[1] "Yes, despise reason and science, the highest possessions of man, let yourself be persuaded by the spirit of lies to believe in hallucinations and magic, and you are mine without fail."
[2] "What beautiful image is this that the artist has created? Under what genial sky was this man born? Is there no inscription to tell me his name, since these dead lips are dumb for ever? The eye glows with noble desire; enthusiasm shines from that fair brow, surmounted only by clustering curls, not yet by the laurel wreath. He is a poet. The wondrous smile of love, of life, is on his lips; romance dwells in these thoughtful eyes, drollery in the cheeks' roguish curves. Fame will ere long proclaim his name, and set the crown of laurel on his brow."
[3] Gödeke: Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung, iii., Erste Abth., 31.
[4] "Long years ago the nightingale sang as she sings now. How sweet it sounded! We were together then. I sit alone and spin and sing, and cannot weep; clean and strong I spin my thread, as long as the moon shines. The nightingale sang when we were together; now she but reminds me that you have gone from me. It is of you alone that I think in the moonlight; my heart is clean and strong as the thread I spin; may God unite us again."
[5]
"The ensign came riding, his white flag he waved;
'Stop! here is the pardon—fair Nanerl is saved.'
'O ensign, good ensign, fair Nanerl is dead.'
'Thy soul is with God! Good night, Nanerl!' he said."
[XV]
MYSTICISM IN THE ROMANTIC DRAMA
There is one form of literature in which men and women are, for the most part, portrayed as essentially intellectual beings, endowed with freedom of will and action. That form is the drama. In lyric poetry emotion reigns; in epic the character is partly lost sight of in the broad painting of the circumstances and powers which determine it; but the subject of the drama is action; and because the human character, acting and willing, is in itself something absolutely definite, it compels the author to give clear, well-defined form to his production. The drama demands lucidity and intellect; in it, where there is a reason for everything, the forces of nature must be either the servants or the masters of the mind; but, above all, they must be comprehended; they cannot appear as dark, mysterious despots, who are not expected to give any explanation of their nature or business. Tieck's two Romantic dramas, the tragedy, Leben und Tod der heiligen Genoveva ("Life and Death of St. Genevieve"), and the ten act comedy, Kaiser Octavianus, are really only dramas in name. His admiration of Shakespeare's Pericles and Winter's Tale and Calderon's lyrical and musical interludes betrayed him into a lyric-epic formlessness unequalled in the history of literature. It would be difficult to find dramatic works more destitute of plan and style. All their author's care is lavished upon what he calls the "climate" of events, their atmosphere and fragrance, tone and colour, the mood they inspire, the shadow they cast, the light in which they are seen, which is invariably that of the moon. His medieval characters are possessed by the spirit which the study of old legends has induced in himself. It was a kind of religious impression which imparted this tendency to his productivity. Schleiermacher's Reden über Religion ("Lectures on Religion") had had a profound influence on him. He had begun to read Jakob Böhme's Morgenröthe ("Dawn"), expecting to find it a perfect mine of absurdities, and from a scoffer had turned into an enthusiastic disciple. It was about this time, too, that he met Novalis and fell under his influence.
Nevertheless, if we read Genoveva observantly, we soon find what Tieck himself admits, that its religion, the pious emotion which was intended to give it artistic unity, is no more than the Romantic longing for religion. Many traces of this longing are to be found in the play. The old days, the days of faith, are represented as sighing, like Tieck's own, for still older, far more believing days; their religion, too, is but a longing for religion. Golo says to Sir Wolf, who to him represents the good old times: "How could I dream of jeering at thy childlike spirit!" Genoveva looks back to the past; like Tieck himself, she spends her time reading old legends. She says, with a touch of genuine Romanticism:—