15 MAY 1858, Page 17

MADAME DE PONTES' POETS AND POETRY OF GERMANY. * THE object

of Madame L. Davesies de Pontes' volumes is to give a history, of German poetry from the oldest poems that have been preserved, down to the productions of this generation, the lives of the authors, when known, being combined with a critically de- scriptive notice of their works. Some matter of a more general character is occasionally introduced. A comparison between Eastern and Greek and Northern mythology opens the work, and in its course is presented a view of Charlemagne and his era—of the influence of the Crusades, and a discussion of other historical causes of excitement in the national mind, down to the great literary revival of the last century.

Thoroughly to carry out such an undertaking as the authoress proposes to herself would be difficult. It requires great critical acumen and poetical power, and a self-denial which is rare, to write not only the history of the poetry of another nation but also to attempt by translation to convey an adequate idea of the styles and genius of authors. Madame de Pontes brings good will but scarcely a sufficient genius to the latter branch of her undertaking. In her translations of what are called " speci- mens" of national poetry we may find variety of subject and feeling, possibly of manner ; but there is very slight gradation of merit. As regards inherent capability, all the poets seem to be upon a par. Madame de Pontes has fulfilled the most difficult part of a translator's task, the exhibition of the peculiarities of her originals. In the hands of a judicious translator the senti? meats of course are safe : she also does in some degree vary style and metre; but the poetical spirit is too level and uniform. We hear of writers with the vigorous or " etherial " quality which constitutes the essence of poetry ; and of others who rather verge upon the prosaic ; but they all show very nearly alike in the specimens presented to the reader. In other respects the task is well executed. To a great extent, a book of this kind must be a compilation. The lives and writings of contemporary and distinguished modern authors may be tho- roughly mastered ; but the secondary verse-writers of the modern period beginning with the time of le Grand Monarque, and the elder writers in Latin and old German, sometimes difficult to understand, and in tedious stories of knight-errantry almost im- possible to read, will be perused in their entirety by very few except archaeological editors. There is, however, nothing of the "jogtrot" or heavy character of compilation about the Poets and Poetry of Germany. Madame de Pontes has succeeded in pro- ducing a spirited and readable survey of the poetical literature of Germany, with specimens of the most remarkable poems and the lives of the writers. It may be recommended to the general reader not only for its information but its interest. This poetical literature may be broadly divided into three classes ; the ancient, the mediaeval, and the modern, each admitting of various subdivisions. For though the modern may properly begin with the latter part of the seventeenth century, there were verse- writers in vogue during the first half, and a new school began in the middle or about the end of the last century with Schiller and Goethe. Whether the most ancient Teutonic poems were alto- gether indigenous may be doubted ; Scandinavia seeming to have valid claims to be their originator. Beyond all doubt this old school possesses greater force and raciness, however rugged, than those which followed rather than succeeded. Combined with this force and raciness are a lofty sense of honour born of the old Norse blood, and a real delicacy of feeling towards woman, mingled with much that is unsophisticated or something more, as the administering corporal chastisement to a wife. The claims to epical importance which enthusiastic Germans put forward for some of the early cyclical poems, and especially The Nibelungen- lied, have no real foundation. There is no unity of action or even of story; the marvellous runs into the impossible, the homely into the gross, and there is not only a want of art but of the sus- tained power necessary for an heroic poem.-1- With poems of the first class the indigenous or national cha- racter of German poetry in a measure terminates, except so far as it may be distinguished by the individual character of the writer. The subjects were no longer of the North or the nation. The "gay and gallant troubadour" set themes of love to the Germans ; tales of King Arthur, adventures of knight errantry, mingled of course with the black arts, became the fashion, as they were indeed throughout Europe. The original authorship of some of these poems is a matter of dispute, it being doubtful whether they were French or German. The authorship of a particular poem is of little importance in the question of nationality. Ideas, ground-

* Poets and Poetry of Germany. Biographical and Critical Notices. By Ma- dame L. Davfnies de Pontds Translator of " Egmont," " Kornees Life and Works," ke. In two volumes. Published by Chapman and Hall. 1- There is a notice of Mr. Lettsan'e translation of The Nibelungenlied in the SPeetator for 18,10, page 447. work, charaoter, incident—all that constitutes form as well as life, were foreign or common to literary Europe. The most ori- ginal productions were the satires directed against abuses, espe- cially among the religious orders. These, however, were not pe- culiar to Germany, and were rather scholarly than national ; though those of the Germans might be the most numerous and the best. A similar remark applies to the mysteries and dramas, which were also European. There is an exception to these obser- vations in the institution of the Meistersangers ; clubs as we should call them of the humbler classes, who met to sing the songs of those among them whom the gods had made versifiers. It was only in a land given to song that an order like this could have struck root and flourished.

