Laughing Truths/Fundamentals
Do you feel the same as I do? I have always to overcome a certain reluctance before I read in print such scientific or æsthetic lectures or similar productions as were originally intended to be spoken.
It is not only that there is something lacking (such as the personality or voice of the speaker), but there is also a disturbing element. What is this element? The preliminary preparation, which the personal address demands and generally gets more or less, consciously or unconsciously.
First, there are the additions: the introduction and the peroration, which contribute nothing of importance, at least of essential importance, to the subject, but have their raison d'être in the psychology of the audience. The introduction coaxes the hearers by gentle and yet logical approaches to the theme; the peroration sends them home well stimulated with courageous thoughts. There is nothing really wrong in this, but it is rather superfluous and seems rather musty to the reader.
The introductions and conclusions written specifically for a book sound quite differently, more exact in thought, more pertinent to the theme. To say nothing of the fact that very serious writers (I mean such as are earnest for the truth, and have much that is important to say) are apt to dispense with introduction and summary even in a book. The introduction and conclusion generalise; all that is worth knowing is, however, something definite and particular. He, therefore, who is entitled to speak, either shortens the introduction and ending of his book, or leaves them both out altogether. Notice (e.g.) how impatiently Jacob Burckhardt plunges in medias res.
The evil of the introduction and conclusion is complicated when the orator, for rhetorical reasons, tries to make the two sound the same note. To refer back to the introduction in the peroration, and so forth, is a very effective rhetorical device. Indeed, many consider it an indispensable accompaniment of oratory; sermons, e.g., inevitably follow this course.
What is the reason for the great, the almost unfailing effect of this linking the end with the beginning? It rests on æsthetic grounds, especially on the laws of proportion and co-ordination or rounding off. Truth, however, is not round, but sharp; it is not mellow, but rough. This is the cause of our discomfort when we see a harmonious thinker lubricating the truth, whether for rhetorical or for cosmic reasons.
There are, however, other disadvantages, such as the casual grouping; the light touch on the subject, instead of a resolute grasp; the popularisation of it; and the inevitable optimism (for no orator can allow his hearers to depart in a mood of depression).
In short, so much skilful cookery is employed in a masterly, well-rounded oral treatment, that later, in reading it, one finds it difficult to sift out the essentials from the batter in which they are embedded.
No conscientious writer ever strives to be very original. If he has a significant personality, he will only too easily be more original than either he or his readers care for. Where this is not the case, there is no better road to a healthy originality, to a truly individual quality, than to do each of his tasks in an honest and forthright way. He who always does this, and (e.g.) writes prose intelligently and simply, differentiates himself strongly from the great majority, for there is nothing rarer than what is at once simple and accurate.
Didactic poetry, as we know, plays a very important rôle in the world's literature, and this, be it noted, in the very best periods of the most poetical races. The examples of this are so numerous and so patent to everyone that I need not name them. With us, however, didactic poetry languishes under a ban; nay more, there prevails a kind of superstitious fear of it. It is as if we were afraid that didactic poetry might infect the other branches of the art with a linear and leathern prose bacillus.
But how shall we explain the attraction that didactic poetry has, in exceptional cases, for the genuine poet? By the coexistence of a sense of surplus virtuosity in language and form with a momentary absence of inspiration. The same lure, in fact, that led Goethe to versify the story of Reynard the Fox. If he had grown up in another atmosphere Goethe would have put his theory of colour into a poetic dress, just as Haller, brought up in a French atmosphere, put his scientific theories into his long poem on "The Alps". In my opinion Goethe's theory of colour would have gained by being put into verse-form.
The creator doubtless hesitates a little to accept all the consequences, on every side, arising from the first and highest vision that inspires his work, especially when he knows that work to be of a purely subjective nature, remote from the general interest. The ulterior consequences, however, drive him farther than he originally foresaw and wished; and how can he hope to preserve the sympathy of the reader for things of the second order, when even the sovereign aim of the work may very probably leave him cold?
Those who think thus underestimate, in the first place, the readiness of men to enter into the preconceived idea of a work of art. The reader or spectator, if he is not an absolute slave to some particular æsthetic theory, gladly follows any object and any guiding hand, provided he realises that the hand is a sure one. If this condition is absent, even the best-intentioned reader becomes mutinous. Naturally; for, though he was quite willing to transport himself to the poet's world, yet that world must be a legitimate one, with clear outlines and definite laws. That which does not present form and firm foothold to the imagination is not worth thinking about. Infirmity of purpose, therefore, I consider the most disastrous of all mistakes, the veritable suicide of a work.
So then, the conclusion "when the fundamental idea is alien to the reader, and so on" must be wrong. For, on the contrary, the firm and logical development may, in the long run, dispel the lack of interest in the main theme. This may result either from the overpowering beauties that appear in the process, or from delight in the masterly craft of the artist. It would go ill with the permanency of works of art if interest in them depended on the interest in their main theme. All the works of art of past times have lost for us all subject-value, and enchain us only by the skill of their treatment and the beauty of their motif. Finally, it is precisely the most subjective artists and the most capricious works that exercise sway over the world, provided they show the most fearless acceptance of consequences. This is always true of the world of the future, though comparatively rare in the contemporary world. Subjectivity, though at first it lames and chills the interest, works in the long run as an attraction. Nothing can be more idle than the prophecy that this or that can never become popular, can never reach the people. The people, perhaps not, but all the more the peoples. We are, in fact, whirled round on a crooked earth, where stark facts determine right and proportion and modify our native impulses. A work of art that springs from subjectivity, but rests confidently on itself and is consistently carried through, must be numbered among the stark facts.
