Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry | Page 8

Du den Don Carlos liest, will ich ihn auch lesen."[28] It was during this time too that that he became so ardent an admirer of Schubart and Ossian. "Da leg' ich meinen Ossian weg und komme zu Dir," he writes in 1788 to his friend Nast. "Ich habe meine Seele geweidet an den Helden des Barden, habe mit ihm getrauert, wann er trauert über sterbende M?dchen."[29] There is not a sensuous note in all H?lderlin's poems or letters to Louise. Typical are the lines which he addresses to her on his departure from Maulbronn:
Lass sie drohen, die Stürme, die Leiden, Lass trennen--der Trennung Jahre Sie trennen uns nicht! Sie trennen uns nicht! Denn mein bist du! Und über das Grab hinaus Soll sie dauren, die unzertrennbare Liebe.
O! wenn's einst da ist Das grosse selige Jenseits, Wo die Krone dem leidenden Pilger, Die Palme dem Sieger blinkt, Dann Freundin--lohnet auch Freundschaft-- Auch Freundschaft der Ewige.[30]
The second bearing which his relations to Louise have upon his Weltschmerz lies in the fact that his love ended in disappointment. This is true not only of this particular episode, not only of all his love-affairs, but it may even be said that disappointment was the fate to which he found himself doomed in all his aspirations. And in the persistency with which this evil angel pursued his footsteps through life may be found one of the chief causes of the early collapse of his faculties. What David Müller[31] and Hermann Fischer[32] have said in their essays in regard to this point--that H?lderlin did not become insane because his life was a succession of unsatisfactory situations and painful disappointments, but because he had not the strength to work himself out of these situations into more favorable ones--states only half the case. True, a stronger mental organization might have overcome these or even greater difficulties; Schiller, Herder, Fichte are examples; but not all of H?lderlin's failures and disappointments were the result of his weakness, and so while it is right to state that a stronger and more robust nature would have conquered in the fight, it is also fair to say that H?lderlin would have had a good chance of winning, had fortune been more kind. For this reason these external influences must be reckoned with as an important cause of his Weltschmerz and subsequently of his insanity.
This suggests an interesting point of comparison--if I may be permitted to anticipate somewhat--with Lenau, the second type selected. H?lderlin earnestly pursued happiness and contentment, but it eluded him at every step. Lenau on the contrary reached a point in his Weltschmerz where he refused to see anything in life but pain, wilfully thrusting from him even such happiness as came within his reach.
We may postpone any detailed reference to H?lderlin's relations with Susette Gontard, which were vastly more important in their influence upon the poet's character and Weltschmerz, until we come to the discussion of his "Hyperion," of which Susette, under the pseudonym of Diotima, forms one of the central figures.
To speak of all the disappointments which fell to H?lderlin's lot would practically require the writing of his biography from the time of his graduation from Tübingen to his return from Bordeaux, almost the entire period of his sane manhood. Unsuccessful in his first position as a tutor, and unable, after having abandoned this, to provide even a meagre living for himself with his pen, his migration to Frankfort to the house of the merchant Gontard at last gave him a hope of better things, but a hope which soon proved vain. Following close upon these disappointments was his failure to carry out a project which he had long cherished, of establishing a literary journal; then came his dismissal from a situation which he had just entered upon in Switzerland. On his return he wrote to Schiller for help and advice, and his failure to receive a reply grieved him deeply. We can only surmise that it was a cruel disappointment, finally, which caused his sudden departure from Bordeaux, and brought him back a mental wreck to his mother's home. Even as early as 1788 H?lderlin complains bitterly in the poem "Der Lorbeer," in which he eulogizes the poets Klopstock and Young and expresses his own ambition to aspire to their greatness:
Schon so manche Früchte sch?ner Keime Logen grausam mir ins Angesicht.[33]
As the years passed, this feeling of disappointment and disillusion became more and more intense and bitter. A stanza from one of his more mature poems (1795) "An die Natur," will serve to illustrate the sentiment which pervades almost all his writings:
Tot ist nun, die mich erzog und stillte, Tot ist nun die jugendliche Welt, Diese Brust, die einst ein Himmel füllte, Tot und dürftig wie ein Stoppelfeld; Ach es singt der Frühling meinen Sorgen Noch, wie einst,