische Reise has left of his sojourn in the south. 1 oi] 
 But it is not to this famous book itself that we at I- 
 present address ourselves — as that appeared many la 
 years later (1816-17), when the Romantic Move-;i 
 ment with all its rich implications was swaying; I 
 Europe — but rather to the notes Goethe jotted down 
 and to the letters he wrote during his two years’ ab- 
 sence from Weimar. 
 
 It must be admitted that first contact with these 
 pages causes a shock of disappointment. The Italy- 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 : Goethe charts, as the reader soon discovers, is virtu 
 s ally identical with that made familiar to us by La-* 
 •lande, Cochin, and Winckelmann. Hence, as we 
 i follow him on his hurried trip to Rome — for the 
 i Eternal City is from the start the goal of this great- 
 i est modern disciple of the Greeks — we are compelled 
 eto pass quickly through Verona, Vicenza, Padua, to 
 eleave Venice after a rather cold and formal visit, to 
 -make a very brief stop at Ferrara, to waste a day 
 :at Cento, the uninteresting birthplace of Guercino, 
 1. to spend a rather disproportionate amount of time in 
 ■Bologna, literally to run through Florence without 
 tven attempting to grasp its import, to go through 
 aiPerugia without giving ourselves opportunity for ac- 
 quaintance with its paintings or buildings, to inter- 
 mpt our journey at Assisi only long enough to view 
 :: :he remnants of the Temple of Minerva, and to has- 
 ly :en on through many picturesque towns like Spoleto, 
 esmtil we reach Rome, which we are instantly made 
 a»::o feel is the true asylum of every man of culture, 
 m This route itself loudly proclaims a very definite 
 ;j> dew of art and, in a sense, even of life. The Mid- 
 lie Ages and the Early Renaissance and the archi- 
 3 ecture and painting which they produced could 
 j iave no message for the traveler who followed it; 
 
 [ 31 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 whereas the magnet which drew him across the Alps 
 was the art of the High Renaissance, of Bologna, 
 and especially that of Antiquity. 
 
 Hence in Verona even S. Zeno, the Romanesque 
 church which Heinse was the first to appreciate, is 
 characterized by Goethe as a remnant of “dark An- 
 tiquity” ; in Padua the Giottos receive no attention, 
 nor in Venice the Carpaccios or Bellinis, while St. ' 
 Mark’s is branded as “worthy of all the nonsense > 
 that was ever preached in it” and the Ducal Palace 
 merely as an absurd curiosity; Perugia and Assisi 
 seem featureless, except that the latter can boast a 
 temple of Minerva. In Rome all the earlier' 
 churches like S. Clemente, Sant’ Agnese fuori le 
 Mura, Santa Maria in Trastevere, all the master-* 
 pieces anteceding the age of Raphael — notably the 
 Masaccios and the great paintings on the side walls 
 of the Sistine Chapel — are too uninteresting to de- 
 serve discussion. This great lack is in a measure at 
 least counterbalanced by a genuine and often ripe 
 understanding for the buildings of Palladio (that 
 first great disciple of the Ancients among modern: 
 architects) in Vicenza and Venice; for the paintings 
 of Raphael, Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, in 
 Rome, Bologna, Venice, or wherever; by an enthu- 
 siasm which rather passes our modern understanding 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 for Guido Reni, the Carracci, and especially Guer- 
 cino ; and most of all by a deep and contagious ven- 
 eration for every vestige of the genius of Rome and 
 even more of Hellas that happened to survive the 
 unintelligent brutality of the ages. 
 
 After viewing this interpretation of Italy we nat- 
 urally ask whether it was possible for Goethe, after 
 all the intellectual experience of the years that pre- 
 
 > ceded his trip, merely to transcribe time-hallowed 
 
 > verdicts and to fail in some fashion to strike a per- 
 ; sonal and original note. A more careful perusal of 
 , even these incomplete and unsifted jottings and let- 
 ■ ters soon reveals a vision so novel, so widely at vari- 
 P ance with that of Rationalism or Rousseauism and 
 .. based on principles so nearly akin to those regnant 
 f during the second half of the nineteenth century, 
 
 . that we are more than ever compelled to grant the 
 j. close kinship between the author of the Metamor- 
 
 phosis of Plants and a Darwin or a Taine. 
 
 To understand this perplexing originality we 
 . must remember that for a decade Goethe had in 
 Weimar acquired a large body of information in the 
 s i various natural sciences — notably botany and oste- 
 . ology — and that this period had brought with it 
 intimate association with Herder. Herder at the 
 - time was engaged on his great work, Ideas on the 
 
 [33] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 Philosophy of History (1784-91), in which the in- 
 terdependence of man and nature, or as we should 
 say today, the importance of environment, was in- 
 sisted upon as had never been done before and the 
 conception of organic growth was admirably prefig- 
 ured. Among Frenchmen, it is therefore not so 
 much Lalande and the purely descriptive method 
 that his name connotes, who suggests himself as in- 
 tellectually related to Goethe, and much less of 
 course Rousseau with his anti-scientific emotional- 
 ity, as it is Montesquieu and his interesting thesis 
 concerning the influence of climate on social phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 Goethe is the first to whom Italy appears as an 
 organism and who attempts to understand every- 
 thing he sees as a product of forces. The judicial 
 temper and absence of prejudice are his aim, and he 
 therefore rejoices over the practice he has acquired 
 of seeing and interpreting “things as they are.” 
 And as it is impossible, according to his theory, 
 to understand a phenomenon without intelligent 
 acquaintance with its surroundings, we see Goethe 
 carefully noting meteorological changes and miner- 
 alogical conditions, especially in Naples and Sicily; 
 discussing problems of botany — making discoveries 
 in this field which greatly please him ; studying with 
 [ 34 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 intense interest marine animal life near Venice; and 
 then often applying this method of scientific obser- 
 vation to human phenomena. The result differs 
 greatly from that reached by cataloguing Ration- 
 alists like Lalande or by unbalanced enthusiasts 
 like Dupaty, or unsympathetic critics like Smollett 
 (1776) or Herder (1778-79). 
 
 Italy ceases to be a repository of disconnected 
 phenomena or the occasion for mere personal ecstasy 
 , or objurgation, and stands forth as an object of crit- 
 ; ical study, every detail the fruit of natural or his- 
 . torical influences and the whole ennobling the be- 
 holder by its consistent beauty. 
 
 A large intellectual humaneness is the result, 
 
 . and Goethe explains many of the national traits — 
 
 1 even the laziness and the uncleanliness which had 
 shocked many of his predecessors — as the almost in- 
 evitable product of a southern climate. Unfortu- 
 nately, so strong was the hold on him of the Cochin- 
 Winckelmann formula of art that he failed to apply 
 to it that method which had proved so fruitful in 
 other fields and hence was not willing to modify it 
 by calm and critical study of those painters and 
 sculptors which this formula rejects. Yet at times 
 he becomes unfaithful to this obsession. So while 
 looking at Raphael’s “St. Cecilia” in Bologna, he 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 points out that in order properly to appreciate the 
 master without overrating him, it is necessary to 
 know his predecessors — thus adumbrating that mod- 
 ern historical method which has largely contributed 
 towards a sounder understanding of earlier artists. 
 It is but natural that this scientific approach to life, 
 while safeguarding Goethe from exaggerations and 
 infantile explosions, should render him less respon- 
 sive than a Byron or other Romanticists to the charm 
 of quaint spots or picturesque scenes. Nevertheless 
 it does not rob the great poet-scientist of the ability 
 to give a throb to all his descriptions. 
 
 The full import to Goethe of his stay in Rome 
 and Sicily will become clear to us only after a thor- 
 ough acquaintance with the Italienische Reise and 
 the Zweiter Romischer Aufenthalt. But even the 
 perusal of the incomplete and unorganized notes be- 
 fore us has proved that though deeply rooted in 
 eighteenth-century tradition, he stands out in his 
 interpretation of Italy — as he does in much of his 
 prose and poetry and of his philosophy — as the great 
 forerunner of nineteenth-century thought. 
 
 The scientific spirit which had in the eighteenth 
 century grown to such admirable proportion and 
 which Goethe was increasingly aiming to make his 
 own, was eclipsed in the majority of his contempo- 
 [ 36 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 raries by the mounting wave of Romanticism, which, 
 receiving its first powerful impulse from Rousseau’s 
 relentless dialectics, before the century quite waned 
 flooded every part of Europe and brought in its 
 wake a revaluation of all values. The Schlegels 
 and Tieck, Novalis and Heine, Fichte and Schopen- 
 hauer, Beethoven and Schubert; Wordsworth, Cole- 
 ridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Turner; Chateau- 
 briand, Madame de Stael, Lamartine, and Victor 
 Hugo; Manzoni; Zorilla; Pushkin and Lermontof, 
 i all conjure up a world so antipodal to the world of 
 Voltaire or of Lalande, that the two seem severed 
 not by decades but by generations. The irrational 
 forces in human existence, passion, intuition, mys- 
 ticism, all the elements that elude the logician’s dis- 
 secting knife, now sweep into control : the world is 
 bathed in a new light, life is set to a new rhythm. 
 A delicacy of perception never before attained ex- 
 cept in the days of Hellenistic culture leads to the 
 creation of a poetry and a prose musical, throbbing, 
 gleaming with color. Absorbing interest in the 
 painter’s and sculptor’s calling places the artist on 
 a pedestal upon which an age of scientists and bril- 
 liant men of the world would have been reluctant to 
 put him. 
 
 Political events had their share in shaping some 
 
 [ 37 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 of the new views. For not since the fall of Rome 
 had staggering changes come upon western Europe 
 with the bewildering suddenness implied in the ad- 
 vent of the Revolution, the meteoric rise of Napo- 
 leon, his catastrophic collapse, and the reascendancy 
 of the old monarchies. The impotence of human 
 endeavor, its futility, its tragic quality, impress 
 themselves on men, who in consequence gain in in- 
 tensity of inner vision but yield to discouragement 
 and learn to revel in the contemplation of decay. 
 
 In this atmosphere Italy acquires a new lure. She 
 no longer furnishes material to the scholar; she 
 rather becomes the Galatea whom fervid souls yearn 
 to hold in impassioned embrace, and her loveliness 
 adds another golden thread to the rich and glittering 
 web of Romantic poetry. 
 
 This loveliness was rendered the more attractive 
 and poignant to the Romantic age by the fact that 
 the devastations of Bonaparte’s armies had spread 
 sorrow and ruin in various parts of the peninsula. 
 So frightful were the effects of French ferocity that 
 all travelers were roused to pity and indignation. 
 Among them one is more noteworthy than his fel- i 
 lows from the fact that he himself was one of the 
 invaders. Paul Louis Courier, an officer of the 
 French army, a master of style, exhibiting even in 
 [ 38 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 political pamphlets an admirable sense of form and 
 a wide culture, in his letters from Italy (written to- 
 wards the end of the eighteenth century) bitterly ar- 
 raigns the actions of his countrymen and with pro- 
 found compassion describes the suffering of the un- 
 fortunate inhabitants. 
 
 No spot, however, had during these years experi- 
 enced direr distress than had the once radiant City 
 of the Doges. Conquered by Napoleon and after 
 the Congress of Vienna abandoned to Austria, from 
 being the emblem of opulent gaiety she suddenly 
 appeared widowed of joy and a haunting symbol of 
 human frailty. The city which to the Rationalist 
 , was at best an interesting curiosity, whose joyous- 
 ness had delighted Mrs. Piozzi, now through her 
 very strangeness and oddness and more especially in 
 consequence of her tragic ruin, rose to be the darling 
 of the Romantic heart. 
 
 This new Italy — foreshadowed, to be sure, by 
 Heinse, Mrs. Piozzi, and Dupaty — is subtly and 
 beautifully painted by Chateaubriand, the author 
 of Rene , that masterly expression of Romantic 
 “Weltschmerz,” and of Re Genie du Christianisme, 
 the most brilliant expression of Catholic reaction. 
 In his Journey in Italy (letters and notes written 
 during his stay in 1803-04) he scorns any attempt 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 at giving information, but revels in the delicate 
 melancholy into which the sight of decay in Rome 
 plunges him. Not long hence, he comments, and 
 St. Peter’s will crumble like the Colosseum. The 
 desolation of the Campagna thrills him with a sub- 
 tle delight and he would not exchange the picture he 
 sees for one indicative of healthy prosperity. When 
 he returned in 1828 and in 1833, it was Venice that 
 fascinated him beyond all other places. She re- 
 minded him of a dream or of the caprices of the 
 oriental imagination, and her decay seems to him 
 delicious. She appears like a beautiful woman who 
 will expire before sunset, “greeted by all the graces 
 and by the smiles of nature.” 
 
 Madame de Stael in her novel Corinne or Italy 
 (1807) stresses the same note of resignation. Italy 
 calms one but is a constant reminder of the vanity 
 of human aspirations. Lamartine finds in Rome 
 (during his visit in 1811 and 1812) the proper 
 place for hopeless grief and revels in the sensuous 
 beauty of the environs of Naples. Now and dur- 
 ing a second sojourn in 1825-27 — this time in 
 Florence — his imagination is stimulated and he 
 finds inspiration for some of his finest poems, such 
 as Liberty and A Night in Rome, in which he com- 
 [ 40 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 pares Roman ruins to a brow bent under the weight 
 of years. 
 
 But all the notes, novels, and poems on Italy by 
 these Romanticists are merely a prelude to the pow- 
 erful strains struck by that poet whose Italy was 
 for many decades to become a universal passion. 
 In Byron’s Childe Harold (1812—18) Venice and 
 Rome reign supreme, — both mainly on account of 
 the devastation which time and the titanic wicked- 
 ness of man had wrought. Venice, “the fairy city 
 of the heart,” “where silent rows the songless gondo- 
 lier,” where “the spouseless Adriatic mourns her 
 lord,” is “even dearer in her day of woe, than when 
 she was a boast, a revel, and a show.” And that 
 Rome which to the Rationalistic mind had been es- 
 sentially the spot where men had ruled, to the Ro- 
 manticists and especially to Byron becomes the spot 
 where men have suffered. “The city of the soul” 
 is now “The Niobe of Nations” and stands “child- 
 less and crownless in her voiceless woe, an empty 
 urn within her withered hands,” and the Tiber flows 
 “through a marble wilderness.” 
 
 Subtler than Byron but less appealing to the 
 imagination of the general is the Italy painted by 
 Shelley. With him as with Chateaubriand and By- 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 ron, Venice and Rome occupy the foreground. 
 Again it is the picturesqueness of decay which makes 
 his pulses beat. Venice was “the sun-girt city” and 
 “Ocean’s child,” then became “his queen,” but “now 
 has come a darker day” and she must soon “be his 
 prey.” Rome is “at once the paradise, the grave, 
 the city, and the wilderness,” where “fragrant cop- 
 ses dress the bones of Desolation’s nakedness.” 
 
 That men and women of a temperament as vola- 
 tile and as rebellious of tradition as were the ones 
 we have just passed in review should cling to art 
 tenets of the time of Rationalism must indeed seem 
 perplexing. Yet wherever they speak of paintings 
 or of statues — and it is rarely enough they do — they 
 piously repeat what everybody had said since 
 Cochin, blissfully unaware that a new day had al- 
 ready dawned. Only Madame de Stael stands 
 somewhat aside from the rest. Corinne contains 
 long discussions on art in some of which ideas at 
 variance with those of the eighteenth century come 
 to expression. So Mantegna, Perugino, and the 
 young Raphael are said to blend in their works the 
 serenity of the Ancients with the truly Christian 
 depth of emotional life. This wholly revolutionary 
 view of painting Madame de Stael derived from the 
 essays of the Schlegels with which she had become 
 [ 42 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 acquainted through her contact with one of the 
 brothers, August Wilhelm. When Corinne was 
 published (1807), Friedrich Schlegel, August Wil- 
 helm’s brother, expounding the new conception of 
 art enunciated in Wackenroder’s Confessions of an 
 Art-Loving Monk (1797), had in a series of power- 
 ful articles (in his periodical Europa, 1803) formu- 
 lated the principle — wholly subversive of tradition 
 — that true art is possible only as the child of deep 
 religious experience, and that only simple and un- 
 tutored souls like the earlier Masters — notably Fra 
 Angelico — could hope to express the noblest mes- 
 : sage. The “Nazarenes,” a group of German paint- 
 ers working in Rome (from about 1815—30), 
 adopted this principle as their gospel. About the 
 time when they dispersed, von Rumohr published 
 his Researches in Italian Art (1827-31), a scholarly 
 work which was destined to become the foundation 
 of all succeeding criticism of Italian art by insisting 
 on the importance of the earlier Masters and grant- 
 ing the Bolognese a less exalted position than they 
 had hitherto occupied. A few years later, the 
 Frenchman Rio, basing his information on Rumohr 
 and deriving from Schlegel and the German Naza- 
 renes the principle of the dependence of great paint- 
 ing on the religious impulse, voiced in his book bear- 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 ing the ill-chosen title Christian 'Poetry (1836) the 
 first powerful French protest against Cochin and 
 maintained the absolute superiority of early Mas- ; 
 ters like Fra Angelico, Perugino, and Bellini. In 
 England Lord Lindsay and, from about 1850 on, 
 Ruskin made the British public familiar with simi- 
 lar ideas. So that after the middle of the nine- 
 teenth century the formulse of Rationalism may be 
 said in all parts of Europe to have yielded to a con- 
 ception of Italian art far more adequately reflecting 
 the temper of the new age. 
 
 Just as it was German criticism which led in blaz- 
 ing the new path in the interpretation of art, so Ger- 
 man travelers were the first to grope their way to- 
 wards a radically new interpretation of Italy — sec- j 
 onded here and there by representatives of other i 
 nationalities. 
 
 Heinrich Meyer, Goethe’s intimate friend and his : 
 counselor in matters of art, during a lengthy visit 
 to Italy from 1795 on, in spite of his dependence on 1 
 Winckelmann and on the principles of Rationalism, , 
 has words of praise for Bellini in Venice, Fra Angel- 1 
 ico in Florence, and Pinturicchio in Rome. In the •: 
 very same years, the German poet Matthison (who 
 was in Italy 1795-96 and again 1819-20) is genu- 
 inely affected by the Fra Angelico frescoes in the 
 [ 44 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 chapel of Nicholas in the Vatican, calls Bellini’s 
 Madonnas the very ideal of “divine womanliness, 
 grace, and dignity,” and discovers “the beautiful 
 frescoes by Lippo Lippi” in that little town of 
 Spoleto which Goethe had hastened by without com- 
 ment. The patriot-poet Arndt on his trip in 
 1798—99 makes a prolonged stay in Florence, is 
 deeply impressed with the cathedral of Pisa, and 
 filled with awe and reverence with St. Mark’s in 
 i Venice. Thiersch (in Italy from 1822 on), the 
 greatest German Hellenist since Winckelmann, com- 
 bines a sound and critical understanding of An- 
 tiquity with respect for the Bolognese but also with 
 genuine admiration for early masters like Giotto, 
 Francia, Mantegna and for the Gothic virility of 
 the tombs of the Scaligeri in Verona. 
 
 Among Frenchmen the great Stendhal, one of the 
 founders of modern realism in fiction, whose ac- 
 quaintance with Italy had perhaps been equaled by 
 no one before him, dike most men of his generation 
 : cannot wean himself from respect for the declama- 
 tory art of Bologna, but recognizes in the vigorous 
 Ghirlandaio — he speaks especially of the frescoes in 
 Santa Maria Novella in Florence — -a personality 
 akin to his own. 
 
 To this interesting little brotherhood who, with- 
 
 al 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 out quite relinquishing a tradition born of less pious 
 and more worldly days, visualize an Italy so nearly 
 akin to our own, belongs a poet of genuine inspira- 
 tion. Count August von Platen (1795-1835), per- 
 haps better acquainted with Italy than any man of 
 his time except Stendhal, combined with his poetic 
 gift a strong intellectual bent. His diaries reflect 
 an earnest desire to put himself abreast of the most 
 advanced art-criticism of his time, and the Italy he 
 unfolds is therefore far richer in intellectual values 
 than that of Romanticists like Byron and Shelley. 
 If he lacks their entrancing phraseology he rivals 
 their gift for reflecting the atmosphere of the places 
 he describes. Again it is Venice which occupies the 
 centre of the picture. He rates her even far above 
 Rome which, according to one of his distichs, is “a 
 motley town” while Venice is “the perfect city.” 
 In poems, plays, and passages from his diaries he, 
 like Byron and Chateaubriand, voices sensitiveness 
 to the morbid charm of her decay but also — and here 
 he goes beyond them — to the romantic call of her 
 narrow streets, canals, balconies, silent squares, and 
 more striking still, to the originality of those earlier 
 masters whom no poet so far had deigned to men- 
 tion : Bellini, Carpaccio, and representatives of even 
 greater naivete like Vivarini. Through sonnets like 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 “Es scheint ein langes , evS ges Ach zu zvohnen” 
 “Hier wuchs die Kunst wie eine Tulipane,” “Wenn 
 tiefe Schwermut meine Seele wieget ,” he established 
 this more complex picture of the fallen “Mistress of 
 the Seas” as an integral part of modem German cul- 
 ture. In the discussion of other cities he proves 
 equally original: Orvieto with its rich medieval 
 cathedral, Spoleto with its Filippo Lippi, Monreale 
 with its mosaics aglow with yearning mysticism — 
 all meaningless to Cochin, Riedesel, and Goethe. 
 Nevertheless, the hollow grace and sultry chastity 
 of Guercino’s and Guido Reni’s saints and angels 
 have nearly as much charm for him as they had 
 had for his eighteenth-century predecessors. 
 
 At last there came a traveler who boldly cut even 
 the few remaining tenuous threads which connected 
 his generation with an outworn past and definitely 
 plotted out the Italy which we visit today. In 
 1835 Wolfgang Menzel, the aggressive critic of the 
 “Young German” school and contumacious antago- 
 nist of Goethe, published his A Journey to Italy in 
 the Spring of 1835. As he is a passionate admirer 
 of the Pre-Raphaelite masters — from the very in- 
 ception of Renaissance painting in Cimabue, Giotto, 
 and Orcagna down to young Raphael — and de- 
 spises the Bolognese, Florence is to him “the elysium 
 
 [ 47 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 of art.” Thus in the new portrait of Italy, the 
 high lights are concentrated not on aristocratic Rome 
 but — significantly for that generation which was or- 
 ganizing the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 — on 
 Florence, the capital of the most intellectual and 
 most artistic bourgeois civilization in history. 
 
 But Menzel is only an early exponent of a point 
 of view which grew universal in the next generation. 
 For from the middle of the nineteenth century on, 
 the Early Renaissance has been increasingly fasci- 
 nating a bourgeoisie which vaguely yearns to correct 
 its drabness and which feels a strong elective affinity 
 not with the princely society that produced a Cor- 
 reggio and a Titian, but with the less pretentious 
 times of a Fra Angelico, a Masaccio, or a Ghirlan- 
 daio. Hence most modern travelers, whatever their 
 nationality or their intellectual bias, pay tribute 
 to the fair Queen of the Arno. 
 
 Held against the notes of Meyer, Matthison, 
 Arndt, Stendhal, Platen, and Menzel, that is of 
 travelers who since Goethe’s trip in 1786-88 had 
 admirably enlarged the canvas of Italy, Goethe’s 
 Italienische Reise (1816—17) and its complemen- 
 tary essay Zweiter Romisclier Auftenthalt (1829) 
 at first affect one as documents of cramped conserva- 
 tism, not to say of reaction. Antique Rome retains 
 [48] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 her sovereign supremacy. Other cities, except in 
 so far as they harbor treasures of the ancient, pref- 
 erably the Greek genius or of the later Renaissance, 
 remain in obscurity. Florence is non-existent, 
 Venice holds the intellect without flattering the 
 senses. Discussions of buildings, paintings, and 
 statues imply no departure from eighteenth-century 
 severity: additional thrusts at Gothic architecture 
 and modem pictorial rendition of ruins and idyllic 
 scenes emphasize the author’s loyalty to the stand- 
 ards of a buried past. 
 
 On the other hand, because Goethe again, as he 
 did in the hasty records jotted down during his so- 
 journ thirty years earlier, observes the scientific 
 method, he gives the Italienische Reise a place 
 altogether apart from any book on the subject which 
 had so far appeared, whether Rationalistic or Ro- 
 mantic. Italy reveals herself again as a great or- 
 ganism, the product of immutable laws, and hence 
 even the customs of the people, whether attractive 
 or repulsive, claim interest and respect, and a great 
 spirit of humaneness prevails. 
 
 This all-pervading scientific mood not only mini- 
 mizes injustice and eliminates hysteria, it also pre- 
 cludes morbid delight in decay. In a splendid pas- 
 sage we read: “We must not allow the transitori- 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 ness of greatness to discourage us. The discovery 
 of superiority in the past should rather encourage 
 us to earnest efforts which in turn may, even after 
 the results have crumbled, act as a source of inspira- 
 tion to our descendants. For our forbears never 
 lacked the fervor of endeavor.” 
 
 The habit of scientific observation when blended, 
 as it is in the case of a great artist like Goethe, 
 with a subtle poetic spirit, is capable of yielding ad- 
 mirable results. Thus we read: “The fact that 
 Palermo faces towards the north conditions the curi- 
 ous circumstance that here we never see the sun or 
 moon reflected in the ocean. Hence, even today, in 
 spite of brilliant sunshine, the sea appeared dark 
 blue, sombre, and aggressive, whereas at Naples 
 from the noon-hour on it grows increasingly lumi- 
 nous, delicate, and hazy.” 
 
 Had not adherence to the Cochin-Winckel- 
 mann formula inhibited Goethe from making his 
 theory of enviroment the basis of his comments on 
 the art of the centuries intervening between the fall 
 of Rome and the advent of Raphael, he would have 
 been able — as was a hundred years later his great 
 admirer Taine — to regard medieval churches and 
 the works of a Giotto, a Masaccio, or a Bellini, not 
 with indifference or with scorn, but as the products 
 [ 50 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 of social and intellectual conditions which, how- 
 ever foreign to his temperament, were worthy of re- 
 spect as interesting human experiences. We must 
 feel the more puzzled at this stubbornness when we 
 consider that to the end of his life Goethe never, as 
 many MSS. notes and published essays and reviews 
 proved, forsook his interest in Italy, and that some 
 of the most brilliant of his younger contemporaries 
 were establishing a new rating of Italian architec- 
 ture and painting. 
 
 But why cavil with a great monument of litera- 
 ture because of certain shortcomings? And for 
 more reasons than one the Italienische Reise is 
 such a moment. Conceived as a supplement to 
 Goethe’s autobiography Fiction and Truth , it del- 
 icately reflects the changes in the inner life of the 
 greatest individuality in modern letters during two 
 years big with experience. The Zweiter Romischer 
 Aufenthalt, perhaps even richer in mere autobio- 
 graphical information but written towards the end 
 of the poet’s life, betrays a lowered pitch and dim- 
 inished creative vitality. In the Italienische Reise 
 the author with sure tact and disciplined abandon 
 weaves personal impressions, descriptions, and com- 
 mentaries on nature, man, and art into a beautiful 
 tapestry, frugally rich, which reveals the paramount 
 
 [ 51 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 role played by Rome in the evolution of his inner 
 life. At the end of his visit he has found himself : 
 he knows he was born to be an artist, and his art, ( 
 like his philosophy of life, is henceforth to be guided 
 by that reverence, self-control, dignity, and breadth 
 of vision which can be best obtained by intimate 
 contact with the Eternal City. 
 
 To what extent this contact helped Goethe to i 
 reach the goal of his ambition, that of becoming a ; 
 literary artist of the highest rank, is best evinced by I 
 precisely the Italienische Reise. No book on Italy, i 
 either before or since Goethe, exhibits more superb ; 
 craftsmanship. Comparison with the notes and let- > 
 ters of 1786-88, which formed the basis of the pub- ( 
 lished work, reveals significant omissions and ad- { 
 ditions calculated to give this book architectural ( 
 poise and dignity as well as color and vivacity. 
 Nowhere does this artistry show to better advantage i 
 than in the descriptions of Naples and Sicily — ford 
 which we find but meagre counterparts in those t 
 earlier jottings — where keenness of observation, hu- z 
 maneness of judgment, and an unrivaled gift of de- g 
 scription blend to produce passages which have never s 
 been surpassed in the literature of travel. p 
 
 The noble quietude of the Italienische Reise many t! 
 years later inspired a great German scholar and dis- t 
 [ 52 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 ciple of Goethe to give the world one of the ripest 
 books on the much-discussed country of Virgil and 
 of Raphael and yet — considering the time of its 
 appearance — one of surprisingly serious omissions. 
 Victor Hehn, author of the admirable “Thoughts 
 on Goethe,” in his I fatten, Ansichten und Streifttch- 
 ter (first published as a series of essays in 1864, 
 later in book form in 1879), also sees in antiquity 
 and in the High Renaissance the summation of all 
 the elements of culture. Again like his great 
 model, Hehn correlates environment and organism 
 and molds an Italy of mellow outlines, intoxicating 
 vistas, ravishing colors, and withal of unrivaled 
 dignity. And this panorama he transcribes in lan- 
 guage disciplined by familiarity with the best of 
 Goethe’s prose. 
 
 A critical appreciation of the Italienische Reise 
 is, however, impossible without a glance at the most 
 important of those works which in the latter half of 
 the nineteenth century have transcended even Men- 
 zel and have introduced methods unknown to his 
 generation. For to understand the breadth of vi- 
 sion of which the cultivated modem traveler is ca- 
 pable we must remember that the historical sense — 
 that sixth sense as it has been called — had never 
 been stimulated and disciplined as it has been in the 
 
A Renaissance Vision : 
 
 last century. Keen desire to know all phases of the 
 past and to enter into the spirit of all civilizations 
 — a desire unknown to the age of Rationalism — has 
 vastly enlarged our intellectual vision and matured 
 our judgment. Not antiquity only, not merely 
 the Middle Ages, nor even all of the Renaissance, 
 from its dawn to the setting of its radiance, but 
 oriental cultures as well have a message for us mod- 
 erns. And as Italy is the fair casket which holds 
 treasures from many lands, she today seems vastly 
 richer and more alluring than she did to the most 
 cultivated among our forefathers. Since the finest 
 reminders of an interesting past are often found in 
 the most recondite spots, a hundred slumbrous 
 towns and villages and numberless obscure streets 
 and houses in Rome and Venice and Florence have 
 suddenly leapt into the light, so that an Italy rises 
 before us compared to which the country known to 
 Goethe appears merely as a reduced sketch. 
 
 The first to respond to this boundless vision and 
 to unroll a completely new canvas by discussing 
 well-nigh every niche as soil redolent of human joy 
 and woe and of fruitful human endeavors, is the 
 German historian Ferdinand Gregorovius. His fa- 
 mous History of Rome during the Middle Ages 
 traces the biography of the Eternal City during pe- 
 [ 54 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 riods when her fate had seemed unimportant to 
 other writers. Similarly his Years of Pilgrimage 
 in Italy (1857-77) deals with places and with 
 phases of the Italian past which no other writer had 
 ever deemed worthy of comment. Ravenna, the 
 seat of ancient Roman greatness during its last 
 agony and the capital of Byzantine power in 
 the west; towns and villages in southern Italy, 
 like Foggia and Manfredonia, reminiscent of the 
 death-struggle of Hohenstaufen glory beyond the 
 Alps; Sicily, where Carthaginians, Greeks and Ro- 
 mans, Saracens, Normans and Germans, Frenchmen 
 and Spaniards struggled, triumphed, and suffered 
 eclipses, — all these and many other portions of Italy 
 on Gregorovius’ luminous pages are made to speak to 
 us of human aspirations, human greatness, and hu- 
 man folly. In these sketches landscape and man 
 are wonderfully blended. But it is man as the 
 product of historical events rather than of physical 
 forces, as Goethe saw him, that fascinates Gregoro- 
 vius. The following passage may help us to enter 
 into the peculiar quality of these delightful vol- 
 umes. 
 
 “I remember no more ravishing sight than the view of 
 the panorama of Palermo from the flat roof of this Saracen 
 castle — its plain, its shore, and its mountains. The most 
 
 [ 55 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 fervid imagination would be impotent to create anything 
 surpassing its fairylike charm. The picture before us can 
 easily be compassed at a glance. For the sunlit mountains 
 which, brown and dignified with their exquisite contours, 
 seem chiselled by a Doric hand, frame the whole Conca 
 d’Oro, the ‘Golden Shell’ of Palermo. At their feet are 
 spread green orange groves and summer-houses and parks. 
 The city with its tall towers and cupolas fringes the shore. 
 At a distance stretches the ocean, silvery blue and throbbing 
 with life, and at one side bulks the massive strength of 
 jagged and dark-peaked Mount Pellegrino. . . . Every- 
 thing here, the light, the contours of the land, the quality of 
 the air, and the color of the sea have an oriental tinge ; and 
 looking down from an old Norman Castle, La Zisa, into the 
 garden you expect to see beautiful Arabian maidens step 
 forward playing mandolins, and long-bearded Emirs draped 
 in red kaftans and wearing yellow slippers.” 
 
 Since Gregorovius’s day the main purpose of in- 
 telligent travelers has been to acquaint us with de- 
 tails of the peninsula which had escaped the atten- 
 tion of their predecessors. Among these moderns 
 John Addington Symonds, author of The Renais- 
 
 sance in Italy , deserves a prominent place because of 
 
 York 1880) and his Italian Byways (New York 
 
 1883), the very title of the latter betraying his pur- 
 pose. More searching and critical still are Olga 
 von Gerstfeldt and Ernst Steinmann, whose Pil- 
 grimages in Italy (1910) unite wide and accurate 
 
 [ 56 ] 
 
 r 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 information with keenness of insight and a fine gift 
 for characterization, and especially A. Steinitzer, 
 who in his Hidden Nooks of Italy (191 1) distances 
 all his predecessors in visiting places which literally 
 no traveler before him had attempted to ferret 
 out. 
 
 But the most important contribution since Goethe 
 is Hippolyte Taine’s A Trip to Italy (1866). For 
 in these volumes the Author of The Philosophy 
 of Art in Italy and The Philosophy of Art in the 
 Netherlands applies to Italy, conceived as a his- 
 torical phenomenon, the same method which Goethe 
 had applied to her from the point of view of the 
 scientist. Taine, like Goethe, everywhere looks for 
 cause and effect, and hence the formula for Italy as 
 an intellectual concept is Goethe-Taine. Taine’s 
 mode of approach conditions an unprecedented 
 breadth and generosity in the evaluation of the 
 various cultures and schools of painting. In Flor- 
 ence, Venice, Rome, Siena, Ravenna, Bologna, the 
 physical and especially the historical environment 
 determined a civilization and hence an art which 
 it is our business to understand rather than un- 
 critically to admire or reject. Seen through the 
 lens of such a method even the phraseological paint- 
 ing of the Bolognese becomes interesting as the ex- 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 ponent of a decadent age in which creativeness no' 
 longer kept step with increasing technical perfec- s 
 tion. Perhaps the most convincing and contagious , 
 descriptions in this remarkable work are to be found ( 
 in the paragraphs dealing with that fairy city of the j s 
 sea which, though from a wholly different point of ( 
 view, captivated the senses of a Chateaubriand and 
 a Byron. 
 
 We might aptly close our study here. But to do 
 so would be to overlook at least three interpreters , 
 who voice important currents in our present-day life 
 and whose message therefore rings with a new note. 
 
 Taine, as we saw, aimed like Goethe at balance 
 and objectivity. Guy de Maupassant, on the other 
 hand, in his The Roaming Life , frankly represents 
 those “Impressionists,” those brilliant egotists, to 
 whom the rendition of personal impressions, aside 
 from all traditions and all intellectual codes, is the 
 highest cult. And no more intelligent and more de- 
 lightful impressionist ever trod the paths of that 
 Italy which has meant so many things to so many 
 men. A large culture and a wide sympathy prevent 
 Maupassant’s impressions from ever being merely 
 erratic, but rather help to produce pages which yield 
 an interesting insight into one of the most original 
 literary personalities of the last half-century. 
 
 [58] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 But not Gregorovius nor Taine nor even Maupas- 
 sant entirely expresses the spirit of our harassed 
 twentieth-century civilization. Complexity and 
 disillusionment have bred a new passion for the 
 starkest simplicity. And even this most recent 
 mood finds exponents among interpreters of Italy. 
 
 Gabriel Faure, one of the greatest lovers of the 
 bel paese France has ever produced, in his volumes 
 entitled Hours in Italy (1912-19) has, in common 
 with Gregorovius, Symonds, Olga von Gerstfeld and 
 Steinmann as well as Steinitzer, the desire to reveal 
 the charm of recondite spots, and he shares with 
 Taine a wide range of sympathy, but he is never 
 happier in his characterizations than when dealing 
 with individualities — whether mystics or artists — 
 who represent the faltering ages before worldliness 
 or a consummate control of technique had mitigated 
 the fervor of childlike simplicity. In some of his 
 chapters he betrays unmistakable kinship with those 
 among our contemporaries who in a complex age 
 hark back to generations blessed with serenity and 
 . innocence. As the eighteenth century reveled in the 
 dream of the “noble savage” and nineteenth-century 
 reformers like Tolstoy delight in the moral superior- 
 ity of the peasant, and a little later Gauguin found 
 surcease of fever through contact with the island- 
 
 [ 59 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 folk of the Pacific, so many modern artists and c 
 critics and many modern travelers experience an al- ? 
 most incommunicable ecstasy in the contemplation 
 of the lives of simple and deeply sincere mystics t 
 like Catherine of Siena and Francis of Assisi and of j t 
 the works of the earliest Italian masters. a 
 
 That this cry for a deep and stirring sincerity in i 
 life and art is a voice which can no longer be muted 1 
 appears from the study of a work which because it ! 
 voices an interpretation in many respects antipodal t 
 to Goethe’s, may fittingly stand at the close of our 1 
 study. Karl Scheffler’s Diary of a Trip to Italy 
 (1922) flings a ringing challenge to all spell-words 1 
 and catch-words, to all archteology however reverent 
 or affectionate, and protests against all those en- 
 chantments of Italy which have proved lethal to 
 hosts of northern artists. For it is to artists the 
 author primarily addresses himself. He would 
 eliminate from their souls that conflict of profession 
 and performance which has so often stifled their 
 spontaneity of expression and he would encourage 
 that sincerity of feeling and of taste from which 
 alone stem great works of art. But as we today 
 yearn for a new spirituality and adore unvarnished 
 force — and have therefore discovered a new beauty 
 in the art of China and of Egypt — we are bound to 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 cherish, so runs his argument, imperfect sympathy 
 with the imperial but mundane passions of the 
 Renaissance. The marvelous technical cunning of 
 this brilliant period and its sense of beauty, he con- 
 tinues, after all presuppose spiritual shallowness and 
 a bastard attempt at joining festivity of temper 
 with pretended interest in religious experience. 
 Not that like the German Pre-Raphaelites and 
 Ruskin this modern traveler points a sneer at all 
 types of art except the religious. Far from it. He 
 is stirred to ecstasy by the assertive virility of the 
 monuments of the Scaligeri in Verona and the mas- 
 sive self-assertion in many Roman portrait-statues, 
 and despises what appears to him the fibreless grace 
 of that darling of the Pre-Raphaelites, Fra Angelico. 
 But as he clamors for originality, tonic force, a 
 deep emotional urge, and especially for sincerity, 
 the Sheban magnificence of the later Venetians as 
 well as what he calls the essential insincerity of the 
 Renaissance Florentines or the vacant serenity of 
 Raphael — in spite of their enchanting jets of genu- 
 ine inspiration — disappoint and depress him. On 
 i the other hand the tempestuous heat emanating from 
 i Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, the 
 profoundly genuine emotionality in Giotto’s work — 
 particularly in Padua — and more than all, the ven- 
 
A Renaissance Vision: 
 
 erable simplicity and honesty reflected in the mosaics 
 in Ravenna, and beyond even them in the works of 
 the Primitives in Siena, — Simone Martini, Duccio, 1 
 Lorenzetti — to Scheffler mark the high moments in 
 the art life of Europe. From these the moderns can 
 learn, whereas they cannot give themselves to the , 
 contemplation of most other types of Italian paint- 
 ing or sculpture without being adversely affected. 
 Hence Siena in this most recent portrait of the pen- 
 insula altogether crowds out that Florence which 
 had reigned supreme even a dozen years ago and 
 Ravenna appears as a close second — while Florence, 
 Venice, Rome, Bologna taper into unimportance. 
 
 Despite its exaggerations, absurd exclusions, pat- 1 
 ent lapses of judgment, despite the fact that it | 
 merely challenges the old dogmatism with a new 
 one as one-sided in its way as were its antipodes, the 
 “Travels” of de Brasses or of Goethe, in theirs, this j 
 book stirs the modern reader like a cleansing wind. 
 Here is a traveler impatient to excess of the gar- 
 rulous enthusiasms of the crowd and of the pundits, 
 who lights new peaks in the interpretation of Italy, 
 whose very exaggerations breed an impassioned de - 1 
 sire to free young artists from inhibitive historicism, 
 and who nurses a vision of a great new art expres-i 
 sive of the new temperament. Seheffler’s pages con- 
 162 ] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 vince one that there still is new sap in the old 
 European culture. Whole chapters of it might have 
 been written by a Gauguin, a Cezanne, a Van Gogh, 
 or a Hodler — except that probably none of them 
 controlled a style so abounding in darting vigor and 
 glinting phrase. 
 
 We see, then, that the modern portrait of Italy 
 is painted by a highly intelligent bourgeoisie which, 
 trained to think historically, is fitted to enter into 
 the most various moods of the past and which, lack- 
 ing as it is in the sense of majesty, naturally tends 
 to prefer Florence — and in its most recent mani- 
 festations Siena — to the grandeur of Rome, and the 
 vigorous homespun of Ghirlandaio, the humble 
 piety of Fra Angelico, and the simple grace of 
 Benozzo Gozzoli, or the childlike ecstasy of Duc- 
 cio to the regal amplitude of Raphael’s Disputa 
 or School of Athens, of Titian’s Presentation to 
 the Temple, or of Paolo Veronese’s Marriage of 
 i Cana. 
 
 What new “legends” of Italy future generations 
 nay evoke we cannot guess. But whatever they 
 nay be, it is likely that Goethe’s Italienische Reise 
 vill remain what it is 1 to us today : one of the most 
 precious monuments in that vast literature of travel, 
 
 ■ i book which, in spite of its serious omissions, bears 
 
 [ 63 ] 
 
A Renaissance Vision' 
 
 on every page the imprint of a great mind and com 
 summately reflects the marriage of science with art 
 To German culture Goethe’s Jtalienische Reisi 
 further meant, as Thomas Mann implies in the pas 
 sage referred to at the beginning of this essay, th< 
 most effective force in the introduction of tha' 
 southern influence without which no northern cul 
 ture is complete. 
 
 [64] 
 
A ROMANTIC VIEW OF ART: 
 
 GERMAN PREDECESSORS OF RUSKIN 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 In one of her pleasant books, Mrs. Jameson, the 
 author of Sacred and Legendary Art, makes the 
 happy remark that taste in art is an exponent of 
 character. And, indeed, our likes and dislikes in 
 matters of painting reveal a subtle sifting which, in 
 adequate though not always tangible fashion, re- 
 flects the processes of our soul-life. Hence, the im- 
 mense reaction in favor of sacred or “Christian” 
 art, as the phrase goes, which took place in the 
 first half of the nineteenth century and of which 
 Ruskin was the most brilliant spokesman, was an 
 indication of a complete revulsion in the attitude to- 
 wards life in general and not merely in aesthetic judg- 
 ment, on the part of the various nations of Europe. 
 
 Through Ruskin we have all become familiar with 
 the belief that the early Italian masters — and we 
 shall concern ourselves with the interest in them 
 only and not with the early Germans — that these 
 “simple and untutored men” gave to the world in- 
 finitely more that was vital and uplifting than did 
 
 [ 67 ] 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 their more brilliant successors of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries. We are apt to think that 
 Ruskin first discovered the charm of the more un- 
 tutored among artists. As a matter of fact, he was 
 the last though by far the most powerful representa- 
 tive of a whole school of criticism which, nearly 
 two generations before his appearance, had taken 
 its incipience in Germany. 
 
 In order the better to understand the import of 
 these new ideals, it will be necessary to call to mind 
 the art-tenets of the seventeenth and of a large part 
 of the eighteenth centuries. 
 
 The age of Louis XIV and Louis XV had pro- i 
 duced a society in which intellectuality, elegance, 
 grace, and self-control all made for a delightful if 
 superficial enamel of refinement, a society which 
 naturally found greatest satisfaction in the masters 1 
 of the Late Renaissance and the Bolognese of the < 
 seventeenth century. The Raphael of the second s 
 period with his sovereign mastery of tool and mar- t 
 velous intellectual grasp — as exhibited, for instance, 
 in the Transfiguration ; Paolo Veronese, interpreter 1 
 of the voluptuous elegance of arrogant Venice; 
 Correggio with his tender lasciviousness; Guido 
 Reni with his angels of attenuated refinement and 
 soulless beauty and his saints of gentlemanly grace ; 
 [ 68 ] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 these four, foreign to Ruskin’s Anglican soul, ap- 
 peared as the noblest efforts of the human mind at 
 pictorial representation of life. 
 
 In England, Jonathan Richardson the elder, a 
 painter of no mean rank, specimens of whose work 
 may still be seen in the National Portrait Gallery 
 in London, was to our knowledge the first eighteenth- 
 century critic of note to voice these art-principles 
 of a worldly age. His book, Account of some of 
 the Statues, Basreliefs, Drawings and Pictures in 
 Italy (London 1722) was widely read at home 
 and abroad. A French translation which appeared 
 in Amsterdam in 1728 greatly helped to spread 
 Richardson’s influence on the continent. 
 
 More incisive and more elegant was the Jupiter 
 Tonans in matters of art in the age of Madame de 
 Pompadour, Charles Cochin, famous as critic and 
 as engraver. His Voyage d’ltalie (1758) super- 
 seded Richardson and far into the nineteenth cen- 
 tury controlled the taste of Frenchmen and even of 
 foreigners. Beyond Richardson, he revealed to 
 his contemporaries their deep affinity with Paolo 
 Veronese and the brilliant Venetian painters of 
 Paolo’s time. Through Cochin the grand gout was 
 fixed in all parts of the civilized world. It became 
 the all-saving creed, however, deviation from which 
 
 [69] 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 was branded as barbaric heresy, through the writ- 
 ings of a German whom his time regarded as the 
 greatest painter of the age, as the second Raphael 
 on whom the mantle of the great Urbinite had 
 worthily fallen: Raphael Mengs, the friend of 
 Winckelmann (1728—79). His scholarly essays on 
 the great painters added a weight of dignity not 
 felt to the same degree even in the Voyage d'ltalie . 
 
 In architecture, agreeably to the same mood, 
 balance of parts and harmony and elegance of the 
 whole were the sole standards of beauty. Hence 
 Gothic cathedrals with their divine caprices of- 
 fended instead of edifying. Palladio of Vicenza, 
 who with great adequacy had adapted ancient forms 
 to modern uses, appeared in his best creations to 
 have brought about the consummation of architec- 
 tural perfection. His influence, which began in his 
 own day, the sixteenth century, lasted far into the 
 nineteenth, and long retarded understanding of the 
 beauty of the older styles. So in England, the 
 buildings of Inigo Jones and of Sir Christopher 
 Wren, disciples of the great master of Vicenza, held 
 sway as architectural models to the days of Ruskin. 
 
 In course of time, however, the correctness of 
 Palladio and the smoothness of Guido Reni satis- 
 fied less and less a generation rapidly swerving 
 
 [70] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 towards emotionalism. For even the eighteenth 
 century, which we are inclined to regard as essen- 
 tially the age of Rationalism — of a narrow intellec- 
 tuality — long before its close was aglow with a 
 new conviction: that salvation could come to men 
 through feeling and through faith alone. In other 
 words, before the appearance of the great romantic 
 poets, the Shelleys and the Byrons, the Novalises 
 and the Chateaubriands, even before they had lifted 
 up their voices in protest, ominous rumblings gave 
 to the sensitive warnings of an approaching storm. 
 For Rousseau with his mighty eloquence tore down 
 the old barriers and broke the bed in which the 
 torrent of the new world-view was to sweep. To 
 Rousseau and to all the disciples of his evangel — 
 from the author of Werther to Tolstoy, from Words- 
 worth to Ruskin — nothing could be more pestilent 
 than the hollow complexities of civilization, the 
 pride of the mighty, the insolence of the learned. 
 Childlike simplicity of heart, a trusting faith in 
 the loving Father of all, humility, love for those 
 shouldered aside in the race of life, — these qualities 
 and these only could lead to a regeneration of man- 
 kind. 
 
