Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry | Page 9

Früchte schöner 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,
ein freundlich tröstend Lied, Aber hin ist meines Lebens Morgen,
Meines Herzens Frühling ist verblüht.[34]
In close causal connection with Hölderlin's Weltschmerz is his belief
that his life is ruled by an inexorable fate whose plaything he is. "Wenn
hinfort mich das Schicksal ergreift, und von einem Abgrund in den

andern mich wirft, und alle Kräfte in mir ertränkt und alle Gedanken,"
Hyperion exclaims.[35] He goes even further, and conceives the idea of
a sacrifice to Fate. Thus he makes Alabanda say near the close of
"Hyperion:" "Ach! weil kein Glück ist ohne Opfer, nimm als Opfer
mich, o Schicksal an, und lass die Liebenden in ihrer Freude."[36]
Wilhelm Scherer calls attention to Gervinus' remark that new
intellectual tendencies which call for unaccustomed and unusual mental
effort often prove disastrous to single individuals, and says: "Hölderlin
war also ein Opfer der Erneuerung des deutschen Lebens--seltsam, wie
der Gedanke des Opfers als ein hoher und herrlicher ihn in allen seinen
Gedichten viel beschäftigt hat."[37] But the poet does not apply this
fatalism only to himself, to the individual; he widens its influence to
humanity in general. "Wir sprechen von unserm Herzen, unsern Planen,
als wären sie unser," says Hyperion, "und es ist doch eine fremde
Gewalt, die uns herumwirft und ins Grab legt, wie es ihr gefällt, und
von der wir nicht wissen, von wannen sie kommt, noch wohin sie
geht:"[38] Perhaps nowhere better than in Hyperion's "Schicksalslied"
does he give poetic expression to this thought. Omitting the first stanza
it reads thus:
Schicksallos wie der schlafende Säugling atmen die Himmlischen;
Keusch bewahrt In bescheidener Knospe, Blühet ewig Ihnen der Geist,
Und die seligen Augen Blicken in stiller Ewiger Klarheit.
Doch uns ist gegeben, Auf keiner Stätte zu ruhn, Es schwinden, es
fallen Die leidenden Menschen Blindlings von einer Stunde zur andern,
Wie Wasser von Klippe Zu Klippe geworfen, Jahrlang ins Ungewisse
hinab.[39]
The fundamental difference between Hölderlin's "Anschauung" and
Goethe's is at once apparent when we recall the "Lied der Parzen" from
"Iphigenie." Hölderlin does not bring the blessed Genii into any
relation with mortals, but merely contrasts their free and blissful
existence, emphasizing their immunity from Fate, to which suffering
humanity is subject. But this humanity is represented by Hölderlin
characteristically as helpless, passive--"schwinden," "fallen,"
"blindlings von einer Stunde zur andern." Whereas the opening lines of

Goethe's "Parzen" strike the keynote of conflict between the gods and
men:
Es fürchte die Götter Das Menschengeschlecht! Sie halten die
Herrschaft In ewigen Händen Und können sie brauchen Wie's ihnen
gefällt. Der fürchte sie doppelt, Den je sie erheben!
And those who come to grief at the hands of the gods, are not weak
passive creatures, but heaven-scaling Titans. This points to the
antipodal difference between the characters of these two poets, and
explains in part why Goethe did not succumb to the sickly
sentimentalism of which he rid himself in "Werther." The difference
between yielding and striving resulted in the difference between an
acute case of Weltschmerz in the one and a healthy physical and
intellectual manhood in the other.
Thus far it has been almost entirely the personal aspect of Hölderlin's
Weltschmerz and its causes that has come under our notice. And since
he was a lyric poet, it is perhaps natural that the sorrows which
concerned him personally should find most frequent expression in his
verse. But notwithstanding the fact that this personal element is very
prominent in Hölderlin's writings, Scherer's judgment is correct when
he states: "Die Grundstimmung war eine tiefe Verbitterung gegen die
Versunkenheit des Vaterlands."[40] The reason is not far to seek,
especially when we consider the impossible demands of the poet's
extravagant idealism. The conditions in Germany which had called
forth the terrible arraignment of petty despotism, crushing militarism,
and political rottenness generally, in the works of Lenz, Klinger and
Schubart, had not abated. Schubart was one of Hölderlin's earliest
favorites, so that the latter was doubtless in this way imbued with
sentiments which could only grow stronger under the influence of his
more mature observations and experiences. Even in his eighteenth year,
in a poem "An die Demut,"[41] he gives expression in strong terms to
his patriotic feelings, in which his disgust with his faint-hearted, servile
compatriots and his defiance of "Fürstenlaune" and "Despotenblut" are
plainly evident. So too