Wilhelm Alfred Braun

“ It is scarcely necessary to theorize as to what would have been the attitude and conduct of a sensitive Hölderlin or a proud-spirited Lenau in a similar position. Lenau is too proud to protest, preferring to suffer. Heine is too vain to appear as a sufferer, so he meets adversity, not in a spirit of admirable courage, but in a spirit of bravado. In giving lyric utterance to his resentment, Heine is conscious that the world is looking on, and so he indulges, even in the expression of his Weltschmerz, in a vain ostentation which stands in marked contrast to Lenau's dignified pride. ”

“ Ich las ihn selten seit einigen Jahren; man geht lieber um mit Menschen, deren Charakter von dem unsrigen verschieden ist. Ich bin aber mit Byron immer behaglich umgegangen, wie mit einem völlig gleichen Spiesskameraden. Mit Shakespeare kann ich gar nicht behaglich umgehen, ich fühle nur zu sehr, dass ich nicht seinesgleichen bin, er ist der allgewaltige Minister, und ich bin ein blosser Hofrat, und es ist mir, als ob er mich jeden Augenblick absetzen könnte. ”

“ It is not too much, I think, to assert that Goethe could never have become so uniquely great, not even through the splendid versatility of his genius, but for that incomparable self-control, which he made the watchword of his life. ”

“ It was the ode, dithyramb and hymn, the serious lyric, which Hölderlin selected as the models for his poetic fashion. In this purpose he was not alone, for his friend Neuffer writes to him in 1793, with an enthusiasm which in the intensity of expression common at the time, seems almost like an inspiration: "Die höhere Ode und der Hymnus, zwei in unsern Tagen, und vielleicht in allen Zeitaltern am meisten vernachlässigte Musen! in ihre Arme wollen wir uns werfen, von ihren Küssen beseelt uns aufraffen. Welche Aussichten! Dein Hymnus an die Kühnheit mag Dir zum Motto dienen! ”

“ Undeniably Grecian is Hölderlin's idea that the beautiful is also the good. Long years he sought for this combined ideal. In Diotima, the muse of his "Hyperion," whose prototype was Susette Gontard, he has found it—and now he feels that he is in a new world. To his friend Neuffer, from whom he has no secrets, he writes: "Ich konnte wohl sonst glauben, ich wisse, was schön und gut sei, aber seit ich's sehe, möcht' ich lachen über all mein Wissen. Lieblichkeit und Hoheit, und Ruh und Leben, und Geist und Gemüt und Gestalt ist Ein seeliges Eins in diesem Wesen." ”

“ Now the pain of disappointed love is the motive and the theme of very many of Hölderlin's and Lenau's lyrics, poems which are heavy with Weltschmerz, while most of Heine's are not. To speak only of the poet's most important attachments, of his unrequited love for his cousin Amalie, and his unsuccessful wooing of her sister Therese,—there can be no doubt that these unhappy loves brought years of pain and bitterness into his life, sorrow probably as genuine as any he ever experienced, and yet how little, comparatively, there is in his poetry to convince us of the fact. ”

“ And it was the apathy of the average German, as Hölderlin conceived it, toward these and other national indignities, that caused him to put such bitter words of contumely into the mouth of Hyperion: "Barbaren von Alters her, durch Fleiss und Wissenschaft und selbst durch Religion barbarischer geworden, tief unfähig jedes göttlichen Gefühls—beleidigend für jede gut geartete Seele, dumpf und harmonielos, wie die Scherben eines weggeworfenen Gefässes—das, mein Bellarmin! ”

“ And just as his ideals are vague and abstract, so too are the expressions of his Weltschmerz. It needs no concrete idea to arouse his enthusiasm to its highest pitch. Thus Hyperion exclaims: "Der Gott in uns, dem die Unendlichkeit zur Bahn sich öffnet, soll stehen und harren, bis der Wurm ihm aus dem Wege geht? Nein! nein! man frägt nicht, ob ihr wollt! ihr wollt ja nie—ihr Knechte und Barbaren! Euch will man auch nicht bessern, denn es ist umsonst! Man will nur dafür sorgen, dass ihr dem Siegeslauf der Menschheit aus dem Wege geht!" ”

“ Having thus attempted a review of the growth of Hölderlin's Weltschmerz and of its chief characteristics, it merely remains to conclude the chapter with a brief resume. We have then in Friedrich Hölderlin a youth peculiarly predisposed to feel himself isolated from and repelled by the world, growing up without a strong fatherly hand to guide, giving himself over more and more to solitude and so becoming continually less able to cope with untoward circumstances and conditions. Growing into manhood, he was unfortunate in all his love-affairs and as though doomed to unceasing disappointments. ”