 How could a time that professed such principles 
 continue to feel satisfied with the art-tenets of the 
 
 [7l] 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 age of Rationalism? What wonder that the Renais- 
 sance began to be neglected in favor of an epoch 
 more trusting, more simple, more fervid, and steeped 
 in mysticism? 
 
 Medievalism, heretofore despised as barbaric, 
 about the middle of the eighteenth century begins 
 faintly, then more and more strongly to seize upon 
 the imagination until it becomes the ruling passion. 
 
 England was the first to exhibit the new trend 
 in architecture. As early as 1741, Batty Langley 
 in his Gothic Architecture attempted the sterile 
 task of combining Gothic and Greek forms. In 
 1750, Horace Walpole, that delightfully versatile 
 and dilettante “virtuoso,” conceived the odd caprice 
 of turning his villa at Strawberry Hill into what 
 innocently purported to be a Gothic castle. Peer 
 and lady with good-humored curiosity came to view 
 tower and crannied wall. After these childish grop- 
 ings there soon followed work of a more serious 
 character. James Wyatt (1746-1813) may fairly 
 be considered the real author of the revival of in- 
 terest in medieval architecture, because of his res- 
 toration of Gothic churches, — as for instance the 
 nave of Hereford Cathedral (1786). He was fol- 
 lowed by Augustus Charles Pugin, who in 1821 
 began to publish his Specimens of Gothic Archi- 
 [ 72 ] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 tecture and thereby swept aside the dilettantism 
 of the Walpole period. In the nineteenth century, 
 Pugin’s great son, Augustus Welby Northmore 
 Pugin (1812-52), one of the builders of the Houses 
 of Parliament, re-established the Gothic fashion in 
 Great Britain. Of this characteristic movement 
 the masterly expression in literature is The Stones 
 of Venice , which dealt the death-blow to lingering 
 Palladianism. 
 
 In Germany, young Goethe, then under the magic 
 spell of Herder’s individuality, aglow with enthu- 
 siasm for what was to him the characteristically na- 
 tional architecture, i. e. the Gothic, sounded his 
 youthful panegyric on the Strassburg Cathedral 
 (1772). When Goethe himself became unfaithful 
 to his youthful enthusiasm, others passed on the 
 watchword, until on the threshold of the new cen- 
 itury all Germany through the Schlegels and Sulpitz 
 Boisseree had learned to look with tender veneration 
 on the long-despised architectural remains scattered 
 1 the length and breadth of the land. The new zeal 
 ultimately culminated in the nineteenth century in 
 1 the reconstruction of the noblest of German temples, 
 the Cathedral of Cologne. 
 
 Even the country of Cochin was, though late, to 
 feel the breath of the irresistible urge, and in the 
 
 [ 73 ] 
 
A Romantic View of Art (J 
 
 course of the nineteenth century Viollet-le-Du a 
 (1814—79) with indefatigable energy performs u 
 the pious task of saving from ruin countless medie i 
 val buildings, both ecclesiastical and profane. 
 
 Love for Gothic churches argued far more than : L 
 mere shifting of architectural fashion. It reflected | 
 a vague but intense desire to enter into the ver : 
 essence of the epoch of chivalry. Hence, as fa 
 back as about 1750 begins that study of medieva 
 life and poetry which was so happily to enrich th 
 literature of later days. In 1762 Hurd issued hi 
 Letters on Chivalry which boldly asserted the su 
 periority of medieval over Greek ideals, thus feed 
 ing in Walpole’s country the nascent love for th« 
 despised “dark ages.” 
 
 Far maturer in his critical insight, in fact alto 
 gether original, was Herder, whose influence 01 
 Goethe was at one time so potent. His essay Auc I 
 eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung dei 
 Menschheit (Another Philosophy of History as £ 
 Contribution to the Culture of Mankind) left the 
 press in 1774. In conscious contrast to Voltaire’: 
 contempt for the time of the Crusades, the youn£ 
 historian conceives the Middle Ages as a necessary 
 link, as an important stage in the evolution of mam 
 kind, nay, he would gladly throw to the winds the 
 [ 74 ] 
 
: German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 Enlightenment of his own time for the profound 
 Emotionality of the barbarous past. At the begin- 
 ning of the nineteenth century the brothers August 
 and Wilhelm Schlegel, leaders in the new Romantic 
 Anovement in Germany, in various letters and pub- 
 lications interpreted in eloquent terms that age 
 Which they felt to be more nearly akin to their own 
 Ehan classical antiquity with all its glories. The 
 Grimms, taking up the suggestions thus thrown out, 
 devoted their lives (from about 1815) to a loving 
 Wiret critical study of the civilization which had pro- 
 duced the Edda and the Nibelungenlied. Mean- 
 while men like Dietz and his disciples labored (from 
 -about 1830 on) with equal devotion and thorough- 
 less to interpret the times which had brought forth 
 'ojhe ballads of the Cid and the songs of the Trouba- 
 
 ours. 
 
 No wonder that Guido Reni could no longer con- 
 tinue to rule supreme, that Guercino ceased to pros- 
 per in a generation to such an extent filled with a 
 snse of the picturesque, sensitive to the charms of 
 lysticism, a-hunger for whatever might satisfy the 
 duI. At last the time had become ripe for an ap- 
 reciation of those earlier masters who, though un- 
 ltored and faltering in expression, harbored a depth 
 tiJf inner experience totally foreign, though not to 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 Raphael, certainly to Guido and his associates. 
 
 Rome was to witness the dawn of this new era in 
 art-criticism. For, as in the sixteenth century the 
 greatest artists had convened there, so in the eigh- 
 teenth she became once more the very hearth of 
 talented men in various provinces of artistic produc- 
 tion. The presence of Winckelmann, who had 
 found in Rome his true home, and especially of 
 Raphael Mengs, who resided there for many years, 
 attracted artists from various countries, most of all 
 from Germany. One of the most conspicuous 
 among the younger Germans there was Johann Wil- 
 helm Tischbein, the author of the famous painting 
 “Goethe in Italy” (now in the Staedelsche Institut 
 in Frankfort). He is said to have been remarkable 
 among his fellows for a temperamental preference 
 for things simple and natural in art. His ideas fell 
 on fruitful soil in young souls already deeply imbued 
 with the spirit of Rousseau and of Werther. About 
 1790 there sprang up among these German painters 
 a cult of early art which sent them to many places;' 
 in Rome and later to various parts of Italy where 
 their nascent love could ripen in the presence of the 
 older and more naive artists. In consequence, the 
 more violent among them, like Buri, established for 
 themselves, if not for the world at large, a new 
 [ 76 ] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 basis for criticism. The ideas of Cochin and Mengs 
 were rejected. From the early masters only could 
 a true artist derive inspiration. Even Raphael him- 
 self must be regarded as having abandoned the best 
 traditions of art when his brush became more intel- 
 lectual and more worldly, and he produced the 
 works of the second period. 
 
 The most important practical outcome of this 
 new enthusiasm was the discovery on the part of 
 Hirt, prominent in this circle for wide and sound 
 scholarship, of the chapel of Nicholas V in the Vati- 
 can, with its fine frescoes by Fra Angelico. Here 
 was the beginning of that veneration for the deli- 
 cate spirituality of the Master of Fiesole, so unin- 
 telligible to the age of Voltaire but so appealing to 
 an age of richer emotions. 
 
 How deeply suffused with emotionality, how 
 weary of the cant of the schools and of fruitless 
 j scholarship men had grown, was soon to become 
 manifest in a little publication — one of the most 
 remarkable documents of the eighteenth century — 
 which in 1797 appeared in Berlin with the extraor- 
 dinary title Herzensergiessungen eines hunstlieben- 
 den Klosterbruders. It is a title which eludes the 
 translator’s art, but through which a wondrously 
 simple, wondrously bold, wondrously delicate soul 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 bares itself. In a series of — can we say essays? 
 shall we say confessions? — a “Klosterbruder,” a re- 
 cluse, in the silent corridors of the cloister, humbly 
 conscious of his lack of lore, proudly conscious of his 
 unfathomable love for the great poets of the brush, 
 in language simple and affecting, pours out his intui- 
 tions on art and artists. In the glowing canvases of 
 Fra Angelico, infinitely serene and pure, in Francia’s 
 childlike simplicity, he discerns an oracle which mut- 
 ters to him of the deep affinity between the spirit 1 
 of the Almighty and of those among His children 
 who grope to comprehend Him. Art was not given 
 man by God merely to decorate his dwellingplace 
 with garish splendor; a deep spiritual lesson is con- 
 tained in it, which only the simple of heart like Fra 
 Angelico, the favored of God Himself like Raphael, 
 can comprehend. Blessed the age that produced 
 such souls, capable of deep communion with the r 
 infinite ! How shallow our own, which finds pleas- 
 ure in glitter and tinsel! When Fra Angelico was 
 about to put upon the canvas one of those angels,; 
 beatific and radiant with celestial beauty, he first 
 retired to his closet to pray, and often tears streamed 
 down his face while his hand attempted to record 
 the Divine agony. Go thou, Oh artist, and do like- 
 wise ! Let not the shallow pomp of the world daz- 
 [ 78 ] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 zle thee! If art be to thee a spiritual agent, thou 
 mayest be capable of great things : if it be merely a 
 thing of empty pleasure, thou wilt join the vast host 
 }f those whose lives are frittered away in empty 
 pastime. 
 
 Learning and technical mastery, the “Kloster- 
 bruder” felt, stifle the spontaneous expression of 
 ' what is deepest in the heart of man. With an easy 
 ^race which would be insolence in one less naively 
 sincere, Wackenroder, for this is the author’s name, 
 — himself the “Klosterb ruder” of his book — puts 
 aside the complex code of theories, the principles 
 af technical achievement, which the eighteenth cen- 
 rury had carefully elaborated. 
 
 i Tischbein and Wackenroder, then, over a century 
 ago, enunciated a theory of art containing in nuce 
 he principles with which many years later Ruskin 
 •oused his countrymen from their torpor. The new 
 gospel was to prove a vital contribution to modem 
 mlture. In time it freed art from the shackles of 
 ationalism and led artists back to emotion as their 
 rue source of inspiration. 
 
 But no great revolution, whether in the realm of 
 iction or of thought, ever escaped narrowness and 
 excess of zeal. In the teaching of Wackenroder we 
 ind for the first time that ill-starred confusion of 
 
A Romantic View of Art 
 
 art and religion which, during a part of the nine- 
 teenth century, was to control art-criticism in all 
 countries. The critic asks himself: Does a given | 
 work of art reflect the religious spirit? If so, it is 
 true art ; if not, it is inferior, however well executed, 
 however adequate as the expression of a great in- 
 dividuality. Here, as later in Schlegel, in Rio, in! i 
 Ruskin, “simple and unlearned men” are declared to! i 
 be far more keenly sensitive to inspiration than ever! i 
 could be those who value knowledge and the cunning 1 1 
 of the hand. i 
 
 But neither Tischbein and his friends nor certainly' c 
 Wackenroder, timid and over-refined, could have I 
 stirred the world to its depths. Though incisrv ■% j< 
 their teaching was restricted to a narrow sphere of 
 influence. One more turbulent, more daring, and 
 more original was needed to sweep off the board the d 
 chilling, if distinguished, formulae of Cochin and S( 
 Mengs. Friedrich Schlegel, starting as the disciple 0( 
 of Winckelmann and the ancients, had experienced ej 
 in his inner life a remarkable revulsion. With a jj f 
 violence characteristic of him to the last, his power- sf 
 ful intellect turned from the idols of his youth and , 
 felt passionately and uncontrollably drawn to the 
 mysticism of the Middle Ages. He, who could 
 think best in aphorisms and who was temperamen- | 0 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 tally incapable of the judicial attitude, placed his 
 immense talents and enviable capacity for work in 
 the service of a new cause : the interpretation of the 
 medieval past. In 1802 Schlegel, already touched 
 by the Klosterbruder’s spirituality, went to Paris, 
 
 ■ there to study the largest collection of Italian paint- 
 
 1 ings ever assembled in one spot. It was an oppor- 
 ) tunity never before, perhaps, granted a critic at a 
 ; vital period of his development. For Napoleon had 
 : ruthlessly stripped Italy of all her movable treasures 
 
 in order to adorn and glorify his capital. Schlegel 
 could thus study at first hand nearly every phase of 
 : Italian art from Fra Angelico to Guido Reni, — that 
 is from its dewy morn to its sultry eve. 
 
 And what did he select from this vast wealth? 
 - His own words will best convey the almost primitive 
 f directness of his choice. In a series of essays de- 
 
 2 scribing his Parisian sojourn published in his peri- 
 e odical Euro-pa in 1803 he declares: “I feel drawn 
 ; exclusively to the old style of painting as exempli- 
 
 3 fied by early Christian painting. I understand that 
 style only and can discuss no other intelligently. 
 
 . . . Even in the school of the Carracci I rarely 
 
 13 find a painting that appeals to me; and I confess that 
 : the unnatural and generally frigid grace of Guido 
 ■' holds no irrestible charm for me and that the pink- 
 
 [81] 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 and-white fleshtints of Domenichino fail to fill me 
 with rapture. . . . Titian, Correggio, Giulio Ro- 
 mano, Andrea del Sarto . . . are for me the last 
 painters. . . . Draperies and costumes as simple 
 and naive as the human form of which they seem a 
 part, faces — and it is in the faces that the flame of 
 the divine spirit of the painter burns most brightly 
 . . . characterized by childlike sweetness and sim- 
 plicity — which I am inclined to think was the origi- 
 nal character of mankind — such is the style of the 
 older masters, the only style, I must confess, which 
 pleases me, unless indeed in some exceptional cases 
 — as with Correggio and the other great masters who 
 laid the foundations for the new style — a great prin- 
 ciple justifies the deviation.” Like Rio and Ruskin 
 he takes supreme delight in the sweet serenity and 
 beauty of Giovanni Bellini and Perugino. Besides, 
 several paintings of Mantegna — the despised of the 
 eighteenth century — fill him with great satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 If we ask concerning the underlying principle 
 which determines Schlegel’s choice, we find the 
 answer in other parts of the same essay: religion and 
 religion only should be the guiding principle of 
 artists. Not charm and sensuous beauty should be 
 the criteria of excellence, but solely a lofty, yea a 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 divine significance. Without this no work of art 
 is deserving of the name, with it outward loveliness 
 will often follow of its own accord, as the flower 
 and reward of divine love. 
 
 As a consequence of this principle, he believes, 
 much as Wackenroder did, that the regeneration of 
 modern art is possible only through deepening of 
 the inner life, especially the religious life, on the 
 part of the painter. Friedrich was joined in this 
 crusade by his brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel, 
 who in various essays — notably one on Fra Angelico 
 in 1817 — insists that religious painting only can 
 once more give to art that importance and that 
 depth which five hundred years ago had made of 
 painting so full an expression of the inner life of 
 man. 
 
 That the principles of Wackenroder and the 
 Schlegels had genuine vitality for the generation for 
 which they were uttered is attested in astonishing 
 manner by the creation of a new school of painters. 
 In 1806 a few German artists, later joined by many 
 more, under the leadership of Friedrich Overbeck 
 assembled in Rome with the avowed purpose of 
 protesting the principles of Mengs and of giving 
 practical expression to the ideas of the Schlegels. 
 They lived at first in a monastery in the spirit of 
 
 [83] 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 the “Klosterbruder.” Painting was for them a 
 form of prayer, as it had been for Fra Angelico. 
 They took up the traditions established in Rome by 
 the school of Tischbein and held only the Old Mas- 
 ters to be worthy of imitation. Even the second 
 manner of Raphael appeared to them a form of 
 aberration. Giulio Romano was intolerable and 
 the Bolognese beneath contempt. This group of 
 German artists is known as “The Nazarenes.” In 
 spite of admirable devotion and purity of spirit, 
 however, they produced few works of lasting value. 
 Much greater is their influence on the history of 
 criticism. For so original and peculiar appeared 
 their ideas to their contemporaries that they at- 
 tracted universal attention. Among their many ad- 
 mirers was A. F. Rio, the inspirer of Ruskin. 
 
 The roots of the far-flung influence exercised by 
 this sect — for sect is an apter designation than 
 school — lies deep in the spirit of the time. As we 
 saw before, the religious instinct, bruised and in- 
 sulted by the rationalism of the eighteenth century, 
 had awakened at the touch of the new life, and, at 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century, had as- 
 sumed phenomenal proportions. This is attested 
 by two remarkable documents. In an essay written 
 in 1799, the German mystic poet Novalis — the 
 
 [84] ' 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 Knight Errant of the Blue Flower — gave voice to 
 the new longing in words suggestive of the roll of 
 organ in cathedral vault. “How glorious,” he ex- 
 claims, “were those times when all Europe was 
 united under one spiritual head, and all men bowed 
 with unquestioning faith before one symbol of sal- 
 vation ! Heresy there was none. All hearts found 
 satisfaction and uplift in the worship of God in 
 temples of overawing grandeur and majesty.” Sig- 
 nificant is the very title, Christianity or Europe. 
 Three years later, Chateaubriand, the eloquent 
 leader of early French Romanticism, gave to the 
 world his famous work The Genius of Christianity. 
 With sovereign contempt he sweeps aside the shin- 
 ing fabric of Voltaire’s esprit and in its place 
 re-establishes Catholic dogma as the infallible 
 inspiration of mankind in art and science. About 
 the same time the sublime humility of Pope Pius 
 VII under the outrages of Napoleon inflamed Cath- 
 olic Europe and aroused a widespread presumption 
 in favor of the creed of Rome. In the wake of this 
 great religious upheaval some of the most brilliant 
 minds turned to Catholicism as to the fount of con- 
 solation. In Germany, Friedrich Schlegel and 
 Overbeck were among the most prominent in the 
 long list of converts. 
 
 [ 85 ] 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 It is evident that in an atmosphere so over- 
 charged with emotionality, all norms of criticism in 
 art and literature must become distorted. Wacken- 
 roder and Schlegel had, we are already aware, put 
 art-criticism on a thoroughly unsound basis. To be 
 sure, without such exaggeration their countrymen 
 could not have been so completely freed from the 
 yoke of Mengs. Had German criticism continued, 
 however, on the path pointed by Schlegel, it would 
 have become as unreasonable and as narrow as, two 
 generations later, English criticism became under 
 the sway of Ruskin. That at this dangerous stage 
 the country of Wackenroder was saved from such 
 aberration is due primarily to one who brought to 
 bear upon the study of art not merely a passionate 
 enthusiasm, but a judicial temperament and the 
 historical method. 
 
 Karl Friedrich von Rumohr was born in 1785 and 
 died in 1843. A man of wealth, he devoted his 
 leisure mainly to the study of the fine arts. Early 
 in life he became converted to Catholicism. Among 
 the men who strongly influenced him, the most im- 
 portant from our point of view was Friedrich 
 Schlegel. During his travels in Italy he came in 
 contact with the school of Overbeck. It would seem 
 then that Rumohr could hardly escape the inter- 
 [ 86 ] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 pretation of early Italian art brought into vogue 
 by Schlegel and the German Pre-Raphaelites. His 
 aim, however, was very different from theirs. He 
 wished to do for Christian art what Winckelmann 
 had done for the art of the ancients. To establish 
 the evolution of Italian painting from personal 
 observation of the originals, supplemented by a 
 critical study of the archives, and thus to displace 
 the textbooks current at the time — Vasari, Lanzi, 
 and Fiorillo — became the purpose of his work. 
 This truly scholarly method ripened in him the con- 
 viction that a priori judgment in matters of art is 
 incompatible with true criticism. Every generation 
 has the right, nay the duty, he felt, to evolve an 
 adequate artistic expression of its personality. 
 Every school, then, may be admirable, in so far as 
 it satisfies this demand. Consequently, the masters 
 before Raphael assume a degree of importance un- 
 dreamed of by critics of the eighteenth century. 
 From Schlegel and Overbeck Rumohr had inherited 
 keen sensitiveness to the peculiar charm of the naive 
 painters of the early period. On the other hand, he 
 never, like Overbeck, lapsed into the extravagant 
 contempt for many of the great masters of the High 
 Renaissance and for the Raphael of the second 
 manner. Only the Bolognese, unindividual and 
 
 [ 87 ] 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 eclectic, sink into comparative insignificance. Most 
 noticeable of all, though a disciple of Schlegel and 
 Overbeck, he finds it impossible to restrict genuine 
 pictorial art to works inspired by the religious atti- 
 tude. 
 
 The book in which Rumohr expressed his views 
 was called Italian Studies and appeared during 
 the years 1827—31. Although modern methods 
 have gone beyond Rumohr, his Studies had the 
 distinction of being the first to furnish material 
 necessary for a ripe understanding of painters 
 formerly neglected or unknown. 
 
 How profoundly his contribution was appreciated 
 even outside his own country is attested by the life 
 and work of one who should to this day interest 
 all English-speaking persons because of his influence 
 on Ruskin. A. F. Rio was one of those Frenchmen 
 — and every generation in the past has produced 
 them — for whom German culture has strong attrac- 
 tion. Like his idol Chateaubriand, he was born in 
 Normandy, that part of France in which the tem- 
 perament of the people, a happy blending of Ger- 
 manic depth and Romance fire, had, centuries 
 before, produced the glories of Gothic architecture. 
 He came of a family of strong Catholic traditions 
 and his youth fell in that period when French Cath- 
 [ 88 ] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 olios turned with a passionate reverence, reminiscent 
 of medieval times, to the sacred tenets of their creed 
 recently outraged by Napoleon. 
 
 When in 1830 he went for the first time to Rome, 
 in the suite of M. de Ferronnais, Chateaubriand’s 
 successor as French ambassador to the Vatican, he 
 was oppressed by the traditions in matters of art 
 current among even the most cultured Frenchmen 
 of that time. Cochin’s influence was still so potent 
 that the Bolognese were regarded as the supreme 
 masters in the realm of painting, while earlier art 
 was ridiculed or neglected. Even at this stage a 
 vague instinct bade him protest against such views. 
 He studied the paintings in the Catacombs and a 
 few of the older madonnas in the Roman churches. 
 Soon this groping interest for a simple and un- 
 worldly art was to receive direction. For in the 
 same year he went to Munich, which was char- 
 acterized at that time, perhaps more even than it is 
 today, by a remarkable intensity of intellectual life. 
 Schelling, whose philosophy embodies many of the 
 Romantic tendencies, was delighting his hearers and 
 his readers by the originality of his thoughts and the 
 elegance of his diction. Baader, more directly de- 
 pendent upon the mysticism of the Middle Ages, 
 exercised remarkable fascination on all who — like 
 
A Romantic View of Art/ 
 
 Rio himself — longed for a philosophy free from 
 rationalistic pettiness. It was in this atmosphere 
 that he first became acquainted with Rumohr’s book, 
 brought to his attention by Doellinger, the famous 
 Catholic theologian. Suddenly a new world was 
 opened to him. In his autobiography, entitled 
 epilogue a V art Chretien , he claims for the Italian 
 Studies signal importance. Here he found the facts' 
 about the earlier masters to which he had no access 
 before. He consequently decided to throw himself 
 into the study of early painting with all the ardor 
 of which he was capable. As Rumohr had omitted 
 to discuss the Venetians, nothing was more natural, 
 than that Rio should begin by filling that gap. Hel 
 went to Venice and there pursued that method in the 
 study of the Venetian school which Rumohr had; 
 established in the study of the schools of Florence 
 and Siena. In Venice his soul found satisfaction) 
 as it never had done before. Repeated visits to 
 Munich in the following years brought him in con-( 
 tact with the representative works of German Ro- 
 manticism. Especially did the personality of Fried-,: 
 rich Schlegel lay its spell upon him. He calls him! 
 “the man who in modern times has been the most!: 
 keenly sensitive to the beauty of Christian art and 
 who has carried into his resthetic judgments all the 
 [ 90 ] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 sincerity of a delicate and noble soul coupled with a 
 brilliant intellect.” In 1832 in Rome he became ac- 
 quainted with the German Pre-Raphaelites. Now 
 at last, he says, thanks to Rumohr he was in a posi- 
 tion fully to appreciate their aims. 
 
 Finally, in 1836, Rio gave to the world the re- 
 sults of his long and serious studies in a work en- 
 titled “Christian Poetry in its Principles, its Con- 
 tent, and its Forms” ( La poesie Chretienne , dans son 
 principe, dans sa matter e et dans ses formes). Be- 
 fore turning to the book itself, we should expect Rio, 
 from what we have learned of the influences at 
 work upon him, to go to Rumohr for most of his 
 material and to follow Schlegel and Overbeck in 
 his interpretations. This belief finds corroboration 
 on every page. 
 
 As all art is to Rio merely a form of worship, he 
 ; was touched by the early Christian mosaics as by 
 :he prayer of childhood; unfathomable is his con- 
 i :empt for the connoisseurs who are deaf to this ap- 
 ' Deal. The Sienese — Duccio, the two Lorenzos, 
 Simone Memmi, etc. — hardly even mentioned by 
 : Vasari and brought to his cognizance by Rumohr, 
 ■harm him with their exquisite grace and simplicity, 
 liimabue, though crude and void of skill, affects 
 urn as the first pictorial individuality of true 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 weight, Giotto as the mighty reformer and innova- 
 tor. In Masaccio, art advances in technical skill, 
 but in the lyrical sweetness of Fra Angelico appears 
 a depth of mysticism and a beatitude hidden from 
 the worldly and the learned. Fra Angelico’s fa- 
 vorite pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, combined grandeur 
 and power with the simplicity inherited from the 
 master. His frescoes in the Campo Santo in Pisa 
 make him the greatest representative of the “patri- 
 archal style,” the most difficult of all. Lippi and 
 Botticelli were skilful but vulgar. Luca Signorelli, 
 when he abandoned the spiritual traditions of his 
 early years, did no more than exhibit anatomical i 
 knowledge — for Rio, as afterwards did Ruskin, 
 turns with noble indignation from the representa- 
 tion of the unveiled human form. 
 
 Luca shows how the spirit of the times was chang- 
 ing, how the generation was adding merely to its 
 intellectual and worldly store. Antiquity, inca- 
 pable of the highest inspiration known to Christian- 
 ity, during the reign of the Medici was dazzling the 
 mind but letting the spirit go starving. Only 
 Ghirlandaio, because of his power, escapes the gen- 
 eral blight of his age. 
 
 Against this background of decay and corruption, 
 how inspiring is a school like that of Umbria, stain- 
 [92] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 less in spiritual purity, faithful to the traditions 
 established by the masters of Siena and by Fra An- 
 gelico. Perugino, in his madonnas of simple grace 
 and wondrous depth of soul, satisfied the spirit. 
 His great pupil Raphael, in his first period even 
 went beyond his teacher in transferring to canvas 
 and to wall the beatific visions which still entrance 
 all eyes. Alack, not always was he to remain im- 
 maculate in the putrid atmosphere created by the 
 Medici. In the Camera della Segnatura the sinister 
 change in him is recorded in language unmistakable 
 to the spiritually minded. For in the painting 
 I “Theology” (the “Disputa”), a subject of un- 
 equaled felicity to one trained in Christian tradi- 
 tions, Raphael had reached the very summit of hu- 
 man ability. Soon after, however, nefarious influ- 
 ences lured him from his path and he fell in line with 
 his worldly environment. Hence the admirers of 
 his first style look upon the paintings that come after 
 . the “Disputa” with repugnance, or at best with in- 
 difference. Nowhere so clearly as here does Rio 
 . appear as the channel through which the Tischbein- 
 Overbeck traditions were transmitted to Ruskin, 
 who called this picture the “Mene, Tekel, Upharsin 
 :>f the Arts of Christianity,” the last symbol of the 
 ‘ancient and stern medieval manner.” The harm 
 
 [ 93 ] 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 done by Raphael best shows in the cynical work of 
 his greatest pupil, Giulio Romano. 
 
 While art was thus decaying in Florence, the 
 blessed simplicity of the Umbrians was conveyed to 
 the painters of Venice through Gentile da Fabriano. 
 Carpaccio and Giovanni Bellini represent the golden 
 age of mystic painting. Giovanni, free altogether 
 from the realism of an age blighted by pagan sug- 
 gestion, was capable of rising to the empyrean of 
 mystic ecstasy which before him only Fra Angelico 
 and Perugino had reached. The Madonna in the 
 Frari Church in Venice and the one in S. Zaccaria 
 in the same city — Ruskin’s favorite — are master- 
 pieces of poetic delicacy and depth of feeling. 
 
 With Giorgione begins the decay of Venetian arti 
 — a decay certainly not retarded by Titian’s carnal 
 brush. 
 
 Even this epitome of Rio’s book may give the 
 reader a conception of the tyranny of interpretation 
 which marks it from cover to cover. The sole test 
 which he applies to any work of art is : does it satisfy 
 the religious sense? If so, it is true art; if not, it' 
 is a failure. Hence great artists like Titian drop! 
 out of view, while inferior ones like Catena — for- 
 gotten today — are placed in the first rank. Rio’s 
 book may be called the great manifesto of the Buri - \ 
 
 [ 94 ] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 Wackenroder-Schlegel-Overbeck school of criticism. 
 Through it, the vicious method called into being by 
 those men was perpetuated and disseminated beyond 
 the bounds of Germany. 
 
 In France it was years before the Poesie Chre- 
 tienne , which offended at first because of its exag- 
 gerations, succeeded in destroying the dictatorship 
 of Cochin. Nor did Germany furnish fertile soil 
 for Rio’s thoughts. Rumohr, with equal love for the 
 early painters, through his excellent method had ac- 
 customed the public to a more objective and healthy 
 view of art as a pictorial interpretation of life in 
 all its multitudinous forms. 
 
 It was to England, however, that Rio, precisely 
 :>ecause of the zelotic nature of his views, came as 
 :he bearer of a new evangel. For Rio, who had 
 narried an Englishwoman, from 1836 on frequently 
 dsited Great Britain and there became acquainted 
 vith men like Lord Stanhope, Carlyle, Gladstone, 
 
 ■ Vlanning, Wordsworth, and Samuel Rogers. His 
 Dersonality made so great an impression and the 
 lisciples of the new art-creed grew so numerous that 
 luring the “season” of 1840 his position was much 
 ike that of the chief of a sect. 
 
 The reason for this enthusiasm lay in the fact 
 hat England was just then passing through one 
 
 [ 95 ] 
 
A Romantic View of Art 
 
 of the most powerful religious upheavals in her his- 
 tory. Her cultivated classes were stirred, as the} 
 had perhaps never been before, by a profound desire 
 for the spiritualization of the religious life. Fron 
 a few young men in Oxford emanated a movement 
 which within a decade was to affect thousands oi 
 Englishmen in various parts of the kingdom. Keblt I 
 and Pusey, as early as 1833, eloquently preached the 
 beauty of a simple life and of a heartfelt piety i 
 John Henry Newman, single-minded and pure 1 
 walked among men of the nineteenth century like 
 one of the Early Christians and by his fascinating 
 personality turned hundreds from the frivolities ol 
 the world to a deep strength of faith. His apostasy 
 in 1845 marks at once the crest and the break of th( 
 whole movement. 
 
 Into this atmosphere Rio brought his gospel oi 
 mystic art, so contemptuous of mere technical skill!, 
 intellectual achievement, or worldly glamour. Lit 
 tie wonder that the circle in which he moved founc 
 in his teaching deep matter for thought. Proof o 
 his influence are the writings of Mrs. Jameson, pub 
 lished after her meeting with Rio in 1841, such a 
 Memoirs of the Early Italian Painters (1845) an( 
 especially Ancient and Legendary Art (18481!.) 
 Even more important are the Sketches of the History 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 of Christian Art by Lord Lindsay ( 1847) . Lindsay 
 is directly dependent on Rumohr, but far more on 
 Rio, whose book he praises in warm terms. Though 
 the Sketches remained a fragment they reveal 
 precisely the point of view of the Poesie Chretienne. 
 This latter work appeared in English garb in 1854 
 translated by Miss Wells. 
 
 But he who by temperament and training was 
 destined to carry the movement in favor of Christian 
 .Art to a height of splendor undreamed of before, 
 ;was John Ruskin. Born of an Anglican family in 
 .-1820, his adolescence fell at the time when the 
 fChurch of England was being rejuvenated by the 
 vOxford Movement. During his most plastic years 
 ethe Bible, the revered household-book of his family, 
 peopled his mind with scenes of patriarchal dignity 
 jpnd ascetic simplicity. His early publications ex- 
 hibit a sense of the picturesque remarkable for a 
 itpitic of that time, but no appreciation of early art. 
 i$He himself tells us that in the winter of 1843—44 
 lithe study of the Bellinis and the Peruginos in the 
 ;biLouvre gave him a glimpse of a world of glory 
 litherto hidden from his vision. At this critical 
 :ime he came in contact with Rio’s point of view. 
 3 e tells us in his autobiography Przterita: “I must 
 lave read also, that winter (1843-44), Rio’s 
 
 [ 97 ] 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 Poesie Chretienne , and Lord Lindsay’s introduction 
 to his Christian Art. And perceiving thus, in some 
 degree, what a blind bat and puppy I had been, all 
 through Italy, determined that at least I must see 
 Pisa and Florence again before writing another word 
 of Modern Painters 
 
 Ruskin’s memory was not quite accurate when he 
 wrote the above passage, for Lindsay’s Sketches 
 did not appear till 1847. Hence the first and most 
 important guide that he found on the new road 
 upon which he had started was Rio, Thus were 
 transmitted to him the principles of Buri, Wacken- 
 roder, Schlegel, and Overbeck. But because of the 
 remarkable personality of Ruskin and the peculiar 
 conditions about him, these ideas which in Germany 
 and in France had been vital merely within the pale 
 of art-criticism, in England were to widen the whole 
 national culture. 
 
 For the importance of Ruskin lies not so much 
 in original contributions to art-criticism as in his 
 effect upon the inner life of the English-speaking 
 peoples. His very insistence upon the identity of 
 art and religion, of art and morality — unsound as 
 it is — was the only channel through which a mes- 
 sage of beauty could at that time find ready access 
 to the heart of his nation. 
 
 [ 98 ] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 Since the days of Sir Joshua Reynolds no one 
 in England had written on art in language power- 
 ful enough to reach the cultivated at large. Even 
 the remarkable productions of Turner had found 
 comparatively slight response. In other words, 
 England was behind other countries in the recogni- 
 tion of art as an essential factor in culture. In 
 France, Diderot and his followers in the nineteenth 
 century, in Germany, Goethe, Heinse, Schlegel, 
 Rumohr, and others had made such recognition enter 
 into the very fibre of the fiectual consciousness. 
 
 Ruskin by dint of a wonderful gift of interpre- 
 tation, an almost unequaled genius for prose, and 
 irresistible enthusiasm roused his countrymen from 
 their torpor. Through him beauty became a mel- 
 lowing factor in English civilization. Perhaps the 
 ; most valuable service a man can render his nation is 
 lastingly to enrich its cultural life. As Ruskin un- 
 . doubtedly accomplished this task, he deserves our 
 reverence in spite of his pretensions and his limita- 
 tions. 
 
 How limited is the horizon of a critic who insists 
 on excluding from the creation of true art every 
 factor except the religious instinct became evident 
 in our study of Wackenroder, of Schlegel, of Rio. 
 Ruskin, like Rio, fails to appreciate artists like 
 
 [99] 
 
 ' 
 
A Romantic View of Art: 
 
 Titian, Correggio, and the Raphael of the second 
 manner. Fortunately he once at least abandoned 
 his vital principle in espousing the cause of Tintor- 
 etto. On the whole, however, his pictorial world is 
 smaller even than that of Schlegel, and but little 
 larger than that of Rio. 
 
 In architecture, too, his vision is essentially nar- 1 
 row. Did ever critic exhibit more entrancing power; 
 of language than he did in the interpretation of 
 Gothic idiosyncrasies? Yet, on the other hand,; 
 who would still agree with the author of the Stones 
 of Venice in regarding Palladio’s work as “wholly 
 virtueless and despicable”? 
 
 How largely Ruskin’s views coincide with those 
 of his German predecessors must have become ap- 
 parent in the course of this discussion. It would be 
 futile to attempt a detailed analysis of his works, 
 familiar as they are to the English-speaking public.' 
 Suffice it to recall that Ruskin’s famous plea fori 
 “simple and unlearned men,” like Fra Angelico and 
 Perugino, exactly corresponds to the controlling 
 ideas of Wackenroder’s Herzensergiessungen and the 
 essays of Schlegel written half a century before 
 Ruskin. In his virtuous indignation at “the Spite 
 of the Proud,” in his contempt of Correggio, Giulio 
 Romano, and even of the second manner of Raphael, 
 [100] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 he is at one with the group about Tischbein whose 
 canons were adopted by Overbeck and his associates, 
 and by them given to Rio. The very kernel of this 
 coincidence in the evaluation of pictorial art is found 
 in Ruskin’s lecture on “Pre-Raphaelism.” Here 
 occurs the significant characterization of Raphael’s 
 defection. On one wall of the Camera della 
 Segnatura in the Vatican Raphael had painted 
 “Theology” (“the Disputa”), presided over by 
 Christ, and on another wall of the same room 
 Parnassus, presided over by Apollo. “And from 
 that spot and from that hour the intellect and the 
 art of Italy date their degradation.” For Raphael 
 thus “elevated the creatures of fancy on the one 
 wall, to the same rank as the objects of faith upon 
 : the other.” It is fairly startling to observe the 
 agreement of this important passage with Rio’s com- 
 ment on the famous room in the Vatican. To Rio 
 
 ■ also the “Disputa” represents the goal of human 
 - achievement in painting. “And did the decadence 
 
 ■ of this wonderful genius date then from the moment 
 f ; when he put the last touches to the ‘Disputa’ ?” asks 
 ; Rio. The answer he himself gives in the discussion 
 , of Raphael’s pupils, like the “cynical” Giulio Ro- 
 mano. 
 
 d 
 
 ; England little suspected when she absorbed with 
 
 [101] 
 
A Romantic View of Art 
 
 avidity this principle of the identity of true art and 
 religion that she was being suckled in a creed out- 
 worn, that she was snatching up a coat which Ger- 
 many had sloughed off as too small. 
 
 In Germany the fever created by the Schlegels 
 had been tempered by Rumohr’s more balanced 
 judgment. In England herself within recent years 
 the attitude towards Ruskin has undergone a strong 
 modification, due in large part to the corroding sar- 
 casm of Whistler’s “The Gentle Art of Making Ene- 
 mies.” 
 
 Ruskin, it is true, offers many points of attack. 
 Lacking as he is in the historical sense, he raised 
 to the eminence of an infallible and unalterable 
 dogma those ideas of Wackenroder, Schlegel, and 
 Overbeck which we recognize today as having been 
 merely the necessary reaction against eighteenth- 
 century rationalism. 
 
 Let us be grateful, however, to a man who, with 
 a power of inspiration almost equal to that of the 
 prophets of old, devoted a long career to the en- 
 nobling and beautifying of our modern life, so in- 
 cessantly threatened by the encroachments of ma- 
 terialism. 
 
 [102] 
 
REALISM AND ROMANTICISM 
 IN TWO GREAT NARRATORS: 
 
 Keller and Meyer 
 

 
 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 in Two Great Narrators 
 
 GOTTFRIED KELLER 
 
 It may be doubted whether the entire nineteenth 
 century, with its insistence upon life itself as the 
 problem of problems, produced anywhere a figure 
 more typical of his time than the Swiss narrator 
 Gottfried Keller. Keller stands as a robust re- 
 action against both the religious dogmatism which 
 would relegate this vale of tears to a position of 
 minor importance, and to the Hegelian and other 
 German Romantic philosophies (still regnant in 
 his day) which in their search for the extra-mundane 
 sources of existence turned away from the daily 
 i round of life. To Keller the life of man, even 
 < when he trudges the road of the commonplace, is the 
 ever-bubbling source of inspiration, the never- 
 failing guide to deepest truths. From the loving 
 and concentrated perusal of life’s daily script man 
 must learn all the lessons which the universe has 
 to teach. Hence, not crass materialism indeed, 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 but rather a deification of experience animates 
 Keller. To use his own words: God radiates Real- 
 ity- 
 
 Keller’s personality and his work reflect his 
 native soil: that doughty little Switzerland which 
 by dint of bravery and commonsense had early won 
 its independence from powerful neighbors and which 
 later, during Keller’s own time, succeeded in weld- 
 ing its loose conglomerate of mutually jealous 
 cantons into a firmly articulated confederacy. The 
 share which Keller himself bore in this great na- 
 tional achievement quickened his being to higher 
 issues and informed his work with its most charac- 
 teristic tone. 
 
 Keller’s father, a peasant by descent, but ambi- 
 tious for his children, learned a trade and settled 
 in Zurich, where in 1819 Gottfried was born. The 
 sturdy master-craftsman read widely if diffusely, 
 and exhibited a lively interest in all movements 
 tending to inject into the drabness of the working- 
 class to which he belonged a gleam of a higher 
 existence. Unfortunately, this excellent man died 
 young, leaving a widow in straitened circum- 
 stances to take care of two children: a little girl 
 and the fractious and self-willed Gottfried. Con- 
 vulsive struggles with himself and his environment 
 [106] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 early left their stamp upon the boy. Several public 
 schools, chosen less for their excellence than from 
 regard for his mother’s meagre resources, proved 
 unsatisfactory. Finally, at the age of fifteen, he 
 was expelled for a bit of youthful ebullience and 
 insubordination. Thus his natural gifts were early 
 left to luxuriate unmolested but unguided. In a 
 world of cruel fact he was soon to discover that 
 lack of salutary discipline is the source of gravest 
 danger precisely to the artist. The serious expe- 
 riences gained through the following years may be 
 . said to have given the dominant tone to his philoso- 
 phy and his work. 
 
 But at first he struck out gleefully enough. 
 There is more than a touch of the tragi-comic in the 
 choice he made. The poor widow’s son felt the art- 
 ist’s prick and impulsively decided upon what is 
 generally conceded to be the least remunerative of 
 the professions : the painter’s. For six years he floun- 
 dered, partly self-taught, partly under incompetent 
 guidance. His first teacher was wholly ignorant, 
 his second, though talented, lacking in poise and 
 maturity. Finally, in 1840, at the age of twenty- 
 one, he decided to finish his training at a great art- 
 • centre. By dint of a serious financial sacrifice on 
 the part of his mother, he went to Munich, which 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 through the efforts of King Louis I had assumed a 
 leading position in the art-life of German-speaking 
 countries. Here he came in contact with gifted 
 youths from far and near. For the first time he 
 had an opportunity to measure himself against 
 real talent — and he found himself wanting. The 
 letters home from this period reflect a growing and 
 profound unhappiness. Yet they reveal no trace 
 of fatuous self-pity, but are informed with genuine 
 readiness to look ugly facts in the face and to admit 
 that he had made a mistake. Gottfried, in other 
 words, under circumstances the most untoward, is 
 coming into his maturity. 
 
 Nor do these years of abortive apprenticeship 
 seem entirely wasted. To them he doubtless owes 
 much of that delicacy of retina, that gift for visual- 
 ization, which in later years enabled him to inform 
 with the verisimilitude of reality the world which 
 his pages conjure up. The struggle for mastery in 
 two spheres of art seems to have been no uncom- 
 mon phenomenon among modern German writers: 
 Goethe, like Keller, wavered for a time between lit- 
 erature and painting; and his artistry, too, was en- 
 riched by the experience. More often it was music 
 which competed with the poetic instinct. In some, 
 as in E. T. A. Hoffmann, the two currents ran side 
 [108] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 by side without mutual injury; in others, like Otto 
 Ludwig the dramatist, the conflict grew wellnigh 
 catastrophic; whereas in Richard Wagner, union of 
 the two resulted in one of the sublimest of modem 
 creations. 
 
 In 1843, baffled and defeated, Keller returned 
 home. The next five years were outwardly marked 
 with the same lack of accomplishment which had 
 characterized the preceding ones, yet they brought 
 1 with them great inner enrichment and the first 
 adumbration of his true vocation. Zurich at the 
 moment was a storm centre of political controversy. 
 After the French July Revolution of 1830, Switzer- 
 land had become a veritable beehive for Liberals 
 from various parts of the continent who were un- 
 . welcome at home. Zurich especially was the asy- 
 lum of German publicists and politicians 'whose 
 writings were scattering the ferment which was to 
 lead to the great burst of 1848. Switzerland her- 
 self was going through a painful and important, 
 transformation. In almost every canton the clash 
 between liberalism and vested rights was grave. 
 Civil war was in the air. In the Catholic cantons, 
 the Jesuits were making convulsive efforts to main- 
 tain their loosening hold. Yet liberal thought im- 
 ported from England, France, and Germany was 
 
 [109] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 bound to prevail. It is in this atmosphere that 
 Gottfried for the first time finds his natural level, to 
 The sturdy son of the soil, by his very descent bound 
 to side with liberalism, had steeped himself in the 
 verses of the German revolutionary leaders like 
 Anastasius Grim, Freiligrath, and Herwegh. 
 Aglow with the conviction that the health and sal- 
 vation of a country depend upon the will of the 
 people, he throws himself with robust joy into the 
 commotion and becomes conspicuous as a healthy 
 troublemaker — and as a poet. The verses of 
 Herwegh, author of the “Song of Hate” and the 
 Sonnet on Shelley, and of Griin, whose epic “Rub- 
 bish” had glowingly held aloft the United States of I 
 America with its youth and freedom from tradition 1 
 as an ideal to the hypercultured and decadent world 
 of Europe, had set his brain reeling. In 1845 he' 
 finds a publisher for his first volume of verse. 
 Though essentially derivative both in form and 
 content, these first fruits of Keller’s genius betray 
 some of that freshness of vision and unquenchable 
 love of life which inform all of his later pages. 
 
 The appearance of these poems brought to a 
 focus a growing suspicion on the part of the busy; 
 burghers of Zurich that this man, who at the age of' 
 twenty-nine had not yet found a remunerative occu- 
 [110] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 pation, yet showed promise of becoming an honor 
 to his town. A stipend was granted him for the 
 purpose of literary study in Germany. 
 
 In 1848 he arrived in Heidelberg and listened to 
 lectures on literature, history, philosophy, and kin- 
 dred subjects. It now became his purpose to make 
 of himself a great dramatist who should stir the 
 entire German-speaking world, an aspiration as 
 futile as that youthful hope of becoming a painter 
 had proved in Munich ten years earlier. Neverthe- 
 less, the sojourn in Heidelberg was a most impor- 
 tant epoch, a veritable turning-point. For here he 
 ■ came into contact with that personality who was 
 destined to give direction to his philosophy. Lud- 
 : wig Feuerbach, the philosopher (1804-1872), was 
 | at the time one of the most conspicuous figures in 
 : Germany. Keller had known of him for some time 
 and had disparaged his tenets as sordid and de- 
 i dressing. Chance would have it that this very man 
 should be giving a series of public lectures in Heidel- 
 e 3er g at the invitation of a group of citizens. The 
 :ext of these lectures is to be found substantially 
 a anchanged in his collected works and throws an 
 , llumination on Keller’s development. 
 
 The outlook which these utterances and Feuer- 
 . aach’s other writings reveal may be briefly summed 
 
 [ill] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 up as follows. Christianity and the Hegelian phi- 
 losophy have both been seriously at fault in postu- 
 lating a force entirely outside of man as the source 
 of inspiration, thus misplacing the centre of gravity. 
 We have no knowledge of God. Everything man: 
 has predicated of God or the gods has been derived 
 from man’s own experience or is the reflex of his 
 hopes and his ideals. So that we may boldly re- 
 verse the Bible statement and declare: Man made 
 God in his own image. Our only source of knowl- 
 edge is the material universe as revealed to us 
 through the senses. Man’s inspiration is his ex- 
 perience; and for him Truth is that which his spirit 
 derives from experience. Hence, not materialism, 
 but the distillation of the material through the spirit 
 is the product of Feuerbach’s philosophy. Instead 
 of the other-worldliness of dogmatic Christianity, 
 Feuerbach postulates the inherent sacredness of this 
 life. A new time, he maintains, requires a new 
 religion, and this he sums up in the phrase:. “I 
 would change you from lovers of God to lovers of 
 men; from candidates for heaven to students of 
 this earth.” In place of a hope in a better here- 
 after he substitutes the will to create a better world 
 here- — not singly, but with concerted effort. 
 
