Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/462

442 442 D R A M A forts of ready response, and the productivity displayed by the nascent 3 theatre d rama ti c literature of Germany is astonishing both in the erature efforts inspired by his teachings and in those which con tinued to controvert, or which aspired to transcend them. On the stage, Harlequin and his surroundings proved by no means easy to suppress, more especially at Vienna, the chosen home of frivolous amusement ; but even here a reform was gradually effected, and, under the intelligent rule of the emperor Joseph II., a national stage grew into being. The mantle of Eckhof fell upon the shoulders of his eager younger rival, F. L. Schroder (1743-1 81 G), who v/as the first to domesticate Shakespeare upon the German stage. In dramatic literature few of Lessing s earlier contemporaries produced any works of permanent value, unless the religi ous dramas of F. G. Klopstock (1724-1803) a species in which he had been preceded by J. J. Bodmer (1G98-1783) and the patriotic Bardietten of the same author be excepted. S. Gessner (1730-1787), J. W. L. Gleim (1719- 1803), and G. K. Pfeffel (173G-1809) composed pastoral plays. But a far more potent stimulus prompted the efforts of the younger generation. The translation of Shakespeare, begun in 17G2 by C. M. Wieland (1733-1813), whose own plays possess no special significance, and com pleted in 1775 by Eschenburg, which furnished the text for many of Lessing s criticisms, helps to mark an epoch in German literature. Under the influence of Shakespeare, or of their conceptions of his genius, arose a youthful group of writers who, while worshipping their idol as the repre sentative of nature, displayed but slight anxiety to harmonize their imitations of him with the demands of art. The notorious Ugolino of H. W. von Gerstenberg (1737- 1823) seemed a premonitory sign that the coming flood might make a circular motion back to the extravagances and horrors of the old popular stage ; and it was with a sense of this danger in prospect that Lessing in his third import ant drama, the prose tragedy Emilia Galotti (1772), set the example of a work of incomparable nicety in its adaptation of means to end. But successful as it proved, it could not stay the excesses of the Sturm und Drang period which now set in. Lessing s last drama, Nathan the Wise (1779), was not measured to the standard of the contemporary stage, but it was to exercise its influence in the progress of time, not only through causing a reaction in tragedy from prose to blank verse (first essayed in Brawe s Brutus, 1770), but through ennobling and elevating by its moral and intellectual grandeur the branch of literature to which in form it belongs. h- Meanwhile the young geniuses of the Sturm und Drang id Drang. Shakespeare, to conquer new worlds. The name of this group of writers, more remarkable for their collective significance than for their individual achieve ments, was derived from a drama by one of the most prolific of their number, M. F. von Klinger 1 (1752- 1801) ; other members of the fraternity were J. A. Leisewitz 2 (1752-1800), M. K Lenz :i (1750-1792), and F. Miiller 4 the &quot;painter&quot; (1750-1825). The youthful genius of the greatest of German poets was itself under the influences of this period, when it produced the first of its master pieces. But Goethe s Gotz von Berlichingen (1773), both by the choice and treatment of its national theme, and by the incomparable freshness and originality of its style, holds a position of its own in German dramatic literature. Though its defiant irregularity of form prevented its com plete success upon the stage, yet its influence is far from being represented by the series of mostly feeble imitations to which it gave rise. The Ritterdrumen (plays of chivalry) had their day like similar fashions in drama or romance ; 1 Die Zicillinge ( The, Tu-ins) ; Die Koldatcn, &c. 2 Julius von Tarent. 3 Der Hofineister (The Governor), &c. 4 Gcnoveva, &c. but the permanent effect of Gotz was to have crushed with an iron hand the last remnants of theatrical conventionality (those of costume and scenery included), and to have extin guished with them the lingering respect for rules and tradi tions of dramatic composition which even Lessing had treated with consideration. Its highest significance, how ever, lies in its having been the first great dramatic work of a great national pjjt, and having definitively associated the national drama with the poetic glories of the national literature. Thus in the classical period of that literature, of which Goethe and Schiller were the ruling stars, the drama had a full share of the loftiest of its achievements. Of these, the dramatic works of Goethe vaiy so widely in form and character, and connect themselves so intimately with the different phases of the development of his own self-deter mined poetic genius, that it was impossible fur any of them to become the starting-points of any general growths in the history of the German drama, His way of composition was, moreover, so peculiar to himself conception often preceding execution by many years, part being added to part under the influence of new sentiments and ideas and views of art, flexibly followed by changes of form that the history of his dramas cannot be severed from his general poetic and personal biography. His Clavigo and Stella, which succeeded Gotz, are domestic dramas in prooe ; but neither by these, nor by the series of charming pastorals and operas which he composed for the Weimar court, could any influence be exercised upon the progress of the national drama. In the first conception of his Faust, he had indeed sought the suggestion of his theme partly in popular legend, partly in a domestic motive familiar to the authors of the Sturm und Drang (the story of Gretchen) ; the later addi tions to the First Part, and the Second Part generally, are the results of metaphysical and critical studies and medita tions belonging to wholly different spheres of thought and experience. The dramatic unity of the whole is thus, at the most, external only ; and the standard of judgment to be applied to this wondrous poem is not one of dramatic criticism. Egmont, originally designed as a companion to Gotz, was not completed till many years later ; there are few dramas more effective in parts, but the idea of a historic play is lost in the elaboration of the most graceful of love episodes. In Iphigenia and Tasso, Goethe exhibited the perfection of form of which his classical period had enabled him to acquire the mastery ; but the sphere of the action of the former (perfect though it is as a dramatic action), and the nature of that of the latter, are equally remote from the demands of the popular stage. Schiller s genius, unlike Goethe s, was naturally and consistently suited to the claims of the theatre. Ills juvenile works, The Robbers, Fiesco, Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love], vibrating under the influence of an age of social revolution, mingled in their prose form the truthful expression of passion with no small element of extravagance. But with true insight into the demands of his art, and with unequalled single-mindedness and self- devotion to it, Schiller gradually emancipated himself from his earlier style; and with his earliest tragedy in verse, Don Carlos, the first period of his dramatic authorship ends, and the promise of the second announces itself. The works which belong to this from the Wallaisteui, trilogy to Tell are the acknowledged master-pieces of the German poetic drama, treating historic themes reconstructed by conscious dramatic workmanship, and clothing their dia logue in a noble vestment of rhetorical verse. In one of these, The Bride of Messina, Schiller attempted a new use of the chorus of Greek tragedy ; but the endeavour was a splendid error, and destined to exercise no lasting effect. Schiller s later dramas gradually conquered the stage,
 * urm had gone forth, as worshippers rather than followers of