CHAPTER XXXI

It is a familiar fact that from the very earliest uprising of belletristic literature its nucleus has always been the passion of love. There are, indeed, very few recent romances or dramas in which love does not play a part. It is a fable to say that sexual matters have to-day for the first time been freely discussed in belletristic literature, to assert that the predominance of erotic literature (which is to be distinguished from pornographic literature by its artistic intention and form) is especially characteristic of modern civilization. A glance at the catalogue of the library of the poet and bibliophile Eduard Grisebach,[794] which contains the erotic literature of the world, teaches us that such literature has existed at all times and among all civilized nations. The erotic in belles-lettres has not merely a permissive existence, but by necessity forms a part of it—a fact very justly recognized by the æsthetic Konrad Lange.[795] Who that knows human nature can doubt the fact? Lange remarks:

“Art which represents the nude, because an opportunity exists for it to delight in the representation of the flesh, because it regards humanity as the crown of creation, and because it admires the purposive anatomical structure of the human body—such an art is within its own rights, and does what it may and must.

“If we regard the representation of the nude in painting and sculpture as not repulsive, although it does not suit us in ordinary life to go naked, so also in the poesy of the erotic we must sometimes allow a form to which in ordinary life a justification is refused. Indeed, the question arises whether it is not absolutely essential that art should represent the erotic, although this is forbidden by the civilization of our time; for this corresponds to a profound subjective human need, a yearning for the completion of man’s imperfect existence.

“Next to hunger and thirst, love is the strongest human emotion; next to death, its enjoyment is the most important human experience. It is not to be wondered at that art is especially fond of depicting it. Art which wishes to represent life in general cannot leave unconsidered an instinct which plays so important a part in the life of the majority of human beings, and from which such a number of conflicts proceed. With regard to the degree and the kind of representation, the decision depends not upon moral, but exclusively upon æsthetic, considerations. The task of the poet is no more than this: to describe transgressions of the moral code in such a manner that they appear to arise by an inner necessity out of the whole course of activity, out of the characters, out of the objective relationships. Then the immoral content comes to the help of the illusion.”

It is naturally impossible, within the narrow compass of this work, to give an exhaustive account of the sexual element in modern belletristic literature. I shall only refer to a few well-known phenomena which all exhibit a common feature. Love and sexual topics in belles-lettres are principally problem literature. The earnest and profound social perception with which sexual problems are to-day considered and explained is reflected also in the literature of our time. The adult will long ago in these matters have risen above the level of shallow story-telling and schoolgirl morality, and demands an earnest and honest representation of sexual problems. Frey[796] justly observes that it is a general and a healthy tendency of the time, not a tendency to perverse lust, which impels the choice of erotic material. In the economically determined forced labour of persons of average ability, in the monotony and the poverty of adventure of our civilized life, it is only by eroticism that into many a life any individual colouring is brought.

In the following brief sketch of the sexual problems treated in recent belletristic literature, I hope to give some idea of the very numerous and interesting topics which the various phenomena of the sexual life now offer to the poet.

The very first sexual activities of the child have been subjected to poetic treatment, as in Frank Wedekind’s drama, “Frühlingserwachen” (“The Awakening of Spring”); and the sexual note of the time of puberty is treated in Bonnetain’s celebrated onanistic novel, “Charlot s’Amuse,” in Walter Bloem’s novel, “Der krasse Fuchs,” in Max von Münchhausen’s “Eckhart von Jeperen,” and very strikingly in the novel “Lothar oder Untergang einer Kindheit” (“Lothar, or the Ruin of Childhood”), by Oscar A. H. Schmitz. In connexion with the consideration of the time of puberty in belletristic literature, the following works may also be mentioned: “Unterm Rad,” by Hermann Hesse; “Freund Hein,” by Emil Strauss; “Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless,” by Robert Musil; “Was zur Sonne Will,” by Hans Hart; “Eine Gymnasiastentragödie,” a drama in four acts, by Robert Sandeks. Consult also Gustav Zieler’s review of “Frühlingserwachen,” published in Das Literarische Echo of August 15, 1907.

The type of girl who ripens to a premature sexuality, and who, though physically still intact, is spiritually corrupt, has been made widely known by Marcel Prévost’s “Demivierge.” A companion novel to this is “Nixchen,” by Hans von Kahlenberg. Nobler types of girls playing with this vice are described by Clara Eysell-Kilburger in “Dilettanten des Lasters.”

