und Marianne, Agnes Bernauer, Gyges und sein Ring, and the trilogy of Die Nibelungen between 1850 and 1862.
In this period of somewhat confused literary striving, there is, however, one body of writers who might be grouped together as a school, although the designation must be regarded rather as an outward accident of union than as implying conformity of aims. This is the group which Maximilian II. of Bavaria gathered round him in Munich between 1852 and 1860. A leading spirit of the group was Emanuel Geibel, who, as we have seen, set a model to the German lyric in this age; F. von Bodenstedt (1819–1892), the popular author of Mirza Schaffy; and J. V. von Scheffel (1826–1886), who, in his verse-romance, Der Trompeter von Säckingen (1854), broke a lance for a type of literature which had been cultivated somewhat earlier, but with no very conspicuous success, by men like O. von Redwitz (1823–1891) and G. Kinkel (1815–1882). The romance was, in fact, one of the favourite vehicles of poetic expression of the Munich school, its most successful exponents being J. Wolff (b. 1834) and R. Baumbach (1840–1905); while others, such as H. Lingg (1820–1905) and R. Hamerling (1830–1889) devoted themselves to the more ambitious epic. The general tone of the literary movement was pessimistic, the hopelessness of the spiritual outlook being most deeply engrained in the verse of H. Lorm (pseudonym for Heinrich Landesmann, 1821–1902) and H. Leuthold (1827–1879). On the whole, the most important member of the Munich group is Paul Heyse (b. 1830), who, as a writer of “Novellen” or short stories, may be classed with Storm and Keller. An essentially Latin genius, Heyse excels in stories of Italian life, where his lightness of touch and sense of form are shown to best advantage; but he has also written several long novels. Of these, Kinder der Welt (1873) and, in a lesser degree, Im Paradiese (1875), sum up the spirit and tendency of their time, just as, in earlier decades, Die Ritter vom Geiste, Problematische Naturen and Soll und Haben were characteristic of the periods which produced them.
(c) German Literature after 1870.—In the years immediately following the Franco-German War, the prevailing conditions were unfavourable to literary production in Germany, and the re-establishment of the empire left comparatively little trace on the national literature. All minds were for a time engrossed by the Kulturkampf, by the financial difficulties—the so-called Gründertum—due to unscrupulous speculation, and, finally, by the rapid rise of social democracy as a political force. The intellectual basis of the latter movement was laid by Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–1864) and Karl Marx (1818–1883), author of Das Kapital (vol. i, 1867). But even had such disturbing elements been wanting, the general tone of German intellectual life at that time was not buoyant enough to inspire a vigorous literary revival. The influence of Hegel was still strong, and the “historical” method, as enunciated in Der alte und der neue Glaube (1872) by the Hegelian D. F. Strauss, was generally accepted at the German universities. To many the compromise which H. Lotze (1817–1881) had attempted to establish between science and metaphysics, came as a relief from the Hegelian tradition, but in literature and art the dominant force was still, as before the war, the philosophy of Schopenhauer. In his Philosophie des Unbewussten (1869), E. von Hartmann (1842–1906) endeavoured to bring pessimism into harmony with idealism. In lyric poetry, the dull monotony was broken by the excitement of the war, and the singers of the revolution of 1848 were among the first to welcome the triumph and unification of Germany. At the same time, men of the older generation, like Herwegh, Freiligrath and Geibel could ill conceal a certain disappointment with the new régime; the united Germany of 1871 was not what they had dreamed of in their youth, when all hopes were set on the Frankfort parliament.
The novel continued to be what it was before 1870, the most vigorous form of German literature, but the novelists who were popular in the early ’seventies were all older men. Laube, Gutzkow and Auerbach were still writing; Fritz Reuter was a universal favourite; while among the writers of short stories, Storm, who, between 1877 and 1888, put the crown to his work with his Chroniknovellen, and Paul Heyse were the acknowledged masters. It was not until at least a decade later that the genius of Gottfried Keller was generally recognized. The historical novel seemed, in those days, beyond hope of revival. Gustav Freytag, it is true, had made the attempt in Die Ahnen (1872–1881), a number of independent historical romances linked together to form an ambitious prose epic; but there was more of the spirit of Ebers and Dahn in Freytag’s work than of the spacious art of Scott, or of Scott’s disciple, Willibald Alexis.
The drama of the ’seventies was in an even less hopeful condition than during the preceding period. The classical iambic tragedy was cultivated by the Munich school, by A. Wilbrandt (b. 1837), A. Lindner (1831–1888), H. Kruse (1815–1902), by the Austrian F. Nissel (1831–1893), and A. Fitger (b. 1840); but it was characteristic of the time that Halm was popular, while Hebbel and Grillparzer were neglected, it might even be said ignored. The most gifted German dramatist belonging exclusively to the decade between 1870 and 1880 was an Austrian, Ludwig Anzengruber (1839–1889), whose Pfarrer von Kirchfeld (1870) recalled the controversies of the Kulturkampf. This was Anzengruber’s first drama, and it was followed by a series of powerful plays dealing with the life of the Austrian peasant; Anzengruber was, indeed, one of the ablest exponents of that village life, which had attracted so many gifted writers since the days of Gotthelf and Auerbach. But the really popular dramatists of this epoch were either writers who, like Benedix in the older generation, cultivated the bourgeoise comedy—A. L’Arronge (b. 1838), G. von Moser (1825–1903), F. von Schönthan (b. 1849) and O. Blumenthal (b. 1852)—or playwrights, of whom P. Lindau (b. 1839) may be regarded as representative, who imitated French models. The only sign of progress in the dramatic history of this period was the marked improvement of the German stage, an improvement due, on the one hand, to the artistic reforms introduced by the duke of Meiningen in the Court theatre at Meiningen, and, on the other hand, to the ideals of a national theatre realized at Bayreuth by Richard Wagner (1813–1883). The greatest composer of the later 19th century is also one of Germany’s leading dramatists; and the first performance of the trilogy Der Ring der Nibelungen at Bayreuth in the summer of 1876 may be said to have inaugurated the latest epoch in the history of the German drama.
The last fifteen or twenty years of the 19th century were distinguished in Germany by a remarkable literary activity. Among the younger generation, which was growing up as citizens of the united German empire, a more hopeful and optimistic spirit prevailed. The influence of Schopenhauer was on the wane, and at the universities Hegelianism had lost its former hold. The sponsor of the new philosophic movement was Kant, the master of 18th-century “enlightenment,” and under the influence of the “neo-Kantian” movement, not merely German school philosophy, but theology also, was imbued with a healthier spirit. L. von Ranke (1795–1886) was still the dominant force in German historical science, and between 1881 and 1888 nine volumes appeared of his last great work, Weltgeschichte. Other historians of the period were H. von Sybel (1817–1895) and H. von Treitschke (1834–1896), the latter a vigorous and inspiring spokesman of the new political conditions; while J. Burckhardt (1818–1897), author of the masterly Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (1860) and the friend of Nietzsche, exerted an influence on German thought which was not confined to academic circles. Literary criticism perhaps benefited most of all by the dethronement of Hegel and the more objective attitude towards Schopenhauer; it seemed as if in this epoch the Germans first formed definite ideas—and ideas which were acceptable and accepted outside Germany—as to the rank and merits of their great poets. A marked change came over the nation’s attitude towards Goethe, a poet to whom, as we have seen, neither the era of Hegel nor that of Schopenhauer had been favourable; Schiller was regarded with less national prejudice, and—most important of all—amends were made by the new generation for the earlier neglect of Kleist, Grillparzer, Hebbel and Keller.
The thinker and poet who most completely embodies the spirit