 [ 112 ] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 These doctrines were bound to fall like dew upon 
 a generation athirst for reality. Nor did Feuerbach 
 stand alone. A decade earlier, D. F. Strausz had 
 stunned the theological world by his Life of Jesus, 
 in which the manhood of Jesus is made to shine out 
 from the debris of his shattered godhood — views 
 since rendered familiar to the world at large by 
 Strausz’s disciple, Ernest Renan. Contemporary 
 with Feuerbach the French Positivists with the bril- 
 liant Comte at their head were exerting an ever- 
 increasing influence, especially in France; while the 
 sublime commonsense of John Stuart Mill was lead- 
 ing the Anglo-Saxon world into similar channels. 
 In Germany, the teachings of Feuerbach swept the 
 ■ new generation. No less a person than Richard 
 
 I Wagner yielded to its spell before he fell a victim 
 to the magic of Schopenhauer’s pessimism. 
 
 Keller, brought up in the traditions of Protestant 
 . theology, as it had prevailed in the Canton of 
 • Zurich since the days of Zwingli, could not absorb 
 . the new ideas without a shock. But personal ex- 
 . perience and the trend of the times had paved the 
 J way. And in last analysis the new doctrine im- 
 plied mainly a transference of allegiance : from be- 
 ing a devotee of God he was asked to become a 
 
 [ 113 ] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 lover of man. Thus was laid the foundation for 
 Keller’s future activity. His new creed implanted 
 deep within him that perception of the sacredness 
 of the Real which was to make of him a faithful, 
 we might say a devout, transcriber of life. 
 
 As yet, however, he had not found the proper 
 medium for self-expression. In 1850 he left Hei- 
 delberg for Berlin in order to get into contact with 
 the stage. For four bitter years he struggled against 
 the growing conviction that he lacked the dramatic 
 gift, as once he had found himself impotent upon 
 canvas. These were the bitterest and loneliest 
 years of his life, slightly ameliorated only by contact 
 with the literary circle of Varnhagen von Ense, 
 whose once famous salon, though waning in splendor 
 since the death of his wife, the brilliant Rahel, was 
 still proving a magnet to rising literary talents like 
 Geibel and Heyse. 
 
 It was at this time that Keller turned to narrative 
 art, which was to prove his natural medium of ex- 
 pression. He began to sketch his own experiences 
 as boy and youth in what later became one of the 
 great autobiographical novels: Green Henry. In 
 this, its first dress (1854-55), it was a somewhat 
 amorphous but refreshingly spontaneous record of 
 the adventures, impressions, soul-searchings of an 
 
 [114] 
 
i in Two Great Narrators 
 
 , - 
 
 ' original artist in his first tragic encounter with the 
 I world. The spirit of Jean Paul Richter was strong 
 : upon Keller. 
 
 We cannot refrain from lingering a moment upon 
 this name, associated as it is with wide-reaching 
 ' influence upon German literature. Jean Paul Rich- 
 ■ ter (1763-1835) presents a most complex and fas- 
 1 cinating problem to the student of nineteenth- 
 : century letters. Plis was a personality made up 
 : of dazzling contrasts: dowered with a strong sense 
 : of reality, yet continually losing himself in phan- 
 : tastic vagaries; characterized by genuine sentiment 
 : (often, to be sure, degenerating into mawkish senti- 
 , mentality), yet capable of chilling cynicism; inca- 
 : pable, like most Romanticists, of adapting himself to 
 : his environment, yet keenly aware of the pitfalls 
 
 I attending “the lone wolf.” This man created a stir 
 whose ripples broke far beyond the bounds of his 
 : native land. His range was of the widest: from the 
 ■ loving delineation of the humble schoolmaster in 
 W uz , to the eaglelike sweep of his Titan. He con- 
 jures up an endless procession of men and women 
 in all stations and conditions: noblemen, officials, 
 vagabonds, artists, workingmen, young girls, old 
 women with witchlike faces — and all seen from an 
 original angle, most of them crotchety and out of 
 
 [ 115 ] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 the ordinary, at odds with life, all of them tinged 
 with a glow of their author’s genius. This seething; 
 world he depicts in a style which would be sublime if 
 it were not too often irritating, marvelously rich in 
 new and telling word-formations, palpitating with- 
 vitality, inspiring, and in last analysis unsatis- 
 factory because of the writer’s extraordinary lack 
 of self-control. His might truly be called a “grass-| 
 hopper style,” since he constantly confuses the 
 reader by jumping after any and every will-o’-the- 
 wisp suggestion of his imagination. His message 
 lies in the midst of a forbidding hedge of briar 
 roses whose thorns often make one forget the beauty 
 of the blossoms. This dangerous genius became for 
 a time the mentor of the literary world of Germany 
 and even deeply impressed England, where Carlyle 
 sought to interpret him to his countrymen. 
 
 The attraction which this erratic soul exercised 
 upon the youthful Keller is easily explained by the 
 affinity of their natures: their common interest in 
 what Matthew Arnold calls “the multiform aspects: 
 of the problem of life,” which lies at the base of 
 both their sentiment and their humor. The same : 
 sense for the grotesque and crotchety, the same re-' 
 bellion against fate, the same yielding to personal 
 idiosyncrasy actuate both. But Keller was later 
 [116] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 : to exhibit a will resolute to combat the centrifugal 
 : forces within himself and to correct his vagaries 
 : by the discipline of experience. His consequent 
 : growth in artistic self-control appears most im- 
 ; pressively in the contrast between the first Jean- 
 . Paulian dress of the novel Green Henry and its 
 later form ( 1879), which made of it one of the great 
 novels of the nineteenth century, taking rank near 
 - Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister. 
 
 But as yet during the entire stay in Berlin (till 
 1855) Keller drifts along, groping in the dark, 
 following now this lead, now that. Plis imagina- 
 tion seethed with plans. Some ripened into those 
 unique tales which later were to make his name 
 a household word among German-speaking peo- 
 ples. In 1855 we him back in Zurich, appar- 
 ently as signal a failure as ever, although within a 
 limited circle he was favorably known through his 
 Green Henry and although the following year saw 
 his first volume of stories, Seldwyla Folk. Yet 
 here he was, nearly forty years old, bursting with 
 vitality and still living on the meagre means of his 
 mother, with whom, moreover, relations were not 
 uniformly harmonious, — and this, too, in the midst 
 of a small community humming with busy workers. 
 So that he might well appear to himself like the 
 
 [ 117 ] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 mute pipe in the great organ which produces the full 
 volume of the world’s harmony, as he felicitously ( 
 expressed it in his poem The Day’s Work. 
 
 Yet these years were not wholly sterile, and the 
 long lane was approaching its turn at last. With 
 word and pen he had thrown himself, immediately 
 upon his return home, into the political discussion ! 
 that he found raging about the problems engendered 
 by the new democracy. But while ten years earlier 
 his political interests were marked by panoplied j 
 idealism and boyish zest for the fight, we now find 
 him mature, self-controlled, generous, and always 
 anxious for those compromises without which demo- 
 cratic institutions cannot survive. These activities 
 encouraged his friends in the apparently phantastic 
 enterprise of securing for him an important govern- 
 ment post — no small undertaking in a republic of 
 sober, hardheaded men who saw in him essentially 
 the inexperienced poet of convivial habits, whose 1 
 capricious humor, crotchety outbursts, and homely 
 wisdom had injected pungency into the burghers’ 
 daily monotony and had given rise to a whole crop 
 of legends. And yet the efforts of his admirers 
 were crowned with success. In 1861 he was made 
 “Staatsschreiber” — a sort of business manager — of 
 the Canton of Zurich, a position of great responsi- i 
 [118] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 bility, calling for tact, judgment, and exceptional 
 capacity for work. 
 
 Violent, even abusive protest by part of the press 
 at the idea of entrusting so important a post to an 
 inexperienced and none too reliable poet was not un- 
 natural. The writers expressed respect for the poet, 
 but saw no connection between literary talent and 
 business ability. Suspicion of his reliability could 
 hardly be allayed by his initial appearance in of- 
 fice. In consequence of a festive meeting in honor 
 of the Socialist leader Lasalle, Keller was late in 
 reporting for duty on the first day of his officialdom. 
 But his first was also his last dereliction from duty. 
 To the delight of his friends and the amazement of 
 the opposition, this erratic individual took himself 
 severely in hand and within a few months developed 
 into the best “Staatsschreiber” Zurich had had for 
 many a decade. The very press which had attacked 
 him felt constrained to offer apologies and to voice 
 their admiration and respect for the new official. 
 
 At this point we are reminded of Paul Heyse’s 
 definition of a Novelle, a tale which, by a sudden 
 turn of events, brings about an unexpected change 
 and taps hitherto unsuspected veins in the character 
 of the hero. Keller’s tragi-comic career reads like 
 one of his own masterly stories in which life takes 
 
 [ 119 ] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 hold of the shiftless and vagrant and — half kindly, 
 half brutal — shakes him into place. » 
 
 Keller’s remaining years flowed smoothly — a 
 mellow harvest following a tempestuous summer. 
 After fifteen years of assiduous devotion to public 
 service, he left his position amid the plaudits of an 
 admiring citizenry, in order to devote himself to his 
 literary pursuits which had perforce been somewhat 
 relegated to the background. But his interest in 
 public affairs never ceased and his comments upon 
 passing events, his praise and blame, were eagerly 
 heeded. He who as a boy had been ignominiously 
 ejected from the public schools, whose youth and 
 early manhood had aroused suspicion, became in his 
 last years the beloved and revered mentor of his 
 canton and died (1890) the most honored among his 
 fellow-countrymen. Keller, like some of the might- 
 iest writers of all times — Shakespeare, Cervantes, 
 Goethe — discovered that great literature may well 
 be a by-product of a strenuous life. 
 
 This extraordinary individual has left a deep 
 trace upon German letters. He expressed himself 
 in lyrics, tales ( Novellen ), and in novels. The 
 lyrics which charm rather by their spontaneity than 
 by their finish of form, reveal his inner struggles 
 as well as a healthy, buoyant view of the world. 
 [120] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 They throb with a passionate love for even the 
 minutest phenomena of nature, which they render 
 with an accuracy startling for his day and genera- 
 tion (witness: bestaubt und unrein schmolz im 
 Hag das letzte Hauflein Schnee from Tauge- 
 nickts). Such verses affiliate him with that group 
 of modern poets who like Tennyson and Browning 
 observed with a keener retina than their predecessors 
 1 “things as they are.” Nor does he shrink from 
 touching upon such matters as politics and even 
 machinery (so shocking to Ruskin’s sensibilities). 
 Thus he rebukes the Romantic poet Justinus Ker- 
 ner who in 1845 had bewailed the possible advent 
 of the airship as a destroyer of poetry, whereas Kel- 
 ler would acclaim it a manifestation of energy and 
 thus an added stimulus to poetic expression (An 
 Justinus Kerner). Keller belongs to the generation 
 of Courbet who exclaimed: “II faut encanailler 
 V art.^ 
 
 Of prose tales (N ovellen) we have four collec- 
 tions: Seldwyla Folk (1856, 1873), Zurich Tales 
 
 1 (1878), The Epigram (1882), and Seven Legends 
 (1872). Seldwyla is an imaginary town in Swit- 
 zerland, whose inhabitants are given to idiosyn- 
 crasies and “ Gemiitlichkeit ” and who rarely err on 
 the side of self-severity. The stories which deal with 
 
 [121] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 their adventures treat exclusively of peasants and 
 small townspeople. But within this humble set- 
 ting the pageant of life is limned in a great variety 
 of aspects — now with a Dickens-like revel in its gro- 
 tesqueness (as in The Three Decent Comb-makers'), 
 now reminding one of the technique of an old wood- 
 cut (as is Pankraz the Grouch), now frankly di- 
 dactic (as in Frau ReguJa Amrain and her Young- 
 est, which distantly relates Keller with his great 
 countrymen Rousseau and Pestalozzi) ; now rising 
 to the heights of tragic grandeur in A Village Romeo ’ 
 and Juliet . The second volume of Seldwyla Folk 
 shows a widening of horizon by the inclusion of one 
 of his most delightful historical narratives, Dietegen , \ 
 which in the style of an old ballad tells a tale of 
 love and bliss and death against a background of 
 “battles long ago.” 
 
 The Zurich Tales mark an advance in stylistic 
 urbanity without diminution of stylistic vigor, i 
 Here the historical note first struck in Dietegen pre- ! 
 vails. Keller selects as background significant 
 periods from the history of his beloved Zurich: from 
 the song-fraught times of the Minnesinger (in Had- 
 laub), through the passionate turbulence of Zwingli’s i 
 day, to the periwigged eighteenth century of Solo-i 
 mon Gessner in The Landgrave of Greifensee and 
 [ 122 ] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 to the triumphs of nineteenth-century democracy in 
 The Banner of the Upright Seven. 
 
 The enlargement of vision implied in the Zurich 
 Tales is even increased in the collection called The 
 Epigram. Here our Zurich Staatsschreiber surprises 
 by an imaginative sympathy with fields lying far 
 beyond the range of his own canton and of his own 
 class. Picturesque and wily Indians, adventurous 
 Spaniards of the sixteenth century, noblemen and 
 noblewomen, gay French officers in the retinue of 
 Rochambeau, representatives of post-colonial re- 
 finement as found in the Boston of the early nine- 
 teenth century, conjure up a world which must have 
 astounded those who saw in Keller merely the 
 chronicler of Seldwyla. The increase of intellec- 
 tual versatility and appreciation of moral and social 
 distinction make us forget a certain artificiality aris- 
 ing out of the seventeenth-century “conceit” on 
 which the “frame” that encases the story is based. 
 
 Nowhere does Keller’s robust and genial worldli- 
 ness bubble more spontaneously than in the metamor- 
 phosis of a series of legends originally conceived 
 in a spirit of monkish asceticism and Presbyterian 
 severity. Early in the nineteenth century, one 
 Krummacher, well-intentioned Lutheran pastor, 
 had rewritten certain medieval legends for the pur- 
 
 [ 123 ] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 pose of whetting the moral appetite of a sermon- 
 fed people. These fell into Keller’s hand and he 
 promptly transcribed them into Kellerese. The 
 burden of all the Seven Legends is identical, but 
 two are so happy in their humor and their mundane 
 religiosity, that they deserve a more minute study. 
 In The Legend of the Dance (T anzlegendchen ) , 
 we are told that whenever paradise was preparing 
 for a special occasion, the Nine Muses used to be 
 called in from Hades to help out in the celebration. 
 One day, however, the experiment turned out 
 badly. For the Nine, in return for good treatment 
 and excellent fare, intoned a song whose message of 
 earthly woes and joys swept the celestials with bit- 
 tersweet longing for the robust experiences of this 
 world. Unwonted wailing filled the heavens, nor 
 was peace restored until the August Trinity itself 
 sternly expelled the troublemakers. Another of 
 the Seven Legends , The Nun and the Virgin , in- 
 forms an oft-told tale with a truly Goethean rever- 
 ence for life. The nun Beatrice — it is the same 
 Beatrice whom Maeterlinck portrays in mystic col- 
 ors — has for years faithfully performed her duties 
 in the nunnery perched high up in the mountains. 
 But often her eye has roved pensively far over the 
 land and her ear has drunk in wistfully the sound 
 [124] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 of the hunter’s horn. At last the longing for the 
 world proves irresistible and she leaves the con- 
 vent’s protecting walls in search of the experience 
 of living. After many years she returns world- 
 wearied and takes up again the tasks which mean- 
 while the Virgin had performed in her stead. One 
 day the nuns are arranging a feast for our Lady. 
 All have been busy preparing gifts to please the 
 heart of Holy Mother. One has composed a Latin 
 poem, another a hymn of praise, a third has worked 
 the Holy Child a new robe, a fourth has baked Him 
 a dish of cakes. Beatrice alone has been lost in 
 memories of her experiences outside the convent 
 walls and on the feastday stands abashed with 
 empty hands. But behold, the tramp of many feet 
 is heard without, the door of the church opens wide 
 and in marches a grayheaded knight followed by 
 eight stalwart sons. They are all in full panoply. 
 As they kneel before the altar, Beatrice recognizes 
 her husband and eight sons, companions of those 
 years spent in the world outside. She breaks her 
 long silence and proclaims them hers, and eight 
 wreaths appear on the youths’ brows, as a sign that 
 the Virgin accepts Beatrice’s gift beyond all the 
 rest. Not as an advocate of self-indulgence nor 
 yet of Renaissance individualism does Keller speak 
 
 [125] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 here, but as an exponent of nineteenth-century so- 
 cial consciousness: Beatrice’s eight stalwart sons 
 are the most acceptable gift to the deity, because 
 most useful to the community. 
 
 Of his two long novels, Martin Salander ( 1886), 
 the work of his old age, though inferior to Keller’s 
 best narratives, furnishes interesting if somewhat 
 depressing comment on the development of his po- 
 litical views. The devoted patriot found himself 
 compelled through that sturdy intellectual honesty 
 which never forsook him to admit the insidious 
 dangers which haunt a prosperous democracy. He 
 depicts growing corruption and materialism threat- 
 ening those fair institutions for which he himself 
 had so valiantly fought. Before he could write 
 the sequel to this story, in which confidence in a 
 brighter future was to mitigate this gloomy picture 
 of the present, his vigorous life, which to the end 
 had been devoted to the welfare of his country, was 
 quenched. 
 
 His great autobiographical novel, Green Henry, 
 whose genesis during the author’s period of “Storm 
 and Stress” and whose evolution from Jean-Paulian 
 diffuseness to the close-knit epic of the author’s ma- 
 turity we mentioned above, is a crosscut of the nine- 
 teenth century shot through with episodes, Novel- 
 [126] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 len, “characters,” disquisitions on philosophy, pol- 
 itics, religion. A manifold humanity peoples these 
 pages, seen with the eye of the painter, felt with the 
 heart of youth. And because so freshly and warmly 
 conceived, these diverse personalities breathe the 
 very breath of life. The crabbed and grotesque 
 lodgers of his mother’s home; the mother herself, 
 self-sacrificing yet circumscribed; the old curiosity- 
 shop-keeper to whom the starving author carried 
 one after another of his cherished possessions; the 
 women who at various times stirred his heart — mys- 
 terious Judith, limpid Anna, fair Dortchen — the 
 Munich boheme with its bitter struggles and joyous 
 revels; the mellow priest, the tolerant Feuerbachian 
 Count; — these and many others by bringing him in 
 contact with man’s heritage of smiles and tears help 
 to discipline the wayward hero. 
 
 As all Keller’s stories show, no one loved the 
 idiosyncratic, the “originals,” more than he. His 
 work teems with the odd, the grotesque, done with 
 Dickens-like delight in their physical and psy- 
 chical deformities. In Green Henry, Haversaat, 
 half artist, half charlatan; Roemer, the imaginative 
 and inspired painter, woefully lacking in poise; the 
 ill-starred Albertus Zwiehahn who follows his lost 
 love, Afra Zigonia Mayluft, to Greenland, sickens 
 
 [127] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 of his adventure and returns only to become the 
 servant of his half-brother; noisy and vulgar Peter 
 Gilgus, the irrepressible proselyter, intolerant and 
 intolerable champion of Feuerbach; and last but 
 not least the “hero” himself, who early puzzled 
 parents and teachers as one of nature’s “sports.” 
 The pages of Zurich Tales are illumined by such 
 oddities as Salomon Landolff, the genially eccentric | 
 magistrate of Greifensee, who united in himself all 
 the component parts of an excellent family man, 
 yet who, like the eccentric author himself, was pre- 
 destined to bachelorhood. Seldwyla is peopled 
 largely by oddities, some malignant, some benev- 
 olent. The hunchback in Dietegen is evidently of 
 the Quilp family and the demoniacal figure of the 
 “Black Fiddler” in A Village Romeo and Juliet is 
 fit to rank with Scott’s “Black Dwarf.” 
 
 Keller’s mind is evidently filled with reminiscen- 
 ces of Romanticists like Jean Paul, Brentano, 
 E. T. A. Hoffmann. But it is Romanticism disci- ! 
 plined by the modern social sense as well as by 
 Feuerbachian philosophy. Unlike Byron he did 
 not advocate being in the world but not of it. He 
 transcends the Romantic cult of eccentricity for its: 
 own sake and demands that oddities and extrava- 
 gances, however delightful in themselves, be made 
 [128] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 subservient to the communal interest. Hence many 
 of his stepchildren of nature, however gleefully 
 limned, turn out to be essentially harmful. Some, 
 to be sure, like Strazinsky, the aspiring tailor in 
 Clothes Make the Man ( Seldwyla Folk ), submit 
 to life’s discipline and turn out useful and success- 
 ful members of their community; others, like The 
 Fool of Mannegg { Zurich Tales), are cast upon the 
 scrap heap. But Keller was no preacher of selfish 
 opportunism. In The Three Decent Comhmakers 
 {Seldwyla Folk), Richard Wagner’s favorite, he 
 pours the vitriol of his sarcasm upon the sneaking, 
 crawling “heroes” and the worthy object of their 
 affection, Ziis Bunzlein. Nor was he a pedantic 
 moralist. He peopled his stage with real men and 
 women whose experiences fascinate quite regardless 
 of their author’s philosophy. In Clothes Make the 
 \ Man {Seldwyla Folk) sly humor is happily blended 
 1 with pathos; The Three Decent Comhmakers {Seld- 
 wyla Folk) is the most powerful expression of Kel- 
 ler’s sardonic vein; a limpid serenity and lyric fla- 
 vor haunt every line of Hadlaub {Zurich Tales); 
 and the aspiring joys and festivity of temper char- 
 acteristic of a sturdy burgherdom illumine the 
 pages of The Banner of the Upright Seven {Zurich 
 Tales) ; while Green Henry, reflecting all these va- 
 
 [129] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 rious facets, gives us Keller’s manysided personality 
 in its entirety. 
 
 Keller never wrote anything more magnificent 
 than A Village Romeo and Juliet , published in 
 1856 as one of the collection Seldwyla Folk, which 
 deserves special mention as one of the five or six 
 really great short-stories of the nineteenth century. 
 An age-old tragedy is here retold in the setting of a 
 simple village community with such power and 
 subtlety that a shaft seems to be sunk down to the 
 very heart of things and we are vouchsafed a 
 glimpse of the mysterious underprops of life. 
 
 This great narrator was also a great stylist. He 
 had the typically German gift of extracting its po- 
 etic essence from the homespun word or phrase. 
 His style is characterized not so much by Gallic 
 charm and elegance as by unrivalled spontaneity, 
 virile adequacy, and lyric savor. 
 
 1 
 
 CONRAD FERDINAND MEYER 
 
 With all its vitality and its charm Keller’s con- 
 ception of life and art implies serious exclusions. 
 His was the genius of the bourgeoisie with all that 
 term presupposes for good and for ill. Large pas- 
 sions, titanic struggles, temperamental aversion to 
 the commonplace and petty — these were not for 
 
 [130] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 him. But the same small town of Zurich and the 
 same age produced another master narrator who in 
 almost every respect is the antipode of the chron- 
 icler of Seldwyla. 
 
 Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (1825-98) may in the 
 field of the short-story be regarded as the spokesman 
 of those thousands whom the nineteenth century 
 with all its achievements in science and industry, 
 its democracy, its quantitative manifestations, and 
 its increase of middle-class consciousness, left un- 
 satisfied, left a-hunger for a larger dignity, for dis- 
 tinction and elevation. While Keller may be asso- 
 ciated with Dickens and George Eliot, Meyer owes 
 inspiration to Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and Ti- 
 tian. Placed by an ironical fate in a setting hostile 
 to his nature — in the swirl of a seething little indus- 
 trial republic in the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury — he seems in his aloofness and aloneness a 
 veritable Sebastian Van Stork. 
 
 Heredity and early environment were significant 
 factors in Meyer’s development. His father was a 
 government official in high standing whose leisure 
 was devoted to historical studies and publications. 
 His mother’s intense religiousness together with her 
 love for French early impressed his character and 
 tastes. Both parents, of patrician stock, were 
 
 [>3i] 
 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 highly cultured, of a profound Protestant piety, 
 and a delicate nervous organization. The father 
 died young and the mother exhibited morbid tend- 
 encies which finally, during Meyer’s adolescence, 
 ended in suicide. Thus, in contrast with Keller’s 
 robust inheritance from peasant ancestry, Meyer, 
 while free from Keller’s struggles with poverty, 
 was dowered with hypersensitiveness and early 
 glimpsed the horrors of life. 
 
 Meyer’s youth, like Keller’s, was tortured by con- 
 flicting instincts and the absence of a definite aim. 
 He found his true calling even later than Keller. 
 Unable, moreover, to drown his sense of incompe- 
 tence in conviviality or the excitement of political 
 strife, Meyer could only retreat within himself, 
 morbidly shunning his fellowmen, going out only 
 at night, until he was virtually forgotten by the 
 busy bustling community. The agony of these 
 years wore upon him to such an extent that at the 
 age of twenty-seven he was obliged to retire for 
 some months to an asylum for nervous treatment. 
 He, too, in his groping, hit upon the painter’s art, 
 though lingering in this byway for a far briefer 
 space than did Keller. The longest detour which 
 he made was the intensive study of French to which 
 as a German-Swiss of the cultured class he was quite 
 [ 132 ] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 normally attracted. His parents’ influence and 
 later at Lausanne contact with his mother’s friend, 
 the distinguished historian and theologian Vullie- 
 min, set in motion two currents destined to become 
 determining factors: Romance culture and his- 
 torical studies. Repeated sojourns in Lausanne 
 strengthened his hold upon French, in which he be- 
 came so proficient that he conceived the plan of be- 
 coming a teacher, even a University professor, of 
 French language and literature. He translated 
 voluminously from French into German and even 
 began to render Mommsen’s Roman History into 
 French for publication. Not the frivolous or ele- 
 gant France of Watteau and Marmontel, however, 
 attracted him, but the serious France of the Hugue- 
 nots, the thoughtful France of Pascal. 
 
 Like most youths of his day young Meyer hark- 
 ened to the spell of Romanticism. Polish fugitives, 
 Italian Carbonari, Jean Paul, and especially the 
 poetry of Lenau and of Alfred de Musset thrilled 
 his imagination. Truly romantic too was his 
 plunge into the study of the past. During long 
 years of desperate loneliness, of profound self- 
 dissatisfaction, of withering self-contempt, he de- 
 voted his empty days to a voracious reading of 
 biographies, chronicles, memoirs, histories — with a 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 decided preference for the Middle Ages and the 
 time of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation 
 — storing his mind with impressions which he later 
 integrated into pictures. Certain commanding fig- 
 ures of history were his familiars from boyhood: 
 the dominating personality of Charlemagne; that 
 fascinating forerunner of the Renaissance, Fred- 
 erick II of Hohenstaufen, warrior and poet, free- 
 thinker in a medieval setting; Colbert and other 
 French Huguenots, champions of religious freedom 
 — figures which were to bloom into life on the can- 
 vas of his tales. During these apparently sterile 
 years he remained in his own eyes what his excellent 
 mother, who never understood her enigmatical son, 
 was wont to call him: “le pauvre Conrad .” 
 
 Soon after her tragic end Meyer, chancing to 
 come into a small fortune, went on an extended 
 journey. In 1857 in Paris he yielded to none of 
 the allurements against which his mother had fre- 
 quently warned him. Rather did the brilliant 
 capital of the Second Empire impress his Hugue- 
 not soul with “the melancholy of gaiety.” It was 
 the Paris of a soberer past— -of a Bartholomew’s 
 Eve — and Paris as a treasure-trove of art that cast 
 its spell upon him. In matters of painting, his 
 taste was significantly as yet guided by ethical rather 
 [ 134 ] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 than by esthetic values, so that in spite of admira- 
 tion for Correggio, it was Perugino’s spiritual grace 
 and Ingres’ refined severity that satisfied his Pre- 
 raphaelite proclivities. Nor did a short stay in 
 Munich which immediately followed make any 
 vital change in his viewpoint. 
 
 Now, however, fate thrust him into a new world. 
 He and his sister — faithful companion of these 
 years of groping — determined upon a visit to Italy. 
 Little did he dream that this was to mean a revolu- 
 tion of his whole being. We may say of a truth 
 that while Keller found himself through absorption 
 of Feuerbachian philosophy, Meyer discovered in 
 Italy the touchstone that drew his varied abilities 
 into focus. For Meyer belongs to that group of 
 distinguished minds for whom Italy became a veri- 
 table soul-experience, though for each a different 
 talisman : to Addison, eminent Latinist, she was pri- 
 marily the home of Virgil and of Statius; Winckel- 
 mann and Goethe found in her monuments of Greek 
 antiquity the elixir their spirit craved; Byron and 
 the other Romanticists reveled in the mordant pic- 
 turesqueness of her decay; to Meyer Italy meant 
 the gigantic figures of Michelangelo and the glow- 
 ing canvases of Titian. Thrice he crossed the Alps : 
 once in 1858, a second time in 1871, and later 
 
 [ 135 ] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 with his young bride in 1875. During the first 
 visit the Eternal City captivated his imagination, 
 unrolling before him the great pageant of history: 
 man’s heroic wickedness, his glorious aspirations, 
 his mighty accomplishments, his tragic failures. 
 Great human documents like the Colosseum, the Pan- 
 theon, the Vatican with its Michelangelos and its 
 Raphaels challenge his strongly developed histori- 
 cal sense and mature his artistic perceptions. It 
 was at this time too that on a visit to Florence 
 he came in contact with Ricasoli, one of the com- 
 manding personalities of the great Italian strug- 
 gle for unification. This was a type new and 
 striking to the native of a small Swiss provincial 
 town, a rare combination of urbanity and force. 
 Such — he might well have felt — must have been the 
 men of the Renaissance. His second Italian stay, 
 spent mainly in Venice, was equally important for 
 his development. The canvases of Titian emanci- 
 pated our young Huguenot from petty moral tram- 
 mels, opening his eyes to the enrichment that may 
 result from an exalted sensuousness. He learns to 
 distinguish between morality and esthetics. From 
 now on “ le grand art ” becomes for him the only 
 proper vehicle for great thoughts. Contact with 
 Italy, moreover, did for Meyer what Feuerbach’s 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 tutelage had done for Keller: it weaned him from 
 his romantic sentimentality and revealed to him the 
 sacredness of life. But with one fundamental dif- 
 ference. Meyer’s gaze becomes increasingly fas- 
 cinated not by his own day with all its fortuitous 
 vulgarities and pettinesses so fascinating to Kel- 
 ler, much less by the fantastic dreams of the Roman- 
 ticists, but rather by those periods of the past — the 
 Middle Ages and especially the Renaissance — when 
 passions had sweep and life appeared dignified and 
 picturesque. In 1872, when he returned home from 
 his second Italian trip, Meyer had at last at the 
 age of forty-seven, after infinite struggles, reached 
 his level — and not only as an artist. 
 
 A great political event — the Franco-Prussian War 
 of 1870-71 — and the resulting creation of a power- 
 ful Protestant Empire in the North revealed to him 
 that despite his attachment to French clarity and 
 form, his being rooted deep in German soil. The 
 immediate result was his first important production, 
 the short epic: Hut ten's Last Days (1871). Ulrich 
 1 von Hutten, humanist and cavalier, friend and ad- 
 herent of Luther, patriot and gallant champion of 
 the Protestant cause, appears here in his last hours 
 on a solitary island in the Lake of Zurich that had 
 offered asylum to the hounded hero. With admi- 
 
 [ 137 ] 
 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 rable selectiveness, in terse yet mellow verse, 
 Meyer succeeds in evoking an age fraught with glory 
 and with tragedy for Germany. 
 
 The Hut ten marks the beginning of a new era. 
 The long period of groping and of futile attempts 
 is over. In vain Meyer had essayed tragedies and 
 realistic narrative; of ballads and lyrics two slender 
 volumes had appeared in 1867 and ’69 respectively 
 which, though exhibiting talent, could not compel 
 general attention. But with the Hut ten his en- 
 trance into the literary world was established. Now 
 the current of his life seemed set for happiness — a 
 happiness consummated in 1875 by marriage with 
 Louise Ziegler, daughter of a prosperous patrician 
 family of Zurich. In consequence, the work of the 
 next decade reflects an unwonted serenity. From 
 now on, almost year after year, masterpiece after 
 masterpiece dropped from his pen. At home and 
 abroad recognition comes from the best authorities. 
 “Poor Conrad” at whom his solid countrymen had 
 shrugged the shoulder, now receives the honorable 
 doctorate from his home university. Even from his 
 plebeian contemporary Gottfried Keller, for years 
 the object of Meyer’s admiration, he draws sincere 
 though recalcitrant endorsement. And no less a 
 person than Paul Heyse, regarded at the tittle as the 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 prince of German story writers, welcomes him as a 
 distinguished contemporary, while the leading lit- 
 erary review of Germany, Die deutsche Rundschau , 
 eagerly opens its volumes to him. 
 
 At last, after having passed his fiftieth year, 
 Meyer had found his true field. Besides one long 
 novel ( Jiirg Jenatsch, 1874), glowing* vital, but 
 lacking the maturity and perfect co-ordination of 
 his best shorter tales, and a volume of verse of a 
 rare quality of excellence, all the works of this his 
 best period were Novellen, long “short-stories” like 
 Keller’s but antipodal in spirit. Meyer’s taste and 
 genius found in the historical Novelle their best ve- 
 hicle. 
 
 Two periods almost exclusively are treated in 
 these Novellen: the Middle Ages, which had at- 
 tracted the Romanticists before him but from a 
 totally different viewpoint, and the Renaissance. 
 The first tale in which Meyer reached his highest 
 potency as a narrator was The Saint (1880). In 
 the person of Thomas a Becket, reputed son of a 
 Saxon merchant and a Saracen princess, later to be- 
 come a king’s favorite and Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury only to end his life as rebel and martyr, history 
 1 furnished Meyer with one of those complex char- 
 acters who continued to fascinate him to the end 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 of his days. To motivate the inner revulsions of 
 this man who turned upon his own course, who from 
 being a refined voluptuary, the glass of fashion for 
 all the Norman fops of Henry II’s court, became 
 a gaunt and barefoot monk, sole hope of the Saxon 
 carls — this was a problem after Meyer’s own heart. 
 For to Meyer the goal of the historical tale was not 
 the creation of an archseological artifice. His art 
 is worlds apart from that of a Bulwer-Lytton, an 
 Ebers, a Dahn. His task begins where the his- 
 torian’s leaves off. For the outward contradictory 
 actions he reveals the inner nexus. Yet he antici- 
 pates modern psychology in recognizing the futility 
 of attempting exhaustive explanations of psycho- 
 logical complexity. Like some of our most recent 
 narrators Meyer indicates rather than explains the 
 underlying motives of his enigmatical heroes. 
 Becket’s puzzling contradictoriness roots in “two 
 souls within a single breast” : worldliness and asceti- 
 cism — a combination for which Meyer found the 
 model within himself, at once the Protestant as- 
 cetic as we saw him in Paris and the votary at 
 Titian’s shrine. In a series of masterly scenes 
 Meyer depicts Becket the courtier basking in the 
 sun of the king’s favor, wealthy and powerful, con- 
 scious of his intellectual superiority to both king 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 and court, and playing upon his environment as 
 upon an instrument. Then comes the dramatic 
 volte-face. The king seduces Becket’s young daugh- 
 ter Grace. At first the chancellor, stunned by the 
 blow, proceeds mechanically in the wellworn ruts 
 of his service to the king. But in his soul a mighty 
 revulsion is becoming apparent. Growing disgust 
 with life, which even in the heyday of his glory 
 had been manifest as an undercurrent, now slowly 
 acquires supremacy. The king’s clumsy attempts 
 at conciliation but serve to acerbate the sore soul 
 i and to accentuate his aloneness. And then one day, 
 the king himself — quite unconsciously — forces into 
 his hands the weapon that shall serve him both for 
 vengeance and salvation: he insists on making his 
 chancellor Primate of Canterbury. Now the doom 
 of both swiftly crashes to its consummation. 
 
 The dramatic momentum with which the inci- 
 dents swell to the great climax; a wise economy in 
 the introduction of powerful effects; the poetic fig- 
 ure of Grace, one of Meyer’s happiest inventions 
 — all these make The Saint one of his most perfect 
 tales. 
 
 Whereas the subject of this, Meyer’s first great 
 story, was drawn from the Middle Ages, Plautus 
 in a Nunnery (1882), conspicuous for infinite grace 
 
 [HO 
 
Realism and Romanticism . 
 
 and a genial mellowness of tone hitherto foreign to ^ 
 Meyer’s mood, draws its inspiration from that epoch 
 
 when for the nonce Germanic force and Romance i 1 
 
 tl 
 
 love of beauty united to produce a height of culture 
 and a sweep of life that might well vie with that j J 
 Grecian day from which it drew its main inspira- 
 tion: the Italian Renaissance. 
 
 In the bourgeois atmosphere of the nineteenth | ' 
 century a new “legend” was created, the idealized 1 
 picture of the Renaissance. A styleless generation : 1 
 looked back with envy and longing to those days : 
 when, especially in Italy, a sense of grace and dig- 
 nity were common property, when life was perilous 
 and ample, and strong individualities shattered the 
 shackles of convention; when personality and social 
 intercourse were conceived as works of art and the 
 very household tools bespoke a sense of beauty. 
 This “Renaissancism” — nineteenth-century reaction ! 
 against the prevalent concentration upon the com- 
 monplace — had begun in Germany as early as the ! 
 “Storm and Stress” period, when the young “Ti- 
 tans” felt a natural affinity with the mighty souls ! 
 of a Luther and a Shakespeare. Then Goethe in 
 1810 translated the autobiography of one of the ! 
 most arresting and many-stranded souls of that fas- 
 cinating age, Benvenuto Cellini. A few years 
 [142] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 later, Stendhal, independently of his German prede- 
 cessors, in his short stories betrayed glowing admi- 
 ration for that sixteenth century in Italy which he 
 characterized as the only age combining force with 
 artistic creativeness. But as yet, the very word 
 “Renaissance” was unknown. It was not until 1832 
 that the name was used (by the French historian 
 Michelet) definitely to set apart the period from 
 the Middle Ages on the one hand and the seven- 
 teenth century on the other. A generation later the 
 first portrait of the time between Frederick II of 
 Hohenstaufen and Michelangelo — carefully and 
 fascinatingly drawn — was furnished by the Swiss 
 scholar Jakob Burckhardt in his Kultur der Renais- 
 sance (i860). During the second half of the 
 nineteenth century “Renaissancism” gathered aston- 
 ishing momentum. Did not George Eliot — the 
 pious transcriber of the Commonplace — write a 
 Romola? And did not even the singer of Hiawatha 
 bring to western shores the figures of Michelangelo 
 land Vittoria Colonna 1 ? Fiction, drama, the lyric, 
 the epic, the essay, and even painting and archi- 
 tecture on both sides of the Atlantic bore witness 
 to the mighty pull exercised by beauty and distinc- 
 tion on a commercialized bourgeoisie. In English- 
 speaking countries J. A. Symonds and Walter Pater 
 
 [ 143 ] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 accomplished for the spread of “Renaissancism” 
 what for the peoples of German tongue was done 
 by Burckhardt and Meyer. 
 
 In writing his Plautus , then, Meyer joined a 
 mighty brotherhood that was enriching nineteenth- 
 century culture and at the same time found himself 
 in an atmosphere most congenial to his temperament. j 
 Poggio Bracciolini, genial humanist, foremost among, 
 the impassioned seekers for the precious remnants' 
 of classic lore, entertains a brilliant circle at the 
 court of Lorenzo dei Medici with the account of 
 his discovery of a MS. of Plautus in a Swiss nun- 
 nery. With a firm delicacy worthy of the famous 
 author of the Facetiz, Meyer weaves the web of his 
 narrative about an incident typical of the time: a 
 triumph of healthy worldliness over medieval super- 
 stition and sacerdotal corruption. Gertrude, the 
 sturdy Swiss peasant whom Poggio releases from the 
 clutch of the nuns, incidental to his rescue of the 
 precious Plautus, he depicts with an Italian human- 
 ist’s appreciation of her “barbarian virtues.” In 
 the person of Poggio himself Meyer appears as he 
 was at the time: the serene observer of life with 
 dispassionate interest in the follies and supersti- 
 tions of men. 
 
 The Saint and Plautus together with several less 
 [ 144 ] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 important tales (among which we might name The 
 Sufferings of a Child) and the volume of unique 
 verse mentioned above, form the literary precipitate 
 of this, the happiest period of Meyer’s life. For the 
 sun of his fortune, so late in reaching its zenith, was 
 only too soon to suffer eclipse. While he seemed 
 still to be basking in the warmth of a golden after- 
 noon, he became dimly aware of the first premonitory 
 chills of approaching decay. Scion of a highly 
 cultivated and overdelicate family, he might well 
 dread the doom which had overtaken his mother 
 and the clammy touch of which he had himself 
 experienced in his youth. From about 1885 on his 
 correspondence betrays an ever-increasing interest 
 in the writings of Turgeniev, Tolstoy, Dostoievski. 
 From Titian’s banquet of life it was a far cry to the 
 study of morbidity, of mysticism, of the haunting 
 fear of collapse; — yet in less than two decades 
 Meyer ran through this gamut. Again his work, 
 apparently so objective, mirrors his mental state. 
 Gone is the sprightliness of Poggio. In its place 
 we have the deep pessimism of The Temptation of 
 Pescara, where Death stalks as the great final ar- 
 biter, the last word of wisdom. A few years later 
 in has last tale, Angela Borgia (1891), the break- 
 down of fibre becomes apparent in a certain loose- 
 
 [ 145 ] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 ness of structure and a predominant tone of 
 resignation even to the worst mandates of fate. 
 During the year following the appearance of the 
 Angela the blow fell. The great intellect gave way. 
 Again he had to retire to an asylum. After a brief 
 interval of recovery a worse attack followed from 
 which there was no relief till death in 1898. 
 
 More than a decade before the final breakdown 
 his work, though technically and artistically at the 
 height of achievement, begins to betray preoccupa- 
 tion with the sinister forces that haunt men’s lives. 
 Inescapable doom, sin and suffering, irresistible de- 
 sire for confession — these are the underlying motives 1 
 of all the stories from now on. 
 
 After the Plautus, the next tale of importance, 
 The Monk's Wedding (1884), chiseled with en- 
 trancing care, reminds one of a fabric of Renaissance 
 artistry. The idea of inexorable fate dominates the 
 narrative. The futility of man’s plans, the impo- 
 tence of his resolutions seem to obsess Meyer’s 
 thought. Passions once let loose break the leash of 
 reason and a series of accidents — slight in them- 
 selves — force man into the road of ruin. Padua of 
 the thirteenth century — the Padua of Ezzelino, son- 
 in-law of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen — is the 
 background of a story in which fate is as pitiless as 
 [146] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 the “Ananke” of Greek tragedy. Old Vicedomini 
 on his deathbed constrains Astorre, his only remain- 
 ing son, happy and content in his calling as a monk, 
 to break his vows and betroth himself to the wid- 
 owed bride of his older brother. This to keep the 
 family from extinction. But — even as in the Greek 
 tragedies — the very means taken to avert the doom 
 but serve to bring it on more quickly. Astorre, torn 
 from his moorings, falls into moral chaos. He is 
 seized with a violent fit of passion for another 
 woman and draws down upon himself and her the 
 vengeance of his affianced bride and her relatives. 
 An entire community is dragged into the vortex of 
 sin and punishment. The poignancy of human 
 helplessness and human agony is enhanced by the 
 fact that Meyer represents Dante as the teller of the 
 tale — Dante, all too well versed in the outrageous 
 caprices of fortune, an exile from home, a tolerated 
 guest at the court of Can Grande, Tyrant of Verona. 
 
 The very next year, admirers who had seen in 
 the flawlessness of texture of The Monk's Wed- 
 ding a dangerous approach to artifice, were as- 
 tounded by the appearance of a work of stark power 
 and simplicity. The Judicatrix (1885), like The 
 Saint, turns to the North and the Middle Ages. 
 Against the cyclopean background of the Swiss 
 
 [ 147 ] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 Alps in the time of Charlemagne, he unrolls a mighty 
 story of crime and expiation. The influence of the 
 Russians, especially of Dostoievski’s Crime and 
 . Punishment , is apparent here. Both stories ana- 
 lyze a soul driven to the confession of murder. But 
 the difference between the Russian “naturalist” and 
 the disciple of Michelangelo and Shakespeare 
 is striking. Dostoievski dissects a commonplace 
 under-vitalized neurasthenic in the sordid setting 
 of metropolitan slum-life. Meyer creates a colos- 
 sal personality in the poetic perspective of the vir- 
 ginal beauty of a young civilization just awakening 
 in the mighty solitude of cliff and torrent. More- 
 over, in place of the epic technique of Dostoievski, 
 who unrolls the tangled strands of motive by the 
 careful delineation of even distantly related details, 
 Meyer hews out his material in massive blocks of 
 action and creates again what most of his stories 
 present: a drama in narrative form. From his first 
 faltering essays at literature to his last breath, 
 Meyer’s goal was the drama. Yet every attempt 
 turned under his hand into a Novelle or a ballad. 
 As the years went by, the dramatic force of his nar- 
 ratives increased, culminating in this, perhaps his 
 masterpiece. It is worthy of note in passing that 
 The Judicatrix has been dramatized. 
 
 [148] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 As we turn to the works which follow, we scent 
 more and more the atmosphere of approaching 
 doom. From The Judicatrix there still emanates a 
 breath of youthful virility, a quality of do and dare; 
 The Temptation of Pescara (1887) and Angela 
 Borgia (1891) breathe the melancholy of decay. 
 They are evidently the creations of a mind at- 
 tuned to the contemplation of the last great jour- 
 ney. Significantly, he who but a few years pre- 
 vious had in the figures of Dante and Poggio 
 suggested the dawn and early noon of the Italian 
 Renaissance, now evokes the Italy of the Sack of 
 Rome and the Borgias. In his Pescara he seems to 
 have been aware of the parallelism between himself 
 and his beloved Italy : a brief and brilliant noon all 
 too soon eclipsed by the shadows of night. In the 
 collapse of a great nation he finds the adequate or- 
 chestration for the catastrophe of his hero and him- 
 self. 
 
 Italy, writhing in the grip of Spain, is making a 
 last convulsive effort to free herself and drive 
 out the foreigner. Charles V, King of Spain and 
 recently elected Emperor of Germany, rapidly 
 approaching world dominion, looms up as the 
 inescapable menace. For such a power Italy — torn 
 by internecine strife and cankered by corruption — 
 
 [ 149 ] 
 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 is no match. But one attempt at least is made : the 
 “Holy League” with the Pope at its head and with 
 Florence, Venice, and Milan as participants, ap- 
 pears as the last pathetic flare of a dying fire. A 
 demoniacally clever plan emanates from the brain 
 of the Chancellor of Milan, Morone, to win as leader 
 no less a person than Count Pescara, the military 
 genius of the age, a Spaniard born in Italy, and 
 Field-marshal of Charles V himself. In venal Italy 
 everyone has his price. The task is only to find the 
 guerdon rich enough to buy Pescara. The Pope 
 himself offers it: the crown of Naples. And the 
 instrument of persuasion is found in Pescara’s idol- 
 ized wife, Vittoria Colonna, poetess and impas- 
 sioned Italian patriot. Public opinion is roused; 
 by diabolical insinuations the faith of Spain in 
 Pescara’s fealty is shaken; and both sides are 
 brought to look upon him as the inevitable leader 
 of the Italian movement. All Italy pants with 
 anticipation. But Pescara remains adamant. To 
 temptations and to covert threats, even to the 
 blandishments of his beloved wife he presents an 
 enigmatical smile. What is it? fear? wisdom? 
 pusillanimity? To historians this attitude has re- 
 mained a puzzle, even as has Becket’s change of 
 allegiance. And here as before with at least partial 
 
 [ J 5°] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 disregard for mere historical accuracy, Meyer seeks 
 the explanation within the hero himself. As we read 
 on, we slowly grasp the truth — that Pescara is im- 
 mune from temptation because of a great inner ex- 
 perience. He has had a vision. The wound which 
 he had received a few months earlier at the Battle 
 of Pavia, though apparently healed, has affected 
 him in a fashion unguessed even by Vittoria Col- 
 onna. He has heard the knock at the door. To 
 be sure, the dread visitor had turned away, but for 
 Pescara the very form and texture of life has 
 changed. An uncanny clairvoyance is vouchsafed 
 the mind matured by the vision of death. All 
 mundane things fall into their proper relations. 
 What incites the average soul, influences youth, 
 stirs the ambitious to activity — sinks into insignifi- 
 cance. Hence for Pescara both wounded pride and 
 desire for glory have lost their power. And as for 
 Italy and her claims? Though voiced with per- 
 suasive warmth by Vittoria Colonna, to his clarified 
 vision neither fair Italia’s outward glamour, nor her 
 art, nor yet her intellectual brilliance can conceal 
 the hopelessness of her moral decay. She is self- 
 doomed. Should he perjure himself to save her who 
 cannot be saved? 
 
