CHAPTER I. 



Intboductory : The Idyl in Classic Literature. 



The purpose of this dissertation is to set forth tlie origin, de- 

 velopment, and cliaracter of the idyl in German literature up to 

 the time of the publication of the Luise by Voss, in 1795. This in- 

 cludes three main parts: 1, idyllic literature in Germany before 

 Opitz; 2. the development of the pastoral idyl depicting an ideal 

 existence and its culmination in Gessner; 3. the reaction which 

 followed, resulting in the realistic idyl of Maler Miiller and Voss. 



In this thesis the term Idyl is used in the sense of a small 



"Genrebild," complete in itself, which pictures simple life in close 



communion with nature, as over against the more 



Definition of complex conditions of an advanced civilization, 



Idyl. especially of city life ^ 



This Genrebild or Idyl may depict real life (as in 

 Theocritus and Voss), or idealized existence in an imaginary 

 Golden Age (as in Gessner). 



1 This definition of the idyl proper is based mainly on the full treatment of 

 the theory of the idyl in Herman Baumgart's Haudbuch der Poetik, p. 268, ff., 

 and p. 346, ff. 



Koberstein's definition of the idyl {Gesch. d. Deut. Nat. Lit., V. 63) better fits 

 the idyllic epos, than the shorter Genrebild or idyl proper, showing that he must 

 have had Luise or Herrwaa und Dorothea in mind. He says: ''Die Idylle — 

 diejenige Dichtungsart, welche die Mitte zwischen der streng epischen und der 

 mahlerisch-beschreibenden Gattuug ha.lt, indem sie die Erzahlungsforni — die aber 

 auch ofter durch die dialogische vertreten wird — weniger auf die Darstellung von 

 Thaten und Handlungen als auf Schilderung von Zustanden und Ereignissen 

 anwendet." 



Cf. also Fritzsche-Hiller's Theoiirit, p. 4. 



