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[Illustration: On the Way Toward the Grail. By Hans Thoma]



The
German Classics
of
The Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries



Masterpieces of German Literature
Translated into English



EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Kuno Francke, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D.



In Twenty Volumes Illustrated


ALBANY, N.Y.
J.B. LYON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

1913






CONTENTS OF VOLUME I

Editor's Preface

Publishers Foreword

General Introduction.
By Richard M. Meyer

The Life of Goethe.
By Calvin Thomas

POEMS

Greeting and Departure.
Translated by Charles Wharton Stork

The Heathrose.
Adapted from the translation by E.A. Bowring

Mahomet's Song.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

Prometheus.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

The Wanderer's Night-Song.
Adapted from the translation by E.A. Bowring

The Sea-Voyage.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

To the Moon.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

The Fisherman.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

The Wanderer's Night-Song.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

The Erl-King.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

The Godlike.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

Mignon.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

Proximity of the Beloved One.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

The Shepherd's Lament.
Translated by W.E. Aytoun and Theodore Martin.

Nature and Art
Translated by A.I. du P. Coleman.

Comfort in Tears.
Translated by W.E. Aytoun and Theodore Martin

Epilog to Schiller's "Song of the Bell."
Translated by W.E. Aytoun and Theodore Martin

Ergo Bibamus.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

The Walking Bell.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

Found.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

Hatem.
Translated by A.I. du P. Coleman

Reunion.
Translated by A.I. du P. Coleman

Procemion.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

The One and The All.
Translated by A.I. du P. Coleman

Lines on Seeing Schiller's Skull.
Translated by E.A. Bowring

A Legacy.
Translated by A.I. du P. Coleman

* * * * *

Introduction to Hermann and Dorothea.
By Arthur H. Palmer

Harmann and Dorothea.
Translated by Ellen Frothingham

DRAMAS

Introduction to Iphigenia in Tauris.
By Arthur H. Palmer

Iphigenia in Tauris.
Translated by Anna Swanwick

* * * * *

The Faust Legend from Marlowe to Goethe.
By Kuno Francke

Introduction to Faust.
Calvin Thomas

Faust (Part I).
Translated by Anna Swanwick

Faust (Part II).
Translated by Anna Swanwick


ILLUSTRATIONS-VOLUME I

On the Way Toward the Grail. By Hans
Thoma _Frontispiece_

Goethe. By J. Jaeger

Goethe. By J. Stieler

Goethe's Houses in Weimar

Goethe in the Campagua. By J.H.W. Tischbein

Monument to Goethe in Berlin. By Fritz Schaper

Monument to Goethe in Rome. By Eberlein

The Death of Goethe. By Fritz Fleischer

The Heathrose. By K. Kogler

Prometheus. By Titian

The Fisherman and the Mermaid. By Georg Papperitz

Hermann's Parents in the Doorway of the Tavern.
By Ludwig Richter

Hermann hands to Dorothea the Linen for the Emigrants.
By Ludwig Richter

The Mother defending Hermann. By Ludwig Richter

Mother and Son. By Ludwig Richter

The Emigrants in the Village. By Ludwig Richter

The Parson and the Apothecary watch Dorothea. By Ludwig Richter

Hermann and Dorothea meet at the Fountain. By Ludwig Richter

Hermann and Dorothea under the Pear tree. By Ludwig Richter

The Betrothal. By Ludwig Richter

Iphigenia. By Ansehn Feuerbach

The Meeting of Orestes, Iphigenia, and Pylades.
By Angelica, Kauffmann

Iphigenia. By Max Nonnenbruch

Faust and Mephistopheles. By Liezen-Mayer

Margaret. By Wilhelm von Kaulbach

Faust and Margaret. By Carl Becker

Faust and Margaret in the Garden. By Liezen-Mayer

The Death of Valentine. By Franz Simm

Margaret's Downfall. By Wilhelm von Kaulbach


EDITOR'S PREFACE

It is surprising how little the English-speaking world knows of German
literature of the nineteenth century. Goethe and Schiller found their
herald in Carlyle; Fichte's idealistic philosophy helped to mold
Emerson's view of life; Amadeus Hoffmann influenced Poe; Uhland and
Heine reverberate in Longfellow; Sudermann and Hauptmann appear in the
repertory of London and New York theatres--these brief statements
include nearly all the names which to the cultivated Englishman and
American of to-day stand for German literature.

THE GERMAN CLASSICS OF THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES has been
planned to correct this narrow and inadequate view. Here for the first
time English readers will find a panorama of the whole of German
literature from Goethe to the present day; here for the first time
they will find the most representative writers of each period brought
together and exhibited by their most representative works; here for
the first time an opportunity will be offered to form a just
conception of the truly remarkable literary achievements of Germany
during the last hundred years.