From all this it follows that one should not be diverted by even the most unwelcome consequence of one's theme. Consideration, doubt, hesitation, come before the resolve; after the resolve the only salvation is doing thoroughly what one has set out to do. An artist must know the meaning of the word "must".
Pedagogic and andragogic wisdom simply cannot endure the robust mother-wit of the healthy popular soul. It twists the proverb, or even reverses its meaning, in order that it may not have a bad educational effect. Most of our proverbs that have a "not" in them were originally positive. The "not" was inserted later to water it down, out of prudence. "Put off is not given up" is a platitude, not a proverb. But "put off, never done" is a home-truth, a genuine popular warning, gained from experience. "Dare wins, dare loses" is a piece of eunuch's wisdom; we need no proverb to know this. The natural indecision of the weak-willed man tells us this at once. The Dutchman says "Wie waagt, die wint" (he who dares, wins), and undoubtedly the German originally said the same. It is due to this paltry ethnogogy and moral schoolmastery that we have to-day so few cheerful and encouraging proverbs in German. How charmingly consoling to the unfortunate in Dutch East India is the proverb "Everything in India ends well in the long run". And how sunny sounds the Italian saying "God helps the cheerful man".
Everybody knows of the naïve astonishment of the peasant over the fact that the expected king, when he finally appears, is no larger than other men. We smile at this, but we do the same ourselves in another place, viz. the theatre, where we experience a slight shock when Lear or Hamlet appears for the first time. We, too, had involuntarily "imagined" that Lear would loom larger in relation to his environment. We here stumble on a natural law of the imagination. Let us follow up the spoor. In reading an epic it is absolutely impossible for us to picture the landscape in its proper proportion to the persons of the story. The walls, the towns, the mountains, the woods—are all dwarfed; man, on the other hand, increases in stature. Try, e.g., to imagine Achilles entering a house through an ordinary door. It simply cannot be done; either Achilles dwindles to a mere Greek soldier, or the door evaporates, or Achilles stays outside.
And so on, in a thousand examples. Even the most clear-headed man cannot retain sections of time or space in his recollection. The mere spiritual impression cannot alone, without extraneous help, decide for us which was the longer of two tunnels we passed through yesterday, which was the higher tower or the loftier mountain-peak. Further: no imagination, no recollection can move forward steadily; it advances by leaps from one picture to another, and each picture has a fixed point of vision. Further: an orator or a poet portrays a landscape or a face for us, with exact measures and lines. All in vain; the imagination cannot retain it, much less synthetise it. Dante's Inferno is geometrically so exactly described that topographical maps have been made of it; but who can envisage Dante's Hell clearly in his imagination? In conclusion I give another example, which proves that the imagination declines to enter by any door except the ventricle of the heart. Who does not know Rome and the Monte Citorio, with the Camera de' Deputati? Who cannot easily call them up in his recollection? All right. But when a telegram appears in our newspapers to the effect that "at Rome, on Dec. 20th, the Minister of Agriculture introduced a measure in parliament", which of its readers actually sees Rome in his mind's eye, the Rome of stone, with its colour, light, and shadow? Not one of them. Here we content ourselves with the geographical idea of Rome, the Rome of the map. The true and actual Rome appears to our memory only when an emotion respectfully invites the scene.
Enough. From all our researches it appears that imagination and memory contend for the natural and real proportions. Instead of spatial measure, we have here to do with measures of worth and significance. Behind a human body, increased to heroic size, the whole world is forced into the background and is there foreshortened, shrivelled up, and wiped out. No physician can help here.
Naïveté is, perhaps, the chief lack in our contemporary literature. I mean naïveté in creation. He produces naïvely who tries to solve the problems set him by his inspiration and theme, simply by following a bee-line to his goal, regardless of models, rules, and prohibitions, or of the wisdom and judgment of his contemporaries. Whether his unconcern proceeds from ignorance or from intentional ignoring is a matter of indifference. One may be naïve in creation, even if one is a man of the highest culture, possessing the most extensive knowledge and even exhibiting a subtle and sophisticated quality of mind. The cardinal point is that no other considerations, no other laws should be recognised as end or means to an end. Degenerate lack of courage, listlessness, and over-reading, nervous thought of unapproachable models, and so on, hem, hinder, and disturb the others, paralyse their will, and lure them to détours and bypaths, in order to avoid the beaten track. The naïve writer says: "What is that to me"? He does quite naturally what he wants to do, and follows the thousand-times trampled over road for the thousandth-and-first time. He writes an Iliad after Homer, if his heart urges him so to do, or, if another model attracts him more, he produces a Romeo and Juliet ("in the village")[1] after Shakespeare. He rhymes love and dove, or heart and smart, whenever the sense demands it, without any thought of their triteness. And, lo and behold, the threshed-out sheaves produce new grains of wheat, and the by-paths blossom under his feet, as if they were the very spot chosen by spring as its dearest haunt. Teach and prove as much as you will that so-and-so cannot be done, the naïve writer proceeds to do it and shows that it was not only possible but easy.
