Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/601

 "Uriel Acosta" (1847), are theatrically effective. Next to Gutzkow in prominence was Heinrich Laube (1806-84), whose best work, however, was done as a dramatist and not as a partisan of Young Germany. Women also took part in the movement. Of these the most notable are the Jewess, Fanny Lewald, whose writings display a decided anti-Christian spirit, and Countess Ida von Hahn-Hahn, who began her literary career with novels of high life in which matrimony is treated with levity, and ended by becoming a devout Catholic.

The spirit of revolution inaugurated by Young Germany soon assumed a definite political character and dominated the literary activity from 1840 to the outbreak of 1848. It found its most eloquent expression in the political lyric. In Austria Anastasius Gruen (pseudonym for Count Anton Alexander von Auersperg), Karl Beck, Moritz Hartmann, and Lenau were most prominent in this line; in Germany Herwegh, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Franz von Dingelstedt, Ferdinand Freiligrath (1810-76), and Gottfried Kinkel were the political leaders of the malcontents. Much of this poetry was necessarily ephemeral; in fact Kinkel, Fallersleben, and Freiligrath owe their fame to their verses not political in character. In the poetry of Count Moriz von Strachwitz and Karl Simrock, the excellent translator of Old German literature, a reaction against the political tendency in literature and in favour of romanticism is evident. The short stories of Adalbert Stifter and the dramas of Friedrich Halm (Freiherr von Muench-Bellinghausen) also show the romantic tinge. The greatest lyrist of the age, Eduard Moerike (1804-75), a Swabian, went his way wholly unconcerned with the questions of the day.

'''IX. MODERN GERMAN LITERATURE (SINCE 1848). NEW AIMS. POETIC REALISM. NATURALISM.'''

The year 1848 marks a great change in the political and literary history of Germany. The great question of German unification now loomed in the foreground, and though a reaction had set in after the revolutionary outbreak, liberal ideas were strong, and interest in political questions was keen. Literature sought to get more in touch with life, and became less exclusively aesthetic. The materialistic tendencies of the age were reflected in and conditioned by the great progress of science and the rise of journalism. The lyric and epic lost ground to the drama and the novel. The classic-romantic tradition still found many followers. In fact, after the turbulence of the Revolution came a return to a more formal and aesthetic art, which, however, kept more or less in touch with the life of the age. An enormous array of names confronts the student of the literature of this period, but only a relatively small number call for notice.

The most prominent lyric poet now was Emanuel Geibel (1815-84), whom poems are distinguished by beauty of form and dignified, patriotic sentiment. He was the leader of the Munich group, which numbered among others Count Adolf von Schack, the art connoisseur and distinguished translator of Firdausi, Herrmann von Lingg and Julius Grosse, the epic poets, Friedrich von Bodenstedt, whose enormously popular "Mirza Schaffy" songs continued the Oriental fashion inaugurated by Goethe's "Divan." The work of one of this group, Paul Heyse, a masterly writer of short stories, is characterized by extreme elegance of form and diction. In his novel "Kinder der Welt" (1873), however, these fine qualities cannot conceal atheistic and immoral tendencies. Among the writers of this period none achieved such popularity as Joseph Victor von Scheffel, with his romantic epic, "Der Trompeter von Saeckingen" (1854) and his historic novel "Ekkehard" (1855). The lyric-epic poem "Amaranth" (1849) of the Catholic Baron Oskar von Redwitz owed its success more to its religious feeling than to any real merit. The neo-romantic productions of other Catholic poets like Behringer, Wilhelm Molitor, and Maria Lenzen failed to make a lasting impression. A Catholic poet of this period who won a permanent place was the Westphalian, Friedrich Wilhelm Weber (1813-94), author of the epic "Dreizehnlinden." A pessimistic atmosphere pervades the Austrian Robert Hamerling's epic, "Ahasver in Rom" (1866). "Die Nibelungen" of Wilhelm Jordan is a noteworthy attempt to revive the great medieval saga in modern alliterative form. This was accomplished with brilliant success by Richard Wagner (1813-83), whose music dramas are among the greatest achievements of modern German art.

A result of the more serious view of life was the new realism that strove to present life truthfully, stripped of the conventional phraseological idealism that had been the vogue since Schiller. This realism manifested itself chiefly in the drama and novel.

In the former field its most eminent representative is Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63) with his powerful tragedies "Maria Magdalena," "Herodes und Mariamne," "Gyges und sein Ring," and "Die Nibelungen." Otto Ludwig (1813-65) followed with "Der Erbfoerster" and "Die Makkabaeer," as well as the masterly romance "Zwischen Himmel und Erde." These dramas found little favour at the time of their appearance; the realistic novel fared better. Gustav Freytag (1816-95) won great success with "Soll und Haben," (1855), a novel of bourgeois life. Fritz Reuter (1810-74) used his native Low German dialect for his popular humorous novels, the most important of which are included in "Olle Kamellen" (1860-64). Great originality marks the work of the Swiss, Gottfried Keller (1819-90), regarded by many as the master-novelist of the period. His best production is the series of novels from Swiss life entitled "Die Leute von Seldwyla" (1856). The literary-value of the work of Friedrich Spielhagen (b. 1829), a novelist of undoubted talent, is impaired by its undue treatment of social and political questions, while the great favour accorded to the antiquarian novels of Georg Ebers and Felix Dahn cannot hide their literary defects. Midway between romanticism and realism stands Theodor Storm (1817-88), whose great poetic talent is shown no less in his heartfelt stories, such as "Aquis Submersus." Fiction began to occupy a larger place in literature especially after 1870. We mention only the Swiss, C.F. Meyer, who excels in the historical novel, and Theodor Fontane, whose later works were thoroughly modern and realistic. Peter Rosegger, a Styrian, has won fame with his village stories. Of the numerous women-writers of fiction, the most gifted are Luise von Francois and Marie, Baroness von Ebner-Eschenbach. The chief activity of the last-mentioned writers belongs to the period after 1870.

The Franco-German War of 1870 and the establishment of the new empire had comparatively little effect on literature. Poetry continued to move largely in the old classic-romantic grooves. The graceful but trivial lyrics and epics of Rudolf Baumbach, Julius Wolff, and other imitators of Scheffel's manner best