LITERATURE, CONTINENTAL, IN 1880. 



475 



of the German plays of chivalry. Those of 

 Count Toerring Seefeld, a contemporary of 

 Goetz von Berlichingen, have recently been un- 

 thed. Eduard Devrient and August Hart- 

 lann, among others, have written upon the 

 'assion Play. 



On art, the most important books are Jacob 

 ronFalke's history of costumes ; Starke's work 

 on the archaeology of art; Ernst Foerster's 

 "Farnesiua Studien " ; Bruno Buchers man- 



il of art-history ; and the studies of Italian 

 paintings in German galleries, by Lermolieff 

 [Morellij. Dohme's illustrated biographical 

 listory of art is about completed. A new vol- 

 ume of artists 1 letters has been published by 

 >nst Guhl. The final report of the Austri- 

 m archaeological excavations on the island of 

 Sarnothrace has been published. Of the Ger- 

 man explorations in Olympia and Pergamos 

 only preliminary reports have been issued. 



Travels in Persia and Turkey are recounted 

 by a diplomat under the pseudonym of " Char- 

 ikies." Max Nordau has a graphic account of 

 travel " From the Kremlin to the Alhambra." 

 L. Steub and J. F. Leutner have written two 

 amusing accounts of life and nature in theTyr- 

 )1. Wilhelm Rossmann's art letters from south- 

 ern Italy have been followed by another vol- 

 ime of observations in monasteries of the 

 characteristics of the Roman and Greek Cath- 

 olic religions. Hermann von Schlagintweit's 

 great work of " Reisen in Indien und Hocha- 

 sien " is ended with the publication of the 

 fourth volume. Lauth's k ' Bilder aus .ZEgyptens 

 ~ 7 orzeit " supplements Ebers's great book on 

 Egypt, with Avhich splendid work may be classed 

 Emil Schlagintweit's "Indien in Wort und 

 Bild." Other books of travel are the posthu- 

 mous volume of Dr. Buchholz's diaries made 

 during his travels in Western Africa; Lux's 

 account of explorations back of the Loando 

 coast ; Pogge's diary of travel in the same re- 

 gion- ; Holub's u Sieben Jahre in Siid- Africa," 

 the English translation of which is published 

 by Sampson Low & Co. ; " Die Karawanen- 

 Strasse von ^Egypten nach Syrien," and other 

 illustrated works by the same author [the 

 Grand-Duke of TuscanyJ. 



The voluminous work on the geography of 

 the United States by Friedrich Ratzel has been 

 completed. 



The works of Georg Buechner and Ludwig 

 August Frankl, two of the most notable of the 

 champions of political freedom in the past gen- 

 eration, have been collected for the first time. 

 Buechner died young, and is only known in lit- 

 erature by his famous revolutionary drama of 

 ' Dantons Tod." An unfinished work of simi- 

 lar character has been found among his papers. 

 Frankl, the veteran Austrian poet, has done 

 as good work as any contemporary German 

 poet, especially in the poems which celebrate 

 Judaism and depict the sufferings of the He- 

 brew race; and he would have written still 

 better had he not been fettered by the Aus- 

 trian censorship. Oscar von Redwitz, another 



political poet of a different stamp, gives, in the 

 versified story of the monk Odilo, an allegori- 

 cal apology for his own conversion from Ultra- 

 montane romanticism to nationalism, and to 

 the approval of the Bismarckian achievements. 



Arthur Fitger adopts in the collection he has 

 this year published, " Winternachte," an earnest 

 tone, as becomes the author of a work as remark- 

 able as his tragedy. Julius Wolff, the author of 

 the " Wilder Jager," a piece which attained a 

 great popularity, has followed it up with a 

 " Tanuhauser," of a similarly romantic strain. 

 Rudolf Baumbach has published " Frau Holde," 

 a poem based upon a Thuringian saga. The 

 " Lieder der Freude " of Siegfried Lipiner, 

 and the ambitious " Weihgesange " of Adolf 

 von Schack, are mystical and obscure lyric pro- 

 ductions. Bodenstedt, in his newest collection, 

 gives an admirable reproduction of the spirit 

 and style of his rhymes of " Mirza Schaffy " in 

 the lays and aphorisms of " Omar Chadjah." 

 The year has produced a new German lyric 

 poet of Swiss nationality, Rudolf Niggeler. 

 Ernst Heller's collection of German-Swiss poets 

 includes many, such as the Byronic Ferdinand 

 von Schmidt, August Corrodi, and Alfred Hart- 

 mann, who have long been in repute in Ger- 

 many. 



To the drama belongs Arthur Fitger's trag- 

 edy " Die Hexe." The author has taken his 

 material, scene, and customs from the same 

 East Frisian race from which Heinrich Kruse 

 has derived the plot and characters of his play 

 " Die Griifin." Fitger depicts in " Die Hexe " 

 the terrible situation of a heroine whose mind 

 becomes imbued with skepticism in the midst 

 of an age of implicit religious faith and super- 

 stitious aversion toward heretics, and with his- 

 torical tact lays his plot in the neighborhood of 

 the fanatical peasantry of both churches on the 

 lower Rhine, and within the horizon of the in- 

 fluence of Spinoza. A new tragedy by Kruse, 

 " Der Verbannte," is founded upon the story 

 of the Danish Minister, Count Ulfeld, and his 

 wife, Princess Leonora Christina. The mate- 

 rial of Kruse's u Konig Erich " has been sub- 

 jected to a different but able treatment in a 

 tragedy by Josef Weilen. "Robert Kerr" is 

 another historical tragedy by Adolf Wilbrandt, 

 which lacks consistency. Ferdinand von Saar, 

 the most brilliant of German dramatists, has 

 produced a picture of causeless jealousy in 

 " Tempesta." Other dramatic works of the 

 year of conspicuous merit are "Prinz Eugen," 

 by Martin Greif; " Das Dokument," by Count- 

 ess Wickenbourg-Ahnasy ; " Rolf Bernd," by 

 Count von Putlitz ; " Grafin Lea," by Paul 

 Lindau ; and L'Arronge's popular comedy, 

 called " Haus Lonei." 



The leading novelists have each of them 

 published some new work during the year. 

 Freitag's great historical series, ; 'Die Ahnen," 

 has been brought to a close. Auerbach's sim- 

 ple but masterly story of Swabian humble 

 life, "Brigitta," was printed in a translation in 

 America almost simultaneously with its ap- 



