Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature – 3. The Reaction in France

'Disce puer virtutem ex me, verumque laborem,Fortunam ex aliis!'

What a man! and how few of our contemporaries even know that he exists!"

Here, again, we are at a point where the German reaction passes, as it were, into the French.91

The German reaction is in its essence literary, the French political and religious. The former gradually glides into Catholicism, the latter is openly and consistently Catholic. In every domain, indeed, the French reaction upholds the principle of traditional authority, and De Maistre is its most earnest and most high-minded, as well as one of its most gifted representatives. The witty and vigorous panegyrist of the headsman and champion of the auto da fé is the conscientious, ardent antagonist of enlightenment and humanitarian ideals.

The German Romanticists loved twilight and moonshine. The blazing daylight of rationalism and the lightning flashes of the French Revolution had driven them to seek comfort in the dusk. But what is even Novalis's love of night in comparison with Joseph de Maistre's glorification of darkness!

Ancient legend tells that Phaëton, the son of Apollo, being allowed one day to drive his father's chariot, guided it so carelessly that the sun scorched the whole earth and set many of its cities on fire. The fable adds, that a whole race of men were so terrified that they with one accord cried to the gods to grant them eternal darkness. De Maistre is a descendant of that race, and a man who has some claim to greatness because of his gifts, his faith in Providence, and his contempt for his fellow-men. And to this day there exist descendants of the race; but these have degenerated into dwarfish figures, who assert themselves the more the more insignificant and timid they are. Their cry, too, is "Darkness! more darkness!" The more devoid they are of ideas and aims, the louder they cry, and their only faith is faith in the power of darkness.

Those who, in studying the history of German Romanticism, pay special attention to the growth of the reaction against the spirit of the eighteenth century, are struck by the inferiority of the German Romanticists in single-minded strength of character to such a reactionary as De Maistre. It is to be remembered, however, that they were not statesmen and politicians, but authors; even those among them who, like Gentz, represent the transition from literature to politics, have no real significance except as writers.

From the purely literary point of view the Romantic School in Germany possesses permanent interest. One has but to compare it with the equivalent groups in other lands to be fully impressed by the originality and intellectual importance of its members.

A Romantic current is perceptible in the first decades of this century in almost every country in Europe; but only in Germany, England, and France is the movement a distinctly original and important one; only in those countries is it a European "main current." What we observe in the Slavonic countries is more or less an echo of English Romanticism.

The Romantic literature of Scandinavia is strongly influenced by that of Germany.

In Sweden, where Romanticism was known by the name of "Phosphorism," or "new school," it attacked (as was its wont) French taste in literature, in this instance represented by the Swedish Academy. In 1807 the "Aurora Society" was founded by Atterbom, Hammarsköld, and Palmblad. The principles it proclaimed were in all essentials those of the German Romantic School. Atterbom's symbolism reminds us of Tieck's; Stagnelius has a certain resemblance to Novalis. The movement has, nevertheless, distinctly national characteristics.

In Norway the lonely Wergeland, in spite of his highly susceptible, enthusiastic temperament, is a living protest against the German Romantic spirit; but Andreas Munch is a pronounced Romanticist of the German type. And such undertakings as the re-writing and publication of the Norwegian fairy tales (Asbjörnson and Moe) and the collecting of the Norwegian national songs (Landstad) are due to the impulse which the Romanticists' predilection for everything national communicated to the minds of the men of the North.

In Denmark the connection between German and native Romanticism is of a very complex nature. As a rule, the Danish poets receive their first impulse from Germany, but afterwards strike out paths for themselves. Oehlenschläger was awakened by Steffens and strongly influenced in the early years of the century by Tieck. It was under the influence of German Romanticism that Grundtvig renounced his youthful rationalism; and his patriotism and nationalism have strong points of correspondence with Arndt's and Jahn's. The influence of Fouqué and Hoffmann is apparent in Ingemann; Hauch is an enthusiastic admirer of Novalis; J. L. Heiberg, as the dramatiser of fairy tales, is a pupil of Tieck; Hans Christian Andersen, as the fantastic story-teller, the pupil of Hoffmann. Shack Staffeldt, German born, is a full-blown Romanticist, a devout worshipper of "the blue flower."

