No More Learning

Art thou, fair world, no more?
Return, thou virgin bloom on nature's face;-
Ah, only on the minstrel's magic shore,
Can we the footstep of sweet fable trace!
The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;
Vainly we search the earth, of gods bereft;
Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,
Shadows alone are left!


## p. 12899 (#325) ##########################################

JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12899
Cold from the north has gone
Over the flowers the blast that killed their May;
And to enrich the worship of the One,
A universe of gods must pass away!
Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps,
But thee no more, Selene, there I see!
And through the woods I call, and o'er the deeps,
And-Echo answers me!
Deaf to the joys she gives,
Blind to the pomp of which she is possessed,
Unconscious of the spiritual power that lives
Around and rules her, by our bliss unblessed,
Dull to the art that colors or creates,-
Like the dead timepiece, godless nature creeps
Her plodding round, and by the leaden weights
The slavish motion keeps.
To-morrow to receive
New life, she digs her proper grave to-day;
And icy moons with weary sameness weave
From their own light their fullness and decay.
Home to the poets' land the gods are flown;
Light use in them that later world discerns,
Which, the diviner leading-strings outgrown,
On its own axle turns.
Home! and with them are gone
The hues they gazed on and the tones they heard;
Life's beauty and life's melody; - alone
Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless word:
Yet rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng
Unseen the Pindus they were wont to cherish:
Ah, that which gains immortal life in song,
To mortal life must perish!
Bulwer's Translation.


## p. 12900 (#326) ##########################################

12900
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
THE ARTISTS
[Only the concluding lines of this long and beautiful poem are given, in
which Schiller embodies his conceptions of the mission of art (in its broadest
sense, including poetry and all creations of the imagination), and of its rela-
tions to philosophy and science. ]
IT
F ON the course of Thought, now barrier-free,
Sweeps the glad search of bold Philosophy;
And with self-pæans and a vain renown
Would claim the praise and arrogate the crown,
Holding but as a soldier in her band
The nobler Art that did in truth command;
And grants, beneath her visionary throne,
To Art, her queen, the slave's first rank alone,—
Pardon the vaunt! For you Perfection all
Her star-gems weaves in one bright coronal!
With you, the first blooms of the spring, began
Awakening Nature in the soul of man!
With you fulfilled, when Nature seeks repose,
Autumn's exulting harvests ripely close.
If Art rose plastic from the stone and clay,
To mind from matter ever sweeps its sway;
Silent, but conquering in its silence, lo,
How o'er the spiritual world its triumphs go!
What in the land of knowledge, wide and far,
Keen science teaches, for you discovered are:
First in your arms the wise their wisdom learn,—
They dig the mine you teach them to discern;
And when that wisdom ripens to the flower
And crowning time of Beauty,-to the power
From whence it rose new stores it must impart,
The toils of science swell the wealth of art.
When to one height the sage ascends with you,
And spreads the vale of matter round his view
In the mild twilight of serene repose,-
The more the artist charms, the more the thinker knows.
The more the shapes in intellectual joy
Linked by the genii which your spells employ,
The more the thought with the emotion blends,-
The more upbuoyed by both the soul ascends
To loftier harmonies and heavenlier things,
And tracks the stream of beauty to its springs.


## p. 12901 (#327) ##########################################

JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12901
The lovely members of the mighty whole,
Till then confused and shapeless to his soul,
Distinct and glorious grow upon his sight;
The fair enigmas brighten from the night;
More rich the universe his thoughts inclose,
More wide the ocean with whose wave he flows;
The wrath of fate grows feebler to his fears,
As from God's scheme Chance wanes and disappears;
And as each straining impulse soars above,
How his pride lessens, how augments love!
So, scattering blooms, the still guide Poetry
Leads him through paths, though hid, that mount on high,
Through forms and tones more pure and more sublime,—
Alp upon Alp of beauty,- till the time
When what we long as poetry have nurst,
Shall às God's own swift inspiration burst,
And flash in glory, on that youngest day,—
One with the truth to which it wings the way!
O sons of Art! into your hands consigned,
O heed the trust, O heed it and revere!
The liberal dignity of human-kind!
With you to sink, with you to reappear.
The hallowed melody of Magian song
Does to creation as a link belong,
Blending its music with God's harmony,
As rivers melt into the mighty sea.
Truth, when the age she would reform expels,
Flies for safe refuge to the Muses' cells.
More fearful for the veil of charms she takes,
From song the fullness of her splendor breaks;
And o'er the foe that persecutes and quails
Her vengeance thunders, as the bard prevails.
Rise, ye free sons of the free Mother, rise:
Still on the light of Beauty sun your eyes;
Still to the heights that shine afar aspire,
Nor meaner meads than those she gives, desire.
If here the sister Art forsake awhile,
Elude the clasp, and vanish from the toil:
Go seek and find her at the mother's heart;
Go search for Nature - and arrive at Art!
Ever the Perfect dwells in whatsoe'er
Fair souls conceive and recognize as fair!
Borne on your daring pinions, soar sublime
Above the shoal and eddy of the time.


