GERMANY 



3506 



GERMANY 



Der Messias, a religious epic in- 

 spired by Milton. Even more sig- 

 nificant was Klopstock's lyric 

 poetry, which broke the fetters 

 that had so long hampered the 

 German lyric. 



Meanwhile, in S. Germany, C. M. 

 Wieland contributed to the libera- 

 tion of German letters with poetry 

 in the spirit of Ariosto, with psy- 

 chological fiction and a translation 

 of Shakespeare ; while another and 

 greater writer, G. E. Lessing, in- 

 augurated the classic age in Ger- 

 man literature. With his Miss Sara 

 Sampson, Lessing introduced into 

 Germany the tragedy of common 

 life, with Emilia Galotti he per- 

 fected this type of drama, and with 

 Minna von Barn helm he gave 

 Germany's 18th century literature 

 its greatest comedy. As a critic, 

 Lessing stands in the first rank. 

 Influence of Lessing 



His Laokoon, which prescribes 

 the boundaries between plastic art 

 and poetry, and his Hamburgische 

 Dramaturgie, which interprets the 

 modern drama by the light of 

 Aristotle, were text-books which 

 profoundly influenced subsequent 

 developments in Germany and in 

 Europe. Lessing's later years were 

 overshadowed by his battle for 

 tolerance and enlightenment with 

 the Lutheran clergy, a conflict 

 which left an enduring monument 

 in the drama Nathan der Weise. 



Before Lessing's career had 

 reached its close another move- 

 ment, the so-called Sturm und 

 Drang or Storm and Stress, had 

 broken over Germany, which was 

 immediately inspired by Rousseau 

 and continued the emancipatory 

 work begun by Klopstock. Its 

 pioneer was J. G. Herder, a thinker 

 of prophetically modern sympa- 

 thies, and at his hands J. W. von 

 Goethe was initiated into the new 

 ideas. Goethe's Gotz von Berlich- 

 ingen and Werthers Leiden were 

 the chief works of the Sturm und 

 Drang. A number of gifted, if un- 

 balanced, young dramatists gath- 

 ered round Goethe, J. M. R. Lenz, 

 F. M. Klinger, H. L. Wagner ; and 

 in 1781 J. F. Schiller made his 

 debut with his tragedy, Die Rauber, 

 to which were added a few years 

 later Fiesco and Kabale und Liebe. 



The culminating phase of 18th 

 century classicism is symbolised 

 by the close friendship of the two 

 leading poets in Weimar between 

 1794 and Schiller's death in 1805. 

 In these years Schiller wrote . his 

 ballads and his magnificent series 

 of dramas from Wallenstein to 

 Wilhelm Tell; Goethe published 

 Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre and 

 Hermann und Dorothea, while the 

 first part of Faust followed in 1808. 

 The minor literature of the time 



reflects more or less faithfully the 

 return to classicism, although in 

 the popular stage plays, notably by 

 Iffland, Schroder, and Kotzebue, 

 and in the novels of J. P. F. 

 Richter, the old Sturm und Drang 

 spirit is still in evidence. 



Goethe, who died in 1832, was 

 the acknowledged head of thislitera- 

 ture, his chief contributions to it 

 after 1808 being, in lyric poetry, 

 Der Westostliche Divan ; in fiction, 

 Die Wahlverwandtschaften and 

 Wilhelm Meisters Wander jahre, to 

 whTk naay be added his autobio- 

 graphy, Diehtung und Wahrheit, 

 and in the drama, the second part 

 of Faust. But in this period the 

 dominating force in German litera- 

 ture was not classicism but roman- 

 ticism. The Romantic Movement 

 falls into four clearly marked 

 phases : the first is that of the so- 

 called Romantic School, founded 

 in 1798 and led by J. L. Tieck, 

 Novalis, and the brothers Schlegel ; 

 the second, which is associated 

 with Heidelberg, encouraged, under 

 the leadership of L. A. von Arnim 

 and C. Brentano, the stud} 7 of the 

 Middle Ages and of the Literature 

 of the people ; a third phase, to 

 which belonged the lyric poets J. 

 von Eichendorff, A. von Chamissp, 

 and W. Muller, had its centre in 

 Berlin, and effectually broadened 

 the basis of romanticism ; a final 

 period of romantic decay includes 

 the morbid supernaturalism of E. 

