The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany Part 11

Heft 23), p. 22.

[189] Ibid. pp. 18-22. For Rumi's influence see esp. in vol. viii. of the edition cited, pp. 544. 7, 566. 74 et al.

[190] In Ramay. i. 45, where the story of their origin is briefly given, we read that sixty _kotis_, i.e. 600,000,000 (a _koti_ being 10,000,000), came forth from the sea, not reckoning their numberless female attendants.

[191] Schack, Ein halbes Jahrhundert, Stuttg. Berl. Wien, 1894, vol. ii.

p. 41. See also Koch, op. cit. pp. 11-13; Rud. Gottschall, Fried.

Ruckert in Portraits u. Studien, Leipz. 1870, vol. i. pp. 163-166; Rich.

Meyer, Gesch. der Litt. des 19 Jahrh. Berl. 1890, p. 56.

CHAPTER IX.

HEINE.

Becomes Interested in India through Schlegel--Influence of India's Literature on his Poetry--Interest in the Persian Poets--Persian Influence on Heine--His Att.i.tude toward the Oriental Movement.

"Was das Sanskrit-Studium selbst betrifft, so wird uber den Nutzen desselben die Zeit entscheiden. Portugiesen, Hollander und Englander haben lange Zeit jahraus, jahrein auf ihren grossen Schiffen die Schatze Indiens nach Hause geschleppt; wir Deutsche hatten immer das Zusehen.

Aber die geistigen Schatze Indiens sollen uns nicht entgehen. Schlegel, Bopp, Humboldt, Frank u. s. w. sind unsere jetzigen Ostindienfahrer; Bonn und Munchen werden gute Faktoreien sein."

With these words Heine sent forth his "Sonettenkranz" to A.W. von Schlegel in 1821.[192] These sonnets show what a deep impression the personality and lectures of the famous romanticist made on him while he was a student at Bonn, in 1819 and 1820. Schlegel had just then been appointed to the professors.h.i.+p of Literature at the newly created university, and to his lectures Heine owed the interest for India which manifests itself in many of his poems, and which continued even in later years when his relations to his former teacher had undergone a complete change.

He never undertook the study of Sanskrit. His interest in India was purely poetic. "Aber ich stamme aus Hindostan, und daher fuhle ich mich so wohl in den breiten Sangeswaldern Valmikis, die Heldenlieder des gottlichen Ramo bewegen mein Herz wie ein bekanntes Weh, aus den Blumenliedern Kalidasas bluhen mir hervor die sussesten Erinnerungen"

(_Ideen_, vol. v. p. 115)--these words, with some allowance perhaps for the manner of the satirist, may well be taken to characterize the poet's att.i.tude towards India. Instinctively he appropriated to himself the most beautiful characteristics of Sanskrit poetry, its tender love for the objects of nature, for flowers and animals and the similes and metaphors inspired thereby, and he invests them with all the grace and charm peculiar to his muse. Some of his finest verses owe their inspiration to the lotus; and in that famous poem "Die Lotosblume angstigt,"--so beautifully set to music by Schumann--the favorite flower of India's poets may be said to have found its aesthetic apotheosis. As is well known, there are two kinds of lotuses, the one opening its leaves to the sun (Skt. _padma_, _pa?kaja_), the other to the moon (Skt.

_k.u.muda_, _kairava_). Both kinds are mentioned in _Sakuntala_ (Act. V.

Sc. 4, ed. Kale, Bombay, 1898, p. 141): _k.u.mudanyeva sasa?ka? savita bhodhayati pa?kajanyeva_ "the moon wakes only the night lotuses, the sun only the day lotuses."[193] It is the former kind, the nymphaea esculenta, of which Heine sings, and his conception of the moon as its lover is distinctively Indic and constantly recurring in Sanskrit literature. Thus at the beginning of the first book of the _Hitopadesa_ the moon is called the lordly bridegroom of the lotuses.[194]

The splendor of an Indic landscape haunts the imagination of the poet.

On the wings of song he will carry his love to the banks of the Ganges (vol. i. p. 98), to that moonlit garden where the lotus-flowers await their sister, where the violets peep at the stars, the roses whisper their perfumed tales into each other's ears and the gazelles listen, while the waves of the sacred river make sweet music. And again in a series of sonnets addressed to Friederike (_Neue Ged._ vol. ii. p. 65) he invites her to come with him to India, to its palm-trees, its ambra-blossoms and lotus-flowers, to see the gazelles leaping on the banks of the Ganges, and the peac.o.c.ks displaying their gaudy plumage, to hear Kokila singing his impa.s.sioned lay. He sees Kama in the features of his beloved, and Vasanta hovering on her lips; her smile moves the Gandharvas in their golden, sunny halls to song.

