Page:Goethe and Schiller's Xenions (IA goetheschillersx00goetiala).pdf/21



The appearance of the Xenions, a collection of satirical epigrams in the Musen-Almanach of 1797, is a memorable event in the literature of Germany. With the end of the eighteenth century a new era had commenced. The idea of evolution, first clearly pronounced by Caspar Friedrich Wolff in his theory of epigenesis, pointed out new aims of investigation in the realm of natural sciences; Kant's Critique of Pure Reason propounded new problems in philosophy; and Beethoven conceived his grand sonatas, which reflected the spirit of an all-comprehensive aspiration in the soul-stirring notes of music. New ideals, religious, moral, and social, had dawned upon mankind, and the two great apostles of this movement in the domain of poetry were Goethe and Schiller.