For it is a grave mistake to assume, as has been assumed only too
often, that, after the great epoch of Classicism and Romanticism in
the early decades of the nineteenth century, Germany produced but
little of universal significance, or that, after Goethe and Heine,
there were but few Germans worthy to be mentioned side by side with
the great writers of other European countries. True, there is no
German Tolstoy, no German Ibsen, no German Zola--but then, is there a
Russian Nietzsche, or a Norwegian Wagner, or a French Bismarck? Men
like these, men of revolutionary genius, men who start new movements
and mark new epochs, are necessarily rare and stand isolated in any
people and at all times. The three names mentioned indicate that
Germany, during the last fifty years, has contributed a goodly share
even of such men. Quite apart, however, from such men of overshadowing
genius and all-controlling power, can it be truly said that Germany,
since Goethe's time, has been lacking in writers of high aim and
notable attainment?

It can be stated without reservation that, taken as a whole, the
German drama of the nineteenth century has maintained a level of
excellence superior to that reached by the drama of almost any other
nation during the same period. Schiller's _Wallenstein_ and _Tell_,
Goethe's _Iphigenie_ and _Faust_, Kleist's _Prinz Friedrich von
Homburg_, Grillparzer's _Medea_, Hebbel's _Maria Magdalene_ and _Die
Nibelungen_, Otto Ludwig's _Der Erbfoerster_, Freytag's _Die
Journalisten_, Anzengruber's _Der Meineidbauer_, Wilbrandt's _Der
Meister von Palmyra_, Wildenbruch's _Konig Heinrich_, Sudermann's
_Heimat_, Hauptmann's _Die Weber_ and _Der arme Heinrich_,
Hofmannsthal's _Elektra_, and, in addition to all these, the great
musical dramas of Richard Wagner--this is a century's record of
dramatic achievement of which any nation might be proud. I doubt
whether either the French or the Russian or the Scandinavian stage of
the nineteenth century, as a whole, comes up to this standard.
Certainly, the English stage has nothing which could in any way be
compared with it.

That German lyric verse of the last hundred years should have been
distinguished by beauty of structure, depth of feeling, and wealth of
melody, is not to be wondered at if we remember that this was the
century of the revival of folk-song, and that it produced such
song-composers as Schubert and Schumann and Robert Franz and Hugo Wolf
and Richard Strauss. But it seems strange that, apart from Heine, even
the greatest of German lyric poets, such as Platen, Lenau, Moerike,
Annette von Droste, Geibel, Liliencron, Dehmel, Muenchhausen, Rilke,
should be so little known beyond the borders of the Fatherland.

The German novel of the past century was, for a long time,
unquestionably inferior to both the English and the French novel of
the same epoch. But in the midst of much that is tiresome and involved
and artificial, there stand out, even in the middle of the century,
such masterpieces of characterization as Otto Ludwig's _Zwischen
Himmel und Erde_ or Wilhelm Raabe's _Der Hungerpastor_, such
delightful revelations of genuine humor as Fritz Reuter's _Ut mine
Stromtid_, such penetrating studies of social conditions as Gustav
Freytag's _Soll und Haben_. And during the last third of the century
there has clearly developed a new, forcible, original style of German
novel writing. Seldom has the short story been handled more skilfully
and felicitously than by such men as Paul Heyse, Gottfried Keller, C.
F. Meyer, Theodor Storm. Seldom has the novel of tragic import and
passion been treated with greater refinement and delicacy than in such
works as Fontane's _Effi Briest_, Ricarda Huch's _Ludolf Ursleu_,
Wilhelm von Polenz's _Der Buettnerbauer_, or Ludwig Thoma's _Andreas
Voest_. And it may be doubted whether, at the present moment, there is
any country where the novel is represented by so many gifted writers
or exhibits such exuberant vitality, such sturdy truthfulness, such
seriousness of purpose, or such a wide range of imagination as in
contemporary Germany.

All these dramatists, lyric poets, and novelists, and with them not a
few essayists, philosophers, orators, and publicists,[1] of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries will speak in the following volumes
to America and other countries of the English language. They have been
arranged, in the main, chronologically. The first three volumes have
been given to the mature work of Goethe and Schiller--time-tested and
securely niched. Volumes IV and V contain the principal Romanticists,
including Fichte and Schelling; Volume VI brings Heine, Grillparzer,
and Beethoven to view;

Volume VII, Hegel and Young Germany; Volume VIII, Auerbach, Gotthelf,
and Fritz Reuter; Volume IX, Hebbel and Ludwig; Volume X, Bismarck,
Moltke, Lassalle. Of the second half of the collection there might be
singled out: Volume XIV (Gottfried Keller and C.F. Meyer); Volume XV
(Schopenhauer, Wagner, Nietzsche, Emperor William II.); Volume XVIII
(Gerhart Hauptmann, Detlev von Liliencron, Richard Dehmel). The last
two volumes will be devoted to the most recent of contemporary authors.

