German Literature

V

18th Century

By the beginning of the 18th century German cultural life had become increasingly receptive to new literary models and ideas. Such novels as Robinson Crusoe by the English novelist Daniel Defoe were widely read in Germany, leading to the decline of the heroic narrative and to greater realism in German fiction. A notable critic of the period was Johann Christoph Gottsched, whose Versuch einer Critischen Dichtkunst vor die Deutschen (Essay on a Critical Theory of Poetry for the Germans, 1730) established standards derived from the logic and precision of French literature. Gottsched also attempted to reform the drama, both as a literary arbiter and as a translator of French, Greek, and Latin plays. His literary influence, however, was challenged by a group of young writers who wished to liberate German literature from the restrictive influence of foreign models. Stimulated by the nationalism of Frederick the Great, but influenced also by his extensive cultural interests, these writers led one of the greatest periods in German literature. Among the successive phases of this era were the pre-classical period (1748-1788), the Sturm und Drang (“storm and stress”) movement (beginning c. 1770), and the classical (1787-c. 1805) and Romantic (1798-1832) periods.

A

Pre-Classical Period

Christian Fürchtegott Gellert, an early writer of the pre-classical period, enjoyed great popularity with his didactic fables, poems, novels, and comedies. Of greater importance, however, was the poet and dramatist Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. In his religious epic Messias (4 vols., 1751-1773; The Messiah, 1810) and in his collection of odes he introduced strong personal emotion into German poetry. Even more important, Klopstock’s conception of the holy mission of the poet profoundly influenced subsequent writers. Christoph Martin Wieland, author of the epic Oberon (1780; trans. 1798), also affected the course of German literature by translating Shakespeare’s plays into German. Wieland’s Agathon (1766-1777; The History of Agathon, 1773) is considered the earliest psychological novel in German literature.

The dramas of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, notable for their characters and passion, formed the foundation of modern German drama. He gave the German stage its first tragedy of everyday life (bürgerliches Trauerspiel) in Miss Sara Sampson (1755; trans. 1789), and in his dramatic poem Nathan der Weise (1779; Nathan the Wise, 1781) he made an ardent appeal for religious tolerance. Minna von Barnhelm (1767; The Disbanded Officer, 1786) is a skilful comedy. In his influential critical treatise Laokoon (1766; trans. 1930), Lessing brought the spirit of the Enlightenment to Germany (see Enlightenment, Age of). Above all he was an enthusiastic advocate of Shakespeare, urging in a series of critical essays that German writers should turn from slavish imitation of French classicism, as Gottsched had prescribed, towards the freedom and diversity of the English model. In this way he helped prepare the ground for the unrestrained outpouring of creativity known as Sturm und Drang.

B

Sturm und Drang

The philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder was the dominant figure of this new movement, which took its name from the play Sturm und Drang (1776) by Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger, one of a group of young writers who were delighted by Herder’s rejection of traditional authorities. The members of this group abandoned rationalism and the concern with form and structure that had characterized classical and French drama. Influenced by Herder’s study of primitive peoples and folk culture, they emphasized the use of national or folk elements, and sought inspiration in the Volkslied and other aspects of German culture. Their longing for emancipation was symbolized in poems and dramas centring on heroic individualists possessed by uncontrolled emotions and engaged in immense conflicts.

J. M. R. Lenz, in his play Die Soldaten (1776; The Soldiers, 1972), combined the energy of Sturm und Drang with an acute eye for social realism, but the movement received its most powerful expression in the early dramas of two of Germany’s greatest authors, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller. Goethe’s early play Götz von Berlichingen (1773; trans. 1799), greatly influenced by Shakespeare’s dramas, concerns a 16th-century knight, opposed to the aristocracy and the Church, who leads a revolt of the peasants. Introspective melancholy, another feature of Sturm und Drang, is clearly shown in Goethe’s novel Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers (1774; The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1779). The sentimental hero, disappointed in love, kills himself; hundreds of young male readers are said to have followed Werther’s example. Goethe’s most important work of this period is the so-called Urfaust, the oldest preserved version of his long poetic drama Faust (2 vols., 1808-1832; trans. 1834), completed in the last years of the poet’s life. Schiller, in his Die Räuber (1781; The Robbers, 1800) and Kabale und Liebe (1783; Intrigue and Love, 1849), emphasized the political aspects of Sturm und Drang, attacking political tyranny and social corruption.

