Part 9

Though in these respects I completely approve of the valuable efforts of my old co-worker, I must confess that I differ from him in some of his utterances; as, for instance, that “Lady Macbeth is a tender, loving soul, and as such should be played.” I do not consider such remarks to be really the author’s opinion, but rather paradoxes, which in view of the weighty authority of our author can only work great harm.

It is in the nature of the case, and Tieck himself has presented significant illustrations of the fact, that an actor who does not feel himself to be quite in agreement with the conventional portrayal, may in clever fashion modify and adjust it to himself and his own nature, and fit the new interpretation so well as to provide, as it were, a new and brilliant creation, and indemnify us for the clever fiction with unexpected and delightful new grounds of comparison and contrast.

This we must admit as valid; but we cannot approve the case where the theorist makes certain intimations to the actor, whereby the latter is led astray to portray the rôle in a new manner and style against the obvious intention of the poet.

From many viewpoints such an undertaking is questionable. The public is looking for authority always; and it is right. For do we not act similarly in taking counsel in joy and sorrow with those who are well versed in the wisdom of art and of life? Whoever then has acquired any legitimate authority in any field should strive, by continual assiduity in holding close to the line of the true and the right, to preserve that authority in inviolable sanctity.

An important paper is Tieck’s explanation of the _Piccolomini_ and the _Wallenstein_. I saw these plays develop from beginning to end, and I am filled with admiration at the degree of penetration which he shows in treating a work which, although one of the most excellent not only on the German stage but on all stages, yet in itself is unequal, and for that reason often fails to satisfy the critic, although the crowd, which does not take the separate parts with such strictness, is necessarily charmed with it as a whole.

Most of the places where Tieck finds something to criticize, I find reason to consider as pathological. If Schiller had not been suffering from a long wasting disease, which finally killed him, the whole thing would have been different. Our correspondence, which relates in the clearest way the circumstances under which _Wallenstein_ was written, will stimulate thoughtful people to much profitable reflection, and persuade them to think ever more seriously how closely our æsthetics is connected with physiology, pathology, and physics: in this way they may realize the light which these sciences throw upon the conditions to which individuals as well as whole nations, the most extensive world-epochs as well as daily affairs, are subjected.

ON DIDACTIC POETRY

(1827)

Didactic poetry is not a distinct poetic style or genre in the same sense as the lyric, epic, and dramatic. Every one will understand this who recognizes that the latter differ in form, and therefore didactic poetry, which derives its name from its content, cannot be put in the same category.

All poetry should be instructive, but unobviously so. It should draw the attention of a reader to the idea which is of value to be imparted; but he himself must draw the lesson out of it, as he does out of life.

Didactic or schoolmasterly poetry is a hybrid between poetry and rhetoric. For that reason, as it approximates now one and now the other, it is able to possess more or less of poetic value. But, like descriptive and satirical poetry, it is always a secondary and subordinate species, which in a true æsthetic is always placed between the art of poetry and the art of speech. The intrinsic worth of didactic poetry, that is to say, of an edifying art-work, written with charm and vigor, and graced with rhythm and melody and the ornament of imaginative power, is for that reason in no way lessened. From the rhymed chronicles, from the verse-maxims of the old pedagogues, down to the best of this class, all have their value, considered in their place and taken at their proper worth.

If one examines the matter closely and without prejudice, it strikes one that didactic poetry is valuable for the sake of its popular appeal. Even the most talented poet should feel himself honored to have treated in this style a chapter of useful knowledge. The English have some highly praiseworthy examples of this style. With jest and seriousness they curry favor with the crowd, and then discuss in explanatory notes whatever the reader must know in order to understand the poem. The teacher in the field of æsthetics, ethics, or history has a fine chance to systematize and clarify this chapter and acquaint his students with the merit of the best works of this kind, not according to the utility of their contents, but with reference to the greater or less degree of their poetical value.

This subject should properly be quite omitted from a course on æsthetics, but for the sake of those who have studied poetry and rhetoric, it might be presented in special lectures, perhaps public. Here a true comprehension, as everywhere, will prove of great advantage to practice; for many people will grasp the difficulty of weaving together a piece out of knowledge and imagination, of binding two opposed elements together into a living bodily whole. The lecturer should reveal the means by which this reconciliation can be made, and his auditors, thereby guarded against mistakes, might each attempt in his own way to produce a similar effect.

Among the many ways and means of effecting such a fusion, good humor is the most certain, and could also be considered the most suitable, were pure humor not so rare.

No more singular undertaking could easily be thought of than to turn the geology of a district into a didactic, and indeed highly imaginative, poem; yet this is what a member of the Geological Society of London has done, in an attempt to popularize in this way a subject, and promote a study usually insufferable to the thought of travelers.