The editors have been fortunate in associating with themselves a
notable number of distinguished contributors from many universities
and colleges in this country and abroad. A general introduction to the
whole series has been written by Professor Richard M. Meyer of the
University of Berlin. The last two volumes will be in charge of
Professor Julius Petersen of the University of Basel. The
introductions to Goethe and Schiller have been prepared by Professor
Calvin Thomas, of Columbia University; that to the Romantic
Philosophers by Professor Frank Thilly, of Cornell University; that to
Richard Wagner by Professor W. R. Spalding, of Harvard University.
And, similarly, every important author in this collection will be
introduced by some authoritative and well known specialist.

The crux of the whole undertaking lies in the correctness and adequacy
of the translations. How difficult, if not impossible, a really
satisfactory translation is, especially in lyric poetry, no one
realizes more clearly than the editors. Their only comfort is that
they have succeeded in obtaining the assistance of many well trained
and thoroughly equipped scholars, among them such names of poets as
Hermann Hagedorn, Percy MacKaye, George Sylvester Viereck, and
Martin Schuetze.

Kuno Francke.


PUBLISHERS' FOREWORD

The German Classics is the first work issued by The German Publication
Society in pursuance of a comprehensive plan to open to the
English-speaking people of the world the treasures of German thought
and achievement in Literature, Art and Science.

In the production of this monumental work the thanks and appreciation
of the Publishers are especially due to Hugo Reisinger, Esq., whose
loyal support and constant encouragement have made possible its
publication.


General Introduction

By Richard M. Meyer, Ph.D. Professor of German Literature, University
of Berlin.

Men formerly pictured the origin and development of a literature as an
order less play of incalculable forces; out of a seething chaos forms
more or less definite arose, and then, one day, behold! the literary
earth was there, with sun and moon, water and mountains, animals and
men. This conception was intimately connected with that of the origin
of individual literary compositions. These likewise--since the new
"theory of genius," spreading from England, had gained recognition
throughout the whole of Europe, especially in those countries speaking
the Germanic languages--were imagined to be a mere succession of
inspirations and even of improvisations. This view of the subject can
no longer be held either wholly or in part, though in the origin and
growth of literature, as in every other origin and development, much
manifestly remains that is still incomprehensible and incalculable.
But even as regards the individual literary work, writers
themselves--as latterly Richard Dehmel--have laid almost too strong an
emphasis on the element of conscious deliberation. And concerning the
whole literary product of an individual, which seems to offer the most
instructive analogies to the literary achievement of a people, we
received a short time ago a remarkable opinion from Carl Spitteler. He
asserts that he is guided in his choice of definite styles and
definite forms by an absolutely clear purpose; that he has, for
example, essayed every kind of metre which could possibly be suited to
his "cosmic" epic, or that he has written a novelette solely in order
to have once written a novelette. Although in these confessions, as
well as in Edgar Allen Poe's celebrated _Poet's Art_, self-delusion
and pleasure in the paradoxical may very likely be mingled, it still
remains true that such dicta as these point to certain peculiarities
in the development of literatures. Experiments with all kinds of
forms, imitation of certain literary _genres_ without intrinsic
necessity, and deliberate selection of new species, play a larger part
in the history of modern German literature than people for a long time
wished to admit. It is true, however, that all this experimenting,
imitating, and speculating, in the end serves a higher necessity, as
well in the poet of genius as in a great literature.

Three kinds of forces virtually determine the general trend of all
artistic development as, indeed, of all other forms of
evolution--forces which constitute the sum total of those that we
comprehend under the joint name of _tradition_, a sum total of
progressive tendencies which we will designate as _esthetic ideals_,
and, mediating between the two, the _typical development of the
individuals themselves_--above all, naturally, individuals of genius
who really create literature.