But though foreign influence, as this work sufficiently shows, is everywhere traceable, the independent, national and Scandinavian characteristics of Danish Romanticism are, nevertheless, unmistakable and strong.

1

G. L. Plitt: Aus Schelling's Leben, i. 309.

2

G. Brandes: Samlede Skrifter, i. 464.

3

Whence this trembling, this nameless horror, when thy loving arms encircle me? Is it because an oath, which, remember, even a thought is sufficient to break, has forced strange fetters on thee?

Because a ceremony, which the laws have decreed to be sacred, has hallowed an accidental, grievous crime? Nay – fearlessly defy a covenant of which blushing nature repents.

O tremble not! – thine oath was a sin; perjury is the sacred duty of the repentant sinner; the heart thou gavest away at the altar was mine; Heaven does not play with human happiness.

4

Goethe, Tag- und Jahreshefte, 1802; G. Waitz, Caroline, ii. 207; Goethe-Jahrbuch, vi. 59, &c.

5

"Your opinion of Alarkos is mine; nevertheless I think that we must dare everything, outward success or non-success being of no consequence whatever. Our gain seems to me to lie principally in the fact that we accustom our actors to repeat, and ourselves to hear, this extremely accurate metre." —Goethe.

6

"Their colours sing, their forms resound; each, according to its form and colour finds voice and speech… Colour, fragrance, song, proclaim themselves one family."

7

"'Tis nothing new; this I have told you oft;I know you well, you and your evil kind.And long it was a mystery to meHow Nature could endure you in her realm.Corrupters of mankind! Even as a child,My guileless heart shrank from you with distrust —That honest, fervent heart, that loved the sun,The cool fresh air, and all the messengersOf Nature, dimly discerned and great.For even then I timidly perceivedHow ye would take our true love of the godsAnd make it serve some baser, selfish end —And that in this ye would that I should follow you.Begone! I cannot look upon the manWho practises religion as a trade;His countenance is false and cold and dead,As are his gods."

8

M. Bernays: Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Schlegelschen Shakespeare.

9

"In thy kingly flight, young eagle, thou wilt pierce the thickness of the clouds, and find the way to the temple of the sun-god – else his word, spoken through me, is false."

10

"I held not my own wreath too precious to crown thee with it to the service of Apollo; but – a better is thy destiny."

11

"Welcome, sublime thought, that makes of me a god! Things are, because we have thought them. – In the dim distance lies the world; into its dark caverns falls a ray of light, which we brought with us. Why does this world not fall into atoms? Because the power of our will holds it together! – Glad at heart because I have escaped from my chains, I now go boldly forward in the path of life, absolved from those irksome duties which were the invention of cowardly fools. Virtue is, because I am; it is but the reflection of my inner self. – What care I for forms which borrow their dim splendour from myself? Let virtue wed with vice! They are but shadows in the mist. The light that illumines the dark night comes from me. Virtue is, because I have thought it."

12

Tieck: William Lovell, i. 49, 52, 172, 178, 212; ii. 110.

13

"Pedantry asked Fancy for a kiss; she sent him to Sin; audaciously but impotently he embraces Sin; she bears him a dead child, by name Lucinde."

14

"A hunter blew into his horn, and all that he blew the wind carried away."

15

A. Ruge: Gesammelte Schriften, i. 328, &c.

16

"Her mind was occupied with household cares —The washing, and the china, and the cook:Did I begin to speak of endless love,She took the bristled clothes-brush in her hand,And calmly turned me round and brushed my coat.All this I bore quite placidly, but notThat, sitting, standing, everywhere we went,Yes, even at concerts, when sweet strains beguiled,Entwining, clicking, rustling, never still,Her elbows flying, thumping on her side,Her knitting-needles vigorously she plied."

