MOSCHZISKER'S GUIDE TO GERMAN LITERATURE. * THE author of this manual
expresses a hope that- it may become "a valued reading-book in public and private schools, and yet assist the advanced scholar in his work of study and research." We have no doubt of it. The manual is fitted for the use of those even who have been long conversant with German literature. Its chronological series of notes, biographical and critical, on the principal German authors, is useful as a book of reference ; and its extracts are interesting after the fashion of Charles Knight's "Half-hours with the Best Authors." But the chief merit of the compilation is its utility as a chrestomathia for the young who are beginning the study of German. The most original and individual author of any country is, after all, but a link in the national chain of thought. The far greater part of his ideas have been communicated to him, or at least suggested, by contemporaries and predecessors. In order that he may be understood aright, he must be read in connexion with others ; to read him alone, is much like readi g. exclusively the speeches of one of the interlocutors in a dramatic dialogue. Ex- elusive attention to one or two authors, recommended by chance %er fashion, has exercised a baneful influence over F,nglish readers of German in two ways. The presumptuous and the slaves of ,custom have unduly disparaged authors to whose meaning they had so key, owing to their ignorance of the predominating views and tone.of sentiment in the literary public,:which partly formed and was partly formed by the writings of those authors. The susceptible and enthusiastic, captivated by novelty, have on the other hand attributed an exaggerated value to the fragments of German literature with which they are acquainted. A more exten- sive knowledge of the language would have guarded them against .this, by showing them that what they have hailed as new ideas Aare in fact ideas which they would have recognized as familiar to „them had they been translated into terms and formulas in which they are .aocustomed to hear them expressed. Not a few of the
• A Guidelo German Literature; or Manual to facilitate an Acquaintance with the German Classic Authors. By Frans Adolph MoschAisker. In two volumes. Rub- /failed by Guillaume.
most eccentric aberrations of the Tractarian and Carlyle schools may be traced to this source. 'The first class of readers above alluded to have been confirmed in habits of shallow overweening nationality ; the second have been misled into habits of fantastic wordmongering. The stores of thought embodied in German literature are as varied as those which are found in our own language. Chaucer does lid differ more from the dramatists of Elizabeth's age, or both from Steele or Fielding, than the German writers of the ages of Luther and Von Hutton, Haller and Gesner, Leasing, Gothe, and Kant, differ from each other. The language, the habits of 'thought, and the sentiment of each age, vary essentially from the others ; and yet they are imbued with a strong family like- ness : had not the earlier writers thought and spoke as they did, the others might never have written at all. The more recent authors can be but imperfectly understood or appreciated by those who are altogether unacquainted with their predecessors. The history of German literature is distributed by Mr. Mosch- zisker into seven epochs. The two earliest are only of importance on account of the references and allusions to them found in later writers. Their language can scarcely be esteemed the same that is now cultivated in Germany. But the language of Veit Weber, Rudolph Agricola, and others of the age of Albrecht Durer, con- tains the rudiments of modern classical German ; that of Luther and Hans Sachs is the same dialect more fully developed; • the Ger- man of Flemming, Haller, and Gotsched, though tamer than that of their robustious predecessors, less plastic and elegant than that of the epoch which succeeded them, has many of the best charac- teristics of both ; the full meaning and power of the language are developed in the works of Gothe, Lessing, Schiller, and we may add of Savigny and the Humboldts. The best course of study for foreigners who would attain an ex- act and delicate sense of the beauty and power of the German lan- guage, or a complete mastery of it as an instrument for expressing their own thoughts, would, we are disposed to think, be somewhat as follows. First, let them read themselves into the encyclopaedic writings of Gothe. GOthe's mind was essentially poatical : he sympathized with and reflected in the mirror of his imagination every intellectual activity of his countrymen ; his range of thought and his vocabulary are more extensive than those of any other German writer ; and in addition to this, his language is more idiomatic and popular. His relish of social intercourse made him early familiar with the spoken language of his native district ; which, apart from its vulgarities, is a happy medium between the figurative and proverbial style of South Germany and the more s tematic but tamer style of North Germany. This racy and tho roughly German style was cultivated assiduously by Gothe to the last. From the writings of this author it would be advisable to turn back to those of Luther ; with which ought to be associated the poems of Hans Sachs and the sermons of Abraham of Santa Clara. The language and thoughts of these writers are rough, often coarse, but there is marvellous strength and vivacity in them. Gothe studied them closely, and with much advantage ; and his writings, more than those of any modern German author, prepare the student to understand those of his rough precursors easily. The student ought next to take up the works of Savigny and the Humboldts ; the first-named especially being the only German writer of our day upon whom the mantle of GOthe's inimitably easy, graceful, and idiomatic style, has fallen. We have mentioned these as the authors whose style and habits of thought ought to be most closely and indefatigably studied ; but, as may be inferred from our introductory remarks, we believe they can only be thoroughly understood and appreciated by those who cultivate an extensive acquaintance with other German wri- ters. By all who are disposed to devote themselves to such a con- scientious and earnest study of German, the manual of Mr. Mosch- zisker will be found valuable as an introductory guide and habitual companion for reference. The selections are judicious, and the cri- tical explanations on the whole just. We could have wished, per- haps, that the former were more numerous, and the latter in some cases more definite and precise; but on the whole, the book fills an important place in the elementary literature of the German language.
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