SUPERSTITION AND POETRY

(1823)

Superstition is the poetry of life; both build an imaginary world, and between the things of the actual, palpable world they anticipate the most marvelous connections. Sympathy and antipathy govern everywhere.

Poetry is ever freeing itself from such fetters as it arbitrarily imposes upon itself; superstition, on the contrary, can be compared to the magic cords which draw together ever the tighter, the more one struggles against them. The time of greatest enlightenment is not secure from it; let it strike an uncultured century or epoch, and the clouded mind of poor humanity begins to strive after the impossible, to endeavor to have intercourse with and influence the supernatural, the far-distant, the future. A numerous world of marvels it constructs for itself, surrounded with a circle of darkness and gloom. Such clouds hang over whole centuries, and grow thicker and thicker. The imagination broods over a waste of sensuality; reason seems to have turned back like Astræa to its divine origin; wisdom is in despair, since she has no means of successfully asserting her rights. Superstition does not harm the poet, for he knows how to make its half-truths, to which he gives only a literary validity, count in manifold ways for good.

THE METHODS OF FRENCH CRITICISM

I (1817)

A wealth of terms for unfavorable criticism:--

A. abandonnée, absurde, arrogance, astuce.

B. bafoué, bête, bêtise, bouffissure, bouquin, bourgeois, boursouflure, boutade, brisé, brutalité.

C. cabale, cagot, canaille, carcan, clique, contraire, créature.

D. déclamatoire, décrié, dégoût, dénigrement, dépourvu, déprayé, désobligeant, détestable, diabolique, dur.

E. échoppe, enflure, engouement, ennui, ennuyeux, énorme, entortillé, éphémères, épluché, espèce, étourneau.

F. factice, fadaise, faible, fainéant, fané, fastidieux, fatigant, fatuité, faux, forcé, fou, fourré, friperie, frivole, furieux.

G. gâte, gauchement, gaucher, grimace, grossier, grossièrement.

H. haillons, honnêtement, honte, horreur.

I. imbécile, impertinence, impertinent, impuissant, incorrection, indécis, indéterminé, indifférence, indignités, inégalité, inguérissable, insipide, insipidité, insoutenable, intolérant, jouets, irréfléchi.

L. laquais, léger, lésine, louche, lourd.

M. maladresse, manque, maroud, mauvais, médiocre, mépris, méprise, mignardise, mordant.

N. négligé, négligence, noirceur, non-soin.

O. odieux.

P. passable, pauvreté, pénible, petites-maisons, peupropre, pie-grièche, pitoyable, plat, platitude, pompeux, précieux, puérilités.

R. rapsodie, ratatiné, rebattu, réchauffé, redondance, rétréci, révoltant, ridicule, roquet.

S. sans succès, sifflets, singerie, somnifère, soporifique, sottise, subalterne.

T. terrassé, tombée, traînée, travers, triste.

V. vague, vexé, vide, vieillerie, volumineux.

A scanty store for praise:--

A. animé, applaudie.

B. brillant.

C. charmant, correct.

E. esprit.

F. facile, finesse.

G. goût, grâce, gracieux, grave.

I. invention, justesse.

L. léger, légèreté, libre.

N. nombreux.

P. piquant, prodigieux, pur.

R. raisonnable.

S. spirituel.

V. verve.

“Words are the image of the soul; yet not an image, but rather a shadow! Expressing roughly, and signifying gently, all that we have, all that we have had in our experience! What was,--where has it gone? and what is that which is with us now? Ah! we speak! Swiftly we catch and seize the gifts of life as they fleet by us.”

* * * * *

The insight and character of a man express themselves most clearly in his judgments. In what he rejects, and what he accepts, he confesses to what is alien to him and what he has need of; and so each year designates unconsciously its present spiritual state, the compass of its past life.

Thus is it also with nations; their praise and censure must always be strictly consonant to their situation. We possessed Greek and Roman terminology of this sort; the foregoing would give an occasion for examining recent criticism. Like the individual man, the nation rests on traditional ideas, foreign more often than native, both inherited and original. But only in so far as a people has a native literature can it judge and understand the past as it does the present. The Englishman clings earnestly and stubbornly to classic antiquity, and will not be convinced that the Orient has produced poets, unless he can be shown parallel passages from Horace. What advantages, on the other hand, Shakespeare’s independent genius has brought to the nation can hardly be expressed.

The French by the introduction of badly understood classical principles and an over-nice sense of form so constrained their poetry that it must finally quite disappear, since it could not become more similar to prose. The German was on the right road and will find it again, as soon as he gives up the unhappy attempt to rank the _Nibelungen_ with the _Iliad_.