Diametrically opposed to these are the “Vera” characters, so called after the book by Vera, “Eine für Viele. Aus dem Tagebuche eines Mädchens” (“One for Many. From the Diary of a Girl”), which demands from the man before marriage the same purity and chastity that man himself demands from his future wife. Svava, in Björnsen’s drama “Der Handschuh,” is a similar type. Regarding this problem an entire literature has sprung into being, which associated itself with Vera’s above-mentioned book, such as “Eine für sich Selbst” (“One for Herself”), by “Auch Jemand” (“Somebody Else”); “Einer für Viele” (“One Man for Many”); “Eine für Vera. Aus dem Tagebuche einer jungen Frau” (“One for Vera. From the Diary of a Young Wife”)—these in favour of Vera’s demand—and Christine Thaler’s “Eine Mutter für Viele” (“One Mother for Many”); by Verus, “Einer für Viele” (“One Man for Many”), and “Kranke Seelen. Von einem Arzte” (“Morbid Souls. By a Physician”)—these in opposition to Vera’s demand—for masculine abstinence from sexual intercourse before marriage.[797]

Next we may mention certain novels glorifying misogyny, such as Strindberg’s “Beichte eines Toren” (“Confessions of a Fool”) and “Vergangenheit eines Toren” (“The Past of a Fool”); and Tolstoi’s “The Kreutzer Sonata,” in which absolute asceticism is demanded. These ideas, which in Weininger found a pseudo-scientific apologist, have been contested in an interesting autobiography in the form of a romance, “Das Weib vom Manne erschaffen: Bekenntnisse einer Frau” (“Woman created from Man: Confessions of a Woman”), translated from the Norwegian by Tyra Bentsen. Zola’s magnificent hymn in favour of fruitfulness in “Fécondité” is also a refutation of this extreme ascetic-malthusian standpoint.

The “intimacy” and “free love” are to-day the subject of innumerable romances and novels. Tovote discusses the problem in “Im Liebesrausch” (“In the Intoxication of Love”), and in other novels, more superficially from the grossly sensual side; the ideal free love, ending indeed in marriage, is described in Peter Nansen’s “Maria.”[798] Similarly, Frenssen, in “Hilligenlei,” deals with the preconjugal sexual intercourse so common in country districts, and he reproves in powerful words the repression of natural impulses by conventional morality.[799]

In “Martin Birks Jugend,” Hjalmar Söderberg has described the great difficulties of ideal-minded young men who are not in a position to marry, and who are repelled by the idea of intercourse with common prostitutes.

In contrast to this, Camille Lemonnier, in “Die Liebe im Menschen,” describes the great danger of an overgrowth of the sexual; and Arthur Schnitzler, in his admirable “Reigen,” describes the utter misery of irregular sexual intercourse, of true “wild love,” and displays vividly before our eyes the results of sexual promiscuity.

The social contempt and the other disastrous consequences which to-day follow free love, in the form of illegitimate motherhood, have been described in dramas, such as Sudermann’s “Heimat” and Gerhart Hauptmann’s “Rose Bernd,” and in romances such as Gabriele Reuter’s “Aus guter Familie,” Johann Bojer’s “Eine Pilgerfahrt,” and Ernst Eberhardt’s “Das Kind.” The manifold conflicts resulting from free love and illegitimate motherhood are also described by Marcelle Tinayre in “La Rebelle.”

In belles-lettres we also find numerous accounts of the burning question of our day—that of coercive marriage. Above all, Ibsen, in “Ghosts,” “A Doll’s House,” “The Lady from the Sea,” “Hedda Gabler,” and “Little Eyolf,” has exposed the manifold injuries resulting from modern conventional marriage, and has propounded the ideal of a new marriage, based upon a deeply subjective conception of love and upon life’s work in common. The influence of Ibsen is further shown in numerous dramas and romances dealing with the marriage problem. Of these, it will suffice to mention a few of the most successful, such as “Die Sklavin,” by Ludwig Fulda; “Fanny Roth: eine Jungfrauengeschichte,” by Grete Meisel-Hess; and “Was siehst du aber den Splitter,” by Karl Larsen.

The important question of differences in class and social position in married life is considered by Ernst von Wildenbruch in his drama, “Die Haubenlerche.”