A preliminary condition of naïveté in creation is richness of endowment. Perfect unconcern in face of retarding conditions (difficulty of the theme, danger of error, and so on) cannot be attained by pure ignorance or intentional ignoring. In every material lurk germs of difficulty, which unawares get in the creator's way, so that he must attend to them, whether good or evil. For this reason I in no wise share the opinion that naïveté in certain primitive epochs comes of itself. No; naïveté is only then successful when the poetic pictures fill the soul of the creator so richly and with such illuminating power, that they gain undisputed sovereignty without demur. Then, but only then, all doubts are silent, all dragons take flight, and all doors fly open. Faulty reasoning and dusty commonplaces have always existed, in the so-called childhood of man not less than to-day, but a good flower grows through all the dust and blossoms still.
Much is said and much evil is wrought in all good faith. But one thing is inexcusable, one guilt we must never incur. No father or teacher should ever say to a child, "Of course you can never reach so high a position as so-and-so". No author should ever say to his people "Full stop, the thing is done, close the door; the great period of literature is over, there will never be another Schiller or another Goethe".
In the first place, this is gratuitous folly, for one does not know the future till afterwards, and nature provides no programme. Did anyone make this prophecy in 1740: "Attention, dust your shoes, put on your Sunday clothes, for classic literature is just about to begin, and the great Goethe will very soon be born"? Or did ever a schoolmaster present a boy to his class-mates with the words: "Take care what you do with this fellow, for he will one day be the great and world-renowned genius, X"? No; he has always called the budding genius an ass.
In the second place, it is a piece of arrogance, for to belittle others is not modesty but impudence.
In the third place, it is a bad and conscienceless action. No one has a right to give a death-blow to the courage of the rising generation, or to spit in the face of posterity's young and sacred hope. That is simply a Massacre of the Innocents.
Of the two chief ingredients in every longer poem, action and speech, it is probably always the former that most interests the reader or hearer. This is true at least of the moderns, for with the Greeks and Romans, thanks to the dialectic training of their minds, the reverse seems to have been the case. The modern Frenchman, too, whose best culture still roots in the classic Renaissance, regards every event as an incitement to speech.
From this predominant interest of the public in the action or plot, it has come to be assumed that action has in itself a primal virtue. Thus arose (e.g.) in the theatre the custom of cutting short the speeches as much as possible by the use of the infamous telegraphese style. This extravagance may now be held to be squelched, thanks mainly to the realists; but the tendency to relegate the spoken part to a back-seat still prevails, so that it is not superfluous to make a remark or two about it.
Among the multifarious reasons why the direct address, though it is distinctly the less interesting, must yet be allotted a very considerable space in every long poem, is one which (in my opinion) has not yet been sufficiently recognised. Among other qualities the direct address has a moderating power; by compelling the imagination to dwell upon a given scene, it bridles the inartistic, purely concrete curiosity that is so distasteful to the poet. Here comes in the time-value of direct address (which is also its spatial extension), its external proportional relation to the extension of the action element, A drama, in which the direct address does not provide a spatial counterweight to the action, seems barbaric; an epic seems fantastic.
In the epic, moreover, the direct address heightens the vraisemblance of the narrative. The illusion of a character, who, in direct address, uses my language and thinks my logic, is stronger than the illusion of a character represented, in indirect address, merely by action or by a rough summary of his words. In Homer the preponderance of the direct address is so overwhelming that the action often seems merely an introduction or an appendix to the speeches. Whether such a preponderance as this is eternally desirable seems to be doubtful. It must probably be attributed, like the speeches in Thucydides, to the national idiosyncrasies.
We moderns, however, would be none the worse for a little more cultivation of talk in our poetry.
Everyday and everywhere in works of belles lettres, from the flimsiest feuilleton sketch up to serious poetry and biography, we find the following little deception. The author begins with a lively scene in a vital situation in order to mislead the reader into the belief that he is being plunged in medias res. Thereupon, after the opening scene, the story is not, as we are led to expect, continued in the same style and tempo. On the contrary, the author now tackles the mash-tub, the family pottage, the statistical register of the hero, on the omission of which the reader has just been congratulating himself. And he narrates all this in the most easygoing and chatty manner, only in the pluperfect instead of the imperfect tense. "N.N. had at an early age.… His father.… His mother. … His education", and so on. I do not consider this justifiable. Either, when a writer does not know how to plunge the reader in medias res (and a good deal of skill is needed for this), he should not pretend to be able, but should begin, honestly and openly, with the preconditions and preliminaries of the story. Or, when he thinks he can do it, when he takes the risk and tries to plunge the reader in medias res, he should at least keep the promise that he has substantially made to the reader in his opening chapter. This seems to me a law of common honesty. What do we call the conduct of the costermonger when he puts the big oranges on the top and the little ones underneath? Well, this is just what I should call the conduct of a story-teller who begins by unfolding an exciting scene before my eyes and then goes on to serve up a series of biographical and genealogical details, of which exciting is the very last word that could be used.
Why do we work in narrow, confined, and compactly fitting conditions with clamped beams? To attain tension and climax? This explanation might, at a pinch, serve and satisfy for the drama. But a self-contained "dramatic" treatment of the action is by no means a peculiarity of dramatic work; it applies equally to the novel, the romance, and the epic. Has not the Odyssey (e.g.) its end in view from the very first word, just as much as Macbeth or Wallenstein?
