GOETHE AND SCIIILLER.] action, and there is hardly an attempt to explain deeds by natural and intelligible motives. But we are no longer in GERMANY 539 Wallenstein’s powerful, dark, and wavering character; and every reader feels the charm of the love passages between . u ' . . . _ ' _ the presence of one who merely raises an outcry against the . Max 1’iccoloinini and Thekla. In Jfana ;S'tuart Schiller existing world; furious resistance to despotism has become l triumphs over an obvious difliculty by admitting the cnliglitened enthusiasm for freedom, humanity, and pro- gress. Although the part of Harquis Posa is imperfectly worked into the scheme of the play, he is a iiobly ideal creation ; through him Schiller pours forth his own aspira- tions for the welfare of mankind. There is admirable art in the momentary elevation caused by his greatness of soul even in the dark and selfish Philip and the restless and wayward Don Carlos. After he settled in Jena in 1789 as professor of history, Schiller was often in Weimar ; but for a time he and Goethe held apart. By and by they began to approach each other, and from about 1794 their acquaintance ripened into fast friendship. The friendship of Goethe and Schiller is one of the most beautiful in the history of literature. It made no essential change in Goethe’s modes of thought or expression, but it spurred him to the highest activity of which his genius was capable. His friend, he himself declared, “ created for him a second youth, and again made him a poet, which he had almost ceased to be.” On the other hand, in contact with Goethe’s larger intellectual life, Schiller was raised to new points of view, and he acquired for the first time that masteryof artistic methods which secured for him his highest triumphs. He now became as remarkable for the perfection of his form as for the depth and warmth of his feeling. The two friends worked harmoniously in connexion with Schiller’s journal Die I[())'(7I, and wrote iu common the Xeizimz, a number of epigrammatic verses meant to wound their literary enemies. On the whole, it is surprising that comparatively so few of the arrows in this rather large quiver are delicately pointed and feathered. A very differ- ent stage of excellence is reached by Schiller’s well—known ballads, which were written during the period of his intimacy with Goethe. Nearly all of them are marked by force of conception and by purity and dignity of style. In lyrical poetry he had acquired some distinction before he knew Goethe, but it was in competition with his friend that he achieved his masterpiece, Das Lied von der G'loc7re (“The Song of the Bell”), in which within a small compass he presents an impressive picture of the course of human life, varying his melody with subtle art to suit the changing aspects of his theme. Less artistically perfect than the G'loc/:0, other lyrics, such as Der Geiziets, Die Ideale, D67‘
- S'p_rc.
- iergan_r], have the power which belongs to deeper per-
sonal emotion. In ease and spontaneity none of Schiller’s lyrics equal Goethe’s, in which, as Heine says, “the word embraces you while the thought kisses you.” But they express in clear and noble language some of the highest f eelings excited in a poetic mind by contemplation of human life and destiny. In his dramatic writings Schiller was influenced by Goethe even more than in his lyrics and ballads. The whole series of tragedies which he now wrote have historic or legendary themes, and he displays remarkable skill in unfolding through the past his greatest ideas respecting the future. At the same time he evokes from it a company of finely ideal figures, whose qualities are revealed by the systematic development of large and carefully conceived schemes. Wallenstein, the earliest of the series, consists of two plays, The I’iccolomi-ni and WaIlenslcz'n’s Deaf/1, the former of which is preceded bya number of scenes present- ing a vivid picture of Wallenstein’s camp. The tragic motive of this great work is somewhat obscure. “'0 are made conscious by many artful touches of the ultimate issue; but Schiller does not render fully intelligible the play of the influences which result in disaster. There is, however, high imaginative faculty i-n his conception of lieroiiie’s guilt, while he stirs our pity for her sufferings and our admiration for the spirit of endurance with which they are met. In the Jun_r/_frau 2.-on O)'I€(m.s, “The Maid” would have given purer pleasure if she had not been represented as loving one of the English commanders; but this only slightly mars the splendid picture of her patriotic devotion. As a work of art, the ]f)'((?(t -van .lfcssi)zr£ is the least successful of the later dramas, for it attempts to combine romantic and Cl.1SSlC elements which are irreconcilable ; it contains, however, some of the most brilliantly rhetorical passages in the German language. The last of his completed works, and in some respects the best, was We’.//wlm Tell. Here his love of freedom shaped for itself forms of immortal beauty. At a time when the French emperor threatened the inde- pendence of all Europe, men felt the power of the play more keenly than can be done in a calmer period; but it has permanently enriched the life of humanity by its con- ception of a character dominated by high, ideal passions. Schiller never saw Switzerland, yet in this powerful drama he renders with astonishing vividness the grander effects of Alpine scenery. During his friendship with Schiller Goethe wrote in com- Goethe’: petition with him many lyrics and ballads. In works of the l>fl1l9~’13- latter class, as Goethe himself thought, he was surpassed by his friend. He is incomparably more subtle and suggestive than Schiller; but for this very reason he is less effective. A ballad does not deserve its name if it is not popular; and we hear the voice of the people themselves in Schiller’s free, bold, and simply harmonious verses. One of the lo1igei' works published by Goethe during this period was Jlermann Her- His delicately chosen language and digiii- mann and Dorothea. fied hexameters are not always in keeping with the some- what prosaic life they are here used to portray; but the the,‘ poem is the nearest approach that has been made to the successful epic treatment of an ordinary theme. And it rises to a high level of imaginative power in the contrastit suggests between the still life of the humble village, with its little idyll of satisfied love, and the far-off desolation of the revolutionary wars, of which we are reminded by the band of emigrants. The genius of Goethe moves more freely in Wil/zelm Jleisler, of which the first part was now Wilhelr published. This work has perhaps given rise to more con- M915“?- tradictory criticism than aiiyotlier book in modern literature. Ve may safely disregard the opinion of those who find in it all the excellences that can be combined in a prose romance, for it is without plan, and its style is singularly unequal. When Goethe himself admitted that he did not possess the key to its full significance, his warmest admirers may allow that perhaps there is no key to possess. Yet few of his writings present more striking evidence of the fertility of his power. He interests us equally—- to recall only a few of the characters—in the gay and worldly Phillina, in the romantic Mariana, and in that most mysterious, lovely, and fascinating of creations, Mignon, whose Kerznst du das La-ml is perhaps the noblest of those pathetic poems in which a soul in an uncoiigenial world calls up a momentary vision of its true home. It is not only in its dramatic conceptions that ll'z'l/zelm Jleister is great ; it contains some of Goethe’s deepest thoughts on life and literature. After the death of Schiller Goethe turned his attention more and more to science, his achievements in which have been fully appreciated only since the growth of the doctrine of evolution. pleted the most famous and the greatest of_ his works, Faust, a poem which he began in youth and did not finish
Still, it was in his latest period that he com- Faust.