## p. 12902 (#328) ##########################################

12902
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Far-glimmering on your wizard mirror, see
The silent shadow of the age to be.
Through all life's thousandfold entangled maze,
One godlike bourne your gifted sight surveys;
Through countless means one solemn end foreshown,
The labyrinth closes at a single Throne.
As in seven tints of variegated light
Breaks the lone shimmer of the lucid white,
As the seven tints that paint the Iris bow
Into the lucid white dissolving flow,-
-
So truth in many-colored splendor plays:
Now on the eye enchanted with the rays;
Now in one lustre gathers every beam,
And floods the world with light—a single stream!
Bulwer's Translation.
EXTRACTS FROM THE SONG OF THE BELL'
SEE
EE the mold of clay, well heated,
In the earth walled firmly, stand.
Be the bell to-day created!
Come, my comrades, be at hand!
From the glowing brow
Sweat must freely flow,
So the work the master showeth;
Yet the blessing Heaven bestoweth.
The work we earnestly are doing
Befitteth well an earnest word;
Then toil goes on, more briskly flowing,
When good discourse is also heard.
So let us then with care now ponder
What through weak strength originates:
To him no reverence can we render,
Who never heeds what he creates.
'Tis this indeed that man most graceth,
For this 'tis his to understand,-
That in his inner heart he traceth
What he produces with his hand.
See how brown the pipes are getting!
This little rod I dip it in;
If it show a glazèd coating,
Then the casting may begin.


## p. 12903 (#329) ##########################################

JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12903
Now my lads, enough!
Prove me now the stuff,
The brittle with the tough combining,
See if they be rightly joining.
For when the strong and mild are pairing,
The manly with the tender sharing,
Then is the concord good and strong.
See ye, who join in endless union,
If heart with heart be in communion!
For fancy's brief, repentance long.
Be the casting now beginning;
Finely jagged is the grain.
But before we set it running,
Let us breathe a pious strain.
Let the metal go!
God protect us now!
Through the bending handle hollow
Smoking shoots the fire-brown billow.
Benignant is the might of flame,
When man keeps watch and makes it tame;
In what he fashions, what he makes,
Help from this heaven's force he takes:
But fearful is this heaven's force
When all unfettered in its course;
It steps forth on its own fierce way,
Thy daughter, Nature, wild and free.
Woe! when once emancipated,
With naught her power to withstand,
Through the streets thick populated,
Waves she high her monstrous brand!
By the elements is hated
What is formed by mortal hand.
From the tower,
Heavy and slow,
Tolls the funeral
Note of woe,
Sad and solemn, with its knell attending
Some new wanderer on the last way wending.
•
Ah! the wife it is, the dear one,
Ah! it is the faithful mother,
Whom the angel dark is tearing
From the husband's arms endearing,


## p. 12904 (#330) ##########################################

12904
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
From the group of children, far,
Whom she, blooming, to him bare,
Whom she on her faithful breast
Saw with joy maternal rest;
Ah! the household ties so tender
Broken are for evermore,
For the shadow-land now holds her,
Who the household rulèd o'er!
For her faithful guidance ceases;
No more keepeth watch her care;
In the void and orphaned places
Rules the stranger, loveless there.
•
Woe! if, heaped up, the fire-tinder
Should the still heart of cities fill,
Their fetters rending all asunder,
The people work then their own will!
Then at the bell-ropes tuggeth riot;
The bell gives forth a wailing sound,-
Sacred to peace alone and quiet,
For blood it rings the signal round.
"Equality and Freedom" howling,
Rushes to arms the citizen,
And bloody-minded bands are prowling,
And streets and halls are filled with men;
Then women, to hyenas changing,
On bloody horrors feast and laugh,
And with the thirst of panthers ranging.
The blood of hearts yet quivering quaff.
Naught sacred is there more, for breaking
Are all the bands of pious awe;
The good man's place the bad are taking,
And vice acknowledges no law.
'Tis dangerous to rouse the lion,
Deadly to cross the tiger's path,
But the most terrible of terrors
Is man himself in his wild wrath.
Alas! when to the ever blinded
The heavenly torch of light is lent!
It guides him not,-it can but kindle
Whole States in flames and ruin blent.
Translation of William H. Furness.


## p. 12905 (#331) ##########################################

JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12905
TRONGLY it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows,
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.
Coleridge's Translation.
WHAT
THE EPIC HEXAMETER
MA
IN
IN THE hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
THE DISTICH
MY CREED
T's the religion I confess? Well, none of all those
Which you mention. Why none? From sense of religion.
Translation Anonymous.
-
Coleridge's Translation.
KANT AND HIS INTERPRETERS
H
ow one man of wealth gives a living to whole hosts of beggars!
If kings only build, the carters have plenty to do.
Translation Anonymous.
AX PICCOLOMINI [advancing to Wallenstein] —
My general!
Wallenstein -
FROM WALLENSTEIN'S DEATH ›
That I am no longer, if
Thou styl'st thyself the Emperor's officer.
Then thou wilt leave the army, general?
Max-
Wallenstein I have renounced the service of the Emperor.
Max-
And thou wilt leave the army?
Wallenstein.
Rather I hope
To bind it nearer still and faster to me.
[He seats himself.
Yes, Max, I have delayed to open it to thee,
Even till the hour of acting 'gins to strike.
Youth's fortunate feeling doth seize easily
The absolute right,-yea, and a joy it is