“ And when this melancholy takes root in the finely organized mind of genius, it is only to be expected that the result will be even more disastrous than in the case of the ordinary mind. Lombroso holds the opinion that if men of genius are not all more or less insane, that is, if the "spheres of influence" of genius and insanity do not actually overlap, they are at least contiguous at many points, so that the transition from the former to the latter is extremely easy and even natural. But genius in itself is not an abnormal mental condition. ”

“ Moreover Weltschmerz, which constitutes the "Grundstimmung" of all Hölderlin's writings, and which is most plainly and persistently expressed in "Hyperion," is not Hellenic. Not that we should have to look in vain for pessimistic utterances from the classical poets of Greece—for does not Sophocles make the deliberate statement: "Not to be born is the most reasonable, but having seen the light, the next best thing is to go to the place whence we came as soon as possible." ”

“ Heine goes still further, for having become conscious of his melancholy, he mercilessly applies the lash of self-irony, and in it finds the antidote for his Weltschmerz.
Fichte, says Erich Schmidt, calls egoism the spirit of the eighteenth century, by which he means the revelling, the complete absorption, in the personal. This will naturally find its favorite occupation in sentimental self-contemplation, which becomes a sort of fashionable epidemic. It is this fashion which Goethe wished to depict in "Werther," and therefore Werther's hopeless love is not wholly responsible for his suicide. ”

“ Still more extravagantly does the poet caricature his own people when he writes: "Wenn doch einmal diesen Gottverlassnen einer sagte, dass bei ihnen nur so unvollkommen alles ist, weil sie nichts Reines unverdorben, nichts Heiliges unbetastet lassen mit den plumpen Händen—dass bei ihnen eigentlich das Leben schaal und sorgenschwer ist, weil sie den Genius verschmähen—und darum fürchten sie auch den Tod so sehr, und leiden um des Austernlebens willen alle Schmach, weil Höhres sie nicht kennen, als ihr Machwerk, das sie sich gestoppelt." ”

“ The representatives of cosmic Weltschmerz are those poets whose first concern is not their personal fate, their own unhappiness, it may be, but who see first and foremost the sad fate of humanity and regard their own misfortunes merely as a part of the common destiny. The representatives of the second type are those introspective natures who are first and chiefly aware of their own misery and finally come to regard it as representative of universal evil. ”

“ No other German poet has allowed himself to be so completely dominated by the Greek idea as did Hölderlin. And in his case it may properly be called a symptom of his Weltschmerz, for it marks his flight from the world of stern reality into an imaginary world of Greek ideals. An imaginary Greek world, because in spite of his Hellenic enthusiasm he entertained some of the most un-Hellenic ideas and feelings. ”

“ Lenau was fully conscious of the tremendous struggle with overpowering passion, and once confessed to his clerical friend Martensen that only through the unassailable chastity of his lady-love had his conscience remained void of offence. Almost any of his innumerable protestations of love taken at random would seem like the most extravagant attempt to give utterance to the inexpressible: "Gottes starke Hand drückt mich so fest an Dich, dass ich seufzen muss und ringen mit erdrückender Wonne, und meine Seele keinen Atem mehr hat, wenn sie nicht Deine Liebe saugen kann. Ach Sophie! ”

“ Weltschmerz is essentially a symptom of a period of conflict, of transition. The powerful reaction which marks the eighteenth century—a reaction against all traditional intellectual authority, and a struggle for the emancipation of the individual, of research, of inspiration and of genius—reached its high-water mark in Germany in the seventies. ”

“ Hölderlin does not bring the blessed Genii into any relation with mortals, but merely contrasts their free and blissful existence, emphasizing their immunity from Fate, to which suffering humanity is subject. ”

“ True, a stronger mental organization might have overcome these or even greater difficulties; Schiller, Herder, Fichte are examples; but not all of Hölderlin's failures and disappointments were the result of his weakness, and so while it is right to state that a stronger and more robust nature would have conquered in the fight, it is also fair to say that Hölderlin would have had a good chance of winning, had fortune been more kind. For this reason these external influences must be reckoned with as an important cause of his Weltschmerz and subsequently of his insanity. ”

“ They were happy in their worship of beauty in art and in nature, and above all, happy in their creativeness. The question suggests itself here, whether a poet can ever be a genuine pessimist, since he has within him the everlasting impulse to create. And to create is to hope. Hyperion himself says: "Es lebte nichts, wenn es nicht hoffte." [62] But we have already distinguished between pessimism as a system of philosophy, and Weltschmerz as a poetic mood. [63] It is certainly un-Hellenic that Hölderlin allows Hyperion with his alleged Greek nature to sink into contemplative inactivity. ”

“ And that is exactly what we find in Lenau, even in his love-songs. His love-sorrow is blended with his many other heart-aches, with his disappointments and regrets, with his yearning for death. He sings of his pain rather than of its immediate causes, and the result is an atmosphere of Weltschmerz.
Turning to Heine's later poems, especially to the "Romanzero," we find that atmosphere much more perceptible. But even here the poet is for the most part specific, and his method concrete. ”

