LITERATURE, CONTINENTAL, IN 1874. 



108 



Charles Louandro'a " Chefu-d'CEuvre des Con- 

 Kraih/ais-," in three handsome volumes, 



-ponding to La Fontaine's predecessors, 

 i-<>ii!e!ii[>orari."<, successors. It was quite lit 

 i lint If bonhomme should be taken as the cen- 

 tre Dt' this crowded anHpiquant group, whieh, 

 iM^iiMiimr with the "Chanson do Roland," and 

 tmishiiiiT with Voltaire, includes some of the 

 most characteristic specimens of French litera- 

 ture. M. Louandro must have had some diffi- 

 culty in making a choice among hundreds of 

 productions, the most amusing of which are 

 not always fit to be quoted ; his biographical 

 notices, analyses, and prefaces, are beyond all 

 praise. 

 I must conclude my summary with a brief no- 



t' the principal works of fiction which have 

 appeared during the course of the year. M.Vic- 

 tor lingo's "Quatre-Vingt-Troize" stands apart, 

 of course, more on account of the gifted author's 

 previous celebrity than of any merit which the 

 book itself possesses. No production of the au- 

 thor of " Notre Dame de Paris" can be con- 

 founded with the mass of novels which the 

 Frciu'h press incessantly pours forth ; but I am 

 bound, at the same time, to say that the wild- 

 est eccentricities in point of style, the most 

 thorough contempt of the language, disfigure 

 every page of the book I am now allading to. 

 It is not expected that I should write out here 

 the catalogue of all the trash lately printed un- 

 der the pretense of describing the features of 

 modern society ; M. de Gobineau's " Loa Pleia- 

 des " stands out prominently as the best ; while 

 M. Deulin's "Contes du Roi Gambrinus" are 

 delightful specimens of quiet humor ; and M. 

 Xavier Aubryet's "Robinsonne et Vendre- 

 dine " describes, in a really original manner, 

 the contrast between the artificial characteris- 

 tics of Parisian life and the honest simplicity 

 of a person who has never wandered in the 

 neighborhood of the demi-monde. 



:MANT. A disease which threatened to 

 prove as injurious to German literature as the 

 oidhim to the vine is happily dying out. Pessi- 

 mistic resignation, a hypercritical contempt for 

 the world, are no longer the only or even the 

 favorite ideas of the poets. The Renunciation 

 of the World which the Frankfort Buddhist, 

 Schopenhauer, preached, and of which the 

 natural consequence is suicide, has been given 

 up by his Berlin successor, Hartmann. Instead 

 of cowardly endurance and abandonment of 

 life and action, the latter has founded his Moral 

 Philosophy upon the full devotion of the indi- 

 vidual personality to the world for the sake of 

 the salvation of the world ; that is, he has called 

 to life the "positive Bejahung des Willens." 

 The do-nothing quietism of peevish philoso- 

 phers who sat in their study-chairs has given 

 place to the strict discipline of Prussian mili- 

 tarism. Extraordinary successes such as Ger- 

 many has won are not consistent with contem- 

 plative retirement from the world, but only 

 with unselfish self-sacrifice in behalf of a great 

 national or human object. The universal lia- 

 VOL. xrv. 30 A 



bility to military service, which is the secret of 

 Prussia's strength, is the visible expression of 

 the social requirements of this practical phi!..- 

 upliy. The heightened national and patriotic 

 tone which pervades most of the poems of this 

 year is its audible echo. 



Is it the result of the predominance of the 

 politico-national tendencies of the German peo- 

 !>!> that the success of the new poems of \'>- 

 '! !i-tedt is less than that of the former series 

 which made him the favorite of the reading 

 public? Of the first series, nearly half a hun- 

 dred editions have appeared up to the present 

 time : the second will possibly take as long to 

 reach a second edition. The cause is not any 

 change in the poet, who remains, in mind, as 

 youthful as ever, but in the age, which has 

 grown a quarter of a century older 



The non-political lyric can boast, besides 

 numbers of unknowns who must be content to 

 remain so, many old favorites, such as Simrock, 

 Stoeber, the ex-Hegelian and ex-Revolutionist 

 Ruge, and the dramatist Wilbrandt. To men- 

 tion merely all from whom, like the Viennese 

 poetess Sephine von Knorr, a strain derived 

 from the heart occasionally escapes, would 

 take more space than can bo allotted. 



The dramatic crop, if we cannot boast of 

 faultless masterpieces, has yet turned out rich- 

 er, not only as regards tragedy, but also in re- 

 spect to comedies and popular pieces. Thanks 

 to its numerous courts, Germany has never been 

 without plenty of court-theatres, or " Fathers 

 of their Country," who, too weak to rule the 

 world, have contented themselves with ruling 

 on the boards which represent the world, 

 and with being their own theatrical managers. 

 Little .theatres like Weimar, Coburg, Munich, 

 Carlsruhe, where the rulers were at hand to 

 give judicious advice, have reached a position 

 of considerable influence. For instance, in 

 Meiningen, where the Grand-duke himself 

 took the place of responsible manager, won- 

 derful displays of archa3ological dilettanteism 

 have occurred. Since Prussia deprived the 

 minor sovereigns of their most costly play- 

 thing, their soldiers, the princely liking for 

 commanding and dressing people has been ex- 

 pended on the actors. The performances, at 

 Berlin, of the Meiningen company, directed by 

 the Grand-duke, have shown that, as formerly 

 in military, so now in theatrical affairs, the es- 

 sential has been sacrificed to the unessential 

 through a spirit of pedantic discipline, and a 

 craze for accuracy in matters of costume. 



Fr. Spielhagen, the greatest artist, as far as 

 plots go, of living German novelists, has writ- 

 ten nothing now since his short tale " Ultimo." 

 Auerbach's "Waldfried" and Freytag's con- 

 tinuation of his never-ending " Ahnen," under 

 the separate title of " The Nest of the Hedge- 

 sparrows," are the principal works of fiction of 

 the year. Gutzkow invented for his novels the 

 name "Roman des Nebeneinander." Auer- 

 bach's ' Waldfried " might be called a " Roman 

 dos Durcheinander," and Freytag's a "Roman 