"These simple and untaught efforts of rude and humble minds among the lower orders, have frequently been the subject of contemptuous pleasantry. True, they are generally dry and uninteresting, and the rhymes in which they are composed often little better than doggrel ; but we must not forget that, by their means, poetry hitherto confined to one order alone, now first began to develop itself among other classes of society and to assume an independence of thought and variety of form to which it had hitherto been a stranger. "How the institution of the Meistersiingers first arose, we cannot exactly discover. By some authors they have been attributed to Frauenlob, but of this there is no satisfactory proof. All that is certain is that they flourished in their full glory in the middle of the fifteenth century, and that, towards the end of the sixteenth, the history of their origin had sunk into oblivion. The towns of southern Germany, Mainz, Augsburg, Nurn- berg, and Ulm were their chosen resorts. In some, the association was composed of a single set of workmen, all belonging to the same trade, none else being admitted, while in others, it was formed of all the restless joyous spirits who had any love of verse or taste for music. 'When the business of the -week was over and Sunday had arrived with its quiet and repose, the members of the humble society would assemble in the schoolroom, festively ornamented for the occasion, and there, surrounded by attentive and admiring listeners, commence the grand business of the evening. The member who hid most distinguished himself in the previous occasions by skill, either in verse or music, and the best singer were called forward and crowned by the president with a wreath of flowers ; an ornament was then hung round their neck, and each member hastened to produce any con- tribution he had made since the last meeting. These, if approved, were carefully written down in a large book in text hand ; the assembly then joined in chorus, and when the favourite psalms or hymns had been sung, the honest burghers and their wives and daughters, who seem generally to have been present on the occasion, separated and returned to their homes."

There seems nothing to prevent the existence of such a body in. Germany now ; for though the people may have grown more cri- tical, their poets must have become better instructed ; if instruc- tion does much more for a poet than enable him to imitate. However, the order has passed away, though it survived to the present generation, and then departed in due form. " It was in the middle of the fifteenth century that the Mcistersingers real- ly flourished ; but the institution continued, though languishing, till the end of the seventeenth, amid all the calamities of the thirty years' war; nay, at Ulm, it survived even the changes which the French revolution effected throughout Europe, and Villmsr assures us that, as late as 1830, twelve old sing- meisters yet remained who, after being driven from one asylum to another, sang their ancient melodies from memory in the little hostelry where the workmen, in the evening, met to drink and jest together. In 1839, four only were yet living, and on the 21st October, these veterans assembled with great solemnity, declared the Meistergesang for ever closed, and presented their songs, hymns, books, and pictures, to a more modern musical institu- tion, the Liederkriinze' of Ulm, with the wish that, even as the Meister- singers had, for centuries, invited the pious fathers of the church to hear their lays, even so the banner of the Liederkranze' might wave for cen- turies, and their strains charm the latest posterity."

We have formerly indicated our opinion that the substantial framework of most historical works of imagination, is rather due to traditional influences than to the writer ; that it is the thought which mainly belongs to his invention. Lord Lindsay and others conceive that the early notions of monsters—" hydras and gor- gons, and chimeras dire," with the griffins and dragons of a later day, originated in antediluvian traditions, or in the actual existence in the primeval state of the earth, of gigantic reptiles long extinct. Homer not only derived his story but his charac- ters, manners, and probably his incidents, from tradition ; Shak- spere borrowed his plots ; and Mr. Wright has proved that the Vision of Dante, at least as regards the Inferno, existed in several forms before he turned it to poetical use, and doubtless in its ori- gin was a real dream of some literary monk. Goethe's Faust we all know was founded on a story which had become familiar if not popular in Europe. Madame De Pont& account of the dif- ferent German plays upon the subject, show that the modern poet was indebted to more than general story. Dramas, however, they can hardly be called, being often intended for puppets. Unless translation and condensation have done a good deal for one of the older puppet plays, it had power as well as playwright's art.

" Among the Faust dramas, as they were called, which were represented on this mimic stage, one apparently the most popular, has been preserved to us. It thus commences :

" FAUST ALONE IN HIS STUDY.

" So far have I brought it with learning and might,

That everywhere I am laughed at outright ; All books and all learning I've made my own, And yet cannot find the philosopher's stone. Jurisprudence and medicine I know by heart ; There's no help save in the wizard's art ; Theology too is useless quite. Who'll pay me for many a sleepless night! I've not a single coat to my back, And creditors too are upon my track. With hell I must bind myself in my need, All nature's secret depths to read.

" He then summons the evil spirits to his presence ; when they appear, he inquires whether they are men or women ; they reply : we have no sex.' To his further questions as to what form lies hid beneath their grey

covering, they answer : ' we have no form of our own, but, according to thy pleasure, we will assume any in which thou desirest to see us clad; we shall always reflect thine own thoughts.' After the pact has been signed by Which he forfeits his sour, on condition that all things, in heaven and earth Shall be made known to him, Faust inquires about the construction of the celestial and infernal regions, and having obtained the desired information, observes that it must be too cold in the one, and too hot in the other ; and that, after all, earth must be the most agreeable place to dwell in. The &o- nions then present him with a magic ring, through the power of which, he Suddenly beholds himself transformed into a blooming youth, his threadbare garments changed to the richest knightly attire, and the loveliest and no- blest of dames and damsels only too proud to accept his homage."

