Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/556

Rh 538 impress of turbulent feeling. G 1'} fame as one of the chief writers of the “ Sturm und Drang” school. It is almost as formless as their inartistic ‘riting:~1. The language is sometimes excessively rude, and there is no attempt to combine the different scenes into an har1noni- ous picture. Yet it is sharply separated off from the taste- less plays with which it was compared, for everywhere we find traces of immature power. The characters are alive ; they act and react upon each other as we should expect men and women to do in a stormy and troubled epoch ; and by a few touches of apparently unconscious art we are made to realize the vital change through which the society of the age of the Reformation was passing. Die Leiden (Z68 jzmgen Wertlzers (“ The Suﬁerings of Young Werther”) gave Goethe -.1 European reputation. Much of its sentimentalism now excites smiles instead of tears; but with all its faults it has an enduring fascination. It breathes a warm love of nature, of which it presents vivid pictures; it conveys a powerful impression of the mingled force, sweetness, and unreasonableness of early passion; and it expresses with deep pathos that weariness of life which forms one of the moods of poetic youth, and the manifestation of which was a favourite pastime of the less sincere “ Sturm und Drang” versiﬁers. The promise of (Hits and Wcrtlcer was not sustained by all the works produced in the first part of his career. C'lavi°r/o is only a fairly good acting play; and Stella has even more than the extravagant sentimeutalism of ll'ertleer, with only an occasional touch of its poetry. On the other hand, it was now that Goethe began Faust ; and the fragment, Prometheus, expresses a grand deﬁance that is the more impressive because of the deep philo- sophic thought which may be traced in the background. It was, however, in his lyrics that the richly varied life of Goethe’s youth 1nost perfectly revealed itself. There are no German lyrics, if we except Hcine’s, which deserve to be compared with Goethe's; perhaps none in any literature have a more subtle charm. Proﬁting by the teaching of Herder, he studied the artless beauty of the best songs of the people, to some of which he gave new form, while re- taining their primitive simplicity. His own lyrics are at once popular and artistic ; he takes as his themes the joys, the longings, the regrets which all men understand, and weds them to melodies of delightful ease and grace. Almost every poem was suggested by some passing emotion of his own ; yet his feeling is so puriﬁed that his words be- come the voice rather of humanity than of an individual man. His ballads are not, as a rule, so powerful as his songs, but both have one quality in common—without elaborate descriptions they continually call up by a11 apparently accidental word or phrase a clear vision of some natural object or scene. He is equally master of himself in rendering nature as a mirror in which we see the reflec- tion of our own experience, or as a power moving on in calm indifference to our hopes and fears. In 1775 Goethe settled in Weimar, where ”Wieland already was, and whither he was ultimately followed by Herder and Schiller, so that the little town became the centre of the intellectual life of Germany. After an inter- val of ten years, during which he published nothing, he paid his famous visit to Italy. Here his genius was kindled anew, and a close study of sculpture and painting suggested to him the necessity of submitting more fully than he had yet done to the permanent laws of art. The fruits of this experience were I pln'_f/€n1'((, Tasso, and ];'_r/mom, all of which he took with him to Italy in an unﬁnished form. The ﬁrst two of these dramas were accepted asimitations of the antique; but they are so only in the sense that in each the parts are rigidly subordinated to the intention of the whole, that there is an orderly sequence in the development of the {MANY Of these the first. published action, and that they are marked by elevation and simpli- was (hit: arm l)’erlirlu'n_qm, which instantly established his ' [1.1Tnr._xTL’1:E. city of style. While incomparably more ﬁnished as works of art than any of the greater works he had before produced, they indicated no falling off in energy of imagination. [1»lu'_r;em'a, although its subject is Greek, isin tone and motive altogether Christian; and it would be diflicult to name a more attractive picture of a modern lady than the pure and high-minded heroine. In 731330 Goethe draws in strong and sure outlines the sorrows of a poetic nature which will not sharply discriminate the real from its own ideal world. This dramatic poem is hardly more remarkable for the truth and vividness of its conceptions than for the charm of its versiﬁcation and the wealth and beauty of its language. _E'{/nzont, however, has more movement, and touches human experience at deeper points. .Iost reader.-. agree with Schiller’s criticism, that. there is too much melo- drama in the closing scene, in which Cliirchen appears to the here as the spirit of freedom, and that, notwithstanding the liberties taken with history, Goethe has hardly succeeded in making Egmont the type of an enemy of despotism. But Oliirchen is a beautiful study of a mind stirred by love to great resolves; and there is splendid portraiture in the characters of Alva, William of Orange, and the Princess of Parma. .Ieanwhile, a new literary force had revealed itself i11 Schillc the life of Germany : Scl1i1lcr_(1T59—1805), Goethe’s great rival, had begun to divide with him the public attention and interest. The names of these two poets, in virtue of whose labours their period deserves to be called classical, are indissolubly connected, yet they were marked off from each other by profound distinctions. Goethe is often called the poet of culture, and it is true that he never ceased to subject his powers to systematic discipline. He was also one of the keenest critics of modern times. But the charm of his best writings is not dependent on criticism or cul- ture ; it springs from the spontaneous movement of a great imaginative faculty. Schiller, on the other hand, while also endowed with imagination, possessed it. in a nmch less degree. His poetry would probably have lived even if he had not had the advantage of a thorough grasp of msthetic laws; but it would certainly have had no claim to the dis- tinguished place it now holds in European literature. He did not attempt so wide a range as Goethe, and within his scope he was not, like Goethe, a disinterested observer; he ﬂung himself into the midst of the struggles of his time, and fought valiantly as the champion of a side. Fortunately for Germany, his side was always that of a truly chivalrons mind ; for Schiller was one of the most unselﬁsh of men, with lofty aspirations for the race, and a generous conﬁdence in its essential goodness. These qualities determined the character of his conceptions. Goethe presents us with idealized pictures of the world ; Schiller’s creations are not so much pictures of the world as the ﬁgures of a realm distinct from actual life. His supreme aim was to express great sentiments and ideas, and as the medium for their utterance he conceived characters which are to be found only in a poet’s dreams. Schiller began his literary career as a youth of two-and- twenty, inspired by revolutionary ardour, detesting every conventionality of society, dreaming of a world in which will and passion should have absolute licence. He relieved himself of his vehement emotions in his ﬁrst three plays, Die Ilfizcbcr (“ The Robbers ”), I"in.eco, and Cabale marl Liebe (“Intrigue and Love”). lenins never beat with more Titanic energy against an unsympathetic world than in these dramas ; the impulse of the “ Sturm und Drang” period, as it was about to die away, spoke in them its wildest, most passionate word. Don Carlos, his next drama, still manifested inability to form an organic whole; it contains scenes which l1ave no bearing on the central