Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/310

 304 Roller too much stress has been put upon mere externalities. How queer the pictures of men and women of bygone ages look to us today and yet in spite of their strange costumes they were swayed by the same human feeling, as sway us today. Altho centuries separated Wolfram and Keller they are closer together in their essential characteristics than Keller and Heyse who are contemporaries. In this interesting first chapter the author's characterization of Heyse as " this most exemplary writer of the novelle of recent years" attracted the reviewer's attention. It is quite possible that most readers will agree with Professor Pasmore, but to the reviewer Heyse is greatly inferior to Storm, Keller, and Meyer in power. It was also a surprise that Grillparzer was not mentioned in connection with these other authors. Altho Grillparzer has not written many short-stories "Der arme Spiel- mann" outweighs and, therefore, may outlive most of the short- stories of our time. Professor Pasmore gives a brief outline of twenty-three of Gutzkow's short-stories written in the years 1834-70 in connec- tion with an interesting discussion of them. This constitutes the largest part of the book. While he finds that Gutzkow has contributed little to the technique of the short-story he makes it plain that he here as elsewhere is a consistent realist and has made an important contribution to the modern movement to bring literature nearer to life. To the reviewer this is the most valuable result of this study. In this dissertation our attention is repeatedly called to Gutzkow's contribution to the development of the theory and the technique of the " Nebeneinander " in his larger novels. It seems to the reviewer that two things have here been con- fused. Gutzkow's introduction of the "Hinterhaus" into literature alongside of the "Vorderhaus" made it seem as tho this " Nebeneinander " were something new. The element of the "Hinterhaus" is new, but the technique of the "Neben- einander" is already as highly developed in Wolfram's "Parzi- val" as in any modern German novel. The real difference here between modern realists and the older realists like Wolfram is the great fondness in modern literature for the lower levels. GEORGE O. CURME Northwestern University. GOETHE'S ESTIMATE OF THE GREEK AND LATIN WRITERS as revealed by his works, letters, diaries, and conversations, by William Jacob Keller, a thesis submitted for the degree of doctor of philosophy, 1914 (Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 786, Philology and Litera- ture Series Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1-191), Madison, Wisconsin, 1916.