## p. 12906 (#332) ##########################################

12906
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Max
To exercise the single apprehension
Where the sums square in proof;
But where it happens that of two sure evils
One must be taken, where the heart not wholly
Brings itself back from out the strife of duties,
There 'tis a blessing to have no election,
And blank necessity is grace and favor.
This is now present. Do not look behind thee!
It can no more avail thee. Look thou forwards!
Think not! Judge not! Prepare thyself to act!
The Court-it hath determined on my ruin,
Therefore I will to be beforehand with them.
We'll join the Swedes-right gallant fellows are they,
And our good friends.
[He rises and retires to the back of the stage. Max remains for a long
time motionless, in a trance of excessive anguish. At his first motion
Wallenstein returns, and places himself before him. ]
Max
[He stops himself, expecting Piccolomini's answer.
I have ta'en thee by surprise. Answer me not.
I grant thee time to recollect thyself.
My general, this day thou makest me
Of age to speak in my own right and person;
For till this day I have been spared the trouble
To find out my own road. Thee have I followed
With most implicit, unconditional faith,
Sure of the right path if I followed thee.
To-day, for the first time, dost thou refer
Me to myself, and forcest me to make
Election between thee and my own heart.
Wallenstein-Soft cradled thee thy fortune till to-day:
Thy duties thou couldst exercise in sport,
Indulge all lovely instincts, act for ever
With undivided heart. It can remain
No longer thus. Like enemies, the roads
Start from each other, duties strive with duties:
Thou must needs choose thy party in the war
Which is now kindling 'twixt thy friend and him
Who is thy Emperor.
War! is that the name?
War is as frightful as Heaven's pestilence;
Yet it is good, is it Heaven's will, as that is.
Is that a good war, which against the Emperor
Thou wagest with the Emperor's own army?


## p. 12907 (#333) ##########################################

JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12907
Wallenstein —
Max
Wallenstein
Max
――
O God of heaven! What a change is this!
Beseems it me to offer such persuasion
To thee, who, like the fixed star of the Pole,
Wert all I gazed at on life's trackless ocean?
Oh, what a rent thou makest in my heart!
The ingrained instinct of old reverence,
The holy habit of obediency —
Must I pluck life asunder from thy name?
Nay, do not turn thy countenance upon me:
It always was a god looking at me!
-
Duke Wallenstein, its power is not departed:
The senses still are in thy bonds; although,
Bleeding, the soul hath freed itself.
Max, hear me.
Oh! do it not, I pray thee, do it not!
There is a pure and noble soul within thee
Knows not of this unblest, unlucky doing.
Thy will is chaste; it is thy fancy only
Which hath polluted thee - and innocence.
It will not let itself be driven away
From that world-awing aspect. Thou wilt not,
Thou canst not, end in this. It would reduce
All human creatures to disloyalty
Against the nobleness of their own nature.
'Twill justify the vulgar misbelief
Which holdeth nothing noble in free-will,
And trusts itself to impotence alone,
Made powerful only in an unknown power.
The world will judge me sternly: I expect it.
Already have I said to my own self
All thou canst say to me. Who but avoids
Th' extreme, can he by going round avoid it?
But here there is no choice. Yes, I must use
Or suffer violence,- so stands the case;
There remains nothing possible but that.
So be it then! Maintain thee in thy post
By violence. Resist the Emperor,
And if it must be, force with force repel.
I will not praise it, yet I can forgive it.
But do not be a traitor - yes! the word
Is spoken out-be not a traitor.
That is no mere excess! that is no error
Of human nature; that is wholly different;
Oh, that is black, black as the pit of hell! .


## p. 12908 (#334) ##########################################

12908
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Oh, turn back to thy duty. That thou canst
I hold it certain. Send me to Vienna.
I'll make thy peace for thee with the Emperor.
He knows thee not. But I do know thee. He
Shall see thee, duke, with my unclouded eye,
And I bring back his confidence to thee.
Wallenstein It is too late. Thou know'st not what has happened.
Max-
Were it too late, and were it gone so far,
That a crime only could prevent thy fall,
Then-fall! fall honorably, even as thou stood'st.
Lose the command. Go from the stage of war.
Thou canst with splendor do it—do it too
With innocence. Thou hast lived much for others:
At length live thou for thy own self. I follow thee.
My destiny I never part from thine.
Wallenstein-It is too late. Even now, while thou art losing
-
Thy words, one after the other are the mile-stones
Left fast behind by my post couriers,
Who bear the order on to Prague and Egra.
[Max stands as convulsed, with a gesture and countenance expressing the
most intense anguish. ]
Yield thyself to it. We act as we are forced.
I cannot give assent to my own shame
And ruin. Thou- no-thou canst not forsake me!
So let us do what must be done, with dignity,
With a firm step. What am I doing worse
Than did famed Cæsar at the Rubicon,
When he the legions led against his country,
The which his country had delivered to him?
Had he thrown down the sword he had been lost,
As I were if I but disarmed myself.
I trace out something in me of his spirit.
Give me his luck, that other thing I'll bear.
Coleridge's Translation.