These powers are present everywhere, but in very different proportion.
Characteristic of Romance literatures and also of the English, is the
great predominance of the conservative elements. Thus not only is the
literature of the constitutional mother-country democratic, but also
the literature of France, otherwise so decidedly aristocratic: a
majority dictates its laws to the distinguished individual and is
inclined to ostracize him, if too headstrong, and exile him from the
"Republic of Letters." This, for instance, is what happened to Lord
Byron among the British. On the other hand, German literature, like
Germanic literatures in general, is disposed to concede, at least at
times, a dictatorial leadership to the individual, even at the cost of
tradition--as, for example, to a Klopstock, a Goethe, or a Richard
Wagner. But, in exchange, the leader is often forced to uphold his
power, no matter how much it may have been due to his achievements, by
coercive measures--as, again for example, by means of a praetorian
guard of partisans, such as Klopstock first created for himself in the
Goettinger "Hain," but which was most effectively organized by Wagner,
and such as Victor Hugo, imitating the German model, possessed in the
Young Guard which applauded _Hernani_. Another method of enforcing his
mastery is the organization of a systematic reign of terror,
consisting of bitter satires, such as Schiller and Goethe (after the
model of Pope) founded in the _Xenien_, and the Romanticists
established in many different forms--satires much more personal and
much better aimed than was the general sort of mockery which the
Romance or Romanized imitators of Horace flung at Bavius and Maevius.
In saying all this, however, we have at the same time made it clear
that the power and influence of the individual of genius receives much
more positive expression in German literature than in those which
produced men like Corneille, Calderon, yes, even Dante and
Shakespeare. German literary history is, more than any other, occupied
with the _Individual_.

If we now try rapidly to comprehend to what extent each one of the
already enumerated literary forces has participated in the development
of modern German literature, we must, first of all, emphasize the fact
that here the question is, intrinsically, one of construction--of a
really new creation.

German literature since 1700 is not simply the continuation of former
literature with the addition of radical innovations, as is the case
with the literature of the same period in England, but was
systematically constructed on new theories--if it may be said that
nature and history systematically "construct." A destruction, a
suspension of tradition, had taken place, such as no other civilized
nation has ever experienced in a like degree--in which connection the
lately much-disputed question as to whether the complete decay dates
from the time of the Thirty Years' War or the latter merely marks the
climax of a long period of decadence may be left to take care of
itself. In any event, about the year 1700 the literature of Germany
stood lower than that of any other nation, once in possession of a
great civilization and literature, has ever stood in recent times.
Everything, literally everything, had to be created _de novo_; and it
is natural that a nation which had to struggle for its very existence,
for which life itself had become a daily questioning of fate, could at
first think of renovation only through its conservative forces. Any
violent commotion in the religious or political, in the economic or
social, sphere, as well as in the esthetic, might prove fatal, or at
least appear to be so.

The strongest conservative factor of a literature is the language.
Upon its relative immutability depends, in general, the possibility of
literary compositions becoming the common possession of many
generations--depends absolutely all transmission. Especially is poetic
language wont to bear the stamp of constancy; convenient formulas,
obvious rhymes, established epithets, favorite metaphors, do not, in
periods of exhaustion, afford much choice in the matter of
phraseology. On the other hand, however, a new tenor of thought, often
enough a new tenor of feeling, is continually pressing forward to
demand a medium of expression. This battle between the established
linguistic form and the new content gives rise to charming, but at the
same time alarming, conflicts. In the seventeenth century it was felt
strongly how much the store of linguistic expression had diminished,
partly on account of a violent and careless "working of the mine,"
which made prodigal use of the existing medium, as was the case in the
prose of Luther and, above all, of Johann Fischart and his
contemporaries; partly on account of a narrow confinement to a small
number of ideas and words, as in the church hymns.

