Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/119

 Weigand 113 "Solange mein Herz voll Liebe und der Kopf meiner Neben- menschen voll Narrheit ist, wird es mir nie an Stoff zum Schreiben fehlen. Und mein Herz wird immer lieben, solange es Frauen gibt. . . . Auf gleiche Weise wird auch die Narrheit meiner Nebenmenschen nie aussterben. Denn es gibt nur eine einzige Klugheit, und diese hat ihre bestimmte Grenzen; aber es gibt tausend unermessliche Narrheiten." (Ill, 177). These words, taken from chapter 14 of 'Das Buch Le Grand/ were indeed of programmatic significance for Heine's literary future as well as his past. Chapter 14 is in many respects an outline of the way in which Heine actually employed his satirical gift in the years to follow. Here he simply sketches in the rough how he intends to turn the fools of all varieties into cash, and he gloats over the fact that there are a thousand different brands of Folly and thousands of interesting specimens illustrating each brand. In his 'Reise von Miinchen nach Genua/ a few years later, he actually begins to work out this program. That rich banker, Christian Gumpel, who had already received casual men- tion in the 'Harzreise' and in 'Le Grand/ is here formally intro- duced as a "peer of our kingdom of fools/' distinguished by his "mania for embracing all the follies of his day." His simple bourgeois name Gumpel has been transformed into the sonorous and aristocratic Marchese Gumpelino; according to aristocratic custom he patronizes the most expensive prima donnas and dancers; he plunges with fervor into the now fashionable mysteries of Catholicism; he travels to Italy to admire pre-raphaelite art, and struggles with current poetry all because these things form part of "culture." Heine's polemic against Platen is another case of his presenting an exhaustive description of a fool "that exquisite fool," as he caUs him, and it is prefaced by general reflections about "Das Narrentum" in Germany. While all this is perfectly simple, and while Heine is having his fun in chapter 14 of 'Le Grand' with the type of the 'nouveau riche/ with degenerates and cheap scribblers, chapter 15 rises to* a higher plane, insofar as Heine, after indicating his practical treatment of 'Die Narren' here treats us, as it were, to a theory of 'Narrheit' and a classification of its varieties. A rather tough nut to crack, tho; for this chapter is one of the most obscure in Heine's writings. Very few of his readers in Germany, I dare say,