## p. 12909 (#335) ##########################################

JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12909
THE ICONOCLASTS
From the History of the Revolt of the United Netherlands': date 1556
THE
HE commencement of the attack on images took place in West
Flanders and Artois, in the district between Lys and the
sea. A frantic band of artisans, boatmen, and peasants,
mixed with public prostitutes, beggars, and thievish vagabonds,
about three hundred in number, provided with clubs, axes, ham-
mers, ladders, and cords, only few among them furnished with
firearms and daggers, cast themselves, inspired with fanatical
fury, into the villages and hamlets near St.
Omer; burst the gates
of such churches and cloisters as they find locked, overthrow the
altars, dash to pieces the images of the saints and trample them
under foot. Still more inflamed by this execrable deed, and re-
inforced by fresh accessions, they press forward straightway to
Ypres, where they can count on a strong following of Calvinists.
Unopposed they break into the cathedral; the walls are mounted
with ladders, the pictures are beaten into fragments with ham-
mers, the pulpits and pews hewn to pieces with axes, the altars
stripped of their ornaments, and the sacred vessels stolen. This
example is immediately followed in Menin, Comines, Verrich,
Lille, and Oudenarde; the same fury in a few days seizes the
whole of Flanders. At the very time when the first tidings of
these events arrived, Antwerp was swarming with a crowd of
homeless people, which the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin
had brought together in that city. The presence of the Prince
of Orange can scarcely keep within bounds the licentious band,
who burn to imitate their brothers in St. Omer; but an order
of the court which summons him in haste to Brussels, where the
regentess is just convening her council of State in order to lay
before them the royal letters, obliges him to abandon Antwerp
to the wantonness of this band. His departure is the signal for
tumult. From fear of the lawless violence of the mob, which
manifested itself in derisive allusions in the very first days of the
festival, the image of the Virgin, after having been carried about
for a short time, was brought for safety to the choir, without
being set up as formerly in the middle of the church. This
incited some impudent boys of the common people to pay it a
visit there, and scoffingly to inquire why it had recently absented
itself in such haste? Others mounted the pulpit, where they
mimicked the preacher and challenged the papists to contest.


## p. 12910 (#336) ##########################################

12910
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
A Catholic boatman, who was indignant at this jest, wished to
pull them down from thence; and it came to blows in the
preacher's seat. Similar scenes occurred the following evening.
The numbers increased, and many came provided with suspi-
cious implements and secret weapons. Finally it occurred to one
of them to cry "Long live the Geuses! " Immediately the whole
rabble took up the cry, and the Virgin was called upon to do the
same. The few Catholics who were there, and who had given
up the hope of effecting anything against these desperadoes, left
the church after they had locked all the doors except one.
As
soon as they found themselves alone, it was proposed to sing
one of the psalms according to the new melody, which was forbid-
den by the government. While they were yet singing, they all
cast themselves with fury upon the image of the Virgin, piercing
it through with swords and daggers, and striking off its head;
prostitutes and thieves snatched the great wax-lights from the
altars and lighted them to the work. The beautiful organ of the
church a masterpiece of the art of that period- was broken in
fragments; the paintings were defaced and the statues dashed to
pieces. A crucified Christ of life size, which was set up between
the two thieves opposite the high altar,—an old and highly prized
work, was pulled to the ground with cords and cut to pieces.
with axes, while the two murderers at its side were respectfully
spared. The holy wafers were strewed on the ground and tram-
pled under foot; in the wine for the celebration of the Lord's
Supper, which was accidentally found there, the health of the
Geuses was drunk; with the holy oil they greased their shoes.
Graves even were rummaged, and the half-decayed corpses taken
out and trampled under foot. All this was done with as won-
derful regularity as if the parts had been assigned to each one
beforehand; every one worked into his neighbor's hands. Danger-
ous as this business was, no one met with any injury, notwith-
standing the dense darkness, notwithstanding the heavy objects
which fell around and near them, while many were scuffling
on the highest steps of the ladders. Notwithstanding the many
tapers which lighted them in their villainous doings, not a sin-
gle individual was recognized. With incredible rapidity the deed
was accomplished; in a few hours a hundred men, at most, de-
spoiled a temple of seventy altars, and next to St. Peter's in
Rome perhaps the largest and most magnificent in Christendom.
Translation of E. P. Evans.
-


## p. 12911 (#337) ##########################################

JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12911
Τ"
THE LAST INTERVIEW OF ORANGE WITH EGMONT
From the History of the Revolt of the United Netherlands': date 1567
HE warning of Orange came from a sad and dispirited heart;
and for Egmont the world still smiled. To quit the lap
of abundance, of affluence and splendor, in which he had
grown up to youth and manhood, to part from all the thousand
comforts of life which alone made it of value to him, and all this
in order to escape an evil which his buoyant courage regarded
as still far off,- no, that was not a sacrifice which could be asked
from Egmont. But even had he been less self-indulgent than he
was, with what heart could he have made a princess pampered
by long prosperity-a loving wife and children, on whom his
soul hung-acquainted with privations at which his own courage.
sank, which a sublime philosophy alone can exact from sensuality?
"Thou wilt never persuade me, Orange," said Egmont, "to see
things in this gloomy light in which they appear to thy mourn-
ful prudence. When I have succeeded in abolishing the public
preachings, in chastising the iconoclasts, in crushing the rebels
and restoring their former quiet to the provinces, what can the
King have against me? The King is kind and just, and I have
earned claims upon his gratitude; and I must not forget what I
owe to myself. " "Well then," exclaimed Orange with indignation
and inner anguish, "risk the trust in this royal gratitude! But
a mournful presentiment tells me- and may Heaven grant that I
may be deceived! -thou wilt be the bridge, Egmont, over which
the Spaniards will pass into the country, and which they will
destroy when they have passed over it. " He drew him, after he
had said this, with ardor to himself, and clasped him fervently
and firmly in his arms. Long, as though for the rest of his life,
he kept his eyes fixed upon him and shed tears.
never saw each other again.
They
Translation of E. P. Evans.
ON THE ESTHETIC EDUCATION OF MAN
Extract from Letter No. 9
THE
HE artist, it is true, is the son of his age; but woe be to him
if he is also its pupil, or even its favorite. Let a benefi-
cent divinity snatch him betimes as a suckling from his
mother's breast, nurse him with the milk of a better time, and


