54 THE REALISTIC IDYL. 



opment of this literary form? Could the unreal, hazy characters 

 of Gessner's idyls be ranked with the real shepherds of Theocritus? * 



The review of Schlegel's treatise by Mendelssohn in Briefe die 

 neueste Literatur betreffend, Berlin (1762) marks the first im- 

 portant advance in theory. He defines the idyl as "der sinn- 

 lichste Ausdrack der hochst verschonerten Leidenshaftea und 

 EmpfiDdungen soldier Menschen, die in kleineren Gesellschaften 

 leben." Mendelssohn defends local coloring in the idyl as over 

 against the conventional background which Schlegel demand- 

 ed, and advocates the introduction of more complex action and 

 motives than an innocent Arcadia could offer. Mendelssohn 

 claims that the peasant of the time, with some degree of idealiza- 

 tion to be sure, could well be made the subject of idyllic treat- 

 ment. In laying down this principle Mendelssohn made a great 

 advance, for he thus brings the idyl back to the actual life of the 

 immediate present. But Mendelssohn places Theocritus, Vergil 

 and Gessner in one and the same category of idyllic writers, and 

 thereby shows that the did not carefully distinguish genuine naive 

 feeling from sentimentality. 



It was reserved for Herder, ^ as he was the pioneer m the 

 theory of all modern German poetry and culture, to lay down the 

 principle governing realistic idyllic poetry. In his Fragmente he 

 points ut for the first time the impassable chasm which separated 

 Theocritus and Gessner. The emotions and passions of Gessner's 



gleiche Naivetat, gleiche Unschuld in den Sitten. Seine Empflndungen sind man- 

 nigfaltig, seine Plane regelmassig, niclits ist schoner als seine Colorit. Er hat 

 zwar nur in Prosa gesungen, allein seine Prosa ist so wohllilingend, dass wir den 

 Klang des Theoliritischen Verses nur wenig vermissen." 



1 Koberstein V. 59, states tliat the first testimony of this change of feeling 

 which he could find occurs in a letter from Abbt to Mendelssohn in the year 1762. 

 Abbt writes (see vermischte Werke 3, 60): "Dieser Tage las ich etwas von 

 Idyllen, fieng- an dariiber nachzudenken, dass sie Kir unsere Zeiten und fiir unsere 

 Lander immer sehr ungeschmackt sein miissten, well weder Natur noch Staat die 

 Originalien dazu geben konnen." 



8 See Herder's Fragmente fiber die nenere deutscbe Litteratur,thecha.pter 

 headed Tbeokrit und Gessner, 1767. 



