Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/554

Rh Lessing. 536 G E It M A N Y [L1'rEr:.-vrL'I:r:. and French m~1.<terpieces persistently strove to acquire l stands his I[umbzn',r/isc/ze Drmnatmy/ze, a series of criti- lightness, clearness. and ease. writers will compare with him in these qualities. In all his works he had a strongly didactic tendency, but his teaching was the opposite of that inculcated by most modern writers vho deliberately aim at ethical effect. Above all, he differed from his great contemporary, Klop- stock. Writing at ﬁrst as a strict pietist, he ultimately became a pronounced Epicurean in the popular sense, and made it his object to proclaim an Epicurean theory of life, (liscouraging enthusiasm, laughing at such aspirations as those of his ovn youth, exalting the claims of the senses, and placing the highest virtue. in kindliness and good humour. This tendency often conducts him to more slippery ground than any on which a German vriter of his standing would new venture ; but it also gives him innumerable occasions for the play of a gentle and refined irony. _ Whatever may be the excellences of Wieland and Klopstock, both are essentially writers of the past. This cannot be said of Lessing, the third great German of this period; he is still a living influence. He is, indeed, the. only writer before Goethe whom Germans can now read witho11t feeling themselves in a world foreign to their sympathies. Throughout his career he strove to renew and fructify the intellectual life of his nation, and he achieved his aim by important creative activity, and by the clearest, freest, and most drastic criticism of the 18th cent11ry. As an imaginative writer he was chieﬂy distinguished in the drama, and his most important dramatic work is Jlimza van Bzcrnhelm. If it cannot be said that this is, in the highest sense, a comedy of genius, it is at any rate a comedy which contains elements of permanent interest. The characters are vividly presented; the plot is systemati- cally, yet naturally, unfolded; the dialogue is clear, fresh, and animated. And the work has the high merit of giving artistic shape to elements taken by the dramatist from the living world around him. Emilia Galotti is marred by a deep ﬂav in the conception of the central ﬁgure ; but every other character in the tragedy is conceived with bold imaginative force, and it is possible for a compe- tent actress to solten, if not to harmonize, even the clashing elements in Emilia herself. No drama making even a dis- tant approach to the excellence of these two plays had been produced in Germany; they thus gave literature in its highest department a fresh start. ‘ But valuable as were Lessing’s imaginative creations, they were inferior to his labours as a thinker. Here he was absolutely supreme among his contemporaries ; and in some respects he has not since been surpassed. His method is invariably critical, but he aims at rising to the highest, most universal aspects of every subject with which he deals. As a master of style he ranks with the greatest European writers. The structure of his sentences is clear, precise, and compact; and he keeps the mind awake by vivid images drawn from nature and from human life, by interesting, sometimes remote, allusions, by rapid strokes of wit, and by unexpected turns of thought, as if he were abandoning his main theme, while he is in reality indirectly advancing it. He has often been called the most critical of poets; it would be equally just to call him the most poetical of critics. The greatest of Lessing’s purely critical writings is Laocoon, a fragment, but a fragment containing the germs of much of the best thought of his own and the immedi- atcly succeeding generations. It has an enduring value as the first serious and great attempt to distinguish sharply the realms of art and poetry, and to foster both by subjecting each to its own laws. Next in importance Even yet few German. cisms on plays represented at the Hamburg .'ational Theatre. By these splendid criticisms, which are based in the main on .'1ristotle’s I’octic.«-, with many side-references to I)iderot’s theories, he put an end to the abject sub- mission of dramatic writers to I"rencl1 traditions. In his later years he issued the ll'o/_/hnbziltel 1":-up:/7)zml.-, por- tions of a theological work by lleimarus, a deistical writer of admirable force and clearness. He thus became involved in a hot controversy with indignant professors and pastors, the noisiest of whom was Pastor Goeze of Hamburg. The tracts issued by Lessing in the course of this controversy are in form among the most perfect of his writings; they are at once learned, keen, and witty. And in the history of Vestern thought they are of deep significance. Ilis immediate object was to secure for criticism absolute freedom of movement; but he (lid very much more. He fore- shadowed, as a vital element of the coming time, inquiry as to the origin and growth of the Scriptures, the rise of Christianity, and the fundamental character of religion. And he indicated a far higher standpoint than that of the popular philosophers by vindicating the claims of feeling in spiritual life as opposed to those of the bare understanding. In his ];'«]uca(i0n of the Ilmnan Ifclce he gave systematic shape to the fruitful principle that a religion which is not true absolutely or for all time may be of vast importance by meeting the needs of a portion of the race in special epochs, and that there is in history, notvithstanding apparent reac- tions, a progressive movement towards higher intellectual. and moral ideals. The suggestions thrown out in contro- versy he developed artistically in one of the greatest of his writings, the fine dramatic poem, I'at/um I/ze ll'isc>, a work which enshrines all that was noblest in the struggles and the aspirations of his age, and connects the thought of the 18th with that of the 19th century. As a drama, it has serious faults; but it powerfully effects its purpose by revealing, in the enlightened Jew, its hero, the grandeur of a nature which, instead of binding itself in dogmatic fetters, cultivates a spirit of free and disinterested humanity. Thus in all directions this great writer laboured for the intellectual regeneration of his people. If Goethe, Schiller, and Kant found a nation prepared to receive their work, they owed the fact to many causes; but among these the chief were the political activity of Frederick II. and the literary activity of Lessing. VII. The Classical I’e7'2'oJ.—At the close of the Seven Years’ ‘Var the conditions of public life were very unfavour- able to literature. The country was impoverished, and Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa were almost the only sovereigns who showed the least regard for the wel- fare of thcir subjects. }ut the mind of the nation had been thoroughly aroused from its long slumber. It had been startled into patriotism by Frederick’s unsurpassed energy, while the labours of the chief writers had imbued the better part of the middle class with a desire for a more varied and interesting life. As political freedom was still a dream of the future, they turned more and more to books for refresh- ment and stimulus. Multitudes of young men who in other circumstances would have occupied themselves solely with practical duty became authors, and they urged each other to an activity without parallel in any previous period. Most of these young writers were deeply influenced by the men of the older generation—Lessing, Wieland, and Klopstocl-:. They were also ardent students of Shakespeare, Ossi-an, and Dr Young, poets who were oddly supposed to be on the same level and to share the same tendencies. ltoussean excited almost as much entlmsia.sm in Germany as in France, and the criticism of Diderot found many warm admirers. Under these diverse inﬂuences a curious movement began which is known as that of “Sturm und .- ft er t .‘even ears’ ’ :1 r.