434 



GERMANY. (LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.) 



die of the eighteenth century, Klopstock, Lavater, 

 Gellert, Schubart, Cramer, Claudius Niemeyer, Her- 

 der, form a series of sacred poets. Besides these, 

 there is a large number of others, particularly in the 

 first period of Protestantism. In the first part of the 

 eighteenth century, there were more than 33,000 

 hymns in the German language, by more than 500 

 authors. The essence of deep religious inspiration 

 seems to breathe in the religious poems of Novalis. 



(Irrman Criticism. German literature is truly the 

 child of the nation. Their political and civil consti- 

 tution was given to the Germans by their princes and 

 the events of history ; their spiritual life they created 

 themselves. A literary court of justice, universally 

 acknowledged as the acad&mie Francaise in France, 

 was inconsistent with the numerous political divisions 

 of Germany. No standard of fashion, no courtly 

 rules, ever held dominion over their literature, and 

 limited the authors to certain favourite forms and 

 manners ; and even the universities exerted no do- 

 mineering influence. From the time of Opitz (q. v.), 

 the poets poured forth their strains in the most vari- 

 ous styles, and without being called to account for 

 their irregularity. Exterior influences were required 

 to produce controversy and party spirit. Till then, 

 only frivolous Italian writers, belonging to the end 

 of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century, were studied and imitated ; and from the 

 French literature, with a strange neglect of the first 

 classics, only some worthless novels and poems were 

 selected as models, and even the Dutch imitators of 

 the French were made use of for the same purpose. 

 Besides this, no notice was taken of foreign litera- 

 ture. Almost a century elapsed after Opitz, before 

 a comparison of the existing state of the German 

 literature with the foreign, gave life to German cri- 

 ticism. Bodmer and Breitinger, two Swiss literati, 

 published, in 1721, the Discourses of the Painters, 

 and endeavoured, by the exposition of views drawn 

 from the study of Milton's Paradise Lost, to raise 

 the standard of German poetry. Attending more to 

 the substance than to the form, they proceeded in 

 their investigations with as much penetration as im- 

 partiality. Professor Gottsched, in Leipsic, inclined 

 towards the French literature, and endeavoured to 

 establish, a a chief rule for German literature, that 

 it should be made intelligible to every body by a 

 certain easy, conversational tone of writing. But 

 whilst he strove, with this view, to promote the purity 

 and fluency of the language, and ease of versification, 

 he overlooked the more important subject of the 

 spirit of the literature, and misunderstood the char- 

 acter and the wants of his nation. While Gottsched 

 was thus sinking into insipidity, the Swiss were run- 

 ning into scholastic subtilties ; and yet German lite- 

 rature owes a new life, and German criticism owes 

 its foundation, to the disputes between these two 

 parties. The weighty and vigorous ideas in the 

 poems of Haller, and the Messias of Klopstock, pro- 

 duced a powerful excitement (1748). If the results 

 of their contentions were not very visible at the mo- 

 ment, yet they prepared the minds of their country- 

 men for independent judgment, and awakened them 

 from the torpor in which the rules of Baumgarten 

 and Batteux and Du Bos would have left them. 

 Shortly after, Lessing came forth, one of the greatest 

 critics Germany ever possessed. Without predilec- 

 tion for any nation, and appreciating all, free from 

 prejudices and the fear of men, his honest and pro- 

 found spirit of investigation strove only for truth ; 

 and he united with comprehensive learning, a pene- 

 trating and clear judgment, a refined and a striking 

 conciseness in expressing the results, so that he may 

 be considered, at the same time, as the founder of 

 German criticism, and as an excellent model for 



imitation by critical writers. His own original pro- 

 ductions aided the effect of his critical rules. At the 

 same time, the bookseller Nicolai, in Berlin, contri- 

 buted to the success of his labours, by the establish- 

 ment of several critical journals. Herder came forth 

 with striking originality and elevation of ideas in his 

 Kritischen tValdern (Critical Woods, 1769). lie 

 permitted himself to be limited by no conventional 

 rule, but his luminous understanding was often over- 

 whelmed by his fiery imagination, and his criticism 

 was not seldom deficient in clearness and precision. 

 The Elements of Criticism, by lord Kames, was not 

 without influence, at this time, on the critical spirit 

 of Germany. It was translated into German by 

 Meinhard. Most of the champions of German criti- 

 cism of this period contended against the French 

 taste ; but Wieland, by his Deutschen Mercur, gave 

 it currency again, without intending to restore its 

 former authority. Wieland had cultivated his mind 

 too comprehensively and profoundly, and was too 

 familiar with the ancient and modern literature of the 

 most refined nations, to attempt the introduction of 

 any part of the French literature, but what was of a 

 general application, and had a certain relation with 

 the character of German literature. And to this in- 

 fluence it is partly to be attributed, that German cri- 

 ticism, with undiminished life and profoundness, 

 acquired a more varied and general character, and a 

 tone of mild and refined dignity, which manifested 

 itself particularly in the Allgemeine Literaturzeitung 

 of Jena, founded in 1785. Kant's Kritik der Urthe- 

 ilskraft (Criticism of the Power of Judgment, 1790) 

 maintained that the judgment of correct taste is in- 

 dependent of excitement and emotion. This principle 

 was acknowledged by Schiller, in his Reich der Far- 

 men (Kingdom of Forms), but the adherents of the 

 new school did not harmonize in their systems of 

 aesthetics, and the nation, which, in general, in mat- 

 ters of feeling, had never accepted of laws from any 

 school, was not influenced by the new principles. 

 The original Herder, in his Kalligone, violently op- 

 posed the new doctrine. Schiller's unjust criticism 

 of the poetry of Burger showed to what the princi- 

 ples of Kant must lead. A spirit of fresh and glow- 

 ing feeling, opposed to the prosaic views of Kant, 

 and connected with a keenness and bold impartiality, 

 which called back the memory of Lessing, was mani- 

 fested in the Athen<eum of the brothers Schlegel, in 

 which deep reflection was united with a keen sense 

 of the beautiful. Their intimate union with Tieck, 

 Bernhardi, Novalis, and other kindred spirits, has 

 had an important influence on German criticism. 

 The deep glance which they cast into the middle 

 ages gave them a romantic and even mystical ten- 

 dency, which found many friends and a new support 

 in the system of Schelling, but has also had its oppo- 

 nents. Among the latter, Kotzebue, by his periodi- 

 cal publication Der Freimuthige, made himself most 

 known ; and, in a more dignified way, Bouterwek, 

 in his History of Poetry and Eloquence. 



German Philosophy. See Philosophy. 



German School of Art. The war songs which 

 Tacitus mentions, the armorial bearings on the escut- 

 cheons, the early romantic poetry, and the mythology 

 of the Edda, display the early taste of the German 

 nation for poetry and the fine arts. Soon after the 

 introduction of Christianity, art began to extend be- 

 yond the mere decorations of weapons, and appears 

 first in churches and monasteries. Here music was 

 first cultivated. Architecture was elevated above 

 the mere purposes of shelter, and Gothic arches and 

 spires towered towards heaven. Poetry was cherished 

 by the monks, who preserved the remains of their 

 heathen ancestors, and made imitations of the Ro- 

 man and Greek classics. On the miniature ornn- 