Allusions to episodes from Sanskrit literature are not infrequent in Heine's writings. The famous struggle between King Visvamitra with the sage Vasi??ha for example is mockingly referred to in two stanzas (vol.

i. p. 146).[195] His own efforts to win the favor of a certain Emma (_Neue Ged._ ii. 54) the poet likens to the great act of penance by which King Bhagiratha brought down the Ganges from heaven.[196]

Heine's prose-writings also furnish abundant proofs of his interest in and acquaintance with Sanskrit literature. In the opening chapters of the _Buch Le Grand_ (c. 4, vol. v. p. 114) he brings before us another vision of tropical Indic splendor. In his sketches from Italy (_Reiseb._ ii. vol. vi. p. 137) he draws a parallel between the priesthood of Italy and that of India, which is anything but flattering to either. It is also not correct; he notices, to be sure, that in the Sanskrit drama (of which he knows only _Sakuntala_ and _M?cchaka?ika_) the role of buffoon is a.s.signed invariably to a Brahman, but he is ignorant of the origin of this singular custom.[197] In his essay on the Romantic School, when speaking of Goethe's G.o.dlike repose, he introduces by way of ill.u.s.tration the well-known episode from the Nala-story where Damayanti distinguishes her lover from the G.o.ds who had a.s.sumed his form by the blinking of his eyes (vol. ix. p. 52). In the same essay (ibid. pp. 49, 50), he bestows enthusiastic praise on Goethe's _Divan_, and this brings us to the question of Persian influence upon Heine.

Starting as he did on his literary career at the time when Goethe's _Divan_ and Ruckert's _ostliche Rosen_ had inaugurated the Hafizian movement in German literature, it would have been strange if he had remained entirely outside of the sphere of its influence. As a matter of fact, he took some interest in Persian poetry almost from the outset of his poetical activity, as his letters clearly show. As early as 1821, he mentions Sa?di with the epithet _herrlich_, calls him the Persian Goethe and cites one of his couplets (_Gul._ ii. 48, _qi??ah_; K.S. p. 122) in the version of Herder.[198] In April, 1823, he writes from Berlin that during the preceding winter he has studied the non-Semitic part of Asia,[199] and the following year in a letter to Moser[200] he speaks of Persian as "die susse, rosige, leuchtende Bulbulsprache," and goes on to imagine himself a Persian poet in exile among Germans. "O Firdusi! O Ischami! (sic for Jami) O Saadi! Wie elend ist euer Bruder! Ach wie sehne ich mich nach den Rosen von Schiras." Such a rose he calls in one of his _Nordsee_-poems "die Hafisbesungene Nachtigallbraut" ("Im Hafen,"

vol. i. p. 218).

Yet, judging from the familiar epigrams of Immermann, which Heine cites at the end of _Norderney_ (_Reiseb._ i. vol. v. p. 101) as expressive of his own sentiments, he seems to have held but a poor opinion of the West-Eastern poetry that followed in the wake of Goethe's _Divan_. He certainly never attempted anything like an imitation of this poetry, and Oriental form appealed to him even less. In the famous, or rather infamous, pa.s.sage of the _Reisebilder_ (vol. vi. pp. 125-149), where he makes his savage attack on Platen, he ridicules that poet's _Ghaselen_ and speaks derisively of their formal technique as "schaukelnde Balancierkunste" (ibid. p. 136). It is probable, however, that he judged the _?azal_ form not so much on its own merits as on the demerits of his adversary. It is certain at any rate that he has nowhere made use of this form of versification.

Persian influence is not noticeable in his earlier poems;[201] his _Buch der Lieder_ shows no distinctive traces of it. His later poems, _Neue Gedichte_ (1844) and _Romanzero_ (1851), on the other hand, show it unmistakably. The Persian image of the rose and the nightingale is of frequent occurrence. In a poem on Spring (_Neue Ged._ vol. ii. p. 26) we read:

Und mir selbst ist dann, als wurd' ich Eine Nachtigall und sange Diesen Rosen meine Liebe, Traumend sing' ich Wunderklange--.

The image recurs repeatedly in the _Neue Gedichte_, e.g. _Neuer Fruhling_, Nos. 7, 9, 11, 20, 26; _Verschiedene_, No. 7, and in _Romanzero_ (vol. iii.), pp. 42, 178, 253. Even in the prose-writings it is found, e.g. _Florentinische Nachte_ (vol. iii. p. 43), _Gedanken und Einfalle_ (vol. xii. 309).

