The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ii Part 26

But from time to time a sort of restlessness came over him; he would desire to eat and drink something, and would begin again to speak. "Ah!"

he said, one day to the Major, who now seldom left his side, "how unhappy I am that all my efforts are but imitations ever, and false and fruitless. What was blessedness to her, is pain to me; and yet for the sake of this blessedness I am forced to take this pain upon myself. I must go after her; follow her by the same road. But my nature and my promise hold me back. It is a terrible difficulty, indeed, to imitate the inimitable. I feel clearly, my dear friend, that genius is required for everything; for martyrdom as well as the rest."

What shall we say of the endeavors which in this hopeless condition were made for him? His wife, his friends, his physician, incessantly labored to do something for him. But it was all in vain: at last they found him dead. Mittler was the first to make the melancholy discovery; he called the physician, and examined closely, with his usual presence of mind, the circ.u.mstances under which he had been found. Charlotte rushed in to them; she was afraid that he had committed suicide, and accused herself and accused others of unpardonable carelessness. But the physician on natural, and Mittler on moral grounds, were soon able to satisfy her of the contrary. It was quite clear that Edward's end had taken him by surprise. In a quiet moment he had taken out of his pocketbook and out of a casket everything which remained to him as memorials of Ottilie, and had spread them out before him--a lock of hair, flowers which had been gathered in some happy hour, and every letter which she had written to him from the first and which his wife had ominously happened to give him. It was impossible that he would intentionally have exposed these to the danger of being seen by the first person who might happen to discover him.

But so lay the heart, which but a short time before had been so swift and eager, at rest now, where it could never be disturbed; and falling asleep, as he did, with his thoughts on one so saintly, he might well be called blessed. Charlotte gave him his place at Ottilie's side, and arranged that thenceforth no other person should be placed with them in the same vault. In order to secure this, she made it a condition under which she settled considerable sums of money on the church and the school.

So lie the lovers, sleeping side by side. Peace hovers above their resting-place. Fair angel faces gaze down upon them from the vaulted ceiling, and what a happy moment that will be when one day they wake again together!

SHAKESPEARE AND AGAIN SHAKESPEARE[1]

TRANSLATED BY JULIA FRANKLIN

So much has already been written of Shakespeare that it would seem as if nothing remained to be said; yet it is the peculiarity of a great mind ever to stimulate other minds. This time I propose to consider Shakespeare from more than one point of view--first as a poet in general, then as compared with poets ancient and modern, and finally, as a strictly dramatic poet. I shall endeavor to show what effect the imitation of his art has produced upon us and what effect it is capable of producing in general. I shall voice my agreement with what has already been said by repeating it upon occasion, but shall express my dissent positively and briefly, without involving myself in a conflict of opinions. Let us, then, take up the first point.

I

SHAKESPEARE AS A POET IN GENERAL

The highest that man can attain is the consciousness of his own thoughts and feelings, and a knowledge of himself which prepares him to fathom alien natures as well. There are people who are by nature endowed with such a gift and by experience develop it to practical uses. Thence springs the ability to conquer something, in a higher sense, from the world and affairs. The poet, too, is born with such an endowment, only he does not develop it for immediate mundane ends, but for a more exalted, universal purpose. If we rate Shakespeare as one of the greatest poets, we acknowledge at the same time that it has been vouchsafed to few to discern the world as he did: to few, in expressing their inward feelings of the world, to give the reader a more realizing sense of it. It becomes thoroughly transparent to us; we find ourselves suddenly the confidants of virtue and vice, of greatness and insignificance, of n.o.bility and depravity--all this, and more, through the simplest means. If we seek to discover what those means are, it appears as if he wrought for our eyes; but we are deceived.

Shakespeare's creations are not for the eyes of the body. I shall endeavor to explain myself.

