Chapter 3

[12] Cf. _Herm. Anders Krüger, _Pseudoromantik. Friedrich Kind und der Dresdener Liederkreis._ Leipzig. 1904. pp. 144-48. Krüger also discusses Loeben in his _Der junge Eichendorff._ Leipzig. 1904. pp. 88 and 128.

[13] Cf. Fouqué, Apel. Miltitz. _Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Romantik_, Leipzig,1908. In a letter to his brother. Fouqué wrote (January 6, 1813): "Ein Dichter, meine ich, ist er allerdings, ein von Gott dazu bestimmter." Fouqué, however, realized Loeben's many weaknesses as a poet, though at Loeben's death he wrote a poem on him praising him as the master of verse technique.

[14] Cf. Kosch's edition of Eichendorff. XIII. 65. Loeben says: "In Weimar war ich im vorigen Winter bei Goethe; er war mir freundlich." The "previous winter" was 1813.

[15] Cf. Kosch's edition, XI, 220. The remark was made in 1807.

[16] Cf. Pissin. p. 25. The incident occurred in 1803 and Herder died in 1804.

[17] Cf. Kosch's edition, XI, 308. Lochen himself utterly condemned this work later. See Pissin, pp. 238-39, 267-08. Pissin gives the number of verse and strophe forms on p. 266.

[18] Cf. Pissin, p. 267. Uhland made the remark in 1812--his own most fruitful year as a poet.

[19] The story was published in 1817. The full title is _Das weisse Ross, eine altdeutsche Familienchronik in sechs und dreissig Bildern._ It is 160 pages long.

[20] An idea as to the lack of action in this story can be derived from the following statement by Otto (pp. 127-28), the brave hero: "Was man Schicksale zu nennen pflegt, habe ich wenige gehabt, aber erfahren habe ich dennoch viel und mehr als mancher durch seine glänzenden Schicksale erfahren mag: nämlich die Führungen der ewigen Liebe habe ich erfahren, die keinen verlässt. und alles herrlich hinausfuhrt." And then Siegenot, the other hero, says that this is very true--whereupon they embrace each other.

[21] The story was first published In Urania: Taschenbuch für Damen auf das Jahr 1818. pp. 305-37.

[22] Aside from the poems in Pissin's collection in the _D.L.D. des 18. u. 19. Jahr._, Ignaz Hub's _Deutschlands Balladen- und Romanzen-Dichter_, Karlsruhe, 1845, contains: (1) "Romanze von der weissen Rose," (2) "Der Tanz mit dem Tode," (3) "Der Bergknapp," (4) "Das Schwanenlied." "Loreley" is also reprinted here, with modifications for the worse. "Schau', Schiffer, schau' nicht hinauf," is certainly not an improvement on Loeben's "Lieb Knabe, sieh' nicht hinauf,"

[23] The following are common forms: "Nez," "zwey," "versteken," "Sfären," "Saffo," "Stralenboten," "Abendrothen." "Uebermuth," and so on, though the regular forms, except in the case of "Saffo," also occur.

[24] "Der Abend" reminds one strongly of Hölderlin's "Die Nacht," while "Tag und Nacht" goes back undoubtedly to Novalis' "Hymnen an die Nacht," W. Schlegels sonnet on the sonnet stood sponsor for "Das Sonett," and Goethe and Tieck also reoccur in changed dress. The poems on Correggio (73), Ruisdael (75), Goethe (137), Tieck (138-39), and Novalis (141) sound especially like W. Schlegel's poems on other poets and artists.

[25] In his _Geschichte des Sonettes in der deutschen Dichtung_.'Leipzig, 1884. Heinrich Weltl (pp. 210-17) criticizes Loeben's sonnets most severely from the point of view of content; and as to their form he says: "Blos die Form, oder gar die blosse Form der Form ist beachtenswert." This is unquestionably a case of warping the truth in order to bring in a sort of pun.

