Note 28. p. [224]. Classification Of Schools Of Poetry In Germany.
The materials for understanding the awakening of literary tastes in the last century in Germany, through Lessing's influence, are furnished by Schlosser, History of the Eighteenth Century. See vol. i. ch. iii. E. T. for the period from the Pietists to Lessing; and ch. v. in reference to the Deutsche Bibliothek, and also vol. ii. ch. ii. § 3. See also Vilmar's History of German Literature (translated and abridged by Metcalfe).
It may facilitate clearness to name the classification of schools of German poetry and taste, which is given in the last-named work. They are divided into five classes: viz. I. that which was antecedent to Lessing, which is subdivided into (1) the Saxon school of Gottsched; and (2) the Swiss school of Bodmer, and of Wieland in his early manner; which was connected with the Gottingen school of Haller, Hagedorn, and Klopstock, together with the Stolbergs and Voss. II. Lessing, and writers influenced by him, such as (1) Kleist and the Prussian group; (2) Wieland in his second manner, and J. Paul Richter; (3) Kotzebue, who was a mixture of Wieland and Lessing. In these two periods Klopstock, Wieland, and Lessing, were the intellectual triumvirs. III. The “Sturm und Drang” period; the Weimar school with its second literary triumvirate, Herder, Goethe, Schiller. IV. The later schools: (1) the romantic, viz. the two Schlegels, Novalis, Tieck, Uhland, Fouqué; (2) the patriotic of the liberation wars, Arndt and Koerner. V. The modern school of disappointment and uneasy reaction against the absolute government, H. Heine and Grün.
It is an interesting psychological problem to trace the close analogy between the schools of poetical taste and the corresponding character in the contemporary criticism of ancient literature, the speculative philosophy, and the theology.
Note 29. p. [225]. The Wolfenbüttel Fragments.
It has been stated in the text that these were Fragments, which Lessing published in 1774 and the following years, of a larger work which he professed to have found in the library of Wolfenbüttel, where he was librarian. They were published in [pg 426] the third of the series of works, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Literatur aus den Schätzen der Herzoglichen Bibliothekzu Wolfenbüttel, under the title, Fragmente Eines Ungenannten Herausgegeben von G. E. Lessing.
After Lessing's death, C. A. E. Schmidt published further Fragments, under the title Uebrige noch Ungedruckte Werke des Wolfenbüttelschen Fragmentisten. Ein Nachlass von G. E. Lessing.
The authorship of the Fragments was suspected at the time by Hamann; but it remained generally unknown, and became as great a secret as the authorship of the Letters of Junius, until 1827, when the question was discussed by Gurlitt in the Leipziger Literatur-Zeitung, No. 55, and proof was offered that the author was Reimarus of Hamburg.