The chief advantage of a self-contained development rests rather on this, that it heightens the credibility of a work, Naturally I do not mean credibility in the eye of a peasant, which tests everything by the possibility of its happening, but poetic verisimilitude or credibility. In other words, the possibility that an intelligent reader can transport himself with heart and soul into the world of the poet, whether that world is one of reality or of dreams. This kind of credibility is established by a definite and restricted handling, and that in various ways.
The foreknowledge of a goal lends purpose and sense to the road and intensive significance to the intermediate stages. It underlies each momentary event, every single word, by adding to its immediate value as action or language an explanatory and symbolical value for the main scene held in reserve. The least inkling of a purpose forces us to a closer contact with the work. This is an artistic advantage, which (after Schiller) has been used oftenest and most consciously by Conrad Meyer, the Swiss poet and novelist, who impressed his readers so strongly with the purposiveness (i.e. the goal-indicating, secondary significance) of his preliminary scenes and descriptions, that no one could overlook it. I might almost say that he rubs his reader's nose in it.
So (and this seems to me the most important point) a definite aim involves a multitude of relations—not only the already mentioned relations between the parts of a work (beginning and end, different sections), but also the interrelations of all the persons represented. The greater interchange of relations within its own circle of representation a book shows (no matter of what kind the relations are), the more credible it will become; the more strongly it brings us under its spell, the more unquenchable will be its life in our soul. The credibility of a character in a poem comes home to me much more when another character in the poem believes in him, than if he stood alone (however faithfully delineated) or in loose association with others. Of all proofs of mutual faith the most convincing is the continual influence of one character on another, such as results from definite handling. From this law of relations springs the fact, noticed by Schiller, that the surest way to represent a character sympathetically is to show how it works sympathetically on others.
And what is the psychological explanation of this law of relations? It runs as follows: we know all the forces of the earth, including the soul of man, simply by their effects.
It is a fact that intellect is not poetry, nor a guarantee for poetry, nor a substitute for poetry. It is likewise a fact that one can conceive of poetry devoid of wit and thought—e.g. the poetry of emotion and temperament. It is, yet again, a fact that a frivolous mind, toying with the surface of things, does not become the poet—a fact that Wieland (e.g.) most unfortunately overlooked. It is, finally, more than a fact, it is a profound truth, that apparent simplicity, springing from a naïve and childlike disposition, is one of the most precious manifestations of a beautiful soul. The pure simpleton, the youngest son of the German fairy tale, dreamily seeking for happiness while wandering through an alien world, is one of the most deeply significant inventions of poetry. This character alone is enough to prove the marvellous poetic endowment of the German race.
On the other hand, it is equally true that the most elevated and greatest forms of poetry not only tolerate intelligence, but severely demand it—and intelligence of the highest perfection. Only an intelligence of the first rank can be a poet of the first rank. At all times great poets have also been great thinkers.
Further: though theoretically the minor kinds of poetry, like songs and lyrics, do not need the help of wit and thought, yet experience tells us that no one succeeds even in these without a high measure of intelligence. It takes a Goethe or a Heine or an Uhland to show complete mastery of the simple and modest song-form, although songs have apparently nothing to do with thinking. It is difficult to say why this is so; but so it is.
By accident, indeed, a mediocre talent or even a dilettante, in a weak moment, may possibly succeed in producing one tolerable song; but he is very unlikely to repeat the offence. Such once-in-a-way small successes of mediocre minds and feeble artists are known in literature as folk-songs.
Why do nine-tenths of all the hundreds of brilliant talents, discovered by the nation every year (especially about Christmas-time), afterwards pass into oblivion?
Why do the youths of the greatest promise and the finest gifts do so little as men?
Because they are lacking in character or intellect or in both.
As regards our repugnance to thoughtful poetry and to logically sharpened diction, there exists here a national error in the formation of taste, which must be corrected. It rests on an incomplete development of the feeling for language and an unbalanced way of thinking. Other nations value the thought within the poetry more highly, and accordingly make the poetic diction logically keener. Take, e.g., the sophistic dialectic of the Athenians, the antithesis of French tragedy, or (if this comes nearer home) the ingenious subtleties of Shakespeare.
And now we come to the question of mental exuberance and superfluity of mind, to what we (somewhat superciliously) term cleverness or ingenuity. Yes, but it is not so easy to be clever as you may imagine. It is neither an innate gift nor a conjurer's trick of thought that we may be taught. No; it is the honourably attained fruit of a lifetime of honest thought. The first essential of wit or cleverness is that it must always be in harmony with serious truth. If a man does not possess this, he may be a jester but he will never be a wit. You may possibly ask, why then not present serious truth simply and seriously instead of humorously? Well, just for the same reason that the poet does not convey his sentiments in solemn and sober prose, but in musical rhythms and tuneful rhymes. In a word, from a feeling for style. The poet speaks in verse, not to entertain his reader, but because he himself neither may nor can do otherwise. The wit does not show us the sparkling side of the truth he has to offer from a wish to give us pleasure, but because he feels it a duty laid on him.
It is like the natural and graceful movement of a delicate, ethereal hand. One could present the same object with a rough hand and a rude gesture; the gift would be unchanged. The delicate hand, however, cannot do otherwise than give gracefully.
