Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/120

 1 14 Heine's " Buck Le Grand" understood his meaning more than vaguely; and as to his French admirers, an intelligent gustation of it was out of question, a fact which accounts for his complete suppression of this chapter in his French version of 'Le Grand' in the thirties. Heine's play with these categories 'Vernunft' and 'Narrheit' is so elusive, so subjectively colored, that the most diverse guesses are permissible. What is this 'Vernunft,' and who are 'die Ver- niinftigen,' concretely put? For it is evident that Heine, as always, is not talking in the abstract, but has a very specific class of persons in mind. Heine's own role of intermediary between the , two hostile camps is particularly difficult to interpret. Why does he pass for a renegade and justly so, according to his own admis- sion? Why do his new associates hold him up to ridicule? What does he mean by his unrequited passion for 'die Vernunft'? And what is this " extraordinary 'Narrheit' of his own which soars above the stars"? Has the whole chapter any meaning at all, one is seriously tempted to ask, or is it impatiently to be dismissed with a quotation of Heine's own in a letter to Moser : " Genug des Unver- standes und der unverstandlichen Reden liber Verstand ich wollte mir nur den Anschein geben, als dachte ich etwas dabei" (Apr. 23, 1826)? All these questions will have to be satisfactorily answered, if our interpretation is to stand scrutiny. Before beginning his characterization of 'die Narren' and 'die Verniinf tigen, ' Heine explains the reason for the hatred with which the 'Narren' pursue the 'Verniinf tigen' a hatred that began with the creation of the world. The unequal distribution of "the fixed quantity of 'Vernunft' to be found in the world" is to blame for it. "Es sei himmelschreiend, wie oft ein einziger Mensch so viel Vernunft an sich gerissen habe, dass seine Mitbiirger und das ganze Land rund um ihn her ganz obskur geworden" (III, 183). 'Ver- nunft' is here obviously synonymous with intelligence brains in contrast to 'Narrheit' as plain dullness or stupidity. Heine, whose "aristocratic radicalism" needs no proof, here alludes to the level- ling tendency of the democratic spirit, which, pursued to its ulti- mate limits, would even eliminate all differences in intellectual capacity, for the sake of an ideal equality. Just at that time Borne had carried on his agitation against the exclusive character of the universities, culminating in his famous paradox: "Fine Univer- sitat macht das Land zehn Meilen in der Runde dumm. " Some-