This impoverishment of the language the century of the great war tried
to remedy in two opposite ways. For the majority the easiest solution
was to borrow from their richer neighbors, and thus originated that
affectation of all things foreign, which, in speaking, led to the most
variegated use and misuse of foreign words. Patriotically-minded men,
on the contrary, endeavored to cultivate the purity of their mother
tongue the while they enriched it; this, above all, was the ambition
of the various "Linguistic Societies." Their activity, though soon
deprived of a wide usefulness by pedantry and a clannish spirit,
prepared the way for great feats of linguistic reorganization. Through
Christian Wolff a philosophic terminology was systematically created;
from Pietism were received new mediums of expression for intimate
conditions of the soul; neither must we quite overlook the fact that
to some extent a new system of German titles and official designations
was associated with the new institutions of the modern state. More
important, however, than these details--which might have been
accomplished by men like Johann Gottfried Herder, Immanuel Kant and
Goethe; like the statesman, Heinrich Freiherr von Stein; and the
warrior, General von Scharnhorst--was this fact that, in general, an
esthetic interest had been again awakened in the language, which too
long had served as a mere tool. Also the slowly developing study of
language was of some help; even the falsest etymology taught people to
look upon words as organisms; even the most superficial grammar, to
observe broad relationships and parallel formations. So, then, the
eighteenth century could, in the treatment of the mother tongue, enter
upon a goodly heritage, of which for a long time Johann Christoph
Gottsched might not unjustly be counted the guardian. It was a
thoroughly conservative linguistic stewardship, which received
gigantic expression in Adelung's Dictionary--with all its
deficiencies, the most important German dictionary that had been
compiled up to that time. Clearness, intelligibleness, exactitude were
insisted upon. It was demanded that there should be a distinct
difference between the language of the writer and that in everyday
use, and again a difference between poetic language and prose; on the
other hand, great care had to be taken that the difference should
never become too great, so that common intelligibility should not
suffer. Thus the new poetic language of Klopstock, precisely on
account of its power and richness, was obliged to submit to the
bitterest mockery and the most injudicious abuse from the partisans of
Gottsched. As the common ideal of the pedagogues of language, who were
by no means merely narrow-minded pedants, one may specify that which
had long ago been accomplished for France--namely, a uniform choice of
a stock of words best suited to the needs of a clear and luminous
literature for the cultivated class, and the stylistic application of
the same. Two things, above all, were neglected: they failed to
realize (as did France also) the continual development of a healthy
language, though the ancients had glimpses of this; and they failed
(this in contrast to France) to comprehend the radical differences
between the various forms of literary composition. Therefore the
pre-classical period still left enough to be done by the classical.

It was Klopstock who accomplished the most; he created a new, a lofty
poetic language, which was to be recognized, not by the use of
conventional metaphors and swelling hyperboles, but by the direct
expression of a highly exalted mood. However, the danger of a forced
overstraining of the language was combatted by Christoph Martin
Wieland, who formed a new and elegant narrative prose on Greek,
French, and English models, and also introduced the same style into
poetic narrative, herein abetted by Friedrich von Hagedorn as his
predecessor and co-worker. Right on the threshold, then, of the great
new German literature another mixture of styles sprang up, and we see,
for example, Klopstock strangely transplanting his pathos into the
field of theoretical researches on grammar and metrics, and Wieland
not always keeping his irony aloof from the most solemn subjects. But
beside them stood Gotthold Ephraim Lessing who proved himself to be
the most thoughtful of the reformers of poetry, in that he emphasized
the divisions--especially necessary for the stylistic development of
German poetry--of literary categories and the arts. The most
far-reaching influence, however, was exercised by Herder, when he
preached that the actual foundation of all poetic treatment of
language was the individual style, and exemplified the real nature of
original style, i. e., inwardly-appropriate modes of expression, by
referring, on the one hand, to the poetry of the people and, on the
other, to Shakespeare or the Bible, the latter considered as a higher
type of popular poetry.

So the weapons lay ready to the hand of the dramatist Lessing, the
lyric poet Goethe, and the preacher Herder, who had helped to forge
them for their own use; for drama, lyrics, and oratory separate
themselves quite naturally from ordinary language, and yet in their
subject matter, in the anticipation of an expectant audience, in the
unavoidable connection with popular forms of speech, in singing, and
the very nature of public assemblies, they have a basis that prevents
them from becoming conventional. But not quite so favorable was the
condition of the different varieties of narrative composition. Here a
peculiarly specific style, such as the French novel especially
possesses, never reached complete perfection. The style of Wieland
would necessarily appear too light as soon as the subject matter of
the novel became more intimate and personal; that of the imitators of
Homer necessarily too heavy. Perhaps here also Lessing's sense of
style might have furnished a model of permanent worth, in the same way
that he furnished one for the comedy and the didactic drama, for the
polemic treatise and the work of scientific research. For is not the
tale of the three rings, which forms the kernel of _Nathan the Wise_,
numbered among the great standard pieces of German elocution, in spite
of all the contradictions and obscurities which have of late been
pointed out in it, but which only the eye of the microscopist can
perceive? In general it is the "popular philosophers" who have, more
than any one else, produced a fixed prose style; as a reader of good
but not exclusively classical education once acknowledged to me that
the German of J.J. Engel was more comprehensible to him and seemed
more "modern" than that of Goethe. As a matter of fact, the narrator
Goethe, in the enchanting youthful composition of _Werther_, did
venture very close to the lyrical, but in his later novels his style
at times dangerously approached a dry statement of facts, or a
rhetorically inflated declamation; and even in _The Elective
Affinities_, which stands stylistically higher than any of his other
novels, he has not always avoided a certain stiltedness that forms a
painful contrast to the warmth of his sympathy for the characters. On
the other hand, in scientific compositions he succeeded in
accomplishing what had hitherto been unattainable--just because, in
this case, the new language had first to be created by him.

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