No More Learning

A resume of a few stages in the reputation of such a many-
sided writer as Schiller will illuminate some of the changes that
have been mentioned (see especially Ewen, pp. xii, 35-61, 119,
124, 153, and 172 and note). As has been indicated, Schiller's
reputation in Britain until 1795 had been founded chiefly upon his
early drama The Robbers. His best-known prose fiction, The
Ghost-Seer, translated in 1795, quickly influenced such writers
as Mrs. Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis and even the young Cole-
ridge, and at a later date, Byron and Shelley. Though at the turn
of the century the basis for Schiller's later fame had been broad-
ened by the addition of some of his main dramas (for example,
Coleridge's translations from Wallenstein), his reputation, like
that of practically every other German, dropped during the first
decade of the new century. But in the second half of the second
decade, many of his shorter poems became known, and he soon
became the best-liked German lyricist in England. In the years
1821-1822, English readers found useful accounts of him in Tay-
lor of Norwich's Monthly Magazine articles. And, beginning in
the next year, 1823, Carlyle s biography in the London Magazine
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? xviii
INTRODUCTION
further increased England's knowledge. Even at the inception
of the biography, Carlyle was able to interpret adequately the
dramas and poems, and to vindicate the moral idealism and ex-
alt the genius of the German poet. But in certain speculative
respects--the esthetic and, especially, the philosophic--Car-
lyle's interpretation of Schiller left much to be desired. In the
same year that Carlyle's biography was published in book form
(1825) Thomas Lovell Beddoes translated considerable part of
Philosophische Briefe in the Oxford Quarterly Magazine. Along
with the speculative writings, Schiller's historical writings were
apparently one of the last phases of his work to gain full recog-
nition and currency in Britain. Not until 1828 did George Moir
finish an adequate translation of the historical works.
That glance at Britain's reception of Schiller's writings could
well be extended to other literary figures. But in order to lead
more directly toward the consideration of English histories of
German literature, this account will notice rather the currency
of three general literary types--lyrics, dramas, and prose fic-
tion-- during the decade and a half after Waterloo.
In those fifteen years, especially 1820-1830, lyrics gained
much recognition through translations, through specific reviews,
and through general articles on different poets. From 1818 on,
as just noticed, Schiller's lyrics were the best known of all. And
about 1820, Goethe's poems, especially the lyrics and ballads,
began to be translated with increasing frequency. Some of the
patriotic lyricist K. T. Korner's pieces appeared in Blackwood's,
the Literary Gazette, and the Monthly Magazine as early as 1818:
and the two-volume Life and Selections, translated by G. F.
Richardson, appeared in 1827"! Among several collections of
lyrics in the third decade, a general anthology called Specimens
of German Lyric Poetry was published in 1821 by Beresford and
and Mellish. And in 1825, as will be noted later, Edgar Taylor's
Lays of the Minnesingers, and several review articles on it,
heightened the still new interest in German medieval literature.
But a number of important contemporary poets obtained little or
no attention in British reviews. As already mentioned, Heinrich
Heine seems to have had his first notice--one page in a review--
in 1828.
The currency of German dramatic writings is traceabl-e through
theatrical performances as well as through the usual literary me-
dia. During the 1820's, adaptations of dramas by Schiller, Goethe,
and Kotzebue were acted on the London stage; but the total number
of them was not large. For a short while, plays by J. F. Kind
surpassed all others in stage presentation. His melodramatic
Der Freischutz in 1824 underwent five adaptations and was traves-
tied or burlesqued in still two other theaters. The reception given
to the drama as literature can be interpreted with somewhat great-
er confidence. As early as 1819, Lockhart seems to have written
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? INTRODUCTION
xix
the prose commentary (for Gillies' translation) in an important
article on German drama for Blackwood's Magazine (Macbeth,
pp. 153-54). In addition to giving an introduction to German
drama in general, it dealt especially with Mullner. Indeed, for
the years 1817-1820 Morgan counts in British periodicals some
twenty-five reviews of plays by some ten dramatists, including
Mullner, Kind, and Franz Grillparzer, as well as Schiller and
Goethe. But Mullner passed his sudden and great popularity
about 1820. And as the number of periodical articles on drama
increased after 1820, other dramatists came into notice. E. A.