In conclusion, I shall show you that supreme intelligence may be combined in the same person with supreme folly (in the poetic-pathetic sense).
All that is wanted is for a man to be wittier than his contemporaries; then, of course, he passes for an absolute fool.
The Realistic Style in its right place, when managed with conviction and conscientiousness, is not merely a fashionable vagary, which one may contemptuously ignore, but a serious form of artistic expression, which must be tried and put to the proof. And then we shall find that it is not so terribly easy to photograph nature. Its guiding-star, as we know, is the most drastic adherence to the actual fact. Truth of fact, however, though not on the same plane as poetic truth, has yet its own value—for instruction, for study, sometimes even for salvation. It furnishes documents, sketches, and models, and may cure the chronic literary sickness of a generation by bringing back seriousness to literature. For all truth is serious. Through its seriousness the genuine realistic style triumphs victoriously over all hankering for the insipid, the dull, the conventional, the pseudoideal. For truth, even if it be merely truth of actual fact, is worthy of a man's thought, whereas the mental cobwebs of mediocre brains, such as conventional lyrics or machine-made plays and novels, are not worth thinking about. The average Realist is much superior to the average Idealist.
One can read any book written in a genuine realistic style—i.e. with honest and self-forgetting truth to fact. I confess, indeed, that in the domain of prose narrative, I myself care to read nothing else.
I say prose narrative. For, naturally, the realistic style, being concerned with actuality, is confined to prose and can be used in poetry only episodically.
Now we pass on to Realism or Naturalism. He who writes in the realistic style is not necessarily on that account a Realist, any more than he who eats peas and cabbages is necessarily a Vegetarian. A Vegetarian is one who allows nothing to be eaten except vegetables; a Realist is one who recognises no other style than the realistic, which he would like to force on all literature as the only panacea. Here is where nonsense begins.
To place the realistic style in competition with poetry, or to use it as a kind of Pan-Realism to supplant poetry, is an enormity, possible only to narrow-mindedness or dishonesty, or to both combined. The narrow-mindedness may be either national or personal. The national form, allied to Nihilism, is found in Russia and Scandinavia; the personal, in Goncourt, Zola, and their henchmen. Wherever we meet narrow-mindedness, we have also fanaticism.
The world has never seen more dismal pedants than the Naturalists.
In German Pan-Realism we have before us a picture of ambition rather than of narrow-mindedness. There is in Germany scarcely one true Realist (and, after Goethe and Schiller, there could hardly be one); this is betrayed by the fact that they all, sooner or later, abandon the gospel they once fanatically preached. German Realism was never a conviction, but only a mask, behind which all kinds of venom found refuge and concealment, especially the venomous hate of Schiller and his elevated and ideal muse. To-day it is a spent force. It became simply intolerable.
Though Realism may combat false Idealism with justice and success, it fails miserably when it dares to attack the true Idealism, i.e. Poetry itself. How heaven-high genuine Idealism towers above Realism is shown most strikingly by the fact that the best realistic works have always been written by Idealists.
No drama by a Realist can rival in realistic force and greatness the Kabale und Liebe of the Idealist, Schiller.
No romance of a Realist attains the realistic mastery of the Madame Bovary of the Idealist, Flaubert.
Thus the Idealist has to show the Realist how to write realistically.
On the other hand, when the Realist ventures upon idealistic ground he produces the most wretched abortions. He plunges head over heels into the nearest pool of superstition, and becomes a foolish bigot, spiritualist, or what not.
He does not dare to attempt the artistic forms of Idealism, even in a tentative manner, so well aware is he in advance that that would be but to court disaster.
All the same, it is to be noted that among the Russians and Scandinavians, where realism rests on a national foundation, an abundance of memoranda and fugitive pieces of high value as human documents have been produced, even if masterpieces of world’s literature are absent. There, in the works of Garshin and Görki and Hamsun, we find the genuine realistic style.
On the other hand, little of value is to be found in the pedantic and theoretical Realists in the old literary nations of Western Europe.
To sum up. Every writer should occasionally try his hand at the realistic style, in order to learn what it has to offer. The nation which wishes to get to the bottom of things, beyond both Idealism and Realism, will be well advised to consult those who are something of both rather than those who know nothing of either.
Strictly, every kind of art and poetry expresses itself in the ideal style, and its aim is the creation of a second, more elevated and more noble world. The desire of every nation and of all men is "upward and onward". When we meet the antagonistic cry "a full life and a merry one", as we did lately, we have to do with a reactionary tendency. This note is heard only when a wandering into the lifeless, i.e. a false Idealism, has preceded it. Just so the appeal to "Nature" betrays a previous unnatural state; so anxiety about health, the supping of gruel, and the imbibing of iron show that we have been ill and still are. A sound man does not worry about his health; a natural generation does not yearn for nature; a living art does not cry out for a soft life.
By the ideal style in the realm of poetry we mean the representation of something special and apart. Such a style, that is, as strives with intent to free itself from the commonplace; that has set nobility before it as its aim and allows it to prescribe its laws. It is ready to follow unflinchingly the laws of noblesse in all the details of form, both in language and style. The ideal style is the gentleman in art and will naturally be hated by plebeian souls. So the style of Greek sculpture is an ideal style, since the sculptor attained his divine type by ennobling the average human figure through combination, abstraction, and antithesis. Thus, e.g., he made the angle of the nose and brow in the god's face incline outward, just because that of the ordinary mortal slopes backward.