* * * * *

The favorable opinion which an excellent foreign writer has concerning us Germans may be appropriately related here. The Privy Councilor of the Russian Empire, Count Uvaroff, speaks thus in our honor, in a preface addressed to an old friend and partner, and contained in his valuable work on _Nonnus of Panopolis, the Poet_ (St. Petersburg, 1817): “The renaissance of archæology belongs to the Germans. Other peoples may have contributed preparatory work, but if the more advanced philological studies are ever developed to a complete whole, such a palingenesis or regeneration could only take place in Germany. For this reason, certain new views can hardly be expressed in any other language, and on that account I have written in German. I hope we have now given up the perverse notion of the political preëminence of this or that language. It is time that every one, unconcerned about the instrument itself, should select the language which fits most closely the circle of ideas in which his thought is moving.”

Here speaks an able, talented, intellectual man, whose mind is above the petty limitations of a cold literary patriotism, and who, like a master of musical art, draws the stops of his well-equipped organ which express the thought and feeling of each moment. Would that all cultivated Germans would take thankfully to heart these excellent and instructive words of his, and that intellectual youths would be inspired to make themselves proficient in several languages, as optional instruments of life!

II (1820)

In my article on “Urteilsworte französischer Kritiker,” a large number of unfavorable epithets used by French critics were set off against a scanty number of favorable words. In connection with this, the _Vrai Liberal_ of February 4, 1819, lodges a complaint against me and accuses me of an injustice towards the French nation. It does this with so much civility and charm as to make me ashamed of myself, were it not for the fact that behind my presentation of those words there lay a secret, which I hasten to reveal to it and to my readers at this time.

I admit without hesitation that the Brussels correspondent of the _Vrai Liberal_ is quite right when he points out how among the words of censure which I gave there appear many peculiar ones which one would not exactly expect; and in addition, that in the list of favorable words, several are lacking which ought to occur to every one. In order to explain this, and make the story clearer, I shall relate how I was induced to make this particular list.

When Herr von Grimm forty years ago achieved an honorable entrance into Parisian society, at that time extraordinarily talented and intellectual, and was recognized practically as a member of this distinguished company, he decided to send a written bulletin of literary and other interesting matters to princely personages and wealthy people in Germany, in order to entertain them, for a considerable remuneration, with the characteristic life of Paris circles, in regard to which they were curious in the outside world, because they could well consider Paris as the centre of the cultured world. These letters were to contain not merely news; but the best works of Diderot, _The Nun_, _Jacques the Fatalist_, etc., were by degrees inserted in such small portions that curiosity, attention, and eagerness were kept alive from number to number.

Through the favor of distinguished patrons I was permitted to peruse these bulletins regularly, and I did not neglect to study them with great deliberation and ardor. Now, if I may be permitted to say it to my credit, I always cheerfully recognized the superiority of the writers and their works, treasured and admired them, and also thankfully profited by them. For this reason I was soon struck in this correspondence of Grimm’s with the fact that in the stories, anecdotes, delineation of character, description, criticism, one noticed more of censure than of praise, more derogatory than laudatory terminology. One day in good humor, for my own consideration and edification, I began to take down the complete expressions, and later, half in jest and half in earnest, to split them up and arrange them alphabetically; and thus they remained on my desk for many years.

When finally the correspondence of Grimm was published, I read it as the document of a past age, but with care, and soon came upon many an expression which I had noticed before; and I was convinced anew that the censure by far exceeded the praise. Then I hunted up the earlier work of mine and had it printed, for the sake of intellectual edification, which did not fail me. At the moment I was not able to give further attention to the matter; and it is therefore not unlikely that in so voluminous a work many a word of praise and blame that has escaped me may be found.

But in order that this reproach, which appeared to concern a whole nation, may not be left clinging to a single author, I shall reserve the privilege of discussing this important literary topic on more general lines in the near future.

ON CRITICISM

(1821-24)

I

Criticism is either destructive or constructive. The former is very easy; for one need only set up some imaginary standard, some model or other, however foolish this may be, and then boldly assert that the work of art under consideration does not measure up to that standard, and therefore is of no value. That settles the matter, and one can without any more ado declare that the poet has not come up to one’s requirements. In this way the critic frees himself of all obligations of gratitude toward the artist.

Constructive criticism is much harder. It asks: What did the author set out to do? Was his plan reasonable and sensible, and how far did he succeed in carrying it out? If these questions are answered with discernment and sympathy, we may be of real assistance to the author in his later works, for even in his first attempts he has undoubtedly taken certain preliminary steps which approach the level of our criticism.

Perhaps we should call attention to another point which is altogether too frequently overlooked, namely, that the critic must judge a work of art more for the sake of the author than of the public. Every day we see how, without the least regard for the opinions of reviewers, some drama or novel is received by men and women in the most divers individual ways, is praised, found fault with, given or refused a place in the heart, merely as it happens to appeal to the personal idiosyncrasy of each reader.

