Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry | Page 3

and the most terrible being that of insanity. It is of course
a matter of common knowledge that chronic melancholy or the
persistent brooding over personal misfortune is an almost inevitable
preliminary to mental derangement. And when this melancholy takes
root in the finely organized mind of genius, it is only to be expected
that the result will be even more disastrous than in the case of the
ordinary mind. Lombroso holds the opinion that if men of genius are
not all more or less insane, that is, if the "spheres of influence" of
genius and insanity do not actually overlap, they are at least contiguous
at many points, so that the transition from the former to the latter is
extremely easy and even natural. But genius in itself is not an abnormal
mental condition. It does not even consist of an extraordinary memory,
vivid imagination, quickness of judgment, or of a combination of all of
these. Kant defines genius as the talent of invention. Originality and
productiveness are the fundamental elements of genius. And it is an
almost instinctive force which urges the author on in his creative work.
In the main his activity is due less to free will than to this inner
compulsion.
"Ich halte diesen Drang vergebens auf, Der Tag und Nacht in meinem
Busen wechselt. Wenn ich nicht sinnen oder dichten soll, So ist das
Leben mir kein Leben mehr,"
says Goethe's Tasso.[5] If this impulse of genius is embodied in a
strong physical organism, as for example in the case of Shakespeare
and Goethe, there need be no detriment to physical health; otherwise,
and especially if there is an inherited tendency to disease, there is

almost sure to be a physical collapse. Specialists in the subject have
pointed out that violent passions are even more potent in producing
mental disease than mere intellectual over-exertion. And these are
certainly characteristic in a very high degree of the mind of genius. It
has often been remarked that it is the corona spinosa of genius to feel
all pain more intensely than do other men. Schopenhauer says "der, in
welchem der Genius lebt, leidet am meisten." It is only going a step
further then, when Hamerling writes to his friend Möser: "Schliesslich
ist es doch nur der Kranke, der sich das Leid der ganzen Welt zu
Herzen nimmt."
Radestock, in his study "Genie und Wahnsinn," mentions and
elaborates among others the following points of resemblance between
the mind of genius and the insane mind: an abnormal activity of the
imagination, very rapid succession of ideas, extreme concentration of
thought upon a single subject or idea, and lastly, what would seem the
cardinal point, a weakness of will-energy, the lack of that force which
alone can serve to bring under control all these other unruly elements
and give balance to what must otherwise be an extremely one-sided
mechanism. Here again the exception may be taken to prove the rule. It
is not too much, I think, to assert that Goethe could never have become
so uniquely great, not even through the splendid versatility of his
genius, but for that incomparable self-control, which he made the
watchword of his life. And in the case of the poet of Weltschmerz the
presence or absence of this quality may even decide whether he shall
rise superior to his beclouded condition or perish in the gloom. The
conclusion at which Radestock arrives is that genius, as the expression
of the most intense mental activity, occupies the middle ground, as it
were, between the normal healthy state on the one hand, and the
abnormal, pathological state on the other, and has without doubt many
points of contact with mental disease; and that although the elements
which genius has in common with insanity may not be strong enough in
themselves to induce the transition from the former to the latter state,
yet when other aggravating causes are added, such as physical disease,
violent emotions or passions, overwork, the pressure or distress of
outward circumstances, the highly gifted individual is much more liable
to cross the line of demarkation between the two mental states than is

the average mind, which is more remote from that line. If this can be
asserted of genius in general, it must be even more particularly and
widely applicable in reference to a combination of genius and
Weltschmerz. We shall find pathetic examples in the first two types
selected for examination.
Having thus introduced the subject in its most general bearings and
aspects, it remains for us to review briefly its historical background.
Weltschmerz is essentially a symptom of a period of conflict, of
transition. The powerful reaction which marks the eighteenth century--a
reaction against all traditional intellectual authority, and a struggle for
the emancipation of the individual, of research, of inspiration