F. Klingemann seems to have been introduced to British periodi-
cal readers through Gillies' articles in Blackwood's in 1823, and
four years later the same critic wrote again upon Klingemann--
this time with historical perspective--for the Foriegn Quarterly
Review. As already mentioned, the same critic introduced "KTeist
in the latter periodical in 1828 (Morgan-Hohlfeld, p. 211 corrects
error on p. 61). And he was perhaps the author who repeatedly
devoted space in Blackwood's to Grillparzer. An article in Black-
wood's in 1825, signed S. A. (Sarah Austin? ), was of special
significance with respect to Lessing and drama. That is, it
praised Lessing's part in breaking French influence upon Ger-
man drama, assigned to Lessing the introduction of German do-
mestic tragedy, considered Kotzebue the corrupter of German
drama, found in Schiller compensation for Kotzebue, praised
Goethe, and analyzed Mullner. In periodical criticism after 1825,
Schiller's dramas maintained first place, with chief stress upon
his Wallenstein. And Goethe's Faust (Part I, of course) also rose
in importance as serious critics focused attention on Germany's
most significant dramatic readings of life. Indeed, in 1822,
Goethe's Faust was the subject of Carlyle's first critique on Ger-
man literature, in the short-lived New Edinburgh Review. Mean-
while, translation of whole works or of fragments from the poetic
dramas of both Goethe and Schiller proceeded at various levels,
ranging from F. E. Leveson-Gower and George Soane to George
Moir and Carlyle.
Of all German literary types, prose fiction had the longest
and widest popularity in England (see especially Stockley, Chap-
ter VIII). In the late eighteenth century, translators and review-
ers had ranged over a wide field for their selections. And even
during the generally low ebb of German importations, from 1800
to 1815, as has been noted, Lafontaine's novels of family life
attained considerable popularity. But in the 1820's came the true
high point of English translations from German writers of prose
fiction. They included such authors as Korner, Tieck, E. T. A.
Hoffmann, Musaus, Richter, Schiller, and Goethe. A single year,
1826, brought forth five different collections: by Richard Holcraft,
George Soane, Thomas Roscoe, Gillies, and Edgar Taylor. The
three last named of those collectors provided more or less critical
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? XX
INTRODUCTION
materials to aid the reader. And critical reviews of the vari-
ous collections made still further additions. For example, the
Blackwood's Magazine article on Gillies' collection entered in-
to what Morgan calls a thorough discussion of German narrative
literature (Morgan-Hohlfeld, p. 63). Along with those develop-
ments, the publication of Carlyle's elaborately introduced Speci-
mens of German Romance in 1827 gave English readers before
the close of the third decade considerable selection from, and
knowledge of, German prose fiction. Indeed by the end of the
decade, as Miss Stockley says (p. 13), the various main types
of German literature--if not widely popular or fully appreciated--
were at least firmly established in English interest.
Notwithstanding the established interest in various aspects
of this foreign influence, the third decade had almost ended be-
fore an English history of German literature appeared. But cer-
tain attempts at historical approach--including attempts to inter-
pret the Middle Ages historically--had been made. Some of them
should be brought into focus as we close this summary account.
Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, 1814, contained much early
material. In addition to analyses of and translations from the
Heldenbuch and the more important Nibelungen Lied, this large
volume by Weber, Jamieson, and Walter Scott gave especial at-
tention to the historical background of those medieval poems and
furnished a variety of antiquarian notes. Although considerable
attention was paid to the Nibelungen Lied a decade later, by Bed-
does in 1824 (Ewen, p. 171) and by Edgar Taylor in 1825, the sur-
veys of periodical criticism suggest that the old poem was not
widely known in England even during the 1820's. The types of
folk tales collected by the Grimm brothers were better known.