Like every other style, the ideal style has both its merits and its demerits. The chief defect of the poetic ideal style is its lack of force, in the sphere both of actuality and imagination. This is quite intelligible, as the idealistic style is really a refugee. Very eminent poets, for this reason, do not use the idealistic style continuously or persistently. Dante, in spite of his imaginative idealism, by no means writes in the idealistic style.
Moreover, the ideal style does not harmonise well with personality.
Naïve personal greatness, by its sheer weight, crushes this diffident style, as a heavy person breaks down a fragile chair. Individual greatness, which is naturally rhetorical and full of fire, such as we see in Virgil, Corneille, and Schiller, is the only form that finds itself at home in the ideal style. And, as they use it, it is an ideal style of great force and energy.
Let us now turn to the advantages.
A cardinal merit of the idealistic style is its spiritual purity—purity in presentation, mood, thought, language, and form. There is nothing small about a style which guarantees us that, from the first line to the last, we shall breathe without interruption the air of the heights. If we do not realise this, others do.
The most significant advantage of all is, however, its influence on the feelings. It is thus that a very common reproach of the ideal style is that of unemotional coldness. Certainly, every lofty style is cold when contrasted with the lower forms of style, since elevated art does not appeal directly to the feelings. It has other aims. The most emotional songs are composed by poets of the second rank. Every Philistine asserts that there is no appeal to the feelings in classical music, fugues, sonatas, and symphonies. What, then, does appeal to the feelings?
The "Song of the Czar", by Lortzing, or "The Tyrolese and his Child".
High art declares a benevolent neutrality towards the feelings. As, however, beauty, whether it wishes or no, naturally affects the feelings, so high art works on the feelings though in no wise aiming to do so.
A musical triad is regular, mechanical, and cold; all the same it revives and consoles the grief-stricken soul. All beauty reconciles and emancipates.
The idealistic style strengthens and reinforces that feeling of reconciliation and deliverance which all high art produces. It is the style which hails the arriving guest with "peace be unto thee!" Surely, it is a real emotion (and not one of the coldest, by any means) to be raised above the commonplace, to be rescued from the vulgar, to be able to forget affliction, misery, and contention, to see sorrow and mourning dissolved in beauty. We are told of African travellers who burst into tears on seeing the first white face after long years of struggle and discomfort in the primeval forest.
The white face is the idealistic style.
What is Africa?
If we cast a glance over the whole field of the present practice in art, we find the following facts. Painting and sculpture strive to be poetical, seek inspiration through imagination, are full of thought, speak symbolically, concern themselves with mythology, personification, and allegory. Music does the same, so far as it can; indeed, tries to do it much more than it really can. On the other hand, poetry is expected to deal simply and solely with reality. It may not go beyond the present nor rise above the ground. It must renounce its natural content, viz. imagination and thought, as well as its natural mode of expression in rhythmical language. Its aim is prose, with pretentious symbolical titles, that suit the contents about as well as a red ensign would suit a dredger. All other arts may and should be poetical, the art of poetry alone must not poetise.
This sort of thing makes me doubt the superior cleverness of our age, in spite—perhaps because of—its stupendous literary sapience.
Not, on my soul, that I blame my good friend, painting, because it goes in for the poetical. All I mean is that the poetry, which adorns the painter, might also suit the poet not so badly. I do not see why painting should have a monopoly of centaurs. Has it taken out a patent? Has it leased the whole of Greek mythology?
To what art, then, is free invention proper and essential? My answer is the art of poetry. We actually write, make, or produce poems. We do not imitate or reproduce poems. To painting, on the other hand, free invention is granted merely as a loan. We do not actually draw or paint either figures or scenes; we simply draw or paint pictures of them.
The signs that show a man has it in him to write an epic are, as it seems to me, the following: heartfelt pleasure in a fullness of experience, whether of facts or events; joy in the many-hued richness of the world, and especially, be it noted, the wealth of external appearances; a longing for distant horizons; a thirsty craving for the air of the heights, far above the workaday world, even beyond the bounds of actuality and the limits of the intellect.
The man was never born to be an epic poet who has not such aspirations as these; who does not, with youthful morning-courage, launch himself on the world on the wings of imagination, eager to see what Madame Adventure will throw in his way.
On the negative side, this view may be checked by what seems to me the unfailing characteristic of the man who is devoid of the epical gift. This is delight in characterisation, in the analysis of the soul (i.e. psychological problems), in the evolutionary history of the hero, in a carefully motivated and logically harmonious narrative. The epic poet is quite able to characterise, when he wishes, but he cannot wish to do so systematically, because his gaze is fixed on other aims, which seem to him more important. He certainly will not make Andromache storm and rage like Ajax; but he is quite ready to represent any of his chief figures as a vague, wavering personality, without any attempt at characterisation. Homer (e.g.) has dealt thus with Helen, of whom he does not himself know, or wish to know, what he thinks of her or of how he conceives her. The epic poet sometimes characterises unconsciously and involuntarily, just as the musician, when he composes a chorale, evolves, nolens volens, a melody through the scoring. But characterisation is never his main business, not even a very important one.
