64 THE KI5ALISTIC lUYL. 



still noticeable and to a marked degree, especially in the pompous 

 style and the introduction of the "seraphic" element of Klopstock's 

 Messias. The angels Sulamith and Thirza, sent to assist at the 

 birth of Selma, sing a responsive cradlesong to the music of the 

 golden harp, in sonorous hexameters out of keeping with their 

 thoughts. 1 



With Die Leibeigenschuft Voss begins a long series of idyls 

 which have properly been called Tendenz-Stiicke. As he wrote 

 these idyls with the express purpose of instituting social reform 

 by holding up to A^iew certain social wrongs of the period,'^ he 

 consciously or unconsciously imbued many of these idyls with the 

 bitterness of satire.'' This bitterness introduced an element 

 which necessarily injured the idyllic atmosphere. Voss was 

 descended from serfs; narratives of his father and others, to- 

 gether with what he himself had actually seen of the curse of 

 bondservice as it still existed in parts of Northern Germany had 

 filled his soul with hatred and indignation against the tyranny 

 of the nobility. His soul burned with a desire to bring about 

 an amelioration in the condition of these peasants. This indig- 

 nation and reformatory desire prompted the idyls Die Pferde- 



1 They even decide to inform her future lover of her birth: 

 "Meld ihm des Kindes Geburt, du Genius, dem er vertraut ward, 

 Dass ihm die Ahndung das Herz erlautere wiirdig zu sein." 



2 The whole era of the Storm and Stress is characterized by restiveness under 

 restraint and a desire to break the bonds and shackles of tyranny under what- 

 ever form they existed (we remember Goethe's "Tyrannen-blut trinken") . This 

 revolutionary tendency also manifested itself in the GottiiigerBund, and in many 

 of their poems took the form of a tirade against those whom they considered 

 responsible for the social inequalities which existed. Later while at Wandsbeck 

 when the ardor of youth was somewhat allayed. Toss's tendency became d/(7aet/c; 

 he writes himself, that the work of a poet is "die Sitten des Volks zu bessern und 

 besonders dem verachteten Landmann feinere Begritfe und ein regeres Gefiihl seiner 

 Wiirde beizubringen." See Sauer's GOttiagei Dichterbund, p. 16. Also 

 Herbst's Voss 1. 190. 



3 Boie writes to Voss in March 1777: "Ihr Talent liegt in der Idylle. — Sie 

 werden auch unser Juvenal werden, wenn Sie wollen.'' 



