The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany | Page 8

others.
Most valuable information on Hindu religion was given by the Dutch
preacher Abraham Roger in his well known book _De Open-Deure tot
het Verborgen Heydendom_, published at Leyden in 1651, two years
after the author's death. This book also gave to the West the first
specimen of Sanskrit literature in the shape of a Dutch version of two
hundred maxims of Bhartrhari, not a direct translation from the
Sanskrit, but based on oral communication imparted by a learned
Brahman Padmanaba.[59] As a rule the rendering is very faithful,
sometimes even literal. The maxims were translated into German by C.
Arnold and were published at Nuremberg in 1663.
This, however, ended the progress of Sanskrit literature in Europe for

the time being. Information came in very slowly. The _Lettres
Édifiantes_ of the Jesuits, and the accounts of travellers like Sonnerat
began to shed additional light on the religious customs of India, but its
sacred language remained a secret. In 1785, Herder wrote that what
Europe knew of Hindu literature was only late legends, that the
Sanskrit language as well as the genuine Veda would probably for a
long time remain unknown.[60] Sir William Jones, however, had
founded the Asiatic Society a year before and the first step towards the
discovery of Sanskrit had really thus been taken.
But let us consider what bearing all this had on German poetry. In this
field the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were desperately dreary.
In the former century the leading thinkers of Germany were absorbed in
theological controversy, while in the next the Thirty Years' War
completely crushed the spirit of the nation. There is little poetry in this
period that calls for even passing notice in this investigation. Paul
Fleming, although he was with Olearius in Persia, has written nothing
that would interest us here. Andreas Gryphius took the subject for his
drama "Catharina von Georgien" (1657) from Persian history. It is the
story of the cruel execution of the Georgian queen by order of Shah
'Abbas in 1624.[61] Nor is Oriental influence in the eighteenth century
more noticeable. Occasionally an Oriental touch is brought in. Pfeffel
makes his "Bramine" read a lesson to bigots; Matthias Claudius in his
well-known poem makes Herr Urian pay a visit to the Great Mogul;
Bürger, in his salacious story of the queen of Golkonde, transports the
lovers to India; Lessing, in "Minna von Barnhelm" (Act i. Sc. 12)
represents Werner as intending to take service with Prince Heraklius of
Persia, and he chooses an Oriental setting for his "Nathan der Weise."

In the prose writings of this period Oriental influence is much more
discernible. In the literature dealing with magic Zoroaster always
played a prominent part. The invention of the Cabala was commonly
ascribed to him.[62] European writers on the black art, as for instance
Bodinus, whose _De Magorum Dæmonomania_ was translated by
Fischart (Strassburg, 1591), repeat about Zoroaster all the fables found
in classical or patristic writers. So the Iranian sage figures prominently

also in the Faust-legend. He is the prince of magicians whose book
Faust studies so diligently that he is called a second Zoroastris.[63]
This book passes into the hands of Faust's pupil Christoph Wagner,
who uses it as diligently as his master.[64]
In all this folkbook-literature India is a mere name. Thus in the oldest
Faust-book of 1587 the sorcerer makes a journey in the air through
England, Spain, France, Sweden, Poland, Denmark, India, Africa and
Persia, and finally comes to Morenland.[65]
Of all the prose-writings, however, the novel, which began to flourish
luxuriously in the seventeenth century, showed the most marked
tendency to make use of Eastern scenery and episodes, and incidentally
to exhibit the author's erudition on everything Oriental. Thus
Grimmelshausen transports his hero Simplicissimus into Asia through
the device of Tartar captivity. Lohenstein, in his ultra-Teutonic
romance of Arminius, manages to introduce an Armenian princess and
a prince from Pontus. The latter, as we learn from the autobiography
with which he favors us in the fifth book, has been in India. He took
with him a Brahman sage, who burned himself on reaching Greece.
Evidently Lohenstein had read Arrian's description of the burning of
Kalanos (Arrian vii. 2, 3). The Asiatische Banise of Heinrich Anselm
von Ziegler-Kliphausen, perhaps the most popular German novel of the
seventeenth century, was based directly on the accounts of travellers to
Farther India, not on Greek or Latin writings.[66] Other authors who
indulged their predilection for Oriental scenery were Buchholtz in his
Herkules und Valisca (1659), Happel in Der Asiatische Onogambo
(Hamb. 1673), Bohse (Talander) in Die durchlauchtigste Alcestis aus
Persien (Leipz. 1689) and others.[67]
The most striking instance of the Oriental tendency is furnished by
Grimmelshausen's Joseph, first published probably in 1667.[68] Here
we meet the famous story of Yusuf and Zalicha as it