56 THE KEALISTIC IDYL. 



subject-matter, and rejoiced to behold the da\^^lmg glor3' of 

 classic German literature. In this great German renaissance the 

 idyl, too, was regenerated; the principles which Herder had laid 

 down irere crystallized into form in the realistic idyls of two authors 

 of superior merit, Maler Miiller and Voss. 



Fredrich Miiller (1749 — 1825), one of the most fruitful poets 

 of the Storm and Stress period, was born in the Rhenish Pala- 

 tinate, which he has celebrated in his best idyls. 

 Maler Miiller. ^ 



He early showed artistic talent, and for some time 



was in the service of a Prince of the Palatinate as a painter and 

 engraver. When 21 years old he came to Mannheim where he 

 spent his happiest and most productive years in a congenial 

 literary circle, assuming the pen-name of ein junger Maler, later 

 Maler Miiller. Through the reconnnendation of Goethe he obtamed 

 a pension to go to Italy to contmue his studies as an artist. He 

 spent the remainder of his rather unhappy life at Rome without 

 accomplishing mush further. ^ The very name he assumed, Maler 

 Miiller, indicates how his efforts were di\aded between painting 

 and literature, a distraction of interests fatal to the highest suc- 

 cess in either. 



Miiller won the favor of the public of the Storm and Stress 

 period by his idyls,- since he, as hardly any one else felt and gave 

 expression to the various forces which were at work in this period 

 of fermentation and transition. It is interesting to notice how 

 the old and the new influnces struggled for the mastery in his 

 mind and in his works, a reflection of a struggle which was going 



1 He died at Rome in 182.5. His wellknown epitaph, written by himself reads 

 as follows; 



"Wenig gekannt und wenig geschatzt, hab' ich beimWirken. 

 Nach dem Wahren gestrebt, und main hochster Gemiss. 

 War die Erkenntniss des Schonen und Grossen — icb hahe gelebet! 

 Dass Fortuna mich nie geliebet, verzeih ich ihr gem." 



2 The idyls af Maler Miiller in the order of publication are: in 1775 appeared 

 Der erscblagene Abel, Baccbidon und Milon, Der Satyr Mopsus, Der Faun, 

 Die Scbaafscbur; in 1778 Adams erstes Erwacben und erste selige Nachte. 

 Das Nusskernen and Ulricb von Kossbeim were not published tiU 1811, but 

 must have been written much earlier. 



