ORIENTAL ELEMENTS OF CULTURE IN THE OCCIDENT. 511 



Even .slight dl'^■iatR)lls from tliis norm caused in tlie nineteenth cen- 

 tury the greatest crises; '.Vho nnil relation couhl only in most recent 

 times prevail against the tradition. 



But we can trace the connecting threads still further hack. The 

 Buddha legend as "•Barlaam and flosaphaf' was during the Middle 

 Ages a book of edification to Christians, -Tews, and Mohannn(Hlans,and 

 at present the Hindu world \ie\v is ])eginning to play a role in the 

 Occident through the medium of Schopenhauer" and the preaching 

 of Buddhism by the theosophical societies.'' 



The literature which occupied our youthful minds, and influenced 

 perhaps more than we are aware the development of our taste, orig- 

 inated to a great extent in the Orient, not only the Biblical narra- 

 tives and the stories of the Thousand and One Nights, but also 

 many of the tales which tlie uninitiated considers of German origin.'' 

 German lyric poetry, whose creations form an important part of the 

 literar}" wealth of the people, was during the period of the flour- 

 ishing of the church hymn })redominantly uiuler the inliuence of the 

 Hebrew Psalter. And in the niiu'teenth century Hafiz, less through 

 Goethe's West-Ostliclien Diwan than through liodenstedt's Mirza 

 Schafl'y, which was printed in more than a hundred editions, exer- 

 cised an influence upon our lo\e |)()etry which can not ])v over-estimated. 

 The magic-lantei-n theater (ombres chinoise), esjiecially culti\'ate(l l)y 

 the Romanticists magic-lantern plays were written, among others, 

 by Justinus K(>rner. and an after])lay to it by Uhland, Ohr. Bientano, 

 Achim ^ on .Vrnim, Count Pocci — came from Italy to Germany in the 

 seventeenth century, l)ut was already flourishing in Egypt in Saladin's 

 time and can be followed uji till the eleventh century in east Asia.'' 

 Goethe borrowed the ideas for the prologue of his Eaust fi-om the old 

 Hindu theater and the Book of »lob. 



Kecently the court theaters of the most artistic city of (ierm;iny did 

 not disdain to l)orrow from dapan the revolving stage, in\'ented in 

 1700 by Namiki Schozos, a stage arrangement which with i)i'actical 

 purposes combines ideal aims. 



The most finished creations of architectui'(> l)elong to the Middle 

 Ages, as we come more and more to learn. No other style is capa- 

 ble like th(> Gothic of distributing the masses harmoniously and of 

 transforming heavy masonry into light (dl'ects. The hoi'izontal line 



«An instructive coiiijjarison of the systems of tliis most popular jihilosopher with 

 tlie systems of tiie Hindus is found in Max. I", llecker's ScliopcidKuicr nnd die 

 indisclie Philosoi)liie, l-Cohi, 1897. 



''So, for instani'e, Th. SchuUzc, Dcr liuildiiismus als Ilcliirion der Zukimfl, I'd edi- 

 tion, Leipzig. 



'■ For examj)le, (•omi)are Wiihelm ( ;ei«;er, Die kulturgescliichtliclic f 'x'lidcutnns); des 

 indischen Altertunis (inaugural addre.^^s), Erlangen, 1901, ]i. S. 



^'Compare (t. Jacoh, Das Schattontlieater in seiner W'anderung \(Mu JMorgenland 

 zuni Abendlan(i, Berlin, 1901. 