 Of all interpreters of the Italian Renaissance 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 none has more keenly appreciated the two aspects 
 of that Janus-faced period: its royal distinction 
 and its disheartening moral anarchy. Nothing 
 could be more inaccurate than to classify Meyer 
 as an intellectual voluptuary. His maturest work 
 derives its peculiar tang from a unique blend of rich 
 sensuousness and ethical insight. This duality of 
 his nature is subtly mirrored by his style and his nar- 
 rative technique. The author of the poem Enough 
 is not Enough , the reveler at the banquet of the 
 Renaissance, astonishes by his severe selectiveness. 
 The relentless elision of the superfluous which makes 
 a story like The Saint resemble a racehorse in train- 
 ing, only occasionally relaxes into comparative am- 
 plitude as in The Temptation of Pescara. 
 
 Meyer’s dramatic instinct — one source of this 
 severe conciseness — asserts itself in his extraordinary 
 ability to group the characters of his main scenes and 
 to render gestures to the life. Becket, gaunt and 
 cowled, elevating the Cross over the Saxon hordes 
 in the king’s courtyard from the window of the royal 
 castle, while the Norman knights behind him grind 
 their teeth in impotent rage; the Pope holding an 
 imaginary crown over the head of the kneeling Vit- 
 toria Colonna; the helmeted Judicatrix before 
 Charlemagne — these are but a few of the many 
 [ 152 ] 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 mighty pictures indelibly impressed upon the mem- 
 ory of the reader. 
 
 In contrast with Keller, who preferably delineated 
 the humble and inconspicuous, Meyer introduces us 
 to kings and cardinals, princes and generals. His 
 women, too, are for the most part cast in an heroic 
 mold and tread levels above the life of ordinary 
 human beings. And for such individuals he has 
 limned appropriate backgrounds: the magnificent 
 solitudes of the Alps, signorial Renaissance parks, 
 the Camera della Segnatura in the Vatican. 
 
 It is through such characters and in such settings 
 that Meyer gives us insight into the tragic issues of 
 life. The same realization of the stinging conflicts 
 in human existence lies deeply imbedded in his lyrics 
 and ballads, the full significance of which we are 
 only just beginning to realize. While Keller in 
 much of his verse derives — though indirectly — from 
 popular poetry and hence belongs — though at a dis- 
 tance — with Goethe and Morike, Meyer is — though 
 more powerful — a forerunner of moderns like Rilke, 
 Stephan George, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. 
 Some of his poems might be compared to Alpine 
 lakes in that they hide unplumbed depths beneath 
 stilled surfaces, while many of his ballads — as The 
 Beggars — subtly mask profound personal experi- 
 
 [ 153 ] 
 
Realism and Romanticism 
 
 ences. Here and there he revives the magic of a 
 poetical past ( Die Zwingburg ) or evokes about a 
 crumbling structure the multitudinous pageant of 
 history and its inherent pathos ( Die alte Briicke). 
 
 And yet Meyer, seemingly in such sharp disparity 
 with his compatriot and contemporary as to appear 
 the denizen of a different world and a different age, 
 upon more intimate acquaintance reveals himself 
 as much a child of the nineteenth century as the 
 doughty Staatsschreiber himself. For Meyer is 
 only one of a large group of Neo-Romanticists 
 whose minds were set in a key different from that of 
 the dominant mood of their day, who turned for in- 
 spiration, some to the Middle Ages, many more to 
 the Renaissance, some like Wagner and Bocklin to 
 a mythical past, a few like Nietzsche to the future, 
 and a small group like Maeterlinck and Yeats to 
 fairy-lands forlorn. Nevertheless Meyer, as his 
 correspondence shows, took a keen interest in the 
 political and social problems of his day. And his 
 work, despite its esoteric garb, is like Keller’s — 
 though more distantly and more subtly — the precip- 
 itate of his nineteenth-century experience. It was, 
 however, not the constitutional struggles of little 
 Switzerland so attractive to the chronicler of Seld- 
 wyla and the author of Martin Salander which 
 
 [i54l 
 
in Two Great Narrators 
 
 focused his attention; it was the political drama 
 that was being enacted on a larger stage. His Hut- 
 ten , we saw above, was inspired by the creation of 
 a great Protestant Germanic Empire north of the 
 Alps; the “Kulturkampf,” that is, the struggle be- 
 tween Bismarck and Rome in the late seventies, that 
 shook the very foundations of the young state, in- 
 forms every page of The Saint ; while The Judi- 
 catrix and The Monk's Wedding re-echo with the 
 sounds of the struggle between the sovereign rights 
 of the individual and the regnant social structure 
 — a conflict still awaiting solution. 
 
 It appears then that these two writers, each a 
 great artist in his way, antipodal though they may 
 seem, are but the two halves of a sphere and ex- 
 pressive, as seldom another pair, of the double as- 
 pect of the nineteenth century. 
 
 [ 155 ] 
 
NATURALISM IN GERMAN DRAMA 
 FROM SCHILLER TO HAUPTMANN 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 In no country has drama played a more vital part 
 since the end of the eighteenth century than in 
 Germany. Yet English criticism has remained 
 strangely incurious of the dramatic output from 
 Schiller to Hauptmann, is ignorant, in other words, 
 of Kleist and Grillparzer, Hebbel and Anzengruber, 
 and of others who, though not dramatists of the 
 first order, betray marked originality and unmistak- 
 able impatience with that Weimar tradition which 
 most of them lacked the strength to slough off. 
 
 The modern drama implies fiercer grapple with 
 reality and, though it lacks the mellow humaneness 
 of Goethe’s art, mirrors an age grown increasingly 
 unafraid of disillusionment, increasingly loyal to 
 truth. 
 
 For the sake of contrast, we shall do well to re- 
 mind ourselves of the dominant characteristics of 
 Schiller’s dramatic art — choosing Schiller as the 
 prototype of the “classical” drama because of his 
 far-reaching influence. Lessing ranks pre-eminently 
 
 [ 159 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 as a critic, and Goethe — though a subtler and more 
 original playwright than Schiller — has impressed 
 the imagination most vividly by his lyrics. 
 
 Schiller based on Shakespeare and — to a less ex- 
 tent — on Sophocles. We may leave out of account, 
 because of their slighter influence, his earlier plays 
 — original but immature — and turn to those by 
 which his fame lives: Wallenstein , Mary Stuart , 
 The Maid of Orleans. These deal solely with men 
 and women of distinction, moral, mental, or social. 
 The disinherited, the petty, the diseased do not per- 
 turb his imagination of this the period of his finest 
 productivity. He would awe and overwhelm and 
 at the same time exalt his audiences by the spectacle 
 of fallen greatness. From this attitude there flows 
 indifference to those complicated, inconsistent, and 
 morbid souls, the analysis of which is the delight 
 of our contemporaries. The sufferings of Schiller’s 
 heroes result in the main from some offence against 
 the moral order on the part of an otherwise noble 
 individual. Here and there we find slight con- 
 sciousness of the force of environment upon the 
 determination of character and action ( W aliens tein 
 and The Maid of Orleans ), but in general it is the 
 Aristotelean “fatal defect” in an otherwise noble 
 individual which causes the catastrophe. 
 
 [160] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 Tragic action so conceived will project itself in 
 language more sublime, more poetical, more rhetori- 
 cal than the parlance of daily life. Prose, or 
 even a mixture of prose and verse, would seem 
 unfitting. Only a dignified form of speech, such as 
 the Shakespearean blank verse, is capable of main- 
 taining that elevation of mood which governs 
 Schiller’s formula of art. Great general truths, 
 moreover, such as Sophocles was wont to enunciate 
 through his choral odes, are indigenous to this soil, 
 being frequently conveyed to the audience in the 
 ! form of monologues. Monologue, eschewed as un- 
 natural in modern drama, appears in these plays 
 as an organic element, serving as a vehicle of soul- 
 revelation and for many other purposes of dramatic 
 economy. 
 
 So then, by 1805, the year of Schiller’s death, a 
 1 type of drama had been created in Germany that 
 'was enthusiastically acclaimed both at home and 
 F abroad and remained a power throughout a large 
 part of the last century. Most of the dramatists 
 of whom we shall now speak owe inspiration and 
 . guidance to the great Suabian. 
 
 But they owe him too at times a less splendid 
 inheritance. His powerful personality not infre- 
 quently prevented them from finding themselves as 
 
 [161] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 rapidly as they might otherwise have done. So that 
 the German drama of the nineteenth century pre- 
 sents the struggle between originality — or modern- 
 ism if you please — and the dramatic convention 
 inherited from Schiller. 
 
 As the decades roll on, as the scientific discover- 
 ies and social upheavals enter into the consciousness 
 of the thinking, new ideas and an ever-increasing ■ 
 independence of eighteenth-century tradition make 
 themselves felt. One after another of the new 
 poets, though still more or less in the thrall of 
 Schiller, betray the influence of new artistic and 
 intellectual, moral and philosophical convictions. 
 Until at last the gigantic figure of the great Nor- 1 
 wegian rises on the horizon and dispels even in 
 Germany what little may be left of the classical I 
 inheritance. 
 
 Nothing, however, would be more erroneous than 
 to believe that it was entirely owing to Ibsen that 
 Hauptmann and Sudermann became possible in 
 the country of Goethe and Schiller. The soil had 
 been carefully prepared. Ibsen himself was sur- 
 prised at being proclaimed the herald of a new 
 drama in Germany where, as he said, “they had 
 long had their Hebbel,” and he might have added: 
 their Kleist. 
 
 [162] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 That complexity which for better or worse is the 
 distinguishing mark of the modern soul found its 
 first conscious expression in Heinrich von Kleist, 
 himself a victim of the morbidity, the lack of bal- 
 ance which make his men and women the antipodes 
 of Schiller’s heroes. Kleist’s life as well as his works 
 presage w T hat modern psychologists call “the double 
 personality.” 
 
 Heinrich von Kleist was born in 1777 at 
 Frankfort-on- the-Oder near Berlin, on the sands of 
 Prussia, in that section of Germany which has given 
 the world a Kant, a Herder, a Winckelmann, and 
 which later was to find genial interpreters in the 
 poet Fontane and the painter Leistikow. In obe- 
 dience to family traditions — he sprang from aris- 
 tocratic Prussian stock — he entered a crack regiment 
 at Potsdam in 1792. But neither in war — he 
 participated in the campaign against the French 
 in 1794 — nor in peace could the military life satisfy 
 him. So in 1799 he leaves the army in order to de- 
 vote himself to the pursuit of culture — a true son 
 of the outgoing eighteenth century in this. At the 
 very threshold of manhood, after a professional ex- 
 perience of nine years, he abandons what might have 
 been a clear and simple solution of his destiny for 
 a noble but vague quest. In a letter to his sister 
 
 [*63] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 Ulrike he repudiates every suggestion of substitut- 
 ing a civil calling for his abandoned military duties. 
 To him was not granted that self-training which 
 enabled a Goethe and a Wilhelm von Humboldt to 
 reconcile the rigorous discipline of office with the 
 satisfaction of spiritual and artistic cravings. So 
 we behold him starting forth with a slender purse 
 in the pursuit of his ideals, unshackled by duties 
 which, though humdrum, might have made for 
 safety. 
 
 The initial step in this pursuit of a wide culture 
 was matriculation at the advanced age of twenty- 
 two at his home university. He hears lectures 
 on philosophy, physics, medicine, political economy, 
 mathematics — exhibiting a wealth of interest to be 
 explained both by his lack of definite purpose and 
 the ideal of universal knowledge regnant in his day. 
 Soon, however, Kantian philosophy brings him to 
 a realization of the mind’s inability to appre- 
 hend reality, and he is thrown into the night of 
 despair. 
 
 With characteristic abruptness he cuts short his 
 studies and begins a life of futile peregrination, thus 
 joining that band of poetic wanderers to which be- 
 long Byron, Platen, Lamartine, and many another 
 child of the Romantic Age. Meanwhile the poetic 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 impulse begins to torture him. Various plans cross 
 his mind. He dreams of creating a new drama 
 which shall go beyond Sophocles and Shakespeare 
 and shall “snatch the laurel wreath from Goethe’s 
 brow.” Physical and mental overexertion combine 
 to undermine his health. In 1802 he breaks down 
 at Berne, Switzerland. His sister Ulrike hastens 
 from Germany to nurse him. Half restored he re- 
 turns home by way of Weimar. Here he spends 
 some time with the aged poet Wieland who is im- 
 pressed with the originality and force of the dra- 
 matic fragment, Robert Guiscard , which the poet 
 reads to him. 
 
 The following year finds Kleist again on the 
 wing. Italy and Paris are visited. Hopelessly 
 dissatisfied with everything he has so far produced 
 he burns his MSS. and hovers on the very verge of 
 ruin. But for the moment fate appears to mean 
 kindly by our poet. Just as his slender means are 
 exhausted an office is found for him and for a few 
 years we see him in harness, leading a life not all 
 humdrum, since several of his most important 
 productions both in the field of drama and of 
 narration date from these quiet years in Koenigs- 
 berg. 
 
 But now external events precipitate a cataclysm. 
 
 [165] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 The year 1805—6 proved to be no less fateful to the 
 poet than to his native land. Napoleon’s iron heel 
 crushed Prussia and incidentally broke up the struc- 
 ture of Kleist’s life as well, while giving his genius 
 the one grand passion which was to focus his talent 
 to the end. 
 
 Driven from Koenigsberg by the exigencies of 
 the war, Kleist went to Berlin, was arrested by the 
 French as a suspicious character and languished in 
 a French prison for almost a year — a trial he bore 
 with surprising fortitude, but which forged within 
 his soul a hatred of the tyrant that taloned his drama 
 and his verse from thenceforth. Hitherto unsus- 
 pected sides of his temperament now come to the 
 fore and his personality becomes ever more compli- 
 cated and inexplicable. 
 
 Released from prison he essays a journalistic ven- 
 ture, the publication of a periodical, Phoebus , in 
 Dresden, which was to voice new artistic tenets. 
 But soon his hatred for Napoleon sends him to Aus- 
 tria to participate in the uprising against the Corsi- 
 can culminating in the battle of Wagram (1809). 
 The defeat of Austria almost drives him to despair. 
 Only in literary activity can his passion find an 
 outlet. 
 
 In the patriotic dithyramb, Germania’ s Battlecry 
 [166] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 to Her Children (1810), and in the drama Arminius 
 ( Hermanns s chi acht , 1810) he voices his anguish and 
 his furious protest. His next attempt at hewing 
 out a livelihood is determined by his desperate de- 
 sire to galvanize his countrymen into organized re- 
 volt. In 1810-11 he establishes a daily paper en- 
 titled Berlin Evening News. His pen was barbed 
 by his hatred for the foreigner and his impatience 
 with the vacillating and supine Prussian govern- 
 ment. The hostility aroused in the quarters thus 
 attacked together with the animadversions of rivals, 
 unfortunate business associations, and an insuper- 
 able lack of worldly wisdom combined to foredoom 
 this enterprise to early failure. Thus the most 
 virile Prussian journalist of the day found himself 
 balked. His paper was suppressed and in despair 
 he decided once more to don the uniform. Perhaps 
 his early experience, his family connections, and his 
 reputation as a patriot will gain him a commission. 
 But bitter is the disappointment that awaits this 
 last effort. His family, to whom he turns for 
 financial assistance for his equipment, leave him ab- 
 solutely in the lurch. Who can altogether blame 
 them? Hardly any of his plays had ever seen the 
 boards and these without arousing enthusiasm. His 
 fortune was gone, fame had not discovered him, and 
 
 [167] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 no profession or office had been able to attract him. 
 What wonder then that they considered him a fail- 
 ure and a blot on their escutcheon. And more sin- 
 ister still : his king had made a disgraceful alliance 
 with Napoleon that might mean marching under the 
 French banner, if the commission were at last ob- 
 tained. 
 
 Existence now appeared one long congested con- 
 fusion, and in a characteristic fit of despair he de- 
 cides to make an end. On November 2 1st, 1811, 
 at the age of thirty-four, he commits suicide, in 
 company with Henrietta Vogel, a friend suffering 
 from an incurable disease, to whom he was attached 
 by a common disgust with life. 
 
 Thus ended the most original poet of Prussia, two 
 years before the great upheaval which drove the 
 arch-enemy from his throne and established the 
 foundation of the greatness of Kleist’s beloved 
 country. 
 
 All the more lamentable was Kleist’s rash deed, as 
 his last work, the Prince of Hamburg , is untouched 
 by autumn and shows him to have been in the noon- 
 day of his power. This drama displays an artistic 
 self-restraint and a ripe perception of the need of 
 self-discipline unprecedented in Kleist’s works and 
 promising a fruitful maturity. 
 
 [168] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 Even this hasty survey reveals a complicated and 
 elusive personality characteristic of the Romantic 
 Movement which, by stressing the ego, created a new 
 music, a new form of lyrical poetry, of narrative 
 art, and — through Kleist — a new drama. Among 
 its spokesmen in Germany are to be found Friedrich 
 Schlegel, Brentano, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Novalis, 
 and many another to whom might be applied Kleist’s 
 characterization of himself : “an enigmatical soul.” 
 
 At the very threshold of his career Kleist, a true 
 son of his time, though still controlled by the Schil- 
 ler tradition, voices the new urge. In his splendid 
 torso Robert Guiscard , in which he depicts the tri- 
 umph and downfall of that Norman adventurer who 
 in the tenth century swept through southern Europe 
 like a hurricane to meet a tragic fate at the gates 
 of Byzantium, we find Kleist, like Schiller, trying to 
 combine Shakespearean characterization with Sopho- 
 clean splendor of form. Yet even here there is 
 noticeable entire absence of sententiousness and an 
 attempt at reproducing — in the midst of flowing 
 verse — the language and gesture of every-day. 
 
 This faintly realistic note swells in volume in his 
 treatment of Herrmann the Cheruscan, who had 
 haunted the German imagination as a hero without 
 fear and without reproach. In the year 9 a. d. he 
 
 [169] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 had, in spite of almost insuperable difficulties, united 
 the German tribes into successful resistance against 
 their Roman conquerors and had destroyed Augus- 
 tus’ legions in the Teutoburg Forest. To Kleist, 
 aroused to fever pitch by Napoleon’s tyranny, he 
 was bound to appeal as an example to fire a less 
 virile generation to fight for freedom from oppres- 
 sion. 
 
 And yet, in his drama Arminius ( Hermanns - 
 schlacht) the great leader moves across the stage not 
 with the stride of a Rienzi nor with the flawless no- 
 bility of a William Tell, but with that mixture of 
 the noble and the opportune, the grand and the 
 simple, that makes of a hero a human being. 
 
 He is, to be sure, capable, for the purpose of 
 welding his disunited and quarreling countrymen 
 into unity and harmony, of self-abnegation to the 
 point of surrendering the leadership to his rival 
 Marbod, yet he is not above trickery, cruelty, and 
 political opportunism, when these traits will serve 
 the one great purpose of his life: freedom from 
 thraldom for his people. At his own fireside we 
 see him stripped of all heroic trappings, teasing and 
 caressing his wife, now treating her as a wayward 
 child, calling her — the august Thusnelda of history 
 — “ mein Thuschen and again finding hauntingly 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 simple and touching words to express his love for 
 her. 
 
 Realism of a subtler and bolder type informs the 
 dramas Penthesilea and Prince of Homburg; a real- 
 ism that projected so far ahead of his age that these 
 plays could only confuse his contemporaries, even 
 Goethe. For men and women like Penthesilea and 
 the Prince, whose tragic experiences flow from their 
 intense complexity, from their lack of correlation of 
 instincts, belong rather to the age of Strindberg 
 than to that of William Tell and even of Goethe’s 
 Tasso. 
 
 Goethe in his maturity insisted that art should 
 reflect the typical, the ever-recurring. The word 
 “Mephistophelean” has become a shorthand desig- 
 nation for a well recognized set of human qualities, 
 while Faust is the type of man’s titanic intellectual 
 longings. To Goethe the inconsistent, the excep- 
 tional should have no prominent part in art. If 
 nature, seeking ever to create the perfect type — be 
 it miser, coward, hero, poet — is continually frus- 
 trated by accident, so that the coward is occasionally 
 brave, the heroic person has fits of terror, art should 
 seek to realize nature’s intentions. Not so the mod- 
 em dramatist. As a result of scientific observations 
 he insists on reflecting the face of life exactly as it 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 presents itself. If individuals are inconsistent, 
 inexplicable, contradictory, if their tragedy lies in 
 their inability to reconcile opposing instincts, why 
 pretend to the typical in art? 
 
 Of this modern conception of tragedy Kleist was 
 the first protagonist, appearing indeed to his fellows 
 as merely an impudent intruder. Not even the 
 sacred realm of Greek story with its halo of noble 
 simplicity was safe from his disintegrating touch. 
 In 1808 he was attracted to the legend of Penthe- 
 silea, the Amazon queen who aided the Trojans in 
 their fight against the Greeks and was slain by 
 Achilles. Greek sculptors were fond of portraying 
 Achilles gazing regretfully upon the slain Amazon. 
 This conflict of emotions Kleist transfers into the 
 heart of Penthesilea. What must be the turmoil 
 of a woman’s soul compelled by circumstances to do 
 violence to her sovereign instinct — love? The an- 
 swer is the drama Penthesilea. 
 
 The Amazons, led by their young queen, suddenly 
 swoop down upon the Greeks who are besieging 
 Troy. Taken by surprise the Greeks break and flee 
 before the ferocious onslaught leaving many prison- 
 ers in the hands of the enemy. Even Achilles es- 
 capes only by precipitous flight. But he returns 
 fully armed, for the sight of the fair fury in pursuit 
 [ 172 ] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 has inflamed him with the desire to capture her. 
 This time she succumbs and is left unconscious in his 
 hands by her fleeing army. Revived, she believes 
 herself the victor and Achilles her captive. In a 
 > scene of rare poetic beauty she betrays the motives 
 of the Amazons. Their object was love. Accord- 
 ing to their tribal law they were on their yearly 
 raids for youths whom they would bring home as the 
 prize of their prowess and with whom in the month 
 of roses they would celebrate their nuptials, after 
 which the captives would be laden with gifts and 
 set free. Thus was the tribe of warrior-maids con- 
 tinued. Penthesilea reveals that she was seized 
 with a passionate love for Achilles and was ready 
 to break with the tribal convention which permitted 
 of no individual choice among the captives, was in 
 fact ready to dissolve the Amazon tradition and 
 leave the Amazon kingdom for his sake. 
 
 This idyllic scene is rudely interrupted by the 
 fleeing Greeks now pursued by the maddened Ama- 
 zons bent on rescuing their captive queen. The 
 Greeks drag Achilles out of danger and Penthesilea 
 is stunned to learn that she has disclosed the most 
 sacred secrets of her heart and her willingness to 
 sacrifice her tribe to a triumphant captor whom she 
 pictures to herself as gloating over her subjugation. 
 
 [ 173 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 Stung by a fury as boundless as had been her love 
 a few moments earlier she arms herself for renewed 
 combat. They meet on the battlefield — he un- 
 armed, ready to surrender all for love, she maddened 
 and blinded by her fancied humiliation. In a parox- 
 ysm of rage she sets her dogs of war on him and 
 herself helps to rend him limb from limb. 
 
 When she recovers from the swoon in which her 
 attack of rage had culminated, she is again all ten- 
 derness and passion, entirely oblivious to the events 
 of the last hour. She refuses to believe that the 
 foul deeds were hers. To her companions who seek 
 to recall them to her memory she indignantly ex- 
 claims : 
 
 What! I? — You say that I — among my dogs? 
 
 With these small tender hands? 
 
 And with these lips that glow with love, 
 
 Made for a different purpose? — 
 
 No, never! never shall I be convinced, 
 
 Though all the heavens in lightning cried it out, 
 Though Thunder’s voice proclaimed it o’er the earth, 
 
 I yet would cry to Thunder, Earth, and Night : You lie ! 
 
 But when her companions succeed, by recalling 
 every step of the catastrophe, in breaking her trance, 
 in convincing her of the reality of the charge ; when, 
 in other words, her conscious self realizes what her 
 [ 174 ] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 subconscious self has done, then her heart breaks in 
 horror. Here, as never before in drama, is depicted 
 the tragedy of the “double personality.” Penthe- 
 silea dies of grief for a lost love; but she herself in 
 her other personality was the murderess of this 
 lover; so it is horror of herself as much as grief for 
 her lover that makes life unbearable. Her deed 
 has become unintelligible to herself as soon as per- 
 formed. 
 
 The intensity which glows through the entire 
 play, making it more truly than most dramas a play 
 of passion, led Kleist to clothe it in a form novel in 
 modern dramatic economy. No act interruptions 
 are admitted, the scene remains unchanged (a bat- 
 tlefield near Troy) and the action sweeps onward 
 with the momentum of a mountain torrent. Thus 
 again Kleist foreshadows Strindberg who, in his 
 epilogue to Miss Julia (written 1888, more than 
 two generations later) decries the curtain drop as 
 an unwelcome interruption to the hypnotic influence 
 of the dramatist upon his audience. 
 
 The same type of orginality which puzzled and 
 estranged the readers of Penthesilea , delayed appre- 
 ciation of Kleist’s last work and only masterpiece, 
 The Prince of Homhurg (1810). Here lack of 
 correlation as motive force of tragedy is the more 
 
 [ 175 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 poignant because it is an army officer, a proven hero 
 in battle, who is swept by a sudden gust of terror 
 and for a few moments turns coward before our 
 eyes. Again, as in Penthesilea, Kleist penetrates 
 heroic legend and perceives beneath the surface a 
 tortured soul divided against itself. Like his au- 
 thor, the hero is high-strung, imaginative, impulsive, 
 intensely ambitious, capable of extraordinary intui- 
 tions, but subject to sudden fits of abstraction and 
 of incapacity for focusing his will upon the point 
 at issue. Thus we learn at the outset that the | 
 prince has shown himself on more than one occasion 
 endowed with military and strategic genius, so that 
 at a critical moment of the campaign his sovereign 
 feels impelled to entrust to him an important post, i 
 in spite of several previous lapses from strict mili- 
 tary discipline due to his impulsiveness. The play 
 opens on the eve of the Battle of Fehrbellin ( 1675) 
 in which Frederick William, “The Great Elector” 
 of Brandenburg, was to defeat the Swedes, drive 
 them out of his land, and lay the foundation for 
 Prussia’s independence and future greatness. On 
 this momentous occasion we find the prince — a som- 
 nambulist like Kleist — wandering in the moonlit 
 garden and indulging in dreams of love and glory. 
 Nor can he, on the following morning, when the 
 [176] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 field-marshal gives out the order of battle, succeed 
 in rousing himself from his absorption. Instead, 
 he gazes at the Princess Natalie, in whom centre his 
 secret love and ambition, and only superficially hears 
 the order and warning addressed to him. On the 
 battlefield he wins a spectacular victory, bringing in 
 three Swedish banners as guerdon, but only after 
 jeopardizing the success of the conflict, needlessly 
 sacrificing many soldiers, and endangering the life 
 of his sovereign — all by an impetuous onslaught in 
 direct disobedience to a specific command given him 
 on that fatal morning not to attack until ordered. 
 
 But of this fault he is oblivious. In a trance of 
 vainglory he lays the conquered banners at his 
 sovereign’s feet and expects all dreams to come true. 
 Love and honors will now be showered upon him. 
 Terrible is his awakening when he hears his sov- 
 ereign declare that whoever is guilty of the pre- 
 mature cavalry-charge is a traitor and shall be 
 court-martialed. Suddenly the dreamer finds him- 
 self in the grip of pitiless reality. Plunged from 
 the fever-height of exaggerated expectancy, his 
 sensitive organism falls prey to a very anarchy of 
 impulses. When the court-martial pronounces the 
 death sentence, when he sees the grave yawning for 
 his warm body, all restraints of custom and training 
 
 [ 177 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 ■ ■ i 
 
 fall from him. A naked, shivering soul with only 
 the instinct of self-preservation is all that is left of 
 the splendid young hero. Love, pride, ambition, 
 even ordinary decency seem like vain trappings, as 
 he clings to the knees of the Electress and in the 
 presence of the Princess Natalie makes an abject 
 plea for life, mere life. The women, shocked at this 
 display, promise to intercede for him and persuade 
 him to return to his cell. 
 
 His jangled nerves somewhat calmed, he receives 
 the Elector’s reply to his plea. This serves as a 
 tonic and restores his equilibrium. Before our eyes 
 we see the other self emerge, the nobler soul of the 
 young soldier steadily resume control. This change 
 is developed with the greatest of finesse. Natalie 
 brings the Elector’s letter, which on first reading 
 seems simply a pardon. 
 
 If you believe that I have been unjust, 
 
 Tell me, I beg you, in a word or two, 
 
 And forthwith I will send you back your sword. 
 
 (IV, 4-) 
 
 Natalie, still under the terrible impression of his 
 moral collapse, urges immediate compliance. But 
 in the prince the change becomes more manifest 
 every moment. He can even see his terror, when re- 
 flected by her, from a humorous side. She urges: 
 [i?8] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 Did you not see the pit already 
 
 Yawning beneath you in the graveyard yonder? 
 
 The time is urgent ! Come, sit down and write ! 
 
 To this he smilingly replies: 
 
 Truly, you act as though it had the power 
 To plump down panther-fashion on my back! 
 
 He re-reads the Elector’s letter with increasing 
 respect and understanding of its implied meaning, 
 then writes his answer, which he thus motivates to 
 Natalie: 
 
 I will not face a man who faces me so nobly, 
 
 With a knave’s ignoble front. 
 
 Guilt, heavy guilt upon my conscience weighs. 
 
 I fully do confess. Can he but grant 
 Forgiveness when I contest for it, 
 
 I do not care a straw for any pardon. (IV, 4.) 
 
 So for a time at least, and Kleist leads us to 
 suppose for all time, the Prince’s better, nobler self 
 has conquered, has subjugated both the romantic 
 dreamer and the slave of those impulses which made 
 him at one moment plunge into battle, regardless 
 of consequences, at another give way to stark fear of 
 death. 
 
 Kleist closes this drama on a harmonious chord. 
 The Elector, a most sympathetic figure, so far 
 
 [ 179 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 from resembling an oriental tyrant whose verdict 
 is immutable law, recognizes the moral rebirth 
 of the prince, forgives, and takes him back to 
 favor. 
 
 But Kleist’s style, no less than his character- 
 portrayal, is his own, even when, as in the Prince 
 of Homburg, he casts his plays in the traditional 
 five acts and introduces monologues. For his mono- 
 logues are rarer, shorter, and far less sententious 
 than Schiller’s, and he finds elevation of tone and 
 beauty of diction not incompatible with a simplicity 
 of phrase that foreshadows Hauptmann. When the 
 Elector hears that old General Kottwitz has without 
 orders left his headquarters and entered Berlin with 
 his squadron in order to make a demonstration 
 against the execution of the prince, the darling of 
 the army, he cogitates upon this piece of insubor- 
 dination in words pungent with humor : 
 
 Most curious! Were I the Dey of Tunis 
 I’d sound alarm at such a dubious move, 
 
 Lay on my desk despair’s thin silken cord, 
 
 And at my palisaded castle-gate 
 Set up my heavy guns and howitzers. 
 
 But since it’s just Hans Kottwitz from the Priegnitz 
 Who marches on me of his own sweet will 
 I’ll treat the matter in my homely way; 
 
 Of the three curls that gleam so silvery 
 [l8o] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 On his old skull, I’ll take firm hold of one 
 And lead him calmly with his squadrons twelve 
 To Arnstein, his headquarters, back again. 
 
 Why wake the city from its slumber thus? 
 
 It was natural that the recognition of so original 
 a poet should be tardy and hesitant. Kleist sought 
 an untimely grave largely from despair at the fail- 
 ure of even the greatest of his contemporaries, 
 Goethe, to understand his message. Not until 
 many years later, after Grillparzer and Hebbel, the 
 realistic novel of the nineteenth century, and later 
 Ibsen and Hauptmann had trained the public in the 
 comprehension on the stage of such complex char- 
 acters as appear in real life, did Kleist’s works find 
 the public they needed. Today we associate his 
 Penthesilea and Prince of Homburg with Haupt- 
 mann’s Gabriel Schilling's Flight , with Jude the 
 Obscure , with Diana of the Crossways , with Miss 
 Julia , The Dance of Death, or Conrad’s Lord Jim. 
 To the readers of his own day Kleist's characters 
 because of their intense reality appeared unreal. 
 
 For similar reasons another precursor of the new 
 times, though less bold in his revolt against tradi- 
 tion, the great Austrian, Franz Grillparzer (1791- 
 1872), remained for decades obscure and misunder- 
 stood. His environment was singularly uncon- 
 
 [181] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 genial to the development of new ideas. He lived 
 and died in Vienna, the capital of that Austria which 
 since the Protestant Reformation had been out of 
 touch with the philosophical and literary upheavals 
 of the other German-speaking countries, developing 
 a cramped conservatism best expressed by the tyr- 
 anny of Metternich and not vitally modified by 
 acquaintance with Rousseau and Voltaire. Not 
 until the nineteenth century did there come to Aus- 
 tria with the message of Weimar and Jena at least 
 a breath of new spiritual life. 
 
 This was the world of ideas on which Grillparzer 
 fed his adolescent intelligence. The cosmos thus 
 reflected on his mind, which the passing years did 
 little to modify, was essentially that of the eight- 
 eenth century. To the day of his death he ad- 
 hered to the skepticism of Voltaire and Diderot, 
 believed in enlightened despotism in the spirit of 
 Frederick the Great and Joseph II, and was impa- 
 tient of the revolutionary movement in German 
 music. He adored Mozart, but never could quite 
 reconcile himself to the later works of Beethoven, 
 sneered at Weber’s operas, and fiercely contemned 
 Wagner. 
 
 His heredity and his life help to explain his mind 
 and his art. His father was a lawyer in Vienna, 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 severe to the point of cruelty. His mother, hyper- 
 sensitive and morbid, came from a well-known musi- 
 cal family. In 1819 she committed suicide in a 
 fit of religious insanity. Grillparzer’s youth, thus 
 overshadowed by tragedy, was made more difficult 
 by the demands of dependent brothers and sisters. 
 He became tutor in a nobleman’s family, then en- 
 tered the service of the government, was temporarily 
 favored by his monarch, because of the success of 
 his youthful plays; later, however, offended the 
 conservative court by what seems to us today a 
 harmless poem ( Campo Vaccino ) and was relegated 
 to the subaltern position of librarian of the imperial 
 archives. Embittered by this neglect and utterly 
 discouraged by the failure of his comedy Thou Shalt 
 Not Lie! ( Weh dem , der liiqt!), which was hissed 
 off the stage in 1838, he retired within himself and 
 locked all his MSS. into his desk. An unhappy 
 love-affair strengthened his pessimistic mood. The 
 last thirty years of his life would have been unbear- 
 able had not his otherwise uninspiring post granted 
 him ample leisure to acquire rich and varied ac- 
 quaintance with the world’s literature, embracing an 
 intimate knowledge of Greek, Spanish, English, 
 French, and German drama, and had not his coun- 
 trymen awakened to a warm if tardy recognition of 
 
 [183] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 his genius. Though obtuse to his originality the 
 Viennese of his day learned to appreciate the warmth 
 of his patriotism and grew keenly sensitive to the 
 music of his speech and the beauty of his dramatic 
 vision. 
 
 Like all playwrights of his time Grillparzer be- 
 gan his dramatic activity as a disciple of Schiller. 
 Soon, however, Goethe’s more finely differentiated 
 art became his lodestar, while the fascination of 
 Greek loveliness captivated his senses. To this 
 compatriot of Mozart sensuous beauty and perfect 
 mastery of technique were bound to exercise an ! 
 irresistible attraction. A group of plays and play- 
 lets attest his vital interest in Goethe’s work so far 
 as it appears influenced by Greek models. Sappho 
 (1818), the story of the hapless Lesbian, pairs 
 mastery of form with psychological finesse; in The j 
 Golden Fleece (1822) the author depicts the un- 
 happy marriage of Jason and Medea; Hero and 
 Leander (1831), in which the witchery of Grill- 
 parzer’s verse appears to the greatest advantage, 
 tells that tale of tragic love which had attracted 
 Schiller, Byron, and many others. All these ob- 
 serve a certain conformity in respect to dramatic 
 economy, character-development, and structure, and 
 
 [184] ' 
 
. from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 ' 
 
 betray close acquaintance with Goethe’s Iphigenia 
 and Tasso. 
 
 Yet one of them, The Golden Fleece, strikes a 
 note which had never before been so strongly stressed 
 in drama. It may well be called the first Tragedy 
 of Environment. To be sure, in Goethe’s Goetz 
 and in Schiller’s W aliens tein and Maid of Orleans, 
 environment furnishes a cogent force in determining 
 the fate of the protagonist. But in the Fleece the 
 clash of two environments is the very pivot of the 
 action. The Golden Fleece is a trilogy consisting 
 of The Guest, The Argonauts, and Medea. The 
 first two parts, depicting the Greeks’ search for the 
 coveted treasure and the crimes they perpetrate 
 in the course of its recovery, introduce us to the 
 barbaric life of Colchis. Here, isolated from her 
 kin, lives Medea, the king’s daughter, superior in 
 intelligence, ethical force, and insight and hence 
 adjudged a sorceress by her associates. Into this 
 world of ignorance and superstition there enters, 
 like a sun-god, the gleaming Greek adventurer, 
 Jason. No wonder Medea is easily induced to 
 procure for him the desired fleece and to abandon 
 the sombre home of her ancestors. The Argonauts 
 closes upon a note of tragic foreboding. Followed 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 by the curses of her people Medea sails forth to seek 
 a home in an uncharted world. 
 
 The last part of the trilogy, Medea , limns the 
 new world’s rejection of the stranger. Moreover, 
 association with Jason soon reveals the profound 
 difference in their characters and conception of life, j 
 In Greece, where Jason now appears as a suppliant, 
 her presence hampers his success. The pair is no- 
 where welcome. Greek men and women shudder 
 away from the unintelligible barbarian whose awk- 
 ward attempts at adaptation to Greek manners are 
 offensive. At last, Kreon, King of Corinth, con- 
 sents to receive them. Jason falls in love with 
 Kreon’s daughter Kreusa, a delicate Greek flower 
 and former playmate of his. Kreon now makes 
 Jason’s rehabilitation conditional upon separation 
 from Medea, and Jason, long wearied of his ill- 
 mated associate in crime, consents. When Medea 
 discovers in addition that even her children have 
 been filled with contempt for their violent and bar- 
 baric mother and are to be taken from her and 
 placed in the keeping of her hated rival, while she 
 — forlorn and forsaken — is to be cast into the outer 
 void, she strips off all pretense at civilization and 
 becomes again the Medea of Colchis, lurid and in- 
 domitable. She kills her children rather than leave 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 them to grow into the semblance of their father’s 
 race, sets fire to the king’s palace after murdering 
 the fair Kreusa, resumes her sorceress’s mantle, 
 and turns her back on Jason with scathing con- 
 
 I tempt. 
 
 While to Euripides and to others who had treated 
 this legend before Grillparzer, the problem resided 
 in the conflict of irreconcilable individualities, and 
 but little was said of the forces which shaped their 
 f souls, to Grillparzer, living at the time when both 
 biological and historical thinking began to concen- 
 trate on the question of environment, the problem 
 pivoted upon the conflict of two worlds, each jus- 
 tified upon its own premise. The discovery of 
 America, the conquest of Mexico by Cortez, the 
 settlement of Canada by the French had carried in 
 their wake human experiences not unlike those of 
 Jason and Medea. Following Addison’s sentimen- 
 tal tale Inkle and Jarico , poems and plays had ap- 
 peared in which faithful Indian women palled upon 
 their white lovers and were betrayed by them. 
 The conflict between savagery and civilization, a 
 favorite theme of the Romanticists, stimulated es- 
 pecially by Chateaubriand, became in Grillparzer’s 
 hands the carrier of a new spirit. His play is free 
 from sentimentality and in a sense both protago- 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 nists are excusable. For even Jason cannot alto- 
 gether be blamed for estrangement from so crude 
 a companion. 
 
 This impartiality alone would mark our drama- 
 tist as an exponent of the nineteenth-century atti- 
 tude. But he goes a step further. He becomes 
 one of the early forerunners of that poetry of dis- 
 illusionment which has become so prominent since 
 the appearance of Ghosts and The Wild Duck. 
 Time-hallowed beliefs and darling prejudices are 
 stripped of their trappings. The sons of civiliza- 
 tion share with the children of a more primitive 
 world the vices that are man’s common heritage: 
 brutality and selfishness. Thus The Golden Fleece 
 marks an advance in painful insight since the day 
 when Goethe could match the noblesse oblige of an 
 Iphigenia with the instinctive nobility of a Scythian 
 chief. 
 
 A like critical attitude toward time-honored axi- 
 oms informs the unique comedy Thou Shalt Not Lie! 
 with a subtlety altogether beyond the grasp of 
 the public of 1838. Did not even fifty years later 
 Ibsen’s Wild Duck shock by its revelation of the 
 complexity of a supposedly simple moral axiom? 
 No wonder the theatre-goers of 1838 were puzzled, 
 especially as the plot revolves about a famous and 
 [188] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 revered Prince of the Church, Gregory of Tours. 
 The main carrier of the action is his impudent but 
 clever and devoted scullion, who casts aside his 
 apron to start out on a quest for the bishop’s nephew 
 held prisoner by the barbarian chief Kattwald. 
 But the good bishop impresses upon his scullion 
 that at no cost must he deviate a hair’s breadth from 
 the exact truth, that not even against a pagan will 
 God countenance a falsehood. His parting injunc- 
 tion is : “Thou shalt not lie !” In a series of hu- 
 morous scenes the nimble youth succeeds in out- 
 witting the heavy-footed barbarians and freeing 
 the bishop’s nephew, partially by the simple device 
 of telling the truth with such impudence and in 
 language so extravagant as to imply the opposite. 
 But incidentally he entangles himself in half- 
 truths and self-deceptions, half-conscious and half- 
 unconscious. Upon the return of scullion and 
 captive, the delighted bishop discovers to his 
 confusion that truth may be subtly interwoven with 
 deceit. The realization of life’s complexities and 
 of man’s inability to extricate himself from them by 
 a simple formula come home to him : 
 
 Oh, to unravel life’s much tangled ways ! . . . 
 
 We cannot free the growing wheat from chaff. 
 
 Happy if any harvest garnered be. 
 
 [ 189 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 Thus this Gregory is a precursor of that Gregers 
 in the Wild Duck to whom the recognition of the 
 complexity of life and the inadequacy of a naive 
 idealism becomes catastrophically tragic. 
 
 Disillusionment of a different kind furnishes the 
 tragic factor in The Jewess of Toledo , one of Grill- 
 parzer’s latest and subtlest dramas (published 
 posthumously), which shows his break with the 
 Schiller tradition as perhaps no other play does. 
 Alfonso, King of Castile, united in early years to a 
 noble but temperamentally cold English princess, 
 falls in love with a vulgar but beautiful Jewess. 
 Her fascination not only renders him oblivious to 
 her shortcomings, but even causes him to neglect 
 affairs of state. The Moors are knocking at the 
 gates. The nobles fear that the king’s neglect may 
 prove fatal to the country. The young king, a 
 complex and stubborn character, at times seems in 
 a fair way to overcome his infatuation, but always 
 the lure of Rachel’s beauty proves too great. Fi- 
 nally the queen and the nobles conspire to kill her. 
 The sight of the bloodstained corpse suddenly re- 
 leases the young king from the sensual enthralment 
 in which he had been held. A transition as baf- 
 fling as that of Kleist’s Prince of Hamburg takes 
 place in this complicated soul. Not for a moment 
 [190] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 does Grillparzer drift into eighteenth-century sen- 
 timentalism which would have woven the victim’s 
 wreath about Rachel’s brow, making her a martyr 
 to race or class prejudice. The innate vulgarity of 
 the low-born wanton who had willingly sold herself 
 for luxury had been subconsciously felt by the 
 young king and required only the shock caused by 
 her death to rise to his conscious perception. After 
 the first outburst of rage and desire for revenge he 
 gazes upon what remains of her with cool analysis : 
 
 I say she is not fair . . . 
 
 I say she was not fair! . . . 
 
 An evil line on cheek and chin and mouth, 
 
 A lurking something in that fiery glance 
 Envenomed and disfigured all her charm. 
 
 But erst I’ve gazed upon it and compared. 
 
 When there I entered in to fire my rage, 
 
 Half fearsome of the mounting of my ire. . . . 
 
 It happened otherwise than I had thought. (Act V.) 
 
 Like Kleist, too, Grillparzer found the model 
 for such uncorrelated natures in his own breast. 
 Emotional intensity and responsiveness to sensuous 
 charm were joined in him with a rationalistic cool- 
 ness which often in his relations with women saved 
 him from pitfalls, but which also prevented his 
 marriage with the one woman who seemed destined 
 for his mate — Kathi Frohlich. 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 The same boldness which prompted the projection 
 of so unusual a character as King Alfonso, self- 
 contradictory and apparently improbable, stamps 
 also A Faithful Servant of His King ( Ein treuer 
 Diener seines Herrn, 1828). While in some of his 
 other plays, notably Ottokar , the influence of Shake- 
 spearean realism is apparent, in A Faithful Servant 
 a new note is introduced by the author’s evident ac- 
 quaintance with Lope de Vega. Early in life 
 Grillparzer had become enamored of Spanish lit- 
 erature and in the works of Lope he discovered a 
 fidelity to life in all its vagaries for which he looked 
 in vain to Sophocles and Shakespeare. It is ac- 
 quaintance with Lope which made him say: “In- 
 consistencies in drama are permissible, for in real 
 life characters are seldom logical.” But he adds — 
 and here he differs from the playwrights of our 
 day — only poets of the first order may venture upon 
 this new and difficult ground. In A Faithful 
 Servant the hero — if indeed we may use that term 
 for so unheroic a personage as Bancbanus — is an 
 elderly nobleman at the court of King Andreas of 
 Hungary. The king, compelled to leave for the 
 front at a moment when inner dissensions threaten, 
 commits his realm as well as his wife and child to 
 the care of the protesting Bancbanus, whose fidelity 
 [192] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 is beyond doubt. Bancbanus’ difficulties are ag- 
 gravated by the queen’s dissolute young brother, 
 Prince Otto of Meran, who is in love with Banc- 
 banus’ young wife and who with the aid of a band 
 of young nobles delights in thwarting the vice- 
 regent and in jeopardizing the internal peace of the 
 realm. Bancbanus is determined to be faithful to 
 his trust and to preserve the peace at all costs, but 
 he lacks the strength — perhaps the brutality — suc- 
 cessfully to cope with the nobles and to protect his 
 own household as well as the state. Erny, his wife, 
 appeals to him against the prince, but to break 
 openly with the latter means to set free the forces 
 of insurgency, for an open rupture is precisely what 
 Otto wants to provoke. Bancbanus’ courage is 
 passive rather than active. He pockets the con- 
 tumely of his and Erny’s family, but he cannot be 
 swerved from the path of duty. Even when Erny, 
 to protect herself against the prince’s violence, puts 
 an end to her life, Bancbanus refuses to imprison 
 her pursuer and risks his own life to save him and 
 the queen from a group of ambitious nobles who 
 attempt to capture the royal family. In the strug- 
 gle, however, the queen is killed and it is Prince 
 Otto who meets the king with the young heir- 
 apparent in his arms. Bancbanus now retires from 
 
 [ 193 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 public life to mourn his wife, tortured by doubts of 
 himself and the justice of his actions. Thus Grill- 
 parzer, as early as 1828, had the daring to present 
 a hero who was inadequate to his trust, unheroic in 
 his actions, and often comic in his pedantry. 
 
 with his 
 
 task unsatisfactorily performed — for both the queen 
 and Erny are dead — he seems the personification of 
 the tragedy of humanity: frailty paired with hero- 
 ism, insufficiency in the noblest natures. Both in 
 history and in the historic drama we are accustomed 
 to see the hero with only the heroic side of his 
 nature turned to the public — his very faults are 
 heroic, as in Macbeth and W allenstein. Here, al- 
 most a hundred years ago, a poet reared in the 
 Shakespeare-Schiller tradition dares to present an 
 historical character in much the same light in which 
 he must have appeared to his contemporaries. The 
 subject attracted attention, but the public was again 
 puzzled by a treatment so unconventional. Only 
 once more did Grillparzer hazard quite so daring an 
 experiment. In A Family Quarrel in the House of 1 
 Hapsburg he depicts a doubting and unheroic em- 
 peror. In respect to psychological realism — though 
 not to artistry — A Faithful Servant is the high- 
 water mark of his achievement. 
 
