FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Pessimism, a History and a Criticism," London, 1877.
[2] Ed. von Hartmann: "Zur Geschichte und Begründung des Pessimismus," Leipzig, Hermann Haacke, p. 187.
[3] "Les Poètes Lyriques de l'Autriche," Paris, 1886, p. 293.
[4] "Vorträge und Aufsätze zur Geschichte des geistigen Lebens in Deutschland und Oesterreich," Berlin, 1874, p. 413.
[5] Act 5, Sc. 2.
[6] "Goethes Werke," Weimar ed. Vol. 28, p. 227 f.
[7] Ibid., p. 216 f.
[8] In view of Goethe's own words, then, the caution of a recent critic (Felix Melchior in Litt. Forsch. XXVII Heft, Berlin, 1903) against applying the term Weltschmerz to "Werther," would seem to miss the mark entirely. Werther is a type, just as truly as is Faust, though in a smaller way, and the malady which he typifies has its ultimate origin in the development of public life,—the very condition which this critic insists upon as a mark of Weltschmerz in the proper application of the term.
[9] "Historische und politische Aufsätze," Leipzig, 1897. Vol. 4.
[10] As early as 1797 Hölderlin's Hyperion laments: "Mein Geschäft auf Erden ist aus. Ich bin voll Willens an die Arbeit gegangen, habe geblutet darüber, und die Welt um keinen Pfennig reicher gemacht." ("Hölderlin's gesammelte Dichtungen, herausgegeben von B. Litzmann," Stuttgart, Cotta, undated. Vol. II, p. 68.) Several decades later Heine writes: "Ich kann mich über die Siege meiner liebsten Ueberzeugungen nicht recht freuen, da sie mir gar zu viel gekostet haben. Dasselbe mag bei manchem ehrlichen Manne der Fall sein, und es trägt viel bei zu der grossen düsteren Verstimmung der Gegenwart." (Brief vom 21 April, 1851, an Gustav Kolb; Werke, Karpeles ed. Vol. IX, p. 378.)
[11] "Confession d'un enfant du siècle." Œuvres compl. Paris, 1888 (Charpentier). Vol. VIII, p. 24.
CHAPTER II
Hölderlin
A case such as that of Hölderlin, subject as he was from the time of his boyhood to melancholy, and ending in hopeless insanity, at once suggests the question of heredity. Little or nothing is known concerning his remote ancestors. His great-grandfather had been administrator of a convent at Grossbottwar, and died of dropsy of the chest at the age of forty-seven. His grandfather had held a similar position as "Klosterhofmeister und geistlicher Verwalter" at Lauffen, to which his son, the poet's father, succeeded. An apoplectic stroke ended his life at the early age of thirty-six. In regard to Hölderlin's maternal ancestors, our information is even more scant, though we know that both his grandmother and his mother lived to a ripe old age. From the poet's references to them we judge them to have been entirely normal types of intelligent, lovable women, gifted with a great deal of good practical sense. The only striking thing is the premature death of Hölderlin's great-grandfather and father. But in view of the nature of their stations in life, in which they may fairly be supposed to have led more than ordinarily sober and well-ordered lives, there seems to be no ground whatever for assuming that Hölderlin's Weltschmerz owed its inception in any degree to hereditary tendencies, notwithstanding Hermann Fischer's opinion to the contrary.[12] There is no sufficient reason to assume "erbliche Belastung," and there are other sufficient causes without merely guessing at such a possibility.
But while there are no sufficient historical grounds for the supposition that he brought the germ of his subsequent mental disease with him in his birth, we cannot fail to observe, even in the child, certain natural traits, which, being allowed to develop unchecked, must of necessity hasten and intensify the gloom which hung over his life. To his deep thoughtfulness was added an abnormal sensitiveness to all external influences. Like the delicate anemone, he recoiled and withdrew within himself when touched by the rougher material things of life.[13] He himself poetically describes his absentmindedness when a boy, and calls himself "ein Träumer"; and a dreamer he remained all his life. It seems to have been this which first brought him into discord with the world:
Oft sollt' ich stracks in meine Schule wandern,
Doch ehe sich der Träumer es versah,
So hatt' er in den Garten sich verirrt,
Und sass behaglich unter den Oliven,
Und baute Flotten, schifft' ins hohe Meer.
If ever a boy needed a strong fatherly hand to guide him, to teach him self-reliance and practical sense, it was this dreamy, tender-spirited child.[15] The love and sympathy which his mother bestowed upon him was not calculated to fit him for the rugged experiences of life, and while probably natural and pardonable, it was nevertheless extremely unfortunate that the boy was unconsciously encouraged to be and to remain a "Muttersöhnchen." But even with his peculiar trend of disposition, the result might not have been an unhappy one, had the course of his life not brought him more than an ordinary share of misfortune. This overtook him early in life, for when but two years of age his father died. His widowed mother now lived for a few years in complete retirement with her two children—the poet's sister Henrietta having been born just a few weeks after his father's demise. But it was not long before death again entered the household and robbed it of Hölderlin's aunt, his deceased father's sister, who was herself a widow and the faithful companion of the poet's mother. When the latter found herself again alone with her two little ones, whose care was weighing heavily upon her, she consented to become the wife of her late husband's friend, Kammerrat Gock, and accompanied him to his home in the little town of Nürtingen on the Neckar. But this re-established marital happiness was to be of brief duration, for in 1779 her second husband died, and the mother was now left with four little children to care and provide for.
The frequency with which death visited the family during his childhood and youth, familiarized him at an early age with scenes of sorrow and grief. No doubt he was too young when his father died to comprehend the calamity that had come upon the household, but it was not many months before he knew the meaning of his mother's tears, not only for his father, but also for his sister, who died in her infancy. Referring to his father's death, he writes in one of his early poems, "Einst und Jetzt":[16]
Einst schlugst du mir so ruhig, empörtes Herz!
Einst in des Vaters Schoosse, des liebenden
Geliebten Vaters,—aber der Würger kam,
Wir weinten, flehten, doch der Würger
Schnellte den Pfeil, und es sank die Stütze.
At his tenderest and most impressionable age, the boy was thus made sadly aware of the fleetingness of human life and the pains of bereavement. We cannot wonder then at finding these impressions reflected in his most juvenile poetic attempts. His poem "Das menschliche Leben," written at the age of fifteen, begins:
Menschen, Menschen! was ist euer Leben,
Eure Welt, die thränenvolle Welt!
Dieser Schauplatz, kann er Freude geben
Wo sich Trauern nicht dazu gesellt?[17]
But a time of still greater unhappiness was in store for him when he left his home at the age of fourteen to enter the convent school at Denkendorf, where he began his preparation for a theological course. A more direct antithesis to all that his body and soul yearned for and needed for their proper development could scarcely have been devised than that which existed in the chilling atmosphere and rigorous discipline of the monastery. He had not even an incentive to endure hardships for the sake of what lay beyond, for it was merely in passive submission to his mother's wish that he had decided to enter holy orders. And now, clad in a sombre monkish gown, deprived of all freedom of thought or movement and forced into companionship with twenty-five or thirty fellows of his own age, who nearly all misunderstood him, Hölderlin felt himself wretched indeed. "Wär' ich doch ewig ferne von diesen Mauern des Elends!" he writes in a poem at Maulbronn in 1787.[18] There was for him but one way of escape. It was to isolate himself as much as possible from the world of harsh reality about him, to be alone, and there in his solitude to construct for himself an ideal world of fancy, a poetic dreamland. This mental habit not only remained with him as he grew into manhood, it may be said to have been through life one of his most distinguishing characteristics. It would be impossible to make room here for all the passages in his poems and letters of this period, which reflect his love of solitude and his habit of retreating into a world of his own imagining. His letters to his friend Nast almost invariably contain some expression of his heart-ache. "Bilfinger ist wohl mein Freund, aber es geht ihm zu glücklich, als dass er sich nach mir umsehen möchte. Du wirst mich schon verstehen—er ist immer lustig, ich hänge immer den Kopf."[19] Another letter begins: "Wieder eine Stunde wegphantasiert!—dass es doch so schlechte Menschen giebt, unter meinen Cameraden so elende Kerls—wann mich die Freundschaft nicht zuweilen wieder gut machte, so hätt' ich mich manchmal schon lieber an jeden andern Ort gewünscht, als unter Menschengesellschaft.—Wann ich nur auch einmal etwas recht Lustiges schreiben könnte! Nur Gedult! 's wird kommen—hoff' ich, oder—oder hab' ich dann nicht genug getragen? Erfuhr ich nicht schon als Bube, was den Mann seufzen machen würde? und als Jüngling, geht's da besser?—Du lieber Gott! bin ich's denn allein? jeder andre glücklicher als ich? Und was hab' ich dann gethan?"[20] There is a world of pathos in this helpless cry of pain, with its suggestion of retributive fate. A poem of 1788, "Die Stille," written at Maulbronn, epitomizes almost everything that we have thus far noted as to Hölderlin's nature. He goes back in fancy to the days of his childhood, describing his lonely rambles, from which he would return in the moonlight, unmindful of his lateness for the evening meal, at which he would hastily eat of that which the others had left:
Schlich mich, wenn ich satt gegessen,
Weg von meinem lustigen Geschwisterpaar.
O! in meines kleinen Stübchens Stille
War mir dann so über alles wohl,
Wie im Tempel war mir's in der Nächte Hülle,
Wann so einsam von dem Turm die Glocke scholl.
Als ich weggerissen von den Meinen
Aus dem lieben elterlichen Haus
Unter Fremden irrte, we ich nimmer weinen
Durfte, in das bunte Weltgewirr hinaus,
O wie pflegtest du den armen Jungen,
Teure, so mit Mutterzärtlichkeit,
Wann er sich im Weltgewirre müd gerungen,
In der lieben, wehmutsvollen Einsamkeit.[21]
This love of solitude is carried to the extreme in his contemplation of a hermit's life. In a letter to Nast he says: "Heute ging ich so vor mich hin, da fiel mir ein, ich wolle nach vollendeten Universitäts Jahren Einsiedler werden—und der Gedanke gefiel mir so wohl, eine ganze Stunde, glaub' ich, war ich in meiner Fantasie Einsiedler."[22] And although he never became a hermit, this is the final disposition which he makes of himself in his "Hyperion."
These habits of thought and feeling, formed in boyhood, could lead to only one result. He became less and less qualified to comprehend and to grapple with the practical problems and difficulties of life, and entered young manhood and the struggle for existence at a tremendous disadvantage.
Another trait of his character which served to intensify his subsequent disappointments, was the strong ambition which early filled his soul. He aspired to high achievements in his chosen field of art. In a letter to Louise Nast, written probably about the beginning of 1790, he makes the confession: "Der unüberwindliche Trübsinn in mir ist wohl nicht ganz, doch meist—unbefriedigter Ehrgeiz."[23] The mere lad of seventeen had scarcely learned to admire Klopstock, when he speaks of his own "kämpfendes Streben nach Klopstocksgrösse," and exclaims: "Hinan den herrlichen Ehrenpfad! Hinan! im glühenden kühnen Traum, sie zu erreichen!"[24] It is remarkable to note how this fancy of a dream-life becomes fixed in Hölderlin's mind and reappears in almost every poem. Closely allied to this idea is that of a "glückliche Trunkenheit," and expressions like "wie ein Göttertraum das Alter schwand," "liebetrunken," "Wie ein Traum entfliehen Ewigkeiten," "siegestrunken," "süsse, kühne Trunkenheit," "trunken dämmert die Seele mir," can be found on almost every page of his shorter poems. Hyperion expresses himself on one occasion in the words: "O ein Gott ist der Mensch, wenn er träumt, ein Bettler, wenn er nachdenkt, und wenn die Begeisterung hin ist, steht er da, wie ein missrathener Sohn, den der Vater aus dem Hause stiess, und betrachtet die ärmlichen Pfennige, die ihm das Mitleid auf den Weg gab,"[25] which further illustrates the extravagant idealism by which he allowed himself to be carried away, and the etherial and thoroughly unpractical trend of his mind. The flights of fancy of which Hölderlin is capable are well illustrated by another passage in "Hyperion." Referring to Hyperion's conversation with Alabanda, he says: "Ich war hingerissen von unendlichen Hoffnungen, Götterkräfte trugen wie ein Wölkchen mich fort."[26] These facts have a direct bearing upon Hölderlin's Weltschmerz, inasmuch as it was just this unequal and unsuccessful struggle of the idealist with the stern realities of life that brought about the catastrophe which wrought his ruin.
