Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/656

 652 Campbell Thebes. This innovation consisted in what the author terms Teichoskopie, a word adopted from Greek to indicate the obser- vation and reflection of the battle outside by those on the stage the lookout from the city walls. Having once entered the German drama, this principle was never lost sight of again, and it was destined to undergo at last in the hands of Schiller and Kleist the highest artistic refinement. Thus a means was ac- quired both of expanding the narrow confines of the stage and also of modifying the rationalistic spiritual reflex by the aid of imaginative elements. As we should expect, Klopstock was not the man to develop this new form, which remained without influence on his later works. Klopstock thus, in the dramatic as well as in the lyric field, stands in the forefront of the Sturm und Drang. With these writers he shared a more personal relation to war than those who preceded them. This intensity of personal interest largely explains his true instinct in discovering an effective expression. The same interest, highly emphasized, led the Sturm und Drang writers, with Goethe in advance and under the general hypno- tism of Shakespeare, to attempt and attain a far greater degree of vividness and intensity in their representation of the battle- scene. Unfortunately, however, their efforts led them beyond all the bounds of dramatic economy, so that much of what was gained in a literary way was of little advantage to the drama as such. Their great discoveries were locality, atmosphere on the one hand, and action on the other, two elements lacking in the pseudo-classical form. Klopstock's Hermannsschlacht had in- troduced the first of these elements, while both abounded in Gb'tz von Berlichingen. The teichoskopic form is also used in Gb'tz, in the famous Selbitz-scene, which continues the tradition of both Shapespeare and Klopstock. It is interesting to find, moreover, that this reflex technique, which is really a mark of a restrained and rounded form of art, is more characteristic of the older Gottfried than of the later Gb'tz. The later version reveals Shakesperean influence more clearly in the direct presentation of the battle on the stage. As we see further on in Wallenstein, the teichoskopic form contains possibilities that enable the dra- matist to dispense almost entirely with direct presentation on the stage. But the Sturm und Drang writers were not disposed to exercise any such artistic restraint. They were bent on a profusion of means and effects, not on careful calculation and economy. So we find them employing now Teichoskopie and now direct action at will. All the while, however, the artistic possibilities of the reflex method were being explored. In this respect Klinger especially is noted as a virtuoso. He also carried the realization of the warlike mood to a high point, chiefly in night-scenes, in imitation of Shakespeare. In general it is emphasized that Shakesperean motives, apart from considera-