 [ 194 ] 
 
 When Bancbanus finally meets the king 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 As a stylist Grillparzer stands out in German 
 drama a consummate artist, the rare melodiousness 
 of whose verse haunts the memory. His dramatic 
 output as a whole shows a masterly use of the tra- 
 ditional blank verse. Yet the keen ear will fre- 
 quently detect a new note in the flawless flow of 
 the meter. Even in one of the dramas dealing with 
 classical legend, The Golden Fleece , which so 
 strongly reflects Goethe’s influence, Grillparzer 
 carefully differentiates between the rough and fal- 
 tering language of the barbarians of Colchis and 
 the smooth and graceful diction of the Hellenes, 
 whereas in Goethe’s Iphigenia the speech of Greek 
 and barbarian alike moves on the plane of Sopho- 
 clean beauty. Perhaps even more striking is the 
 attempt at reproducing barbarian inarticulateness 
 in Thou Shalt Not Lie. Here the chieftain Gal- 
 omir under the stress of emotion can find only 
 broken phrases and childlike shrieks of rage and 
 despair. 
 
 More than even Kleist or Grillparzer, Friedrich 
 Hebbel (1813-1863), the most powerful play- 
 wright in the nineteenth century before Ibsen, 
 stands out as the spokesman of a new world. Con- 
 sciously he breaks with the time-hallowed theory of 
 tragic guilt and, a disciple of Hegel and contem- 
 
 [*9 5 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 porary of Darwin and Karl Marx, sees life through 
 the category of evolution. 
 
 This virile and fascinating personality was born 
 the son of a poor mason in the northernmost part of 
 Schleswig-Holstein, at that time under Danish rule. 
 Stark poverty combined with a depressing family 
 life early gave him insight into the tragic elements 
 of existence. For years the imaginative youth oc- 
 cupied a humble and too often humiliating position 
 as office boy to a subaltern official in his native vil- 
 lage Wesselburen. Later he was advanced to a 
 secretaryship to the same master and in this capacity 
 assisted at the trials of petty offenders and was 
 thus early brought face to face with life’s insoluble 
 conflicts. Voracious reading in his master’s library 
 laid the foundation for an extensive acquaintance 
 with the German poets and stimulated his emula- 
 tion. 
 
 In his early twenties he published ballads and 
 other verse in a Hamburg paper, thereby procuring 
 his release from an intolerable environment. For 
 these first efforts attracted the attention of several 
 well-meaning persons who raised the funds for his 
 removal to Hamburg and the pursuit of studies — 
 under harrowing conditions of poverty and spiritual 
 loneliness, to be sure — as preparation for a univer- 
 [196] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 sity course. In February, 1835, he left his native 
 village for the wealthy Hansa town. The tragic 
 years that followed proved the crucible in which 
 his views of life and art were to be moulded. 
 Neither at the University of Heidelberg nor at 
 Munich whither he directed his steps, could he find 
 a vocation suitable to his temperament. Hence 
 more and more the conviction was forced upon him 
 by experience that tragedy may arise merely from 
 the lack of adjustment between temperament and 
 environment. With surprising objectivity for one 
 so young — he had only reached his twenty-third 
 year — he saw himself an anomaly in a society which 
 could hardly be blamed for not recognizing the 
 claims of a person apparently so sterile. He writes 
 that it is quite conceivable that he may be right 
 while society need not be wrong — a significant ut- 
 terance which was to find ample illustration in the 
 dramatic output of his riper years. 
 
 The years in Munich brought with them incon- 
 ceivable misery and loneliness. Hunger and cold 
 and his inability to fit into any niche made exist- 
 ence troublesome almost beyond endurance. Yet 
 his letters and diaries prove that his mind even at 
 this time was continually at work upon literary and 
 philosophical problems. Perhaps no man ever 
 
 [ 197 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 lived more exclusively the life of the intellect. 
 Catholic reading in the fields of literature, history, 
 and philosophy immensely widened his horizon. 
 Finally, out of a welter of plans and fragments 
 there evolved one complete drama, Judith (1840). 
 This in spite of youthful crudities forced from a 
 reluctant public the admission that there had arisen 
 a new genius in the dramatic world. Judith , at 
 once performed in Berlin, called attention to the 
 struggling and starving poet. A traveling fellow- 
 ship was procured from his sovereign, King Chris- 
 tian VIII of Denmark, and Hebbel proceeded to 
 Paris and Italy. In Rome this typical Northerner 
 for the first time became aware of the importance of 
 beauty — an illumination which later was to have 
 a vital effect upon his art. 
 
 Again his affairs were in a chaotic and apparently 
 hopeless state. For after two years the fellowship 
 had run out and he found himself penniless (1845). 
 Yet the turn of the tide was at hand. On his home- 
 ward way he stopped at Vienna, and here most un- 
 expectedly his pilgrimage was to find its goal and 
 his life its proper setting. For he met Christine 
 Enghaus, a leading tragedienne of the Vienna Burg- 
 theater. Elective affinity soon drew them together. 
 The marriage took place almost immediately and 
 [198] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 meant for Hebbel a harmonious solution such as he 
 had hardly dared dream possible. For almost 
 twenty years her intellectual companionship and 
 her devotion created an atmosphere which made 
 possible productivity on a large scale. 
 
 But even this happy consummation implied a 
 tragic conflict curiously consonant with Hebbel’s 
 philosophy of life. During those early Hamburg 
 years of loneliness and poverty he had been at- 
 tracted by Elise Lensing, ten years his senior and 
 as lonely and poor as he. The friendship kindled 
 by her kindness and interest had soon ripened into 
 passion. Two children who died in infancy were 
 born to them and the years of struggle in Paris and 
 Italy were further embittered by the conflict between 
 what Hebbel recognized as Elise’s justified claims 
 and his ever-deepening estrangement. This pain- 
 ful situation seizes upon the imagination like one of 
 Hebbel’s tragedies, in which also the struggle 
 usually takes place between two equally justifiable 
 opponents. Fortunately, Elise Lensing later be- 
 came reconciled to the marriage. 
 
 Of Hebbel’s career not much more need be said. 
 Most of his best work — the tragedies Herod and Ma- 
 riamne , Agnes Bernauer , Gyges and His Ring , The 
 Nibelungen ; some powerful ballads; excellent lit- 
 
 [ 199 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 erary criticisms — was now accomplished. While 
 his dramas, freighted with intellectual import, were 
 never “popular,” they found partial recognition at 
 least from some of the leading minds of his time. 
 On his deathbed he received the news that his last 
 play, The Nibelungen, had received the Schiller 
 prize — a bit of life’s irony which drew from him 
 the characteristic remark: “So ist das Leben: bald 
 fehlt uns der TVetn, bald fehlt uns der Becker!” 
 
 For decades Hebbel’s work was almost forgotten. 
 Full recognition did not and could not prevail until 
 general understanding of an art so searching, so ex- 
 pressive of the modern scientific spirit, had been 
 fostered by the novels of Balzac and Flaubert, of 
 Dostoievski and Tolstoy, and by the dramas of 
 Ibsen. Today Hebbel has come into his own in 
 Germany and is beginning to be recognized in 
 France, England, America, and Italy. 
 
 Hebbel’s dramas fall into two groups, both ex- 
 ponents of the tragic conception of life discussed 
 above: a larger group of historical plays bearing 
 outward resemblance to the Schiller-Goethe type, 
 and a smaller group of prose plays concerned with 
 contemporary life and pointing directly toward 
 Ibsen and Hauptmann. 
 
 Taking first the larger group, though we thus do 
 [200] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 violence to chronology, we shall discuss Herod and 
 Mariamne (1849), Agnes Bernauer (1851), and 
 Gyges and His Ring (1857). Of these, Gyges 
 shows the most exquisite workmanship — bearing 
 resemblance to Grillparzer’s limpid verse — and at 
 the same time offers the most illuminating exposi- 
 tion of Hebbel’s peculiar view of life and tragedy. 
 The problem presents the tragic fate of the reformer, 
 of the man who thinks in advance of “the compact 
 majority.” Kandaules, mythical King of Lydia, 
 with youthful ardor seeks to force advanced ideas 
 upon a conservative people, only to find that age- 
 long customs are not to be swept away by a breath. 
 He goes to his death, convinced of the rightness of 
 his ideas, but illuminated by a vision of the justi- 
 fication of his opponents’ contention. 
 
 I know for very truth the time is coming 
 When all will think as I do. Say, what virtue 
 Inheres in veils, in crowns or rusty swords 
 That is eternal ? But the weary world 
 O’er things like these is sunken into sleep, 
 
 Things that she wrested in her latest throe 
 And holds to fast. Who’d plunder her thereof 
 Wakes her. Then let that man first search himself, 
 If he be strong enough to hold her bound 
 When, jolted half awake, she lays about her; 
 
 And rich enough to offer her aught higher, 
 
 If she be loath to let her trinket go. (V, 1.) 
 
 [ 201 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 This picture of life must remind the student of 
 Hegel’s philosophical formula. To Hegel the uni- , 
 verse is in a constant state of flux' — a cosmic change 
 subject to definite law. Evolution comes about c 
 through “thesis,” “antithesis,” and “synthesis.” 
 That is to say, any given condition (in the case of t 
 Gyges, conservatism) will breed its opposite (in , 
 this case, radicalism). These two, bound in the ; 
 nature of things to come into conflict, may each be , 
 justifiable and their representatives need not in any 
 sense be regarded as “guilty.” Thus, those who; 
 have experienced the virtue of century-old institu- 
 tions cannot be expected complacently to yield; 
 them to untried theories. Yet without bold in-! 
 novators the world would stagnate. 
 
 To Hebbel this conception of two justifiable op- 
 ponents^ — a conception adumbrated in Sophocles’s 
 Antigone — forms the pivot of historical evolution. 
 His tragic figure is by preference the bannerbearer 
 of a new vision, a martyr to progress. He says that 
 the first and the last representative of a world-view ; 
 is always either tragic or comic, and history bears 
 this out. “Fulton’s Folly” drastically instances [ 
 how comic to the popular mind the propagator of a 
 new idea may seem. Hypatia fell a martyr to a 
 waning cause, while the fate of the Founder of 
 [ 202 ] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 Christianity is the most august instance of the 
 world’s resistance to a new evangel. 
 
 We shall not then be surprised that Hebbel fre- 
 quently derives the theme for his dramas from tran- 
 sition periods. In Gyges, as we saw, he treated 
 the general subject of social evolution symbolically 
 against a mythical background. In Herod and 
 Mariamne and The Nibelungen he chooses the time 
 when through the Christian creed a new evaluation 
 of the individual dawned upon the world, while 
 Agnes Bernauer depicts the inception of modern so- 
 cial ideals within the Feudal System. 
 
 Herod and Mariamne is perhaps the most char- 
 acteristic — the most Hebbelese — as well as the 
 most powerful and the best constructed of his 
 dramas. A few masterful strokes depict the back- 
 ground of the Hebrew-Roman world at the dawn 
 of Christianity — brutal and intriguing. Herod, 
 king of a turbulent Jewish population, protected 
 by successive Roman consuls during the insecure 
 period that immediately preceded the Empire, keeps 
 a precarious footing only by a combination of bru- 
 tality and cunning. The one redeeming feature of 
 his life is his wife Mariamne, daughter of the Mac- 
 cabees, his hereditary enemies. Her he adores, yet 
 even her he treats as a chattel, loading her with 
 
 [203! 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 jewels, but not confiding in her, since respect for the 
 individual is impossible in the hard world to which 
 he has adapted himself. 
 
 Mariamne, a complicated character, unites with 
 the pride of her forefathers a new conception of 
 personal dignity. She foreshadows a world in 
 which the individual soul is to assume a new im- 
 portance. Though she loves her husband, she re- 
 sents his attitude toward her, even his expressions 
 of affection, demanding trust, not gifts. Through 
 successive steps of the action the inevitable conflict 
 of these two comes to a climax. When the realiza- 
 tion is forced upon Mariamne that she is little better 
 than a precious slave, that she and Herod move in 
 different worlds separated by an unbridged chasm, 
 she exclaims with a breaking heart : 
 
 And so the end has come ! 
 
 And what an end ! One that its own beginning 
 Engulfs with all beside. The time that’s past, 
 
 The time to come, dissolve to naught in me. 
 
 Naught I have had and naught I have and naught 
 I shall have. O, was mortal e’er so poor? (IV, 3.) 
 
 She more and more withdraws within herself and 
 by her silence confirms his worst suspicions of her 
 fidelity, until Herod, goaded to madness, orders 
 her execution. Thus perishes one of the first rep- 
 [204] 
 
. from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 resentatives of that new temperament which pro- 
 . duced Christianity; but the advent of the Magi at 
 the close of the play reminds us that the concept 
 of life which she personated was in the course 
 of becoming regnant at the very moment of her 
 death. 
 
 Herod and Mariamne struck the Nora-motif 
 in its insistence upon human dignity regardless of 
 sex; Agnes Bernauer, the only one of Hebbel’s great 
 historical plays written in prose, champions human 
 dignity regardless of social caste. The impetuous 
 young prince’s plan of elevating the barber’s lovely 
 and virtuous daughter to the throne was the less ab- 
 surd, since the action occurs in that fifteenth century 
 when, in cities like Augsburg \the scene of the 
 play) a new democracy seemed about to break. 
 But, true to his conception of tragedy, Hebbel gives 
 equal stress to those political and social institutions 
 which were holding the world together and of which 
 Duke Ernst, the young lover’s father, is the pro- 
 tagonist. In this battle of the Titans, Agnes is 
 swept to her doom — innocent victim of that inex- 
 orable law by which progress is bought only at the 
 cost of blood and tears. 
 
 The smaller group of social dramas written in 
 prose, though artistically of less import, may from 
 
Naturalism in German Drama fr 
 
 the point of view of the evolution of realism be (j 
 regarded as even more significant. in 
 
 In Julia (1851), an inferior play, we are startled ( c 
 to hear Count Bertram objecting to a marriage 
 with Julia on the ground that union between health j s j 
 and disease is the breeder of “ghosts” — an astound- 8 
 ing premonition of Ibsen’s greatest tragedy. p 
 
 Maria Magdalena (1844), Hebbel’s first do- L 
 mestic tragedy, the product of his earlier muse, 
 connects him with Lillo (1731), with the young | 
 Schiller (1784) on the one hand, and Dumas 
 (1854 f-)» Bjornson, Ibsen, and Hauptmann on the 
 other. But whereas in Schiller’s Intrigue and Love, 
 domestic tragedy was made the vehicle for class- I 
 conflict, in HebbeFs Maria Magdalena it reappears 
 after the long reign of the classical-romantic trag- 
 edy in a new spirit, turning the critical searchlight 
 upon middle-class character itself and deriving the 
 catastrophe from its conventionality, rigidity, and 
 intolerance. 
 
 Cabinet-maker Anton, the personification of rec- 
 titude and petty thrift, estranges his only son and 
 drives his daughter Clara to despair and suicide I 
 by his slavish dependence on the rigid ideas of j 
 morality regnant about him. For convention is his I 
 god and abject fear of what “people say” his demon. 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 Hence, after a long life devoted to honest toil, see- 
 ing everything about him in ruins, he is forced to 
 confess that he no longer understands the world. 
 
 In spite of a certain crudity in the dialogue — 
 since all the characters speak Hebbelese instead 
 of using their own idiom — this play stands at the 
 portal of the modern social drama as a fine promise 
 of greater achievement. 
 
 In structure, both Julia and Maria Magdalena 
 break with the conventional tradition of separating 
 the exposition from the action. By introducing 
 the public at once into tlje midst of the problem. 
 
 HeSbel initiates tor modern drama that analytical 
 (technique which Ibsen was to bring to perfection. 
 
 In the history of realism Hebbel’s importance, 
 then, is four-fold. He went beyond his predeces- 
 sors, with the possible exception of Kleist, in the 
 treatment of complicated characters like Mariamne. 
 He swung open the gates for the return of that 
 tragedy of middle-class life which was so largely 
 to govern the stage during the last decades of the 
 nineteenth century. By introducing the analytical 
 technique he effected a closer articulation between 
 drama and life. Finally he projected a new vision 
 of tragedy derived from the concept of evolution: 
 a realization that the most crushing conflicts arise. 
 
 [207] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama fi 
 
 not from moral guilt, but from the fact that in a bf 
 world subject to constant change every generation ic 
 produces men and women hateful or ridiculous to l 
 their environment because of convictions at variance s< 
 with those of the majority — convictions grown an-j n 
 tiquated, though once admired, or misunderstood be- c 
 cause expressed too early. 
 
 Hence no one who would acquire a mature ac- 
 quaintance with modern drama can afford to neglect 1 
 Hebbel’s plays and the critical remarks on dramatic j : 
 literature scattered through his Letters and Diaries. 
 For, in spite of a certain leaning to strained and 
 painful situations and a tendency to afiow the iri-i 
 tellect to govern emotion and imagination, Hebbeli 
 is altogether one of the greatest dramatists since 
 Shakespeare, as he is one of the profoundest stu- 
 dents of dramatic problems. 
 
 A contemporary of Hebbel, Otto Ludwig (1813- 
 65), though less forceful and less original, deserves 
 a niche in the history of realistic drama, on account 
 of his domestic tragedy in prose, The Forester, 
 (1850), which for power nearly matches Hebbel’s 
 Maria Magdalena , while in the treatment of dia- 
 logue it marks a step in advance. 
 
 '' At the time of Hebbel’s death (1863) forces 
 which had been gathering momentum for a century 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 ■ : : 
 
 became culminant. The spirit of science and crit- 
 | ieism was controlling thought in almost all parts of 
 1 Europe. Industrialism had fundamentally affected 
 social and sesthetic standards and had completely 
 revolutionized the life of the working classes. In 
 consequence, socialism was everywhere threatening 
 to become a dominant political factor. 
 
 In literature, this new outlook produced the 
 novels of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot; of Bal- 
 zac and Flaubert; of Frey tag, Reuter, Spielhagen; 
 the dramas of Hebbel, Otto Ludwig; the society- 
 plays of the younger Dumas, Augier, and Sardou. 
 The common thread that binds these divergent 
 works of art into a unit is interest in the varied 
 manifestations of life with an ever widening social 
 sympathy. 
 
 Now was to come to the fore that class of mod- 
 ern playwrights whom for want of a better name 
 we dub “naturalists.” That is, men who concen- 
 trate on recording the very gait and gesture of life 
 and who by preference put upon the boards human 
 beings and problems which to their more aristocratic 
 forebears would have seemed unworthy. On the 
 very threshold of this movement stands Ludwig 
 Anzengruber (1839-1889), mummer and writer of 
 peasant plays and, strange to say, child of that 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 same Vienna which had produced Mozart, prince 
 of Rococo exquisiteness, and Grillparzer, aristocrat 
 among dramatists. It would be difficult to imagine 
 a more striking contrast: Grillparzer, consummate 
 literary artist, in spirit a disciple of eighteenth 
 century fastidiousness, contemptuous of popular 
 poetry and quoting with approval Schiller’s dictum : 
 “Was kann der Mi sere derm auch Groszes be - 
 gegnen ?” and Anzengruber, friend of peasant and 
 artisan, pondering their problems and temptations, 
 writing dialect plays meant to sway untutored 
 audiences in suburban and village theatres, rugged 
 of person, awkward of manner, yet withal a man of 
 tender heart. 
 
 Anzengruber was brought up in humble circum- 
 stances. For a while he attended the Latin School ; 
 then through years of wandering through various 
 parts of Austria-Hungary as a strolling player and 
 later as journalist and author in Vienna he acquired 
 that familiarity with middle-class and peasant life 
 which gives his plays their peculiar tang. 
 
 A fortunate opportunity presented itself in the 
 prevalent popularity of the V olksbuhne (People’s 
 Theatre) which was offering diversion to the lively 
 imagination of the Viennese, deprived as they were 
 by the reactionary Metternich regime from partici- 
 [210] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 pation in public affairs. For this stage excellent 
 authors — notably Ferdinand Raimund — had fur- 
 nished harmless plays in which romantic and nat- 
 uralistic elements are often curiously and happily 
 blended. Thus in his Spendthrift (1834) the 
 romantic note prevails, yet the writer directs barbed 
 shafts at many institutions of his day and introduces 
 servants and other figures from humble stations 
 whose admirable or amusing characteristics are done 
 to the life. 
 
 Anzengruber’s love for the people imbued him 
 with a desire to write for them plays which would 
 hold the mirror up to nature, which should repro- 
 duce problems from their own lives. In tragedies 
 and comedies he attacked those forces which struck 
 him as being inimical to the development of their 
 freer humanity: priestcraft, social and political op- 
 pression on the one hand; their own ignorance, 
 superstition, brutality, and lack of moral seriousness 
 on the other. Yet in spite of this didactic tendency 
 we can say of only a very few of these plays that 
 the thesis dominates the plot. And even when this 
 does occur, we are carried away by the boldness and 
 modernity of the problem. Thus, half a decade 
 before Ibsen’s Nora disturbed a complacent bour- 
 geois society, Anzengruber in two mediocre plays 
 
 [211] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 treated the marriage problem in startlingly uncon- 
 ventional and modern fashion. Elfrieda (1873), 
 a tragedy of middle-class life, reads like a crude 
 prototype of Nora, especially in the climactic scene 
 in which the heroine demands that her husband 
 treat her as his comrade, not as an appendage. The 
 peasant tragedy Hand and Heart (1874) v °i ces the 
 tenet that temperamental compatibility and not 
 church vows forms the basis of the sacredness of 
 marriage. 
 
 The best of Anzengruber’s peasant plays throb 
 with intuitive understanding, due probably in part 
 to the call of the blood. His father had sprung 
 from the soil and in his own make-up the blend of 
 tenderness with strength, of seriousness with rich 
 humor joined to indestructible vitality link him with 
 his peasant ancestry. 
 
 Of these plays the first was The Parish Priest 
 of Kirchfeld (1870), a work of considerable im- 
 portance and still — though not the greatest of 
 Anzengruber’s — the most popular. Here again he 
 champions inwardness as- against formalism. So 
 far from being like Grillparzer, that disciple of 
 Voltaire, an enemy of all churchmen, Anzengruber 
 places in the centre of his drama the sympathetic 
 figure of a young priest who, because of his large 
 [212] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 humaneness and true Christianity, suffers martyr- 
 dom at the hands of uncritically formalistic au- 
 thorities. 
 
 In The Perjured Peasant (1872) Anzengruber 
 probably reached the zenith of his power. Here 
 is a play entirely within the circumference of coun- 
 try life. Like Hebbel’s Maria Magdalena it calls 
 no class-conflicts into action. The problems of the 
 characters root in their own temperaments and de- 
 velop naturally in their native atmosphere. Mat- 
 thias Ferner, the central figure, had in his youth, 
 moved by the peasant’s consuming passion — love 
 of the soil — burnt a will and committed perjury to 
 retain his farm. As the years wane, fear of eternal 
 punishment — that second great motive force in the 
 Catholic peasant — mars his satisfaction in his ill- 
 gotten gains. With characteristic cunning he thinks 
 to cheat heaven by inducing his son to enter the 
 priesthood so that he may grant him absolution be- 
 fore his death. Thwarted by his son’s refusal and 
 threatened by the discovery of his crime, he loses 
 his self-control, shoots and wounds his son and dies 
 in a paroxysm of terror and repentance. The play, 
 in spite of melodramatic patches, introduced for 
 the sake of the audience for which it was primarily 
 written, is a work of art of high order. Unlike the 
 
 [213] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 conventional pastoral with its beribboned swains 
 a la Gessner, it shows intimate acquaintance with 
 the people it depicts. These sturdy peasants are 
 powerful of will, brutal when crossed, with deep- 
 rooted affections and a narrow but strong sense of 
 right and wrong. Moreover, in the distribution of 
 light and shade Anzengruber shows himself no 
 melodramatist. The characterization is done with 
 deft hand. Vroni, the real heiress to the farm, 
 is a fascinating mixture of good-nature, bubbling 
 vitality, and blunt self-assertion. Ferner is no melo- 
 dramatic villain, but wins our understanding for 
 the motives which prompted his desperate clutch 
 on the land that he felt should have been his, though 
 that clutch led to cruelty and crime. The experi- 
 ences of these simple people who speak their native 
 dialect bring before us the relativity of moral values 
 more cogently than has ever been done by ringing 
 iambics on the tongue of hero or of king. 
 
 In this play the author, like Hebbel in Maria 
 Magdalena , adopts that analytical technique which 
 Ibsen, a dozen years later, brought to consummation. 
 
 In Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother (1878), 
 a play based on lower middle-class life in Vienna, 
 tragedy arises from that lack of moral seriousness 
 which is the reverse side of Viennese urbanity and 
 
 [214] 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 - ^ - ■_ gj -| , 
 
 charm. Again like Ibsen, Anzengruber places 
 under the microscope of modern criticism a moral 
 tenet hitherto unquestioningly accepted. 
 
 bchal anther, master cabinet-maker, and ins wife, 
 Barbara, are examplars of these lazy, self-indulgent, 
 good-natured folk who often work greater havoc 
 in life than the more definitely ill-intentioned. 
 Business grows from bad to worse, the household is 
 neglected, and children and parents seek diversion 
 in tavern and gay company. In consequence, the 
 daughter Josepha, not intrinsically vicious, becomes 
 the mistress of the landlord’s son — whom the mother 
 cannot oppose because the rent is overdue — and 
 later passes from hand to hand. The son, Martin, 
 whose violent temper early escaped his father’s weak 
 authority, commits a murder and dies on the scaf- 
 fold. On the eve of his shameful death, he refuses 
 to see his parents, telling the priest who adjures him 
 “honor thy father and thy mother” that that com- 
 mandment holds good only where the parents are 
 deserving of honor. To some, father and mother 
 instead of being a blessing are a curse. As a parallel 
 case to young Martin and his sister, the poet inter- 
 weaves with their lives the fate of Hedwig Hutterer, 
 daughter of a well-to-do bourgeois whose father 
 forces her to marry that very Stolzenthaler who had 
 
 [ 215 ] 
 
J 
 
 Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 seduced Josepha. Bitter experience teaches Hed- 
 wig that marriage with a dissolute man, even though 
 consummated at the behest of parents, may issue ir 
 degradation of the, wife and degeneracy of the 
 offspring — a theme which as early as 1852 had been 
 touched upon in Hebbel’s Julia and which a few 
 years later was to find masterly expression in Ibsen’s 
 Ghosts. In a striking scene with Josepha, Hed- 
 wig cries: “We are sisters. You were sold to 
 many, I to one.” 
 
 As a foil to the undutiful parents appear Schon 
 and his wife, gardener and caretaker of the es- 
 tate of Hedwig’s father. By frugality and self- 
 abnegation they have enabled their son to fulfill 
 his dearest wish and study for the ministry. This 
 young priest, generalizing on the basis of his own 
 happy home life, advises Hedwig, when she recoils 
 from the repulsive marriage which her father de- 
 sires, to obey God’s commandment and leave the 
 rest to Him. But her experience as well as that 
 of Martin Schalanther, whom he visits in prison, 
 convince him that a priest ought not to generalize 
 without thinking and that even the sacred command- 
 ments cannot be universally applied. 
 
 In spite, however, of such clear-eyed criticism 
 of life, Anzengruber to the last remained free from 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 the canker of cynicism. To this child of the people, 
 loving his fellow-men and believing in their inherent 
 goodness, life tasted good in the mouth and he loved 
 it in all its phases. 
 
 This joyous affirmation, the author’ s profound 
 moral seriousness, and the convincing reality of his 
 characters easily make us forget that these vivid 
 plays have not always attained that consummate 
 adequacy of technique which delights us in Ghosts 
 and Rosa Bernd. His characters occasionally meet 
 each other at the right moment without that inevit- 
 ableness which marks the stage-economy of more re- 
 cent masters of drama. On the other hand, Anzen- 
 gruber’s use of language deserves unstinted praise. 
 The untutored speak their native dialect, whether it 
 be that of the mountain village or the city workshop. 
 The more educated speak literary German; and the 
 peasants who have come into contact with city life 
 reveal that fact by a more sophisticated speech than 
 their fellows. On the whole, however, Anzen- 
 gruber is most happy in his renditions of the ver- 
 nacular of peasants and artisans. Yet it is no 
 phonographic record of dialect that he gives. This 
 would be unintelligible to city audiences. A true 
 artist, Anzengruber merely suggests the verisimili- 
 tude of life. 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 Anzengruber, then, is the culmination of that 
 naturalistic tendency whose incipiency we traced in 
 Kleist and whose gradual unfolding we followed in 
 this panoramic view of nineteenth-century German 
 drama. Kleist and Grillparzer, as we saw, in spite 
 of originality, affiliate with the classicistic drama. 
 Even the fame of Hebbel, the great innovator, rests 
 essentially on his historical and mythical plays in 
 blank verse. But the bulk of Anzengruber’s work, 
 appealing as it does to the audiences of the V oik s- 
 theater, is altogether conceived in the spirit of the 
 new time. His homespun art could, therefore, 
 hardly be expected to find immediate recognition 
 from audiences trained in the tradition of Shake- 
 speare, Schiller, and Grillparzer. The hallowed 
 Burgtheater of Vienna was long closed to him. 
 Characteristically, it was in Berlin, the enterprising 
 capital of the new Empire, that serious effort was 
 first made to interpret to large audiences the work 
 of the Vienna naturalist. The same men who later 
 were to initiate the Ibsen cult and to give young 
 Hauptmann his chance,- Otto Brahm and Paul 
 Schlenther, now staged The Parish-Priest of Kirch- 
 feld and Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother , 
 and that with the same care which they bestowed 
 
from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 on Romeo and Juliet , Don Carlos, or Grillparzer’s 
 Sappho. 
 
 Small wonder then that when Ibsen began, in the 
 late eighties, to be played in Germany, and Haupt- 
 mann, a few years later, came before German audi- 
 ences with dramas of the type of Before Dawn, The 
 Weavers, or Michael Kramer, they found intelligent 
 sympathy in a surprisingly large minority among 
 German theatre-goers and readers. For that very 
 Germany to which Ibsen and Hauptmann were ap- 
 pealing had produced a Kleist who, nearly three 
 generations earlier, had introduced broken and un- 
 correlated characters; a Grillparzer who dared to 
 introduce unheroic “heroes” and had recognized the 
 momentous effect of environment on character; a 
 Hebbel who made evolution a driving force in 
 tragedy, who recognized heredity as a tragic factor, 
 and who revived middle-class tragedy in novel and 
 modernized form; and lastly an Anzengruber who 
 made the problems of peasants and other simple 
 folk appear as important as those of their social 
 superiors and who, more insistently than Grillparzer 
 or even Hebbel, subjected moral conventions to 
 searching criticism. 
 
 Thus, in spite of the weight of classical tradition, 
 
 [219] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 the German drama from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 exhibits a continually increasing trend towards 
 modernity, and Hauptmann, so far from being a 
 stranger in the country of Schiller, appears as the 
 product of a soil carefully tilled by three generations 
 of pioneer artists. 
 
HAUPTMANN’S TREATMENT OF THE 
 LOWER CLASSES 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 of the Lower Classes 
 
 Nearly four hundred years ago, Count Castiglione 
 in his illustrious book The Courtier (1528) bril- 
 liantly formulated the principles guiding a society 
 which had sloughed off every association with the 
 humbler strata of the commonwealth and which saw 
 in the aristocrat the fairest vessel of high attainment. 
 The Courtier, to prove worthy of his station, must 
 combine unaffected dignity and distinction with 
 physical prowess and a keen interest in intellectual 
 accomplishment. He and he only will strive after 
 so difficult an ideal; for, we are told (Book I, ch. 
 14): 
 
 Tis far less unseemly for one of ignoble birth to fail 
 in worthy deeds than for one of noble birth who, if he strays 
 from the path of his predecessors, stains his family name, 
 and not only fails to achieve, but loses what has been, 
 achieved already ; for noble birth is like a bright lamp that 
 manifests and makes visible good and evil deeds, and 
 kindles and stimulates to virtue by fear of shame and by 
 hope of praise. And since this splendor does not illumine 
 the deeds of the humble born, they lack that stimulus and 
 
 [ 223 ] 
 
 I 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 fear of shame, nor do they feel any obligation to advance 
 beyond what their predecessors have done ; while to the 
 nobly born it seems a reproach not to reach the goal set 
 by their ancestors. 
 
 What wonder that all thought and all art should 
 from the days of Castiglione increasingly reveal a 
 passionate preference for aristocratic habit and 
 posture and only too often a corresponding contempt 
 for the problems of the struggling millions? The 
 Madonna who with the earlier Italian masters — 
 Fra Angelico or Mantegna — had expressed the 
 simple charm of humble womanhood, in the course 
 of the sixteenth century — on the canvases of An- 
 drea del Sarto, Titian, Tintoretto — sits enthroned 
 as a queen, holding on her lap a princely child, while 
 St. Peter and the other saints, as her ministers of 
 state, seem to mediate between her and her sup- 
 pliants. Shakespeare’s rabble in Julius Caesar and 
 the complete absence in the French classical drama 
 of spokesmen of any but the courtly group, bear 
 eloquent witness to the spread of the conviction so 
 admirably phrased in the Cortegiano. Into what 
 a slough of misery and bestialization the workers 
 of the field had sunk in consequence of neglect all 
 too natural in so ill-balanced a type of society is 
 [224] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 manifest from an oft-quoted passage in La Bruyere’s 
 Characters. In the essay On Man we read : 
 
 You notice, scattered over the fields, certain wild ani- 
 mals, male and female, grimy, livid, and parched, glued 
 to the earth in which they dig and grub with invincible 
 stubbornness. They utter sounds vaguely resembling the 
 human voice. When they stand upright they exhibit a 
 human countenance, and, as a matter of fact, they are 
 human beings. At night they retire into their lairs where 
 they live on black bread, water, and roots. 
 
 Yet an occasional large-hearted personality was 
 capable even in that aristocratic age of more liberal 
 views. Almost in the very year of the appearance 
 of the Cortegiano, in 1529, the Spanish courtier 
 and bishop, Don Antonio de Guevara, in his Dial 
 of Princes ( Relox de Principes ) invents a speech 
 delivered by a peasant from the Danube to a 
 Roman senator in the train of Marcus Aurelius pro- 
 testing against the brutality and injustice of Roman 
 rule in Germany with such wisdom and eloquence 
 that even the stern rulers of the world stand abashed. 
 Fifty years later, 1580, that mellow critic of life, 
 Montaigne, in his essay Presumptions (Book I, ch. 
 17) hazards the conviction that the very people who 
 “hold the lowest ranks” in society, i. e. the peasants, 
 
 [225] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 frequently observe customs and hold ideas more 
 nearly in harmony with the teachings of true phi- 
 losophy than are the habits and teachings of the 
 philosophers themselves. Almost synchronously 
 with Montaigne another chronicler of human aspira- 
 tion and human frailty, Cervantes, in Rinconati 
 and Cortadillo , the most delightful of his Novelas 
 Exemplar es, describes with amused tenderness and 
 veiled compassion the fascination and peril inci- 
 dental to the career of professional thieves. And 
 that great interpreter of the soul, Shakespeare, de- 
 spite the contemptible part he assigns the mob in his 
 Julius Caesar , endows clowns, gravediggers, and 
 servingwomen — like the nurse or Emilia — with 
 shrewd native wisdom or capacity for deep tender- 
 ness and fidelity. And not long after, Dutch 
 painters like Adrian van Ostade revel — if not in the 
 loveliness and superior virtues of swains and shep- 
 herdesses, as poets of a later day were to do — at 
 least in the noisy robustness of the peasants about 
 them; while one of the sanest exponents of the reign 
 of the great Louis, La Fontaine, retells with unmis- 
 takable relish de Guevara’s tale in the Fable of the 
 Feasant from the Danube. Yet these are but 
 sporadic exceptions in an age essentially aristocratic. 
 
 That very seventeenth century, however, which 
 [226] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 produced the most extreme expressions — as in 
 French culture — of aristocratic onesidedness, was 
 also to witness the early manifestation of that social 
 conscience which in later times powerfully helped 
 to bring about a revision of the social code. The 
 passage from La Bruyere quoted above is introduced 
 by the portentous words: “The contemplation of 
 man’s ferocity in the treatment of his fellow-men 
 has never ceased to fill me with astonishment.” He 
 closes the same passage with the remark: “They 
 (i. e. the beasts in human form he has just de- 
 scribed) save their fellow-men the trouble of sowing 
 and plowing and harvesting in order to provide the 
 means of living, and deserve a share of the bread 
 which they sow.” 
 
 This sense of pity which throbs through La 
 Bruyere’s description was to become one of the tap- 
 roots of the growing interest in the lowly during the 
 century of Rousseau. An age so largely dominated 
 by sentiment and sensibility was bound to see po- 
 tential power where Castiglione and his associates 
 might perceive merely degradation and soddenness. 
 Hence an eighteenth-century humanist of the im- 
 portance of Thomas Gray could in his Elegy 
 ( 1 ) warn against “mocking the woeful toil” of 
 “the rude forefathers of the hamlet” andj warn 
 
 [227] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 “grandeur” against hearing “with a disdainful smile 
 the short and simple annals of the poor.” For 
 among them might well be “some heart once preg- 
 nant with celestial fire,” “hands that the rod of 
 Empire might have swayed, or waked to ecstasy the 
 living lyre !” 
 
 Moreover, these hitherto neglected men and 
 women, who in an artificial age had been despised 
 by their social superiors, now acquire an added 
 beauty from the fact that theirs was the simple life 
 and that they enjoyed the ineffable privilege of 
 living in closest contact with Mother Nature. A 
 Werther (1774), sick of the vacant intrigues of city 
 life, especially in its higher strata, finds solace and 
 renewed strength through contact with country folk. 
 He admits that all men cannot and never will be 
 equal, but those who fear that their dignity will 
 suffer if they descend to familiarity with what we 
 are pleased to call the rabble, are like cowards who 
 from fear of defeat hide from the enemy. The 
 purity and strength of a poor farmhand’s love for 
 his mistress so impressed' Werther, that he despairs 
 of finding adequate expression for its charm in our 
 conventional speech. For what are the cultured, 
 he angrily exclaims, but men twisted from their 
 natural course and rendered useless 1 ? 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 Similarly, Cowper (in The Task , 1785) bids 
 those “that press your beds of down And sleep not” 
 to watch a thresher “sweating o’er his bread Before 
 he eats it — ’tis the primal curse, But soften’d into 
 mercy; made the pledge Of cheerful days, and nights 
 without a groan.” And he extols “a meek and 
 patient” waggoner and his wife: “For ye are 
 worthy; choosing rather far A dry but independent 
 crust, hard earn’d, And eaten with a sigh, than to 
 endure The rugged frowns and insolent rebuffs Of 
 knaves in office. ...” 
 
 But not sentiment merely, nor the desire alone to 
 assail artificiality and corruption guide the pen of 
 all those who in the eighteenth century call atten- 
 tion to the lives of the despised peasant. Here and 
 there a great leader of thought strikes a note 
 strangely prophetic of modern ideas and inspired 
 by a constructive social sense. As early as 1768 
 Justus Moser, pioneer among modern historians, put 
 out his great innovative work, The History of 
 Osnahriick, which throughout expresses the convic- 
 tion that the peasant, so far from constituting the 
 lowest layer of society, should be regarded as the 
 very cornerstone of the social structure. In the 
 Introduction the author makes a statement which 
 to older historians like Bossuet and Voltaire would 
 
 [229] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 have appeared as marching with insanity. The 
 study of German history, Moser here maintains, 
 would assume a wholly new physiognomy (and he 
 implies a most interesting one) if the rural popula- 
 tion were to occupy the centre of attention and all 
 other groups were to be considered as ancillary. 
 This remarkable book — almost forgotten today — 
 expresses clearly and with a touch of bitterness a 
 conviction which a hundred years later was to be 
 voiced as With a trumpet-blast and in a spirit of 
 tumultuous revolt and acrimony by the author of 
 La Terre and Germinal as well as by the peasant 
 lord of Yasnaya Polyana, to wit: that the lowest 
 class overshadows all others in vitality and im- ; 
 portance. 
 
 When during the last third of the eighteenth 
 century the limpidity and purity of village life 
 began to be jeopardized in consequence of the spread 
 of machinery and the corresponding concentration 
 of wealth in a few hands, all those who had seen in 
 the swain the embodiment of chastity and serenity 
 took violent alarm. Wefe the sole haunts of hap- 
 piness and purity to be soiled, and were misery and 
 corruption to spoil a picture which had partially at 
 least reconciled the sensitive with an otherwise in- 
 tolerable world? Where simple joys and happiness 
 
 [230] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 had prevailed — Goldsmith tells us in The Deserted 
 Village (1769) — now . . . “The man of wealth 
 and pride Takes up a space that many poor sup- 
 plied; Space for his lake, his park’s extended 
 bounds. . . “While, scourged by famine from 
 the smiling land, The mournful peasant leads his 
 humble band.” Once “every rood of ground main- 
 tained its man,” but now “Trade’s unfeeling train 
 . . . dispossesses the swain” . . . and “rural mirth 
 and manners are no more.” And yet, he adds: 
 “But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, When 
 once destroy’d can never be supplied.” 
 
 Before, however, the eighteenth century had set, 
 not the fate of the peasantry alone but that of the 
 city proletariat as well begins to trouble the social 
 conscience. For the inventions of Arkwright and 
 Watt were victimizing millions to whom even the 
 far-reaching results of the French Revolution could 
 bring no healing. 
 
 A keen and deeply sympathetic observer like 
 Wordsworth, while marveling at the “vast increase” 
 “at social Industry’s command” and noting with 
 astonishment how “from the germ of some poor 
 hamlet” there arose “a huge town continuous, and 
 compact, Hiding the face of earth for leagues” as 
 well as the vast increase of England’s seapower re- 
 
 [231] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 suiting from this increase of wealth, cannot sup- 
 press deep anxiety when he looks “on the darker 
 side of this great change. . . For as night 
 sets in, 
 
 Full many a region, once . . . 
 
 The assured domain of calm simplicity 
 And pensive quiet, an unnatural light, 
 
 Prepared for never-resting Labour’s eyes 
 Breaks from a many-windowed fabric huge; 
 
 And at the appointed hour a bell is heard — 
 
 Of harsher import than the curfew knoll 
 
 That spake the Norman Conqueror’s stern behest, — 
 
 A local summons to unceasing toil ! 
 
 Disgorged are now the ministers of day ; 
 
 And as they issue from the illumin’d pile, 
 
 A fresh band meets them . . . 
 
 Men, maidens, youths, 
 
 Mother and little children, boys and girls, 
 
 Enter, and each the wonted task resumes 
 Within this temple, where is offered up 
 To Gain, the master idol of the realm, 
 
 Perpetual sacrifice . . . 
 
 . . . Domestic bliss 
 
 (Or call it comfort by a humbler name) 
 
 How art thou blighted for the poor man’s heart! 
 Lo ! in such neighborhood, from morn to eve, 
 The habitations empty or perchance 
 The mother left alone, . . . 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 No daughters round her busy at the wheel, . . . 
 Nothing to speed the day, or cheer the mind; 
 
 Nothing to praise, to teach, or to command! . . . 
 
 Economists will tell you that the State 
 Thrives by the forfeiture — unfeeling thought, 
 
 And false as monstrous ! Can the mother thrive 
 
 By the destruction of her innocent sons 
 
 In whom a premature necessity 
 
 Blocks out the forms of nature, preconsumes 
 
 The reason, famishes the heart, shuts up 
 
 The Infant Being in itself, and makes 
 
 Its very spring a season of decay ! 
 
 Here then, at the very beginning of the last cen- 
 tury, we meet with that arraignment of modern 
 proletarian conditions which has today become a 
 commonplace. But in Wordsworth the strident 
 invective is tempered by more soothing visions. He 
 rejoices, 
 
 Measuring the force of those gigantic powers 
 That, by the thinking mind, have been compelled 
 To serve the will of feeble-bodied Man. 
 
 For with the sense of admiration blends 
 The animating hope that time may come 
 When, strengthened, yet not dazzled, by the might 
 Of this dominion over nature gained, 
 
 Man of all lands shall exercise the same 
 In due proportion to their country’s need; 
 
 [ 233 ] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 Learning, though late, that all true glory rests, 
 
 All praise, all safety, and all happiness, 
 
 Upon the moral law. 
 
 This great change can and will be brought about 
 by universal education : 
 
 ... So that none, 
 
 However destitute, be left to droop 
 By timely culture unsustained . . . 
 
 So shall licentiousness and black resolve 
 Be rooted out, and virtuous habits take 
 Their place ; and genuine piety descend, 
 
 Like an inheritance from age to age . . . 
 
 Change wide, and deep, and silently performed, 
 
 This land shall witness; and as days roll on, 
 
 Earth’s universal frame shall feel the effect; 
 
 Even till the smallest habitable rock, 
 
 Beaten by lonely billows, hear the songs 
 Of humanized society : and bloom 
 With civil arts, that shall breathe forth their fra- 
 grance, 
 
 A grateful tribute to all-ruling Heaven. 
 
 From culture, unexclusively bestowed 
 On Albion’s noble Race, in freedom born, 
 
 Expect these mighty issues. . . . 
 
 — The Excursion , Book IX. 
 
 Thus, after all, an easy meliorism, overlooking 
 the deeper reaches of the most complex problem 
 of modern civilization, helps even this clear-eyed 
 [ 234 ] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 and brave seer to adjust himself to an environment 
 which he regards as evil. Not along the lines of 
 such unsound optimism were the vital advances of 
 the nineteenth century made. However genuine 
 was Wordsworth’s interest in the great social 
 changes and their attendant sufferings, he never 
 could have applied to himself Beranger’s boast: 
 “The People — They are my muse!” (preface to 
 the edition of his works published 1833) > nor w °uld 
 he have unreservedly endorsed Beranger’s idea: 
 “. . . following deeply rooted habits, we still 
 form prejudiced opinions of the People. They only 
 present themselves to us as a mob, gross and in- 
 capable of lofty, generous, or tender impressions. 
 Nevertheless, there are worse judges among us, even 
 in literary matters, and above all in connection with 
 the drama. If any poetry yet remains in the world, 
 it is, I doubt not, in this class that we must look for 
 it. Let poets then essay to write for them: but to 
 do so the people must be studied. . . . With some 
 few exceptions, all that belongs to letters and to the 
 arts has sprung from the lower classes; while we are 
 all much like parvenus desirous of having their 
 origin forgotten.” He goes even further when he 
 calls the masses “the only fulcrum of the lever 
 through which, henceforth, great achievements are 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 rendered possible.” “When I say the People,” he 
 adds, “I mean the masses — the lowest class, if so 
 you will have it. They are not alive, indeed, to 
 your refinements of intellect, to your delicacies of 
 taste, so be it ! But for that very reason they com- 
 pel authors to conceive more boldly and more 
 broadly, in order to engage their attention. Suit, 
 therefore, to their strong calibre both your subjects 
 and your mode of working them out. It is neither 
 abstract ideas nor types that they demand. Show 
 them the human heart naked ! Shakespeare, it 
 seems to me, was laid under this fortunate com- 
 pulsion.” The more, he adds, authors will hence- 
 forth labor to add to the intelligence of the humble, 
 the farther will extend the domain of genius and 
 of glory. Beranger, like his eighteenth-century 
 predecessors (especially Wordsworth), is of course 
 deeply stirred by the sufferings of his humble fellow- 
 men. The poet who had laid the blame for the 
 tramp’s degradation at the door of society ( Le 
 vieux vagabond ) and had drawn a stinging picture 
 of the oppressed peasantry of his day {Jacques) 
 could with justice declare that his muse had not 
 sung merely “love’s frenzied dream” but had 
 “mourned for the people victimized by wrong; nor 
 failed to lash Kings’ Councillors in song.” 
 