And just as his ideals are vague and abstract, so too are the expressions of his Weltschmerz. It needs no concrete idea to arouse his enthusiasm to its highest pitch. Thus Hyperion exclaims: "Der Gott in uns, dem die Unendlichkeit zur Bahn sich öffnet, soll stehen und harren, bis der Wurm ihm aus dem Wege geht? Nein! nein! man frägt nicht, ob ihr wollt! ihr wollt ja nie—ihr Knechte und Barbaren! Euch will man auch nicht bessern, denn es ist umsonst! Man will nur dafür sorgen, dass ihr dem Siegeslauf der Menschheit aus dem Wege geht!"[27] It is in the form of lofty generalities such as these, and seldom with reference to practical details, that Hölderlin's longings find expression.
Entirely consistent with this idealism is the nature of his love, ardent, but etherial, "übersinnlich." This is reflected also in his lyrics, which are statuesque and beautiful, but lacking in passion and sensuous charm. Hölderlin's earliest love-affair, that with Louise Nast, is important for his Weltschmerz only in its bearing upon the development of his general character. This influence was a twofold one: in the first place his sweetheart was herself inclined to a sort of visionary mysticism, and therefore had an unwholesome influence upon the youth, who had already been carried too far in that direction. She too was a lover of solitude and wrote her letters to him in the stillness of the night, when all others were asleep. There can be no doubt that she had at least some share in determining his mental activity, especially his reading. In one of his earliest letters to her he writes: "Weil Du den Don Carlos liest, will ich ihn auch lesen."[28] It was during this time too that that he became so ardent an admirer of Schubart and Ossian. "Da leg' ich meinen Ossian weg und komme zu Dir," he writes in 1788 to his friend Nast. "Ich habe meine Seele geweidet an den Helden des Barden, habe mit ihm getrauert, wann er trauert über sterbende Mädchen."[29] There is not a sensuous note in all Hölderlin's poems or letters to Louise. Typical are the lines which he addresses to her on his departure from Maulbronn:
Lass sie drohen, die Stürme, die Leiden,
Lass trennen—der Trennung Jahre
Sie trennen uns nicht!
Sie trennen uns nicht!
Denn mein bist du! Und über das Grab hinaus
Soll sie dauren, die unzertrennbare Liebe.
O! wenn's einst da ist
Das grosse selige Jenseits,
Wo die Krone dem leidenden Pilger,
Die Palme dem Sieger blinkt,
Dann Freundin—lohnet auch Freundschaft—
Auch Freundschaft der Ewige.[30]
The second bearing which his relations to Louise have upon his Weltschmerz lies in the fact that his love ended in disappointment. This is true not only of this particular episode, not only of all his love-affairs, but it may even be said that disappointment was the fate to which he found himself doomed in all his aspirations. And in the persistency with which this evil angel pursued his footsteps through life may be found one of the chief causes of the early collapse of his faculties. What David Müller[31] and Hermann Fischer[32] have said in their essays in regard to this point—that Hölderlin did not become insane because his life was a succession of unsatisfactory situations and painful disappointments, but because he had not the strength to work himself out of these situations into more favorable ones—states only half the case. True, a stronger mental organization might have overcome these or even greater difficulties; Schiller, Herder, Fichte are examples; but not all of Hölderlin's failures and disappointments were the result of his weakness, and so while it is right to state that a stronger and more robust nature would have conquered in the fight, it is also fair to say that Hölderlin would have had a good chance of winning, had fortune been more kind. For this reason these external influences must be reckoned with as an important cause of his Weltschmerz and subsequently of his insanity.
This suggests an interesting point of comparison—if I may be permitted to anticipate somewhat—with Lenau, the second type selected. Hölderlin earnestly pursued happiness and contentment, but it eluded him at every step. Lenau on the contrary reached a point in his Weltschmerz where he refused to see anything in life but pain, wilfully thrusting from him even such happiness as came within his reach.
We may postpone any detailed reference to Hölderlin's relations with Susette Gontard, which were vastly more important in their influence upon the poet's character and Weltschmerz, until we come to the discussion of his "Hyperion," of which Susette, under the pseudonym of Diotima, forms one of the central figures.