## p. 12912 (#338) ##########################################

12912
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
let him ripen to manhood beneath a distant Grecian sky. Then
when he has attained his full growth, let him return, a foreign
shape, into his century; not however to delight it by his pres-
ence, but terrible, like Agamemnon's son, to purify it. The
subject-matter he will of course take from the present; but the
form he will derive from a nobler time, or rather from beyond
all time,- from the absolute, unchangeable unity of his own
being. Here, from the pure ether of his spiritual nature, flows
down the fountain of beauty, uncontaminated by the corruption
of generations and ages, which welter in turbid whirlpools far
beneath it. The matter caprice can dishonor, as she has en-
nobled it; but the chaste form is withdrawn from her mutations.
The Roman of the first century had long bent the knee before
his emperors when the statues were still standing erect; the tem-
ples remained holy to the eye when the gods had long served as
a laughing-stock, and the infamies of a Nero and a Commodus
were put to shame by the noble style of the edifice which gave
them its concealment. Man has lost his dignity, but art has
saved it and preserved it in significant stones; truth lives on in
fiction, and from the copy the original will be restored. As noble
art survived noble nature, so too it goes before it in the inspi-
ration that awakens and creates it. Before truth sends its con-
quering light into the depths of the heart, the poetic imagination
catches its rays, and the summits of humanity begin to glow,
while the damp night is still lying in the valleys.
But how is the artist to guard himself against the corrup-
tions of his time, which encircle him on every side? By con-
tempt for its judgments. Let him look upward to his dignity
and the law of his nature, and not downward to his happiness
and his wants. Free alike from the vain activity that would fain
make its impress on the fleeting moment, and from the impa-
tient spirit of enthusiasm that measures the meagre product of
the time by the standard of absolute perfection, let him leave to
common-sense, which is here at home, the sphere of the actual;
but let him strive from the union of the possible with the neces-
sary to bring forth the ideal. Let him imprint this in fiction
and truth; let him imprint it in the play of his imagination and
in the earnestness of his deeds; imprint it in all sensible and
spiritual forms, and cast it silently into endless time.
Translation of E. P. Evans.


## p. 12913 (#339) ##########################################

12913
FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
(1772-1829)
HE older Romantic school of Germany, which had its origin
in the movement inaugurated by Herder and Goethe, found
in Friedrich von Schlegel its first philosophical expounder
It is in this sense that historians refer to him as the founder of the
new school. In the pages of the Athenæum, which from 1798 to
1800 was the official organ of the Romanticists, Schlegel published
his Fragments. In these he sought to
establish upon philosophic foundations a
critical theory of romantic poetry.
In the later development of his critical
genius he was obliged to retract much that
he had promulgated in the 'Fragments'; but
these writings formed a rallying-point for
the young enthusiasts whose works ushered
in the nineteenth century. Lacking creative
power himself, Schlegel nevertheless exerted
a fine and broadening influence upon his
time. With comprehensive knowledge, phil-
osophical insight, and deep intuitional judg-
ment, he was able to put forth a body of
literary criticism which has been aptly called
"productive. " His broad synthesis, based upon careful analysis, has
given to his work a permanent inspirational value.
Friedrich von Schlegel was born in Hanover on March 10th, 1772.
He came of a family of poets and distinguished men. His father,
Johann Elias Schlegel, was the author of several tragedies in Alex-
andrines; and although he belonged to the periwig-pated age of Gott-
sched, he had called public attention to the beauties of Shakespeare.
It was his son Wilhelm, the famous critic and poet, that furnished
the classic and incomparable German versions of seventeen Shake-
spearean plays. Friedrich's two uncles, Johann Adolf and Johann
Heinrich Schlegel, were, the former a well-known poet and pulpit
orator, the latter royal historiographer of Denmark. Although Fried-
rich was reared among family traditions so entirely intellectual, he
was, strangely enough, destined for a mercantile career; but the
inherited tendencies proved too strong, and he joined his brother
Wilhelm at Göttingen. There and at Leipzig he pursued the study
XXII-808

