ClICSSiNEH AND THE CUI^MINATIOX OF TIIH I'ASTOIiAr; IJ)YL. 49 



form, are unimportant in themselves and in the mfluence they 

 exerted. 



Kleist wrote only one fisher-ldyl, His example was followed by 

 one whose name is inseparably connected with idyls dealing ex- 

 clusively with the life of fishermen, Franz Xaver Bronner^ (1758 

 — 1850). In his youth he had been a most ardent reader and 

 admirer of Gessner, and early tried his hand at translating idyls 

 from the Greek. From the window of his cell in a Benedictine 

 convent he had a fine view of the Danube and of a fisher-village, 

 so that he at all times saw fishermen plying their trade among 

 the small islands that dotted the water. This sight aroused his 

 interest in the village-life, and led him to the composition of his 

 first fisher-idyls. Diffident of his own powers he did not venture 

 to publish these idyls, until after his flight from the convent to 

 Switzerland. Here he met Gessner who encouraged him in his 

 writing of fisher-idyls, and introduced his first volume to the 

 public in 1787.- Ee-assured by the success which greeted this 

 publication he issued his Neue Fiscbergedichte und Erzablungenin 

 1794. 



With little originality Bronner everywhere shows the infiuence 

 of the models whom he followed. In all his idyls he adopted the 

 rhythmical and lofty prose of Gessner and the moralizing tone of 



1 See Bronner's Introd. to Vol. II. 24, where he makes special mention of 

 Kleist's Iria "eine der lieblichsten versiflcierten Fischeridyllen. Wer hort nicht 

 gem den frommen Vater zu, der seinem Sohne beym Reusenlegen die schonsten 

 Lehren ertheilt? Und wer fiihlt sich nicht sanft geriihrt, wenn er denSehlussliest, 

 aus dem ein so feiner Ton siisser Wehmiith lispelt?- Moehten nur die folgenden 

 Fischergedichte aueh so allgemein gefallen, als Kleist's Irin." Se Gervinns IV. 188. 



'^ Fischergedicbten und Erziiblungen mit einem Vorwort von Gessner, 

 1787. — Among other things Gessner says: ''Der Verfasser hat diese Gedichte in 

 einsamen Stunden der Musse verfertiget; vom Fenster seiner Kloster-zelle, wo er 

 die Jahre seiner .Jugend auch unter ernstern Studien der Mathematik und Natur- 

 kunde hinbrachte, hatte er die ausgebreitete Aiissicht auf einen Fluse, und seine 

 schattenreiehen Dfer, und auf die anmuthigen Inseln, die er umschwamm. Bey der 

 Lektur des Theokrit, Virgil und Sannazar staunte er diese Seenen an, beobachtete 

 die mannigfaltigen Schonheiten, die vor ihm lagen und die Bewohner der Gegend, 

 deren meiste BescbaftigungderFischfang ist, ward begeistert, und schrieb so, was 

 er sah, was ihn riihrte, und so entstanden seine ersten Fischergedichte.". See p. 3. 