To speak of all the disappointments which fell to Hölderlin's lot would practically require the writing of his biography from the time of his graduation from Tübingen to his return from Bordeaux, almost the entire period of his sane manhood. Unsuccessful in his first position as a tutor, and unable, after having abandoned this, to provide even a meagre living for himself with his pen, his migration to Frankfort to the house of the merchant Gontard at last gave him a hope of better things, but a hope which soon proved vain. Following close upon these disappointments was his failure to carry out a project which he had long cherished, of establishing a literary journal; then came his dismissal from a situation which he had just entered upon in Switzerland. On his return he wrote to Schiller for help and advice, and his failure to receive a reply grieved him deeply. We can only surmise that it was a cruel disappointment, finally, which caused his sudden departure from Bordeaux, and brought him back a mental wreck to his mother's home. Even as early as 1788 Hölderlin complains bitterly in the poem "Der Lorbeer," in which he eulogizes the poets Klopstock and Young and expresses his own ambition to aspire to their greatness:
Schon so manche Früchte schöner Keime
Logen grausam mir ins Angesicht.[33]
As the years passed, this feeling of disappointment and disillusion became more and more intense and bitter. A stanza from one of his more mature poems (1795) "An die Natur," will serve to illustrate the sentiment which pervades almost all his writings:
Tot ist nun, die mich erzog und stillte,
Tot ist nun die jugendliche Welt,
Diese Brust, die einst ein Himmel füllte,
Tot und dürftig wie ein Stoppelfeld;
Ach es singt der Frühling meinen Sorgen
Noch, wie einst, ein freundlich tröstend Lied,
Aber hin ist meines Lebens Morgen,
Meines Herzens Frühling ist verblüht.[34]
In close causal connection with Hölderlin's Weltschmerz is his belief that his life is ruled by an inexorable fate whose plaything he is. "Wenn hinfort mich das Schicksal ergreift, und von einem Abgrund in den andern mich wirft, und alle Kräfte in mir ertränkt und alle Gedanken," Hyperion exclaims.[35] He goes even further, and conceives the idea of a sacrifice to Fate. Thus he makes Alabanda say near the close of "Hyperion:" "Ach! weil kein Glück ist ohne Opfer, nimm als Opfer mich, o Schicksal an, und lass die Liebenden in ihrer Freude."[36] Wilhelm Scherer calls attention to Gervinus' remark that new intellectual tendencies which call for unaccustomed and unusual mental effort often prove disastrous to single individuals, and says: "Hölderlin war also ein Opfer der Erneuerung des deutschen Lebens—seltsam, wie der Gedanke des Opfers als ein hoher und herrlicher ihn in allen seinen Gedichten viel beschäftigt hat."[37] But the poet does not apply this fatalism only to himself, to the individual; he widens its influence to humanity in general. "Wir sprechen von unserm Herzen, unsern Planen, als wären sie unser," says Hyperion, "und es ist doch eine fremde Gewalt, die uns herumwirft und ins Grab legt, wie es ihr gefällt, und von der wir nicht wissen, von wannen sie kommt, noch wohin sie geht:"[38] Perhaps nowhere better than in Hyperion's "Schicksalslied" does he give poetic expression to this thought. Omitting the first stanza it reads thus:
Schicksallos wie der schlafende
Säugling atmen die Himmlischen;
Keusch bewahrt
In bescheidener Knospe,
Blühet ewig
Ihnen der Geist,
Und die seligen Augen
Blicken in stiller
Ewiger Klarheit.
Doch uns ist gegeben,
Auf keiner Stätte zu ruhn,
Es schwinden, es fallen
Die leidenden Menschen
Blindlings von einer
Stunde zur andern,
Wie Wasser von Klippe
Zu Klippe geworfen,
Jahrlang ins Ungewisse hinab.[39]
The fundamental difference between Hölderlin's "Anschauung" and Goethe's is at once apparent when we recall the "Lied der Parzen" from "Iphigenie." Hölderlin does not bring the blessed Genii into any relation with mortals, but merely contrasts their free and blissful existence, emphasizing their immunity from Fate, to which suffering humanity is subject. But this humanity is represented by Hölderlin characteristically as helpless, passive—"schwinden," "fallen," "blindlings von einer Stunde zur andern." Whereas the opening lines of Goethe's "Parzen" strike the keynote of conflict between the gods and men:
Es fürchte die Götter
Das Menschengeschlecht!
Sie halten die Herrschaft
In ewigen Händen
Und können sie brauchen
Wie's ihnen gefällt.
Der fürchte sie doppelt,
Den je sie erheben!
And those who come to grief at the hands of the gods, are not weak passive creatures, but heaven-scaling Titans. This points to the antipodal difference between the characters of these two poets, and explains in part why Goethe did not succumb to the sickly sentimentalism of which he rid himself in "Werther." The difference between yielding and striving resulted in the difference between an acute case of Weltschmerz in the one and a healthy physical and intellectual manhood in the other.
Thus far it has been almost entirely the personal aspect of Hölderlin's Weltschmerz and its causes that has come under our notice. And since he was a lyric poet, it is perhaps natural that the sorrows which concerned him personally should find most frequent expression in his verse. But notwithstanding the fact that this personal element is very prominent in Hölderlin's writings, Scherer's judgment is correct when he states: "Die Grundstimmung war eine tiefe Verbitterung gegen die Versunkenheit des Vaterlands."[40] The reason is not far to seek, especially when we consider the impossible demands of the poet's extravagant idealism. The conditions in Germany which had called forth the terrible arraignment of petty despotism, crushing militarism, and political rottenness generally, in the works of Lenz, Klinger and Schubart, had not abated. Schubart was one of Hölderlin's earliest favorites, so that the latter was doubtless in this way imbued with sentiments which could only grow stronger under the influence of his more mature observations and experiences. Even in his eighteenth year, in a poem "An die Demut,"[41] he gives expression in strong terms to his patriotic feelings, in which his disgust with his faint-hearted, servile compatriots and his defiance of "Fürstenlaune" and "Despotenblut" are plainly evident. So too in "Männerjubel," 1788:
Es glimmt in uns ein Funke der Göttlichen!
Und diesen Funken soll aus der Männerbrust
Der Hölle Macht uns nicht entreissen!
