Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry | Page 8

to a sort of visionary mysticism, and
therefore had an unwholesome influence upon the youth, who had
already been carried too far in that direction. She too was a lover of
solitude and wrote her letters to him in the stillness of the night, when
all others were asleep. There can be no doubt that she had at least some
share in determining his mental activity, especially his reading. In one
of his earliest letters to her he writes: "Weil 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 Mädchen."[29] There
is not a sensuous note in all Hölderlin'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 Hölderlin 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 Hölderlin'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 Hölderlin 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.
Hölderlin 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 Hölderlin'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 Hölderlin'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 Hölderlin 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