 [236] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 Nevertheless, a broad chasm yawns between 
 Beranger’s and Wordsworth’s view of the prole- 
 tariat. Affectionate pity reigns in the latter, ad- 
 miration bordering on worship in the former. The 
 author of The Excursion belongs in the group of 
 the Grays and the Goldsmiths and has something 
 in common with Werther. Beranger points to the 
 second half of the nineteenth century and must be 
 hyphenated with Zola and Tolstoy and Walt Whit- 
 man. The depth and sincerity of Beranger’s con- 
 victions is proved by the alacrity with which he 
 suffered imprisonment and duress on their account. 
 Hence the immense popularity (from the re- 
 ascension of the Bourbons in 1815 to the proclama- 
 tion of the Republic in 1848) of a poet whose ideas 
 in last analysis are commonplace and whose verse 
 is largely mere haunting jingle. 
 
 That one who could say of himself “I’m of the 
 People, as are those whom aye I love the most” 
 {La Fille du Teuple ), should give his heart to the 
 suffering of the humble who in his day played so 
 small a part in the literature of the cultured, need 
 not surprise us. But the new orientation in Eu- 
 ropean life, the rapid changes brought about by the 
 powerful economic and political readjustments, be- 
 come glaringly apparent when an aristocrat of 
 
 [ 237 ] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 bluest heritage — partly under the influence of Be- 
 ranger — expressed views germane to those of the 
 great chansonnier. 
 
 Adelbert von Chamisso, scion of Champagne 
 nobility, was driven from his country by the French 
 Revolution and compelled to seek refuge in a for- 
 eign land. Yet neither these experiences nor the 
 scholarly pursuits to which he later devoted himself 
 in Germany, his adopted fatherland, ever dimin- 
 ished his affection for those very classes whom he 
 might fairly have held responsible for his losses. 
 He blesses the man who may be passing the plow 
 over the spot where once stood the castle of his 
 ancestors ( Schloss Boncourt, 1827). He thrills at 
 the humble heroism of the washerwoman whose 
 steadfast devotion to duty and simple, unswerving 
 faith the nobleman would like to emulate (Die alte 
 W aschfrau , 1833). 
 
 Beranger and Chamisso were perhaps radicals by 
 nature and hence became the early singers of ideas 
 so foreign to most of their fellow poets. Quite dif- 
 ferent was the motive force which guided the pen 
 of the Sage of Weimar. No tendency to Radical- 
 ism but a deep critical insight dictated the sketch 
 of a new society (in Wilhelm Meisters Years of 
 Travel , 1829) bottomed, not on the power of the 
 [ 238 ] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 nobility, but on the contributions of the toilers. 
 Wilhelm Meister, who in The Years of Apprentice- 
 ship (1796) had attempted to realize an ideal of 
 self-culture through contact with cultivated noble- 
 men, in the Travels transcends this ideal and joins 
 an association of men and women who aim to found 
 new communities in the United States of America. 
 Social rank has lost its lustre for these people. The 
 nobleman Leonardo associates as with his equals 
 with workingmen of various types and does not 
 blush to be on intimate terms even with the porter 
 Christoph (Book III, ch. 9). For social service, not 
 self-culture, is the aim of this society. “Und dein 
 Streben , set’s in Liebe, Und dein Leben sei die 
 Tati” (Book III, ch. 1). Fourier, St. Simon, and 
 their followers had evidently not lived in vain for 
 Goethe. The new time was finding spokesmen in 
 the most unexpected quarters. 
 
 Goethe’s readers puzzled over the message con- 
 tained in the Travels and checked their breath at 
 ideas so unusual. No less incapable must have been 
 the first readers of George Sand’s sentimental 
 pastoral, The Devil’s Tool (1846), of understand- 
 ing the immense significance if not of the tale itself, 
 at least of its preface. 
 
 The Pastoral, conceived during the Renaissance 
 
 [ 239 ] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 by Sannazaro, Tasso, Sir Philip Sidney, Cervantes, 
 d’Urfe, Opitz, and others, was the expression of a 
 morbid desire for simplicity on the part of a society 
 sick to the core of its own corruption and rocking 
 itself in tropical dreams of a state of innocence. 
 The elegant and sapless shepherds and shepherdesses 
 conjured up by these poets could charm readers who 
 had lost all contact with the problems of the lower 
 orders. Similarly even shortly before the French 
 Revolution the countless admirers of the German- 
 Swiss poet Gessner were charmed by his Idylls , in 
 which the Sannazaro tradition is curiously blended 
 with Rousseauian bourgeois sentimentality. A 
 rude awakening awaited those who, like Marie 
 Antoinette, imagined country life to bear any re- 
 semblance whatever to these amiable caricatures. 
 The revolutions of 1789 and 1830 rang the death- 
 knell of the Sannazaro and Gessner Pastoral, but a 
 half-realistic, half-sentimental peasant tale like 
 George Sand’s was still possible about the middle of 
 the nineteenth century, before robust realism in the 
 sense in which we know it today had begun to sweep 
 away the old fictions. 
 
 George Sand’s widely popular little story is in- 
 teresting not so much on its own account — for it is 
 almost as sentimental and quite as false as the 
 [240] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 idylls of Gessner — as because in an address to “the 
 gentle reader” the author reveals the purpose of her 
 harmless story to be essentially revolutionary. She 
 cannot frighten and disgust, she says, as do some 
 modern artists, but prefers gentler strains. And she 
 adds: “The Church of the Middle Ages assuaged 
 the terrors of the great of the earth with the sale of 
 indulgences; the government of today soothes the 
 uneasiness of the rich by exacting from them large 
 sums for the payment of policemen, jailors, bay- 
 onets, and prisons,” and she feels: “All must be 
 happy that the good fortune of the few may not be 
 a crime and a curse.” No pastoral tale before had 
 ever been escorted into life by words like these. 
 
 Keenly as George Sand responds to the injustices 
 of modern society, she no more than Goldsmith, 
 Wordsworth, or even Beranger and Chamisso in- 
 jects into the attack a drop of that vitriol which 
 envenoms the utterances of an Elliott or a Heine. 
 For, as the fourth and fifth estates became more 
 self-conscious and hence more vocal, the train of 
 powder was being laid for the mine to be sprung 
 in 1848 — when Chartism and especially Socialism 
 of the type that Marx conceived were being formu- 
 lated — and a degree of bitterness was created not 
 dreamed of in less critical days. Besides, through 
 
 [241] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 the increase of the power of capital on the one hand 
 and the increase in the number of its dependents on 
 the other, a wholly new face was put upon society 
 and the problem of social justice rapidly pushed 
 into the focus of attention. When Proudhon — with 
 the scenes on the barricades still green in his mem- 
 ory — in his Toast on the Revolution (written 
 October, 1848) exclaimed “ Le peuple seul peut sau- 
 ver la civilisation et faire avancer Vhumanite ,” he 
 implied the complete negation of the bourgeoisie and 
 expressed a searing hatred of a class that was rapidly 
 usurping the tyrannical gesture of the aristocracy. 
 
 In such an atmosphere Ebenezer Elliott could not 
 only plead for “the laboring poor — ” 
 
 Wrong not the laboring poor by whom you live! 
 Wrong not your humble fellow worm, ye proud! 
 
 For God will not the poor man’s wrongs forgive, 
 
 But hear his plea and have his plea allowed — ( 1835) 
 
 but could cynically exclaim: 
 
 Hurrah for the land of the high and the low! 
 
 Where the only man safe is the lowest of all ! 
 
 and could foresee the lurid sunset of modern so- 
 ciety : 
 
 Day of the Banquet for long trampled worms 
 When millions all hissing and fang’d, will come forth ! 
 Oh! ne’er mayst thou dawn upon terrible forms 
 
 [ 242 ] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 That will sweep o’r the isle like the wing of the north, 
 Drink horror for wine under shriekshaken skies, 
 
 And quench thy red light in the glare of their eyes ! 
 
 And Heine, scandalized by the sufferings in starv- 
 ing Silesia, could let these victims of the social 
 order sing: 
 
 From darkened eyes no tears are falling; 
 
 Gnashing our teeth we sit here calling: 
 
 “Germany, listen, ere we disperse, 
 
 We weave your shroud with a triple curse — 
 
 We weave, we are weaving ! 
 
 A curse to the false God that we prayed to, 
 
 And worshipped in spite of all and obeyed, too. 
 
 A curse to the King, and a curse to his coffin, 
 
 The rich man’s King whom our plight could not soften ; 
 A curse to the Fatherland whose face is 
 Covered with lies and false disgraces!” 
 
 Hence Walt Whitman, a generation after Heine, 
 was giving voice to thoughts no longer character- 
 ized by any strange pregnancy when he maintained : 
 “Whatever may have been the case in years gone 
 by, the true use of the imaginative faculty in 
 modern times is to give ultimate vivification to 
 facts, to science, and to common lives, endowing 
 them with the gloss and glories, and final illustrious- 
 ness which belong to every real thing and to real 
 
 [ 243 ] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 things only.” And when he adds: “Without 
 yielding an inch, the working man and working 
 woman were to be in my pages from first to last.” 
 Thoughts such as these had, as we saw, long ani- 
 mated the faith of many social idealists. For since 
 Castiglione’s day civilization had indeed moved 
 far from Renaissance moorings. In fact, a new 
 “legend” had arisen. Just as the eighteenth cen- 
 tury had evolved the legend of the “noble savage,” 
 so the nineteenth century produced a legend of the 
 noble proletarian 1 — in both cases the untried and 
 in a sense unknown being endowed with superior 
 qualities. 
 
 For since the upheaval of 1848 and Marx and 
 Engel’s “Manifesto,” and especially after the ap- 
 pearance of Marx’s Capital (1869), every premise 
 of European and latterly also of American life has 
 been profoundly modified by the attitude towards 
 the proletariat. And more — the proletarian prob- 
 lem became the clef in which modern literature 
 was composed. Hence the intellectual and moral 
 temper of modern novelists, lyricists, and drama- 
 tists can be fully apprehended only in the light of 
 
 1 For convenience, the term “proletarian” in this essay will be 
 employed rather loosely to include all the lower classes of society, 
 both urban and rural, corresponding roughly to Beranger’s le 
 ■peuple. 
 
 [ 244 ] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 their attitude toward that all-pervading problem. 
 Is it not desirable, therefore, that we add, more con- 
 sistently than we have been in the habit of doing, 
 sociology to the categories through which we habitu- 
 ally study literary history? The purely testhetic 
 approach has long since been recognized as in- 
 sufficient, the philological method has not fur- 
 nished all the help its champions claimed, acquaint- 
 ance with the philosophical tenets governing the 
 masters of literature has proved gratefully clarify- 
 ing yet has left many recondite places without light. 
 Could we not perhaps strike new illumination by 
 affiliating the sociological category to the ones al- 
 ready familiar and thus increase understanding of 
 our literary heritage? 
 
 In an atmosphere shrill with social invective and 
 surcharged with pity for the victims of inequitable 
 distribution, a tenderness and admiration for the 
 proletariat bordering on worship would naturally 
 spread to ever-widening groups. So it happens 
 that from about the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury to our own day a mounting number of writers 
 of influence look to the worker for salvation of the 
 race. In multitudinous variations they fugue Be- 
 ranger’s theme : “The masses are the only fulcrum 
 of the lever through which, henceforth, great 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 achievements are rendered possible.” Their eyes 
 are turned to a future where the existing order 
 shall have yielded to an organization in which the 
 worker becomes a guiding force. 
 
 Among the dozen that invite discussion here two 
 only need arrest our attention as having vitally 
 influenced Hauptmann and therefore as helping us 
 to a firmer grasp of his peculiar attitude: Zola and 
 Tolstoy. 
 
 To the mystic of the Middle Ages life on earth 
 seemed exalted in proportion as it prepared men for 
 the life beyond. To Zola, the antipode of medieval 
 ascetics, human existence justifies itself by one thing 
 only: by being lived to the full — energetically and 
 frantically. “Vivre, la ?7iorale est la, uniquement , 
 dans sa necessite , dans sa grandeur .” To abandon 
 such a point of view, he continues, to neglect ac- 
 tuality, on the pretext that it lacks distinction, is 
 to embrace a monstrous a priori philosophy. And 
 again: “Vivre, et en etre heureux, il n’ est pas d > au- 
 tre sagesse pour etre” Or once more : “Je ne veux 
 pas du tout ce qui n est point vie, temperament , re- 
 alite .” Hence his passion for the Renaissance, not 
 because in that period as in no other, force and intel- 
 lectual originality struck hands, but merely because 
 of its unparalleled exuberance. Hence his love for 
 [246] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 Shakespeare as the prototype of Renaissance vi- 
 tality. Hence also his impassioned appeal to the 
 mothers of France to bring forth more children. 
 Hence in his novels his contempt for pessimism and 
 ardent admiration for persons endowed with “la 
 joie de vlvre.” Hence, too, the frequent intro- 
 duction of riotous joyousness, like the intermi- 
 nable description of the banquet given by Gervaise, 
 the laundress, to celebrate her Saint’s Day, which 
 culminates in the throwing open of the shopdoor 
 and the joining in of the entire street in the singing 
 and the carousing of the invited guests ( L’Assom - 
 moir , ch. VII), or of the wedding-feast of Buteau 
 and Lise or of country fairs in ha Terre. Even an 
 expression of ferocity, such as the ghoulish fight 
 of Virginie and Gervaise ( L’Assommoir ) is ap- 
 preciated by Zola as an exhibition of strength — 
 misguided to be sure but better than anemia. Nor 
 may human beings alone reveal nature’s vitality. 
 In Le Ventre de Paris the endless display of fish, 
 pork, vegetables, cheese, and flowers with their lush 
 colors and pungent odors marvelously reflects that 
 inexhaustible fecundity of the great Cybele which 
 Zola so passionately admired. Never, even in the 
 century of Feuerbach and William James, was the 
 worship of life more ardent — and more unselective. 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 And now, Zola seems to ask: who, do you sup- 
 pose, are the people among us best capable, in con- 
 sequence of strength unmitigated by false culture 
 and the inhibitions of silly convention, to carry on 
 the great work of the world? Who is nearest to 
 nature, the source of all light? The aristocracy? 
 Nowhere in Zola’s work is there found love for a 
 group which he evidently regards as virtually de- 
 funct. The bourgeoisie? Not that the bourgeoisie 
 has no good qualities. In the essay, Femmes hon- 
 netes , Zola speaks with admiration of the industry, 
 modesty, and good sense of the women of the French 
 middle class, and by drawing characters like Dr. Pas- 
 cal or the engineer Luc (in Travail ) he proves his 
 willingness to admit the existence of unselfishness 
 and sympathetic insight in that group. But in gen- 
 eral Zola implies or implicitly says that the men and 
 women who today rule the world create a society 
 foul with corruption, wolfishly selfish, untouched 
 by the sufferings of the toilers, blind to the horrors 
 of the inevitable day of reckoning. Whether it 
 be in theatrical life, in the sphere of haute finance , 
 in political circles, or among manufacturers, the 
 prevailing atmosphere is one of artificiality, vice, 
 and lack of vision. The gilded degradation of 
 Nana would be impossible in a world less soaked 
 [248] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 in corruption. The hellish suffering of the work- 
 ingmen in Germinal results merely or mainly from 
 the bestial selfishness of their masters; the cynical 
 indifference, servility, and humiliation of the priests 
 (as in ha Terre , Germinal, and elsewhere) are the 
 product of hypocrisy and tyranny on the part of 
 those “Christians” who today dictate the concept of 
 morality. 
 
 To mend so sinister a state of things we can, of 
 course, not appeal to the class that created it. Ev- 
 olution does not lie that way. Let us appeal rather 
 to those who, burrowing underneath the clamorous 
 brilliancy of our society, support it by their un- 
 tiring labor and unflagging strength. With all 
 their faults they are destined to carry on the work 
 of civilization. And faults they certainly have. 
 Zola shrilly objects to idealizing them. He pro- 
 tests, for instance, against George Sand’s gilded 
 picture of the French peasantry. As he knows that 
 peasantry, it is wholly lacking in the kindness, no- 
 bility, and wisdom with which the author of ha 
 mare au Diable and ha petite Fadette glamours it, 
 and in his own novels — with the exception of the 
 earliest ones in which a milder spirit prevails — 
 Zola spares neither the urban nor the rural pro- 
 letarian. To begin with, the city worker is 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 pleasure-loving to excess. Zola agrees with F. 
 Sarcey who had called attention to the fact that 
 whereas the Paris bourgeois is parsimonious and 
 has great respect for work, the metropolitan pro- ; 
 letarian is an incorrigible rigoleur who may love 
 work but who adores pleasure. Therefore, in L’As- 
 sommoir he shows to what extent the irresistible de- 
 sire for a good time helps to destroy the family 
 Coupeau (L’Assommoir, ch. VII). As serious, if not 
 worse, is the stupidity of many proletarians which 
 makes progress halting and difficult. In Germinal 
 the labor leader Etienne feels discouraged after a 
 conversation with one of the soldiers sent out to sup- 
 press the strike: how many years will it take until 
 the average man will see the light? (Book VI). 
 In Travail , Luc, the engineer who devotes a crowded 
 life to the single task of uplifting the workers, dis- 
 covers to his chagrin that his own men join the mob 
 of petty shopkeepers who revile and persecute him 
 for starting co-operative shops and thus trying to 
 ease the burdens of the poor (Book II). The base- 
 ness and lack of generosity implied in this action 
 are traits found not only among Luc’s subordinates. 
 Rasseneur, the discharged workman who has turned 
 tavernkeeper, is jealous of Etienne’s power over his 
 fellow workmen and intrigues to undermine his in- 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 fluence, while Chaval’s betrayal of his own fellows 
 by revealing to the soldiers the whereabouts of the 
 crowd is even more revolting ( Germinal , Books IV 
 and V). But worst of all is the brutality of the 
 men in city and country towards their women: 
 like Levaque’s towards his wife, — refreshed and 
 excited from having thrashed her, he goes to the 
 tavern ( Germinal , Book II); or Ragu’s cruel in- 
 difference towards his devoted mistress Josine 
 ( Travail , Book I); or the drunkard Bijard’s ex- 
 quisite joy in inflicting torture on his dutiful and 
 meek little daughter ( L’Assommoir , ch. X). Most 
 horrible of all is the bestiality shown by Buteau 
 in his ill-treatment and ultimately in his cold- 
 blooded murder of his father ( La Terre). 
 
 Could Zola for a moment imagine that beings 
 staggering under the curse of Cain, as do his pro- 
 letarians, ever would lead the race to higher planes? 
 Yes. For, according to Zola, man is the product 
 of his environment. Change the environment and 
 you change the product. All his mature work is 
 erected on that theory. But the environment 
 created by the bourgeoisie for the proletariat is such 
 that nothing could result but degradation, cunning, 
 a mad longing for pleasure, and inhuman ferocity. 
 When the vial of criticism was poured over Zola 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 and many voices became loud in denunciation of 
 U Assommoir as filthy and — what seemed worse — 
 untrue and hence unfriendly to the city worker, he 
 maintained in a letter to the editor of Le Bien Public 
 (Feb. 13, 1877) that book was an attempt at 
 improving the condition of the people and by no 
 means an insult to the working classes; and in an- 
 other letter (to Albert Millaud, Sept. 9, 1876) 
 he insisted: “Give the workingman instruction to 
 improve his morals, free him from the abject pov- 
 erty in which he lives, stop the crowding and the 
 promiscuity in our slums where the air is thick and 
 foul, more than all prevent drunkenness which deci- 
 mates the lower classes by killing the mind and the 
 body.” How the environment in the poor quarters 
 is bound to drive girls, except a few cool and ugly 
 ones, into prostitution he further eloquently de- 
 scribes in the article entitled How They Grow Up. 
 Can you blame, so runs the argument of his social 
 novels, men and women living in such a world for 
 seeking oblivion at any cost? Can you wonder at 
 their savagery and their coarseness? A superficial 
 observer might imagine that country life would 
 bear a fairer aspect. Far from it. Here, too, 
 things have been so shapen by centuries of customs 
 and of laws that an insensate rapacity has been bred 
 [252] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 in the peasants, so that the most energetic among 
 them, like Buteau in La Terre , will go any length 
 to acquire a few square feet of soil. As a speaker 
 phrases it during a political discussion in the novel 
 just named : “You peasants have for centuries been 
 wedded to this earth which deceives you. You are 
 the slaves of the strip of land on which you live. 
 Your passion for this land has stunted your intellect; 
 you would commit murder for it. In America, on 
 the contrary, man is the master of the soil; noth- 
 ing binds him to it. When it is exhausted he moves 
 on” ( La Terre , Part V). Because of Zola’s convic- 
 tion that the environment in which he lives so 
 largely explains the proletarian’s vices, he spends so 
 much time in retailing to us the detestable con- 
 ditions under which the coal-workers have to sub- 
 sist ( Germinal ), or the unutterable squalor and 
 vileness of a Paris tenement ( L’Assommoir ). 
 Hence, however sensible we may be to Zola’s ex- 
 aggerations, however keenly we may feel his “Nat- 
 uralism” to be anything but natural, to be rather 
 a sort of inverted Romanticism, yet to accuse his 
 lurid prose-epics of deliberate salaciousness is simply 
 bad criticism. 
 
 Change the environment and you will liberate 
 the many good qualities the proletariat possesses in 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 spite of the oppression under which it groans. For 
 the better ones among them betray much natural 
 dignity — as does old Maheu, the coal-miner, when 
 called upon to speak for his associates before the 
 representatives of capital ( Germinal , Book IV); 
 they are capable of heroism under stress, as is re- 
 peatedly shown by the miners during the prolonged 
 strike which constitutes the theme of Germinal ; 
 even the most brutal among them possess hidden 
 veins of tenderness — such as Chaval suddenly ex- 
 hibits towards that Catherine whom he has so often j 
 abused, when she is overcome by the bad air in the 
 pit ( Germinal , Book V). And even the very bru- | 
 tality which at times assumes disgusting forms, 
 is merely a crude expression of that spontaneity, 
 that strength which the cultured classes have 
 lost. We are told in an essay on Theodore de 
 Banville that anyone wishing today to write a drama 
 inspired with the spirit of antiquity should study 
 the modern workingmen or peasants. They, and 
 they only, have preserved the directness and force [ 
 which we admire in the Homeric heroes. The poet 
 who turns to the upper classes, on the other hand, 
 comes in contact with creatures modified and twisted 
 by civilization. When dealing with the lower 
 orders he touches mother earth and sees man as he 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 left the hand of nature. Only in the lower strata 
 of society do human beings without inhibition pass 
 from thought to action. No one yet has sufficiently 
 appreciated what a mine of poetical inspiration is 
 to be found in the slums. Here the drama of life 
 possesses incomparable force and breadth. All hu- 
 man emotions may here be found, the tender as well 
 as the fierce — and here alone in primitive purity. 
 
 Such being his convictions and certain as he was 
 that vitality per se is the greatest asset, Zola could 
 make Etienne, the labor leader in Germinal, ex- 
 press the belief that in accordance with the Dar- 
 winian theory the “people,” still young and full of 
 sap, will ultimately devour the bourgeoisie (Ger- 
 minal, end of Book VII). To what extent a new 
 world thus created will imply a step forward in the 
 march of civilization is made plain by such repre- 
 sentatives of the workers as Bonnaire in Travail 
 and Jean in La Terre. 
 
 Jean Macquart, originally a carpenter, leaves 
 this trade, becomes a peasant, and marries a peasant 
 girl. But he is ever regarded as a stranger by his 
 new associates and after the murder of his wife 
 by her own sister, is glad to leave and join the 
 colors to which all sons of France were just being 
 called against Prussia. After many experiences, 
 
 [ 255 ] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 tragic and sweet, he remarries and becomes the father 
 of a numerous and vigorous family. 
 
 As we trace this scarred life through the four 
 novels, La Fortune des Rougon , La Terre, La De- 
 bacle and Le Docteur Rascal , we are made to feel 
 what sweetness and light, what balance, and what 
 quiet vigor are hidden in those representatives of 
 the lower classes who were fortunate enough to 
 escape the worst temptations besetting the prole- 
 tariat. Neither drink nor the feverish desire for ! 
 land — not being born a peasant, Jean knows noth- 
 ing of that savage greed — has ruined him and 
 he is allowed to grow into a fine specimen of the 
 type of manhood that alone can save our civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Similarly the workman Bonnaire, the “hero of 
 labor” as Zola calls him, balanced, strong, vital, | 
 farsighted, capable of self-sacrifice in the interest j 
 of his fellow workers, indifferent to malign criti- ! 
 cism, stands out as a great moral figure intended to 
 make us share Zola’s convictions of the approach 
 of the happy day — glowingly described in that 
 extraordinary fairy-tale, Travail — when justice will 
 reign on earth. 
 
 Bonnaire at times reflects a mild form of mys- ] 
 ticism as he agrees with the ideas of his revered 
 [256] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 leader, the dreamer Luc. In general, however, 
 Zola’s proletarians are firmly planted with both 
 feet on “the solid perduring earth” and are alto- 
 gether exponents of that intellectual realism which 
 is the birthright of the Romance nations. The prob- 
 lems of daily life and the desire to improve their 
 physical existence fill their minds and make them 
 callous to spiritual appeals. Nothing could exceed 
 the sneering cynicism with which the peasants in 
 La Terre treat “le bon dieu ” or the energy with 
 which in Germinal workers like Maheu put to flight 
 any attempt on the part of an honest priest to in- 
 ject an element of spirituality into their lives. The 
 leaders themselves, like Etienne, seem to hope for 
 nothing better than to raise the masses, in some 
 measure at least, to the level of the material wel- 
 fare and refinement of the bourgeoisie ( Germinal , 
 Book VI). Even in Travail a new society is 
 formed in which the church is eliminated and no 
 substitute is even discussed. Most characteristi- 
 cally, in La Terre , among the various miscreants 
 described there is not one whom the most active 
 imagination could conceive as ever knowing spirit- 
 ual visitations. Buteau, the patricide, rather 
 glories in his crime, which increased his wealth; 
 and his neighbors, who more than suspect the truth, 
 
Hauptmann’ s T reatment 
 
 secretly envy him ( La Terre , Part V). The at- 
 mosphere described in this fierce peasant tale pre- 
 cludes the existence of a soul like Nikita, the self- 
 confessed peasant murderer in Tolstoy’s Power of 
 Darkness. 
 
 Zola, we are aware, worshiped life. Tolstoy, a 
 typical Slav, though gripping life, yearns to tran- 
 scend it. Hence were the Russian peasant merely 
 more vital than his masters he never would have so 
 completely enchained the imagination and so ut- 
 terly captivated the heart of the man who 
 wrote What Men Live By, who noted in his Journal 
 “Seek the Kingdom of God and His Right, the rest 
 will follow you,” and who hated Socialism as lack- 
 ing spiritual orientation. The Russian peasant, as 
 many of Tolstoy’s novels, short stories, and letters 
 depict him, is the superior of those who presume to 
 lord it over him because of a depth of moral and 
 of mystic urge, lost — through the corroding influence 
 of trivial social preoccupations and onesided in- 
 tellectual training — by all those who have aban- 
 doned contact with the soil. 
 
 After a riotous youth and years of manhood spent 
 in physical and worldly pursuits, Tolstoy felt a 
 higher call and as he was nearing his fiftieth year 
 grew desperately conscious of the all-absorbing ques- 
 [258] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 tion, “ Quo uadis?” Ultimately, not science and 
 not art, but the Sermon on the Mount, stripped of 
 the trappings with which a voluptuous church had 
 bedizened it, revealed itself to him as the only true 
 source of inspiration. And among the men and 
 women with whom Tolstoy came in contact, not the 
 members of his own class — the aristocracy — nor the 
 learned and cultivated, but those humble beasts of 
 burden in human form, the peasants, proved to be 
 the ones who alone, almost by instinct, seemed to 
 understand the mystic significance of human 
 existence and to carry out the message of the 
 Nazarene. “I began to study the lives and the 
 doctrines of the people, and the more I studied 
 the more I became convinced that a true faith 
 was among them, that their faith was for them 
 a necessary thing, and alone gave them a mean- 
 ing in life and a possibility of living.” ... “I be- 
 gan to grow attached to these men. The more I 
 learned of their lives, the lives of the living and 
 of the dead of whom I read and heard, the more 
 I liked them, and the easier I felt it so to live.” . . . 
 “The life of our circle of rich and learned men not 
 only became repulsive, but lost all meaning” ( My 
 Confession, ch. X). 
 
 Not that Tolstoy any more than Zola overlooked 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 the faults and vices of the worker in town and 
 .country. Not even Zola’s denizens of the city 
 slums or tillers of the soil distance in ferocity and 
 greed some of the men and women with whom Tol- 
 stoy makes us acquainted in The Power of Dark- 
 ness or Resurrection , and nothing could exceed the 
 stupidity and stubbornness of the peasants described 
 in A Landlord' s Morning. But, again as in 
 Zola, these faults are in large degree referable 
 to the environment in which a society, organized 
 to benefit the very few, has placed these people. 
 What can be expected of human beings living as do 
 the creatures we meet in the initial chapters of 
 What Is To Be Done ? or as do the victims of the 
 Russian penal system in Resurrection ? And may 
 we not assume that the harshness of their lives made 
 of Matryona and her son Nikita — in The Pozuer 
 of Darkness — the criminals they became*? For 
 Rousseau has taught us that man is born perfect 
 “and that dictum stands like a rock firm and true,” 
 we are told in Who Should Learn Writing From 
 Whom ? Hence the deep interest in the peasant 
 children on his estate which led Tolstoy to found 
 his famous school at Yasnaya Polyana. Not only 
 are they better than the children of his own circles, 
 as he writes to the Countess A. A. Tolstoy, but — 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 and we are involuntarily reminded of Gray’s 
 Elegy — he insists on saving from ruin all the Push- 
 kins, Filar jets, Lomonossows with whom every 
 country-school teems. 
 
 Where can a weary and corrupted member of the 
 middle or the upper classes, therefore, find cure 
 for the ills of civilization, where will he come in 
 contact with souls dim and untaught but in- 
 stinctively noble and dignified? Where, if not 
 among the unbroken and magnificent toilers of the 
 field? In the eighteenth century sensitive hearts 
 like Chateaubriand’s Rene pretended to discover 
 through contact with the children of the primeval 
 forest in America that harmony and peace which 
 their own hectic environment denied them. In the 
 nineteenth century, Tolstoy, equally disgusted with 
 his age and its maladies, after learning that life 
 among the noble half -savages in the Caucasus had 
 in spite of its many lures no enduring message for 
 him, turned to the peasant and drawing with him 
 many other members of his own class, there at last 
 came upon that Holy Grail which his soul had so 
 ardently sought. 
 
 For the peasant is patient and loyal to a degree 
 all too frequently unknown to his masters ( Master 
 and Man). He has an intensity of moral force 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 — 1 
 
 which puts to shame the shallow men in the so- 
 called higher strata of society ( Power of Darkness). 
 In consequence of this depth of moral experience 
 he can face death with an equanimity which those 
 may well envy him who have found the path of life 
 softer to the tread ( Three Deaths). He has a nat- 
 ural dignity which the rest of us, jangled and dis- 
 traught beings that we are, strive for in vain (Pla- 
 ton Karatajew in War and Peace). 
 
 That Tolstoy had this vision of the noble 
 peasant long before he wrote his Confession (1879), 
 that is, long before he experienced his Damascus and 
 altogether turned to his lowly brethren for spirit- 
 ual uplift, appears from many of the earlier works. 
 In War and Peace (1865) the nobleman Pierre, 
 surfeited with the pleasures of society, looks for 
 means of satisfying the hunger of his soul. Free- 
 masonry appears for a brief period to hold out 
 promise of relief but proves meaningless. At last, 
 during the Napoleonic campaign in Russian in 1812 
 he becomes aware of the unpretentious heroism of 
 “They,” the common soldiers. He yearns to learn 
 the secret of what makes “Them” what they are 
 (Part XI). This secret he learns, while a pris- 
 oner of the French invaders, from a fellow captive, 
 the peasant Platon Karatajew. The patriarchal 
 [262] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 dignity, the patience, sweetness, and self-control of 
 this simple soul reveals to Pierre a new world, and 
 he is cured (Part XII). Similarly in Anna Kar- 
 enina (1869), the idealist Levin discovers peace 
 and happiness in working shoulder to shoulder with 
 his peasants, while society with its vacant glitter 
 engulfs those who like his sister-in-law, Anna 
 Karenina, and her lover Vronsky remain untouched 
 by such sources of healing. 
 
 From Tolstoy’s pages the peasant — at least 
 through his most perfect representatives — emerges 
 the true Noble. Hence in Resurrection Prince 
 Nekhludof, meeting on a train a group of men who 
 had been working in the peatbogs and who seemed 
 offensive to his fellow-travelers, could exclaim that 
 they and not the drones of “Society” constitute the 
 “vrai grand monde .” O shades of Castiglione! 
 Little did that brilliant member of the court of 
 Urbino foresee the day when another nobleman 
 would discover true distinction not among knights 
 and courtiers, but among the ill-smelling pariahs 
 of the people. 
 
 More than once in the course of this discussion 
 it must have become clear how many traits the 
 idealized proletarian, as we meet him in the works 
 of Zola and of Tolstoy, how much in other words 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 men like Jean Macquard, Bonnaire, Platon Kara- 
 tajew have in common with the “noble savage” who 
 haunted the imagination and influenced men’s vision 
 of life during the century of Rousseau, Kant, and 
 Chateaubriand. The proletarian, like the savage, 
 is described as generally fierce, ignorant, and bru- 
 tal. But where, for whatever reasons, an indi- 
 vidual rises above his fellows he attains a moral 
 stature so conspicuously nobler than that of the 
 child of civilization or of culture that contact with 
 him becomes a privilege. Yet this identity of 
 viewpoint is traceable not to literary “influences,” 
 direct or indirect, conscious or unconscious, but 
 rather to similar revulsions from similar conditions, 
 causing Zola and Tolstoy — as had been the case with 
 Rousseau and Chateaubriand — to look for the reali- 
 zation of human possibilities in groups outside their 
 own. The idealization of the savage had been far 
 more uncritical than was the idealization of the pro- 
 letarian, implying a much more obvious distortion of 
 the facts. But in both cases a romantic element 
 modifying the truth is introduced into the discussion 
 in order the more forcibly to bring out the contrast 
 between what is and what should be. So then the 
 noble proletarian, much like the noble savage, the 
 idealized Chinaman of the eighteenth century, 
 
: of the Lower Classes 
 
 Winckelmann’s sublime Greek, Madame de 
 Stael’s idyllic German, Sealsfield’s freedom-loving 
 “Yankee,” Lafcadio Hearn’s happy Japanese, re- 
 sponds to that yearning for a lost paradise which 
 runs through civilization since the days when men 
 invented the story of Adam and Eve . 1 
 
 And now the question arises: What is Haupt- 
 mann’s attitude toward this — may we call it so? — 
 legend of the noble proletarian? 
 
 The merest glance at Hauptmann’s dramas, tales, 
 and poems proves that he learned from Zola and 
 Tolstoy not to blink the faults and vices of the 
 lowly. In Before Dawn the brutality, corrup- 
 tion, and cruelty of peasants suddenly grown rich 
 could hardly be outdone by bourgeois or aristocrats, 
 nor could even unimaginative-mLddle-class_folk out- 
 
 1 To what extent the idealization of the savage and that of the 
 peasant derive from the same impulse clearly appears in Guevara’s 
 tale mentioned above and La Fontaine’s repetition of it. To 
 Guevara the Danube peasant is not merely a peasant but a savage. 
 His appearance is more like that of a brute than that of a human 
 being. He comes from an environment altogether bereft of culture 
 and refinement, but one where happiness reigned previous to the 
 Roman invasion. Reminiscences of Tacitus are unmistakable. La 
 Fontaine in the course of his fable frankly dubs his paysan a 
 sauvage. To both Guevara and La Fontaine peasant and savage 
 are fairly synonymous terms. The savage-peasant attracts them — 
 as the savage attracts Rousseau or Chateaubriand and the peasant 
 does Rousseau, Werther, or Tolstoy — as the child of primitive and 
 hence healthier conditions. 
 
 [265] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment o 
 
 strip some of the peasants or workingmen in the > 
 novel The Fool in Christ in their contemptible j 1 
 treatment of the harmless “fool,” while Drayman i 
 Henschel’s wife would find few rivals in her cun- 1 
 ning viciousness towards an awkward and kindly i 
 husband, and the policeman Rauchhaupt’s heartless < 
 impatience of his half-witted son’s ineptness, in i 
 the first act of The Red Cock , furnishes unpleasant 
 commentary on paternal tenderness among the poor. 
 Here, too, ethical turpitude may be accounted for 
 by absence of moral training or by the pressure of 
 poverty. Lack of intellectual guidance easily ex- 
 plains the pathetic absence of insight and self-control 
 of the “Brethren of the Vale” in The Fool in Christ , j 
 while the social tyranny under which they have been 
 groaning fully accounts for the timidity and the 
 blurred vision of the starving workingmen in The 
 Weavers. And that, according to Hauptmann’s 
 convictions, conditions in the past — though wrapped 
 in a gracious haze to Classicists and Romanticists 
 alike — bore oppressive likeness to those of our own 
 day, becomes evident from the actions of the peasants 
 in Florian Geyer and from the behavior of the 
 country wench Melanto in The Bow of Odysseus. 
 Comparison between the former drama and Schil- 
 ler’s William Tell or between The Bow of Odys- 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 seus and other dramatic treatments of classical sub- 
 jects, from Goethe’s Iphigenia to Stephen Phillips’ 
 Ulysses or Lienhardt’s Odysseus auf Ithaka (1914) 
 days bare the provocative effect on Hauptmann’s 
 imagination of familiarity with works like Ger- 
 minal, L’Assommoir, or The Power of Darkness. 
 j Added to their many handicaps, Hauptmann’s pro- 
 letarians often suffer from inarticulateness which 
 drives them to defeat or to despair. No poet has 
 I more seizingly or with subtler insight described 
 the sufferings of half-mute creatures like drayman 
 Henschel or switchman Thiel or the peasant girl 
 Rosa Bemd. 
 
 The loving tenderness implied in the delineation 
 of such portraits — a tenderness which he extends 
 even to the vagabonds of Schluck and Jau or of T he 
 Maidens of the Mount — show him possessed of 
 greater affection for his unfortunate brethren than 
 wasJ£olaj)r even Tolstoy. Qnly a poet brimming 
 with an e mbo soming sympathy could have created 
 a masterpiece like the picture of Mother Wolff - 
 Fielitz in The Beaver Coat and The Red Cock. 
 Endowed with rare mental acumen, energy, re- 
 sourcefulness, and daring, with genuine though un- 
 sentimental devotion to her brood, with ambition 
 for herself and her family, with good nature, and a 
 
 [267] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 sly though dangerously anti-social sense of humor, 
 this delightful scoundrel, who throughout her stren- 
 uous career manages to remain a bare inch beyond 
 the reach of justice, makes us half ashamed of our 
 tame and conventional probity. 
 
 Even when Hauptmann appears harsh in his con- 
 demnation of proletarian vice and slovenliness — as 
 in Before Dawn or The Fool in Christ — he betrays 
 fathomless pity for beings whom environment and 
 the weaknesses inherent in our human nature have 
 caused to stagger into misery or bitter death. 
 Hauptmann has properly been called the poet of 
 pity, for to him most of us, of whatever rank or 
 age, uncorrelated and dismasted souls that we only 
 too often are, labor unde r the curse of ICaip(| W e 
 deserve the more consideration and sympathy, as 
 with all our weaknesses many of us, irrespective of 
 social station, flounder, like Michael Kramer or 
 Rosa Bernd, into sin in spite of native generosity 
 or depth of feeling, of capacity for devotion and 
 high ideals, or even do so precisely at the prompt- 
 ings of our better instincts. 
 
 A poet so often impressed with beauty hidden in 
 moral delinquency or deformity could of course not 
 be blind to the admirable traits of those whom only 
 poverty or lack of training render inept or cowardly 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 or cruel. To begin with, like Zola, Hauptmann is 
 profoundly attracted by vitality. Nowhere does 
 this come to clearer expression than in his Griselda. 
 All poets from Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Chaucer 
 on — who were the first to apply a literary form to 
 the legend of the wife faithful under circum- 
 stances the most revolting — down to a modern 
 dramatist like Halm, have introduced the difference 
 of social station between Griselda and her husband 
 as the lever of the action. But nobody before 
 Hauptmann made the nobleman choose for his wife 1 
 a peasant girl from disgust with his own kind and 
 a passionate preference for untamed strength. As 
 Margrave Ulrich, Griselda’s husband, puts it : “He 
 who despises the earthy can have no vision of the 
 exquisite. He who spurns the clod cannot honor 
 the grass that springs therefrom. I desired the 
 grasp of my hand to be hard and passionate; I de- 
 sired to be greatly and passionately held and clasped. 
 Therefore did I force this woman to yield herself 
 to me. I needed a woman in whose veins still lives 
 the first glow of the great act of creation. ... I 
 am the old Adam and nothing less could content 
 me than the old nobility of Eve” (Scene IV). 
 Hence Hauptmann makes this Griselda not the 
 obeisant servant of her lord but a dangerous though 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 not ignoble cub, whose power of will as of brawn 
 is equaled only by the unfathomable depths of her 
 love. 
 
 That Ulrich’s compliment to peasant superior- 
 ity reflects Hauptmann’s own conviction is at- 
 tested by one of the fairest and finest products of his 
 genius, A Spring in Greece , — the recital of his trip , 
 to the land of Homer and of iEschylus (1907). 
 Here we are told: “The instincts of the hunter 
 and the herdsman are the most delicate roots 
 for a metaphysical life.” He constantly suggests: 
 that the best of Greek literature — like the Homeric 
 epics — is the product of men close to the soil and 
 rendered sound and chaste by such contact. Hence ' 
 Hauptmann’s preference for ancient Greece over 
 Renaissance Italy. The culture of the latter evi- 
 dently seemed to him less firmly rooted in mother 
 earth. 
 
 As only those who can deeply love and who are 
 free from intellectual over-cultivation are likely to 
 exhibit a sustained and constructive spiritual urge, 
 Hauptmann, like Tolstoy, evidently looks to the 
 nameless and untutored for the creation of new re- 
 ligious movements. Emanuel Quint, the “Fool in 
 Christ,” confused and immature, but honest and 
 consumed with a longing to spread the unalloyed 
 
 [270] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 
 
 . evangel of the Nazarene, is a peasant and wonder- 
 fully contrasts with most of the professional repre- 
 sentatives of Christian teaching. It is not without 
 significance that among conspicuous seekers for the 
 ideal in German literature, Parzival in the Middle 
 Ages was an aristocrat, Faust and Wilhelm Meister 
 in the eighteenth century belonged to the middle 
 class, while Emanuel Quint derives from the pro- 
 letariat. And is it merely fortuitous that while in 
 the old fairy-tales it is generally a prince who 
 awakens the Sleeping Beauty or accomplishes feats 
 of exquisiteness, in Hauptmann’s symbolic fairy 
 play And Pippa Dances , a poor and ignorant lad, 
 the young journeyman Hellriegel, proves the only 
 suitor worthy of that Pippa who symbolizes beauty 
 and poetry ? 
 
 So far, then, it might seem that Hauptmann 
 merely treads the path of Zola and of Tolstoy. 
 If anything, we might feel that this contemporary 
 of Gauguin and of Nexo was led by his passion for 
 primitive forms to a more inclusive affection and 
 even greater forbearance than any of his prede- 
 cessors. Does he then merely expand their form- 
 ula? And does he betray no genuine originality? 
 
 We may profit in our attempt at grasping the 
 essential difference between him and them in their 
 
 [271] 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 attitude towards the proletariat by remembering 
 that Hauptmann is the great interpreter of moral 
 defeat. The trumpet of victory is rarely heard in 
 his world. The will, to happiness or to power 
 seldom animates his people. Even when they enter 
 the lists with bannered enthusiasm, as do Jager and 
 Backer in The Weavers or as does Florian Geyer, 
 they are destined soon ignominiously to bite the 
 dust. For while Nietzsche voices that will to self- 
 assertion which, after centuries of national humilia- 
 tion and discouragement, buoyed the generation of 
 Bismarck, Hauptmann again and again reflects the 
 tendency to intense introspection, to unconquerable 
 doubt as to the outcome of any enterprise however 
 glorious, or the ability of any one, however well 
 meaning, to succeed, which the horrors of the Thirty 
 Years’ War and of the Napoleonic invasions, the 
 political futilities from the days of Barbarossa to 
 those of Bismarck, had established in millions 
 of German hearts as a rooted tradition. Hence 
 Hauptmann’s marvelous understanding — equaled 
 only by a few Russians like Dostoievski — of com- 
 plex inner struggles and his ability to appreciate 
 the glory of outward failure. Hence, too, his con- | 
 tempt, unmistakably implied in many of his works,: 
 of easy curatives for the world’s ills. Could so 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 ■ critical a mind be tempted to propagate the legend 
 of a noble or heroic proletarian? Could he be led 
 to think that among proletarians, any more than 
 among savages, ancient Greeks, or any other group 
 of men living or dead can be found qualities that 
 set them apart from the rest of mankind? His pro- 
 letarians, with all their admirable and lovable traits, 
 with all their spontaneity and depth of feeling, are 
 after all in the vise of the same pitiless destiny 
 which governs the whole race of men. Hence, com- 
 pared with Hauptmann, Zola and Tolstoy appear 
 naive. Not that Hauptmann is without generous 
 expectations or is filled with a moody unwillingness 
 to trust in better things.' In a few of his plays, 
 notably The Bow of Odysseus , suffering ultimately 
 leads to triumph, and even in Florian Geyer and The 
 Weavers he glimpses a better world beyond the 
 devastating failures which he portrays. It may 
 I therefore well be that he looks forward to better- 
 ment through the influence of those who today 
 are so rarely allowed to give the best that is in 
 them. But improvement will be slow, retarded not 
 by outward inhibitions only but more especially by 
 those passions and inadequacies which canker us 
 all. Emanuel Quint, perhaps the most seizing of 
 Hauptmann’s proletarian figures, is at the same time 
 
Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 
 a saint and a pathetic victim of vanity and con- 
 fusion. Though the spiritual kin of Platon Kara- 
 tajew, he lacks the natural sublimity which could 
 make of the latter the savior of Pierre. Haupt- 
 mann’s contribution lies in having transcended so- 
 cial Romanticism and social mysticism and in hav- 
 ing blended affection and pity with cleaving in- 
 sight in dealing with the most portentous of modern 
 problems. 
 
 But more. While to Zola and Tolstoy the suf- 
 fering of the proletariat became a summons to ac- 
 tion and a tocsin cry, to Hauptmann it reveals the 
 inn ate beauty in the human so ul. For Hauptmann 
 v is neither a Socialist nor a social reformer. He is 
 not primarily interested in the social problem which 
 has given a new dominant to our civilization. His 
 is a subtler task. His the aim to find nobility and 
 longing for higher things in souls frail and gyved, 
 whether they belong to prince or pauper. ..Emanuel 
 Quint, the ignorant disciple of Christ, as well as 
 Florian Geyer, the leader of hosts, Arnold Kramer* 
 the young artist, and innumerable other figures on 
 Hauptmann’s pages, are either filled with “im- 
 medicable yearnings in a homeless world” or rise 
 to heroic stature under circumstances the most 
 heart-rending or sordid. And where could spirit- 
 
 [ 274 ] 
 
of the Lower Classes 
 
 ual lineaments define themselves more impressively 
 than among the downtrodden and neglected? 
 | What could more convincingly persuade us of the 
 1 intrinsic nobility of the human race than an old 
 i weaver’s cry, “Every soul has its longing,” or Eman- 
 
 I uel Quint’s heroic sincerity in the attempt to spread 
 a more genuinely Christian spirit. Not in vain had 
 Hauptmann during his formative years compan- 
 j ioned with men and women whose lives were in- 
 formed with a profound spiritual purpose. 
 