"The sacred hymeneal couch had received us; Luna's chaste beams illumined our chamber. Encircled by white arms I lay, praying for Aphrodite's favour, dreaming of the marvellous child that needs must be the offspring of a night like this, the mighty hero who in fulness of time shall see the light. Soft taps upon my shoulder rouse me from my dream; 'tis my sweet bride caressing me; I thank her silently, with tender, meaning smile. One moment later, and my heart is torn by hellish pangs of disillusionment; it is her knitting that is dancing on my back; worse still – she is at the turning of the heel, that point when the most skilful, despite their counting, often blunder."

17

Plitt: Aus Schelling's Leben, i. 282. "I can bear it no longer; I must live once more, must let my senses have free play – these senses of which I have well-nigh been robbed by the grand transcendental theories to which they have done their utmost to convert me. But I too will now confess how my heart leaps and the hot blood rushes through my veins; my word is as good as any man's; and of good cheer have I been, in fair weather and in foul, since I became persuaded that there is nothing real but matter. I care not for the invisible; I keep to the tangible, to what I can taste and smell, and feel, and satisfy all my senses with. I have no religion but this, that I love a well-shaped knee, a fair, plump bosom, a slender waist, flowers with the sweetest odours, full satisfaction of all desires, the granting of all sweet love can ask. If I am obliged to have a religion (though I can live most happily without it), then it must be the Catholic, such as it was in the olden days, when there was no scolding and quarrelling, when all were kneaded of one dough. They did not trouble about the far-off, did not look longingly up to heaven; they had a living image of God. The earth they held to be the centre of the universe, and the centre of the earth was Rome. There the great vicegerent sat enthroned, and wielded the sceptre of the world; and priests and laity lived together as they live in the land of Cocagne; and in the house of God itself high revelry was held."

18

Köpke: Tieck's Leben, i. 193.

19

Florentin, pp. 65, 80, 170, 195, 230, 310.

20

Haym, Die romantische Schule, 509, 525, 663, &c.

21

Caroline, i. 254, 259, 261.

22

Caroline, i. 393.

23

Caroline, i. 347, 348.

24

Caroline, ii. 2.

25

Caroline, ii. 237.

26

It is the sacred ardour of love that makes of thee a poet; thou aimest at transforming life into a temple, where divine right binds and looses. And that the altar may not lack a victim, thou hast stolen from heaven the noble ardour of the glorious Lucinde.

27

Briefe über die Lucinde, pp. 64, 83.

28

Hettner, Die romantische Schule, 48.

29

"The children of those Indian jugglers who swallow swords do not, my son, learn the art by gulping down confectionery; they are trained to swallow the sharp points of the bamboo, and by degrees arrive at swords. If it be your desire, as a man, to digest the sword of science, you must not, as a youth, feed on art confectionery."

30

Köpke: Tieck's Leben, i. 177.

31

"Far behind us lies Rome.My friend too is grave,The friend who returns with me to Germany,After devoting all his powersTo the study of ancient and modern art —The noble Rumohr,To whose friendship I have owed comfort and cheerIn many a suffering hour."

32

"Honoured Herr Hofrath!I pray you to excuse me, but,With the best will in the worldI cannot find,In ancient or in modern poetry,Anything to match this lyric outburstExcept perhapsMy own weak imitation of the same."

33

"Our spirit, which is azure blue, transports thee to blue distances. Sweet tones allure thee, a mingling of many sounds. When the others sing bravely, we chime sweetly in, telling softly of blue mountains, clouds, fair skies; we are like the faint, clear background behind fresh green leaves."

34

"Love thinks in melodious sounds; thoughts are too far to seek; 'tis with sweet sounds it beautifies its longings. Therefore love is ever present with us when sweet music speaks; it needs no language, but is helpless till it borrows the voice of music."

35

Tieck, v. 285.

36

Cf. George Sand: Introduction to Mouny Robin.

37

Köpke: Ludwig Tieck, i. 139.

38

"Capricious Phantasus,A strange old man,Follows his foolish, wayward bent;But now they have fettered him,That he may cease from his trickery,No longer confuse reasonable thought,Nor lead poor man astray."

39

Sepp: Görres und seine Zeit, 89, 90.

40

Briefwechsel zwischen Gentz und Adam Müller, 48.

41

"Nature has neither kernel nor shell, she is everything at one and the same time."

42

Köpke, i. 139, 163.