Again, when Heine speaks of pearls that are pierced and strung on a silken thread ("Kluge Sterne," _Neue Ged._ vol. ii. p. 106), he is intensely Persian; still more so when he calls Jehuda ben Halevy's verses (_Romanz._ vol. iii. p. 136):

Perlenthranen, die, verbunden Durch des Reimes goldnen Faden, Aus der Dichtkunst guldnen Schmiede Als ein Lied hervorgegangen.

The Persian fancy of the moth and candle-flame seems to have been in his mind when he wrote ("Die Libelle," vol. ii. p. 288):

Knisternd verzehren die Flammen der Kerzen Die Kafer und ihre liebenden Herzen....

Still another Persian idea, familiar to us from a preceding chapter, is the peac.o.c.k ashamed of his ugly feet ("Unvolkommenheit," _Romanz._ vol.

iii. p. 103).

The Persian manner is even employed, and very cleverly, for humorous effect, for instance, in the poem "Jehuda ben Halevy," cited before. In this Heine asks. .h.i.tzig for the etymology of the name Schlemihl, but meets with nothing but evasive replies until:

Endlich alle Knopfe rissen An der Hose der Geduld,

and the poet begins to swear so profanely that the pious. .h.i.tzig surrenders unconditionally and hastens to supply the desired information. This image of the "trousers of patience" reminds us strikingly of such Persian phrases as ??? ?????? "the cowl of meditation" (_Gul._ ed. Platts, p. 4), ??? ??? "the carpet of desire"

(ib. p. 113), etc., which are a particular ornament of the highly artificial rhymed prose, employed in works like the _Gulistan_ and _Baharistan_. In the latter, for instance, we read of a youth whose mental equilibrium had been impaired by the charms of a handsome girl: ???? ?????? ?????? ? ???? ?????? ????? "he tore the garment of prudence and put on the rags of disgrace."[202]

The description of a countess in words like those which Heine puts into the mouth of a Berlin chamber-musician: "Cypressenwuchs, Hyacinthenlocken, der Mund ist Ros' und Nachtigall zu gleicher Zeit," ...

(_Briefe aus Berlin_. No. 3, vol. v. p. 205) furnishes another instance in point.

And lastly, we must mention one of the best known of Heine's poems, the trilogy "Der Dichter Firdusi," the subject of which is the famous legend of Mahmud's ingrat.i.tude to Persia's greatest singer and his tardy repentance. We may add that scholars are not inclined to accept this legend as historical in all its parts; certainly not in its artistic and effective ending. This, of course, has nothing to do with the literary merit of the poem, which is deservedly ranked as one of Heine's happiest efforts.[203]

After all, however, it is clear that Heine is in no sense an orientalizing poet or a follower of the Hafizian tendency which became the vogue under the influence of Goethe, Ruckert and Platen. With him the Oriental element never was more than an incidental feature, strictly subordinated to his own poetic individuality, and never dominating or effacing it, as is the case with most of the professedly "Persian"

singers,--those "Perser von dem Main, der Elbe, von der Isar, von der Pleisse"--who thought, as has justly been remarked, that they had penetrated into the Persian spirit by merely mentioning _guls_ and _bulbuls_. Heine had no use for such trivial superficiality. The singer of the "Loreley" sang as he felt, and in spite of so many apparently un-German sentiments in his writings he had a right to say (_Die Heimkehr_, vol. i. p. 131):

Ich bin ein deutscher Dichter, Bekannt im deutschen Land; Nennt man die besten Namen, So wird auch der meine genannt.

FOOTNOTES:

[192] Printed as Nachwort in the Bemerker, No. 10, Suppl. to Gesellschafter, No. 77. See also H. Heines Leben u. Werke, Ad.

Strodtmann, Hamb. 1883, vol. i. p. 78.

[193] Similarly Bhart?hari, Nitis. 74.

[194] _Atha kadacid avasannayam ratrav astacalacudavalambini bhagavati k.u.mudininayake candramasi_.... (ed. Bomb. 1891, p. 7). "Once upon a time when the night was spent and the moon, the lordly lover of the lotuses, was reclining on the crest of the western mountain...." Of other allusions to this lotus we may cite Vikramorva?i, Act 3. ed. Parab and Telang, Bomb. 1888, p. 79; Sak. Act iii. ed. Kale, p. 81, and Act iv.

ib. p. 96.

[195] The episode occurs in Ramay. i. 51-56. It had been translated as early as 1816 by Bopp in his Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache.