Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/110

 104 Heine's "Buck Le Grand " follow on (a) rational and (b) irrational ideas, the serious announce- ment of the book's Hegelian plan, whimsically thrust into the middle; and it compels him, since thes's and antithesis are expected to be followed by a synthesis, to seek the real point of Heine' humor in the very absence of that synthesis (!). Apart from the fact that such a juxtaposition of old and new ideas is scarcely in the spirit of the Hegelian dialectic, nothing could be more unlike a poet of freedom such as Heine than to meticulously plan a work of freest fancy according to the rules of Hegelian logic. Certainly I myself would be the last to overlook the profound influence of Hegel on Heine; this paper, in fact, will have Heine's relation to Hegel as one of its chief topics; but I will attempt to show that Heine could very well embrace the crucial idea of the Hegelian philosophy of life for a time, while he could never for an instant have bound his fancy by the fetters of its systematic method. The inadequacy of both Elster's and Hessel's interpretations, therefore, justify a new attempt to catch the spirit pervading Heine's 'Buch Le Grand.' Neither Elster nor Hessel has stopped to throw out more than a cursory remark on chapter 15 Heine's philosophical discussion of "Die Narren" and "die Vernimf tigen, " as it has little bearing on their theories. Yet this chapter is perhaps the most puzzling of all, and it is absolutely essential for us to grasp its meaning if we would understand the state of mind which conceived so curious a literary freak as ' Das Buch Le Grand. ' The following pages will, therefore, analyze the ideas of this chapter in detail, after sketching the literary background which fathered that whimsical discussion. This completed, we shall attempt to develop the conception and meaning of ' Das Buch Le Grand' as a whole. II DIE NARREN UND DIE VERNUNFTIGEN From beginning to end Heine's writings abound in the use of the words 'Narr' and 'Narrheit. ' 2 There is no other set of words 2 These words are in almost all their uses the equivalents of the English 'Fool' and 'Folly.' They suggest in a variety of contexts ideas like stupid, silly, insane, crazy, whimsical, capricious, eccentric, fanciful, unbalanced. 'Vernunft,' 'verniinftig' and 'die Vernimf tigen, ' when used in contrast, can