Last of all, the lyric of the chorus is richest of all in the wealth of what it unfolds, and not merely so in what concerns idea and thought, boldness of transition and connection or the like, but also relatively to its external presentment. The choral song may be interchanged for the single voice, and the ideal movement is not merely satisfied with the bare rhythm of speech and the modulations of music, but summons as its associate the plastic pose and movement of the dance. The ideal aspect of the Lyric is consequently balanced to perfection with the sensuous character of its delivery. The subject-matter of this type of inspired verse is the most substantive and weighty. Such poems celebrate the power and glory of the gods, or that of victors in the games. Greeks, who not unfrequently were divided in their political relations, found in them the positive vision of their national unity. And, partly for this reason, aspects of their ideal construction are not wanting which approach the objective standpoint of the Epic. Pindar, for example, who reaches the highest point of attainment in this type of composition, moves with ease, as I have already pointed out, from the external motives of his compositions to profound observations upon the general nature of ethical principle and divine matters, or it may be upon heroes, heroic exploit, the foundations of States, and the like. His creative gift possesses, in short, the plastic sense of realization quite as much as the individual sweep of imaginative energy. On this very account, however, it is not so much the facts which follow their independent course in the epic manner, as the personal enthusiasm, carried away by its object so completely that the latter appears to be the burden and product of the soul.
Later lyric verse of the Alexandrines is less an independent development and more a mere scholastic imitation and affectation of elegance and correctness of expression, until finally it dissipates itself in trifling graces and pleasantries, or seeks to bind up afresh flowers of art and life already to hand in a garland of tender feeling and conceit, and the witty experiment of eulogy or satire.
(β) Among the Romans lyric poetry finds a soil no doubt fashioned for it in various ways, but of less original productive qualities. The period of its splendour is limited mainly to the age of Augustus, in which it is cultivated as the elaborate expression and relaxation of cultured society; or indeed, to a considerable degree, it is rather an affair of the clever translator or copyist, and the fruit of taste and research, than that of spontaneous feeling and really original conception. At the same time it must be admitted that, despite the learning and an alien mythology, to say nothing of the preferred imitation of Alexandrine models, where the warmth of life is least apparent, yet as a rule the characteristics of Roman personality no less than the individual genius of particular poets, do assert an independent position, and, so long as we put entirely on one side the most intimate soul and expression of the art of poetry, have accomplished sterling and consummate results, not merely in the province of the ode, but also in that of epistles, satires, and elegy. On the other hand, the later type of satire, which follows as a kind of supplement, in its bitterness toward the decadence of the times, its goaded indignation and virtuous declamation, fails to represent the genuine sphere of an unperturbed poetical vision just in the degree that it possesses nothing whatever to oppose to its picture of a demoralized present save this very indignation and abstract rhetoric of virtuous excitement.
(c) For this reason, consequently, it is only after more modern nationalities have appeared that a really original content and spirit are communicated to lyrical composition, as we have previously seen, was the case, too, with the Epic. This is due to the German, Romance, and Slavonic peoples, which already, in their previous pagan days, but principally after their conversion to Christianity, both in the Middle Ages and in more recent times, have brought into being, and continuously elaborated in various ways, a third fundamental revival of lyrical creation in what we may generally characterize as the romantic art-type.
In this third branch of its activity, lyric poetry is of so overwhelming an importance that its principle is enforced, more —especially in the first instance, relatively to the Epos, but consequently in its more modern development and relatively to the drama, with a far profounder significance than was possible with either Greek or Roman. Indeed, among certain nations, even genuine epic materials are treated exclusively under the type of the lyric narrative; in this way we have compositions as to which we may find real difficulty in deciding the class to which they more truly belong. The cause of this conspicuous tendency towards lyric composition is mainly due to the fact that the entire evolution of the life of these nations is based on this very principle of subjectivity, which is constrained to assert and clothe what is substantive and objective as its own from its own resources, and grows more and more self-conscious of this penetration into its own personal wealth. Such a principle declares its vigour in its least perturbed and most complete character among the German peoples. The Slavonic races have, on the contrary, first to wrestle forth from the Oriental absorption in the substantive One and Universal. Between the two we may place the Romance stock, which are confronted, in the conquered provinces of the Roman Empire, not merely with the residue of Roman science and culture, but a social system more elaborate from every point of view. In the process of self-fusion with such conditions, they inevitably lose a part of their original character. As for the subject-matter of this poetry, we may describe it as dealing with pretty nearly every phase of national or individual development, capable of expressing either the religious or secular life of these nations as it expands in ever widening range, and through the process of the centuries reflects in varied condition and emotional state the heart of its spiritual substance. And the fundamental type of it is either the expression of an emotional state, concentrated to the most intimate self-possession, whether the immediate object of attraction be national and other events, Nature and external environment, or simply and solely itself, or whether it be of the nature of reflection, both searching and self-introspective, upon all that is implied for itself in such an extension of culture. Regarded on its formal side, the plastic character of rhythmical versification is exchanged for the music of alliteration, assonance, and manifold alternations of rhyme. These novel elements it makes use of sometimes in a quite simple and unassuming manner; in other connections with much art and invention of modes of versification wholly distinct in character. At the same time the external delivery becomes increasingly more elaborate in its powers of adaptation to the accompaniment of vocal and instrumental music.
