The Philosophy of History, Vol. 1 of 2

by Friedrich von Schlegel

In the first chapter of the "History of Greek Poetry," Schlegel speaks of the religious rites and mysteries of the primitive Greeks, and of the Orphic poetry to which they gave rise. Contrary to the opinion of many scholars who, though they admit the present form of the Orphic hymns to be the work of a later period, yet refer their substance to a very remote antiquity, Schlegel assigns their origin to the age of Hesiod. "Enthusiasm," he says, "is the characteristic of the Orphic poetry—repose that of the Homeric poems." His observations however on the early religion of the Greeks, form, in my humble opinion, the least satisfactory portion of this work. He next gives an interesting account of the state of society in Greece in the age of Homer, as well as in the one preceding, and shews by a long process of inductive evidence, how the Homeric poetry was the crown and perfection of a long series of Bardic poems.

He then examines, at great length, the opinions of the ancients from the earliest Greek to the latest Roman critics, on the plan, the diction and poetical merits of the Iliad and the Odyssey; interweaving in this review of ancient criticism his own remarks, which serve either to correct the errors, supply the deficiencies, or illustrate the wisdom of those ancient judges of art. After this survey of ancient criticism, he proceeds to point out some of the characteristic features of the Homeric poems. He enquires what is understood by natural poetry, or the poetry of nature; shews that it is perfectly compatible with art—that there is a wide difference between the natural and the rude—that Homer is distinguished as much for delicacy of perception, accuracy of delineation, and sagacity of judgment, as for fertility of fancy and energy of passion. The author next passes in review the Hesiodic epos, the middle epos, or the works of the Cyclic poets, and lastly, the productions of the Ionic, Æolic, and Doric schools of lyric poetry. The fragments on the lyric poetry of Greece are particularly beautiful, and comprise not only excellent criticisms on the genius of the different lyrists themselves, but also most interesting observations on the character, manners, and social institutions of the races that composed the Hellenic confederacy.

It was Schlegel's intention to have given a complete history of Greek poetry; but the execution of this task was abandoned, not from any want of perseverance, as some have imagined, but from some peculiar circumstances in the world of letters at that period. The literary scepticism of Wolf, supported with so much learning and ability, was then convulsing the German mind; and while the purity of the Homeric text, and the unity and integrity of the Homeric poems themselves were so ably contested, Schlegel deemed it a hazardous task to attempt to draw public attention to any æsthetic enquiries on the elder Greek poetry. Hence the second part of this work, which treats of the lyric poets, remained unfinished. The general qualities, which must strike all in this history of Greek poetry are, a masterly acquaintance with classical literature—a wariness and circumspection of judgment, rare in any writer, especially in one so young—a critical perspicacity, that draws its conclusions from the widest range of observation—and a poetic flexibility of fancy, that can transport itself into the remotest periods of antiquity. In a word, the author analyzes as a critic, feels as a poet, and observes like a philosopher.

But a new career now expanded before the ardent mind of Schlegel. The enterprising spirit of British scholars had but twenty years before opened a new intellectual world to European inquiry:—a world many of whose spiritual productions, disguised in one shape or another, the Western nations had for a long course of ages admired and enjoyed, ignorant as they were of the precise region from which they were brought. For the knowledge of the Sanscrit tongue and literature—an event in literary importance inferior only to the revival of Greek learning, and in a religious and philosophic point of view, pregnant, perhaps, with greater results;—mankind have been indebted to the influence of British commerce; and it is not one of the least services which that commerce has rendered to the cause of civilization. In the promotion of Sanscrit learning, the merchant princes of Britain emulated the noble zeal displayed four centuries before by the merchant princes of Florence, in the encouragement and diffusion of Hellenic literature. By dint of promises and entreaties, they extorted from the Brahmin the mystic key, which has opened to us so many wonders of the primitive world. And as a great Christian philosopher of our age[2] has observed, it is fortunate that India was not then under the dominion of the French; for during the irreligious fever which inflamed and maddened that great people, their insidious guides—those detestable sophists of the eighteenth century—would most assuredly have leagued with the Brahmins to suppress the truth, to mutilate the ancient monuments of Sanscrit lore, and thus would have for ever poisoned the sources of Indian learning. A British society was established at Calcutta—whose object it was to investigate the languages, historical antiquities, sciences, and religious and philosophical systems of Asia, and more especially of Hindostan. Sir William Jones—a name that will be revered as long as genius, learning, and Christian philosophy command the respect of mankind—was the soul of this enterprise. He brought to the investigation of Indian literature and history, a mind stored with the treasures of classical and oriental scholarship—a spirit of indefatigable activity—and a clear, methodical and capacious intellect. No man, too, so fully understood the religious bearings of these inquiries, and had so well seized the whole subject of Asiatic antiquities in its connection with the Bible. But at the period at which we have arrived, this great spirit had already taken its departure; nor in its flight had it dropped its mantle of inspiration on any of the former associates of its labours. For among the academicians of Calcutta, though there were men of undoubted talent and learning, there were none who inherited the philosophic mind of Jones. At this period, too, the fanciful temerity of a Wilford was bringing discredit on the Indian researches—a temerity which would necessarily provoke a re-action, and lead, as in some recent instances, to a prosaic narrow-mindedness, that would seek to bring down the whole system of Indian civilization to the dull level of its own vulgar conceptions.