[26] The triolett is worth quoting as a type of Loeben's prettiness:

Galt es mir, das süsse Blicken Aus dem hellen Augenpaar? Unter'm Netz vom goldnen Haar Galt es mir das süsse Blicken? Einem sprach es von Gefahr, Einen wollt' es licht umstricken; Galt es mir, das süsso Blicken Aus dem hellen Augenpaar.

[27] An idea as to Loeben's temperament can he derived from the following passage in a letter to Tieck: "Gott sei mit Ihnen und die heilige Muse! Oft drängt es mich, niederzuknien im Schein, den Albrecht Dürers und Novalis Glorie wirft, im alten frommen Dom. dann denk' ich Ihrer und ich lieg' an Ihrer Seele. Ich fühle Sie in mir, wie man eine Gottheit fühlt in geweihter Stunde. 'Liebe denkt in sel'gen Tönen, denn Gedanken stehn zu fern." The quotation should read "süssen" instead of "sel'gen." See _Briefe an Tierk._ edited by Holtei, II, 266.

[28] As a corrective to the monographs of Pissin on Loeben and H. A. Krüger on Eichendorff. one should read Wilhelm Kosch's article in _Euphorion_ (1907, pp. 310-20). Kosch. contends that Pissin and Krüger have vastly overestimated Loeben's influence on Eichendorff, and that Loeben in general was "eine bedeutungslose Tageserscheinung."

[29] The complete title is _Godwi, oder das steinerne Bild der Mutter. Ein verwilderter Roman von Maria_. The very rare first edition of this novel, in two volumes, is in the Columbia Library. Friedrich Wilmans was the publisher.

[30] Cf. Alfred Kerr, _Godwi. Ein Kapitel deutscher Romantik_. Berlin, 1898, p. 2.

[31] Cf. Wilhelm Hertz, "Über den Namen Lorelei," _Sitzungsberichte der k.b. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München_, Jahrgang 1886, pp. 217-51. For the etymologist, this is an invaluable study.

[32] The superficial similarity of those two poems can easily be exaggerated. The rhyme "sitzet-blitzet" is perfectly natural: the Lorelei had to be portrayed as "sitzen"; what is then easier than "blitzen"? In "Ritter Peter von Stauffenberg und die Meerfeye" (Des Knaben Wunderhorn, ed. of Eduard Grisebach, p. 277) we have this couplet:

Er sieht ein schönes Weib da sitzen. Von Gold und Silber herrlich blitzen.

For more detailed illustrations, see below.

[33] It is worth while to note the actual date of Heine's composition of his ballad, since so eminent an authority as Wilhelm Scherer (_Ges. d. deut. Lit._, 8th ed., p. 662) says that Heine wrote the poem in 1824. And Eduard Thorn (_Heinrich Heines Beziehungen zu Clemens Brentano_, p. 90.) says that he published it in 1826. This is incorrect, as is also Thorn's statement, p. 88, that Brentano wrote his ballad in 1802. For the correct date of Heine's ballad, see _Sämtliche Werke_, Hamburg, 1865, XV, 200.]

[34] An instance of this is seen in _Selections from Heine's Poems_, edited by H.S. White, D.C. Heath & Co., Boston, 1900, p. 182. Professor White does, to be sure, refer to Strodtmann for the details; but Strodtmann does not prove anything. And in _Heines Werke in fünfzehn Teilen_, edited by Hermann Friedeman, Helene Herrmann. Erwin Kaliseher. Raimund Pissin, and Veit Valentin, we have the comment by Helene Herrmann, who follows Pissin: "Die Loreleysage, erfunden von Clemens Brentano; vielfach von Romantikern gestaltet. Zwischen Brentanos Romanze und Heines Situationsbild steht die Behandlung durch den Grafen Loeben, einen unbedeutenden romantischen Dichter."

[35] The best finished collection of Heine's letters is the one by Hans Daffis, Berlin, 1907, 2 vols. This collection will, however, soon be superseded by _Heinrich Heines Briefwechsel_, edited by Friedrich Hirth, München and Berlin, 1914. The first volume covers Heine's life up to 1831. In neither of these collections is either Brentano or Loeben mentioned. There are 643 pages in Hirth's first volume.