 Thus Hauptmann deepens the legend of the pro- 
 letarian which he inherited from Zola and Tolstoy. 
 To him the proletarian becomes, because of the 
 innumerable inhibitions — social, moral, and intel- 
 lectual — which rivet him, the most inspiring ex- 
 ponent of that beauty of soul which is the fairest 
 gift granted the human race and which, though it 
 may be found in all walks of life, shines out most 
 brightly and surprisingly in the stepchildren of so- 
 ciety, — that is, precisely where Castiglione’s glam- 
 orous circle least suspected its presence. 
 
 [ 275 ] 
 
NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 
 
Acknowledgment 
 
 I wish to express to the Directors of the Library 
 of Columbia University my appreciation of the 
 generosity with which its rich collections were 
 placed at my disposal. 
 
 C. v. K. 
 
 New York, 1926 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 This essay is based on: C. von Klenze, The Interpretation 
 of Italy during the Last Two Centuries , Chicago, 1907. 
 
 Page 3. Thomas Mann’s remark is found in his Be - 
 trachtungen eines Unpolitischen. Berlin, 1920, p. 6. 
 
 Page 5. For a discussion of the formation of literary 
 “legends” see Baldensperger, La litterature. Creation. 
 Succes. Duree, Paris, no date (1913), especially pp. 
 268 If., and E. Bertram, Nietzsche, Berlin, 1919, pp. 1-7. 
 No bibliography which even pretends to completeness has so 
 far appeared on travels in Italy. We are in great need of 
 a companion volume to A. Farinelli, Viajes por Espaha y 
 Portugal desde la edad media hasta el siglo XX. Divaga - 
 clones bibliograficas, Madrid, 1921. The most useful 
 assemblage of titles bearing on Italian travel may be found 
 in A. d’Ancona, LTtalia alia fine del secolo XVI. Gior- 
 nale del viaggio di Michele di Montaigne in Italia nel 
 1580 e 1581. Citta di Castello, 1895, pp. 565 ff. Cf. also 
 Boucher de la Richarderie, Bibliotheque universelle des 
 voyages, Paris, 1808; and J. Blanc, Bibliographie italo- 
 frangaise universelle, ou catalogue methodique de tous les 
 livres imprimes en langue frangaise sur ITtalie ancienne 
 et moderne depuis V origine de I'imprimerie, 147 5-188 5, 
 Milan, 1886. None of these, however, is either exhaustive 
 or for our purpose essentially satisfactory. — Many of the 
 travelers we shall mention discuss some of their predecessors 
 without, of course, aiming at completeness. 
 
 Page 6. For a discussion of the records of German human- 
 ists of the sixteenth century see A. Farinelli, Divagazioni 
 
 [ 279 ] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 erudite , Torino, 1925, pp. 187 ff. (in spite of Farinelii’s 
 protest, p. 191, I must still maintain that even Fabricius’ 
 comments on Italy “are unworthy of the subject”). 
 
 Page 6. The Italian title of Leonardo Alberti’s book is: 
 Descrittione di tutta I'ltalia ed hole pertinenti ad essa , 
 Bologna, 1550. The Latin translation appeared 1567. 
 
 Page 7. For Joachim du Bellay’s sonnets on Rome see his 
 Antiquitez de Rome. Contenant une generate description 
 de sa grandeur , et comme une deploration de sa ruine. 
 
 Page 7. For Montaigne’s trip to Italy see d’ Ancona’s edi- 
 tion mentioned above. 
 
 Page 11. Misson’s Nouveau Voyage d’ltalie fait en Fan- 
 nee 1688 . . . was first published in the Hague in 1691, 
 was translated into English in 1695, into Dutch in 1704, 
 and into German in 1713. 
 
 Page 12. The complete title of Keyssler’s book reflects the 
 author’s desire to furnish a large body of information : 
 Neueste Reisen durck Deutschland , Bohmen, Ungarn, die 
 Schweiz, Italien und Lothringen , worinnen der Zustand und 
 das Merkwurdigste dieser Lander besckrieben, und ver- 
 mittelst der N aturlichen, Gelehrten und Politiscken Ge- 
 schichte, der Mechanik, Maler- Bau- und Bildkauerkunst, 
 Miinzen und Alterthumer, wie auch mit verschiedenen 
 Kupfern erlautert wird. An English translation appeared 
 1756-1757. 
 
 Page 12. De Blainville was translated into German in 
 1764. 
 
 Page 12. Grosley by the very title of his book, Nouveaux 
 Memoir es ou Observations sur I’ltalie et les Italiens par 
 deux Gentilskommes Suedois reveals his interest in social 
 rather than artistic phenomena. 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 Page 13. For a delightful discussion of Burney’s trip see 
 Vernon Lee, Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy , 
 London, 1877, pp. 103 ff. 
 
 Page 13. Ray called his book, Observations made in a 
 Journey through Part of the Low-Countries , Germany , 
 Italy, and France, with a Catalogue of Plants not Natives 
 of England. 
 
 Page 13. For a discussion of other, less important, records 
 of Italian travel during the age of Rationalism see C. von 
 Klenze, The Interpretation of Italy . . . Chicago, 1907, p. 
 15, and especially pp. 19 ff. 
 
 Page 14. For a more detailed discussion of Cochin’s posi- 
 tion in the art-life of the eighteenth century and of his 
 Voyage dTtalie ou Recueil de notes sur les ouvrages de 
 peinture et de sculpture qu on voit dans les principales 
 villes dTtalie, see C. von Klenze, The Growth of Interest 
 in the Early Italian Masters. Modern Philology, vol. IV 
 ( 1906), pp. 214 ff. 
 
 Page 16. On de Brosses and his Lettres famili'eres ecrites 
 dTtalie en 1739 et 1740 see Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du 
 Lundi, vol. VII, pp. 85 ff. and more particularly R. Colomb, 
 Le president de Brosses en Italie. Paris, 1858; and Des 
 Prasidenten de Brosses vertrauliche Briefe an seine Freunde. 
 Uebersetzt von W. und M. Schwartzkopf. Miinchen, 1918- 
 1922 (with important notes). Y. Bezard, Comment le 
 president de Brosses a ecrit ses Lettres dTtalie, Etudes 
 italiennes, vol. IV (1922), pp. 81 ff. shows that these 
 sprightly letters were not written on the spot, as we had 
 been led to believe, but several years after de Brosses’ re- 
 turn to France. 
 
 Page 18. The French title of Richard’s work is: Descrip- 
 tion historique et critique de I'ltalie ou, Nouveaux Memoires 
 sur I’Etat actuel de son Gouvernement, des Sciences, des 
 Arts, du Commerce, de la Population et de I’Histoire Natu- 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 relle. Dijon et Paris, 1766. New editions appeared 1769 cc 
 and 1770. to 
 
 Page 19. Lalande’s work is in the original called: Voyage H 
 dun Frangois en Italie, fait dans ces annees 1765 et 1766: n 
 Contenant Vhistoire et les Anecdotes les plus singulieres de tl 
 l’ Italie et sa D escription ; les Moeurs, les Usages , le Gou- Cl 
 vernement, le Commerce , la Litterature, les Arts, I’Histoire V 
 Naturelle et les Antiquites. . . . Paris et Venise, 1769. i 
 On Lalande see the article in the Biographie Universelle. \ 
 
 Page 20. The German title of Volkmann’s compilation is: I 
 Historisch-Kritische N achrichten von Italien, welche eine j 
 genaue Beschreibung dieses Landes, der Sitten und Ge- 1 
 brauche, der Regierungsform, Handlung, 0 ekonomie, des i 
 Zustandes der Wissenschaften, und insonderheit der Werke ) 1 
 der Kunst nebst einer Beurtheilung derselben enthalten. j J 
 Aus den neuesten franzbsischen und englischen Reisebe- 
 schreibungen und aus eignen Anmerkungen zusammenge- , 
 tragen, Leipzig, 1770-1771. 
 
 Page 20. Many other guide-books of Italy appeared dur- 
 ing the age of Rationalism (Cf. C. von Klenze, The Inter- 
 pretation of Italy , pp. 31 ff.). Of these minor works per- 
 haps the most important is : Dictionnaire historique et 
 geographique portatif de /’ Italie: contenant une description 
 des Royaumes, des Republiques, des Ftats, des Provinces, 
 des Villes . . . avec des Observations sur le Commerce de 
 Vltalie, sur le Genie, les Moeurs et ITndustrie de ses Habi- 
 tans, sur la Musique, la Peinture, V Architecture . . . , 
 Paris, 1775. Many Italian cities, notably Rome but even 
 Siena and Vicenza, issued wGrks containing information on 
 their local art and their political history. 
 
 Page 23. For Winckelmann’s letters from Italy see the 
 edition of his works published by Eiselein, Donauoschingen, 
 1825, vols. X and XI, and Dassdorf, Winckelmanns Briefe 
 an seine Freunde, Dresden, 1777-1780. For a detailed ac- 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 count of Winckelmann’s stay in Rome see C. Justi’s monu- 
 mental biography of Winckelmann, 3d edition, vols. II and 
 III, Leipzig, 1923. — Winckelmann had an important fore- 
 runner in his Hellenic interpretation of Italy in J. J. Bar- 
 thelemy, the leading Grecian of France in the eighteenth 
 century. He was in Italy from 1755 to 1757. See his 
 Voyage en Italie, edited by Serieys, Paris, 1802, and CEuvres 
 de J. J. Barthelemy , vol. Ill, Paris, 1821. 
 
 Page 23. For information on the intellectual life of 
 Rome at the time of Winckelmann’s and of Goethe’s so- 
 journ there see O. Harnack, Deutsches Kunstleben vn Rom 
 im Zeitalter der Klassik, Weimar, 1896; F. Noack, 
 Deutsches Leben in Rom 1700-1900, Stuttgart und Berlin, 
 1907, pp. 67 ff. ; G. von Graevenitz, Deutsche in Rom, 
 Leipzig, 1902, pp. 166 ff. 
 
 Page 25. For the passages from Heinse quoted in the 
 text see W erke, herausgegeben von C. Schiiddekopf, vol. 
 VII, Leipzig, 1909, pp. 162 and 194; vol. X, ib. 1910, pp. 
 141 ff. and pp. 170 ff. — See also K. D. Jessen, Heinses Stel- 
 lung zur bildenden Kunst und ihrer Aesthetik, Berlin, 1901, 
 esp. pp. 61 ff. ; and A. Jolivet, Wilhelm Heinse, sa vie et 
 son oeuvre j’usquen 1787, Paris, 1922, esp. pp. 72 ff. — 
 In connection with Heinse should be mentioned K. Ph. 
 Moritz, who resided in Rome at the time of Goethe’s stay 
 there. His Reisen eines Deutschen in Italien in den Jahren 
 1786 bis 1788 . . . , Berlin, 1792-1793, betrays the same 
 blend of originality and emotional vigor with dependence 
 on older tenets. It is noteworthy that a great scholar, the 
 Spanish ecclesiastic Don Juan Andres, who like all his 
 contemporaries could not transcend the thrall of Cochin and 
 Winckelmann, thrills to the strange fascination of Venice 
 (see his Cartas familiar es . . . , Madrid, 1786 ff.). 
 
 Page 27. Dupaty was “ President a mortier au parlement 
 de Bordeaux.” He was a noted author in the legal field and 
 
 [283] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 attracted the hatred of the governing class by his passion- 
 ate espousal of the oppressed (see Biographie Universelle). 
 
 Page 28. For earlier attempts at describing Sicily see C. 
 von Klenze, The Interpretation of Italy , p. 59. 
 
 Page 28. Riedesel’s Reise durch Sicilien und Grossgriech- 
 enland went through several editions and was translated 
 into French and English. Goethe took it with him to Sicily. 
 
 Page 29. The popularity of St. Non’s Voyage Pittoresque, 
 vu Description des Royaumes de Naples et de Sidle is at- 
 tested by several reprints and by translations into German 
 and into English. — For descriptions of Sicily of minor im- 
 portance see C. von Klenze, Interpretation of Italy, pp. 
 62 If. 
 
 Page 30. For the text of Goethe’s notes from Italy see 
 Tagebucher und Brief e aus Italien an Frau von Stein und 
 Herder, edited by Erich Schmidt, in Schriften der Goethe- 
 Gesellschaft, vol. II, Weimar, 1886. See also the Weimar 
 edition of Goethe’s works, Tagebucher, vol. I, Weimar, 
 1887, edited by Erich Schmidt, pp. 143 ff. Other letters 
 written by Goethe during this period may be found in the 
 Weimar edition of Goethe’s works, IV te Abteilung, vol. 
 VIII, Brief e, Weimar, 1890, pp. 1 ff.- — Th. Friedrich in his 
 edition of Goethe’s Italienische Reise, Leipzig, Reclam, 
 1921, in the appendix, Reisetagebuch fur Frau von Stein, 
 has made easily accessible Goethe’s diary dealing with his 
 trip from Karlsbad to Rome, but unfortunately not the 
 important letters from Rome. Both the Tagebucher and 
 the letters from Italy have been edited, with notes, in a 
 pretty piece of book-making, by J. Vogel, Goethes Tage- 
 bucher der Italienischen Reise, 3d edition, Berlin, 1921, 
 and Goethes Briefe aus Italien, Berlin, 1907. An apprecia- 
 tion of the intellectual background for Goethe’s notes from 
 Rome may be gathered from the books by Harnack, Noack, 
 
 [284] 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 and von Graevenitz, mentioned above, and especially from 
 K. Ph. Moritz’s and Don Juan Andres’ descriptions of their 
 trips to Italy. See, also, J. Vogel, Aus Goethes Romischen 
 Tagen, Leipzig, 1905. Smollett, the novelist (see his Trav- 
 els through France and Italy , London, 1776) and Herder 
 (see H. Diintzer und F. G. von Herder, Herders Reise nach 
 Italien . . . Giessen, 1859) are only two of a large group 
 of eighteenth-century travelers to whom Italy proved a 
 source of irritation rather than of uplift. For details see 
 C. von Klenze, op. cit., p. 77, note 6. 
 
 Page 38. For Courier’s utterances see CEuvres de P.-L. 
 Courier , Paris, 1872, pp. 424 ff. See also C. G. Kuettner, 
 Reise durch Deutschland, Danemark, Schweden, Norwegen 
 und einen Tlieil von Italien in den Jahren 1797, 1798, 
 1799, Leipzig, 1801. 
 
 Page 39. For Chateaubriand’s description of Italy see 
 CEuvres completes, Paris, 1852, vol. IV. 
 
 Page 40. For Chateaubriand’s notes on Venice see his 
 Memoires T Outre-Tomb e. Nouvelle edition . . . par E. 
 Eire, no date (1920), vol. VI, pp. 231 ff. — See also U. 
 Mengin, LTtalie des Romantiques, Paris, 1902, pp. 2 ff. 
 and pp. 40 ff. 
 
 Page 40. For Madame de Stael and Italy see Mengin, op. 
 cit., pp. 19 ff. ; and M. T. Porta, Madame de Stael e ITtalia, 
 Firenze, 1910. 
 
 Page 40. For Lamartine’s letters from Italy see Corre- 
 spondance de Lamartine, publiee par Madame Valentine 
 de Lamartine, Paris, 1873 The most significant poems 
 dealing with Italy are: Le Golfe de Balia ( Meditations 
 poetiques, N° 24) and La Liberte ou Une Nuit a Rome 
 ( Secondes meditations poetiques, N° 20). — On Lamartine 
 and Italy see Mengin, op. cit. pp. 61 ff. and O. Mario, 
 Lamartine. Le poete et ITtalie, Citta di Castello, 1909. 
 
 [285] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 1 
 
 — Italy left many traces on the work of the most fascinating 
 of the French Romanticists, Alfred de Musset. For in - 1 
 formation on this subject see E. Moroneini, A. de Musset 
 e I'ltalia, Milano, Roma, Napoli, 1921 ; and Mengin, op. 
 cit., pp. 307 ff. 
 
 Page 41. The passages from Byron quoted in the text 
 are all taken from the fourth canto of Childe Harold. 
 
 Page 41. The passages from Shelley’s works are found 
 in Lines written among the Euganean Hills (1818) and in 
 Adonais (1821). For details of Shelley’s Italian experi- 
 ences see Dowden, Life of P. B. Shelley ; and Mengin, op. 
 cit., pp. 163 ff. 
 
 Page 42. For details on the new interpretation of Italian 
 art see C. von Klenze, The Growth of Interest in the Early • 
 Italian Masters. 
 
 Page 44. The notes which Heinrich Meyer took in Italy 
 are preserved in manuscript in the Goethe-Schiller Archiv in 
 Weimar ( Meyeriana , fascs. IV — VII, IX, XI. For litera- 
 ture on Meyer see C. von Klenze, The Growth of Interest 
 . . . , p. 25 note). — Matthison’s notes on Italy are found 
 in his Erinnerungen, Zurich, 1810-14. 1 
 
 Page 45. For Arndt’s comments see his Bruchstucke aus 
 einer Reise durch einen Theil Italiens im Herbst und 
 Winter 1798 und 1799 , Leipzig, 1801. 
 
 Page 45. For Thiersch’s Italian record see his Reisen in 
 Italien seit 1822. Erster Theil, Leipzig, 1826; see also H. 
 Loewe, Friedrich Thiersch, Miinchen und Berlin, 1925, pp. 
 427 ff. 
 
 Page 45. Stendhal’s impressions are recorded in his Naples 
 et Florence, Paris, 1865 (a diary begun in 1815) ; Prom - 
 enades dans Rome, Paris, 1873 (dealing with his stay in | 
 Rome in 1827-1828) ; and Melanges d’ art et de litterature, \ 
 Paris, 1867. Stendhal’s love for the Bolognese is the more i 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 remarkable, as he objected to the insistance on mere elegance 
 in the age of Racine and welcomed the reaction in his own 
 age in favor of simplicity. On this subject see J. Melia, 
 Les idees de Stendhal , Paris, 1910, especially pp. 42 ff. 
 Stendhal’s admiration for the masters of Bologna can, 
 however, be partially explained by dependence on 
 eighteenth-century criticism, particularly on Lanzi ; see P. 
 Martino, Stendhal, Paris, 1914, pp. 57 ff., and P. Arbelet, 
 L'Histoire de la peinture en Italie et les plagiats de Stend- 
 hal, Paris, no date (1914), especially pp. 140 ff. For de- 
 tails of Stendhal’s life in Italy, of his attitude toward 
 Italian life, and of his point of view in composing Rome, 
 Naples et Florence and Promenades dans Rome see Martino, 
 op. cit., pp. 88 ff. For Stendhal’s judgment of Italian 
 life see F. Novati, Stendhal e l’ anima italiana, Milano, 1915. 
 
 Page 46. Platen spent many years in Italy from 1824 on. 
 His diaries have been published as Die Tagebiicher des 
 Grafen August von Platen . . . Herausgegeben von Laub- 
 mann und Scheffler, Stuttgart, 1896 ff. On Platen’s so- 
 journ in Italy see August Graf von Platens samtliche 
 '■ Werke, herausgegeben von Max Koch und E. Petzet, vol. 
 I., Leipzig, no date (1910), pp. 252 ff. For the sonnets 
 quoted in the text see vol. III., pp. 181, 183, 189; for the 
 contrast between Rome and Venice in favor of the latter 
 see vol. IV. p. 217. For his love for Bellini see vol. X, 
 p. 201 and especially vol. III., p. 178. For Platen’s views 
 on Italian art see R. Schlosser, August Graf von Platen, 
 Ein Bild seines geistigen Entwicklungsganges und seines 
 dichterischen Schaffens, vol. I., Miinchen, 1910, pp. 453 ff., 
 especially pp. 493 ff. and vol. II, ib., 1913, pp. 151 ff. 
 and 313 ff. — For utterances on Venice on the part of many 
 other distinguished travelers in Italy see H. Fischmann, 
 Landschaften, Das literarische Echo, vol. XXIII (1921), 
 cols. 447 ff. Among the works dedicated particularly to an 
 interpretation of the romantic charm of Venice one of the 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 most delightful is: Theophile Gautier’s Voyage en Italie, 
 1852. — Platen had a forerunner in his appreciation of early 
 Italian masters — in Florence, Siena, Orvieto — in the poet 
 and critic Ludwig Tieck. Tieck was in Italy in 1805 and 
 1806, but his poems referring to his trip — Reisegedichte eines 
 Kranken — did not appear until 1821-23. He, like all his 
 German contemporaries, combines devotion to Giotto, Or- ! 
 cagna, Fiesole, Francia, Luca Signorelli with adoration for 
 Giulio Romano and the Carracci (see Ludwig Tieck, Reise- 
 gedichte. Verse aus Italien. Herausgegehen von G. Wit- 
 kozvski, Berlin, no date [1925], especially pp. 27, 30, 104, 
 118, 126). 
 
 Page 47. For Menzel’s interpretation of Italy see his Reise ! 
 nach Italien im Fruhjahr 1835, Stuttgart und Tubingen, ‘ 
 1835. Menzel’s forerunner in his revolutionary attitude 
 toward the Bolognese was the historian Niebuhr, but the 
 book in which his ideas were formulated — Lebensnachrich- 
 ten uber Barth. Geo. Niebuhr, Hamburg, 1838-1839 — did 
 not see the light until after the appearance of Menzel’s 
 record. 
 
 Page 48. For Goethe’s interest in Italy between 1788 and 
 1816 see C. von Klenze, The Interpretation of Italy, pp. > 
 111 ff. ; O. Harnack, Zur Nachgeschichte der italienischen 
 Reise, Weimar, 1890; and the Weimar edition of Goethe’s 1 
 works, vol. XXXIV, 12 ( V orbereitung zur zweiten Reiss 
 nach Italien, 1795, 1799, PP- 139 ff-)- The critical text of 
 the Italienische Reise may be found in the Weimar edition 
 vols. XXX and XXXI, that of Zzveiter Romischer Aufent- 
 halt in vol. XXXII. Both, together with the diary to Frau 
 von Stein and a good introduction by Th. Friedrich, ap- 
 peared Leipzig, Reclam, 1921. Valuable notes on the 
 Reise and the Aufenthalt may be found in the edition by 1 
 R. Weber, Leipzig, Bibliographisches Institut, no date 
 (1925*?). How Goethe’s description of the Roman carnival 
 
Goethe’s Italy 
 
 exemplifies the value of Goethe’s method has been excel- 
 lently shown by H. S. Chamberlain in his Goethe , 2nd edi- 
 tion, Vol. II, Munchen, 1919, p. 487. 
 
 Page 50. The passage on Palermo is found in the Weimar 
 edition of Goethe’s works, vol. XXXI, p. 89. 
 
 Page 54. Gregorovius’s W anderjahre in Italien have lost 
 none of their popularity and are still reprinted in new edi- 
 tions. The best edition is the one in one volume by F. 
 Schillmann (with introduction and notes), Dresden, no date 
 (1925). The passage quoted is found p. 978. 
 
 Page 56. Olga von Gerstfeldt and Steinmann’s Pilger - 
 fahrten in Italien appeared in a fourth edition Leipzig, 
 1922. — A. Steinitzer’s Aus dem unhekannten Italien ap- 
 peared Munchen, 1911. — A section of Italy hardly touched 
 on by other travelers has been beautifully described by A. 
 Haseloff in his Hohenstaufische Erinnerungen in Apulien , 
 Westermanns Deutsche Monatshefte, April 1906. 
 
 Page 58. In connection with Guy de Maupassant’s La vie 
 errante, 3d edition, Paris, 1890 we may mention three other 
 works which interpret Italy with much the same delicacy: 
 Paul Bourget, Sensations d’ltalie, Paris, 1892; Rene 
 Schneider, L’Ombne. V ame des cites et des paysages, 2nd 
 edition, Paris, 1905; and the same author’s Rome, Paris, 
 1907. — Another distinguished modern French novelist, 
 Henri de Regnier, has subtly interpreted Italy. To him, 
 however, it is essentially the Italy of the eighteenth century 
 which proves seductive. On this subject see L. Bertrand, 
 L’ltalie dans V oeuvre de Henri de Regnier , Revue des deux 
 Mondes, June 1, 1921. 
 
 Page 59. The Heures d’ltalie (3 vols.) deal only with 
 Northern and Central Italy. The Premiere Serie ( Lom - 
 hardie-V enetie-Marches- 0 mbrie~) appeared Paris, 1910; the 
 Deuxi'eme Sene (Cadore-V enetie-Romagne-Emilie), Paris, 
 
 [289] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 1911 ; the Troisieme et Derni'ere Serie ( Piemont-Lombardie - 
 Venetie-Frioul) Paris, 1913. A translation into English of 
 selections from Faure’s volumes appeared under the title 
 W anderings in Italy , Boston, 1919. 
 
 German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 This essay is based on C. von Klenze, The Growth of In- 
 terest in the Early Italian Masters. From Tischbein to 
 Ruskin. Modern Philology, vol. IV (1906), pp. 207 ff. 
 
 Page 68. For seventeenth-century evaluation of early Ital- 
 ian masters see H. Schmerber, Betrachtungen uber die ital- 
 ienische Malerei im 17. J ahrhundert, Strassburg, 1906, pp. 
 43 ff- 
 
 Page 69. On Cochin see S. Rocheblave, Les Cochin , Paris, 
 no date (1893), pp. 63 ff., and E. et J. de Goncourt, L’ art 
 du XVIIIeme siecle, deuxieme serie , Paris, 1882, pp. 
 327 ff. The complete title of Cochin’s book is : Voyage 
 dTtalie , ou Recueil de Notes sur les Ouvrages de Peinture et\ 
 de Sculpture, qu’ on voit dans les principales villes dTtalie. 
 
 Page 70. Important information on Mengs may be found 
 in O. Harnack, Deutsches Kunstleben in Rom im Zeitalter 
 der Klassik, Weimar, 1896, especially pp. 7 ff., in O. Har-j 
 nack, Essays und Studien zur Liter aturgeschichte, Braun- 
 schweig, 1899, pp. 192 ff., and in F. Noack, Deutsches Leben\ 
 in Rom 1700-1900, Stuttgart und Berlin, 1907, pp. 65 ff. 
 Mengs’ works are most easily accessible in the Germany 
 translation by G. Schilling, 2 vols., Bonn, 1843-1844. 
 
 Page 73. The text of Goethe’s essay on the Strassburg: 
 cathedral may be found in the JubelaumsaUsgabe ofi 
 
 [290] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 Goethe’s works, Stuttgart und Berlin, vol. XXXIII, pp. 
 3 ff., and 41 ff. 
 
 Page 76. On Joh. Heinr. Wilh. Tischbein (1751-1829) 
 see F. Landsberger, Wilhelm Tischbein. Em Kunstler- 
 leben des 18. J ahrhunderts , Leipzig, 1908; also J. Vogel, 
 Aus Goethes Romischen Tagen , Leipzig, 1905, pp. 98 ff., 
 and Noack, op. cit. pp. 109 ff., and especially the article in 
 Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. On Tischbein’s interest 
 in the early Italian masters see Landsberger, op. cit., pp. 
 53 ff., and Heinrich Meyer’s essay Neu-deutsche, religios- 
 patriotische Kunst, first printed in Goethe’s periodical Ueber 
 Kunst und Althertum in den Rhein- und Main-Gegenden 
 for 1817, Heft 2, pp. 5 ff. and pp. 133 ff., reprinted in 
 P. Weizsacker, Kleine Schriften zur Kunst von Heinrich 
 Meyer, Seuffert’s Literaturdenkmale des 18. und 19. Jahr- 
 hunderts, N° XXV, Heilbronn, 1886, pp. 97 ff. — Meyer’s 
 pronouncements are important, as he was, if not the most 
 original, certainly one of the best informed critics of his day. 
 As a close friend of Goethe he exercised strong influence 
 on the latter’s views. For his position in the art-life of the 
 eighteenth century and the early decades of the nineteenth 
 see Weizsacker, op. cit., introduction, and C. von Klenze, 
 The Growth of Interest . . . , pp. 231 ff. Meyer’s corre- 
 spondence with Goethe has been published by M. Hecker, 
 Goethe's Briefwechsel mit Heinrich Meyer, 3 vols., Wei- 
 mar, 1917, 1919, 1922. — It is noteworthy that Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds may be regarded as a forerunner of Tischbein in 
 his interest in Italian “primitives” (see Landsberger, op. cit., 
 p. 56), and that the famous art-critic Lanzi helped to cen- 
 tre the attention of German artists on the early masters 
 (see C. von Klenze, op. cit., p. 238, note l). 
 
 Page 77. For Hirt’s “discovery” of the Fra Angelico fres- 
 coes see C. von Klenze, Growth of Interest, p. 237, and 
 note 4. 
 
 ■ 
 
 [ 291 ] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 Pages 77-79. On Wackenroder and his Herzensergies- 
 sungen see the introduction to the reprint by K. J. Jessen, 
 Leipzig, 1904. For a fine analysis of Wackenroder’s con- 
 ception of art and its criticism see the introduction to the 
 reprint by O. Walzel, Leipzig, 1921. See also the article 
 on Wackenroder in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. 
 The significance of Wackenroder’s style is treated by O. 
 Walzel in his Die Sprache der Kunst. I. Wackenroder. 
 Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft, vol. I., Weimar, 1914,, 
 pp. 3 ff. — All of Wackenroder’s literary remains have been 
 edited by F. von der Leyen, Jena, 1910. — For a discussion 
 of Tieck’s contribution to the Herzens ergiessungen see Wal-; 
 zel’s reprint, pp. 29 ff. 
 
 Page 80. Friedrich Schlegel’s essays on the early Italian! 
 masters, originally printed in the periodical Europa , are 
 more easily accessible in Fr. von Schlegel’s sdmmtliche 
 Werke. Zweite Original-Ausgahe , vol. VI., Wien, 1846; 
 see especially pp. 13 ff. For his preference for Christian! 
 over Greek art and his reasons for such preference see pp. 
 166 ff. It should be noted that Schlegel collected his es- 
 says on the early painters and on Gothic architecture under 
 the title Ansichten und Ideen von der christlichen Kunst 
 (they constitute the major part of vol. VI of the collected! 
 works). The appellation Christian Art , unknown to the 
 eighteenth century, has through the influence of Schlegel 
 on Rio and through Rio on Ruskin become familiar to the 
 cultured in Anglo-Saxon countries. For Fr. Schlegel’s con-i 
 ,viction that only religious feeling can inspire the highest 
 work in art see Werke, vol. VI, p. 86 and pp. 166 ff. 
 
 Page 83. For August Wilhelm Schlegel’s views of art 
 see his Werke, herausgegeben von E. Booking, vol. IX, 
 Leipzig, 1846, especially pp. 320 ff. 
 
 Pages 83, 84. For information on the “Nazarenes” see the c 
 articles on Fr. Overbeck and on Peter Cornelius in the; 
 [292] 
 
German Predecessors of Ruskin 
 
 Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie ; furthermore C. Gurlitt, 
 Die deutsche Kunst des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 
 1900, pp. 212 ff. ; R. Hamann, Die deutsche Malerei im 19. 
 J ahrhundert, Leipzig und Berlin, 1914, pp. 52 ff. ; A. Kuhn, 
 Peter Cornelius, Berlin, 1821, especially pp. 81 ff. — In this 
 connection attention should be called to P. O. Runge, the 
 most interesting of the Romantic painters of Germany, and 
 to his views on art. On this subject see W. Roch, Philipp 
 Otto Runges Kunstanschauung und sein V erhaltnis zur 
 Friihromantik, Strassburg, 1909, especially pp. 8 ff. and 
 146 ff., and P. F. Schmidt, Philipp Otto Runge. Sein 
 Lehen und sein Werk, Leipzig, 1923. K. K. Eberlein, 
 Deutsche Maler der Romantik, Jena, 1920, contains inter- 
 esting remarks not merely on Runge, but on other German 
 painters of his time and on their conception of art. — For 
 the connection between German and English Pre- 
 Raphaelitism see C. von Klenze, op. cit., p. 247, note 3. 
 
 Page 86. For information on Rumohr see his own Drey 
 Reisen nach Italien. Erinnerungen, Leipzig, 1832. Much 
 important material on Rumohr and the German art-critics 
 before him may be found in W. Waetzoldt, Deutsche 
 Kunsthistoriker . Von Sandrart bis Rumohr, Leipzig, 1921. 
 A reprint of Rumohr’s Italienische Forschungen, with an 
 important introduction by J. Schlosser, appeared Frank- 
 furt-a.-M., 1920. See also A. Tarrach, Studien liber die 
 B edeutung Carl Friedrich von Rumohrs fur Geschichte und 
 Methode der Kunstwissenschaft, Monatshefte fur Kunst- 
 wissenschaft, April, 1921, pp. 97 ff. (with bibliography). 
 
 Page 88. The only reliable source of information for Rio’s 
 life and thought is to be found in his autobiography, en- 
 titled Epilogue a Cart chretien, Fribourg-en-Brisgau, 1870. 
 
 Page 91. Rio in 1851 brought out his L’ art chretien, which 
 was conceived as a second volume to the De la poesie chre- 
 
 [ 293 ] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies | 
 
 tienne. As Lindsay and Ruskin had begun to publish be- : 
 fore its appearance, it need not concern us here. 
 
 Page 95. On Rio’s success in England see Epilogue , vol. [ 0 
 II, pp. 325 ff. The De la poesie chretienne appeared in (J 
 English translation, London, 1854. J f 
 
 Page 96. For Rio’s influence on Mrs. Jameson see Epi- ^ 
 logue, vol. II, p. 412; and Gerardine Macpherson, Memoirs , ^ 
 of the Life of Anna Jameson , Boston, 1878, p. 176. ! " 
 
 ll 
 
 Page 97. The passage in Praeterita is found in The Works j (( 
 of John Ruskin , edited by E. T. Cook and A. Weddernburn, ^ 
 vol. XXXV, London, 1908, p. 340. See also E. T. Cook, j 
 The Life of John Ruskin, vol. I, London, 1911, p. 158 
 and p. 168. 
 
 L 
 
 i 
 
 Keller and Meyer 
 
 P 1 
 
 k 
 
 We are as yet without a history of the German Novelle. j g 
 The nearest approach to it may be found in L. Bianchi, j j 
 Novelle und Ballade in Deutschland von A. von Droste ( j 
 bis Liliencron, Bologna, no date (1915)- But even this s 
 excellent little book constitutes a series of suggestive and 
 penetrating studies on some of the most important authors I ^ 
 of Novellen rather than a history. 
 
 Page 105. In the absence of a final edition of Keller’s 
 •works the following edition (with some critical apparatus) [ 
 may be recommended: Gottfried Kellers Werke, herausge- 
 geben von H. Maync, 6 vols., Berlin, 1921-1922. For 
 Keller’s letters see E. Ermatinger, Gottfried Kellers Leben , 
 Brief e und Tagebucher ; auf Grund der Biographie Jakob ' 
 Baechtolds dargestellt, 6th and 7th eds., Stuttgart, 1924 f. — 
 A. Koster, Storm und Keller. Briefwechsel, 4th ed., Ber- 
 lin, 1924. — M. Kahlbeck, Paul Heyse und Gottfried Keller \ 
 
 [294] 
 
Keller and Meyer 
 
 im Briefwechsel, Hamburg, 1919. — M. Widmann, Gott- 
 fried Keller und J. V. Widmann. Briefwechsel , Zurich, 
 Leipzig, Berlin, no date (1925). — For a brief introduction 
 to the life of Keller, see the biography prefixed to Maync’s 
 edition, mentioned above, reprinted as Gottfried Keller. 
 Sein Leben und seine Werke. Ein Abriss, Leipzig, 1923. 
 A. Koster, Gottfried Keller, 4th ed., Leipzig, 1923, one of 
 the most delightful books ever written on Keller, will prove 
 eminently satisfactory to readers anxious to enter more 
 thoroughly into the spirit of Keller’s work. The most 
 complete treatment of Keller’s life and works is to be found 
 in E. Ermatinger, op. cit. See also A. Frey, Erinnerungen 
 an Gottfried Keller, 3d ed., Leipzig, 1919. 
 
 Page ill. For Feuerbach’s influence on Keller see A. 
 Levy, La philosophie de Feuerbach et son influence sur la 
 litter ature allemande, Paris, 1904, pp. 493 ff. ; and es- 
 pecially H. Diinnebier, Gottfried Keller und Ludwig Feuer- 
 bach, Zurich, 1913. 
 
 Page 115. Keller’s relations to the German Romantic 
 School are discussed in A. Weimann-Bischoff, Gottfried 
 Keller und die Romantik, Borna-Leipzig, 1917; for his at- 
 titude towards Jean Paul see F. Jaeggi, Gottfried Keller 
 und Jean Paul, Bern, 1913. 
 
 Page 118. For Keller’s views on politics and education see 
 E. F. Hauch, Gottfried Keller as a Democratic Idealist, 
 New York, 1916; for a discussion of his political activity 
 ,H. M. Kriesi, Gottfried Keller als Politiker, Frauenfeld 
 und Leipzig, 1918. For a sound but popular statement of 
 Keller’s philosophy of life see A. von Gleichen-Russwurm, 
 Gottfried Kellers Weltanschauung, Miinchen, 1921. 
 
 Page 126. A reprint of the Griine Heinrich in its original 
 form was published by E. Ermatinger as Der Griine Hein- 
 rich . . . Studien-Ausgabe der ersten Fassung, Stuttgart, 
 1914. 
 
 [ 295 ] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 1 
 
 In France F. Baldensperger published the first comprehen- ' 
 sive study of Keller that had appeared up to that time in 
 any country — and one that is valuable even today — under 
 the title Gottfried Keller; sa vie et ses CEuvres, Paris, 1899. 
 
 In Italy L. Bianchi limned an excellent portrait of Keller 
 the man and the artist in his Novelle und Ballade , 1915, pp. 
 97 ff . ; and A. Farinelli gave to his countrymen in their own 
 language a subtle and sympathetic interpretation of Kel- 
 ler’s message in U opera d’un maestro, Torino, 1920, pp. 1 
 89 ff. 
 
 Among the studies that have appeared in English-speaking 
 countries the following may here find mention: M. Hay , \ 
 The Story of a Swiss Poet. A Study of Gottfried Keller’s 
 Life and Works, Berne, 1920. Although failing to do full 
 justice to Keller’s philosophy and to his art, the book will 
 prove useful as an introduction, especially on account of 
 the detailed account it gives of Keller’s stories. A far more 1 
 important discussion of Keller’s artistry was furnished by 
 Mrs. Edith Wharton as an introduction to A Village Romeo 
 and Juliet. A Tale by Gottfried Keller. Translated from j 
 the German by A. C. Bahlmann, New York, 1914. The 
 following translations into English — besides the one just 
 mentioned — should here find a place : Clothes make the 
 Man and other Swiss Stories, translation and critical intro- 
 duction by K. F. Kroeker, London, 1894. Seldwyla Folks. 
 Three singular Tales, translated by W. von Schierbrand, j 
 New York, no date (1919), (contains The three decent 
 Combmakers, Dietegen, Romeo and Juliet of the Village). 
 Seven Legends. Authorized ( and first) translation . . .1 
 by M. Wyness, with an introduction by R. M. Meyer, 
 London and Glasgow, 1911. Legends of Long Ago, trans- 
 lated by C. H. Handschin, Chicago, 1911. In The German 
 Classics. Masterpieces of German Literature translated 
 into English, vol. XIV, New York, no date (1914), pp. 1 
 
 [296] 
 
Keller and Meyer 
 
 ff., appeared a biographical sketch by J. A. Walz and A 
 Village Romeo and Juliet , translated by P. B. Thomas; 
 The Governor of Greifensee, translated by P. B. Thomas; 
 The Company of the Upright Seven , translated by B. Q. 
 Morgan; and Ursula, translated by B. Q. Morgan. (The 
 translation of A Village Romeo and Juliet in Poet Lore, vol. 
 IX, pp. 498 ff. is condensed and hence very imperfectly 
 renders the charm of the original). The following is in- 
 tended for the use of children: The Fat of the Cat and 
 other Stories. Freely adapted from Gottfried Keller by 
 Louis Untermeyer. Illustrated by Albert Sallack, New 
 York, no date (1925). This pretty little volume contains 
 a brisk introduction, entitled Seldwyla and its Discoverer, 
 and The Fat of the Cat, Hungry Hans, Clothes make the 
 Man, The Virgin and the Knight, The Statue and the Nun. 
 A translation by L. R. Smith of an episode from Der Grime 
 Heinrich appeared under the title Little Meret. Green-Coat 
 Henry’s Story, in Poet Lore, vol. XVII (1906), pp. 50 ff. 
 The following of Keller’s stories are accessible in College 
 editions: Dietegen, ed. by G. Gruener, Ginn and Co., 1892; 
 Die drei gerechten Kammacher, Frau Regel Amrain und 
 ihr Jungster, ed. by H. Z. Kip, Oxford University Press, 
 1911 ; D ie drei gerechten Kammacher, ed. by H. T. Collings, 
 Heath and Co., no date (1914); Das Fahnlein der sieben 
 Aufrechten, ed. by W. G. Howard and A. M. Sturtevant, 
 Heath and Co., 1907; Kleider machen Leute, ed. by M. B. 
 Lambert, Heath and Co., 1900; Legenden, ed. by M. Miiller 
 and C. Wenckebach, Holt and Co., 1902; Romeo und Julia 
 auf dem Dorfe, ed. by W. A. Adams, Heath and Co., 1900; 
 Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe, ed. by R. N. Corwin, 
 Holt and Co., 1912. 
 
 There is no critical edition of C. F. Meyer’s works and no 
 popular edition with introduction and notes. His tales and 
 verse are published by Haessel in Leipzig. The following 
 is a complement to the narratives published during Meyer’s 
 
 [ 297 ] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 life-time: A. Frey, Conrad Ferdinand Meyers unvollendete 
 Prosadichtungen , Leipzig, 1916. — For Meyer’s correspond- 
 ence see A. Frey, Briefe Conrad Ferdinand Meyers , nebst 
 seinen Rezensionen und Aufsatzen, Leipzig, 1908 ; R. d’Har- 
 court, C. F. Meyer. La crise de 1852-56. Lettres de C. 
 F. Meyer et de son entourage, Paris, 1913; A. Langmesser, 
 C. F. Meyer und Julius Rodenberg. Ein Briefwechsel, 
 Berlin, 1918; A. Bettelheim, Louise von Frangois und C. F. 
 Meyer. Ein Briefwechsel, 2d ed., Berlin, 1920— R. Faesi, 
 Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Leipzig, 1925, may be recom- 
 mended as an unpretentious but reliable short introduction 
 to Meyer’s life and work. The most complete and search- 
 ing treatment of Meyer the man and the artist is to be 
 found in H. Maync, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer und sein 
 W erk, Frauenfeld und Leipzig, 1925 (two chapters in this 
 ■work, Erlebnis und Dichtung, pp. 63 ff. and Der epische 
 Kiinstler, pp. 324 ff., should be singled out as containing 
 the best characterizations we have of Meyer’s position in 
 the history of literature and of the peculiar nature of his 
 art). The study of this treatise may profitably be com- 
 plemented by a perusal of W. Linden, Conrad Ferdinand 
 Meyer. Entwicklung und Gestalt, Miinchen, 1922, and 
 of A. Frey, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, 4th ed., Stuttgart, 
 1925. Meyer’s artistry is delicately and suggestively dis- 
 cussed in E. Everth, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. Dichtung 
 und Personlichkeit, Dresden, 1924. — The following will 
 also prove useful : M. Nussberger, Conrad Ferdinand 
 Meyer, Frauenfeld, 1919; A. Langmesser, Conrad Ferdinand 
 Meyer. Sein Leben, seine Werke und sein Nachlass, 2nd 
 ed., Berlin, 1905. — For a sound French interpretation of 
 Meyer see R. d’Harcourt, C. F. Meyer. Sa vie, son oeuvre, 
 Paris, 1913. For a discussion of Meyer’s attitude towards 
 religion and ethics see W. Kohler, Conrad Ferdinand 
 Meyer als religioser Charakter, Jena, 1911. 
 
 [298] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 Page 136. For Meyer’s relations to the Renaissance see E. 
 Kalischer, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in seinem V erhaltnis 
 zur italienischen Renaissance, Berlin, 1907; and O. Blaser, 
 Conrad Ferdinand Meyers Renaissancenovellen, Bern, 
 1905. For a highly suggestive but wholly one-sided in- 
 terpretation of Meyer’s affiliations with the Renaissance 
 see F. F. Baumgarten, Das Wefk Conrad Ferdinand Meyers. 
 Renaissance-Empfinden und Stilkunst, 2d ed., Miinchen, 
 1920, pp. 16 ff. For a discussion of the principles under- 
 lying Meyer’s narrative art see M. L. Taylor, A Study of 
 the Technique in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer s Novellen, Chi- 
 cago, 1909; and especially E. Korrodi, Conrad Ferdinand 
 Meyer-Studien, Leipzig, 1912. — For Meyer’s relations to 
 the drama see H. Corrodi, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer und 
 sein V erhaltnis zum Drama, Leipzig, 1923. 
 
 Page 153. Meyer the lyrist has been excellently treated 
 by W. Brecht, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer und das Kunst- 
 werk seiner Gedichtsammlung, Wien und Leipzig, 1918. 
 
 The following of Meyer’s stories have been translated into 
 English: The Monk's Wedding, translated by S. K. 
 Adams, Boston, 1887; The Tempting of Pescara, translated 
 by C. Bell, New York, 1890; Plautus in the Convent and 
 The Monk's Marriage, both translated by W. G. Howard, 
 with a biographical sketch by G. Gruener, in The German 
 Classics, vol. XIV, New York, no date (1914), pp. 323 ff. 
 The following tales have been edited for college use: Das 
 Amulet, by O. Heller, Heath and Co., 1893; Gustav Adolfs 
 Page, by R. B. Roulston, Holt and Co., no date (1917); 
 Der Heilige, ed. by C. E. Eggert, Holt and Co., 1907 ; Jurg 
 Jenatch (abbreviated), ed. by A. Kenngott, Heath and Co., 
 1911 ; Der Schuss von der Kanzel, ed. by M. H. Haertel, 
 Ginn and Co., no date (1905). 
 
 [ 299 ] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 Naturalism in German Drama 
 from Schiller to Hauptmann 
 
 For a good general introduction to the study of the German 
 drama from Schiller to Hauptmann see G. Witkowski, Das 
 deutsche Drama des neunzehnten J ahrhunderts in seiner 
 Entwicklung dargestellt, 5th ed., Leipzig, 1923; of this book 
 a translation into English appeared New York, 1909 (au- 
 thorized translation from the second ed.). Useful material 
 may also be found in S. Friedmann, Das deutsche Drama 
 des neunzehnten J ahrhunderts in seinen Hauptvertretern 
 (translated from the Italian by L. Weber), 2 vols., Leipzig, 
 1902. For a discussion of some of the main tendencies in 
 German drama between Schiller and Hauptmann see R. F. 
 Arnold, Von der Romantik bis zur Moderne in Das deutsche 
 Drama, in V er bin dung mit J. Bab, A. Ludwig, F. Michael, 
 M. J. Wolff und R. Wolkan herausgegeben von R. F. Ar- 
 nold, Miinchen, 1925, pp. 481-653. — R. Petsch, Deutsche 
 Dramaturgie. I. Von Lessing bis Hebbel, 2nd ed., Ham- 
 burg, 1921, gives material for acquaintance with the theories 
 of drama held by German playwrights of the nineteenth 
 century. M. Martersteig, Das deutsche Theater im neun- 
 zehnten J ahrhundert. Eine kulturgeschichtliche Darstel- 
 lung, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1924, traces the evolution of the 
 German stage in the period from Goethe to Hauptmann. 
 
