THE REALISTIC IDYL. 55 



are made so laure and ethereal that they cease to be passions, while 

 Theocritus stands on the soil of real nature, his shepherds 

 have really human passions; their innocence is the naive 

 innocence of the child, while Gessner's shepherds do not give the 

 impression of being artless and ingenuous. In the words of 

 Herder: "Wenn Kamler sagt, man finde bei Gessner eine gleiche 

 SiJssigkeit wie bei Theokrit, so ist die Siissigkeit des Griechen 

 noch ein klarer Wassertrank aus dem piei'ischen Quell der Musen, 

 der Trank des deutschen dagegen ist verzuckert." 



Herder wished that idyllic literature should no longer be a 

 mere conventional presentation of ideal life, but should become a 

 plant of native growth and development, grounded in the rich 

 soil of actual popular life. This principle he laid down in the 

 following words: "Nicbt nachamen sondern im Sinne des eigenen 

 Geistes nachschaffen." This return of idyllic poetry to the actual 

 present excluded from the idyl the conventional, virtuous and 

 perfect characters, which were so utterly unreal. Only by repre- 

 sentmg human characters, with all their weaknesses as well as 

 excellences, could the idyl attain its best and highest form. Herder 

 states his ideal of the purpose of the idyl as follows: "Wenn man 

 Empflndungen und Leidenschaften der Menschen in kleinen Gesell- 

 schaften so sinnlich zeigt, dass wir auf den Augenblick mit ihnen 

 Schafer werden, und so weit verschouert zeigt, dass wir es fiir den 

 Augenblick werden wollen: Kurz bis zu Illusion uud zum hocbsten 

 Wohlgefallen erhebt sicb der Zweck der Idylle, nicbt after bis zum 

 Ausdruck der Vollkowmenbeit oder zur moralischea Besserung." 

 Under Herder's influence poetic beauty was no longer confunded 

 with moral perfection, and thus a return to depicting real life was 

 made possible. Furthermore, Lessing had given the death blow 

 to purely descriptive poetry in his Laokoon (1766), that famous 

 analysis of the difference between the plastic arts and poetry, 

 where he claims that action constitutes the essence of poetry. 



Thus criticism cleared the ground and prepared the soil for the 

 wonderful growth which was so soon to burst forth. Men turned 

 away with a feeling of surfeit from the old literary forms and 



