PASTORAL LITERATOKE FKOM OPITZ TO GESSNEU. 21 



There now follows in 0[)itz's life a period of translations, or 

 paraphrases, of foreign works, whose importance consists in the 

 fact that they created the literary diction of Germany, and be- 

 came the standard for succeeding writers.^ 



In the year 1627, ^ Opitz introduced the pastoral oper-a into 

 Germany by his translation of the Italian opera Dafne.^ This 

 was followed by the most famous and most original of Opitz's 

 works, the pastoral drama Hercynie (1628). It seems to have 

 been suggested to Opitz directly by Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia,'^ 

 which he was at this time translating." The influence of Her- 

 cynie on subsequent works, both in diction and form, was so wide- 

 spread and lasting, that its place in the history of literature, even 

 though its intrinsic literary value is small, is of the greatest im- 

 portance. The action of the story is given in prose, while the lyric 

 elements are reflective. 



Some idea may be gained of this kind of literature from the 



1 "Die erste (Schaferei) in Deutschland, gleichwie auch die edelste, ist Opitz- 

 ens unvergleichliche Hercynie'" says Birlcen in Teutsche Rede-Bind-und Dicht- 

 Kunst (Niirnberg 1679), p. 301. So Harsdortfer (see Tittman's Opitz, p. 57). 



2 Previous works of Opitz also contain pastoral elements: The praise of 

 rural life, 1625, based npon a similar poem by Fiscliart, botli a paraphrase of 

 Horace's Beatvs ille. — Pastoral echoes are also found in his Oden or Gesange, 

 in Zlatna oder Getictite von Eutie des Gemiitlies.—FoT Fischart's poem: 

 Flirtreffliches artliclies Lob des Landlustes, etc., see Goedeke's ed. of Fischart 

 (Leipzig 1880), p. 251. 



3 The pastoral drama had developed, or from a literary point of view, deteri- 

 orated, into the Opera (see Introduction, p. LXXIV. of Opitz's Ausgewablte 

 Dichtungen, edited by J. Tittman) . The opera Dafne was first given at Florence 

 1594. The court at Breslau, standing in intimate relations to Florence, obtained 

 it to enhance the festivities at the marriage of Prince George. Opitz in translating 

 it into Alexandrine verse, added much of his own invention, whence the court 

 musician had to write new music to it, the nature of which is not known. Dafne 

 has five acts, each concluded by a chorus (of shepherds and nymphs). Apollo, 

 after slaying- a monster to the great joy of the shepherds, is himself overcome by 

 Cupid, for having twitted him on his bow and arrow. He falls in love with Dafne 

 (a mortal), who fiees his advances: When he is about to overtake her, she is by 

 her own prayer changed into a laurel-tree. 



* See Friedrich Strehlke: Martin Opitz— sine MoDOffrapbie (Leipzig 1856) , 

 p. 135. 



5 This translation was published 16-31, followed by a second improved edi- 

 tion 1638. 



