Perhaps not one of the regular German Romanticists is so completely the poet of Romantic longing as Shack Staffeldt, who, though a German born, wrote in Danish. But he does not depict the longing which produced outward restlessness. His longing is far too deep to be satisfied by wandering about the world. It is in the writings of certain of the later Romanticists that longing appears as the restless desire which drives man from place to place.
Of this it seems to me that we have the most typical description in Eichendorff's novel, Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts ("The Life of a Ne'er-Do-Well"). Published in 1824, this book was written twenty years after Heinrich von Ofterdingen, though by a man only ten years Novalis's junior, a disciple of Tieck, an ultra-Romanticist of a pious, amiable disposition.
Joseph, Baron von Eichendorff, the son of a nobleman of high position, was born in Upper Silesia in 1788. His family being Catholic, his early education was superintended by a Catholic ecclesiastic. In 1805 he went to the University of Halle to study law, and, amongst other lectures, attended those of Professors Schleiermacher and Steffens, the latter of whom had a special attraction for him. It was here that he made his first acquaintance with Romantic literature; Novalis opened to him a new dream-world, rich in promise. In his very first holidays he went to Wandsbeck to visit old Claudius, whom he had loved from his early boyhood. Claudius's paper, the Wandsbecker Bote, had been his greatest comfort in the days when his tutor plagued him with instructive children's books. There is something of Claudius's mild humour in Eichendorffs own poetry.
The year 1807 found him at Heidelberg, where he made the acquaintance of the Romanticists living there, Arnim, Brentano, and Görres being the most notable. He assisted in editing Des Knaben Wunderhorn (a famous collection of popular songs and poetry), and collaborated with Görres in his work on the old popular literature. In 1809 he met Arnim and Brentano again in Berlin; here he also made the acquaintance of Adam Müller, who exercised a considerable influence upon him. He was strongly influenced, too, by Fichte's lectures.
As there seemed no prospect of a career for him in Prussia, he went in 1810 to Vienna, intending to enter the service of the Austrian Government. In Vienna he spent much of his time in the company of Friedrich Schlegel, formed a close friendship with Schlegel's stepson, Philipp Veit, the painter, and wrote his first, exaggeratedly Romantic story, Ahnung und Gegenwart, which is nothing but a collection of lyric dreams and fancies. Nevertheless, in this work, as well as in his later productions, it was his desire to contrast the "fervent harmony existing between healthy, fresh humanity and nature, in forest, stream, and mountain, shining mornings and dreamy starlit nights, with the empty pleasures of the great world, and the affected prudery or real depravity of the period." As in all his works, adventure predominates. As soon as he quits the domain of merry vagabond life and romantic adventure, he is in danger of relapsing into the supernatural and horrible.
Instead of entering the Austrian Government service as he had intended, he determined to take part in the war against Napoleon. He joined Lützow's famous Free Corps, and was attached to a militia battalion. He had just been discharged when the news came of Napoleon's return from Elba. He immediately enlisted again, and entered Paris with the German troops.
In course of time he received an appointment in the Prussian Kultusministerium (department of religion and education), and developed into a conscientious and capable official. In 1840, a dispute between the Government and the Roman Catholic bishops produced strained relations between him (the good Catholic) and the head of his department. He sent in his resignation, but it was not immediately accepted; he was commissioned to prepare a report on the restoration of the castle of Marienburg.
Having made himself master of the Spanish language, he translated some of Calderon's Autos Sacramentales. This pursuit led to a still closer connection between him and the leaders of the Ultramontane party. In his later years he criticised modern German literature in the spirit of orthodox Catholicism, writing of the Catholic tendency of the Romanticists as if it were the most important and best feature of the school, and treating the change of opinion of some of the leaders in regard to this matter as a falling away from the truth and a sign of literary decadence. He looked with contempt upon Schiller's heroes, with their "rhetorical ideality," and upon the symbolic "Naturpoesie" of Goethe's shorter poems. "How different," he says, "is the great idea of Romanticism, homesickness, longing for the lost home—that is to say, for the universal, the Catholic Church." With these unsound theories Eichendorff combined real and considerable lyrical talent. No one has given, in a condensed form, better representations of the longings and the ideals of Romanticism. In the little story, Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts, we seem to hear young Romanticism twittering and singing as if he had caught it bodily and shut it up in a cage. It is all there—the fragrance of the woods and the song of the birds; longing for travel and delight in it, especially when Italy is the goal; Sunday emotions and moonlight; genuine Romantic vagrancy and idleness—such idleness that from want of use the limbs actually begin to fall out of joint, and the hero begins to feel as though he "were tumbling to pieces."
The Ne'er-Do-Well is a miller's son, young and poor, whose only pleasure in life is to lie under the trees and look up into the sky, or to roam aimlessly about the country with his zither, singing such sad and beautiful songs that the hearts of all who hear him "long." "Every one," he says, "has his allotted place upon this earth, his warm hearth, his cup of coffee, his wife, his glass of wine of an evening, and is content. But I am content nowhere." He, the humble gardener (for such, when he does work, is his occupation), adores a high-born, lovely lady whom he has only seen once or twice; he addresses her in a beautiful and touching song:—
"Wohin ich geh' und schaue
In Feld und Wald und Thal,
Vom Berg hinab in die Aue,
Vielschöne, hohe Fraue,
Grüss ich dich tausendmal.
In meinem Garten find' ich
Viel Blumen, schön und fein,
Viel Kränze wohl draus wind' ich,
Und tausend Gedanken bind' ich
Und Grüsse mit darein.
"Ihr darf ich keinen reichen,
Sie ist zu hoch und schön;
Sie müssen alle verbleichen,
Die Liebe nur ohne Gleichen
Bleibt ewig im Herzen stehn.
"Ich schein' wohl froher Dinge
Und schaffe auf und ab,
Und ob das Herz zerspringe,
Ich grabe fort und singe
Und grab' mir bald mein Grab."[3]