F. VON SCHLEGEL


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FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
12914
of law; in 1793; however, he abandoned this also, and the remainder
of his life was devoted to scholarly and literary labors. His mind
turned first to the Greeks, and for the literature of Greece he aspired
to do what Winckelmann had done for her art; but beyond a few
thoughtful essays his attainments in this field never grew, and in
1796 he turned all his energies to the study of modern literature and
philosophy. Fichte was the largest influence in his intellectual life;
Goethe was his idolized master in the realms of poetry. The offens-
ive tone of his reviews, however, led to a bitter unpleasantness with
Schiller. In 1797 Schlegel went to Berlin, where he began a cam-
paign against the rationalistic philistinism that dominated the intel-
lectual life of the Prussian capital. There too he entered the circle
of Tieck and Schleiermacher, and published the "Fragments. '
During this sojourn in Berlin, Schlegel met the daughter of Moses
Mendelssohn, the wife of a Jewish merchant named Veit. This was
the famous Dorothea, who played so prominent a part in the annals
of the Romantic circle. One year later she separated from her hus-
band, to live thenceforth with Friedrich von Schlegel. Their relations
have been set forth in the guise of fiction with shameless frankness,
and without poetic charm. Schlegel's 'Lucinde,' the most notorious
and unsavory product of the Romantic school, is a dire exemplification
of the author's dogma that the poet's caprice is the supreme æsthetic
law. This book became the centre of a literary strife in which
Schleiermacher undertook its defense. It has been omitted from the
later editions of Schlegel's collected works. In April 1804 Friedrich
and Dorothea were married. Four years later, following the Roman-
tic tendency, both became Catholics. Dorothea outlived her husband
by ten years. Her few writings all appeared under her husband's
name. The standard German version of Madame de Staël's 'Corinne'
was her work.
Schlegel's career was a brilliant one. For a brief space he was
tutor at Jena; but his most effective work was as a lecturer. In Paris
he made a thorough study of Persian and Hindu; and with a most
unusual scholarly equipment, including a knowledge of ancient, mod-
ern, and remote literatures, he entered the lecture field. Nor should
mention be omitted of his art studies, pursued both at Paris and in
company with the Boisserées at Cologne. Honors were showered
thickly upon him; crowds thronged to his lecture-room. When in
1809 he went to Vienna he was made court councilor, and became the
literary secretary of the State Chancellery. The ringing proclama-
tions with which Austria announced her uprising against Napoleon in
1809 were from his pen. In the campaign that followed, it was he
who at the headquarters of the Archduke Karl took editorial charge
of the army paper, known as the Austrian Gazette. But after the
disenchanting peace in the autumn, Schlegel fell back into that state


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FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
12915
of pessimistic resignation which characterized the Metternich régime.
From 1815 to 1818 he was counsel of the Austrian legation at Frank-
fort. In 1819 he accompanied Metternich to Italy; but on his return
he left the service of the State, and gave his energies exclusively
to literature. He founded a magazine called Concordia, whose sole
purpose was to bring all confessions back into the fold of the church.
A course of lectures which in 1827 he delivered in Vienna on the
'Philosophy of History' showed that his Catholicism had injured his
catholicity. In the following year, in Dresden, he began another
course on the 'Philosophy of Language and of Words'; but it was
never finished. He died on January 12th, 1829.
Schlegel's most important contributions to literature, with one nota-
ble exception, were conceived in the form of lectures.
That excep-
tion was the ripe fruit of his Oriental studies, and appeared in 1808
under the title of 'Sprache und Weisheit der Indier' (Language and
Wisdom of the [East] Indians). It gave an important impulse to the
then young science of comparative philology. Of more far-reaching
influence was the course of lectures, delivered in Vienna before
crowded audiences in the years 1810 to 1812, on 'Die Geschichte der
Alten und Neuen Litteratur' (History of Ancient and Modern Liter-
ature). Although the heyday of his youthful enthusiasm is tamed,
and a growing intolerance is evident, there is an exultant vigor in
these lectures that marks the man who consciously commands his
subject, and develops it with a sure mastery along clearly thought-
out and original lines. He fights for the ideal of a free individuality
which he saw incorporated in Goethe; but the tinge of medievalism
is apparent in his exaltation of Dante and Calderon. Schlegel, if he
was not creative, may be called productive; his work was vital, and
the rich nobility of his essentially poetic mind has made his critical
writings a positive constructive force.
OF ROMANCE: SPENSER AND SHAKESPEARE
From 'Lectures on the History of Literature ›
THE
HE romance of Cervantes has been, notwithstanding its high
internal excellence, a dangerous and unfortunate model for
the imitation of other nations. The 'Don Quixote,' a work
in its kind of unexampled invention, has been the origin of the
whole of modern romance; and of a crowd of unsuccessful attempts
among French, English, and Germans, the object of which was
to elevate into a species of poetry the prosaic representations of


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12916
FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
the actual and the present. To say nothing of the genius of
Cervantes, which stands entirely by itself, and was sufficient to
secure him from many of the faults of his successors,- the situa-
tion in which he cultivated prose fiction was fortunately far above
what has fallen to the lot of any of them. The actual life of
Spain in his day was much more chivalric and romantic than it
has ever since been in any country of Europe. Even the want
of a very exact civil subordination, and the free or rather lawless.
life of the provinces, might be of use to his imagination.
In all these attempts to raise the realities of Spanish life, by
wit and adventure or by the extraordinary excitements of thought
and feeling, to a species of poetic fiction, we can perceive that
the authors are always anxious to create for themselves, in some
way or other, the advantages of a poetic distance; if it were only
in the life of Italian artists, a subject frequently treated in Ger-
man romances, or in that of American woods and wildernesses,
one very common among those of foreigners. Even when the
scene of the fable is laid entirely at home, and within the sphere
of the common citizen life, the narrative so long as it con-
tinues to be narrative, and does not lose itself altogether in wit,
humor, or sentiment-is ever anxious to extend in some degree
the limit of that reality by which it is confined, and to procure
somewhere an opening into the region where fancy is more at
liberty in her operations: when no other method can be found,
traveling adventures, duels, elopements, a band of robbers, or
the intrigues and anxieties of a troop of strollers, are introduced
pretty evidently more for the sake of the author than of his hero.
The idea of the Romantic in these romances- even in some
of the best and most celebrated of them-
appears to coincide
very closely with that of unregulated and dissolute conduct. I
remember it was the observation of a great philosopher, that the
moment the world should see a perfect police, the moment there
should be no contraband trade and the traveler's pass should con-
tain an exact portrait and biography of its bearer, that moment
it would become quite impossible to write a good romance; for
that then nothing could occur in real life which might, with any
moderate degree of ornament, be formed into the groundwork
of such fiction. The expression seems quaint, but I suspect the
opinion is founded very nearly upon the truth.
To determine the true and proper relation between poetry and
the past or the present, involves the investigation of the whole
-
――――――――
-
―