 T. A. Hoffmann and the Oriental- 

 ism of F. Riickert. 



Heine and His School 



To the last phase of romanticism 

 belongs one poet of supreme genius, 

 Heinrich Heine ; but Heine at an 

 early stage declared his sympa- 

 thies with the school of "Young 

 Germany." This school, whose 

 leaders were, besides Heine, Lud- 

 wig Borne and Karl Gutzkow, was 

 essentially anti-romantic ; under its 

 protection journalism encroached 

 on literature, and political idea 

 took the place ot poetic sentiment. 

 The Young German lyric reflected 

 the revolutionary spirit between 

 1830 and 1848; its novel, as repre- 

 sented by Gutzkow and later by 

 F. Spielhagen, G. Freytag, and the 

 Plattdeutsch writer, F. Renter, 

 busied itself with social problems. 

 Meanwhile the Germans were also 

 cultivating assiduously the short 

 story : B. Auerbach with his 

 Schwarzwalder Dorfgeschichten, 

 T. Storm with his tales of romantic 

 retrospect, Paul Heyse with his 

 finely chiselled style and Italian 

 sympathies, and the two Swiss 

 masters of fiction, G. Keller and 

 C. F. Meyer, have won for the 

 German short story a high place in 

 European fiction. 



Although to a large extent over- 



shadowed by Schiller, the German 

 drama struck out, under romantic 

 influence, into new paths, the chief 

 representatives being H. von 

 Kleist in Prussia, and F. Grill- 

 parzer, the national dramatic poet 

 of Austria. To the post-romantic 

 epoch belong 0. Ludwig and F. 

 Hebbel, the latter one of the most 

 original dramatic poets of the 19th 

 century. After the revolution of 

 1848 German literature, like Ger- 

 man political life, passed into a 

 period of comparative stagnation ; 

 but just in these years German 

 scholarship, and especially German 

 historical study, the latter under 

 the leadership of L. von Ranke, 

 were extraordinarily productive. 

 The most interesting literary work 

 emanated from a group of writers 

 in Munich, and with Munich also was 

 associated Richard Wagner, whose 

 music dramas helped to revive an 

 interest in theatre and drama. 



As the century drew to its close 

 the Germans, always sensitive 

 to outside influences, absorbed 

 the literary ideas in vogue in 

 France, Russia, and Scandinavia, 

 and under this stimulus cultivated 

 the naturalistic novel and the 

 drama of milieu. The greater suc- 

 cess was attained by the drama, 

 whose chief representatives were 

 H. Sudermann and G. Hauptmann; 

 while in lyric poetry men like D. 

 von Liliencron and R. Dehmel, 

 in the epic, the Swiss, C. Spitteler, 

 broke effectively with the old Ro- 

 mantic tradition. The outstanding 

 personality of the last epoch was F. 

 Nietzsche, who was not merely a 

 thinker of powerful originality, but 

 also a lyric poet of genius. It has 

 been claimed, no doubt with some 

 justice, that his ideas, working on 

 immature minds, helped to precipi- 

 tate the catastrophe of 1914 ; but 

 the baneful influences were more 

 apparent in political and historical 

 writers like H. Treitschke. How- 

 ever this may be, the literary move- 

 ment, which opened with such 

 promise in the 'eighties, had failed 

 to justify its promise before the 

 outbreak of the Great War. 



J. G. Robertson 



Bibliography. Studies in German 

 Literature, Bayard Taylor, 1879; 

 Outlines of a History of the 

 German Language, H. A. Strong 

 and Kuno Meyer, 1886 ; Essays 

 on German Literature, H. H. 

 Boyesen, 1892 ; History of German 

 Literature, J. G. Robertson, 1902; 

 Studies in German Literature in the 

 19th Century, J. F. Coar, 1903 ; 

 History of German Literature as 

 determined by Social Forces, K. 

 Francke, 7th ed. 1909; Romanticism 

 and the Romantic School in Gey- 

 many, R. M. Wernaer, 1910; Brief 

 History of German Literature, G. M. 

 Priest, 1910 ; Literature of Ger- 

 many, J. G. Robertson, 1913. 