In our classification of the extensive compass of this group, we cannot do better than follow that we accepted in the case of epic poetry.
Firsts we have the lyric composition of these modern nations while still in the state of primitive paganism.
Secondly, there is the richer development of this type in the Christian Middle Ages.
Thirdly, there is that lyric art based in some measure on the reawakened study of ancient art, and in part on the fundamental principle of modern Protestantism, a principle essential to its final elaboration.
In the present work, however, I shall be unable to discuss with more detail the characteristics of the above development. I will, by way of conclusion, merely draw attention to one German poet, whose influence has given in modern times a quite extraordinary impetus to the lyric poetry of our own fatherland, and whose services in this respect are by no means appreciated by contemporary criticism as they deserve to be. I refer to the poet of the Messias. Klopstock is among the great Germans, who have inaugurated the new artistic epoch of their people. He is a great figure, who, by means of courageous enthusiasm and superb self-respect, wrested our poetry from the stupendous insignificance of the Gottsched[21] period, which with its blockish superficiality had completely destroyed the life of all that is noble and of worth in the genius of our race; who has, in short, given us poems fully awake to the highest demand of the poet's vocation, in a form of thorough artistic excellence, if also somewhat austere, the majority of which are stamped with the permanency of a classic. Some of the odes of his youth are dedicated to a generous friendship, which was to him at once symbolic of nobility, staunchness, honour, the pride of his soul, a temple of his spirit. Others have reference to a personal attachment of real emotional depth, although it is precisely in this field that we meet with many compositions which a critical sense can only regard as so much prose. "Selmar and Selma" is a poem of this class, a gloomy and tedious altercation between lovers, which, not without many tears, woe, empty yearning, and useless feats of melancholy emotion, revolves round the one mouldy and musty question, which of the two, Selmar or Selma, is first to die. But in Klopstock we find at least a genuine impulse of patriotism alive in every pore. As a good Protestant the Christian mythology, with its sacred legends and so forth—we must except the angels, for whom he retained as a poet a profound respect, although they can only appear abstract and lifeless in a type of poetry such as his, which claimed the realism of life—neither satisfied his sense of the ethical seriousness of art, nor yet the vigour of life and an intelligence, which aspired to something more than blind wailing and self-abasement, was, in short, both self-respecting and actively religious. The need of some mythology, however, and one connected with Germany impressed him strongly as a poet, in order that he might have definite names and characters ready to hand as a stable basis of his imaginative creation. It is impossible to associate such patriotic sentiments with the gods of Greece. Consequently Klopstock attempted, we may justly say from genuine national pride, to give a renewed life to the old mythology of Wodan, Hertha and the rest. He was unfortunately as little able to carry his aim to the point of objective effect and sufficiency by this adoption of names of gods, which are no longer really Germanic, however much they may have been so, as, let us say, the imperial museum in Regensburg is qualified to stand for the ideal of our present political life. However strongly, then, he may have felt the need to be able to realize in poetry and as fact in a national form a general folk-mythology, the truth of Nature and conscious life, these twilight gods remain entirely devoid of essential truth; we may add there is a kind of childish self-flattery in the belief that either reasonable people or the national faith could take such an attempt seriously. Apart from this, as objects of interest to the imagination, the figures of Greek mythology are elaborated in ways with incomparably more variety, infinitely stronger appeal to our aesthetic taste, our sense of delight and freedom. In lyric poetry, however, it is the self-revelation of the poet that is all-important. We ought at least to honour in our patriotic poet this his solicitude and effort, an effort which was sufficiently effective to bear subsequent fruit, and, even in the field of poetry, to stimulate by its suggestion composition on similar subjects. We have, however, to conclude our review, no word to say against the purity, excellence, and admirable influence of this patriotic sentiment of Klopstock as expressed in his enthusiasm for the honour and value of our German speech, and certain characters of our former history, that of Herrmann, for example, and above all particular German Kaisers, who in some instances have even been self-celebrated in song. Vital in him throughout is his justifiable pride in the German muse, and his faith in her increasing courage to contend on equal terms and in high-spirited self-reliance with that of the Greek, the Roman, and the Englishman. And no less a genuine reflection of his patriotism is the nature of his survey of the royal princes of Germany, the expectations which their character have or had it in their power to arouse on all that generally concerns honour, art, and science, questions of public import and spiritual objects of essential value. On the one hand we find him expressing his contempt of our princes, who, as he tells us, remain on their comfortable chairs, surrounded with the tobacco smoke of courtiers, buried in present obscurity and yet deeper to be buried in the future. Or he may express his feelings in the lament that even Frederick II