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FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
12917
depth and essence of the art. In general, in our theories,— with
the exception of some very general, meaningless, and most com-
monly false definitions of the art itself, and of the beautiful,-
the chief subjects of attention are the mere forms of poetry;
things without doubt necessary to be known, but by no means
sufficient. As yet there has scarcely been any theory with
regard to the proper subject of poetry, although such a theory
would evidently be far the most useful of any in regard to the
effect which poetry is to have upon life. In the preceding dis-
course I have endeavored to supply this defect, and to give some
glimpses of such a theory, wherever the nature of my topics has
furnished me with an opportunity.
With regard to the representation of actual life in poetry, we
must above all things remember that it is by no means certain
that the actual and the present are intractable or unworthy sub-
jects of poetical representation, merely because in themselves they
appear less noble and uncommon than the past. It is true that
in what is near and present, the common and unpoetical come at
all times more strongly and more conspicuously into view; while
in the remote and the past, they occupy the distance and leave
the foreground to be filled with forms of greatness and sublimity
alone. But this difficulty is one which the true poet can easily
conquer: his art has no more favorite mode of displaying itself
than in lending to things of commonplace and every-day occur-
rence the brilliancy of a poetic illumination, by extracting from
them higher signification and deeper purpose and more refined
feeling than we had before suspected them of concealing, or
dreamed them to be capable of exciting. Still, the precision of
the present is at all times binding and confining for the fancy;
and when by our subject we impose so many fetters upon her,
there is always reason to fear that she will be inclined to make
up for this restraint by an excess of liberty in regard to language
and description.
To make my views upon this point intelligible to you in the
shortest way, I need only recall to your recollection what I said
some time ago with regard to subjects of a religious or Christ-
ian import. The invisible world, the Deity, and pure intellect,
can never upon the whole be with propriety represented by us;
nature and human beings are the proper and immediate sub-
jects of poetry. But the higher and spiritual world can be every-
where embodied and shadowed forth in our terrestrial materials.


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12918
FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
In like manner, the indirect representation of the actual and the
present is the best and most appropriate. The bloom of young
life, and the high ecstasies of passion, as well as the maturity
of wise reflection, may all be combined with the old traditions
of our nation: they will there have more room for exertion, and
be displayed in a purer light, than the present can command.
The oldest poet of the past, Homer, is at the same time to us
a describer of the present in its utmost liveliness and freshness.
Every true poet carries into the past his own age, and in a
certain sense himself. The following appears to me to be a true
account of the proper relation between poetry and time: The
proper business of poetry is to represent only the eternal,-
that which is at all places and in all times significant and beau-
tiful; but this cannot be accomplished without the intervention
of a veil. Poetry requires to have a corporeal habitation; and
this she finds in her best sphere, the traditions of a nation, the
recollections and the past of a people. In her representations of
these, however, she introduces the whole wealth of the present,
so far as that is susceptible of poetical ornament; she plunges
also into the future, because she explains the apparent mysteries
of earthly existence, accompanies individual life through all its
development down to its period of termination, and sheds from
her magic mirror the light of a higher interpretation upon all
things; she embraces all the tenses-the past, the present, and
the future in order to make a truly sensible representation of
the eternal or the perfect time. Even in a philosophical sense,
eternity is no nonentity, no mere negation of time; but rather its
entire and undivided fullness, wherein all its elements are united,
where the past becomes again new and present, and with the
present itself is mingled the abundance of hope and all the rich-
ness of futurity.
―――――
――――
Although, upon the whole, I consider the indirect repre-
sentation of the present as the one most suitable for poetry,
I would by no means be understood to be passing a judgment
of condemnation upon all poetical works which follow the
opposite path. We must leave the artist to be the judge of
his own work. The true poet can show his power even though
he takes a wrong way, and composes works which are far from
perfection in regard to their original foundation. Milton and
Klopstock must at all times be honored as poets of the first class,
although no one will deny that they have both done themselves the


