Friedrich von Klopstock

“ Klopstock naturalized antique metres, or rather made them familiar to the school and to cultivated poets, while on the other hand Heine's derision of August von Platen's set form of verse was welcomed in many circles, and even the elevated poems of Friedrich Hölderlin, which approached the antique form, remained foreign to the people, like the experiments of Leconte de Lisle in France; in Italy it fared otherwise with Carducci's Odi barbare. Only one antique metre became German, in the same sense that Shakespeare had become a German poet ”

“ He still continued to live and work at Copenhagen, and next, following Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (q.v.) , turned his attention to northern mythology, which he conceived should replace classical subjects in a new school of German poetry. In 1770, on the dismissal by King Christian VII. of Count Bernstorff from office, he retired with the latter to Hamburg, but retained his pension together with the rank of councillor of legation. Here, in 1773, he issued the last five cantos of the Messias. ”

“ KLOPSTOCK, GOTTLIEB FRIEDRICH (1724–1803) , German poet, was born at Quedlinburg, on the 2nd of July 1724, the eldest son of a lawyer, a man of sterling character and of a deeply religious mind. Both in his birthplace and on the estate of Friedeburg on the Saale, which his father later rented, young Klopstock passed a happy childhood; and more attention having been given to his physical than to his mental development he grew up a strong healthy boy and was an excellent horseman and skater. ”

“ Everything requisite for founding such an epoch was combined in Klopstock. Considered, both from the sensual and moral side, he was a pure young man. Seriously and thoroughly educated, he places from his youth upwards a great value upon himself and upon whatever he does, and, while considerately measuring out beforehand the steps of his life, turns, with a presentiment of the whole strength of his internal nature, toward the loftiest and most grateful theme. ”

“ They all indicate impatience in a condition, to the bearings of which one cannot reconcile one's self, yet from which one cannot get free. With this mode of thinking and feeling, he was, indeed, often compelled to seek other employments, which, on account of his great cleverness, were never wanting. I remember him as a pleasing, active, and, at the same time, gentle man.
The name of Klopstock had already produced a great effect upon us, even at a distance. In the outset, people wondered how so excellent a man could be so strangely named ”

“ Such a man undertakes the difficult task of supporting, at the same time, his own dignity, and that of a superior to whom he is responsible; of advancing his own interest, together with the much more important interest of a prince, or even of a whole State; and of making himself, beyond all things, pleasing to other men while in this critical position. In this way Klopstock appeared to bear himself as a man of worth and as the representative of other things—of religion, of morality and freedom. ”

“ Hence those first readings have long been most in favour with us; nay, we have often refreshed and delighted ourselves with poems which the author afterwards rejected. So true it is, that the life which presses forth out of a "fine soul" works with the greater freedom the less it appears to be drawn by criticism into the department of art.
Klopstock, by his character and conduct, had managed to attain regard and dignity, both for himself and for other men of talent ”

“ Thus Klopstock gained the perfect right to regard himself as a consecrated person, and thus in his actions he studied the most scrupulous purity. Even in his old age it troubled him exceedingly that he had given his earliest love to a lady who, by marrying another, left him in uncertainty whether she had really loved or been worthy of him. The sentiments which bound him to Meta; their hearty, tranquil affection; their short, sacred married life; the aversion of the surviving husband from a second union,—all is of that kind which may well be remembered hereafter in the circle of the blessed. ”

“ But wait till the youth has become a man, and till, from the domain of ideas, he comes back to the world of experience, then you will see this enthusiastic love of Klopstock decrease greatly, without, however, a riper age changing at all the esteem due to this unique phenomenon, to this so extraordinary genius, to these noble sentiments—the esteem that Germany in particular owes to his high merit. ”

“ No poet—except perhaps Young, who in this respect exacts even more than Klopstock, without giving us so much compensation —no poet could be less adapted than Klopstock to play the part of favorite author and guide in life, because he never does anything else than lead us out of life, because he never calls to arms anything save spirit, without giving recreation and refreshment to sensuous nature by the calm presence of any object. ”

“ The epoch in which this happened gave a double brilliancy and value to such an appointment; for several German princes already followed the example of the Count of Lippe, inasmuch as they took into their service not merely learned men, and men of business, properly so called, but also persons of mind and promise. Thus, it was said, Klopstock had been invited by the Margrave Charles of Baden, not for real business, but that by his presence he might impart a grace and be useful to the higher society. ”

“ Among us young people there was indeed nothing to be traced, which could have been culpable, but a certain similar notion, composed of poetry, morality, and a noble striving, and which was harmless but yet fruitless, had taken possession of us.
By his Hermann's-Schlacht, [2] and the dedication of it to Joseph the Second, Klopstock had produced a wonderful excitement. The Germans who freed themselves from Roman oppression were nobly and powerfully represented, and this picture was well suited to awaken the self-feeling of a nation. ”

“ Klopstock's thoughts on poetry and literature were set forth in the form of an old German Druidical republic; his maxims on the true and false were expressed in pithy laconic aphorisms, in which, however, much that was instructive was sacrificed to the singularity of form. For authors and littérateurs, the book was and is invaluable; but it was only in this circle that it could be useful and effective. He who had thought himself followed the thinker; he who knew how to seek and prize what was genuine, found himself instructed by the profound, honest man ”

“ If Abbadona were a man, a conversion to God would no doubt be reasonable; but where we have evil regarded as something independently substantive, which is not an individual human evil, such a conversion is merely a triviality of sentimental emotion. It is in fact a distinguishing characteristic of Klopstock's invention that it creates such unreal personages, conditions and events, which have nothing in common with the actual world and its poetical content. ”

