Modern German writers on Shakespeare.
During the last half-century textual, æsthetic, and biographical criticism has been pursued in Germany with unflagging industry and energy; and although laboured and supersubtle theorising characterises much German æsthetic criticism, its mass and variety testify to the impressiveness of the appeal that Shakespeare’s work has made to the German intellect. The efforts to stem the current of Shakespearean worship made by the realistic critic, Gustav Rümelin, in his ‘Shakespearestudien’ (Stuttgart, 1866), and subsequently by the dramatist, J. R. Benedix, in ‘Die Shakespearomanie’ (Stuttgart, 1873, 8vo), proved of no effect. In studies of the text and metre Nikolaus Delius (1813-1888) should, among recent German writers, be accorded the first place; in studies of the biography and stage history Friedrich Karl Elze (1821-1889); in æsthetic studies Friedrich Alexander Theodor Kreyssig (1818-1879), author of ‘Vorlesungen über Shakespeare’ (Berlin, 1858 and 1874), and ‘Shakespeare-Fragen’ (Leipzig, 1871).
Ulrici’s ‘Shakespeare’s Dramatic Art’ (first published at Halle in 1839) and Gervinus’s Commentaries (first published at Leipzig in 1848-9), both of which are familiar in English translations, are suggestive but unconvincing æsthetic interpretations. The German Shakespeare Society, which was founded at Weimar in 1865, has published thirty-four year-books (edited successively by von Bodenstedt, Delius, Elze, and F. A. Leo); each contains useful contributions to Shakespearean study.