When Francis Cohen (renamed Palgrave) reviewed six works,
including the Grimms* Deutsche Sagen and Dobeneck's Heroen-
sagen, in 1820 in the Quarterly Review his allusions to both Ger-
man and Danish stories of Barbarossa indicate a superficial no-
tion of comparative method. When Edgar Taylor in 1824-1826
translated over fifty of the Grimms' Hausmahrchen and furnished
some critical materials, review articles were immediate and
numerous. And Roscoe's collection of fiction in the same year
gave critical accounts of his sources for the popular tales: the
Grimms, J. G. G. Busching, and the pseudonymous Otmar with
his "Peter Klaus" original of Rip Van Winkle. Some interest
in still another sort of medieval German literature had developed
in the 1820's, an interest in the productions of the courtly Minne-
singers. In 1825, at least two collections that included them ap-
peared--one by Edgar Taylor, aided perhaps by his cousin Sarah
Austin. Thus various phases of German literature and literary
history--even considerable materials for the relatively little ex-
ploited medieval period--had been treated in a number of books
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? INTRODUCTION
xxi
as well as articles. But general historical approaches were as
yet far from common in the 1820's. According to Professor
Morgan, the first general idea of German literature in historic
perspective was given in a series of articles in the Monthly
Magazine from 1818 through 1824, under the general title The
German Student (Morgan-Hohlfeld, p. 58). The writer of those
articles sketched German literature from the earliest times
through what he called the Swabian period and the age of the
Reformation, and then treated a succession of figures from Hans
Sachs to Klopstock. At least part of that series of thirty-odd ar-
ticles was written by William Taylor of Norwich. Unfortunately,
the articles dealing with the Middle Ages were short. The first
one, treating the period before 1000, was only two pages in length:
and neither of the next two, dealing with the Swabian period, con-
sisted of more than three pages.
The cause of medieval German literature in Britain remained
under serious handicap even after the publication of William Tay-
lor of Norwich's Historic Survey of German Poetry, in three vol-
umes, 1828-1830. A total of 156 pages--one ninth of the whole
work--was devoted to the Middle Ages. Certainly that part, even
if somewhat limited in space, contained valuable materials and
information. For instance, Taylor used the Anglo-Saxon Beo-
wulf, Ulphilas' Gothic Bible, and "Old Hildebrand. " And though
he only mentioned "Horny Siegfried, " Heldenbuch, Nibelungen
Lied, and the mystery plays, he translated a lovely aubade, gave
some stress to the cycles of romances, and showed considerable
learning about chivalry. But in certain leading respects Taylor,
notwithstanding his antiquarian scholarship, was ill at ease in
the medieval period. Regardless of personal creed, a sympa-
thetic interpreter of medieval German literature, writing at the
close of the third decade of the nineteenth century, could ill af-
ford the prejudices implied in such chapter headings as "Intru-
sion of Christianity" and "Midnight of the dark ages. " Almost
on the eve of the Oxford Movement, Taylor restated his and the
eighteenth century's belief that a "dark millenium. . . succeeded
to the accession of Constantine" (I, 91). From the fourth cen-
tury on (said this fellow countryman of Chaucer) a pernicious
uniformity prevailed until it was disturbed by the revival of clas-
sical literature and the controversies provoked by Protestantism.
Indeed this interpreter of German literature to Britain in the age
of Coleridge and Carlyle was by culture and by temperament a
child of the Enlightment. And for much that moved the prophets
of the new generation, he was out of tune; it moved him not.
Nevertheless, Taylor was still the only British historian of
German literature in the year 1830, when Carlyle -- from a very
different point of approach -- came to the task of writing his His-
tory of German Literature. 4
^According to Leopold's "Carlyle's Handbooks, " p. 238 (and
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? xxii
INTRODUCTION
II: Carlyle's Interest in German Literature
His Studies before 1830
Carlyle's interpretations of German literature, though all
of them had been published anonymously, had by 1830 distin-
guished him among his contemporaries. And his high distinc-
tion has continued to be recognized. In discussing the various
intermediaries, the discriminating scholar B. Q. Morgan makes
the following appraisal: "Carlyle . . . was without question the
greatest single interpreter of German literature, and his activ-
ity, culminating about 1830, may justly be considered the crest
of the highest wave of German influence that ever passed over
England" (Morgan-Hohlfeld, p. 52). When Professor Morgan
wrote that opinion, he had not seen Carlyle's manuscript vol-
ume of 1830. Though by 1830 Carlyle was the finest interpreter
of things German and may have been the best-qualified man in
Britain to write a comprehensive account of German literature,
his preparation was of course not uniformly strong at all points.