II

Criticism is a practice of the Moderns. What does this mean? Just this: If you read a book and let it work upon you, and yield yourself up entirely to its influence, then, and only then, will you arrive at a correct judgment of it.

III

Some of my admiring readers have told me for a long time that instead of expressing a judgment on books, I describe the influence which they have had on me. And at bottom this is the way all readers criticize, even if they do not communicate an opinion or formulate ideas about it to the public. The scholar finds nothing new in a book, and therefore cannot praise it, while the young student, eager for knowledge, finds that knowledge increased, and a stimulus given to his culture. The one is stirred, while the other remains cold. This explains why the reception of books is so varied.

IV

I am more and more convinced that whenever one has to express an opinion on the actions or on the writings of others, unless this be done from a certain one-sided enthusiasm, or from a loving interest in the person and the work, the result is hardly worth considering. Sympathy and enjoyment in what we see are in fact the only reality; and from such reality, reality as a natural product follows. All else is vanity.

ON SHAKESPEARE

WILHELM MEISTER’S CRITIQUE OF _HAMLET_

(1795)

Wilhelm had scarcely read one or two of Shakespeare’s plays, till their effect on him became so strong that he could go no farther. His whole soul was in commotion. He sought an opportunity to speak with Jarno; to whom, on meeting with him, he expressed his boundless gratitude for such delicious entertainment.

“I clearly enough foresaw,” said Jarno, “that you would not remain insensible to the charms of the most extraordinary and most admirable of all writers.”

“Yes,” exclaimed our friend, “I cannot recollect that any book, any man, any incident of my life, has produced such important effects on me, as the precious works to which by your kindness I have been directed. They seem as if they were performances of some celestial genius, descending among men, to make them, by the mildest instructions, acquainted with themselves. They are no fictions! You would think, while reading them, you stood before the unclosed awful Books of Fate, while the whirlwind of most impassioned life was howling through the leaves, and tossing them fiercely to and fro. The strength and tenderness, the power and peacefulness, of this man, have so astonished and transported me, that I long vehemently for the time when I shall have it in my power to read farther.”

“Bravo!” said Jarno, holding out his hand, and squeezing our friend’s. “This is as it should be! And the consequences, which I hope for, will likewise surely follow.”

“I wish,” said Wilhelm, “I could but disclose to you all that is going on within me even now. All the anticipations I ever had regarding man and his destiny, which have accompanied me from youth upwards, often unobserved by myself, I find developed and fulfilled in Shakespeare’s writings. It seems as if he cleared up every one of our enigmas to us, though we cannot say, Here or there is the word of solution. His men appear like natural men, and yet they are not. These, the most mysterious and complex productions of creation, here act before us as if they were watches, whose dial plates and cases were of crystal, which pointed out, according to their use, the course of the hours and minutes; while, at the same time, you could discern the combination of wheels and springs that turned them. The few glances I have cast over Shakespeare’s world incite me, more than anything beside, to quicken my footsteps forward into the actual world, to mingle in the flood of destinies that is suspended over it, and at length, if I shall prosper, to draw a few cups from the great ocean of true nature, and to distribute them from off the stage among the thirsting people of my native land.”...

* * * * *

Seeing the company so favorably disposed, Wilhelm now hoped he might further have it in his power to converse with them on the poetic merit of the plays which might come before them. “It is not enough,” said he next day, when they were all again assembled, “for the actor merely to glance over a dramatic work, to judge of it by his first impression, and thus, without investigation, to declare his satisfaction or dissatisfaction with it. Such things may be allowed in a spectator, whose purpose it is rather to be entertained and moved than formally to criticize. But the actor, on the other hand, should be prepared to give a reason for his praise or censure; and how shall he do this, if he have not taught himself to penetrate the sense, the views, the feelings of his author? A common error is to form a judgment of a drama from a single part in it, and to look upon this part itself in an isolated point of view, not in its connection with the whole. I have noticed this within a few days so clearly in my own conduct that I will give you the account as an example, if you please to hear me patiently.

“You all know Shakespeare’s incomparable _Hamlet_; our public reading of it at the castle yielded every one of us the greatest satisfaction. On that occasion we proposed to act the play; and I, not knowing what I undertook, engaged to play the prince’s part. This I conceived that I was studying, while I began to get by heart the strongest passages, the soliloquies, and those scenes in which force of soul, vehemence and elevation of feeling have the freest scope, where the agitated heart is allowed to display itself with touching expressiveness.

“I further conceived that I was penetrating quite into the spirit of the character, while I endeavored, as it were, to take upon myself the load of deep melancholy under which my prototype was laboring, and in this humor to pursue him through the strange labyrinths of his caprices and his singularities. Thus learning, thus practising, I doubted not but I should by and bye become one person with my hero.