In his attitude towards psychology, the epicist shows actual repugnance, rather than mere indifference; for it is the supreme law of epical art to transmute spiritual states into objective appearances. It is always a weakness and an error in an epic if it attempts to portray complicated spiritual promptings from within. On the other hand, the triumph of art in the epic is when it invents such materialisations as render it possible, in the briefest and most intelligible manner, to work back to the spiritual postulates on which they rest. Here are two examples. When Odysseus is abused, he simply shakes his head, instead of going through a spiritual struggle for the behoof of the reader. The second example I would advance almost as a paradigm of epic art. In the Italian Orlando epics, it happens that some hero or other (I think it was Rinaldo), having long wooed his lady in vain, finally ceases to love her, whereupon she promptly falls in love with him. An unepical writer, such as a novelist, would feel bound to explore the psychic foundation of this transformation; and this foundation would form one of the main themes of his work. It would also, of necessity, claim a great deal of space, for he would have to note the first germs of the altered feeling and then depict its doubts and internal struggles, until it finally attains a state of blissful antipathy instead of the former devotion. As, moreover, two human beings are involved in these phenomena of changing feeling, the whole operation must be multiplied by two. And what a nice exhibition of "Bourgetisme"[3] we should have then! Let us see how the epic poet meets the difficulty. He invents a wonder-working spring, which acts as a love-potion on those who drink from it, and another, which inspires hate in the same way. So, instead of psychology, we have the most violent antithesis to it—viz. a draught of cold water, the most external, the most improbable, the most senseless of all motivations. But this is just the triumphant art of an epic poem and the most golden beam of poetic beauty. He who can invent after this fashion is an epic master.
And now let us compare with this the problems and expedients of the writer of romance. These are not something of the same kind, on a different plane; they are diametrically opposite in every particular. So strong is the contrast that the mere fact that a man is in the way of writing romances makes me imagine that he could not frame an epic. What remains, then, that is common to both? The unfolding of a record in narrative form. But this is a resemblance like that between a snail and a hussar. They may be both, it is true, advancing along the same road, but this does not lead us to call the snail a cavalier. A juster conclusion to draw would be that the creature that crawls on its belly was certainly never born to be a rider. And so I repeat: the romancist is the exact contrary of an epic poet.
"Dante Symphony", "Tasso Symphony", "Faust Symphony", "Zarathustra Symphony", "Böcklin Symphony". Why not also "Green Henry Symphony", "Beaver Fur Symphony"? I see no obstacle, And when you have reduced the whole of literary and artistic history to musical compositions, what have you gained? And what do you really mean—that your orchestra requires a literary passport before it can play, or that literature needs your bass-viols? I quite understand that you wish to show your culture. But who wants to trumpet his culture to the world with the help of a full orchestra? I'll give you a hint. Just set about composing a University Matriculation Examination Symphony. That would give us a grand, mouth-filling title!
Or do you wish to prove to us that you are abreast of the times, by composing on the same theme that is this year uppermost in the realms of literature and art? This is quite unnecessary; we already see quite clearly that you are up-to-date by your harmonies.
A difficult question, because historical and antiquarian interest prompts us to galvanise dead works and so furnish them with a new lease of (apparent) life for a time. However odd it may sound, there is no doubt that it is the tendency of modern times to strive for an artificial resurrection of archival rubbish. In other words: the most god-forsaken mouldy stuff may smell fashionably to the nose of a blasé, fin de siècle taste. The syllogism here seems to be: we are modern and rotten; this piece of antiquity smells rottenly, therefore it is modern. My conviction in the matter may be expressed curtly and decidedly. A work is distinctly out-of-date when a master neither can nor will take it for a model.
To X.Y.Z., Esq., Author, in Blanktown.
Owing to lack of space we are sorry we cannot print your Merlin.
To Dr. A.B.C., in Whereham.
We accept with great pleasure your highly interesting and scholarly paper on a rough posthumous draft of X.Y.Z.'s Merlin, in his own handwriting, and hope to hear from you again.
Characterisation is now supposed to be the word that solves-the riddle. The cultivated literary reader looks out for this first of all. The critic takes it as the touchstone for the value of a work. It is a duty imposed so severely on a poet, that it is taken for granted that in every work every poet must characterise every character. Or am I wrong?
Very well. Now draw up these two series of facts opposite each other.
To the Left. In a hundred towns of Germany hundreds of writers every year portray hundreds of characters, some better, some worse. They seldom fail utterly in their attempts, usually they do it very fairly, and in a surprising number of cases they manage it quite brilliantly. In all our critical notices we find with astonishing frequency such praise, at least of one character, as that it shows "masterly delineation". "Superb forms" and "noble, unforgettable figures" grow as abundantly in our novels as dandelions in our meadows. Even when the critic damns a work, he generally makes an exception for the successful drawing of some character or other. If, five years later, we try to ascertain what has become of all these millions of skilfully depicted characters, we find them, along with the work in which they appeared and the author who created them, in the Orcus of oblivion. My logical judgment on this state of affairs is as follows. If masterly characterisation cannot save a work from shipwreck, it is clear that it cannot be a main issue, that it cannot be a poetic essential. For essential merits preserve, in spite of all other faults.