[36] For a discussion of _Godwi_, see _Clemens Brentano: Ein Lebensbild_, by Johannes Baptista Diel and Wilhelm Kreiten, Freiburg i.B., 1877, two volumes in one, pp. 104-25. As to the obscurity of Brentano's work, one sentence (p. 116) is significant: "_Godwi_ spukt heutzutage nur mehr in den Köpfen der liberalen Literaturgeschichtsschreiber, denen er einen willkommenen Vorwand an die Hand gibt, mit einigen stereotyp abgeschriebenen Phrasen den Stab über den phantastischen, verschwommenen, unsittlichen u.s.w., u.s.w. Dichter zu brechen."

[37] _Clemens Brentano: Godwi oder das steinerne Bild der Mutter. Ein verwilderter. Roman_. Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Dr. Anselm Ruest, Berlin, 1906. Ruest edited the work because he thought it was worth reviving. In this edition, the ballad is on pages 507-10. Bartels (Handbuch, 2d ed., p. 400) lists a reprint in 1905, E.A. Regener, Berlin.

[38] II, 391-93.

[39] For the various references, see Thorn's _Heinrich Heines Beziehungen zu Clemens Brentano_. pp. 88-90. His study is especially unsatisfactory in view of the fact that he says (p. 88) in this connection: "Wirklich Neues zu bringen ist uns nicht vergönnt, denn selbstverständlich haben die Forscher dieses dankbare und interessante Objekt schon in der eingehendsten Weise untersucht." And Thorn's attempt to show that Heine knew _Godwi_ early in life by pointing out similarities between poems in it and poems by Heine is about as untenable as argument could be, in view of the great number of poets who may have influenced Heine in these instances; Thorn himself lists (p. 63) Bürger, Fouqué, Arnim, E.T.A. Hoffmann.

[40] In Pissin's collection of Loeben's poems (_D.L.D_., No. 135) we have a peculiar note. After the ballad (_Anmerk._, p. 161), which Pissin entitles "Der Lurleifels," we read: "N.d. Hs." This would argue that Loeben did so entitle his ballad and that Pissin had access to the original MS. But then Pissin says: "Auch, die gleichnamige Novelle einleitend, in der _Urania_ auf 1821." But in _Urania_ the novelette is entitled "Eine Sage vom Rhein." and the ballad is entitled "Loreley." Bet him who can unravel this!

[41] For the entire story of the composition and publication of the _Rheinmärchen_, see _Die Märchen von Clemens Brentano_, edited by Guido Görres. 2 vols. in 1, Stuttgart, 1879 (2d ed.) This edition contains the preface to the original edition of 1840, pp. i-1.

[42] Thorn, who drew on M.R. Hewelcke's _Die Loreleisage_, Paderborn, 1908, makes (p. 90) this suggestion. It is impossible for the writer to see how Thorn can be so positive in regard to Brentano's influence on Heine. And one's faith is shaken by this sentence on the same page: "Brentano veröffentlichte sein _Radlauf-Märchen_ erst 1827, Heine 'Die Lorelei' schon 1826." Both of these dates are incorrect. Guido Görres, who must be considered a final authority on this matter, says that, though Brentano tried to publish his _Märchen_ as early as 1816, none of them were published until 1846, except extracts from "Das Myrtenfräulein," and a version of "Gockel," neither of which bears directly on the Lorelei-matter.

[43] Of Görres' second edition, I, 250: "Nachdem Murmelthier herzlich für diese Geschenke gedankt hatte, sagte Frau Else: 'Nun, mein Kind! kämme mir und Frau Lurley die Haare, wir wollen die deinigen dann auch kämmen'--dann gab sie ihr einen goldnen Kamm, und Murmelthier kämmte Beiden die Haare und flocht sie so schön, dass die Wasserfrauen sehr zufrieden mit ihr waren."