Schlegel saw that the moment was critical. He saw that the edifice of oriental learning, raised at the cost of so much labour by Sir William Jones, was in danger of falling to pieces—that all the mighty results which Christian philosophy had anticipated from these inquiries, would be, if not frustrated, at least indefinitely postponed—that a wild, uncritical, extravagant fancifulness on the one hand, or a dull and dogged Rationalism on the other—(equally adverse as both are to the cause of historic truth)—would soon bring these researches into inextricable confusion; in short, that the time had arrived when they should be fairly brought before the more enlarged philosophy of Germany. Filled with this idea, and animated by that pure zeal for science, which is its own best reward, Schlegel resolves to betake him to the study of the Sanscrit tongue. But for the considerations I have ventured to suggest, such a resolution on the part of such a man would be surely calculated to excite regret. We should be inclined to lament that a mind so original, already saturated with so much elegant literature and solid learning, should be thus doomed in the bloom of its existence, to consume years in the toilsome acquisition of the most difficult of all languages.

In prosecution of his undertaking, Schlegel repaired in the year 1802, to Paris, which had been long celebrated for her professors in the Eastern tongues, and where the national library presented to the oriental scholar, inexhaustible stores of wealth. Here, with the able assistance of those distinguished orientalists, M. M. de Langlès and Chézy, Schlegel made considerable progress in the study of Persian and Sanscrit literature. But while engaged in these laborious pursuits, he contrives to find time to plunge into the then almost unexplored mines of Provençal poesy—to undertake profound researches into the history of the middle age, and to deliver lectures on Metaphysics in the French language. If these lectures did not meet with all the success which might have been hoped for, this cannot surprise us, when we consider that the gross materialism which had long weighed on the Parisian mind, and from which it was then but slowly emerging, could ill accord with the lofty Platonism of the German; nor when we add to the disadvantage under which every one labours when speaking in a foreign tongue, the fact that nature had not favoured this extraordinary man with a happy delivery. From Paris, he wrote a series of articles on the early Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Provençal poetry. The article on Portuguese poetry is singularly beautiful, and contains, among other things, some remarks as new as they are just, on the influence of climate and locality in the formation of dialects. It comprises, too, an admirable critique on the noble poem of the Lusiad, which in allusion to the great national catastrophe that so soon followed on its publication, and by which the ancient power, energy, and glory of Portugal were for ever destroyed, he calls "the swan-like cry of a people of heroes prior to its downfall." This essay and others of the same period furnish also a proof how very soon Frederick Schlegel had framed his critical views and opinions on the various works of art. His æsthetic system seems to have been formed at a single cast—we might almost say, that from the head of this intellectual Jove, the Pallas of criticism had leaped all armed. His metaphysical theories, on the contrary, appear to have been slowly elaborated—to have undergone many modifications and improvements in the lapse of years, and never to have been moulded into a form of perfect symmetry, until the last years of his life.

During his abode in France, he addressed to a friend in Germany, a series of beautiful letters on the different schools and epochs of Christian painting. The pictorial treasures of a large part of Europe were then concentrated in the French capital; and Schlegel, availing himself of this golden opportunity, gave an account of the various master-pieces of modern art, contained in the public and private collections of Paris; interweaving in these notices, general views on the nature, object, and limits of Christian painting. These letters the author has since revised and enlarged; and they now form one of the most delightful volumes in the general collection of his works.

The three arts, sculpture, music, and painting, correspond, according to the author, to the three parts of human consciousness, the body—the soul—and the mind. Sculpture, the most material of the fine arts, best represents the beauty of form, and the properties of sense: Music explores and gives utterance to the deepest feelings of the human soul: but it is reserved for the most spiritual of the arts—Painting, to express all the mysteries of intelligence—all the divine symbolism in nature and in man. He shows that the three arts have objects very distinct, and which must by no means be confounded. But the respective limits of these arts have not always been duly observed. Hence, confining his observation to painting, there are some artists, whom he calls sculpture-painters, like the great Angelo—others again musical painters, like Correggio and Murillo.

The various schools of art—the elder Italian—the later Italian—the Spanish—the old German—and the Flemish, pass successively under review. The distinctive qualities of the mighty masters in each school—the fantastic and truly Dantesque wildness of Giotto—the soft outline of Perugino—the depth of feeling that characterises Leonardo da Vinci—the ideal beauty—the various, the infinite charm of Raphael—the gigantic conception of Angelo—the glowing reality of Titian—the harmonious elegance of Correggio—the bold vigour of Julio Romano—the noble effort of the Caraccis to revive in a declining age the style of the great masters—the true Spanish earnestness and concentrated energy of Murillo—the deep-toned piety of Velasquez—the profound and comprehensive understanding which distinguishes his own Dürer, whom he calls the Shakspeare of painting—the distinctive qualities of these great masters, (to name but a few of the more eminent) are analysed with incomparable skill, and set forth with charming diction. I regret that the limits of this introductory memoir will not allow me to give an analysis of these enchanting letters; but I cannot forbear observing in conclusion, that at the present moment, when there seems to be an earnest wish on all sides to revive the higher art among ourselves, whoever would undertake a translation of these letters, would, I think, confer a service on the public generally, and on our artists in particular. To the friends and followers of art, such a work is the more necessary, as the illustrious author has in a manner taken up the subject where Winkelmann had left off. These letters are followed by others equally admirable on Gothic architecture, where the characteristic qualities of the different epochs in the civil and ecclesiastical architecture of the middle age are set forth with the same masterly powers of fancy and discrimination. This sublime art seemed to respond best to Schlegel's inmost feelings.