Sight may well be termed the clearest of our senses, that through which transmissions are most readily made. But our inward sense is still clearer and its highest and quickest impressions are conveyed through the medium of the word; for that is indeed fructifying, while what we apprehend through our eyes may be alien to us and by no means as potent in its effects. Now, Shakespeare addresses our inward sense, absolutely; through it the realm of fancy created by the imagination is quickened into life and thus a world of impressions is produced for which we can not account, since the basis of the illusion consists in the fact that everything seems to take place before our eyes. But if we examine Shakespeare's dramas carefully, we find that they contain far less of sensuous acts than of spiritual expressions. He allows events to happen which may be readily imagined; nay, that it is better to imagine than to see. Hamlet's ghost, the witches in _Macbeth_, many deeds of horror, produce their effect through the imagination; and the abundant short interludes are addressed solely to that faculty. All such things pa.s.s before us fittingly and easily in reading, whereas they are a drag in representation and appear as disturbing, even as repellent elements.

Shakespeare produces his effects by the living word, and that may be best transmitted by recitation; the listener is not distracted by either good or inadequate representation. There is no greater or purer delight than to listen with closed eyes to a Shakespearean play recited, not declaimed, in a natural, correct voice. One follows the simple thread which runs through events of the drama. We form a certain conception of the characters, it is true, from their designation; but actually we have to learn from the course of the words and speeches what goes on within, and here all the characters seem to have agreed not to leave us in the dark, in doubt, in any particular.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD THEATRE, WEIMAR _From a Water Color by Peter Woltze_]

To this end all conspire--heroes and mercenaries, masters and slaves, kings and messengers; the subordinate figures, indeed, being often more effective in this respect than the superior ones. Everything mysteriously brewing in the air at the time of some great world-event, all that is hidden in the human soul in moments of supreme experience, is given expression; what the spirit anxiously locks up and screens is freely and unreservedly exposed; we learn the meaning of life and know not how.

Shakespeare mates himself with the world-spirit; like it he pervades the world; to neither is anything concealed; but if it is the function of the world-spirit to maintain secrecy before, indeed often after, the event, it is the poet's aim to divulge the secret and make us confidants before the deed, or at least during its occurrence. The vicious man of power, well-meaning mediocrity, the pa.s.sionate enthusiast, the calmly reflective character, all wear their hearts upon their sleeves, often contrary to all likelihood; every one is inclined to talk, to be loquacious. In short, the secret must out, should the stones have to proclaim it. Even inanimate objects contribute their share; all subordinate things chime in; the elements, the phenomena of the heavens, earth and sea, thunder and lightning, wild beasts, raise their voices, often apparently in parables, but always acting as accessories.

But the civilized world, too, must render up its treasures; arts and sciences, trades and professions, all offer their gifts. Shakespeare's creations are a great, animated fair, and for this richness he is indebted to his native land.

England, sea-girt, veiled in mist and clouds, turning its active interest toward every quarter of the globe, is everywhere. The poet lived at a notable and momentous time, and depicted its culture, its misculture even, in the merriest vein; indeed, he would not affect us so powerfully had he not identified himself with the age in which he lived. No one had a greater contempt for the mere material, outward garb of man than he; he understands full well that which is within, and here all are on the same footing. It is thought that he represented the Romans admirably; I do not find it so; they are all true-blue Englishmen, but, to be sure, they are men, men through and through, and the Roman toga, too, fits them. When we have seized this point of view, we find his anachronisms highly laudable, and it is this very disregard of the outer raiment that renders his creations so vivid.

Let these few words, which do not by any means exhaust Shakespeare's merits, suffice. His friends and wors.h.i.+pers would find much that might be added. Yet one remark more It would be difficult to name another poet each of whose works has a different underlying conception exerting such a dominating influence as we find in Shakespeare's.

Thus _Coriola.n.u.s_ is pervaded throughout by anger that the ma.s.ses will not acknowledge the preeminence of their superiors. In _Julius Caesar_ everything turns upon the conception that the better people do not wish any one placed in supreme authority because they imagine, mistakenly, that they can work in unison. _Anthony and Cleopatra,_ calls out with a thousand tongues that self-indulgence and action are incompatible. And further investigation will rouse our admiration of this variety again and again.