[44] In _H. Heines Leben und Werke_. Hamburg, 1884 (3d ed.), Bd. I. p. 363. In the notes, Strodtmann reprints Loeben's ballad, pp. 696-97. His statement is especially unsatisfactory in view of the fact that he refers to the "fast gleicher Inhalt," though the essentials of Heine's ballad are not in Loeben's, and to "einegewisse Ähnlichkeit in Form," though the similarity in form is most pronounced.

[45] In _Allgemeine deut. Biog_., XIX. 44. It is interesting to see how Professor Muncker lays stress on this matter by placing in parentheses the statement: "Einige Züge der letzten Geschichte ["Sage vom Rhein"] regten Heine zu seinem bekannten Liede an."

[46] In _Dichtungen von Heinrich Heine, ausgewählt und erläutert_, Bonn, 1887, p. 326. Hessel's Statement is peculiarly unsatisfactory, since he says (p. 309) that he is going to the sources of Heine's poems, and then, after reprinting Loeben's ballad, he says: "Dieses Lied war Heines nächstes Vorbild. Ausführlicheres bei Strodtmann, Bd. I, S. 362." And this edition has been well received.

[47] In _Grundriss, VI, 110. Again we read in parentheses: "Aus diesem Liede und dem Eingänge der Erzählung schöpfte H. Heine sein Lied von der Loreley."

[48] In _Ges. d. deut. Lit_., p. 662 (8th ed.).

[49] In _Heinrich Heines Beziehungen zum deutschen Mittelalter_, Berlin, 1908, pp., 94-95. Mücke is the most cautious of the ten authorities above listed; and he anticipated Walzel in his reference to Schreiber's _Handbuch_.

[50] In _Ueber den Namen Lorelei, p. 224. Hertz is about as cautious as Strodtmann; "Es ist kaum zu bezweifeln dass," etc.

[51] In _Sämtliche Werke_, I, 491.

[52] In _Hauptströmungen_. VI, 178. Brandes says: "Der Gegenstand ist der gleiche, das Versmass ist dasselbe, ja die Reimen sind an einzelnen Stellen die gleichen: blitzetsitzet; statt 'an-gethan' steht da nur 'Kahn-gethan.'"

[53] In _Der deutschen Romantiker_, Leipzig, 1903, p. 235.

[54] In _Deutsches Literatur-Lexikon_, München, 1914, p. 271. It is significant that Krüger makes this statement, for the subtitle of his book Is "Biographisches und bibliographisches Handbuch mit Motivübersichten und Quellennachweisen." And it is, on the whole, an extremely useful book.

[55] It is impossible to see how Brandes can lay great stress on the fact that this rhyme occurs in both poems. The following rhymes are found on the following pages of the Elster edition, Vol. I, of Heine's works: "Spitze-Blitze" (36), "sitzen-nützen" (116), "Witzen-nützen" (124), "sitzen-blitzen" (216), "erhitzet-bespitzet" (242), "Blitz-Sitz" (257), "blitzt-gestützt" (276), "blitze-besitze" (319), "blitzet-gespitzet" (464). And in Loeben's poems the rhyme is equally common. The first strophe of his _Ferdusi_ runs as follows:

Hell erglänzt an Persiens Throne Wo der grosse Mahmud sitzt; Welch Juwel ist's, das die Krone So vor allen schön umblitzt.

And in Schreiber's saga we have in juxtaposition, the words. "Blitze" and "Spitze." The rhyme "Sitze-Blitze" occurs in Immanuel's "Lorelei," quoted by Seeliger, p. 31.

[56] There are, to be sure, only 114 words in Loeben's ballad if we count "um's," "dir's," and "glaub's" as three words and not six.

[57] These numbers are in the Columbia Library.

[58] During these years Heine's letters are dated from Göttingen, Berlin, Gnesen, Berlin, Münster, Berlin, Lüneburg, Hamtburg, Ritzenbüttel, and Lüneburg. During these same years Loeben was in Dresden and he was ill.

[59] We need only to mention such a strophe as the following from _Atta Troll_:

Klang das nicht wie Jugendträume. Die ich träumte mit Chamisso Und Brentano und Fouqué In den blauen Mondscheinnächten?

