74 Milton D. Banmgartner 



forth criticism in Germany from such poets as Hagedorn, Herder, 

 Eschenbnrg, Boie, Schubart, and Bottiger. Hagedorn, who had trav- 

 eled in England, was familiar with Dryden, Waller, Sidney, Addi- 

 son and Prior, and was an ardent admirer of Pope and at every 

 opportune occasion commends or quotes from his works. In the 

 foreword to his odes he discusses the beauty of the irregular verse 

 of Homer and other classicists to which he adds : " Von gleicher 

 Beschaffenheit sind die fiirtrefflichen Oden des Dryden, Congreve, 

 Addison, und vor alien andern, des Pope auf das Fest der heiligen 

 Caecilia."*° 



No other German critic has so frequently and thoroughly criti- 

 cized Alexander's Feast as Herder. His interest for Dryden's ode 

 grew out of his natural inclination for poetic enthusiasm such as 

 he found expressed in this ode, his fondness for varying rhyme 

 and meter, and his esteem for Saint Cecelia and Handel. Two 

 years after Ramler's translation, when he was just beginning his 

 career and Hamann had but introduced him to Shakespere and 

 Ossian, Herder cites the ode in the Fragmente, in discussing the 

 advisability of the Germans adopting the harmonious meter of the 

 English, which Hagedorn had already commended. While he did 

 not entirely agree with Lessing's disapproval of descriptive poetry, 

 he maintained that Brockes and others had over-stressed natural 

 description. He believed in "Wohllaut" in poetry, but it must 

 have life and move the emotions by clearly visualizing. "Man 

 laufe die Reihe dieser Klageworte durch; oder besser man em- 

 pfinde den Wohllaut derselben in unsern Dichtern, die nicht 

 schrieben sondern sangen, unter welchen ich Klopstock, Hage- 

 dorn, von Gerstenberg, und in seinen Kantaten auch Rammlern, 

 besonders nenne: man gehe z. E. die Uebersetzung durch, die der 

 letzte von Drydens Ode auf die Musik geliefert, alsdenn errinnere 

 man sich. wie weit Brockes und andere diesen lebendigen Wohl- 

 klang haben iibertreiben konnen, und man wird, wie ich hoffe, 

 nicht mehr an der malenden IMusik zweifeln."*^ 



In the Zerstreuten Bldttern Herder has a chapter on " Cecelia " 

 in which he traces her legend and cites the odes of Dryden, Addi- 



^f* Oden und Lieder in fi'inf Bitchcrn, p. xxxii ff. Hamburg, 1747. 

 *i Ueber die neuere Deutsche Litteratur, Fragmente, p. 72, Riga, 1768. 



362 



