Germany from the Earliest Period, vol 4 | Page 5

Wolfgang Menzel
and the Swiss, Albert von Haller, gave their descriptions of nature to the world. Brokes, in his "Earthly Pleasures in God," was faithful, often Homeric, in his descriptions, while Haller depictured his native Alps with unparalleled sublimity. The latter was succeeded by a Swiss school, which imitated the witty and liberal-minded criticisms of Addison and other English writers, and opposed French taste and Gottsched. At its head stood Bodmer and Breitinger, who recommended nature as a guide, and instead of the study of French literature, that of the ancient classics and of English authors. It was also owing to their exertions that Müller published an edition of Rudiger Maness's collection of Swabian Minnelieder, the connecting link between modern and ancient German poetry. Still, notwithstanding their merit as critics, they were no poets, and merely opened to others the road to improvement. Hagedorn, although frivolous in his ideas, was graceful and easy in his versification; but the most eminent poet of the age was Gellert of Leipzig, A.D. 1769, whose tales, fables, and essays brought him into such note as to attract the attention of Frederick the Great, who, notwithstanding the contempt in which he held the poets of Germany, honored him with a personal visit.
Poets and critics now rose in every quarter and pitilessly assailed Gottsched, the champion of Gallomania. They were themselves divided into two opposite parties, into Anglomanists and Gr?comanists, according to their predilection for modern English literature or for that of ancient Greece and Rome. England, grounded, as upon a rock, on her self-gained constitution, produced men of the rarest genius in all the higher walks of science and literature, and her philosophers, naturalists, historians, and poets exercised the happiest influence over their Teutonic brethren, who sought to regain from them the vigor of which they had been deprived by France. The power and national learning of Germany break forth in Klopstock, whose genius vainly sought a natural garb and was compelled to assume a borrowed form. He consecrated his muse to the service of religion, but, in so doing, imitated the Homeric hexameters of Milton; he sought to arouse the national pride of his countrymen by recalling the deeds of Hermann (Armin) and termed himself a bard, but, in the Horatian metre of his songs, imitated Ossian, the old Scottish bard, and was consequently labored and affected in his style. Others took the lesser English poets for their model, as, for instance, Kleist, who fell at Kunersdorf, copied Thomson in his "Spring"; Zachari?, Pope, in his satirical pieces; Hermes, in "The Travels of Sophia," the humorous romances of Richardson; Müller von Itzehoe, in his "Siegfried von Lindenberg," the comic descriptions of Smollett. The influence of the celebrated English poets, Shakespeare, Swift, and Sterne, on the tone of German humor and satire, was still greater. Swift's first imitator, Liscow, displayed considerable talent, and Rabener, a great part of whose manuscripts was burned during the siege of Dresden in the seven years' war, wrote witty, and at the same time instructive, satires on the manners of his age. Both were surpassed by Lichtenberg, the little hump-backed philosopher of G?ttingen, whose compositions are replete with grace. The witty and amiable Thümmmel was also formed on an English model, and Archenholz solely occupied himself with transporting the customs and literature of England into Germany. If Shakespeare has not been without influence upon Goethe and Schiller, Sterne, in his "Sentimental Journey," touched an echoing chord in the German's heart by blending pathos with his jests. Hippel was the first who, like him, united wit with pathos, mockery with tears.
In Klopstock, Anglo and Graecomania were combined. The latter had, however, also its particular school, in which each of the Greek and Roman poets found his imitator. Voss, for instance, took Homer for his model, Ramler, Horace, Gleim, Anacreon, Gessner, Theocritus, Cramer, Pindar, Lichtwer, ?sop, etc. The Germans, in the ridiculous attempt to set themselves up as Greeks, were, in truth, barbarians. But all was forced, unnatural, and perverted in this aping age. Wieland alone was deeply sensible of this want of nature, and hence arose his predilection for the best poets of Greece and France. The German muse, led by his genius, lost her ancient stiffness and acquired a pliant grace, to which the sternest critic of his too lax morality is not insensible. Some lyric poets, connected with the Graecomanists by the _G?ttingen Hainbund_, preserved a noble simplicity, more particularly Salis and Hòlty, and also Count Stolberg, wherever he has not been led astray by Voss's stilted manner. Matthison is, on the other hand, most tediously affected.
The German, never more at home than when abroad, boasted of being the cosmopolite he had become, made a virtue of necessity, and termed his want of patriotism, justice to others, humanity, philanthropy. Fortunately for
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