22 PASTOKAL lilTERATOJE FROM OPITZ TO ftESSSEK. 



plot of the Hercynie. which is as follows: Wliwi the scene opens, 

 the poet (Opitz) is wandering over hills and fields. While earring 

 a poem on a tree, he is joined br other shepherds, who converse 

 with him of love' and travel. Xear a fountain they meet the 

 n\Tnph Hercynie, who conducts them into the cave of the nymphs, 

 from which cave flows the source of the fountains of the vicinity; 

 she delivers a lengthy panegyric upon the ruling family of the 

 country, 2 of whose genealogy she shows an intimate knowledge. 

 After the disappearance of HercATiie. the poets praise the land- 

 scape before them, the effects of winter and spring, sing sonnets 

 to the fountain and in lionor of the ruler of the country. The 

 author recites the concluding song, of which the burden is. that 

 the Muses alone bestow immortality. 



This work created a pleasing German style, which at once be- 

 came the standard for succeeding -nT-iters. But they also adopted 

 and carried to the extreme elements which wei-e detrimental in 

 their effects upon literature. 



The pastoral Hercynie, like his works in general, show that 

 < Jpitz possessed neither great originality nor power of imagma- 

 tion, as they were all based upon foreign models. But the very 

 fact that he stood so little above the level of his contemporaries, 

 and was so intelligible to them, made his influence the more imme- 

 diate and extensive. He broke Aovra the sway of the Latin lan- 

 guage among the educated: the German language was again 

 cherished and cultivated, so that eventually the literature could, 

 and in the eighteenth century did, penetrate into and per-meate 

 the nation as a whole. In this sense he may stOl be called the 

 father of German poetry, or with Paul Fleming^ one may say: 



1 One of them (Xiissler) says in words which only too well characterize the 

 writings of this and the following periods: "It is the manner of poets in repre- 

 senting love to make no concessions to nature, but to invent things which never 

 have been, nor ever will be, and which he himself has never experienced, nor in- 

 tended to perform." 



2 This panegyric is really the heart of the play. Much of it is in .\^lexandrine 

 verse. 



3 Fleming in a wedding poem of 163 1 surpasses his model Opitz. See Ge- 

 diebte von Paul Fleming, edited by .J. Tittman (Leipzig 1S70), pp. -36^14 — Cf. 

 also Barthold: Gescbicbte der Fruchtbringenden Gesellscbaft, pp. 210-12. 



