(α) The very name of the epigram already expresses the original gist of it. It is an inscription.
Unquestionably we find, also here on the one hand an object, and on the other we have a definite statement propounded as to this object; but in the most ancient epigrams, among which Hesiod has preserved a few examples, we do not have the picture of an object accompanied by any reaction of feeling, rather we find, the matter of fact put before us in two distinct ways. In the one the external existence, and with it the meaning thereof and explanation, is concentrated in its form as epigram on the keenest and most forcible of its characteristics. This original characterization of the epigram, however, even among the Greeks, later examples have already lost; and we find an increasing tendency both to secure and apply the passing conceits of fancy, whether ingenious, witty, or merely entertaining, to particular incidents, works of art, people and so on, ideas in short which do not so much set forth the object itself, as illustrate the condition of personal feeling in reference to the same.
(β) The main point to observe here is this that, just in proportion as the object itself fails as such to become the predominant factor in this type of presentment to that extent it becomes less complete. In this connection we may also in passing mention a few more modern examples of an analogous nature. The novels of Tieck, for instance, not unfrequently have to deal with specific works of art or artists, or a definite gallery of pictures, composition of music and so forth, and they have then some nice little romance attached. These particular pictures, however, which the reader has never seen, these compositions, which he has never heard, the poet obviously can neither bring before our eyes nor ears. From this point of view the entire expression of his art, in so far as it depends on objects of this nature, must remain subject to this defect. In the same way in yet more important romances writers have sought to embody as the real content of their work entire arts, and their finest productions as Heinse, for instance, did with that of music in his Hildegard von Hohenthal. But in every case where we find that a work of art throughout is unable to reproduce with essential adequacy its fundamental subject-matter, we can only conclude that the primary cause of this defect arises from the inadequacy of the type of art selected.
(γ) To remove the defects above adverted to two things are clearly essential; the objective fact and the explanation of it which is offered to mind must not be suffered to fall into absolute severation as was the case in the type last considered, nor must the union when effected, an equally important point, assume a character identical with either the symbolical, sublime or purely comparative types. A yet more genuine form of presentment must be sought for under a condition in which we find that the fact in question supplies an elucidation of its ideal content by means of its external mode of appearance, and actually in this mode, a condition under which that which is of spirit unfolds itself completely in the form of its reality, and the corporeal and external presence is simply the adequate explication of the spiritual and ideal. In order, however, to follow up this problem to its complete fulfilment we must bid farewell to the symbolic types of art. For the essential character of symbolism consisted precisely in this that the union of the animating principle of the significance with its spatial embodiment always stopped short of such completeness.
[76] In other words everything created being posited as unsubstantial apart from the One necessitated the conclusion that all the Goodness, etc., there divulged was referable to that Supreme Source.
[77] Bewussten, that is a symbolism conscious of its typical character. I have above used the expression "premeditated," but "conscious" is perhaps sufficient.
[78] I understand auf solche Weise, "under such a mode as expressed either by Symbolism or the Sublime."
[79] It is prosaic because it has no absolute root in reality.
[80] Lit., "As consciousness lays hold of the same in the clear light of ordinary reason" (seiner verständigen Klarheit.)