Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/50

xliv xliv INTRODUCTION. collective character.^ The traditional element is to a certain extent his test for a ballad, but he is always reverting to this note of nationality.^ He is glad to welcome even half barbarous races, provided always their songs have the stamp of race. In fact, the wilder the song the better ; for " nature made man free, joyous, singing : art and institutions (zunft) make him self- contained, distrustful, dumb ! " The aim of his collection, as the second title shows, is to give a sort of human symphony made up by voices of the nations ; for poetry, he declares, " is the flower of the idiosyncrasy of a race, of its speech, land, affairs, prejudices, passions, ^presumptions, music, soul/' H^der saw clearly the virtues of natural and spontane- ous verse ; but he failed to see what Grundtvig has since put so strongly, — that the making of the ballad, of poetry of the people in general, is a closed account. He thought to revive such poetry in his own land, ignorant that while Germany might again array herself as a folk in arms, she could never again present the spectacle of a folk in verse. What he did bring about, besides a new taste for ballads and the poetry of genius, was a revival — largely through his influence upon Goethe — of the national l)n-ic. Indeed, if one will but consider Herder's generous enthusiasm, his sweeping claims, his ardor for nature, genius, inspiration, and all the other war- cries of the new school in criticism, one readily sees that his volkslied is anything but conterminous with our ballad. He is preaching the gospel of universal poetry. ^ Herder's translations are superlatively good. His remarks about the task [Works, XXV, 333 f.) may be called the very gospel of translation. Oddly enough, J. Grimm, Herder's greatest scholar, denies {Klein. Schr., IV, 399, 423) altogether the possibility of adequate translations of this sort. 2 See two essays, Works, XXV, 65 ff., 81 ff. Digitized by LjOOQIC