Hört es, Despotengerichte, hört es![42]
Perhaps nowhere outside of his own Württemberg could he have been more unfavorably situated in this respect. Under Karl Eugen (1744-1793) the country sank into a deplorable condition. Regardless of the rights of individuals and communities alike, he sought in the early part of his reign to replenish his depleted purse by the most shameless measures, in order that he might surround himself with luxury and indulge his autocratic proclivities. Among his most reprehensible violations of constitutional rights, were his bartering of privileges and offices and the selling of troops. These things Hölderlin attacks in one of his youthful poems "Die Ehrsucht" (1788):
Um wie Könige zu prahlen, schänden
Kleine Wütriche ihr armes Land;
Und um feile Ordensbänder wenden
Räte sich das Ruder aus der Hand.[43]
Another act of gross injustice which this petty tyrant perpetrated, and which Hölderlin must have felt very painfully, was the incarceration of the poet's countryman Schubart from 1777 to 1787 in the Hohenasperg. But not only from within came tyrannous oppression. Following upon the coalition against France after the Revolution, Württemberg became the scene of bloody conflicts and the ravages of war. Under the regime of Friedrich Eugen (1795-97) the French gained such a foothold in Württemberg that the country had to pay a contribution of four million gulden to get rid of them. These were the conditions under which Hölderlin grew up into young manhood. But deeper than in the mere existence of these conditions themselves lay the cause of the poet's most abject humiliation and grief. It was the stoic indifference, the servile submission with which he charged his compatriots, that called forth his bitterest invectives upon their insensible heads. His own words will serve best to show the intensity of his feelings. In 1788 he writes, in the poem "Am Tage der Freundschaftsfeier:"
Da sah er (der Schwärmer) all die Schande
Der weichlichen Teutonssöhne,
Und fluchte dem verderblichen Ausland
Und fluchte den verdorbenen Affen des Auslands,
Und weinte blutige Thränen,
Dass er vielleicht noch lange
Verweilen müsse unter diesem Geschlecht.[44]
Ten years later he treats the Germans to the following ignominious comparison:
Spottet ja nicht des Kinds, wenn es mit Peitsch' und Sporn
Auf dem Rosse von Holz, mutig und gross sich dünkt.
Denn, ihr Deutschen, auch ihr seid
Thatenarm und gedankenvoll.[45]
With his friend Sinclair, who was sent as a delegate, he attended the congress at Rastatt in November, 1798, and here he made observations which no doubt resulted in the bitter characterization of his nation in the closing letters of Hyperion. This convention, whose chief object was the compensation of those German princes who had been dispossessed by the cessions to France on the left bank of the Rhine, afforded a spectacle so humiliating that it would have bowed down in shame a spirit even less proud and sensitive than Hölderlin's. The French emissaries conducted themselves like lords of Germany, while the German princes vied with each other in acts of servility and submission to the arrogant Frenchmen. And it was the apathy of the average German, as Hölderlin conceived it, toward these and other national indignities, that caused him to put such bitter words of contumely into the mouth of Hyperion: "Barbaren von Alters her, durch Fleiss und Wissenschaft und selbst durch Religion barbarischer geworden, tief unfähig jedes göttlichen Gefühls—beleidigend für jede gut geartete Seele, dumpf und harmonielos, wie die Scherben eines weggeworfenen Gefässes—das, mein Bellarmin! waren meine Tröster."[46] In another letter Hyperion explains their incapacity for finer feeling and appreciation when he writes: "Neide die Leidensfreien nicht, die Götzen von Holz, denen nichts mangelt, weil ihre Seele so arm ist, die nichts fragen nach Regen und Sonnenschein, weil sie nichts haben, was der Pflege bedürfte. Ja, ja, es ist recht sehr leicht, glücklich, ruhig zu sein mit seichtem Herzen und eingeschränktem Geiste."[47] Their work he characterizes as "Stümperarbeit," and their virtues as brilliant evils and nothing more. There is nothing sacred, he claims, that has not been desecrated by this nation. But it is chiefly his own experience which he recites, when, in speaking of the sad plight of German poets, of those who still love the beautiful, he says: "Es ist auch herzzerreissend, wenn man eure Dichter, eure Künstler sieht—die Guten, sie leben in der Welt, wie Fremdlinge im eigenen Hause."[48] Still more extravagantly does the poet caricature his own people when he writes: "Wenn doch einmal diesen Gottverlassnen einer sagte, dass bei ihnen nur so unvollkommen alles ist, weil sie nichts Reines unverdorben, nichts Heiliges unbetastet lassen mit den plumpen Händen—dass bei ihnen eigentlich das Leben schaal und sorgenschwer ist, weil sie den Genius verschmähen—und darum fürchten sie auch den Tod so sehr, und leiden um des Austernlebens willen alle Schmach, weil Höhres sie nicht kennen, als ihr Machwerk, das sie sich gestoppelt."[49]
But we should get an extremely unjust and one-sided idea of Hölderlin's attitude toward his country from these quotations alone. The point which they illustrate is his growing estrangement from his own people, which in the very nature of the case must have had an important bearing upon his Weltschmerz. But his feelings in regard to Germany and the Germans were not all contempt. In many of his poems there is the true patriotic ring. It is true, we can nowhere find any clear political program, neither could we expect one from a poet who was so absorbed in his own feelings, and whose ideals soared so high above the sphere of practical politics. In this too Hölderlin was the product of previous influences. With all their clamor for political upheavals, the "Stürmer und Dränger" never arrived at any serious or practical plan of action. Notwithstanding all this, the word Vaterland was always an inspiration to Hölderlin, and it is especially gratifying to note that the calumny which he heaps upon the devoted heads of the Germans is not his last word on the subject. Nor did he ever lose sight of his lofty ideal of liberty for his degraded fatherland or cease to hope for its realization. In this strain he concludes the "Hymne an die Freiheit" (1790) with a splendid outburst of patriotic enthusiasm:
Dann am süssen, heisserrung'nen Ziele,
Wenn der Ernte grosser Tag beginnt,
Wenn verödet die Tyrannenstühle,
Die Tyrannenknechte Moder sind,
Wenn im Heldenbunde meiner Brüder
Deutsches Blut und deutsche Liebe glüht,
Dann, O Himmelstochter! sing ich wieder,
Singe sterbend dir das letzte Lied.[50]
What a remarkable change is noticeable in the tone which the poet assumes toward his country in the lines "Gesang des Deutschen," written in 1799, probably after the completion of his "Hyperion":
O heilig Herz der Völker, O Vaterland!
Allduldend gleich der schweigenden Muttererd'
Und allverkannt, wenn schon aus deiner
Tiefe die Fremden ihr Bestes haben.
Du Land des hohen, ernsteren Genius!