See Elster edition, II, 421. The lines were written in 1843.

[60] The first edition of Karl Simrock's _Rheinsagen_ came out in 1836. This was not accessible. The edition of 1837, "zweite, vermehrte Auflage," contains 168 poems, 572 pages; this contains Simrock's "Ballade von der Lorelei." The edition of 1841 also contains Simrock's "Der Teufel und die Lorelei." The book contains 455 pages, 218 poems. The sixth edition (1809) contains 231 poems. In all editions the poems are arranged in geographical order from Südersee to Graubünden. Alexander Kaufmann's _Quellenangaben und Bemerkungen zu Kart Simrocks Rheinsagen_ throws no new light on the Lorelei-legend.

[61] Cf. _Heinrich Heines sämtliche Werke_, edited by Walzel, Fränkel, Krähe, Leitzmann, and Peterson. Leipzig. 1911, II, 408. So far as I have looked into the matter, Walzel stands alone in this belief, though Mücke, as has been pointed out above, anticipated him in the statement that Heine drew on Schreiber in this case. But Mücke thinks that Heine also knew Loeben.

[62] The reference in question reads as follows: "Ich will kein Wort verlieren über den Wert dieses unverdaulichen Machwerkes [_Les Burgraves_], das mit allen möglichen Prätensionen auftritt, namentlich mit historischen, obgleich alles Wissen Victor Hugos über Zeit und Ort, wo sein Stück spielt, lediglich aus der französischen Uebersetzung von Schreibers _Handbuch für Rheinreisende_ geschöpft, ist." This was written March 20, 1843 (see Elster edition, VI. 344).

[63] Aloys Wilhelm Schreiber (1763-1840) was a teacher in the Lyceum at Baden-Baden (1800-1802), professor of aesthetics at Heidelberg (1802-13) where he was intimate with the Voss family, historiographer at Karlsruhe (1813-26), and in 1826 he retired and became a most prolific writer. He interested himself in guidebooks for travelers. His manuals contain maps, distances, expense accounts, historical sketches, in short, about what the modern _Baedeker_ contains with fewer statistics and more popular description. His books appeared in German, French, and English. In 1812 he published his _Handbuch für Reisende am Rhein von Schaffhausen bis Holland_, to give only a small part of the wordy title, and in 1818 he brought out a second, enlarged edition of the same work with an appendix containing 17 _Volkssagen aus den Gegenden am Rhein und am Taunus_, the sixteenth of which is entitled "Die Jungfrau auf dem Lurley." His books were exceedingly popular in their day and are still obtainable. Of the one here in question, Von Weech (_Allgem. deut. Biog._, XXXII, 471) says: "Sein _Handbuch für Reisende am Rhein_, dessen Anhang eine wertvolle Sammlung rheinischer Volkssagen enthält, war lange der beliebteste Führer auf Rheinreisen." There are 7 volumes of his manuals in the New York Public Library, and one, _Traditions populaires du Rhin,_ Heidelberg, 1830 (2d ed.), is in the Columbia Library. It contains 144 legends and beautiful engravings. (The writer has just [October 15, 1915] secured the four Volumes of Schreiber's _Rheinische Geschichten und Sagen_. The fourth volume, published in 1830. is now a very rare book.)

[64] The remainder of Schreiher's plot is as follows: The news of the infatuated hero's death so grieved the old Count that ho determined to have the Lorelei captured, dead or alive. One of his captains, aided by a number of brave followers, set out on the hazardous expedition. First, they surround the rock on which the Lorelei sits, and. then three of the most courageous ascend to her seat and determine to kill her, so that the danger of her repealing her former deed maybe forever averted. But when they reach her and she hoars what they intend to do, she simply smiles and invokes the aid of her Father, who immediately sends two white horses--two white waves--up the Rhine, and. after leaping down to the Rhine, she is safely carried away by these. She was never again seen, but her voice was frequently heard as she mocked, in echo, the songs of the sailors on her paternal stream.