“ Kant defines genius as the talent of invention. Originality and productiveness are the fundamental elements of genius. And it is an almost instinctive force which urges the author on in his creative work. In the main his activity is due less to free will than to this inner compulsion.
"Ich halte diesen Drang vergebens auf,
Der Tag und Nacht in meinem Busen wechselt.
Wenn ich nicht sinnen oder dichten soll,
So ist das Leben mir kein Leben mehr,"
says Goethe's Tasso. ”

“ Early in life he devoted himself to the study of antiquity, making Greece his hobby, and thus creating for himself an ideal world which existed only in his imagination, and taking refuge in it from the buffetings of the world about him. ”

“ Wahrlich in diesem Augenblicke fühle ich sehr lebhaft, dass ich kein Nachbeter, oder, besser gesagt, Nachfrevler, Byrons bin, mein Blut ist nicht so spleenisch schwarz, meine Bitterkeit kömmt nur aus den Galläpfeln meiner Dinte, und wenn Gift in mir ist, so ist es doch nur Gegengift, Gegengift wider jene Schlangen, die im Schutte der alten Dome und Burgen so bedrohlich lauern. ”

“ In another letter Hyperion explains their incapacity for finer feeling and appreciation when he writes: "Neide die Leidensfreien nicht, die Götzen von Holz, denen nichts mangelt, weil ihre Seele so arm ist, die nichts fragen nach Regen und Sonnenschein, weil sie nichts haben, was der Pflege bedürfte. Ja, ja, es ist recht sehr leicht, glücklich, ruhig zu sein mit seichtem Herzen und eingeschränktem Geiste." ”

“ Amid such influences and surroundings, occupied with fads and studies of this sort, lacking all incentive from without to any important activity and confronted by the sole prospect of having to drag out a humdrum existence, men began to reflect with a sort of sullen exultation upon the possibility of departing this life at will, and to find in this thought a scant amelioration of the ills and tedium of the times. ”

“ Prophetic of the poet's own later experience is the representation of the hero, who is beguiled by his love for Zuleima into vowing allegiance to the Christian faith, only to find that the sacrifice has failed to win for him the object for which it was made. In the character of Almansor, more than anywhere else, Heine's "Liebesschmerz" and "Judenschmerz" have combined to produce in him an inner dissonance which expresses itself in lyric lines of real Weltschmerz:
Ich bin recht müd
Und krank, und kranker noch als krank, denn ach,
Die allerschlimmste Krankheit ist das Leben ”

“ And these are certainly characteristic in a very high degree of the mind of genius. It has often been remarked that it is the corona spinosa of genius to feel all pain more intensely than do other men. Schopenhauer says "der, in welchem der Genius lebt, leidet am meisten." It is only going a step further then, when Hamerling writes to his friend Möser: "Schliesslich ist es doch nur der Kranke, der sich das Leid der ganzen Welt zu Herzen nimmt." ”

“ Sie sieht's als ihre Sendung an, mein Leben zu versöhnen und zu beglücken.—Es ist an Ihnen Menschlichkeit zu üben an meinem zerrissenen Herzen.—Verstosse ich sie, so mache ich sie elend und mich zugleich.—Entziehen Sie mir Ihr Herz, so geben Sie mir den Tod ”

“ Nature is his constant companion, mother, comforter in sorrow, in his brighter moments his deity. This nature-worship, which speedily develops into a more or less consistent pantheism, Hölderlin expresses in Hyperion's second letter, in the following creed: "Eines zu sein mit allem, was lebt, in seliger Selbstvergessenheit wiederzukehren ins All der Natur, das ist der Gipfel der Gedanken und Freuden, das ist die heilige Bergeshöhe, der Ort der ewigen Ruhe." [69] And so nature is to Hölderlin always intensely real and personal. The sea is youthful, full of exuberant joy ”

“ If this impulse of genius is embodied in a strong physical organism, as for example in the case of Shakespeare and Goethe, there need be no detriment to physical health; otherwise, and especially if there is an inherited tendency to disease, there is almost sure to be a physical collapse. Specialists in the subject have pointed out that violent passions are even more potent in producing mental disease than mere intellectual over-exertion. ”

“ Der Tod ist gut, doch besser wär's,
Die Mutter hätt' uns nie geboren.
It is scarcely necessary to point out that the specific cause which the poet confides to us of his "wounds, tears and pains" is ridiculously unimportant as compared with the conclusion which he draws in the last two lines.
Evidently then, he does not wish us to take him seriously, nor could we, if he did. Thus in their very attitude toward the ills and vexations of life, there appears a most essential difference between Lenau and Heine. ”