Undoubtedly his strongest point--as well as the strongest interest
of his contemporaries--lay in the modern field.
For a decade, from 1820 to 1830, Carlyle had read widely
and deeply in German writers, chiefly modern. 5 And during that
decade he had come to know much about the developments that
have just been sketched of Britain's interest in German writings.
But until he neared the age of twenty-five, neither the writings
themselves nor the development of British interest in them meant
much to him. Himself a child of the Scottish eighteenth century--
at least in the first period of his thought--he had had first to pass
Religiose Wurzel, p. 5), even in Germany itself only one ade-
quate history of German literature had been published by that
time: Koberstein's, in 1827. Though Carlyle was better in-
formed than one would be likely to suppose, he seems not to
have known that German work.
5 Elaboration of the point is unnecessary here, since much
space in the Notes is devoted to the examination of Carlyle's
German readings and since the Notes are easily accessible
through the Index. Carlyle's early reading is one of the most
useful keys to his intellectual development. If further bio-
graphical material than here given is desired, various studies
are available: for example, the one-volume account by Pro-
fessor Neff and the detailed account by D. A. Wilson. Best
of all the biographies--and always indispensable to Carlyle
scholarship--is the work by Froude. Harrold's Carlyle and
German Thought, which marks an epoch in Carlyle scholar-
ship, is basic in any full consideration of Carlyle's relation
to Germany.
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? INTRODUCTION
xxiii
through various phases of intellectual, religious, and esthetic
development before he could arrive at a hard-won understand-
ing of certain important aspects of the new German culture.
After acquiring through private study in 1819 the rudiments
of the German language, partly for scientific uses, Carlyle in
the next year was able to read into some of the meanings of
Schiller and Goethe. That was only the beginning. Naturally
Schiller's poetry was for a while intellectually more accessible
to him than Goethe's. But in 1820-1821 he found a new heaven
and new earth--first through emotional sympathy and then through
intellectual understanding--in the works of Goethe. As early as
1822, he began his published interpretations of German litera-
ture with a critique on Goethe's Faust I, in the upstart New Edin-
burgh Review. Already he had read Meisters Lehrjahre,with"
memorable results. His understanding of the ethical significance
of Entsagung, which he attributed largely to Meisters Lehrjahre,
was to have a deep and lasting effect upon the rest of his life and
thought. 6 And from about 1825 henceforth for Carlyle--as for
the later Tolstoy's Pierre and Levin--life had mystical meaning:
and its most meaning was clearest in the least self-conscious
moments. Meanwhile Schiller's writings too had their further
effects. From Schiller, Carlyle gained growing insight into
(and phrasing for) the progressive notion that Truth is process
rather than accomplishment (immer wird, nie ist).
That writer's
esthetic essays, in addition to deepening and broadening Carlyle's
critical and historical viewpoint, led him gradually toward trans-
cendental philosophy. And his Life of Schiller, first published
by installments in the London Magazine for 1823-1824 (and, after
revisions, in book form in 1825), was the first full-length Eng-
lish biography of a German man of letters in the nineteenth cen-
tury. That work and his concurrently translated Wilhelm Meis-
ter's Apprenticeship (published 1824) were followed in 1825-1826
by the grateful labor of translating four volumes of Specimens
of German Romance. Those volumes, published in 1827, con-
tained distinguished biographical and critical introductions. Miss
Stockley (p. 258) thinks the sketch of Goethe in Volume IV was the
first approach to an adequate English account of that great writer.
As already suggested, Carlyle's study of Schiller's esthetics
based upon Kantian thought had for some time beckoned the young
Scot toward German transcendental philosophy. Though he never
proceeded in his philosophic interests far enough to satisfy a sys-
tematic student of that subject, he did read some of Kant, and
much of Kant's interpreters. When, through an unsystematic dis-
tinction between Vernunft and Verstand, he arrived at a viewpoint
that enabled him to do away once for all with his earlier material-
6 On the validity of this statement, see Lectures of 1838, pp.
186-88, along with Meister, II, 129 (that is, Meisters Lehr-
jahre, Bk. VIII, Ch. V).