The classical novels of adultery are, and will remain, Erneste Feydeau’s delightful “Fanny,” and Gustave Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary.” In French literature in general, in dramas as well as romances, adultery is a favourite motive.[800]

Isolated but especially characteristic phenomena of the sexual life have also found expression in poetry. Thus Ernst von Wolzogen, in “Das Dritte Geschlect,” describes the various types of emancipated women; the same question forms the theme of “Die Neue Eva,” by Maria Janitschek. Anna Mahr, also, in Gerhart Hauptmann’s “Einsame Menschen,” is such a type. In all of these the conflict between woman and personality is described; and this is done with exceptional force and clearness in “Das Neue Weib,” by M. Janitschek.[801]

The contrast to the woman who wishes to become a personality is to be found in the woman who has never possessed a personality, or who has lost it, the woman who has become only a chattel, an object of enjoyment for man—the prostitute. I alluded before ([p. 315]) to the fact that Margarete Böhme, in her sensational “Diary of a Lost Woman,” was not the first to describe the life of a prostitute. Already from the sixteenth century there date such romances as, for example, the celebrated “Lozana Andaluza” of Francisco Delgado; also Defoe’s “History of Moll Flanders,” and Abbé Prévost’s “Manon Lescaut” (both belonging to the eighteenth century). Besides the “Memoirs of a Hamburg Prostitute” (vide supra, [p. 315]), there exist still other precursors, belonging to the nineteenth century, of the “Diary of a Lost Woman,” such as E. de Goncourt’s “Fille Elisa,” Leon Leipsiger’s “Ballhaus-Anna,” etc. The “Diary of a Lost Woman” naturally soon found imitations, such as Hedwig Hard’s “Confessions of a Fallen Woman,” the “Diary of Another Lost Woman”; and the purely pornographic “History of Josephine Mutzenbecher, a Viennese Prostitute,” Daudet’s “Sapho,” Zola’s “Nana,” Cristian Krogh’s “Albertine,” and George Moore’s “Esther Waters,” belong to the same class.[802]

Brothel life and the life of prostitution, in all their relationships to modern civilization, and in their influence upon human character, are described by Frank Wedekind in “Die Büchse der Pandora” (“Pandora’s Box”) and in his “Hidalla”; and with exceptional vividness by Oscar Metenier, in his romance cycle, extending to seven volumes, “Tartufes et Satyres.”

The rôle of alcohol and of syphilis in the sexual life have also been discussed in belletristic literature. In Gerhart Hauptmann’s “Vor Sonnenaufgang” (“Before Sunrise”), Loth abandons his beloved Helne as soon as he learns that she springs from a degenerate family of drunkards. The disastrous consequences of syphilis are described by Ibsen in “Ghosts,” and recently most vividly by Brieux in “Les Avariés.”[803]

Extraordinarily comprehensive, especially in France, is the belletristic literature of sexual perversities. After the manner of the “Rougon-Macquart” series by Zola, Jean Larocque has written a romance cycle of eleven volumes, under the general title of “Les Voluptueuses” (the separate titles are: “Isey,” “Viviane,” “Odile,” “Fausta,” “Daphne,” “Phœbe,” “Fusette,” “La Naïade,” “Louvette,” “Lucine,” and “Hémine”; in the last volume we find even a discussion of copralagnistic details!). Some volumes of this series—for example, “Phœbe”—have even been translated into English. The works also of Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Guy de Maupassant, offer a rich material for the study of psychopathia sexualis. In this connexion I may also mention the poetic collections “La Légende des Sexes,” by Edmond Haraucourt; “Rimes de Joie,” by Théodore Hannon; and also the “Chants de Maldoror.” Octave Mirbeau also, in his “Journal d’une Femme de Chambre,” provides us with a review of the entire register of sexual perversities.[804] He, and also the talented Rachilde (who in her romances “Monsieur Venus,” “Les Hors Nature,” and “Madame Adonis,” considers the question of homosexuality), never fail to exhibit the artistic spirit in their descriptions of these delicate topics—and, indeed, l’art pour l’art doctrine seems to have been created especially in relation to this department of thought.

