Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany

There is some resemblance between the manner in which Brentano has dramatised Slavonic legend in this play, and the Polish Romanticist Slowacki's treatment (in _Lilla Weneda_, f...

"1809.--Seized by a strange fancy at the ball on the 6th; I imagine myself looking at my Ego through a kaleidoscope--all the forms moving round me are Egos, and annoy me by what...

So Tieck mocks ironically at things which are usually ignored in order not to disturb the illusion. In _Puss in Boots_ the King says to Prince Nathaniel: "But do tell me; how is...

In December 1799 the French occupied Mayence for the second time. When the news reached Coblentz, Görres wrote his wild song of triumph over the collapse of the Roman-German Emp...

It is in this highly idealised world, on which the poet's hand has set the seal of beauty, that Wilhelm wanders about, without a plan, but not without an aim. He is in pursuit o...

And the equally sentimental Salome blesses him. Her son Benoni, too, blesses his murderer, immediately after which his hands and feet are cut off, and he is boiled in oil. Prese...

Chamisso's double nationality was a source of much unhappiness to him in his younger days, when there was violent enmity between the land of his birth and his adopted country. I...

He enthusiastically predicts the coming age of "soul." "In Germany we can already point to sure indications of a new world.... Here and there, and often in daring union, are to...

At this time he was much influenced by the correspondence which he kept up regularly with his younger brother. Friedrich had been drawn by August Wilhelm into the stream of the...

In the year 1809 the poet appears as an ardent political agitator. Now, for a time, his voice sounds clear and full. He reproaches his countrymen with not having sufficient conf...

The Romanticists themselves were by no means satisfied with _Lucinde_. Novalis has most to say in its favour. He is of opinion that there are few such personal books; it seems t...

In this fictitious character there are already developed those qualities which we find later in real characters, such as Friedrich Schlegel and Gentz; and in this one man's habi...

The first important event in the life of the young couple was Fichte's coming to live with them. Fichte had been accused of teaching atheism, and his position as a professor was...

Arnim's principal novel with a modern plot, _Armuth, Reichthum, Schuld und Busse der Gräfin Dolores: Eine wahre Geschichte zur lehrreichen Unterhaltung armer Fräulein aufgeschri...

According to Schubert's theory, man originally had the power of working miracles. Sin bereft him of his power over nature, and after this there was always something dark and dæm...

But this cult of Italy and of the pious, or seemingly pious Italian painters, is only the stepping-stone by which the "Friar" passes to the worship of his own particular idol, A...

Perhaps not one of the regular German Romanticists is so completely the poet of Romantic longing as Shack Staffeldt, who, though a German born, wrote in Danish. But he does not...

The patriotic and the religious party soon made common cause. French immorality had been confronted with a peculiarly German morality; now French free-thought was confronted wit...

His ideal, and that of the whole period, is humanity pure and simple--a man's private life is everything. The tremendous conflicts of the eighteenth century and the "enlightenme...

It is, then, certain that there is more of the quality of harmony among the Danes. And it is easy to understand that those who regard harmony, even when meagre, as the highest q...

In Heidelberg Brentano collaborated with Arnim in the publication of _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_ and with Görres in _Die Geschichte des Uhrmachers BOGS_ ("Story of Bogs, the Watchma...

To prove the truth of this assertion, one has only to read such a passage in the biography of Tieck as the following account of his stay in Halle in 1792: "How entirely differen...

The absolute independence of the Ego isolates. Nevertheless these men soon founded a school, and after its speedy disintegration several interesting groups were formed. This is...

They owed far more to Herder. They evidence their descent from him both by their continuation of the _Sturm und Drang_ period and by their capacity of understanding and reproduc...

In every library of any importance one is sure to find a small, beautifully printed and bound book, published in 1797, entitled _Herzensergiessungen eines kunstliebenden Kloster...

The most comical part of this satire is the passage which, whether intentionally or unintentionally on the author's part, reads like a parody of the well-known Roman Elegy in wh...

Novalis was seventeen when the French Revolution broke out. If one were asked to give a brief definition of the main idea of that great movement, one would say that it was the d...

The next step is that which Tieck takes in his comedy, _Die verkehrte Welt_ ("The Topsy-Turvy World"), namely, the employing of language exclusively on account of its musical qu...

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 47781-h.htm or 47781-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47...

In his sixty-fifth year, the worn-out, gouty, suffering old man was taken possession of by two passions strangely out of keeping with his age and the bent of his mind. It was a...