Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/655

 Reviews and Notes 651 field, outdistancing his more conventional if more disciplined rivals. The writers of the Sturm und Drang are also assigned a surer place in the constructive process of evolution toward the completed form of Schiller. In general it may be said that as the discussion advances our whole conception of a distinctly new technical form becomes better defined from without and better organized from within. Two questions are considered thoughout the work: first, the technical problem of presenting scenes of combat, whether duels or more complicated forms, on the stage, and the different methods used to solve this problem; second, the personal rela- tion of the various writers to war as such. The chief importance of the book lies perhaps in its thorough analysis of the technical problem of form. For the sake of brevity and simplicity we may confine the review to this phase of the subject, and now proceed to indicate the bare outlines of the author's discussion. It is possible to manage the scene of battle purely by report. This method was adopted by Gottsched in his imitation of the French classical form, and all violence was theoretically ex- cluded from the stage. The stage itself was a room separated from the world outside, a room in which the spectator may see the spiritual and emotional reflex of events beyond his vision. In this method the technique of the messenger was highly developed, though the master and his disciples never attained any of the poetical brilliance displayed by the French tragedies in such scenes. Interesting side-lights are thrown at this point also upon the irrepressible tendency of the "regulars" to intro- duce by the back door what they kept out of the front the sen- sation of violence and bloodshed gradually crept in. Strictly used, the report excludes the battle, and hence solves the pro- blem simply if not always satisfactorily. The opposite pole is Shakespeare's intense, abbreviated scenes of actual combat on the stage. This method really does not need any reflex of the battle because it shows the battle itself. From now on, as the course of events proved, the entire problem of form in Germany was, how to preserve the practical convenience and the inner value of the one method without sacrificing the actu- ality and vividness of the other. Elias Schlegel stands out in this discussion as the first to show conclusively that the old pseudo-classic form was inade- quate for a new content. He did this by attempting to apply that form to a theme preeminently warlike in nature the Hermannsschlacht. Inasmuch as the customary intrigues of love could not be made here the center of interest, the inherent variance between form and content became doubly evident. The decisive innovation in the direction of a new technical procedure was made by Klopstock in his drama on the same theme, probably under the influence of Aeschylus' Seven against