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? xxiv
INTRODUCTION
ism and scepticism, he had penetrated as far as he felt the need
to go in what he called metaphysics. And he turned attention
gradually to other and, as he thought, more pressing interests.
Partly through a reading of Herder's great Ideen at the end of
1826, he gained additional clarity upon a philosophy of progress
that was to help him understand his own changing time, and the
vast changing and continuing traditions that come out of the past,
run through the present, and extend into the boundless future.
Thus by 1827 when he began publishing his periodical essays on
German literature and thought in the well-established Edinburgh
Review, he had found--largely through the Germans--much of
the ethical, esthetic, philosophic, religious, and historiographical
insight that was to make him an important figure in his generation.
The German writings, he firmly believed, had led him out of his
early darkness and had literally saved his life. And missionary
that Carlyle essentially was, he proceeded in his attempt to show
the light to others.
In that effort, during the three years from 1827 to 1830, he
published in the Edinburgh Review and (more numerously) in the
Foreign Review nine long essays on German writings. Those
essays ranged from a survey of the then state of German litera-
ture and an attack upon certain playwrights whom he regarded
as poetasters, to an account of the classical scholar C. G. Heyne,
and to biographical and critical interpretations of such varied
figures as Richter (two essays), Zacharius Werner, Goethe (two
essays), and the mystical Novalis. It is important to observe
that all these essays dealt with modern German literature and
literary figures. Not until he approached the History of German
Literature had he occupied himself with comparable seriousness
in the other great period of German literature, the Middle Ages.
And it was not until 1831, after the original plans for the History
had collapsed, that he salvaged certain medieval parts of it and
published them in the Westminster Review, the Foreign Quarterly
Review, and the Edinburgh Review. His systematic study of
medieval German literature had thus been brief.
Though a year and a half still remained to him before his peri-
od of literary criticism chiefly devoted to German literature was
ended, Carlyle assayed no new figures from the German scene
past or present. He turned first of all to the writing of Sartor
Resartus. And later, in 1832, when he wrote his last great ar-
ticle on German literature, it concerned the Goethe whom he had
known and loved so long, and who had just died. Already, with
his History of German Literature in 1830, he was on his path away
from German literature as his main interest, and on his way to-
ward the writing of history. But as yet, in 1830, he was unaware
of such a change.
Carlyle's way toward the writing of history, running as it did
through the History of German Literature, was a hard way, for
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? INTRODUCTION
XXV
a variety of reasons. In his writings up to 1830 on modern
German literature, Carlyle had distinguished himself for his
moral and ethical basis, his biographical approach, his esthetic
critical insight, and his ability to show in historical milieu the
subjects under discussion. His methods--when applied to mod-
ern giants or when applied even to lesser men who possessed
sharply delineated characteristics in well-comprehended cir-
cumstances--had enabled him to do more than any other Briton
to focus attention of the rising generation upon certain impor-
tant aspects of German literature. When, however, in 1830 he
attempted to extend his province to include the early literature
of Germany, he found himself embarrassed at various turns.
Mention of a few of the most striking difficulties will suffice
here. In the first place, with many of the early materials he
was not thoroughly familiar. Indeed, perhaps no one in Britain
was; for as already suggested, medieval studies had progressed
more slowly among British scholars than among the Germans.
Though Carlyle had neither the knowledge nor the wish to make
his first volume a pedantic exercise in antiquarianism, his iso-
lated position--isolated geographically, intellectually, socially,
and financially at Craigenputtock--made certain materials inac-
cessible to him. In the second place, his philosophy of history
and historiography, by no means fully developed as yet, had to
be articulated with this difficult and scanty material. As his
philosophy of history did develop, with what, a few years later,
was to become a decided list toward post-Reformation religion
and morals, the medieval religion and morals implicit in much
of the early material tended to complicate his difficulty. And,
finally, his already well-developed biographical approach in his
modern studies could find relatively little traction or purchase
in the medieval period. In what was then to considerable extent
"dark backward and abysm of time, " where literary anonymity
and communality and convention and inadequately motivated ac-
tion were so frequently the rule, his biographical-critical ap-
proach could be applied to only a few exceptional characters in
a few of the pieces, and to only a few makers, whose outlooks
on life he seldom dared do more than shadow forth hypothetically
from fleeting bits of internal evidence. In the face of such dif-
ficulties we may wonder that he succeeded as well as he did in
the first volume of his History.