Homosexuality and bisexuality have been considered in such a large number of works that it is quite impossible to mention them all here. A fairly complete bibliography of these will be found in the volumes of the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages.[805] I can allude here only to a few especially well-known and artistically important homosexual romances and poems. Jouy, in his admirable “Galerie des Femmes” (Paris, 1799), devotes to the “Lesbiennes” a special chapter; Théophile Gautier, in “Mademoiselle de Maupin,” discusses the interesting problem of bisexuality; Zola, in “Nana,” represents the Lesbian relationship; Paul Verlaine in 1867 published tribadistic poetry under the title of “Les Amis.”[806] Since that time Englishmen, Germans, Belgians, and Italians have published belletristic descriptions of homosexual relationships. I may allude to Oscar Wilde’s “Dorian Grey,” Georges Eekhoud’s “Escal-Vigor,” Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” Prime-Stevenson’s “Irenæus,” Louis d’Herdy’s “L’Homme-Sirene,” F. G. Pernauhm’s “Ercole Tomei,” “Die Infamen,” and “Der junge Kurt”; also the sensational “Idylle Sapphique” of the demi-mondaine Liane de Pougy, the epic “Ganymedes” of C. W. Geissler, and the drama “Jasminblüte” of Dilsner.

Masochism found its introduction to belles-lettres by the writer from whom the very name is derived, L. von Sacher-Masoch, more especially in “Vermächtnis Kains.” Of his novels, the best known is “Venus im Pelz”; others are “Galizischen Geschichten,” “Messalinen Wiens,” “Die schwarze Zarin,” and “Wiener Hofgeschichten.” He still remains the only writer who has treated this peculiar perversity in an artistic manner. The more recent masochistic and sadistic novels belong to the worst kind of hawker’s literature. Lou Andreas-Salomé only, in “Eine Ausschweifung,” has artistically described the spiritual masochism of a woman with the fine psychological characterization peculiar to her work.

Quite recently there has actually appeared a masochistic monthly magazine, entitled Geissel und Rute: Archiv für Erziehung [sic!] Erwachsener (Whip and Rod: Archives for the Education [sic!] of Adults), edited by C. vom Stein, Buda-Pesth. The first number appeared on February 1, 1907. It contains masochistic stories, correspondence, historical sketches, and advertisements.

Sadistic love is the theme of Oscar Wilde’s “Salome,” and of the “Diaboliques” of Barbey d’Aurevilly. The satanic element is dealt with in Huysmans’ “La Bas,” and in various novels by St. Przybyszewski. Herbert Eulenburg’s drama “Ritter Blaubart” also represents a sadistic type.

In conclusion, I may allude to some authors who represent to us the whole psychology of modern love, and, above all, the depths of the love of reflection, its spiritual refinement, all the manifold moods, illusions, and dreams of the modern eros. J. P. Jakobsen’s “Niels Lyhne,” Hans Jäger’s “Christiania-Bohême,” Oskar Mysing’s “Grosse Leidenschaft,” Heinrich Mann’s “Jagd nach Liebe,” Gabriele d’Annunzio’s “Il Piacere,” “Trionfo della Morte,” and “Fuoco,” represent aspects of love. With the profoundest art, Lou Andreas-Salomé, in her stories—which in this respect I regard as among the most valuable products of modern literature—“Ruth,” “Fenitschka,” “Ma,” and “Menschenkinder,” represents the finer spiritual relationships between man and woman. This writer appears to possess the most intimate knowledge of the soul of the modern woman. Elisabeth Dauthendey, also (“Vom neuen Weibe und seiner Liebe”), Gabriele Reuter (“Liselotte von Reckling,” “Ellen von der Weiden”), and Rosa Mayreder (“Idole”), give most powerful descriptions of complicated feminine characters.[807] An important and interesting topic is discussed by Yvette Guilbert in “Les Demivieilles”—the psychology of the woman beginning to grow old, who cannot yet renounce love and yet is forced to do so by rude reality.

The writings to which I have referred in this chapter—the number of which could easily be increased tenfold without exhausting the abundance of recent belletristic literature occupied in the discussion of the sexual problem—should suffice to give some idea of how great is the interest in the important problems of the sexual life, how detailed and complicated the problems of that life have become under the influence of modern civilization, and with what earnestness they are treated in the belles-lettres of the day. The light and frivolous mood of Wieland and Clauren is no longer found to-day. In its place we have grandiose moral description, a more dramatic treatment of sexual problems, an unsparing exposure of the gloomier aspects of amatory life, and a psychological penetration into all the activities of the loving soul. Regarded as a whole, love in modern belletristic literature is treated from far worthier and higher standpoints than formerly. There is no ground whatever for regarding the widespread discussion of sexual problems in modern literature as a stigma of degeneration. In this respect our literature is merely a mirror of our time; and its tendencies indicate very clearly the emergence of a new, earnest, and more profound conception of the sexual relations between man and woman.

