A great intellectual regeneration followed the Reformation, but it was of brief duration. With the death of Luther and Melanchthon the lofty spirit of reform degenerated into scholasticism, and the scholars were as exclusive in their dispensation of intellectual light as the clergy had been at an earlier period. While the priests, the minstrels, and the bookmen had each enlarged the avenues to knowledge, they were still closed and locked to the masses of the people; and so they remained, until philosophy arose to break down all barriers and to throw open to humanity at large the whole domain of knowledge and literature.
In the midst of the convulsions which marked the close of the eighteenth century, the leading minds of Germany sought a solution of the great problems of civilization in the abysses of philosophy. Kant and his compeers gave an electric impulse to the German mind, the effects of which were manifest in the men who soon arose to apply the new discoveries of philosophy to literature. In Lessing, Herder, Goethe, and Schiller, the clergy, the minstrels, and the bookmen were each represented, but philosophy had breathed into them an all-embracing, cosmical spirit of humanity, and under their influence German literature soon lost its exclusive and sectional character, and became cosmopolitan and universal.
The long cycle of literary experiments, however, is not yet completed. Since the philosophers have accomplished their mission by establishing principles, and the poets have made themselves intelligible to the masses, the German mind has entered upon the exploration of all spheres of learning, and is making new and great advances in the solution of the problems of humanity. The most eminent scholars, no longer pursuing their studies as a matter of art or taste, are inspired by the noble desire of diffusing knowledge and benefiting their fellow-beings; and to grapple with the laws of nature, and to secure those conditions best adapted to the highest human welfare, are their leading aims. The German explorers of the universe have created a new school of natural philosophers; German historians are sifting the records of the past and bringing forth great political, social, and scientific revelations. In geography, ethnology, philology, and in all branches of science, men of powerful minds are at work, carrying the same enthusiasm into the world of fact that the poets have shown in the fairy-land of the imagination. To these earnest questioners, these untiring explorers, nature is reluctantly unveiling her mysteries, and history is giving up the buried secrets of the ages. The lyre of the bard may be silent for a time, but this mighty struggle with the forces of nature and with the obscurities of the past will at last inspire a new race of poets and open a new vein of poetry, far more rich than the world of fancy has ever afforded. Science, regarded from this lofty point of view, will gradually assume epic proportions, and other and more powerful Schillers and Goethes will arise to illustrate its achievements.
The history of German literature may be divided into three periods.
The first, extending from the earliest times to the beginning of the
Reformation, 1517, embraces the early literature; that of the reign of
Charlemagne and his successors; that of the Suabian age (1138-1272), and
of the first centuries of the reign of the House of Hapsburg.
The second period, extending from 1517 to 1700, includes the literature of the age of the Reformation, and of the Thirty Years' War.
The third period, from 1700 to the present time, contains the development of German literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
2. THE MYTHOLOGY.—The German mythology is almost identical with the Scandinavian, and in it, as in all the legends of the North, women play an important part. Indeed, they occupied a far higher position among these ancient barbarians than in the polished nations of Greece and Rome. "It is believed," says Tacitus, "that there is something holy and prophetic about them, and therefore the warriors neither despise their counsels nor disregard their responses."
The Paganism of the North, less graceful and beautiful than that of Greece, had still the same tendency to people earth, air, and water with beings of its own creation. The rivers had their Undines, the ocean its Nixes, the caverns their Gnomes, and the woods their Sprites. Christianity did not deny the existence of these supernatural races, but it invested them with a demoniac character. They were not regarded as immortal, although permitted to attain an age far beyond that granted to mankind, and they were denied the hope of salvation, unless purchased by a union with creatures of an earthly mould.
According to the Edda, the Dwarfs were formed by Odin from the dust. They were either Cobolds—house spirits who attach themselves to the fortunes of the family, and, if well fed and treated, nestle beside the domestic hearth—or Gnomes, who haunt deserted mansions and deep caverns. The mountain echoes are the mingled sounds of their voices as they mock the cries of the wanderer, and the fissures of the rocks are the entrances to their subterranean abodes. Here they have heaped up countless treasures of gold, silver, and precious stones, and here they pass their time in fabricating costly armor. The German Elves, like those of other climes, have an irresistible propensity to dance and song, especially the Nixes, who, rising from their river or ocean home, will seat themselves on the shore and pour forth such sweet music as to enchant all who hear them, and are ever ready to impart their wondrous skill for the hope or promise of salvation. To secure this, they also lure young maidens to their watery domains, and force or persuade them to become their brides. If they submit, they are allowed to sit on the rocks and wreathe their tresses with corals, sea-weeds, and shells; but if they manifest any desire to return to their homes, a streak of blood on the surface of the waters tells the dark story of their doom.