GBSSNEK ANI) TllK CUIjMIXATION OK TIIK PASTORAL IDVL. -to 



contemporaries, especially in France, as his best work. He des- 

 cribes in it tlie same idyllic world as in his iil.yls, with the same 

 lack of action, and mability to chai-acterize. Abel is the embod- 

 iment of good, Cain of evil, but as Gessner could create no genuine 

 human villam, there is no real climax. Der erste Schiffer (1762), 

 altogether pastoral in its character, is considered Gessner's best 

 work both as to the plot and style. * 



Gessner mformsns, that in his idyls he took Theocritus for his 

 model. He says: "Ich habe den Theokrit immer fiir das beste 



Muster in dieser Art Gedichte gehalten. — Ich habe 

 Gessner and . ^.-. 



_. ., meme Regem m diesem Muster gesucht. And out- 



Theocritus. '^ ° 



wardly he did imitate Theocritus and the ancients in 

 choosing their shepherd-names, as Daphnis and Daphne, Amyntas 

 and Alexis, Damon and Thja-sis, Phillis and Chloe, Tityrus and Me- 

 nalkas; further, by the introduction of satyrs and fauns, by the use 

 of songs and refrains, and by referring to the ordinary occupations 

 of shepherd-life. Yet there is a wide difference between the two: 

 Gessner described a beautiiied nature which he adorned with 

 Dresden China shepherds. Theocritus described human characters 

 to whom he gave an appropriate natural background. Seemingly 

 Gessner himself did not appreciate m all its extent the difference 

 between himself and Theocritus. This self-deception may to some 

 extent be explained by Gessner's mability to read Greek; it is 

 possible that the French translation of Theocritus, which he used, 

 may have blurred the distinctness and vigor of the original out- 

 lines; So in the introduction to his idyls Gessner several times 

 speaks of the unverdorbene Herzen and sanfte Miene der Unscbuld 

 ihrer Liebe of the shepherds of Theocritus, asifthe^^, too, belonged 

 to an innocent Arcadia. By omitting such realistic features as 

 seemed to him inappropriate according to his standard,- he 



1 Frey says in his introduction to Gessner's works: t^ber dem ganzen Werk- 

 chen ist ein unendlicher Zauber siisser Selinsucht imd nirgendsschimmert Gessner's 

 traumhafte Welt in solchem Glanze, wie hier."- Cf. Kobersteia V, 57, 11. 



2 "Zwar weiss ich wohl dass einige wenige Aiisdriicke und Bilder in Theokrit 

 bei so sehr abgeanderten Sitten uns verjichtlich worden sind; dergleichen Um- 



