The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume I | Page 3

University of Berlin. The last two volumes will be in charge of Professor Julius Petersen of the University of Basel. The introductions to Goethe and Schiller have been prepared by Professor Calvin Thomas, of Columbia University; that to the Romantic Philosophers by Professor Frank Thilly, of Cornell University; that to Richard Wagner by Professor W. R. Spalding, of Harvard University. And, similarly, every important author in this collection will be introduced by some authoritative and well known specialist.
The crux of the whole undertaking lies in the correctness and adequacy of the translations. How difficult, if not impossible, a really satisfactory translation is, especially in lyric poetry, no one realizes more clearly than the editors. Their only comfort is that they have succeeded in obtaining the assistance of many well trained and thoroughly equipped scholars, among them such names of poets as Hermann Hagedorn, Percy MacKaye, George Sylvester Viereck, and Martin Schütze.
Kuno Francke.
PUBLISHERS' FOREWORD
The German Classics is the first work issued by The German Publication Society in pursuance of a comprehensive plan to open to the English-speaking people of the world the treasures of German thought and achievement in Literature, Art and Science.
In the production of this monumental work the thanks and appreciation of the Publishers are especially due to Hugo Reisinger, Esq., whose loyal support and constant encouragement have made possible its publication.
General Introduction
By Richard M. Meyer, Ph.D. Professor of German Literature, University of Berlin.
Men formerly pictured the origin and development of a literature as an order less play of incalculable forces; out of a seething chaos forms more or less definite arose, and then, one day, behold! the literary earth was there, with sun and moon, water and mountains, animals and men. This conception was intimately connected with that of the origin of individual literary compositions. These likewise--since the new "theory of genius," spreading from England, had gained recognition throughout the whole of Europe, especially in those countries speaking the Germanic languages--were imagined to be a mere succession of inspirations and even of improvisations. This view of the subject can no longer be held either wholly or in part, though in the origin and growth of literature, as in every other origin and development, much manifestly remains that is still incomprehensible and incalculable. But even as regards the individual literary work, writers themselves--as latterly Richard Dehmel--have laid almost too strong an emphasis on the element of conscious deliberation. And concerning the whole literary product of an individual, which seems to offer the most instructive analogies to the literary achievement of a people, we received a short time ago a remarkable opinion from Carl Spitteler. He asserts that he is guided in his choice of definite styles and definite forms by an absolutely clear purpose; that he has, for example, essayed every kind of metre which could possibly be suited to his "cosmic" epic, or that he has written a novelette solely in order to have once written a novelette. Although in these confessions, as well as in Edgar Allen Poe's celebrated _Poet's Art_, self-delusion and pleasure in the paradoxical may very likely be mingled, it still remains true that such dicta as these point to certain peculiarities in the development of literatures. Experiments with all kinds of forms, imitation of certain literary genres without intrinsic necessity, and deliberate selection of new species, play a larger part in the history of modern German literature than people for a long time wished to admit. It is true, however, that all this experimenting, imitating, and speculating, in the end serves a higher necessity, as well in the poet of genius as in a great literature.
Three kinds of forces virtually determine the general trend of all artistic development as, indeed, of all other forms of evolution--forces which constitute the sum total of those that we comprehend under the joint name of tradition, a sum total of progressive tendencies which we will designate as esthetic ideals, and, mediating between the two, the _typical development of the individuals themselves_--above all, naturally, individuals of genius who really create literature.
These powers are present everywhere, but in very different proportion. Characteristic of Romance literatures and also of the English, is the great predominance of the conservative elements. Thus not only is the literature of the constitutional mother-country democratic, but also the literature of France, otherwise so decidedly aristocratic: a majority dictates its laws to the distinguished individual and is inclined to ostracize him, if too headstrong, and exile him from the "Republic of Letters." This, for instance, is what happened to Lord Byron among the British. On the other hand, German literature, like Germanic literatures in general, is disposed to concede, at least at times, a dictatorial leadership to the individual, even at the cost of tradition--as, for example, to a Klopstock, a Goethe, or a Richard Wagner.