Du Land der Liebe! bin ich der Deine schon,
Oft zürnt' ich weinend, dass du immer
Blöde die eigene Seele leugnest.[51]
How much the reproach has been softened, and with what tender regard he strives to mollify his former bitterness! To this change in his feelings, his sojourn in strange places and the attendant discouragements and disappointments seem to have contributed not a little, for in the poem "Rückkehr in die Heimat," written in 1800, the contempt of "Hyperion" has been replaced by compassion. He sees himself and his country linked together in the sacred companionship of suffering, consequently it can no longer be the object of his scorn.
Wie lange ist's, O wie lange! des Kindes Ruh'
Ist hin, und hin ist Jugend, und Lieb' und Glück,
Doch du, mein Vaterland! du heilig
Duldendes! siehe, du bist geblieben.[52]
But the fact remains, nevertheless, that Hölderlin from his early youth felt himself a stranger in his own land and among his own people. Some of the causes of this circumstance have already been discussed. The fact itself is important because it establishes the connection between his Weltschmerz and his most noteworthy characteristic as a poet, namely, his Hellenism. No other German poet has allowed himself to be so completely dominated by the Greek idea as did Hölderlin. And in his case it may properly be called a symptom of his Weltschmerz, for it marks his flight from the world of stern reality into an imaginary world of Greek ideals. An imaginary Greek world, because in spite of his Hellenic enthusiasm he entertained some of the most un-Hellenic ideas and feelings.
That the poet should take refuge in Greek antiquity is not surprising, when we consider the conditions which prevailed at that time in the field of learning. It was not many decades since the study of Latin and Roman institutions had been forced to yield preëminence of position in Germany to the study of Greek. Furthermore, his own Suabia had come to be recognized as a leader in the study of Greek antiquity, and in his contemporaries Schiller, Hegel, Schelling, who were all countrymen and acquaintances of his, he found worthy competitors in this branch of learning. His fondness for the language and literature of Greece goes back to his early school days, especially at Denkendorf and Maulbronn. On leaving the latter school, he had the reputation among his fellow-students of being an excellent Hellenist, according to the report of Schwab, his biographer. It was while there that Hölderlin as a boy of seventeen first made use of the Alcaic measure in which he subsequently wrote so many of his poems.
A full discussion of the technic of Hölderlin's poems would have so remote a connection with the main topic under consideration that its introduction here would be entirely out of place. It will suffice, therefore, merely to indicate along broad lines the extent to which the Greek idea took and held possession of the poet.
Out of his 168 shorter poems, 126, exactly three-fourths, are written in the unrhymed Greek measures.[53] Those forms which are native are confined almost entirely to his juvenile and youthful compositions, and after 1797 he only once employs the rhymed stanza, namely, in the poem "An Landauer."[54] As a boy of sixteen, he wrote verses in the Alcaic and Asclepiadeian measures,[55] and soon acquired a considerable mastery over them. At seventeen he composed in the latter form his poem "An meine Freundinnen:"
In der Stille der Nacht denket an euch mein Lied,
Wo mein ewiger Gram jeglichen Stundenschlag,
Welcher näher mich bringt dem
Trauten Grabe, mit Dank begrüsst.[56]
While not exhibiting the finish of expression and musical qualities of his more mature Alcaic lyrics, still it is not bad poetry for a boy of seventeen, and the reader feels what the boy was not slow to learn, that the stately movement of the Greek stanzas lends an added dignity to the expression of sorrow, which was to constitute so large a part of his poetic activity. As already stated, the Alcaic measure was of all the Greek verse-forms Hölderlin's favorite, and the one most frequently and successfully employed by him. He is very fond of introducing Germanic alliteration into these unrhymed stanzas, as the following example will illustrate:
Und wo sind Dichter, denen der Gott es gab,
Wie unsern Alten, freundlich und fromm zu sein, Wo Weise, wie die unsern sind, die
Kalten und Kühnen, die unbestechbarn?[57]
The Asclepiadeian stanza he employs much less frequently, the Sapphic only once, and that with indifferent success. It was the ode, dithyramb and hymn, the serious lyric, which Hölderlin selected as the models for his poetic fashion. In this purpose he was not alone, for his friend Neuffer writes to him in 1793, with an enthusiasm which in the intensity of expression common at the time, seems almost like an inspiration: "Die höhere Ode und der Hymnus, zwei in unsern Tagen, und vielleicht in allen Zeitaltern am meisten vernachlässigte Musen! in ihre Arme wollen wir uns werfen, von ihren Küssen beseelt uns aufraffen. Welche Aussichten! Dein Hymnus an die Kühnheit mag Dir zum Motto dienen! Mir gehe die Hoffnung voran."[58]
But it was in the form much more than in the contents of his poems, that Hölderlin carried out the Greek idea. Most of his lyrics are occasional poems, or have abstract subjects, as for example, "An die Stille," "An die Ehre," "An den Genius der Kühnheit," and so on. Only here and there does he take a classic subject or introduce classic references. The truth of the matter is, that with all his fervid enthusiasm for Hellenic ideals, and with all his Greek cult, Hölderlin was not the genuine Hellenist he thought himself to be. This is due to the fact that his turning to Greece was in its final analysis attributable rather to selfish than to altruistic motives. He wanted to get away from the deplorable realities about him, the things which hurt his tender soul, and so he constructed for himself this idealized world of ancient and modern Greece, and peopled it with his own creations.
