THE REALISTIC IBVL. (il 



(1780). In 1802 he moved to Jena where he was in close inter- 

 course with the Weimar circle, especially' with Goethe. But soon 

 an advantageous offer induced, him to go to Heidelberg (1805). 

 Here durmg his last years he busied himself with collec'ting and 

 filing his earlier poems. 



Voss shows in liis works that he, too, was carried away by 

 the influences which dominated his contemporaries. The whole 

 period was characterized by a longing to flee from the artificial 

 and overtrained culture of the so-called •'Zopfzeit" back to sim- 

 plicity of life and manners, — and this feeling is the very soul of all 

 idyllic poetry'. We see this feeling manifested in the extravagant 

 joy with which men hailed Rousseau's attack upon civilization and 

 his theory of a return to a state of nature, in the deep and and 

 universal appreciation of nature and country life, in the growing 

 respect and admiration for the folksong, and in the revolt from 

 Neo-classicism in literature. The age went back to the classic 

 Greek literature for its inspiration; for now men were able to un- 

 derstand and appreciate Greek art and literature with a deeper 

 and fuUer sense of its beauty and greatness. 



■ Early in his youth Voss's attention had been called to the idyl 

 by his bosom friend Briickner, a devout admirer and imitator of 

 Gessner in his IdyUen aus einer Uoschuldswelt.^ Gessner and 

 Klopstock also charmed the receptive mind of young Voss.- At 

 Gottingen, however, he at once showed a predilection for classical 

 studies; especially did ancient Hellas attract him, after Herder's 

 writings had opened his eyes to the grandness and beauty of Ho- 

 mer. He also made Theocritus and the bucolic poets an object 

 of thorough study. Notes were collected for a future edition of 

 Bion and Moschus, and he had in mind to write a long treatise on 



1 See page 52; also Herbst's Voss II. 84. 



2 At the end of 1774 Voss wrote to Briickner: "Gessner ist so leicht als 

 Gellert und doeh ein Dichter, ein grosser Dichter." — But only a few months later 

 he speaks of hovr Gessner had imitated the Italians and filled his world with 

 Arcadian inhabitants. "Was gibt du mir." he adds, "wenn ich dir zeige, dass er 

 nur da vortrefflieh ist. wo er wirkliche Xatur hat". 