[794] Eduard Grisebach, “Catalogue of World Literature, with Literary and Bibliographical Annotations” (second edition, Berlin, 1905).

[795] K. Lange, “The Nature of Art,” vol. ii., pp. 161-177 (Berlin, 1901).

[796] Philipp Frey, “The Battle of the Sexes,” pp. 33, 34 (Vienna, 1904).

[797] Reference has previously been made ([p. 673]) to an English novel similar in character to Vera’s book—viz., “The Heavenly Twins,” by Sarah Grand. But the classical English example of a novel devoted to the consideration of the differing standards by which preconjugal sexual intercourse is judged in man and in woman respectively is “Tess of the D’Urbervilles,” by Thomas Hardy.

[798] In “The Woman who Did,” by Grant Allen, we have an English novel advocating free love; like “Eine für Viele,” this evoked a number of novels with allied titles, such as “The Woman who Didn’t,” “The Woman who Wouldn’t,” and the like. A far profounder study of a free union between a man whose wife refused to divorce him (on “moral” grounds) and another woman is George Meredith’s “One of Our Conquerors.” In “Jude the Obscure,” by Thomas Hardy, we have another detailed consideration of the difficulties attendant on a free union in a society under the dominion of Philistine morality. A recent novel in which freer sexual relationships are discussed from a somewhat ideal standpoint is “In the Days of the Comet,” by H. G. Wells. (In the character of Sue Bridehead, in “Jude the Obscure,” we have a remarkable study of the “frigid” type of woman. I have before alluded, in a [note] to [p. 435], to a recent novel by Hubert Wales, “Mr. and Mrs. Villiers,” devoted to the question of sexual frigidity in woman.)—Translator.

[799] “Bourgeois morality is the arch-murderer, which murders your youth and the youth of many of your sisters. If we lived in natural conditions, you would always, from the days of your childhood, be surrounded by young persons of the other sex. One of these would have contracted a friendship for you; another would have honoured you from a distance; with a third you would have played joyfully. But from your twentieth year onwards, three or four or more of them would have ardently wooed you, because you are strong and beautiful and chaste. And so with tears, and passion, and suffering, with games and kisses, you would have gladly become a woman; thus it is even yet among the children of manual labourers. A beautiful, chaste, diligent workman’s child has wooers enough. But among the so-called cultured people, morality has distorted and destroyed all the beauty of nature.... Where the middle-class youth goes to and fro, there goes also, like an old youth-hating aunt, morality, and destroys for each poor girl the best time of her life; and many never come to marriage, and many come too late.”

[800] In “Divorçons,” a comedy by V. Sardou and E. de Najac, we have an exceedingly witty, though trivial, treatment of the idea of a terminable marriage contract.—Translator.

[801] An early example of the “emancipated woman” in English literature is to be found in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Aurora Leigh.” This conception of feminine character aroused the usual hostility in minds working along the older grooves, so that Edward Fitzgerald, when Mrs. Browning died, is said to have exclaimed: “Thank God! No more ‘Aurora Leighs’!”—Translator.

[802] George Gissing’s “The Unclassed” is a powerful study of the life of a London prostitute.—Translator.

[803] Bayet, “À propos des ‘Avariés’” (Brussels, 1902).

[804] We may include in this category Willy’s “La Môme Picrate,” and also the “Claudine” novels by the same author (“Claudine à l’École,” “Claudine à Paris,” etc.).

[805] Consult also the work “Lieblingsminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur,” by Elisar von Kupffer.

[806] And at a later date Verlaine wrote other homosexual poems, “Les Hommes,” which for the most part are still unpublished.

[807] A work of similar character to these is the notable novel recently published (February, 1907) “Die Stimme,” by Grete Meisel-Hess (Berlin, 1907).

CHAPTER XXXII
THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE OF THE SEXUAL LIFE

“Stress has been laid upon the harm which can be done by the publication of works dealing with sexual problems. Undoubtedly the pornographic interest of the laity, and also of men of science, does play a part here! But the benefits which the unreserved scientific elucidation of the sexual problem is able to diffuse throughout the widest circles of the population are so extensive that this consideration of any possible harm that may ensue becomes infinitesimal in comparison.”—A. von Schrenck-Notzing.