Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/596

 appeared in Germany, and through their superior histrionic art gained the favour of the public. Jakob Ayrer (d. 1605), the leading dramatist of that age, shows their influence; still more so Heinrich Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuettel (d. 1613), the first to write German dramas in prose instead of verse.

—The religious strife inaugurated by the Reformation culminated in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) which practically destroyed Germany as a nation. National feeling almost died out. The Catholic League looked for support to Spain and Austria, while the Protestant princes betrayed the national interests to Sweden and France. A servile spirit of imitation was abroad. The German language was neglected and devised in aristocratic circles and was corrupted by the influx of foreign words. Literature was devoid of originality and substance; the formal side absorbed the chief attention of the writers.

After painting by Andreas Herneysen (1875); engraved by Jost Amman

The literary leader of this period was Martin Opitz (1597-1639), whose treatise "Von der deutschen Poeterey" (1624) enjoyed undisputed authority as an ars poetica for more than a century. Intelligibility and regularity rather than imagination and feeling were to be looked for in poetry. The theory of Opitz was drawn from the practice of French and Dutch Renaissance poets and left no room for originality. The book had a salutary effect, however, in that it put an end to the mechanical counting of syllables and made rhythm dependent on stress. Its protest against the senseless use of foreign words was also laudable. Opitz is the author of a number of poems, moralizing, didactic, religious, or descriptive in character, but of little real merit. His best-known work is "Trostgedicht in Widerwaertigkeit des Kriegs" (1633). The poets who followed the leadership of Opitz are known as the First Silesian School, though not all were Silesians by birth, and included some of real talent like Friedrich von Logau (d. 1655), the witty epigrammatist, and Paul Fleming (d. 1640), the lyrist. The poets of the so-called Königsberg Circle were also followers of Opitz. Among them, Simon Dach (d. 1659) is pre-eminent. In this connexion may be mentioned also, Andreas Gryphius (1616-64), the chief dramatist of the period. His tragedies, based mostly on Dutch models, are marred by their stilted rhetoric and predilection for the horrible; his comedies are far better, though they did not meet with the same favour. It was chiefly diction and versification that benefited by the poets of this school. Literature in their hands was a mere product of scholarship, entirely out of touch with the people. The linguistic societies that sprang up at this time, the most famous of which was Die fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (1617), did not change this condition. The language, not the literature, improved through their efforts.

As a reaction against the cold formalism and utilitarianism of the Opitzians, the writers of the Second Silesian School, Christian Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau (1617-79) and Daniel Kasper von Lohenstein (1635-81) fell into the opposite extremes of bombast and exaggeration. Their style was modelled on that of the Italian Marini. The lyric poems of the former and the dramas and novels of the latter are written in an unnatural and inflated style, overloaded with metaphors. In their style, as well as in their immorality, these writings reflect the taste of contemporary courtly society. In opposition to this fashionable tendency, Christian Weise (d. 1708) in his school dramas and satiric novels strove for simplicity, which in his work and that of his followers degenerated frequently into triviality and inanity. The best poetry that the seventeenth century produced was the religious lyrics, especially the hymns. The tone of these poems is no longer one of combat, but rather of pious resignation. The greatest of Protestant writers in this line was Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676). Others deserving of mention are Joachim Neander, Georg Neumark, Johann Franck, and Philipp Jakob Spener. Among Catholic writers the most prominent were the Jesuit, Friedrich Spe (1591-1635), the intrepid defender of the victims of the witchcraft tribunals, author of the lyric collection "Trutznachtigall," and Johann Scheffler, better known as Angelus Silesius (d. 1677), a convert and later a priest, in whose poetic collections "Heilige Seelenlust" and "Der cherubinische Wandersmann" mysticism again finds a noble expression. Another Jesuit poet, Jacob Balde (1604-68), did his best work in Latin, though his German poems are not without merit.

The novel began to flourish in the seventeenth century. The heroic and gallant romance, of which Lohenstein was the chief exponent, was high in favour with aristocratic society, but of small literary value. The romances of roguery, coming in under Spanish influence, were far better. The prose classic of the century is the "Simplicissimus" of Christoph von Grimmelshausen (d. 1676), a convert to Catholicism. In the form of an autobiography it unfolds a vivid and realistic picture of the period of the Thirty Years War. Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" brought forth a flood of imitations, of which Schnabel's "Die Insel Felsenburg" was the best. Satire is represented by Christian Reuter's "Schellmuffskys Reisebeschreibung" (1696) and the writings of Johann Balthasar Schupp, a Lutheran pastor of Hamburg (d. 1661), as well as those of Ulrich Megerle, known as Abraham a Sancta Clara (1644-1709), who as court preacher at Vienna was noted for his wit and drollery. German prose began now to be used for philosophy and science. The pioneers in this line were Christian Thomas and Christian Wolff, who inaugurated the Rationalistic movement in Germany.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century German literature was still in a low state. The drama especially was in a bad plight, coarse farces with the clown in the leading role being most in favour. A reform was attempted by the Leipzig professor, Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700-66). His intentions were praiseworthy, but unfortunately he was anything but a poet. Poetry for him was a matter of the intellect; its aims were to be practical. For the mysterious and the wonderful he had no use. Good taste was to be cultivated by imitating the French classic drama, which was supposed to be the best exponent of the practice of the ancients. Gottsched's literary dictatorship was undisputed until he became involved in a controversy with the Swiss critics, Bodmer and Breitinger, who insisted on the rights of imagination and feeling and held up the English poets as better models than the French. Gottsched was defeated and in consequence lost all authority.

Slowly poetry began to improve. This improvement is distinctly noticeable in the descriptive poem