II

SHAKESPEARE COMPARED WITH THE ANCIENT AND THE MOST MODERN POETS

The interest that animates Shakespeare's great spirit lies within the limits of the world; for though prophecy and madness, dreams, presentiments, portents, fairies and goblins, ghosts, witches and sorcerers, form a magic element which color his creations at the fitting moment, yet those phantasms are by no means the chief components of his productions; it is the verities and experiences of his life that are the great basis upon which they rest, and that is why everything that proceeds from him appears so genuine and pithy. We perceive, therefore, that he belongs not so much to the modern world, which has been termed the romantic one, as to a naive world, since, though his significance really rests upon the present, he scarcely, even in his tenderest moments, touches the borders of longing, and then only at the outermost edge.

Nevertheless, more intimately examined, he is a decidedly modern poet, divided from the ancients by a tremendous gulf, not as regards outward form, which is not to be considered here at all, but as regards the inmost, the profoundest significance of his work.

I shall, in the first place, protect myself by saying that it is by no means my intention to adduce the following terminology as exhaustive or final; my attempt is, rather not so much to add a new contrast to those already familiar, as to point out that it is included in them. These contrasts are:

Antique Modern

Naive Sentimental

Pagan Christian

Heroic Romantic

Real Idealistic

Necessity Freedom

_Sollen_ (Duty; shall; must; should). _Wollen_ (Desire; inclination; would).

The greatest torments, as well as the most frequent, that beset man spring from the discordances in us all between duty and desire, between duty and performance (_Vollbringen_); and it is these discordances that so often embarra.s.s man during his earthly course. The slightest confusion, arising from a trivial error which may be cleared up unexpectedly and without injury, gives rise to ridiculous situations.

The greatest confusion, on the contrary, insoluble or unsolved, offers us the tragic elements.

Predominant in the ancient dramas is the discordance between duty and desire; in the modern, that between desire and performance. Let us, for the present, consider this decisive difference among the other contrasts, and see what can be done with it in both cases. Now this, now that side predominates, as I have remarked; but since duty and desire cannot be radically separated in man, both motives must be found simultaneously, even though the one should be predominant and the other subordinate. Duty is imposed upon man; "must" is a hard taskmaster; desire (_das Wollen_) man imposes upon himself; man's own will is his heaven. A persistent "should" is irksome; inability to perform is terrible; a persistent "would" is gratifying; and the possession of a firm will may yield solace even in case of incapacity to perform.

We may look at games of cards as a sort of poetic creation; they, too, consist of these two elements. The form of the game, combined with chance, takes the place of the "should" as the ancients recognized it under the name of fate; the "would," combined with the ability of the player, opposes it. Looked at in this way, I should call the game of whist ancient. The form of this game restricts chance, nay, the will itself; provided with partners and opponents, I must, with the cards dealt out to me, guide a long series of chances which there is no way of controlling. In the case of ombre and other like games, the contrary takes place. Here a great many doors are left open to will and daring; I can revoke the cards that fall to my share, can make them count in various ways, can discard half or all of them, can appeal from the decree of chance, nay, by an inverted course can reap the greatest advantage from the worst hand; and thus this cla.s.s of games exactly resembles the modern method in thought and in poetic art.

Ancient tragedy is based upon an unavoidable "should," which is intensified and accelerated only by a counteracting "would." This is the point of all that is terrible in the oracles, the region where _Oedipus_ reigns supreme. _Sollen_ appears in a milder light as duty in _Antigone_. But all _Sollen_ is despotic, whether it belongs to the domain of reason, as ethical and munic.i.p.al laws, or to that of Nature, as the laws of creation, growth, dissolution, of life and death. We shudder at all this, without reflecting that it is intended for the general good. _Wollen,_ on the contrary, is free, appears free, and favors the individual. _Wollen,_ therefore, is flattering, and perforce took possession of men as soon as they learned to know it. It is the G.o.d of the new time; devoted to it, we have a dread of its opposite, and that is why there is an impa.s.sable gulf between our art, as well as our mode of thought, and that of the ancients. Through _Sollen,_ tragedy becomes great and forceful; through _Wollen,_ weak and petty. Thus has arisen the so-called drama, in which the awful power of Fate was dissolved by the will; but precisely because this comes to the aid of our weakness do we find ourselves moved if, after painful expectation, we finally receive but scant comfort.

