Roedder—“Die Meistersinger von Nurriberg.” 
129 
virtue and relieving sadness, and no defamer shall disturb him in 
his sacred calling. . . . (426) The present furnished no more 
themes for poetic treatment; folk poetry, and the occasional poem 
ran out of material, in addition the writers were weary of the 
coarse tone, withdrew from the realities of life and sought after 
another, nobler element for poetry. Before ancient art or its 
Italian and Spanish imitations found reception, one pointed back 
once more to the old romantic period and reproduced it in old and 
new forms. A foolish idea. One might now, like Puschmann, 
gather in prose form the rules of the art of yore, but it was no 
longer to be kept alive; the Heldenbuch theorized on giants and 
dwarfs, heroes and men. . . . (427) Nevertheless it remains 
remarkable enough that Hans Sachs, just as in his treatment he had 
always striven away from the vulgar and decadent manner of his 
contemporaries, aspired toward the end of his life in the choice of 
his subjects after something nobler, although in the absolutely ig¬ 
noble treatment of these heroic themes he showed how little the 
period was suited to a revival of these things. 
9—S. A. L. 