43

"Beyond the lake there's a glittering and flaming; the mountain-tops are tipped with gold; gravely the bushes rustle and bend, and lay their twinkling green heads together. Wave, art thou rolling to us the reflection of the round, friendly face of the moon? The trees recognise it, and joyfully stretch forth their branches towards the magic light. The spirits begin to dance on the waves; the flowers of the night unfold their petals with melodious sound; where the leaves are thickest the nightingale awakes and tells her dream; her notes flow forth like clear, dazzling beams, to greet the echo on the mountain side."

44

The above is a faithful account of the effect produced by this scenery upon the Danish poet M. Goldschmidt in the autumn of 1872.

45

"The morning he suffered his terrible sentence, ere yet it was day, the warder entered and said: 'Come! the hour is about to strike.' Then he fell on my breast for the last time, crying: 'Say a word, a word of power, to strengthen me for the last steps I am to take on earth!' And I said … But, Fredrik, you frighten me. What is it? Why do you rise and gaze on me thus, pale as a corpse? Fredrik– O mother! mother! stop! You said: 'When you stand before your Creator, say: My God and my Brother, forgive me for the sake of Thy passion, of my repentance, and of my mother!' Gertrud– Oh, tell how you know this? Fredrik– Because it was to me you spoke; not till this moment have I understood myself; I am your own son, now living life over again."

46

The apparition of a person, which appears to himself. There being no exact English equivalent of "Doppelgänger" and "Doppelgängerei," these words are retained throughout in German. —Transl.

47

Taine: De l'Intelligence, ii. 169.

48

"He. Then tell who you are!

"I. I am a man whose one and only aim has been the beautiful, the good, the true. I have never sacrificed to idols, never pandered to the foolish requirements of fashion; the pain caused by misunderstanding and scorn I have disregarded. In my wanderings, in my dreams, I have indeed often taken smoke for flame, but the moment I awoke I upheld what I knew to be the right. Can you say the same?

"He (with a wild, loud, grating laugh). I am not the man that you boast yourself to be, but one of a very different character. I am a cowardly, untruthful wretch, a hypocrite to myself and others; my heart is the home of selfishness, deceit is on my tongue. You misunderstood hero of the many sufferings, which of us is it that knows himself? which of us has given the true description? which is the real man? Come here and take my place if you dare? I am ready to make way for you.

"I (with horrible conviction). You are the man! Stay here and let me slink away! – And out into the night I went, to weep."

49

A. Ruge, Werke, i. 247, &c.

50

"We deem that man wise who seeks a companion for his nightly couch; then he also is wise who has a beloved among the dead."

51

"I forgive envy; pity I cannot forgive. It is beyond my power to tell how I revel in the thought of my approaching transfiguration, my sacrificial death. O brother! the time is surely drawing nigh when all men, truly understanding death, will welcome him with glad embrace, will feel that life is but the anticipation of love, that death is the bridal kiss, and dissolution, which with a bridegroom's ardour disrobes us in the bridal chamber, the hottest fire of love."

52

"Thither I go, and there every pain will be a thrill of rapture. Ere long I shall be free, be lying, intoxicated with ecstasy, in the bosom of love."

53

"Wenige wissenDas Geheimnis der Liebe,Fühlen UnersättlichkeitUnd ewigen Durst.Des AbendmahlsGöttliche BedeutungIst den irdischen Sinnen Rätsel;Aber wer jemalsVon heissen, geliebten LippenAtem des Lebens sog,Wem heilige GlutIn zitternden Wellen das Herz schmolzWem das Auge aufging,Dass er des HimmelsUnergründliche Tiefe mass,Wird essen von seinem LeibeUnd trinken von seinem BluteEwiglich.Wer hat des irdischen LeibesHohen Sinn erraten?Wer kann sagenDass er das Blut versteht?Einst ist Alles Leib —Ein Leib,In himmlischem BluteSchwimmt das selige Paar.O! dass das WeltmeerSchon errötete,Und in duftiges FleischAufquölle der Fels!Nie endet das süsse Mahl,Nie sättigt die Liebe sich;Nicht innig, nicht eigen genugKann sie haben den Geliebten.Von immer zarteren LippenVerwandelt wird das GenosseneInniglicher und näher.Heissere WollustDurchbebt die Seele,Durstiger und durstigerWird das Herz:Und so währet der Liebe GenussVon Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit.Hätten die NüchternenEinmal gekostet,Alles verliessen sie,Und setzten sich zu unsAn den Tisch der Sehnsucht,Der nie leer wird.Sie erkännten der LiebeUnendliche Fülle,Und priesen die NahrungVon Leib und Blut."