His Progress in the Attempt to Produce a History
of German Literature
From the outset of Carlyle's work upon the History, there
were vaguenesses and difficulties. 7 The proposal that he en-
1 Since no detailed account of Carlyle's step-by-step activities
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? xxvi
INTRODUCTION
gage upon the work came to him in October, 1829, in a round-
about way, from "some London booksellers" -- apparently Whit-
taker's--through William Fraser of the Foreign Review (Napier
Correspondence, p. 77; Goethe Correspondence, p. 159; Early
Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle, pp. 154-55). From the time of
that first proposal, Carlyle, knowing the limitations of his own
knowledge as well as the limitations of his readers' interests,
expected to put his main stress upon the comparatively brief
modern period of German literature (Goethe Correspondence,
p. 163). And he soon set about gathering materials and matur-
ing his plans. The agreement, finally reached late in January,
1830, called for four small volumes. Therein, instead of giv-
ing minute chronicle details, he hoped to stress the broadest
and most prominent features of German literature. The first
volume of the set, if it proceeded according to his early 1830
plans, would rise through certain of the medieval productions
to a culminating point in the Reformation (Early Letters of Jane
Welsh Carlyle, pp. 161-65). Though the London sponsors of
the undertaking had promised to provide the German books need-
ed for the work, the actual book supply came so slowly and
proved so undependable that Carlyle was left much to his own
resources (Letters of Carlyle, pp. 151, 157, 159, 161-62;
Two Note Books, p. 148).
In his need for books, Carlyle was aided by such Scottish
friends as the Reverend David Aitken, Henry Inglis, and George
Moir, and also perhaps by Macvey Napier, the new editor of
the Edinburgh Review. Thus by various means he procured what
he could. In addition to valuable works by Koch, JSrdens, Brock-
haus, FISgel, Eichhorn, Bouterwek, Leonhard Meister, and Horn
-- some of which would have been most useful in the modern stud-
ies ahead of him--he appears to have procured and used in his
medieval studies during these busy months, and those to come,
such works as DilSchneider's Deutsche Sprache, Docen's Mis-
cellaneen. the collaboratively produced Illustrations to Northern
Antiquities by Weber and Jamieson (and Scott), several works
by the Grimm brothers, some half a dozen works by BCtsching
and Von der Hagen (some produced separately and some collabora-
tively), Lessing's studies on proverbs and the early sagas, and
Tieck's Minnelieder, with its valued introduction. And Tacitus'
writings on early Germany and Mascov's histories furnished him
some of the necessary background materials. 8
with respect to the History has heretofore been published, the
present section is documented more fully than other sections
of this introduction.
8 Leopold's "Carlyle's Handbooks" discusses the eight works
named first in this list. That useful English account (1934) is
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? INTRODUCTION
xxvii
As preparations went forward, Carlyle's plans naturally
underwent some changes and developments. By the beginning
of spring, he intended that Volume I should be of antiquarian
nature, including The Nibelungen Lied, the Minnesingers, and
the Meistersingers, and should end with Hans Sachs; that Vol-
ume II should include Luther and the Reformation satirists, and
should extend up as far as Thomasius, Gottsched, and the Swiss
writers; and that the last two volumes should be devoted to re-
cent literature, because of its great importance to British read-
ers (Goethe Correspondence, pp. 171-72). Finally, by late May,
with Volume I just completed and sent off to London, he had work-
ed out--partly on paper and partly only in his mind--a threefold
periodic arrangement of materials. That is, Volume I traced
German developments from crude beginnings on through the first
poetic period and its culmination in the Minnesingers. Volume
II, as he now planned, would begin with certain didactic writings
(including Hugo von Trimberg, Reinecke Fuchs, and Sabastian
Brandt), would rise to a second poetic period under Luther and
Hutten, and would then sink again into the disputation (didactic
again) and the superficial refinements of Thomasius and Gottsched
and their Swiss opponents. And Volumes III and IV, beginning
with the earnest sceptic Lessing and with Wieland, would continue
tracing the development of German literature to its most recent
climax, when, under Goethe and Schiller,
a Third grand (Poetic] Period had evolved itself, as yet fairly
developed in no other Literature, but full of the richest pros-
pects for all; namely, a period of new Spirituality and Belief;
in the midst of old Doubt and Denial; as it were, a new revela-
tion of Nature, and the Freedom and Infinitude of Man, wherein
Reverence is again rendered compatible with Knowledge, and
Art and Religion are one. This is the Era which chiefly con-
cerns us of England, as of other nations; the rest being chiefly
remembrance, but this still present with us. How I am to
bring it out will require all consideration.