To the Right. The poetry of whole nations and whole periods knows nothing of the striving after characterisation. Every village scribbler characterises better than Sophocles or Homer, Corneille or Racine. Wilhelm Jordan found it necessary to improve the characters of the Nibelungenlied. And what of the male characters of Goethe or Gottfried Keller? Or the female characters of Schiller? Any scribbler can do better than that. But the scribbler is not a great man, whereas Sophocles and Homer, Schiller and Goethe, Corneille and Racine are. My logic again says: that which we can neglect, or even do badly, without serious harm, cannot possibly be a main issue, cannot belong to the essence of the matter.
Conclusion. Characterisation is neither a central nor an obligatory task for the Muse, but simply a secondary function in a subsidiary field. Its proper place is in prose, i.e. in narratives of fact and realistic drama, and also in humour, comedy, and satire. In more elevated poetry, it affects only the minor figures. Thus our busy factory of characterisation is merely a dilettante mill.
The distinguishing feature of the Swiss writer is his diffidence. First there is the spiritual bashfulness, which makes it an enormous effort for the individual writer to lay bare his inner feelings. Now and then he takes a pseudonym as a protecting veil; he leaves unused his most intimate experiences, especially his love affairs; the really passionate works, pulsating with one's lifeblood, remain unwritten. But there is also a civic bashfulness. I am going to say something venturous, but I venture to be venturesome. We are at bottom all ashamed of the name of poet—not, be it understood, of our poetic activity or of the poetic art, but of the popular conceptions attaching to the name of poet. Our zealous, our painfully anxious endeavour is, not to conform to this conception, but to adopt a more vigorous and manly note, to represent a type differing as little as may be from that of other industrious citizens. "There is no more welcome flattery than to be told that no one could guess or even imagine that we were poets.
Everyone who feels this hesitancy to claim the name of poet is forced to make the greatest demands on himself; since in seeking for an excuse for it, he sees that the only pertinent one is justification by the production of works deserving of honour. He argues thus, not from ambition or high-flown hopes, but in a spirit of honesty, i.e. genuineness, of effort, will, and industry. He must feel that he need not blush before his nation, before his colleagues, before himself.
According to our way of reckoning, a tow of ciphers does not produce a positive sum. We give no credit to mere promises of talent; we regard mastery as an individual quality and so as one that can be reached only by its own peculiar path. Hence it follows that, in our view, the budding poet should not be associated with groups or alliances; he avoids the wearing of a cockade. The novice seeks the innermost nook of loneliness and moults there, like a sick hen, until he has obtained control of his art, his style, and his material. He does not emerge until he is convinced that he can offer something that will do him no discredit.
With diffidence goes a sensitive reserve. From this comes the disinclination to speak of what one feels most sacred, of one's own work, of the convictions of poetry, of art and æsthetics. The same qualities produce a dislike of spoken compliments (though printed commendations are always very welcome), a hatred of advertisement, and a contempt for those who use it. And the final garb of this modesty, when the individuality allows and the mood demands it, is simple rudeness, which is the easiest and the most characteristically Swiss defence against intrusion.
When everyone feels that verse-making is an exceptional occupation amid the nation's work and moreover thinks of himself as an exception among the poets, it is obvious that there can be no talk of the profession of author or of a class-feeling in connection with the craft. In our club-ridden fatherland, where there is hardly anyone who is not president or treasurer of some society or other, and where the Alpine shepherd hangs up the by-laws of a gymnastic association in his hut, I know of a Journalists' Society but not of an Authors' Society.[4] No one even feels the need of such a thing. This is partly because we are born badgers and have isolation in our blood; and partly from the conviction that no spiritual interest is served by herding together, while we hope to advance our material interests in other ways and by other methods. But the chief reason is probably that we cannot endure the idea of some dozens of poets congregated in one room. The very thought makes us shudder.
If, then, we have no corporate union with each other, are we at least good friends? Here a distinction must be made. If by friendship you mean partnership of what we may call literary Dioscuri, so that common progress and mutual advantage are fostered by exchange of ideas, I fear no such bond exists, except for temporary purposes and in unimportant details. But why should not personal friendships flourish here just as well as in other professional circles? However, there is something that binds us more closely than companionship, more permanently even than friendship—and that is esteem. We demand it for ourselves and entertain it for others. The most modest beginner, if he shows self-forgetting, honest effort in the service of art, knows that he enjoys this esteem. Personal dislikes and private quarrels cannot impair it. And this esteem has also an active side. Just try to calumniate a highly esteemed Swiss writer! See how all the lonely badgers come popping out of their holes, foaming at the mouth with rage.
I believe I do not deceive myself in thinking that this esteem, especially from colleagues, is the summum bonum of the Swiss author. He values it more highly than fame, honour, and popularity. If this is so, and I am sure of it, it explains the loyalty to convictions, the impregnability to temptation, which I think I may assert to be one of our characteristics. To gain fleeting popularity, wealth, and honours, at the expense of being considered by his fellows as a traitor to art—this is a bargain which for us has no attractions.
- ↑ The reference is to Gottfried Keller's dramatic tale, Romeo und Julia auf dem Lande.
- ↑ The German word here is "Geist", of which, perhaps, a better translation than any more rigidly English word would be "Esprit", taken in its widest sense.
- ↑ The reference is to the subtle psychological analysis of Mensonges, Un Crime d'Amour, and other novels of Paul Bourget.
- ↑ Such a society has, however, been formed since Spitteler wrote.