In Hölderlin's "Hyperion," we have the first poetic work in German which takes modern Greece as its locality and a modern Hellene as its hero. Hölderlin calls it "ein Roman," but it would be rather inaccurately described by the usual translation of that term. It is not only the poetic climax of his Hellenism, but also the most complete expression of his Weltschmerz in its various phases. It must naturally be both, for the poet and the hero are one. He speaks of it as "mein Werkchen, in dem ich lebe und webe."[59] Its subject is the emancipation of Greece. What little action is narrated may be very briefly indicated. Russia is at war with Turkey and calls upon Hellas to liberate itself. The hero and his friend Alabanda are at the head of a band of volunteers, fighting the Turks. After several minor successes Hyperion lays siege to the Spartan fortress of Misitra. But at its capitulation, he is undeceived concerning the Hellenic patriots; they ravage and plunder so fiercely that he turns from them with repugnance and both he and Alabanda abandon the cause of liberty which they had championed. To his bride Hyperion had promised a redeemed Greece—a lament is all that he can bring her. She dies, Hyperion comes to Germany where his aesthetic Greek soul is severely jarred by the sordidness, apathy and insensibility of these "barbarians." Returning to the Isthmus, he becomes a hermit and writes his letters to Bellarmin, no less "thatenarm und gedankenvoll" himself than his unfortunate countrymen whom he so characterizes.[60]
"Hyperion," though written in prose, is scarcely anything more than a long drawn out lyric poem, so thoroughly is action subordinated to reflection, and so beautiful and rhythmic is the dignified flow of its periods. But having said that the locality is Greece and its hero is supposed to be a modern Greek, that in its scenic descriptions Hölderlin produces some wonderfully natural effects, and that the language shows the imitation of Greek turns of expression—Homeric epithets and similes—having said this, we have mentioned practically all the Greek characteristics of the composition. And there is much in it that is entirely un-Hellenic. To begin with, the form in which "Hyperion" is cast, that of letters, written not even during the progress of the events narrated, but after they are all a thing of the past, is not at all a Greek idea. Moreover Weltschmerz, which constitutes the "Grundstimmung" of all Hölderlin's writings, and which is most plainly and persistently expressed in "Hyperion," is not Hellenic. Not that we should have to look in vain for pessimistic utterances from the classical poets of Greece—for does not Sophocles make the deliberate statement: "Not to be born is the most reasonable, but having seen the light, the next best thing is to go to the place whence we came as soon as possible."[61] Nevertheless, this sort of sentiment cannot be regarded as representing the spirit of the ancient Greeks, which was distinctly optimistic. They were happy in their worship of beauty in art and in nature, and above all, happy in their creativeness. The question suggests itself here, whether a poet can ever be a genuine pessimist, since he has within him the everlasting impulse to create. And to create is to hope. Hyperion himself says: "Es lebte nichts, wenn es nicht hoffte."[62] But we have already distinguished between pessimism as a system of philosophy, and Weltschmerz as a poetic mood.[63] It is certainly un-Hellenic that Hölderlin allows Hyperion with his alleged Greek nature to sink into contemplative inactivity. In the poem "Der Lorbeer," 1789, he exclaims:
Soll ewiges Trauern mich umwittern,
Ewig mich töten die bange Sehnsucht?[64]
which gives expression to the fact that in his Weltschmerz there was a very large admixture of "Sehnsucht," an entirely un-Hellenic feeling. Nor is there to be found in his entire make-up the slightest trace of Greek irony, which would have enabled him to overcome much of the bitterness of his life, and which might indeed have averted its final catastrophe.
Undeniably Grecian is Hölderlin's idea that the beautiful is also the good. Long years he sought for this combined ideal. In Diotima, the muse of his "Hyperion," whose prototype was Susette Gontard, he has found it—and now he feels that he is in a new world. To his friend Neuffer, from whom he has no secrets, he writes: "Ich konnte wohl sonst glauben, ich wisse, was schön und gut sei, aber seit ich's sehe, möcht' ich lachen über all mein Wissen. Lieblichkeit und Hoheit, und Ruh und Leben, und Geist und Gemüt und Gestalt ist Ein seeliges Eins in diesem Wesen."[65] And six or eight months later: "Mein Schönheitsinn ist nun vor Störung sicher. Er orientiert sich ewig an diesem Madonnenkopfe.... Sie ist schön wie Engel! Ein zartes, geistiges, himmlisch reizendes Gesicht! Ach ich könnte ein Jahrtausend lang mich und alles vergessen bei ihr—Majestät und Zärtlichkeit, und Fröhlichkeit und Ernst—und Leben und Geist, alles ist in und an ihr zu einem göttlichen Ganzen vereint."[66] It would be difficult to conceive of a more complete and sublime eulogy of any object of affection than the words just quoted, and yet they do not conceal their author's etherial quality of thought, his "Uebersinnlichkeit." Even his boyish love-affairs seem to have been largely of this character, and were in all likelihood due to the necessity which he felt of bestowing his affection somewhere, rather than to irresistible forces proceeding from the objects of his regard.