(Goethe Correspondence, pp. 187-91)
Thus Carlyle had at length devised an interesting general plan,
which, under favorable circumstances, he might have prosecuted
satisfactorily through four volumes with rising significance to an
end in the great literature of his own time.
Meanwhile, as has already been suggested, the actual writing
out of his plan was proceeding. As he began writing in the early
mainly derived from an earlier account in Die Religiose Wur-
zel (1922), pp. 3-11. Of course when writing those studies
Leopold was not able to utilize the evidence now made accessi-
ble. Indications of various aspects of Carlyle's connections
with the reference works used in his History will be found in
the respective Notes that are part of the present edition (see
the Index).
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? xxviii
INTRODUCTION
days of spring, his own lack of clarity in his broad new under-
taking caused him to work out and write down his creed concern-
ing history. But soon after finishing the credo, he found his
elaborate statement of it unsuitable for the present book. There-
fore on April 12 he cut it out and laid it aside (Two Note Books,
p. 154). This statement of his credo, henceforth entirely di-
vorced from its original context as the introductory section of
the History, eventually became known as the essay "On History. "
Having thus removed what had become an incumbrance, Carlyle
could proceed more rapidly. By May Day, he was writing on the
fifth chapter of Volume I. With purposes now clarified, he was
sometimes able to write as much as three or four of his long, full
pages daily (Letters of Carlyle. p. 164). And toward the end of
that same month he finished Volume I. Then, after brief rest, he
began, on June 8, his Volume II (Two Note Books, p. 156). But
he was interrupted two weeks later by the death of his favorite
sister, Margaret. Consequently he had written only the first half
of what he intended as Volume II when in July the publishing ar-
rangements at London collapsed. One obvious reason for the col-
lapse was the shift of public interest from literature to politics
and other nonliterary issues during the agitation attendant upon
the introduction of the First Reform Bill. Particulars in the case
are wanting. But early in August--after having worked at his task
with energy, under difficulties, for many months--Carlyle sus-
pended writing, with his project a fragment.
A little more than one third, but less than one half, of what he
had planned was done. In the space of a volume and a half, he
had brought his account up to (not through) Luther (Froude, II, 95,
97; Goethe Correspondence, pp. 207-10). Actually he was only
just arriving at the point where, in his original plans, he had
meant his first main stress to come; it was the point where, in
his more carefully considered plans, he had meant his second
main stress to come. This stress point itself (Luther and His
Times: The Reformation), however, and a final main stress point
(Goethe and His Times: The Present), with all the many falling
and rising minor points between the two, lay still in prospect--
with progress toward them stopped, or at least suspended tem-
porarily.