C

Classical Period

The development of Goethe and Schiller, after the period of their early dramas, represents one of the major achievements of the classical period in German literature—an era notable for its emotional restraint, temperance of thought, and lucidity of expression. Both writers were influenced by the extensive philosophical activity of the period, which culminated in the idealism of the philosopher Immanuel Kant and his disciple Johann Gottlieb Fichte. During the classical period, moreover, Goethe and Schiller became close friends, despite differences in their philosophical attitudes. Schiller believed in absolute ethical ideals, which provide the motive force of his greatest dramatic works: the Wallenstein trilogy (1798-1799; trans. 1839), Maria Stuart (1800; trans. 1833), Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801; The Maid of Orleans, 1835), and Wilhelm Tell (1804; William Tell, 1825). Goethe derived his philosophy from his experiences as lyric poet, balladeer, dramatist, novelist, essayist, scientist, and political figure. He lived according to the ideal expressed in Faust: never to be satisfied with what one is, but to strive incessantly to learn, to improve, to accomplish. His writings clearly show his development from youthful rebellion to the search for emotional restraint, objectivity, beauty, and the ideal human personality. The two parts of Faust, moreover, have often been considered representative of the prevailing tendencies of German literature; the first part contains many elements of the literary movement known as Romanticism, and the second represents the classicism most admired by Goethe.

These elements may also be found in the work of the poet Friedrich Hölderlin, whose admiration for the harmony of the Classical world was vitiated, as Goethe and his contemporaries saw it, by his visionary religious attitude. Hölderlin himself explored the conflict between absolute ideals and the problems of existence in his epistolary novel Hyperion (2 vols, 1797-1799; trans. 1927) and in his poetry. Another highly individualistic writer of the late classical period, the dramatist and short-story writer Heinrich von Kleist, portrayed heroic characters in conflict with their destiny. His comedies Der Zerbrochene Krug (1806, pub. about 1811; The Broken Pitcher, 1961) and Amphitryon (1807; trans. 1962) depict human conflict in an almost tragic manner. The tales of the humorist Johann Friedrich Richter (usually known by the pseudonym Jean Paul), with their fantasy and their sense of the grotesque, bring him close to the Romantic movement, which dominated German literature at the beginning of the 19th century.

D

Romantic Period

The increasing Romantic tendency of German literature, as expressed, for example, in some of the later writings of Goethe, became dominant in 1798, with the first issue of the journal Das Athenäum, edited by three friends, the writer Ludwig Tieck and the critics August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Friedrich von Schlegel. Romanticism in the literature of Germany, as in that of other countries, resulted from a fusion of political, philosophical, and artistic elements. The Napoleonic Wars awakened a new sense of national identity in German writers, while increasing their admiration for such heroic individuals as Napoleon and Ludwig van Beethoven. The nationalistic elements of Romanticism were furthered in Germany by the philosopher and theologian Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher, who stressed the virtues of national independence and influenced such poets as Ernst Moritz Arndt and Karl Theodor Körner. The work of the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling gave the movement a philosophical base for its mysticism and belief in the ultimate oneness of the natural and spiritual world. Folk tales and mythology, another concern of German Romanticism, received attention in the collections made by two scholars, the Grimm brothers, Jacob Ludwig Karl and Wilhelm Karl. A notable collection of German folk songs was formed by the poet and dramatist Clemens Maria Brentano and his brother-in-law Achim von Arnim, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (3 vols., 1805-1808; The Boy’s Magic Horn, 1841). And not the least of Romanticism’s contributions to German literature were the translations by Schlegel of 17 of Shakespeare’s plays, in superb renderings that have become part of Germany’s own literary heritage.

Romantic themes characterize the work of the poet Baron Friedrich von Hardenberg, known as Novalis, author of the mysterious and deeply religious Hymnen an die Nacht (1800; Hymns to the Night, 1889) and of the novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802; trans. 1842). Ludwig Tieck, poet, dramatist, and novelist, lacked the depth and religious feeling of Novalis, but was extremely eloquent, gifted in the expression of poetic, fantastic, and satirical elements. Joseph von Eichendorff praised the beauty of nature in his poems and the virtues of idleness in his prose work Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts (1826; The Love Frolics of a Young Scamp, 1864). The genuine tenderness of folk songs can be found in the poems of Adelbert von Chamisso, but many have tragic elements, as does his prose work, Peter Schlemihls Wundersame Geschichte (1814; Peter Schlemihl’s Remarkable Story, 1927). The great balladeer of this generation was Ludwig Uhland. One of the masters of poetry and prose was Eduard Friedrich Mörike; the calm composure in his writing contrasted with the melancholy in the poetry of Nikolaus Lenau. Most of the Romantic poets were also gifted storytellers, but the most original prose writer of this period was E. T. A. Hoffmann, the master of tales dealing with the supernatural.