54

"The new world appears, and darkens the brightest sunshine. Among moss-grown ruins one sees a marvellous future glistening; and what used to be common and everyday, now seems miraculous. The kingdom of love has come; the fable has begun to weave itself. Every soul is born again; words of power are heard again; the great world-soul moves, and puts forth bud and blossom without end…

"The world becomes a dream, our dream the world; and what we believed to have happened long ago, we now see only coming, as yet far off. Imagination must have free play, must weave her web as seems best to her, here veiling, there discovering, at last dissolving all into magic vapour. Sadness and rapture, death and life, are here by inmost sympathy but one: he who has known the highest love never recovers from its wounds."

55

"Sweet joys of midnight, silent company of mysterious powers, strange revelries of passion, 'tis we alone who know you…

"We alone hear the whispered prayers of sweet desire, and look for ever into-blissful eyes, taste for ever mouth and kiss. All that we touch turns into balsamic fruits, into soft and lovely breasts, ripe food for our desire.

"Anew and ever anew awakes our longing to embrace, to be one with, the beloved, to give him whate'er he asks, sweetly to consume each other, to feed on each other, and on nought else.

"In this voluptuous passion we have revelled ever since the glaring light of earthly life was extinguished, since the faggot flamed, the grave closed on us, and the sights of earth were hidden from the shuddering soul."

56

Auerbach: Deutsche Abende.

57

"The everlasting kingdom is firmly established; strife ends in love and peace; the long and painful dream is at an end; Sophia is priestess of all hearts henceforward and for ever."

58

"From wherever I am, field, forest, valley, meadow, or mountain-top, I send a thousand greetings to my fair and noble lady. In my garden I gather the loveliest flowers that blow; I bind them into wreaths, and bind along with them a thousand thoughts and greetings. I may not give her my flowers; she is too great and beautiful; they wither, every one, but love lives eternally in my heart. In seeming cheerfulness I go about my daily task; my heart is breaking, but I dig and sing, and soon I'll dig my grave."

59

"Fly, cockchafer, fly! Your father is in the wars; your mother is in Pommerland, and Pommerland is on fire. Fly, cockchafer, fly!"

60

"Yes, despise reason and science, the highest possessions of man, let yourself be persuaded by the spirit of lies to believe in hallucinations and magic, and you are mine without fail."

61

"What beautiful image is this that the artist has created? Under what genial sky was this man born? Is there no inscription to tell me his name, since these dead lips are dumb for ever? The eye glows with noble desire; enthusiasm shines from that fair brow, surmounted only by clustering curls, not yet by the laurel wreath. He is a poet. The wondrous smile of love, of life, is on his lips; romance dwells in these thoughtful eyes, drollery in the cheeks' roguish curves. Fame will ere long proclaim his name, and set the crown of laurel on his brow."

62

Gödeke: Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung, iii., Erste Abth., 31.

63

"Long years ago the nightingale sang as she sings now. How sweet it sounded! We were together then. I sit alone and spin and sing, and cannot weep; clean and strong I spin my thread, as long as the moon shines. The nightingale sang when we were together; now she but reminds me that you have gone from me. It is of you alone that I think in the moonlight; my heart is clean and strong as the thread I spin; may God unite us again."

64

"The ensign came riding, his white flag he waved;'Stop! here is the pardon – fair Nanerl is saved.''O ensign, good ensign, fair Nanerl is dead.''Thy soul is with God! Good night, Nanerl!' he said."

65

"It is not, then, so much religion that influences me, as strong affection for the olden times, and grief that we of to-day are so unlike those heroes of the faith."

66