Deeply disappointed at the frustration of his plans, Carlyle
was nevertheless financially unable to leave the unfinished work
unused. So as soon as possible he recalled the manuscript of
Volume I from William Fraser in London (Froude, II, 94). If
the project as a whole should henceforth fail to interest any re-
sponsible publisher enough to warrant its continuation, Carlyle
hoped that parts already written might be converted into review
articles for immediate disposal to cover current living expenses
(Letters of Carlyle, pp. 165-66; Froude, II, 95-96). Before the
month of August was ended, still another ingenious though complex
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? INTRODUCTION
xx ix
plan suggested itself to him. That is, he might collect the peri-
odical essays he had already printed on various aspects and fig-
ures of German literature, might write a few more such essays
--for example, on Luther, Lessing, Herder--for incorporation
with them, might use the present manuscript volume and a half
of medieval materials as an introduction to that main body of
modern German materials, might write a circumspective con-
clusion to round out the whole, and might eventually publish the
composite result as a Zur Geschichte (if not a genuine Geschichte)
of German literature (Froude, II, 96-97; Goethe Correspondence,
pp. 209-10). Such a plan of eventually articulating his manu-
script materials with his already published essays would in no
way hinder his quarrying now from the mass of manuscript ma-
terials in hand a number of review articles for immediate pub-
lication. So, after Francis Jeffrey had failed to interest the pub-
lisher Longman in the original project, Carlyle set about arrange-
ments to convert parts of the manuscript into articles for cash
(Letters of Carlyle, p. 171; Froude, II, 101). And early in 1831
he produced two substantial review articles and some parts of a
third. As later reprinted in Essays, II, the three articles are
now known by the following titles: "The Nibelungen Lied, " "Early
German Literature, '* and "Taylor's Historic Survey of German
Poetry" (see Letters of Carlyle, pp. 178, 180, 189, 191, 194;
Two Note Books, pp. 181-83; Napier Correspondence, p. 101;
Froude, II, 114, 122).
The fragmentary work, even after parts of it were utilized in
those review articles, did not drop at once out of Carlyle's mind.
Late in 1831 and early in 1832 he still hoped and planned to sup-
plement it and eventually to publish it as a Zur Geschichte (Two
Note Books, pp. 196, 231, 254-55; Napier Correspondence, pp.
113-14; Letters of Carlyle, pp. 278, 286). But as those pros-
pects failed one by one and as his interest in German literature
was gradually superseded by other interests after the death of
Goethe, his critical estimate of the History? which estimate had
never been extravagant--dropped lower. Only a little more need
be said concerning Carlyle's efforts to utilize the work. One point
is especially interesting. That is --if a rather uncertain note that
Carlyle wrote in 1866 across the last page of the manuscript can
be trusted--he may have read over some of the materials while
he was rapidly preparing for his unpublished first series of lec-
tures (Six Lectures on German Literature) in 1837, and he may
have taken some part of the manuscript with him to the platform
to serve as notes (presumably not needed) for the first lecture
(see Note 231). And finally, two years later (in 1839), in order
to suggest that the fragmentary History (along with certain other
manuscripts) would not be suitable for Emerson to publish in
America, Carlyle made what we may here consider his own ter-
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? INTRODUCTION
minal critical comment upon the work:
[It is] a long rigamorole dissertation (in a grabbed sardonic
vein) about the early history of the Teutonic Kindred, wrig-
gling itself along not in the best style through Proverb lore,
and I know not what, till it end (if my memory serve) in a
kind of Essay on the Minnesingers. It was written almost
ten years ago, and never contented me well. . . . [it is] a
thing not fit for you, nor indeed at bottom for anybody, though
I have never burnt it yet. My other Manuscripts are scratch-
ings and scrawlings. (Emerson Correspondence, I, 227-28)
As Carlyle commented thus casually upon the manuscript that had
cost him dear in many ways, perhaps neither he nor his American
correspondent was aware of what may now be clear to any Car-
lyle student who considers the case with care. Though the evi-
dence cannot be elaborated here, Carlyle's work at that project
in 1830 had had some important effects upon his development in-
to a historian. And his disappointment at its failure had co-oper-
ated with various other -- at the time seemingly unrelated--develop-
ments to alienate him from his long-loved German literature.
Ill: The Actual Manuscript of the History: Description
and Provenience
The Yale Manuscript Volume I of this History is all that
is known to exist in manuscript form. It consists of ninety
long sheets, closely written in black ink on one side only. Its
six chapters, one of them fragmentary, are paginated from 1 to
68 and from 89 to 110. (The missing twenty pages were removed
by Carlyle in 1831 from Chapter V for use in a review article. )
Many of the ninety pages show alterations.