 Page 163. The best critical edition of Kleist’s works and 
 letters, to which are added a valuable sketch of his life 
 and introductions to the various plays and tales, was fur- 
 nished by Erich Schmidt, G. Minde-Pouet, and R. Steig, 
 Leipzig und Wien, no date (1904—5)- — The literature on 
 Kleist has of late grown very rich. We select the follow- 
 ing: C. F. Reinhold, Heinrich von Kleist, Berlin, no date 
 (1919), (this book furnishes a portrait of Kleist based 
 [ 300 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 on letters by him and to him and on letters and reports from 
 contemporaries) ; F. von Biedermann, Heinrich von Kleists 
 Gesprache. Nachrichten und Ueberlieferungen aus seinem 
 Umgange, Leipzig, no date (1912). — W. Herzog, Hein- 
 rich von Kleist. Sein Leben und sein W erk, Miinchen, 
 1911, is perhaps the most complete; O. Brahms, Das Leben 
 Heinrichs von Kleist. Neue Ausgabe, Berlin, 1911, the 
 most suggestive; F. Braig, Heinrich von Kleist , Miinchen, 
 1925, the most profound of the many treatises dealing with 
 the life and work of this most enigmatic of modern drama- 
 tists. — H. Meyer-Benfey, Das Drama Heinrich von Kleists, 
 vol. I. Kleists Ringen nach einer neuen Form des 
 Dramas, Gottingen, 1911; vol II. Kleist als vaterland- 
 ischer Dichter, ib., 1913, contains an exhaustive discussion 
 of Kleist’s plays. — In France several successful attempts 
 have been made to interpret Kleist’s originality and power. 
 Among these we will mention : R. Bonafous, Henri de 
 Kleist. Sa vie et ses oeuvres, Paris, 1894. This is a sound 
 presentation of the German dramatist’s life and work. I. 
 Rouge, H. von Kleist. Notice et Traductions, Paris, no 
 date (1922), in a terse introduction presents a picture of 
 the poet’s life and works and contains prose translations 
 of Penthesilea, Kaethchen von Heilbronn, and Prinz von 
 H omburg.—\x. 3 .\y produced in A. Farinelli a sympathetic 
 interpreter of Kleist’s genius; see L’ Opera Tun Maestro, 
 Torino, 1920, pp. 127 ff. — In America a brief biographical* 
 sketch of Kleist by J. S. Nollen and an excellent transla- 
 tion of Der Prinz von Homburg by H. Hagedorn appeared 
 in The German Classics, vol. IV, New York, no date 
 (1912). Die Familie Schroffenstein appeared translated by 
 M. J. and L. M. Price in Poet Lore, vol. XXVII (1916), 
 pp. 457 ff. — Nollen published an edition of Der Prinz von 
 Homburg for the use of Colleges, Ginn and Co., 1809. 
 For the attitude of the German theatres towards Kleist’s 
 plays see W. Kiihn, Heinrich von Kleist und das deutsche 
 
 [ 30 !] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 Theater, Miinchen und Leipzig, 1912. For a careful study 
 of Kleist’s language see G. Minde-Pouet, Heinrich von 
 Kleist. Seine Sprache und sein Stil, Weimar, 1897 ; also 
 M. Corssen, Kleists und Shakespeares dramatische Sprache, 
 Berlin, 1919. W. Silz in a monograph entitled H. von 
 Kleist’s Conception of the Tragic, Gottingen and Balti- 
 more, 1923, traces the change in Kleist from the despair 
 caused by contact with Kant to a new social ideal as re- 
 flected in Der Prinz von Hamburg. — F. Gundolf in a bril- 
 liant study ( Heinrich von Kleist, Berlin, 1922) protests 
 against viewing Kleist as “ einen Ahnen des Naturalismus, 
 einen Beobachter der dusseren Wirklichkeit ” (p. 16). For 
 he created his works not as painters do theirs, but as musi- 
 cians do, not attempting to transcribe reality about him 
 but merely projecting his own self into his dramas (p. 25). 
 Even if we agree with this view we must recognize that 
 Kleist, for whatever reason, anticipates later playwrights in 
 his depictions of unorganized and complicated souls and 
 hence may fittingly head a study in modernity in German 
 drama of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Page 181. For a bibliography of Grillparzer see K. 
 Goedeke, Grundriss zur Geschickte der deutschen Dichtung, 
 2nd ed., vol. VIII, Dresden, 1905, pp. 317 ff. — The critical 
 edition of Grillparzer’s works, Grillparzers Werke. Im 
 Auftrage der Reichshaupt- und Residenzstadt Wien, her - 
 ausgegeben von A. Sauer, Wien und Leipzig, 1909 ff., is 
 still in process of publication. — The best popular edition 
 is Grillparzers Werke, herausgegeben, mit Einleitungen und 
 Anmetkungen versehen von S. Hock, Berlin, Bong, no date 
 (1911). — Grillparzer’s letters and diaries appeared as 
 Grillparzers Briefe und Tagebiicker; eine Ergdnzung zu 
 seinen W er ken, gesammelt und mit Anmerkungen versehen. 
 Herausgegeben von C. Glossy und A. Sauer, Stuttgart und 
 Berlin, no date (1903). — For further details of his person- 
 ality see Grillparzers Gesprache und die Charakieristiken 
 [ 302 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 seiner P ersonlichkeit durch Zeitgenossen. Gesammelt und 
 herausgegeben von A. Sauer , Wien, 1904 ff. — For a conven- 
 ient introduction to the life and work of Grillparzer see 
 A. Kleinberg, Franz Grillparzer. Der Mann und das 
 Werk , Leipzig — Berlin, 1915. The best biography is 
 Ehrhard-Necker, Grillparzer , 2nd ed., Miinchen, 1910. Be- 
 sides these two, E. Reich, Franz Grillparzers Dramen. 
 Funfzehn V orlesungen, 3d ed., Dresden, 1909; and J. 
 Volkelt, Franz Grillparzer als Dichter des Tragischen, 2nd 
 ed., Miinchen, 1909 — and, as a complement to the last- 
 named work, J. Volkelt, Grillparzer als Dichter des Willens 
 zum Leben, J ahrbuch der Grillparzer-Gesellschaft, vol. 
 X (1900), pp. 4 ff. — will prove illuminating. — The J ahr- 
 buch der Grillparzer-Gesellschaft contains important essays 
 on the details of Grillparzer’s life and works. — For a dis- 
 cussion in English of Grillparzer’s art and of his intel- 
 lectual background see G. Pollack, Franz Grillparzer and 
 the Austrian Drama, New York, 1907 (with translations 
 of many passages). — Of Grillparzer’s dramas, Sappho, the 
 earliest of his great tragedies, has often been translated into 
 English: by J. Bramsen, London, 1820; by E. B. Lee, 
 Boston, 1846; by L. V. C., Edinburgh, 1855; by E. Froth- 
 ingham, Boston, 1876. A translation of Medea, the last 
 part of the trilogy The Golden Fleece, done by Th. A. 
 Miller and of The Jewess of Toledo, done by G. H. and 
 A. P. Danton, preceded by a sketch of the life of Grill- 
 parzer by W. G. Howard, appeared in The German Clas- 
 sics, vol. VI, New York, no date (1914). — The following 
 plays have been edited for College use: Die Ahnfrau, ed. 
 F. W. J. Heuser and G. H. Danton, Holt and Co., 1907; 
 Sappho, ed. by C. C. Ferrell, Ginn and Co., 1899 and by 
 J. L. Kind, Oxford University Press, 1916; Des Meeres 
 und der Liebe Wellen, ed. by M. Schiitze, Holt and Co., 
 1912 and by J. L. Kind, Oxford University Press, 1916; 
 Konig Ottokars Gluck und Ende, ed. by C. E. Eggert, Holt 
 
 [ 303 ] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 and Co., 1910; Der Traum ein Leben , ed. by E. S. Meyer, 
 Heath and Co., 1910; Libussa, ed. by G. O. Curme, Oxford 
 University Press, 1913. For an admirable discussion of 
 the influence of Spanish literature on Grillparzer see A. 
 Farinelli, Grillparzer und Lope de Vega, Berlin, 1894. 
 
 Page 188. For a fine characterization of the wit and humor 
 in W eti dem, der lugt see J. Minor, Grillparzer als Lust - 
 spieldichter, Jahrbuch der Gnllparzer-Gesellschaft, vol. Ill, 
 pp. 41 ff. 
 
 Page 192. For valuable information on Ein treuer Diener 
 seines Herrn see the article by Sauer, Jahrbuch der 
 Grillparzer-Gesellschaft, vol. Ill (1893), PP* 3 ®* 
 
 Page 195. For a bibliography of Hebbel see H. Wiitschke, 
 Hebbel-Bibliographie, Berlin, 1910, complemented by P. 
 Kirsch, Euphorion, Zeitschrift fur Liter aturgeschichte, vol. 
 XIX (1912), pp. 445 ff.- — For a critical edition of the works, 
 diaries, and letters see Fr. Hebbel. Samtliche Werke. 
 Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, besorgt von R. M. Werner , 
 Berlin, 1904 ff. For additional letters and other material 
 see D. Kralik und F. Lemmermeyer, Neue Hebbel- 
 Dokumente, Berlin und Leipzig, 1913; and F. Hirth, Aus 
 Friedrich Hebbels Korrespondenz. Ungedruckte Brief e von 
 und an den Dichter, Miinchen und Leipzig, 1913. Among 
 the many popular editions the best — though by no means 
 the latest — is perhaps Th. Poppe, Hebbels W erke, mit Ein - 
 leitungen und Anmerkungen versehen, Berlin, Bong, no date 
 (1909). This edition contains copious selections from the 
 diaries. For a selection of Hebbel’s letters see Friedrich 
 Hebbels Brief e, ausgewahlt und eingeleitet von Th. Poppe, 
 Berlin, no date (1913). For an excellent selection of im- 
 portant passages from the diaries see Friedrich Hebbels 
 Tagebucher, ausgewahlt mit einer Einleitung sowie Anmer- 
 kungen von K. Krumm, Leipzig, no date (1904).— For an 
 appreciation of Hebbel’s personality, without which a criti- 
 
 [304] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 * “ " ■ 
 
 cal understanding of his art is impossible, see P. Bornstein, 
 Friedrich Hebbels Personlichkeit. Gesprache, Urteile, 
 Erinnerungen. Berlin, 1924. For a collection of Hebbel’s 
 utterances on the drama see W. von Scholz, Hebbels Dra- 
 maturgie; Drama und Biihne betreffende Sckriften, Auf- 
 sdtze, Bemerkungen Hebbels, Miinchen, 1907. — For a brief 
 but adequate biography of Hebbel see A. Bartels, Friedrich 
 Hebbel, Leipzig, Reclam, no date (1899). For a much 
 more detailed statement of his life see R. M. Werner, 
 Hebbel. Ein Lebensbild, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1913. — The best 
 introduction to the study of Hebbel’s work is O. F. Walzel, 
 Friedrich Hebbel und seine Dramen. Ein V ersuch, Leip- 
 zig, 1913. J. Krumm, Friedrich Hebbel. Drei V ortrage, 
 2nd ed., Flensburg, 1913, and E. A. Georgy, Die Tragodien 
 Friedrich Hebbels nach ihrem Ideeninhalt, 3d ed., Leipzig, 
 1922, will also prove useful. — P. Sickel, Friedrich Hebbels 
 Welt — und Lebensanschauung. Nach den T agebuchern. 
 Brief en und Werken des Dichters dargestellt, Leipzig und 
 Hamburg, 1912, may be recommended as giving a picture 
 of Hebbel’s philosophy based on numerous quotations. For 
 an understanding of Hebbel’s attitude towards politics and 
 all questions concerning government see E. Dosenheimer, 
 Friedrich Hebbels Auffassung vom Staat und sein Trauer- 
 spiel “ Agnes Bernauer,” Leipzig, 1912, especially pp. 186 ff. 
 Useful discussions concerning Hebbel’s technique may be 
 found in A. M. Wagner, Das Drama Friedrich Hebbels, 
 eine Stilbetrachtung zur Kenntnis des Dichters und seiner 
 Kunst, Hamburg und Leipzig, 1911, especially chap. II, 
 Der Monolog and chap. Ill, Der Dialog. — The applica- 
 tion by Hebbel of the analytical method has been lucidly 
 discussed by T. M. Campbell, Hebbel, Ibsen and the Ana- 
 lytical Exposition, Heidelberg, 1922 (this volume also con- 
 tains the only translations into English of two of Hebbel’s 
 most important treatises on the drama: My Views on the 
 Drama and Preface to Maria Magdalena ). — Interest in 
 
 [ 305 ] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 Hebbel has far transcended the boundaries of his native 
 country. In Denmark H. Berens published Fr. Hebbel 
 Hans liv och Digtning, Copenhagen, 1905. In Italy a study 
 appeared by A. Farinelli under the title Hebbel e i suo\ 
 drammi, Bari, 1912. In France even during the poet’s 
 life-time S-R. Taillandier called attention to the importance 
 of his work in Ecrivains et poetes modernes , Paris, 1861. 
 pp. 191 ff. Since then several studies have appeared of 
 which the most important is A. Tibal, Hebbel, sa vie et ses 
 ceuvres de 1813 a 1845, Paris, 191 1. In America interest in 
 Hebbel has recently grown keen. The most complete and 
 thorough discussion in English is to be found in T. M. 
 Campbell, The Life and Works of Friedrich Hebbel, Bos- 
 ton, no date (1919). — The following translations of plays 
 by Hebbel may here be mentioned : T hree Plays by Frederic 
 Hebbel. Introduction by L. H. Allen. Everyman’s Li- 
 brary, London and New York, no date (1914), (contains 
 Gyges and his Ring, Herod and Mariamne, Maria Mag- 
 dalena). Maria Magdalena was also translated by P 
 Green, Poet Lore, vol. XXV (1914), pp. 81 ff. and again 
 by P. B. Thomas in The German Classics, vol. IX, New 
 York, no date (1914). Volume IX of The German Clas- 
 sics contains, besides the translation of Maria Magdalene 
 just mentioned, a short life of Hebbel by W. G. Howard, 
 a translation of Sigurd’s Death (from the trilogy Die Ni- 
 belungen) by K. Royce, of several important reviews by 
 Hebbel, of his Recollections of My Childhood, and of ex- 
 tracts from his Journal {T agebucher), done by F. H. King. 
 — The following plays have been edited for College use : 
 Agnes Bernauer, edited by M. B. Evans, Heath and Co., 
 no date (1912) and by C. von Klenze, Oxford University 
 Press, second ed., 1925; Herodes und Mariamne, ed. by E. 
 S. Meyer, Holt and Co., 1905; Die Nibelungen (only the 
 first two parts of the trilogy), ed. by A. Busse, Oxford Uni- 
 versity Press, 1921. 
 
 [ 306 ] 
 
Naturalism in German Drama 
 
 Page 208. For Otto Ludwig’s works see Otto Ludwigs ge- 
 sammelte Schnften, herausgegeben von A. Stern und Erich 
 Schmidt, Leipzig, no date (1891). — For a biography and an 
 estimate of Ludwig’s life see A. Stern in vol. VIII of the 
 edition just mentioned. — Translations of the Erbforster ap- 
 peared, by P. Green (with the title The Forest Warden ) in 
 Poet Lore, vol. XXIV (1913) and by A. Remy (with the 
 title The Hereditary Forester) in The German Classics, 
 vol. IX, no date (1914) (with a biographical sketch by A. 
 R. Hohlfeld). — The Erbforster was edited for College use 
 by M. C. Steward, Holt and Co., 1910. 
 
 Page 209. The best edition of Anzengruber’s work is 
 Ludwig Anzengrubers W erke, herausgegeben, mit Einlei- 
 tungen und Anmerkungen versehen, von A. B ettelheim, Ber- 
 lin, Bong, no date (1921). For Anzengruber’s letters see 
 i Briefe von Ludwig Anzengruber, herausgegeben von A. 
 Bettelheim, Stuttgart, 1902. — For a brief survey of An- 
 zengruber’s life and work see the introduction to the edition 
 of Bettelheim; also K. H. Strobl, Ludwig Anzengruber, 
 Miinchen, 1920. For a detailed statement of his life and 
 ' work see A. Kleinberg, Ludwig Anzengruber . Ein Lebens- 
 \ bild, Stuttgart und Berlin, 1921. The technique of An- 
 zengruber’s dramas is discussed in A. Buchner, Zu Ludwig 
 Anzengrubers Dramentechnik, Darmstadt, 1911, especially 
 pp. 66 ff. (dealing with Musik und Charakteristik, showing 
 ' the justification for the “melodramatic” elements in his 
 plays, and with his naturalistic technique). — For a brief 
 statement in English of Anzengruber’s place in the dramatic 
 literature of Austria see G. Poliak, Grillparzer and the 
 Austrian Drama, pp. 15 ff. — The Meineidbauer appeared in 
 an English translation by A. Busse, preceded by a sketch 
 of his life, in The German Classics, vol. XVI, New York, 
 no date (1914). 
 
 Page 211. For the text of Raimund’s play see Ferdinand 
 Raimunds samtliche Wefke. Mit einer Einfuhrung und 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 Anmerkungen. Herausgegeben von E. Castle , Leipzig, 
 1923. For the facts of his life and a survey of his dramatic 
 work see the introduction of the edition just mentioned. 
 See also Erich Schmidt, Ferdinand Raimund, in Charakter- 
 istiken. Erste Reihe, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1902, pp. 363 ff., 
 and A. Farinelli, Aufsatze, Reden und Charakteristiken 
 zur Weltliteratur, Bonn und Leipzig, 1925, pp. 143 ff. 
 For a short statement in English of his position in Austrian 
 literature see F. Poliak, op. cit., pp. 1 ff. — Among German 
 dramatists before Hauptmann whose works exhibit new 
 elements of realism, two more should at least find cursory 
 mention here : Grabbe and Buchner. Though distinctly 
 inferior as artists, in originality they do not yield to Grill- 
 parzer or Ludwig. Christian Dietrich Grabbe (1801- 
 1836) published several dramas — of which Napoleon oder 
 die hundert Tage is the most important — in which he in 
 wholly novel fashion correlates the “hero” with his environ- 
 ment. Although his plays neglect all stage proprieties and, 
 what is worse, lack focus, they mark a new departure. (See 
 the edition of his works by S. Wukadinovic, Berlin, 1912; 
 O. Nieten, C. D. Grabbe. Sein Leben und seine Werke , 
 Dortmund, 1908, especially pp. 250 ff. ; S. Theilacker, 
 Volk und Masse in Grabbes Dramen, Wurzburg, 1907, es- 
 pecially pp. 34 ff. ; and L. M. Kueffner, The Development 
 of the Historic Drama. Its Theory and Practice , Chicago, 
 1910, pp. 41 ff.). — Georg Buchner (1813-1837) in his 
 tragedy Dantons Tod (1835), the subtitle of which, Dra- 
 matische Bilder aus Frankreichs Schreckensherrschaft, de- 
 scribes its peculiar character, eliminates the “hero” alto- 
 gether and aims at little more than at giving, in dramatic 
 form, a picture of a historic period. This play, to which 
 Hauptmann has publicly owned his obligation, may in many 
 respects be regarded as a hyphen between Schiller’s Wallen- 
 stein and Hauptmann’s Florian Geyer. (See the edition of 
 his works by F. Bergemann, Leipzig, 1922; M. von Zabel- 
 
Hauptmann’s Lower Classes 
 
 titz, Georg Buchner, sein Leben und sein Schaffen, Berlin, 
 1915; Kueffner, op. cit., p. 48). 
 
 Hauptmann’s Treatment 
 of the Lower Classes 
 
 Page 223. The passages from Castiglione’s Cortegiano 
 are taken from The Book of the Courtier by Count Baldesar 
 Castiglione {1528). Translated from the Italian by L. 
 E. Opdycke, New York, 1903, p. 22. 
 
 Page 225. For the Spanish text of the story from Guevara 
 see Biblioteca de Autores Espaholes, vol. LXV, Madrid, 
 1873, pp. 160 ff. For an English rendering see The Diall 
 of Princes. By Don Anthony of Guevara. Translated by 
 Sir Thomas North: Being select passages now set forth 
 with an introduction and a bibliography, by K. N. Colvile, 
 London, 1919, pp. 97 ff. 
 
 Page 226. For Shakespeare’s attitude towards the “hum- 
 ble” see A. Maselli, Gli humili nella tragedia greca e shakes - 
 periana, Alatri, 1920, pp. 287 ff. 
 
 Page 226. Lafontaine’s tale Le paysan du Danube con- 
 stitutes the 7th fable of the 11th book of his Fables. 
 
 Page 229. Justus Moser’s 0 snabrilcker Geschichte. Er- 
 ster Theil, is reprinted in the Sammtliche Werke, herausge- 
 geben von B. R. Aheken. Zweite Ausgabe, vols. VI-VIII, 
 Berlin, 1858. See especially the Vorrede to the Erster 
 Theil, vol. VI, pp. ix ff. For Moser’s importance in the 
 history of social thought see L. Rupprecht, Justus Mosers 
 soziale und volkswirtschaftliche Anschauungen in ihrem 
 V erhaltnis zur Theorie und Praxis seines Zeitalters, Stutt- 
 
 [ 309 ] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 gart, 1892, and F. Rinck, Justus Mosers Geschichtsauff as- 
 sung. Em Beitrag zur Theorie der Geschichtsauf as sung, 
 Erfurt, 1908. — Moser’s point of view is the more remark- 
 able, as the German poets of the Storm and Stress period — 
 with the possible exception of Lenz — are interested merely 
 in the conflict between bourgeoisie and nobility and overlook 
 the problems of the lower classes. To many of them — as 
 to Goethe in the W erther — the lives of peasants appear 
 idyllic. See C. Stockmeyer, Soziale Probleme in Drama des 
 Sturmes und Dranges, Frankfurt-a.-M., 1922, especially 
 pp. 101 ff. 
 
 Page 231. On the effect of the introduction of machinery 
 on the rural population of England and the attitude of the 
 English poets see J. Patton, The English Village. A lit- 
 erary Study, New York, 1919. Coleridge about 1795 em- 
 phatically said that Pitt’s assertion : The mass of the 
 people have nothing to do with the laws but obey them, 
 was a base calumny on mankind ; see Publications of the 
 Modern Language Association of America, vol. XXXVI 
 (1921), p. 62. — The whole background for the social 
 changes in the 18th century is discussed in A. Lichtenberger, 
 Le socialisme au i8me siecle, Paris, 1895. — Much excellent 
 material on the attitude of the German poets of the 18th 
 and 19th centuries towards the social problem is contained 
 in H. Benzmann, Die soziale Ballade in Deutschland, Miin- 
 chen, 1912. 
 
 Page 235. The translations from Beranger are taken from 
 Beranger. Two Hundred of his Lyrical Poems, done into 
 English by William Young, New York, 1850. 
 
 Page 239. Material on the influence of St. Simon in Ger- 
 man literature may be found in F. Gerathewohl, St. Simon- 
 istische Ideen in der deutschen Liter atur, Miinchen, 1921. 
 
 [ 310 ] 
 
Hauptmann’s Lower Classes 
 
 Page 239. For the treatment of the social problem in 
 Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Years of Travel, see A. Biel- 
 schowsky, Goethe, vol. II, chap. 18. 
 
 Page 242. For Proudhon’s toast see P-J. Proudhon, Idees 
 rev olutionnaires . Avec une preface par A. Darimon, Paris, 
 1849, p. 266. 
 
 Page 242. For the quotations from Elliott see Ebenezer 
 Elliott, Kerhonah. The Vernal Walk, Win Hill, and other 
 Poems, vol. Ill, London, 1835. The lines quoted are taken 
 from Song and Corn-Law Hymn, No. 14. 
 
 Page 243. The translation of Heine’s poem is taken from 
 Poems of Heinrich Heine . . . selected and translated by 
 L. Untermeyer, New York, 1917, p. 263. The poem was 
 written in 1844. 
 
 Page 243. For Walt Whitman’s utterances quoted in the 
 text see his A Backward Glance o'er Travel’ d Roads 1888 
 in Leaves of Grass, one-volume ed., Garden City, 1919, 
 vol. Ill, p. 46 and p. 61. 
 
 Page 246. Zola’s sentence: vivre, la morale est la ... is 
 found in his Le naturalisme au theatre. Les theories et 
 les exemples, 3d ed., Paris, 1881, p. 45. The words: vivre, 
 et en etre heureux are quoted by E. Lepelletier, Emile Zola. 
 Sa vie. Son oeuvre, Paris, 1908, p. 461. The words: je 
 ne veux pas de tout ce qui n est point vie . . . may be read 
 in Zola’s Mes Haines. Causeries litteraires et artistiques. 
 Nouvelle edition, Paris, 1907, p. 282. For his appeal to 
 French mothers see Nouvelle campagne, Paris, 1897, pp. 
 226 ff. For the essay Femmes honnetes see the collection of 
 articles entitled LJne Campagne 1880-1, Paris, 1882, pp. 
 177 ff. 
 
 Page 249. Attacks on George Sand’s view of the peasantry 
 occur in D ocuments litteraires. Etudes et portraits, 3d ed., 
 
 [ 311 ] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 Paris, 1882, p. 229 and in Nos Auteurs dramatiques, Paris, 
 1908, p. 369. The thrust at the pleasure-loving tendencies 
 of the Paris workman is found in H. Massis, Comment 
 Emile Zola compos ait ses romans , Paris, 1906, p. 192. 
 
 Page 252. The passages quoted from the letters are found 
 in Emile Zola, Correspondance. Les Lettres et les arts, 
 Paris, 1908. 
 
 Page 252. For the article How They Grow Up ( Comment 
 elles poussent) see the collection Une campagne 1880-1, 
 pp. 157 ff. ; see also the article entitled E sclav es ivres in the ! 
 same collection, pp. 362 ff. 
 
 Page 254. For the passage in the essay on Theodore de 
 Banville see Nos auteurs dramatiques, pp. 378 ff. 
 
 Page 258. Every writer on Tolstoy — their name is myriad 
 — touches upon his love for the oppressed, but no one has 
 treated the subject from the comparative point of view. 
 
 I owe suggestions, however, to the following works : E. 
 
 L. Axelrod, Tolstois Weltanschauung und ihre Entwick- 
 lung, Stuttgart, 1902; L. Kropotkin, Russian Literature, 
 New York, 1905, pp. 109 ff. ; K. I. Staub, Graf L. N. 
 Tolstois W eltanschauung und ihre Entwicklung, Kempten, 
 1907; A. Maude, Leo Tolstoy, London, no date (1918). 
 
 Page 258. The passage in the Journal is to be found in 
 The Journal of Leo Tolstoi . . . Translated from the Rus- 
 sian by R. Strunsky, New York, 1917, p. 214 (under date 
 March 21, 1898). 
 
 Page 260. For the passages from the letters to Countess 
 Tolstoy see Leo Tolstois Bnefwechsel mit der Grafin A. A. 
 Tolstoi 1857-1903, Miinchen, 1913, p. 168 (under date 
 July 1861) and p. 280 (under date December 1874). 
 
 Page 265. The best edition of Hauptmann’s works is the 
 Jubelaumsausgabe in 8 vols., Berlin, 1922. For a good 
 short introduction to his work and his personality see E. 
 [ 312 ] 
 
Hauptmann’s Lower Classses 
 
 Sulger-Gebing, Gerhart Hauptmann , 3d ed., Leipzig und 
 Berlin, 1922. The most complete biography is P. Schlen- 
 ther, Gerhart Hauptmann. Leben und Werke. Neue Aus - 
 gabe, umgearbeitet und erweitert von A. Eloesser, Berlin, 
 
 1922. — A translation of most of Hauptmann’s plays was 
 edited by L. Lewisohn, New York, 1912 ff. Translations 
 of The Weavers, The Sunken Bell, and Michael Kramer, 
 with a biographical sketch by L. Lewisohn, appeared in 
 vol. XVIII of The German Classics, New York, no date 
 (1914). — The best discussion in English of Hauptmann the 
 dramatist is to be found in L. Lewisohn, The Modern 
 Drama, New York, 1916, pp. 110 ff. For an unpretentious, 
 but very sympathetic interpretation of Hauptmann’s art 
 see K. Holl, Gerhart Hauptmann. His Life and Work, 
 London, 1913. — Almost every writer who deals with Haupt- 
 mann speaks of his interest in the lower orders, but, as in 
 the case of Tolstoy, none approaches the matter from the 
 point of view of comparative literature. However, the 
 following treatises proved useful : J. H. Marschan, Das 
 Mitleid bei Gerhart Hauptmann, Dortmund, 1919; E. 
 Wulffen, Gerhart Hauptmanns Dramen. Kriminalpsycho- 
 logische und pathologische Studien, 2nd ed., Berlin- 
 Lichterfelde, 19x1; especially J. Bab, Die Lebenden, in R. 
 F. Arnold, Das deutsche Drama, pp. 709 ff. — For material 
 on the treatment of the proletariat in German drama before 
 Hauptmann see R. F. Arnold, Das moderne Drama, 2nd ed., 
 Strassburg, 1912, pp. 247 ff. ; J. Rohr, 'Gerhart Haupt- 
 manns dramatisches Schaffen, Dresden und Leipzig, 1912, 
 pp. 70 ff. ; K. Haenisch, Gerhart Hauptmann und das 
 deutsche Volk , Berlin, 1922, pp. 7 ff. ; F. Vollmers-Schulte, 
 Gerhart Hauptmann und die soziale Frage, Dortmund, 
 
 1923, p. 1 1 and p. 12 note; and especially B. Manns, Das 
 Proletariat und die Arbeiterfrage im deutschen Drama, 
 Borna-Leipzig, 1913. For Hauptmann’s interest in the 
 lower classes as exhibited in his earliest works see Schlen- 
 
 [ 313 ] 
 
Notes and Bibliographies 
 
 ther, op. cit., pp. 32 ff. and pp. 41 ff. and Haenisch, op. 
 cit., pp. 34 ff. 
 
 Page 269. For a study of the Griselda subject in literature 
 see F. von Westenholz, Die Griseldis-Sage in der Litera~ 
 turgeschichte , Heidelberg, 1888. 
 
 Page 270. The passage from the Griechischer Fruhling is 
 found in vol. VI of the Jubelaumsausgabe, p. 93. 
 
 [3H] 
 
INDEX 
 
Index 
 
 Addison, 15, 16, 23, 135, 187. 
 Aristotle, 160. 
 
 Arndt, 45, 48. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 116. 
 iEschylus, 270. 
 
 Albani, Cardinal, 24. 
 
 Alberti, Leandro, 6, 8, 9. 
 
 Angelico, Fra, 22, 43, 44, 48, 61, 
 63, 77, 78, 81, 83, 84, 92, 93, 
 94, 100, 224. 
 
 Anzengruber, 159, 209 ff., 219. 
 Assisi, 4, 31, 32. 
 
 Augier, 209. 
 
 Balzac, 200, 209. 
 
 Bayle, 8. 
 
 Becket, Thomas a, 139, 140, 141. 
 Bellay, Joachim du, 7, 8. 
 
 Bellini, 14, 23, 25, 32, 44, 45, 46, 
 50, 82, 94, 97. 
 
 Beranger, 235 ff., 237, 241, 244, 245. 
 Bismarck, 155, 272. 
 
 Bjornson, 206. 
 
 Blainville, de, 12. 
 
 Boccaccio, 269. 
 
 Bocklin, 154. 
 
 Boisseree, Sulpitz, 73. 
 
 Bologna, 6, 14, 18, 21, 23, 31, 32, 
 35, 57, 62. 
 
 Bolognese painters, 22, 43, 45, 47, 
 57, 68, 87, 89. 
 
 Botticelli, 14, 92. 
 
 Brahm, Otto, 218. 
 
 Brentano, 128, 169. 
 
 Breval, John, 12. 
 
 Brosses, de, 16, 18, 21, 23, 27, 62. 
 Browning, 121. 
 
 Bulwer-Lytton, 140. 
 
 Burckhardt, 143. 
 
 Buri, 76, 94, 98. 
 
 Burney, Charles, 13. 
 
 Byron, 4, 5, 23, 36, 37, 41, 46, 58, 
 71, 128, 135, 164, 184. 
 
 Carlyle, 116. 
 
 Carpaccio, 32, 46, 94. 
 
 Carracci, The, 10, 14, 21, 33, 81. 
 Castiglione, 223, 224, 225, 227, 244, 
 263, 275. 
 
 Cellini, Benvenuto, 142. 
 
 Cento, 31. 
 
 Cervantes, 120, 226, 240. 
 
 Cezanne, 63. 
 
 Chamisso, 238, 241. 
 
 Charlemagne, 134, 148. 
 Chateaubriand, 37, 39, 41, 46, 58, 
 71, 85, 88, 89, 187, 261, 264, 
 265. 
 
 Chaucer, 269. 
 
 Cimabue, 47, 91. 
 
 Cimarosa, 13. 
 
 Cochin, Charles Nicolas, 14, 15, 19, 
 20, 21, 22, 31, 35, 42, 44, 47, 
 50, 69, 73, 77, 80, 89, 95. 
 Coleridge, 37. 
 
 Comte, 1 13. 
 
 Conrad, 181. 
 
 Correggio, 10, 14, 22, 48, 68, 82, 
 100, 135. 
 
 Coryate, Thomas, 7, 8. 
 
 Courbet, 121. 
 
 Courier, Paul Louis, 38. 
 
 Cowper, 229. 
 
 Dahn, 140. 
 
 Dante, 5, 147, 149. 
 
 Dickens, 122, 127, 128, 131, 209. 
 Diderot, 8, 99, 182. 
 
 Doellinger, 90. 
 
 Domenichino, 14, 82. 
 
 Dostoievski, 145, 148, 200, 272. 
 Duccio, 62, 63, 91. 
 
 Dumas, 206, 209. 
 
 Dupaty, 27, 35, 39. 
 
 Ebers, 140. 
 
 Eliot, George, 131, 143, 209. 
 
 Elliott, Ebenezer, 241, 242 ff. 
 
 Engel, 244. 
 
 Ense, Vamhagen von, 114. 
 
 [ 317 ] 
 
Index 
 
 Ense, Rahel, 114. 
 
 Eschenbach, Wolfram von, 271. 
 Euripedes, 187. 
 
 Faure, 4, 59. 
 
 Ferrara, 31. 
 
 Feuerbach, Ludwig, hi, 112, 113, 
 127, 128, 135, 136, 247. 
 
 Fiorillo, 87. 
 
 Flaubert, 200, 209. 
 
 Florence, 3, 7, 13, 17, 21, 23, 24, 31, 
 40, 44. 45. 47. 48, 49, 54, 57, 
 62, 63, 90, 94, 98. 
 
 Foggia, 55. 
 
 Fontane, 163. 
 
 Fourier, 239. 
 
 Francia, 45, 78. 
 
 Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, 134, 
 M3, 146. 
 
 Freiligrath, no. 
 
 Freytag, 209. 
 
 Gauguin, 59, 63, 271. 
 
 Geibel, 114. 
 
 Gentile da Fabriano, 94. 
 
 George, Stephan, 153. 
 
 Gerstfeldt, Olga von, 56, 59. 
 Geszner, Solomon, 122, 214, 240, 
 241. 
 
 Ghirlandaio, 45, 48, 63, 92. 
 Giorgione, 94. 
 
 Giotto, 13, 14, 22, 32, 45, 47, 50, 61, 
 9I \ 
 
 Girgenti, 28. 
 
 Giulio Romano, 82, 84, 94, 100, 101. 
 Gluck, 13. 
 
 Goethe, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 20, 21, 23, 
 24, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 
 35, 36, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 53, 54, 
 
 55, 
 
 57, 58, 
 
 •60, 
 
 62, 
 
 63, 64, 
 
 7 1. 
 
 73, 
 
 74, 99, 
 
 I08, 
 
 . ”7 
 
 , 120, 
 
 124, 
 
 1 3 5 , 
 
 14 2 y 
 
 153, 
 
 159, 
 
 l60, 
 
 162, 
 
 164, 
 
 165, 
 
 171, 
 
 181, 
 
 184, 
 
 185, 
 
 188, 195, 200, 228, 237, 238 ff., 
 265, 267, 271. 
 
 Goldsmith, 231, 237, 241. 
 
 Gozzoli, Benozzo, 14, 63, 92. 
 
 Gray, Thomas, 13, 227, 237, 261. 
 Gregorovius, 4, 54, 55, 56, 59. 
 Grillparzer, 159, 181 ff., 201, 210, 
 
 212, 218, 219. 
 
 Grosley, P. ]., 12, 15. 
 
 Griin, Anastasius, no. 
 
 Guercino, 10, 14, 31, 33, 47, 75. 
 Guevara, Antonio de, 225, 226, 265. 
 
 Halm, 269. 
 
 Hardy, 181. 
 
 Hauptmann, 159, 162, 180, 181, 200, 
 206, 217, 218, 219, 220, 246, 
 265 ff. 
 
 Hearn, Lafcadio, 265. 
 
 Hebbel, 159, 163, 181, 195 ff., 213, 
 
 214, 216, 218, 219. 
 
 Hegel, 105, 112, 195, 202. 
 
 Hehn, Victor, 53. 
 
 Heine, 37, 241, 243. 
 
 Heinse, Wilhelm, 24, 25, 27, 32, 39, 
 99. 
 
 Herder, 33, 35, 73, 74, 163. 
 Plerwegh, no. 
 
 Heyse, 114, 119, 138. 
 
 Hirt, 77. 
 
 Hodler, 63. 
 
 Hoffmann, E. T. A., 108, 128, 169. 
 Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 153. 
 Homer, 22, 270. 
 
 Horace, 15. 
 
 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 164. 
 
 Hurd, 74. 
 
 Hutten, Ulrich von, 137. 
 
 Ibsen, 162, 181, 188, 190, 195, 200, 
 205, 206, 207, 211, 212, 214, 
 
 215, 216, 217, 218, 219. 
 
 Ingres, 135. 
 
 James, William, 247. 
 
 Jameson, Mrs., 67, 96. 
 
 Jones, Inigo, 70. 
 
 Kant, 5, 163, 164, 264. 
 
 Keller, Gottfried, 105 ff., 130, 132, 
 135, 137, 138, 139, 153, 154- 
 Kerner, Justus, 121. 
 
 Keyssler, 12. 
 
 Kleist, Heinrich von, 159, 163 ff., 
 190, 191, 195, 207, 218, 219. 
 Krummacher, 123. 
 
 La Bruyere, 225, 227. 
 
 La Fontaine, 226, 265. 
 
 Lalande, 19, 21, 23, 24, 28, 31, 34, 
 35, 37- 
 
 Lamartine, 37, 4°, 164. 
 
 Langley, Batti, 72. 
 
Index 
 
 Lanzi, 87. 
 
 Lecce, 4. 
 
 Leistikow, 163. 
 
 Lenau, 133. 
 
 Lessing, 139. 
 
 Lienhardt, 267. 
 
 Lillo, 206. 
 
 Lindsay, Lord, 44, 97, 98. 
 
 Lippi, Fra Filippo, 45, 47, 92. 
 
 Livy, 6. 
 
 Longfellow, 143. 
 
 Lope de Vega, 192. 
 
 Lorenzetti, 62. 
 
 Lucan, 15. 
 
 Ludwig, Otto, 109, 208, 209. 
 
 Luther, Martin, 3, 137, 142. 
 
 Maeterlinck, 124, 154. 
 Manfredonia, 55. 
 
 Mann, Thomas, 3, 64. 
 
 Mantegna, 23, 42, 45, 82, 224. 
 Martini, Simone, 14, 62. 
 
 Marx, Karl, 196, 241, 244. 
 
 Masaccio, 32, 48, 50, 92. 
 
 Matthison, 44, 48. 
 
 Maupassant, Guy de, 58, 59. 
 
 Memmi, Simone, 91. 
 
 Mengs, Raphael, 70, 76, 77, 80, 83, 
 
 86 . 
 
 Menzel, Wolfgang, 47, 48, 53. 
 Meredith, George, 181. 
 
 Metternich, 182, 210. 
 
 Meyer, Conrad Ferdinand, 130 ff. 
 Meyer, Heinrich, 44, 48. 
 Michelangelo, 5, 18, 61, 131, 135, 
 136, 143, 148. 
 
 Michelet, 143. 
 
 Milan, 23, 25. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, 113. 
 
 Misson, 11, 12, 15, 19. 
 
 Monreale, 28, 47. 
 
 Montaigne, Michel de, 7, 8, 15, 
 
 225, 226. 
 
 Montesquieu, 34. 
 
 Morike, 153. 
 
 Moser, Justus, 229, 230. 
 
 Mozart, 182, 184, 210. 
 
 Musset, Alfred de, 133. 
 
 Naples, 27, 34, 40, 50, 52. 
 “Nazarenes” (German Pre-Raphael- 
 ites)^ 43, 61, 84, 87, 91. 
 
 Nexo, 271. 
 
 Nietzsche, 154, 272. 
 
 Novalis, 37, 71, 84, 169. 
 
 Ofitz, 240. 
 
 Orcagna, 47. 
 
 Orvieto, 4, 47. 
 
 Ostade, Adrian van, 226. 
 
 Overbeck, Friedrich, 83, 85, 86, 87, 
 88, 91, 93, 95, 98, 101, 102. 
 Oxford Movement, 96, 97. 
 
 Padua, 6, 31, 32, 61, 146. 
 
 Palermo, 50, 55. 
 
 Palladio, 10, 32, 70, 73, 100. 
 
 Paolo Veronese, 21, 32, 63, 68, 69. 
 Pascal, 133. 
 
 Pater, Walter, 143. 
 
 Pergolese, 13. 
 
 Perugia, 4, 31, 32. 
 
 Perugino, 42, 44, 82, 93, 94, 97, 
 100, 135. 
 
 Pestalozzi, 122. 
 
 Petrarch, 269. 
 
 Phillips, Stephen, 267. 
 
 Pinturicchio, 14, 44. 
 
 Piozzi, Mrs., 26, 39. 
 
 Pisa, 45, 92, 98. 
 
 Platen, 4, 46, 48, 164. 
 
 Proudhon, 242. 
 
 Pugin, Augustus Charles, 72. 
 Pugin, Augustus Welby North- 
 more, 73. 
 
 Racine, 5. 
 
 Raimund, Ferdinand, 21 1. 
 
 Raphael, 10, 13, 14, 17, 21, 22, 32, 
 35, 42, 47, 50, 53, 61, 63, 68, 
 7°, 76, 77, 78, 84, 87, 93, 94, 
 100, 101, 136. 
 
 Ravenna, 4, 55, 57, 62. 
 
 Ray, John, 13. 
 
 Renan, 113. 
 
 Reni, Guido, 10, 14, 18, 21, 27, 
 33, 47, 68, 70, 75, 76, 81. 
 Reuter, Fritz, 209. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 99. 
 
 Ricasoli, 136. 
 
 Richard, Abbe, 18, 19, 20, 24, 28. 
 Richardson, Jonathan, 69. 
 
 Richter, Jean Paul, 115 ff., 126, 128, 
 
 133- 
 
 Riedesel, 28, 29, 47. 
 
 Rielke, 153. 
 
 [ 319 ] 
 
Index 
 
 Rio, 43, 80, 82, 84, 88 ff., 95, 97, 
 98, 99, 100, 101. 
 
 Rome, 3, 7, 9, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 
 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 32, 
 
 33. 36, 40, 41. 4 2 » 43, 44. 45, 
 
 46, 48, 52, 54, 57, 62, 63, 66, 76, 
 77, 83, 84, 89, 91, 101, 136, 153, 
 182, 198. 
 
 Rousseau, 21, 27, 30, 34, 37, 71, 76, 
 122, 182, 227, 240, 260, 264, 
 265. 
 
 Rumohr, von, 43, 86 ff., 90, 91, 95, 
 97, 102. 
 
 Ruskin, 44, 61, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 
 
 73, 79, 80, 82, 86, 88, 92, 93, 
 
 94, 97 ff., 99, 102, 121. 
 
 St. Non, 29. 
 
 St. Simon, 239. 
 
 Sand, George, 239 ff., 249. 
 Sannazaro, 240. 
 
 Sarcey, 250. 
 
 Sardou, 209. 
 
 Sarto, Andrea del, 14, 82, 224. 
 Scheffler, Karl, 60, 62, 63. 
 
 Schiller, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 169, 
 170, 1 7 1 , 180, 184, 185, 190, 
 
 194, 200, 206, 210, 218, 219, 
 220, 266. 
 
 Schlegel, August Wilhelm, 37, 42, 
 43, 73. 75, 83, 102. 
 
 Schlegel, Friedrich, 37, 42, 43, 73, 
 75, 80, 81 ff., 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 
 91, 95, 98, 99, 100, 102, 169. 
 Schlenther, Paul, 218. 
 
 Schopenhauer, 113. 
 
 Scott, 128. 
 
 Sealsfield, 265. 
 
 Segesta, 28. 
 
 Shakespeare, 5, 120, 131, 142, 148, 
 160, 161, 165, 169, 192, 194, 
 208, 218, 219, 224, 226, 236, 247. 
 Shelley, 37, 41, 46, 71. 
 
 Sicily, 28, 29, 34, 52, 55. 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 240. 
 
 Siena, 4, 57, 62, 63, 90, 93. 
 Signorelli, Luca, 92. 
 
 Silius Italicus, 15. 
 
 Smollett, 35. 
 
 Sophocles, 160, 16 1 , 165, 169, 192, 
 
 195, 202. 
 
 Spielhagen, 209. 
 
 Spoleto, 31, 45, 47. 
 
 Stael, Madame de, 37, 40, 42, 265. 
 
 [ 320 ] 
 
 Statius, 135. 
 
 Stendhal, 17, 45, 46, 48, 143. 
 
 Steinmann, Ernst, 56, 59. 
 
 Steinitzer, A., 57, 59. 
 
 Strausz, David Friedrich, 1:3. 
 
 Strindberg, 171, 178, 181. 
 
 Sudermann, 162. 
 
 Symonds, John Addington, 56, 59, 
 M3- 
 
 Tacitus, 265. 
 
 Taine, 33, 50, 57, 58, 59. 
 
 Tasso, 4, 240. 
 
 Thiersch, 45. 
 
 Tieck, 37. 
 
 Tintoretto, 7, 10, 14, 21, 22, 32, ioo, 
 224. 
 
 Tischbein, 76, 79, 80, 84, 93, 101. 
 
 Titian, 10, 14, 21, 22, 32, 48, 63, 82, 
 94, 100, 131, 135, 136, 140, 145, 
 224. 
 
 Tivoli, 25, 27. 
 
 Tolstoy, 59, 71, 145, 200, 230, 237, 
 246, 258 ff., 265, 267, 270, 271, 
 273, 274, 275. 
 
 Turgeniev, 145. 
 
 Turin, 18. 
 
 d’Urfe, 240. 
 
 Vasari, 87, 91. 
 
 Van Gogh, 63. 
 
 Venice, 3, 7, 17, 21, 24, 25, 26, 31, 
 3 2 , 35, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 
 46, 47, 49, 54, 57, 58, 62, 68, 
 90, 94, 136. 
 
 Verona, 23, 25, 32, 45, 61, 147. 
 
 Veronese. (See Paolo.) 
 
 Vicenza, 31, 32, 70. 
 
 Viollet-le-Duc, 74. 
 
 Virgil, 6, 15, 22, 53, 135. 
 
 Vitruvius, 10. 
 
 Vittoria Colonna, 143. 
 
 Vivarini, 46. 
 
 Volkmann, J. J., 20, 23. 
 
 Voltaire, 5, 8, 14, 16, 17, 21, 27, 
 37, 74, 77, 85, 182, 212, 229. 
 
 Vulliemin, 133. 
 
 Wackenroder, 43, 77, 79, 80, 81, 
 83, 84, 86, 95, 98, 99, 100, 102. 
 
 Wagner, Richard, 5, 109, 113, 129, 
 154, 182. 
 
 Walpole, Horace, 72, 74. 
 
Index 
 
 Weber, 182. 
 
 Wh'stler, 102. 
 
 Wh tman, Walt, 237, 243. 
 
 Wieland, 165. 
 
 Winckelmann, 23, 24, 28, 30, 31, 
 35, 44, 50, 70, 76, 80, 87, 135, 
 163, 265. 
 
 Wordsworth, 37, 71, 95, 231 ff., 236, 
 237. 241- 
 
 Wren, Christopher, 70. 
 
 Wyatt, James, 72. 
 
 Yeats, 154. 
 
 Zola, 230, 237, 246 ff., 259, 260, 
 263, 264, 265, 267, 269, 271, 
 273, 274, 275. 
 
 Zwingli, 1 13, 122. 
 
 [ 321 ]