In the periodicals of Germany every department of letters and science is represented, and through the book-fairs of Leipsic all the literature of the ancient and modern world passes. They are the magazines of the productions of all nations. Every class of contending tastes and opinions is represented and all the contrasts of thought which have been developed in the course of ages meet in the Leipsic book-market.
SCIENCE.—The growth of science has been one of the most powerful factors in the recent development of Germany, and some of the best works present in a popular form the results of scientific labor. Among these the first place belongs to the "Cosmos" of Humboldt. Although no longer in accordance with the best thought, it has enduring merit from the author's power of handling vast masses of facts, his poetic feeling and purity and nobility of style.
In chemistry Liebig (d. 1873) is widely and popularly known; DuBois- Raymond has made great researches in animal electricity, physics, and physiology; Virchow in biology; Helmholtz in physiological optics and sound; Haeckel has extended the theories and investigations of Darwin, and all have made admirable attempts to render science intelligible to ordinary readers.
With the death of Goethe began a new era in German literature not yet closed. The period has been one of intense political excitement, and while much of the best of the nation has been devoted to politics there has also been great literary activity deeply influenced by the practical struggles, hopes, and fears of the time. There has been a tendency in German writers hitherto to neglect the laws of expression, although their writings have evinced great originality and power of imagination, owing doubtless to the fact that they were addressed only to particular classes of readers. But since the political unity of the country has been accomplished, increasing numbers of thinkers and scholars have appealed to the whole nation, and, in consequence, have cultivated more directness and force of style.
NOVELS, ROMANCES, AND POPULAR LEGENDS.—Poetry and prose fiction form the general literature of a nation, and are distinguished from the literature of the study or from special literature, which consists chiefly of books for the use of distinct classes or parties. Fiction borders closely on the province of history, which, in its broad and comprehensive outlines, must necessarily leave unnoticed many of the finer lights and shades of human life, descriptions of motives, private characters, and domestic scenes. To supply these in the picture of humanity is the distinct office of fiction, which, while free in many respects, should still be essentially true. The poetry and fiction of a country should be the worthy companion to its history. The true poet should be the interpreter and illustrator of life. While the historian describes events and the outward lives of men, the poet penetrates into the inner life, and portrays the spirit that moves them. The historian records facts; the poet records feelings, thoughts, hopes, and desires; the historian keeps in view the actual man; the poet, the ideal man; the historian tells us what man has been; the poet reminds us either in his dreams of the past, or in his visions of the future, what man can be; and the true poet who fulfills such a duty is as necessary to the development and education of mankind as the historian.
The numerous fictitious works of Germany may be arranged in four different classes. The first, comprehending historical romances, affords few writers who bear comparison with Scott. In the second class, containing novels which describe characters and scenes in real life, German literature is also comparatively poor. The third class comprises all the fictions marked by particular tendencies respecting art, literature, or society. In the fourth class, which includes imaginative tales, German literature is especially rich. To this department of fiction, in which the imagination is allowed to wander far beyond the bounds of real life and probability, the Germans apply distinctively the term poetical. In these imaginative and mystical fictions there is an important distinction between such tales as convey moral truth and interest under an array of visionary adventures, and those which are merely fantastic and almost destitute of meaning.
Goethe's novel, "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship," may be classed with fictions intended to convey certain views of life; but its chief defect is, that the object of the writer remains in a mist, even at the end of the story. The "Elective Affinities," while it contains many beauties as a work of art, is objectionable in a moral point of view.
Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825) describes human life in all its aspects of light and shade, and his voluminous works embrace all subjects, from the highest problems of transcendental philosophy and the most passionate poetical delineations to "Instructions in the Art of Falling Asleep;" but his essential character, however disguised, is that of a philosopher and moral poet, whose study has been human nature, and whose delight is in all that is beautiful, tender, and mysteriously sublime in the fate or history of man. Humor is the ruling quality of his mind, the central fire that pervades and vivifies his whole being. The chief productions of Jean Paul (the title under which he wrote) are novels, of which "Hesperus" and "Titan" are considered his masterpieces. These and the charming prose idyl, "The Years of Wild Oats," keep their place as works of permanent excellence. In his famous "Dream," in which he describes a universe without religion, he rises to the loftiest height of imagination.
Tieck (1773-1853) was at once a novelist, poet, and critic; but his fairy tales have perhaps rendered him most popular. His fancy was brilliant and sportive, and his imagination varied and fantastic. The world of his creation was peopled by demons who shed their malignant influence on mankind, or by spirits such as the Rosicrucians had conjured up, nymphs of the air, the woods, or waters. These airy visions he wove into form and shape with a master hand, and he invested even the common objects of life with a supernatural hue. At times he seems almost to have acquired a closer intimacy with nature than that granted to common men, and to have dived into the secret of her operations and the working of her laws. But while Tieck is unrivaled in the world of phantasy, he becomes an ordinary writer when he descends to that of daily life.
Hardenberg, known by the assumed name of Novalis (1772-1801), by his unsullied character, his early death, and the mystic tone of his productions, was long regarded with an enthusiasm which has now greatly declined. His romance, "Henry von Ofterdingen," contains elements of beauty, but it deals too exclusively with the shadowy, the distant, and the unreal. His "Aphorisms" are sometimes deep and original, but often paradoxical and unintelligible.