If now, after these preliminary reflections, I turn to Shakespeare, I can not forbear wis.h.i.+ng that my readers should themselves make the comparison and the application. Here Shakespeare stands out unique, combining the old and the new in incomparable fas.h.i.+on. _Wollen_ and _Sollen_ seek by every means, in his plays, to reach an equilibrium; they struggle violently with each other, but always in a way that leaves the _Wollen_ at a disadvantage.

No one, perhaps, has represented more splendidly the great primal connection between _Wollen_ and _Sollen_ in the character of the individual. A person, from the point of view of his character, should: he is restricted, destined to some definite course; but as a man, he wills. He is unlimited and demands freedom of choice. At once there arises an inner conflict, and Shakespeare puts it in the forefront. But then an outer conflict supervenes, which often becomes acute through the pressure of circ.u.mstances, in the face of which a deficiency of will may rise to the rank of an inexorable fate. This idea I have pointed out before in the case of Hamlet; but it occurs repeatedly in Shakespeare; for as Hamlet is driven by the ghost into straits which he cannot pa.s.s through, so is Macbeth by witches, by Hecate, and by the arch-witch, his wife; Brutus by his friends; nay, even _in Coriola.n.u.s_, we find a similar thing--in short, the conception of a will transcending the capacity of the individual is modern. But as Shakespeare represents this trouble of the will as arising not from within but through outside circ.u.mstances, it becomes a sort of Fate and approaches the antique. For all the heroes of poetic antiquity strive only for what lies within man's power, and thence arises that fine balance between will, Fate, and performance; yet their Fate appears always as too forbidding, even where we admire it, to possess the power of attraction. A necessity which, more or less, or completely, precludes all freedom, does not comport with the ideas of our time; but Shakespeare approaches these in his own way; for, in making necessity ethical, he links, to our gratified astonishment, the ancient with the modern. If anything can be learned from him, it is this point that we should study in his school. Instead of exalting our romanticism--which may not deserve censure or contempt--unduly and exclusively, and clinging to it in a partisan spirit, whereby its strong, solid, efficient side is misjudged and impaired, we should strive to unite within ourselves those great and apparently irreconcilable opposites--all the more that this has already been achieved by the unique master whom we prize so highly, and, often without knowing why, extol above every one. He had, to be sure, the advantage of living at the proper harvest-time, of expending his activity in a Protestant country teeming with life, where the madness of bigotry was silent for a time, so that a man like Shakespeare, imbued with a natural piety, was left free to develop his real self religiously without regard to any definite creed.

III

SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIST

If lovers and friends of art wish fully to enjoy a creation of any kind, they delight in it as a whole, are permeated by the unity with which the artist has endowed it. To a person, on the other hand, who wishes to discuss such productions theoretically, to a.s.sert something about them, and therefore, to inform and instruct, discrimination becomes a duty. We believed we were fulfilling that duty in considering Shakespeare first as a poet in general, and then comparing him with the ancient and the most modern poets. And now we wish to complete our design by considering him as a dramatist.

Shakespeare's name and worth belong to the history of poetry; but it is doing an injustice to all the dramatists of earlier and later ages to present his entire merit as belonging to the history of the theatre.

A person of universally acknowledged talent may make a doubtful use of his endowments. Not everything produced by such a superior mind is done in the most perfect way. Thus Shakespeare belongs essentially to the history of poetry; in the history of the theatre he figures only accidentally. Because we can admire him unqualifiedly in the first, we must in the latter take into consideration the conditions to which he submitted and not extol those conditions as either virtues or models.

We distinguish closely allied forms of poetic creation, which, however, in a vivid treatment often merge into each other: the epic, dialogue, drama, stage play, may be differentiated. An epic requires oral delivery to the many by a single individual; dialogue, speech in private company, where the mult.i.tude may, to be sure, be listeners; drama, conversation in actions, even though perhaps presented only to the imagination; stage play, all three together, inasmuch as it engages the sense of vision and may be grasped under certain conditions of local and personal presence.