Aesthetic Poetry | Page 8

blending the national
and legendary elements so well expressed by Herder with the highest
effusions of dramatic poetry, partly creative and partly imitative of the
Greek models, in Schiller and Goethe.
Modern German literature presents a very remarkable spectacle, though
far from unique in history, for there we see criticism begetting genius.
Lessing, the founder of the modern German drama, sought to banish all
pomp from the theatre, and in doing so some critics have thought that
he banished the ideal and fell into affectation. At any rate, his
"Dramaturgy" is full of original ideas, and when he drew out the sphere
of poetry contrasted with that of painting in his "Laocoon," all

Germany resounded with his praise. "With that delight," says Goethe,
"we saluted this luminous ray which a thinker of the first order caused
to break forth from its clouds. It is necessary to have all the fire of
youth to conceive the effect produced on us by the 'Laocoon' of
Lessing." Another great contemporary, whose name is imperishable as
that of art, struck a mortal blow at a false taste in the study of the
antique. Winckelmann questioned the works of the Greek chisel with
an intelligence full of love, and initiated his countrymen into poetry by
a feeling for sculpture! What an enthusiasm he displayed for classical
beauty! what a worship of the form! what a fervor of paganism is found
in its eloquent pages when he also comments on the admirable group of
the Laocoon, or the still purer masterpiece of the Apollo of Belvedere.
These men were the vanguard of the great Germanic army; Schiller and
Goethe alone formed its main column. In them German poetry shows
itself in its perfection, and completely realizes the ideal designed for it
by the critic. Every factitious precept and conventional law was now
overthrown; these poetical Protestants broke away entirely from the
yoke of tradition. Yet their genius was not without a rule. Every work
bears in itself the organic laws of its development. Thus, although they
laugh at the famous precept of the three unities, it is because they dig
still deeper down to the root of things, to grasp the true principle from
which the precept issued. "Men have not understood," said Goethe, "the
basis of this law. The law of the comprehensive--'das Fassliche'--is the
principle; and the three unities have only value as far as they attain it.
When they become an obstacle to the comprehension it is madness to
wish to observe them. The Greeks themselves, from whom the rule is
derived, did not always follow it. In the 'Phaeton' of Euripides, and in
other pieces, there was change, place; accordingly they prefer to give a
perfect exposition of their subject, rather than blindly respect a law
never very essential in itself. The pieces of Shakspeare violate in the
highest degree the unity of time and of place; but they are full of
comprehensiveness; nothing is easier to grasp, and for that reason they
would have found favor with the Greeks. The French poets tried to
obey exactly the law of the three unities; but they violate the law of
comprehensiveness, as they do not expound dramatic subjects by
dramas but by recitals."

Poetical creation was therefore viewed as free, but at the same time
responsible. Immediately, as if fecundity were the reward of
correctness, the German theatre became filled with true and living
characters. The stage widens under their steps that they may have room
to move. History with its great proportions and its terrible lessons, is
now able to take place on the stage. The whole Thirty Years' War
passes before us in "Wallenstein." We hear the tumult of camps, the
disorder of a fanatical and undisciplined army, peasants, recruits,
sutlers, soldiers. The illusion is complete, and enthusiasm breaks out
among the spectators. Similar merits attach to many other of Schiller's
plays.
This new drama, which seemed to give all to the natural sphere,
concedes still more to the ideal. An able critic has said the details
which are the truth of history are also its poetry. Here the German
school professes a principle of the highest learning, and one that seems
to be borrowed from its profoundest philosophers; it is that of the
universal beauty of life, of the identity of beauty and existence. "Our
aesthetics," says Goethe, "speak a great deal of poetical or antipoetical
subjects; fundamentally there is no subject that has not its poetry; it is
for the poet to find it there."
Schiller and Goethe divide the empire over modern German poetry, and
represent its two principal powers; the one, Schiller, impassioned and
lyrical, pours his soul over all the subjects he touches; in him every
composition, ode, or drama is always one of his noble ideas, borrowing