Tieck shows most wit in defending himself against the accusation of exaggerated sentimentality. His satire might quite well apply to the modern admirers of Prosper Mérimée. He revenges himself upon his critics by placing their objections in the mouth of Leidgast, the cannibal, who comes home, smells human flesh, and determines to eat Hop o' my Thumb and his brothers and sisters for breakfast next morning. In the meantime they are to be kept in the garret. "But what if your own three little ones should awake?" objects his wife. "Well, what then?" "The strange children would not be safe. Yours are so eager for human flesh that they have lately actually tried to suck my blood." "You don't say so? I should never have credited them with so much sense and understanding." His wife weeps. "Be done with this sentimentality, wife. I cannot bear an effeminate education. I have strictly forbidden them all these prejudices, superstitions, and enthusiasms. Untutored, unadulterated nature! that's the thing for me."
However varied the objects of Tieck's satire may be, it is always literary satire; it never crosses the boundary between literature and life. Iffland and Kotzebue, the bombastic classic style and narrow-minded philistine criticism, the text of The Magic Flute, Nicolai's travellers' tales, academic pedantry and the Litteraturzeitung—these are the unfailing scapegoats.
Occasionally, in striking at "enlightenment" and everything thereto pertaining, he has a half accidental thrust at the powers that be. The king in Puss in Boots, for instance, who places the court scientist on the same level with the court fool, who lives for military parades, loves to listen to repetitions of the figures arrived at in astronomical calculations, and bestows his favour in return for a tasty rabbit, certainly does not represent royalty in the most advantageous light. But this happened half accidentally. In the same play the law goes by the name of Popanz (the bogey-man), is changed into a mouse, creeps into a mouse-hole, and is eaten by Hinze, who, not long after, shouts: 'Long live the Tiers Etat!' But this is no more nor less than a specimen of real Romantic nonsense, with no meaning in it at all. The only trace of real political satire to be found, is in one of Tieck's early works, Hanswurst als Emigrant, Hanswurst being no other than the Prince d'Artois, who, in his character of poor, stupid emigrant, has to ride on his servant's back for want of a horse. But this work remained unpublished during Tieck's lifetime.
It does not surprise us that Kotzebue failed in his attempts to get Tieck into disgrace for writing political satire. Having succeeded, in 1802, in gaining admission to the court, he, Kotzebue, endeavoured to revenge himself on his adversary by reading the parade scene from Zerbino to the king, interspersing malicious hints. It was an ineffectual endeavour, for the king took no notice. And Tieck was pleased and proud to be able to prove his innocence—the play had been written in 1790, under totally different conditions, and was founded entirely upon youthful impressions. His satisfaction was so far justifiable; for abusive personal satire is out of place in art. Nevertheless, the anecdote affects us tragi-comically. The poetry was harmless enough, heaven knows. There was no cause for any king or government in the world to be in the least disturbed by such satire. Unluckily, the best satirical poetry is not of the kind that leaves every one unscathed. The comedies of Aristophanes, with which Tieck's admirers thought his worthy of comparison, were considerably less innocent and innocuous; and all the really great satirical works of later days, such as Molière's Tartuffe or Beaumarchais' Figaro, have one characteristic in common—their action does not take place in the moon; they make war on something besides inept poets and moralising poetry.
Romanticism, however, did not long maintain this aloofness from life and politics.
The year 1806 was a critical year for Prussia and Germany.[1] The country was entirely in the power of the foreign conqueror. But this is the very reason why all the great reforms trace their origin to this year. The depth of adversity reached was so great that an energetic upward struggle had become imperative. The indefatigable Baron von Stein began the reorganisation of Prussian public institutions; Scharnhorst remodelled the army; the state of the universities was inquired into; and as one result of this last proceeding Fichte was called to Berlin in 1807. The appointment was a remarkable one in many respects. It was intended to show that henceforth a new and different spirit was to rule. When, in 1792, Fichte wrote his first work, Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung ("An Attempt at a Criticism of all Revelation"), he was afraid to publish it otherwise than anonymously. When, somewhat later, he brought out his Zurückforderung der Denkfreiheit ("Demand for the Restoration of Freedom of Thought"), he dared not even name the town in which the book was printed. It was published in "Heliopolis"—also anonymously. From his post of professor at Jena he was dismissed on a charge of atheism. But now that the day of need had come, he was suddenly appealed to, to rouse the youth of Germany. As every one is aware, his Reden an die Deutsche Nation ("Addresses to the German Nation") surpassed all expectation. It had been no bad idea, this thrusting of the German flag into the hand of the persecuted philosopher. At the University of Berlin, with French bayonets gleaming outside the windows and French drums drowning his words, he delivered the memorable addresses which sounded the réveille in the ears of Germany, and did their part in driving those drums and bayonets out of the country. For from these lectures a general and powerful revulsion of feeling may be dated. In them Fichte's philosophy became a kind of national poetry. And what wonder that this poetry proved a torch, at which many other poetical torches were kindled—Körner's, Schenkendorf's, and Arndt's among the rest?
The long-prepared-for war broke out in 1813, and ended, after various vicissitudes, in the downfall of foreign rule. But the War of Liberation, as it was called, has two aspects. It was a revolt against a monstrous tyranny, but a tyranny which represented many of the ideas of the Revolution. It was a war for hearth and home, but waged at the command of the old dynasties. The revolutionary tyranny was opposed in the interest of reactionary princes. Moreover, even in the ardour with which the struggle was maintained, there were two very different elements, which were so closely commingled that in the beginning it occurred to no one to distinguish between them, but which soon betrayed their opposite characters. The one element was national hatred of the French people—the national prejudice which seems to be inseparably connected with patriotism, and which led in this case to enthusiasm for everything German and contempt for everything French. The other element was pure love of freedom—the determination to attain political independence, to fight, not only in the name of Germany, but in the name of humanity, for human rights and privileges.
This dual feeling may be traced even in Fichte's addresses. He affirmed that only a people that had been a people from of old, a people that understood the depths of its own spirit, its own language, i.e. itself, could be free, and the liberators of the world; "and" he added, "the Germans are such a people." Teutonic national arrogance lay dormant in these words. And the seed soon began to grow. The young, healthy love of freedom found expression in Theodor Körner's bold lyrics. It was Schiller's lyre that he touched, but the genius of a new era had tuned its strings in a new key. The patriotism of a whole group of other poets took the form of enthusiasm for the German Empire and a German Emperor, that is to say, for the Germany of the Middle Ages; and these made the glories of the past their theme. Max von Schenkendorf sang mournfully and longingly of the days when—
"Die hohen adligen Gestalten
Am Rheinstrom auf und nieder wallten,"[2]
and when predatory nobles ruled town and country from their fortified castles. He wrote odes to the old cathedrals, groped with tremulous awe among the skeletons of saints and knights buried in their chapels.