[65] It is not simply in the appendix of Schreiber's _Handbuch_ that he discusses the legend of Lorelei, but also in the scientific part of it. Concerning the Lorelei rock he says (pp. 174-75): "Ein wunderbarer Fels schiebt sich jetzt dem Schiffer gleichsam in seine Bahn--es ist der Lurley (von Lure, Lauter, und Ley, Schiefer) aus welchem ein Echo den Zuruf der Vorbeifahrendem fünfzehnmal wiederholt. Diesen Schieferfels bewohnte in grauen Zeiten eine Undine, welche die Schiffenden durch ihr Zurufen ins Verderben lockte."

[66] Brockhaus says (p. xxiv): "Die einfache Sage von den beiden feindlichen Brüdern am Rhein, van denen die Trümmer ihrer Bürgen selbst noch _Die Brüder_ heissen ist in A. Schreiber's Auswahl von Sagen jener Gegenden zu lesen." Usener's tragedy is published In full in this number of _Urania_, pp. 383-442.

[67] Cf. Elster edition, IV, 406-9. The circumstantial way in which Heine retells this story is almost sufficient to lead one to believe that he had Schreiber at hand when he wrote this part of Elementargeister; but he says that he did not.

[68] Discussion as to the first conception of Heine's _Rabbi_ are found in: _Heinrich Heines Fragment_; _Der Rabbi von Bacharach_, by Lion Feuchtwanger, München, 1907; _Heinrich Heine und Der Rabbi von Bacharach_, by Gustav Karpeles, Wien, 1895.

[69] The poem is one of the _Junge Leiden_, published in 1821, Elster (I, 490) says: "Eine bekannte Sage, mit einzelnen vielfach wiederkehrenden uralten Zügen, dargestellt In Simrocks _Rheinsagen_." Simrock had, of course, done nothing on the _Rheinsagen_ in 1821, being then only nineteen years old and an inconspicuous student at Bonn. Walzel says (I. 449.): "Mit einem andern Ausgang ist die Sage in dem von Heine vielbenutzten _Handbuch für Reisende am Rhein_ von Aloys Schreiber (Heidelberg, 1816) überliefert." The edition of this work in the New York Public Library has no printed date, but 1818 is written in. Walzel may be correct. The outcome of Heine's poem is, after all, not so different: In Schreiber, both brothers relinquish their clalms to the girl and remain unmarried; in Heine the one kills the other and in this way neither wins the girl.

[70] It is the same story as the one told by Bulwer-Lytton in his _Pilgrims of the Rhine_. chap. xxiv.

[71] All through the body of Schreiber's _Handbuch_, there are references to the places and legends mentioned in Heine's _Rabbi_. On Bacharach there is the following: "Der Reisende, wenn er auch nur eine Stunde in Bacharach verweilt, unterlasse nicht, die Ruinen von Staleck zu besteigen, wo eine der schönsten Rheinlandschaften sich von seinen Blicken aufrollt. Die Burg von sehr beträchtlichem Umfang scheint, auf den Trümmern eines Römerkastells erbaut. Die, welche die Entstehung derselben den Hunnen zuschreiben, well sie in Urkunden den Namen Stalekum hat, sind in einem Irrtum befangen, denn Stalekum oder Stalek heisst eben so viel als Stalbühl, oder ein Ort, wo ein Gericht gehegt wurde. Pfalzgraf Hermann von Staleck, starb im 12ten Jahrhundert; er war der letzte seines Stammes, und von ihm kam die Burg, als Kölnisches Lehen, an Konrad Von Staufen."

[72] To come back to Heine and Loeben, Herm. Anders Krüger says (p., 147) in his _Pseudoromantik:_ "Heinrich Heine, der überhaupt Loeben studiert zu haben scheint," etc. He offers no proof. If one wished to make out a case for Loeben, it could bo done with his narrative poem "Ferdusi" (1817) and Heine's "Der Dichter Ferdusi." Both tell about the same story; but each tells a story that was familiar in romantic circles.