Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/59

Rh INTRODUCTION. Hi! that problems in one field are pretty sure to be problems in the other. "In the whole range of poetry, nothing stands, in regard to its parts and its development, so near to language and so analogous to it, as the epos." In his admirable essay on the Poetry of Law we meet the same doctrine with a new comparison. " This song belongs to no poet; he who sang it, simply knew best how to sing it. Even so the law is not made by the judge, who dares not originate it. The singer controls his store of song; the judge puts forth his law." ^ We have now heard enough from Jacob Grimm to understand what he thought of ballads, and what he had most in mind when he penned his pretty definition of poetry in general as " life itself, taken in its purity and held in the magic of speech."* Nor need we delay over the utterances of the more cautious Wilhelm, who was really the first to apply his brother's doctrine of epos and legend directly to actual ballad.' We are ready for a voice from the opposition. The Grimms had published a periodical,* in which they printed, along with other con- tributions, their own researches in Germanic philology. The first of these volumes was reviewed ^ by A. W. Schlegel; ^ Grimm was not content with surmises about the past, but welcomed modern instances and declared them to be supporters of his theory. See Kl. Schr.y II, 76 f.; also IV, 200, where he reviews a collection of modern Servian Ballads. No one claims the making of these, he says; there are reciters and singers, but no authors. 2 Meistergesang, p. 5. • Entstehung der altdeutschen Poesie^ 1808, Kl, Sckr., I, 92 ff. See also his Altdanische Heldenlieder^ p. 541 ff. It must be added that Wilhelm is more cautious than Jacob in his application of the famous phrase, as may be seen in another part of his essay. In his Helden- sage (2nd ed., p. 345 ff.) he gives another description of primitive poetry, which is marked by little of Jacob's boldness. 5 Heidelberger Jahrbiichery 181 5. A good risumi by Scherer in his Jacob Grimnit 2nd ed., p. 141 ff. Digitized by LjOOQIC
 * Altdeutsche Wdldevy 3 vols., 181 3-18 17.