Lack of self-restraint, so often characteristic of the poet of Weltschmerz, was not Hölderlin's greatest fault. And yet if his intense devotion to Susette remained undebased by sensual desires, as we know it did, this was not solely due to the practice of heroic self-restraint, but must be attributed in part to the fact that that side of his nature was entirely subordinate to his higher ideals; and these were always a stronger passion with Hölderlin than his love. So that Diotima's judgment of Hyperion is correct when she says: "O es ist so ganz natürlich, dass Du nimmer lieben willst, weil Deine grössern Wünsche verschmachten."[67] This consideration at once compels a comparison with Lenau, which must be deferred, however, until the succeeding chapter. Undoubtedly this year and a half at Frankfurt was the happiest period of his whole life. It brought him a serenity of mind which he had never before known. Ardent was the response called forth by his devotion, but its influence was wholesome—it was soothing to his sensitive nerves. And because it was altogether more a sublime than an earthly passion, he indulged himself in it with a conscience void of offence. Doubtless he correctly describes the influence of his relations with Diotima upon his life when he writes: "Ich sage Dir, lieber Neuffer! ich bin auf dem Wege, ein recht guter Knabe zu werden.... mein Herz ist voll Lust, und wenn das heilige Schicksal mir mein glücklich Leben erhält, so hoff' ich künftig mehr zu thun als bisher."[68] But the happy life was not to continue long. Rudely the cup was dashed from his lips, and the poet's pain intensified by one more disappointment—the bitterest of all he had experienced. It filled him with thoughts of revenge, which he was powerless to execute. There can be no question that if his love for Susette had been of a less etherial order, less a thing of the soul, he would have felt much less bitterly her husband's violent interference. But returning to the poem "Hyperion," for as such we may regard it, we find in it the most complete expression of the attitude which the poet, in his Weltschmerz, assumed toward nature. Nature is his constant companion, mother, comforter in sorrow, in his brighter moments his deity. This nature-worship, which speedily develops into a more or less consistent pantheism, Hölderlin expresses in Hyperion's second letter, in the following creed: "Eines zu sein mit allem, was lebt, in seliger Selbstvergessenheit wiederzukehren ins All der Natur, das ist der Gipfel der Gedanken und Freuden, das ist die heilige Bergeshöhe, der Ort der ewigen Ruhe."[69] And so nature is to Hölderlin always intensely real and personal. The sea is youthful, full of exuberant joy; the mountain-tops are hopeful and serene; with shouts of joy the stream hurls itself like a giant down into the forests. Here and there his personification of nature becomes even more striking: "O das Morgenlicht und ich, wir gingen uns entgegen, wie versöhnte Freunde."[70] Still more intense is this feeling of personal intimacy, when he exclaims: "O selige Natur! ich weiss nicht, wie mir geschiehet, wenn ich mein Auge erhebe von deiner Schöne, aber alle Lust des Himmels ist in den Thränen, die ich weine vor dir, der Geliebte vor der Geliebten."[71] It is important for purposes of comparison, to note that notwithstanding his intense Weltschmerz, in his treatment of nature Hölderlin does not select only its gloomy or terrible aspects. Light and shade alternate in his descriptions, and only here and there is the background entirely unrelieved. The thunderstorm is to him a dispenser of divine energies among forest and field, even the seasons of decline and decay are not left without sunshine: "auf der stummen entblätterten Landschaft, wo der Himmel schöner als je, mit Wolken und Sonnenschein um die herbstlich schlafenden Bäume spielte."[72] One passage in "Hyperion" bears so striking a resemblance, however, to Lenau's characteristic nature-pictures, that it shall be given in full—although even here, when the gloom of his sorrow and disappointment was steadily deepening, he does not fail to derive comfort from the warm sunshine, a thought for which we should probably look in vain, had Lenau painted the picture: "Ich sass mit Alabanda auf einem Hügel der Gegend, in lieblich wärmender Sonn', und um uns spielte der Wind mit abgefallenem Laube. Das Land war stumm; nur hie und da ertönte im Wald ein stürzender Baum, vom Landmann gefällt, und neben uns murmelte der vergängliche Regenbach hinab ins ruhige Meer."[73]
In spite of his deep and persistent Weltschmerz, Hölderlin rarely gives expression to a longing for death. This forms so prominent a feature in the thought of other types of Weltschmerz, for instance of Lenau and of Leopardi, that its absence here cannot fail to be noticed. It is true that in his dramatic poem "Der Tod des Empedokles," which symbolizes the closing of his account with the world, Hölderlin causes his hero to return voluntarily to nature by plunging into the fiery crater of Mount Etna. But Empedokles does this to atone for past sin, not merely to rid himself of the pain of living; and thus, even as a poetic idea, it impresses us very differently from the continual yearning for death which pervades the writings of the two poets just mentioned. Leopardi declared that it were best never to see the light, but denounced suicide as a cowardly act of selfishness; and yet at the approach of an epidemic of cholera, he clung so tenaciously to life that he urged a hurried departure from Naples, regardless of the hardships of such a journey in his feeble condition, and took refuge in a little villa near Vesuvius. Hölderlin's Weltschmerz was absolutely sincere.
Numerous passages might be quoted to show that Hölderlin's mind was intensely introspective. This is true also of Lenau, even to a greater extent, and may be taken as generally characteristic of poets of this type. The fact that this introspection is an inevitable symptom in many mental derangements, hypochondria, melancholia and others, indicates a not very remote relation of Weltschmerz to insanity. In Hölderlin's poems there are not a few premonitions of the sad fate which awaited him. One illustration from the poem "An die Hoffnung," 1801, may suffice:
Wo bist du? wenig lebt' ich, doch atmet kalt
Mein Abend schon. Und stille, den Schatten gleich,
Bin ich schon hier; und schon gesanglos
Schlummert das schau'rende Herz im Busen.[74]
It is impossible to read these lines without feeling something of the cold chill of the heart that Hölderlin felt was already upon him, and which he expresses in a manner so intensely realistic and yet so beautiful.
Having thus attempted a review of the growth of Hölderlin's Weltschmerz and of its chief characteristics, it merely remains to conclude the chapter with a brief resume. We have then in Friedrich Hölderlin a youth peculiarly predisposed to feel himself isolated from and repelled by the world, growing up without a strong fatherly hand to guide, giving himself over more and more to solitude and so becoming continually less able to cope with untoward circumstances and conditions. Growing into manhood, he was unfortunate in all his love-affairs and as though doomed to unceasing disappointments. Early in life he devoted himself to the study of antiquity, making Greece his hobby, and thus creating for himself an ideal world which existed only in his imagination, and taking refuge in it from the buffetings of the world about him. He was a man of a deeply philosophical trend of mind, and while not often speaking of it, felt very keenly the humiliating condition of Germany, although his patriotic enthusiasm found its artistic expression not with reference to Germany but to Greece. As a poet, finally, his intimacy with nature was such that nature-worship and pantheism became his religion.
In reviewing the whole range of Hölderlin's writings, we cannot avoid the conclusion, that in him we have a type of Weltschmerz in the broadest sense of the term; we might almost term it Byronism, with the sensual element eliminated. He shows the hypersensitiveness of Werther, fanatical enthusiasm for a vague ideal of liberty, vehement opposition to existing social and political conditions; there is, in fact, a breadth in his Weltschmerz, which makes the sorrows of Werther seem very highly specialized in comparison. Bearing in mind the distinction made between the two classes, we must designate Hölderlin's Weltschmerz as cosmic rather than egoistic; the egoistic element is there, but it is outweighed by the cosmic and finds its poetic expression not so frequently nor so intensely with reference to the poet himself, as with reference to mankind at large.