“ Plutarch and Shakspeare; [4] the writings of Klopstock, Lessing, Garve, Herder, Gerstenberg, Goethe, and a multitude of others, which marked the dawning literature of Germany, he had studied with a secret avidity: they gave him vague ideas of men and life, or awakened in him splendid visions of literary glory. Klopstock's Messias, combined with his own religious tendencies, had early turned him to sacred poetry: before the end of his fourteenth year, he had finished what he called an 'epic poem,' entitled Moses. ”

“ The living heavens shout with a thousand angel voices round the throne, and a radiance of love gushes out over the universe, which shortly before had fastened its looks upon a fearful place of sacrifice. The heavenly peace which Klopstock felt in the conception and execution of this poem communicates itself even now to every one who reads the first ten cantos, without allowing certain requisitions to be brought forward, which an advancing cultivation does not willingly abandon. ”

“ In the present work, however, I shall be unable to discuss with more detail the characteristics of the above development. I will, by way of conclusion, merely draw attention to one German poet, whose influence has given in modern times a quite extraordinary impetus to the lyric poetry of our own fatherland, and whose services in this respect are by no means appreciated by contemporary criticism as they deserve to be. I refer to the poet of the Messias. Klopstock is among the great Germans, who have inaugurated the new artistic epoch of their people. ”

“ He attached more importance to noble than to extraordinary ideas. But to poetic energy, precision and plenitude of picturesque expression, or what may be termed the poetry of language, his attention was chiefly directed. This quality he cultivated with a degree of talent and judgment, which would have imparted to his style Horatian perfection, were it not for the philosophic laconism peculiar to the diction of Horace, and which no modern poet, Klopstock alone excepted, has been able to approach. ”

“ But from whatever of the above-mentioned mania had worked itself into me, I shortly endeavoured to free myself in Götz von Berlichingen, since I described how in disordered times this brave, well-thinking man resolves to take the place of the law and the executive power, but is in despair when, to the supreme authority, which he recognises and reveres, he appears in an equivocal light, and even rebellious.
By Klopstock's odes, it was not so much the Northern mythology as the nomenclature of the divinities, that had been introduced into German poetry ”

“ If, however, the poet is absorbed in his own individual experience, we are not so much concerned to hear his particular fancies, love affairs, domestic arrangements, and the history of his uncles and aunts. We are so invited, for instance, in Klopstock's Eidli and Fanny, as to nave some vision given us of what is of universal human interest, in order that our sympathies may be roused. From this point of view, therefore, such lyrical poetry can readily degenerate into the spurious assumption that what is essentially private and particular must necessarily awaken interest. ”

“ Such was Klopstock as a poet. As a man, he is described as one of the most amiable and affectionate of human beings;—"good in all the foldings of his heart," as his sweet wife expressed it; free from all petty vanity, egotism, and worldly ambition. ”

“ Hain, masculine, ‘grove,’ made current by Klopstock as a poetical term. The form of the word, as is shown under Hagen (1) , may be traced back to Middle High German, in which, however, Hain is but a rare variant of Hagen; it signified originally ‘thorn-bush, thorn, fence, abatis, enclosed place.’ Thus the word does not imply the idea of sacredness which Klopstock blended with it.
Hake, Hahen, masculine, ‘hook, clasp,’ from Middle High German hâke, hâken, masculine, Old High German hâko, hâcko, masculine, ‘hook.’ The High German k can neither be Gothic k nor Gothic g ”

“ The personages of both the Old and New Testaments had received through Klopstock a tender and affectionate nature, highly pleasing to the boy, as well as to many of his contemporaries. Of Bodmer's efforts in this line, little or nothing came to him; but "Daniel in the Lion's Den," by Moser, made a great impression on the young heart. In that work, a right-minded man of business, and courtier, arrives at high honors through manifold tribulations ”

“ Haller and Ramler were inclined to compression by nature; Lessing and Wieland were led to it by reflection. The former became by degrees quite epigrammatical in his poems, terse in Minna, laconic in Emilia Galotti,—it was not till afterwards that he returned to that serene naïveté which becomes him so well in Nathan. Wieland, who had been occasionally prolix in Agathon, Don Sylvio, and the Comic Tales, becomes condensed and precise to a wonderful degree, as well as exceedingly graceful, in Musarion and Idris. Klopstock, in the first cantos of the Messiah, is not without diffuseness ”

“ The poet is himself, in his own personality, of such weight that he can attach to even the more trifling objects worth, nobility, or at least in a general way a more exalted interest owing to the fact that they are embodied in his poetic work. Many of the Odes of Horace are of this type. Klopstock, too, with many another, may be included in such a category. ”

“ Bodmer and J. K. Lavater (1741–1801) , whose “physiognomic” investigations interested Goethe at a later date, wrote dreary and now long forgotten epics on religious themes. Klopstock’s rhapsodic dramas, together with Macpherson’s Ossian, which in the ’sixties awakened a widespread enthusiasm throughout Germany, were responsible for the so-called “bardic” movement; but the noisy rhapsodies of the leaders of this movement, the “bards” H. W. von Gerstenberg (1737–1823) , K. F. Kretschmann (1738–1809) and Michael Denis (1729–1800) , had little of the poetic inspiration of Klopstock’s Odes. ”

“ That, however, he personally assisted others who were struggling in life and poetry, has scarcely been mentioned, as one of his most decided characteristics.
Klopstock and Gleim.
But just such a furtherance of young people in literary action and pursuit, a hopeful pleasure in bringing forward men not favoured by fortune, and making the way easy to them, has rendered illustrious one German, who, in respect to the dignity which he gave himself, may be named as the second, but, in regard to his living influence, as the first. It will escape no one that Gleim is here meant. ”