Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/150

 144 Reviews and Notes PAULGERHARDT AS A HYMN WRITER AND HIS IN- FLUENCE ON ENGLISH HYMNODY. By Theodore Brown Hewitt. Yale University Press, New Haven. 1918. The spirit of this monograph is most gratifying; from cover to cover the author shows a wholesome and genuine appreciation for the poet and his work. As the title indicates the monograph serves a double purpose: part one (26 pages) contains a succinct picture of Gerhardt's life and times, a brief sketch of the German hymn (in the bibliography Hoffmann von Fallersleben Geschichte des deut- schen Kirchenliedes wr Luther should have been included) and a discussion of Gerhardt as a hymn writer; part two, after a short history of the English hymn with special reference to German influence, deals chiefly with the English versions of eighty-four of Gerhardt's hymns. Thus the title is rather misleading, as only eight pages deal with Gerhardt's influence on English hymnody to one hundred that deal with English versions of individual hymns. Aside from a reference to A. M. Toplady (page 31) influence seems pretty well limited to mere stoffliche Ubernahme. The occurrence of the same motif can only establish dependence, but not, in itself, real influence, Ein=fluss, to quote Fried rich Gundolf. As that scholar aptly says: "Man kann einen ganzen Autor plundern, ohne von ihm im geringsten beeinflusst zu sein" (Shakespeare und der deutsche Geist, p. 181). Paul Gerhardt in England and America, this would be the better title, is the main subject of part two. The line of division between the two parts might have been more consistently drawn: the role that the Moravians played in intro- ducing the German hymn into England and America clearly belongs to part two; the appreciative references to individual hymns might well have been woven into the text of part one. Excellent as it is ; it would thus have served even better its mission of an introduction to Paul Gerhardt for the general reader. The nature of the ex- planatory notes and the narration of historical anecdotes that attest the power of individual hymns further this purpose admir- ably. The method of procedure in part two, of taking up each individual hymn and its various translations in succession, while it lends itself most readily to completeness, obscures the line of development and does not afford the means for a ready estimate of any one translator. This difficulty, however, is partly offset by an index of translators. The principle of the arrangement of the various translations cited is not clear to me: the most serviceable chronological arrangement has not been observed. I noted a few inconsistencies: on pp. 82 and 111 adaptations of earlier translations are cited as translations, the one on p. Ill is counted as such in the