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FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
12919
injustice to choose subjects which they never could adequately
describe.
In like manner, to Richardson, who erred in a very opposite
way, by trying to imitate Cervantes in elevating to poetry the
realities of modern life, we cannot refuse the praise of a great
talent for description, and of having at least manifested great
vigor in his course, although the goal which he wished to reach
was one entirely beyond his power.
The chivalrous poem of Spenser, the Fairy Queen,' presents
us with a complete view of the spirit of romance which yet lin-
gered in England among the subjects of Elizabeth; that maiden
queen who saw herself, with no ordinary delight, deified while yet
alive by such playful fancies of mythology and the Muse. Spen-
ser is a perfect master of the picturesque: in his lyrical pieces
there breathes all the tenderness of the idyl, the very spirit of
the Troubadours. Not only in the species and manner of his
poetry, but even in his language, he bears the most striking re-
semblance to our old German poets of love and chivalry. The
history of the English literature was indeed quite the reverse of
ours. Chaucer is not unlike our poets of the sixteenth century;
but Spenser is the near kinsman of the tender and melodious
poets of our older time. In every language which is, like the
English, the product of the blending of two different dialects,
there must always be two ideals, according as the poet shall lean
more to the one or the other of the elements whereof his lan-
-
·
guage is composed. Of all the English poets the most Teutonic
is Spenser; while Milton, on the contrary, has an evident par-
tiality to the Latin part of the English tongue. The only un-
fortunate part of Spenser's poetry is its form. The allegory
which he has selected and made the groundwork of his chief poem
is not one of that lively kind which prevails in the elder chival-
rous fictions, wherein the idea of a spiritual hero, and the mys-
teries of his higher vocation, are concealed under the likeness of
external adventures and tangible events. It is only a dead alle-
gory, a mere classification of all the virtues of an ethical system;
in short, such a one that but for the proper names of the per-
sonages, we should never suspect any part of their history to con-
tain "
more than meets the ear. "
The admiration with which Shakespeare regarded Spenser,
and the care with which he imitated him in his lyrical and idyl-
lic poems, are circumstances of themselves sufficient to make us


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12920
FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
study, with the liveliest interest, the poem of the 'Fairy Queen. '
It is in these minor pieces of Shakespeare that we are first intro-
duced to a personal knowledge of the great poet and his feel-
ings. When he wrote sonnets, it seems as if he had considered
himself as more a poet than when he wrote plays: he was the
manager of a theatre, and he viewed the drama as his business;
on it he exerted all his intellect and power: but when he had
feelings intense and secret to express, he had recourse to a form
of writing with which his habits had rendered him less familiar.
It is strange but delightful to scrutinize, in his short effusions,
the character of Shakespeare. In them we see that he who
stood like a magician above the world, penetrating with one
glance into all the depths and mysteries and perplexities of human
character, and having power to call up into open day the dark-
est workings of human passions,—that this great being was not
deprived of any portion of his human sympathies by the eleva-
tion to which he was raised, but preserved amidst all his stern
functions a heart overflowing with tenderness, purity, and love.
His feelings are intense, profound, acute, almost to selfishness;
but he expresses them so briefly and modestly as to form a
strange contrast with most of those poets who write concerning
themselves. For the right understanding of his dramatic works,
these lyrics are of the greatest importance. They show us that
in his dramas he very seldom speaks according to his own feel-
ings or his own thoughts, but according to his knowledge. The
world lay clear and distinct before his eyes, but between him
and it there was a deep gulf fixed. He gives us a portrait of
what he saw, without flattery or ornament, having the charm
of unrivaled accuracy and truth. Were understanding, acuteness,
and profoundness of thought (in so far as these are necessary for
the characterizing of human life), to be considered as the first
qualities of a poet, there is none worthy to be compared with
Shakespeare. Other poets have endeavored to transport us, at
least for a few moments, into another and an ideal condition
of mankind. But Shakespeare is the master of reality; he sets
before us, with a truth that is often painful, man in his degraded
state, in this corruption which penetrates and contaminates all
his being, all that he does and suffers, all the thoughts and
aspirations of his fallen spirit. In this respect he may not un-
frequently be said to be a satirical poet; and well indeed may
the picture which he presents of human debasement, and the


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FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
12921
enigma of our being, be calculated to produce an effect far more
deep and abiding than the whole body of splenetic and passionate
revilers whom we commonly call by the name of satiric poets.
In the midst of all the bitterness of Shakespeare we perceive
continual glimpses of thoughts and recollections more pure than
satirists partake in: meditation on the original height and eleva-
tion of man; the peculiar tenderness and noble-minded sentiment
of a poet. The dark world of his representation is illuminated
with the most beautiful rays of patriotic inspiration, serene phi-
lanthropy, and glowing love.
But even the youthful glow of love appears in his Romeo
as the mere inspiration of death; and is mingled with the same
skeptical and melancholy views of life which in Hamlet give to
all our being an appearance of more than natural discord and
perplexity, and which in Lear carry sorrow and passion into the
utmost misery of madness. This poet, who externally seems to
be most calm and temperate, clear and lively; with whom intel-
lect seems everywhere to preponderate; who as we at first im-
agine, regards and represents everything almost with coldness,-
is found, if we examine into the internal feelings of his spirit, to
be above all others the most deeply sorrowful and tragic.
Shakespeare regarded the drama as entirely a thing for the
people, and at first treated it throughout as such. He took the
popular comedy as he found it; and whatever enlargements and
improvements he introduced into the stage were all calculated
and conceived according to the peculiar spirit of his predeces-
sors and of the audience in London. Even in the earliest of his
tragic attempts, he takes possession of the whole superstitions of
the vulgar; and mingles in his poetry not only the gigantic
greatness of their rude traditions, but also the fearful, the horri-
ble, and the revolting. All these, again, are blended with such
representations and views of human debasement as passed, or
still pass, with common spectators for wit; but were connected
in the depths of his reflective and penetrating spirit with the
very different feelings of bitter contempt or sorrowful sympa-
thy. He was not in knowledge, far less in art, such as since
the time of Milton it has been usual to represent him.