There is a bitter satire in the following scene from another play- " There is another puppet-show of which Faust is likewise the hero, but where the daemon is called, not Mephistopheles, but Asteroth. The piece commences by Faust's declaration that he is so poor as to be always obliged to go on foot ; that nor even a milkmaid will kiss him, and that he would glad] sell himself to the Devil, to get a horse and a lovely princess. The Devil appears accordingly ; first in the shape of sundry animals, of a swine, an ox, and a monkey. But Faust scornfully tells him he must look more terrible than that, if he expects to frighten him. He then enters as a roar- ing lion, then se a hissing serpent, but in vain ; at last he presents himself in a human form of the fairest proportions and wrapped in a gorgeous scar- let mantle. In reply- to Faust's expression of astonishment! he reminds him that there is nothing at once more hideous and more terrible in crea- tion than man ; that he unites in himself all the vices of the brute crea- tion; that he is filthy as the swine, brutal as the ox, ridiculous as the ape, violent as the lion, venomous as the serpent."

The history of Modern Poetry, for about the last century and a half, beginning with the once celebrated Klopstock, is not so in- teresting as the previous part of the work. It is less an historical survey of German poetry than a series of separate lives of poets ; and the occasional efforts to connect them with a continuous view fall somewhat short. The authors as well as their writings are better known to the public through books, biographical notices, or articles in periodicals, than are those of the earlier periods. Some poets perhaps are selected less for their literary position than because their career was striking, and ample biographical materials were at hand. These "lives," however, were necessary to com- plete the subject, and they form a useful poetical repertory. Goethe and Schiller are omitted ; probably from their weight of character rendering it impracticable to deal with them in the space at the writer's disposal.

German poetry has been the subject of this notice ; but besides the lives of the poets and-a consideration of historical events which influence a nation's mind, matters have been introduced into the work, to indicate the opinions, prejudices, or superstitions of the time. Here is a summary of the witchcraft persecutions in- creasing in Germany as in other other places on the Reformation. Luther himself maintained the existence of witches and the right to punish them. It is a more shocking picture than was afforded by any other country.

" In his eyes, witches were not human beings. They were the Devil per- sonified and, as such, excited no compassion in his mind.

"At first the potentates spiritual and temporal hesitated to sanction these fearful practices ; but, as two thirds of the possessions of the hapless victims were forfeited to church and state, their scruples were quickly silenced. The rest was assigned to the informers, the hangmen, &c., an arrangement which called forth whole swarms of this hateful brood. In a single village, containing two hundred souls, the executioner earned, in three months, no less a sum than one hundred and sixty thalers or about twenty-six pounds sterling by the burning of Hags alone, and it is tolerably certain that at least one half of the accusations were the result of mere cupidity. Rich and poor, young and old, were alike subject to this deadly suspicion, Every earthly misfortune was attributed to sorcery, and those who doubted its ex- istence were the first victims. If the wretched beings refused to confess, they were subjected to the most fearful tortures. By the law, indeed, these were limited to a quarter of an hour at a time ; but they were often con- tinued, with little intermission, for days together, till the miserable crea- tures, maddened by agony, confessed everything that was asked of them sad more to boot. Some few, nevertheless, found in their sense of outraged innocence, an almost superhuman fortitude. A maiden of lrim, of good family, endured the rack nine times, and still persisted in her declaration of innocence. After a long imprisonment, she was at length released to die soon after, the victim of the fearful sufferings she had undergone. Those who revoked their confession were invariably burnt alive ; the rest occa- sionally obtained the commutation of their sentence to strangling ere the flames reached them. In one small town in Bavaria, forty-eight women were burnt in the year 1582. In the bishopric of Bamberg, out of a population of one hundred thousand souls, two hundred anti twenty-five women were consigned to the flames between 1627 and 1630. In short, in the course of the century during which this fearful persecution was at its height in Germany, from 1580 to 1680, it is calculated that above a hundred thousand individuals, nine tenths of whom were women, were its victims. To the honour of humanity be it said, some voices were raised against this bloodthirsty insanity ; but they were drowned in the general clamour. In every part of Germany, Protestant or Catholic, the same atrocities were committed. At length, in the year 11631, the noble-hearted Count Frederick Stein, himself a member of the order of Jesuits, an order which had been among the most violent de- nouncers of sorcery, ventured to step boldly forward and declare that, among the many whom he had accompanied to the scaffold, there was not one whom he could confidently declare guilty. ' Treat me so,' he added, treat in this manner the judges or the heads of the church, subject us to the same tortures, and see if you will not discover sorcerers in us all.' " We are not in general desirous of remarking on small matters of a formal or technical kind ; but the confusion in chronology of the printer or the writer of this book, is really something extra- ordinary. Wieland for instance is rightly said to have been born in 1733 ; by 1778 he is represented to have "reached his seven- tieth year," and a passage about his translation of Cicero's Let- ters would make him eighty in 1809. Klopstock was born in 1724 ; in 1802 he is reported as " sixty-seven years of age," and, not to weary by details, Herder dies in 1893 !