Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/109

 * Weigand 10 3 demonstration of his ability to support a wife by his satirical pen. A number of observations make this interpretation appear quite impossible. The wording of the dedication to Evelina bears evidence of respect and adoration, but not of passionate devotion. Therese's mother cannot be the 'Madam* addressed, as the tone of the poet's rhapsodizing was quite beyond the level of her education and intelligence. The chapter on learning is written in the same bantering spirit which marks the frequent allusions |to this subject in Heine's letters. As to Heine's threat to blackmail the Hamburg fools of his acquaintance, he certainly realized that such a vocation would hardly have served to make him qualify as son-in-law to a local millionaire banker. Hessel has pointed out the forced character of this interpreta- tion so completely that I would be merely repeating his views by going into details. However, Hessel does scarcely less violence to 'Das Buch Le Grand* in his own interpretation. There is nothing plausible in his theory that Heine told the story of his first love and ingeniously dedicated it to a fictitious Evelina in order to mystify the public and divert its attention from his uncle's family to the Rhineland. More important than this detail is the fact that Hessel follows the precedent of Elster in insisting that there must be a distinctly practical, non-poetical purpose at the basis of this rhapsody. He views 'Le Grand' as a systematically worked-out program in which Heine (1) develops the new guiding ideas on which he intends to build his future and (2) dismisses the ideas that have guided him in the past. Among his new ideas his worship of Napoleon's genius strikes the dominant chord. The ideas in the second category those to be renounced include, according to Hessel's view (1) moderation in his utterances for the censor's benefit (ch. 12); (2) the effort to acquire learning (ch. 13); (3) the cultivation of his satirical vein (ch. 14); (4) the desire for a fixed position (ch. 15); (5) the lingering hope of ultimately winning Therese (ch. 16-20). On almost all of these points Hessel arrives at conclusions dia- metrically opposed to those of Elster. These conclusions are forced upon Hessel because of his assumption that Heine was con- sciously working on the basis of Hegel's logical scheme of position, negation and synthesis. This assumption compels him to see hi all seriousness in the conclusion to chapter 13, abounding with ridicule for systematic classification and promising a dissertation to