When Herder brings to our attention the difference between the mournful tones of Ossian and the arousing strains of Homer, when he reminds us of the differing stages of history commemorated by each, the points entirely unlike at which each writer halts and from which he extracts for his art character, he sets forth a definite theory; namely, that each writer, speaking as his people would speak, characterizes his poetry with the individual content and feeling of his race; that each race has its personality, and each spontaneously expresses this personality in its song:
Und Ossian? Es ist ungerecht von einem Baume Früchte zu erwarten, die er, seiner Art nach, nicht bringen kann; Ossian sei an seinem Orte das was Homer war; nur stand er auf einer ganz andern Stelle. In jedem Lande bildet sich der Volksgesang nach innnern und äussern Veranlassungen der Nation.
The eye and the ear of these people are wide open to every sight and sound which their physical environment presents. The ear is strong, quick, lasting; the eye keen, embracing, receptive. A certain perceptual power expressed in alertness, boldness, and noble aspect pervaded their entire being. According to Herder’s philosophy, as expressed in Erkennen und Empfinden, the senses present to the mind pictures which receive the stamp of feeling and which in turn are given back through some medium of expression.
In Ossian, the material for these pictures is first and foremost Nature; Nature robed in the peculiar majesty of the north. The sun is a rash youth, the moon a maiden who has had as sisters other moons in the heavens. The evening star is a lovely boy who comes out, winks, and goes away again. All objects are personified, filled with life and movement, whether it be wind or wave, or even the down of a thistle. As soon as possible the object itself becomes a voice, and we hear moanings of sadness and songs of the harp. These figures are often of the mist, coming out of clouds through which the stars twinkle.
Ossian sings, also, deeds, happenings of history, the bygone fates of forefathers, and old legends.
In outline all these pictures are delineations, which are snappy, strong, manly, abrupt, wild, lively. They are not painted in detail, and their content does not stream forth slowly in regular and measured intervals. Less harsh and wild are they, however, than the songs of the so-called “Northmen,” because Ossian’s soul possesses a charm giving out lonesomeness, love, and gentleness mingled with courage and strength of feeling.
The language is crisp, short, true, and exact, and penetrates by its simplicity. A single word literally seizes a whole thought and the two break forth together upon a voice tender and sad. When the singer would exhort his comrades to courage, he painted his pictures through tones that fell upon the ear.
In general, Ossian makes us see and hear the living world in scenes that pass quickly, singly, one by one, without arranging themselves in a regular and formal procession. Rough, strong sublimity is their character. The colors which burst upon the eye and the tones which storm the ear come forth without premeditation and polish; the natural outlet of a people to whom nature has given an eye and heart and mind for wild beauty, and in whom manners, customs, and language of civilization have wrought no marring effects. These peoples see and feel, but they do not think and ponder. Here Herder makes spontaneity a child of unwarped nature.
THE ANCIENT HEBREWS
Herder applies his studies to the Hebrew people as he finds them in their earliest habitations. From his analysis of formative forces and of the peculiar personality resulting from these influences we have what follows: The physical features of the lands with which the Hebrews were familiar were varied enough to give them a rather complete natural history of the earth. They understood the subsiding of water that left mountains above them and valleys in between these. They saw that waters coursed through the valleys and made fertile plains. They knew how springs gush forth from rocks and trees grow on the banks of rivers. They knew both the sea and the desert. The summer sun brought calm waters and the cold winds forged fetters of ice. The palm tree and the cedar, the olive and the grape, grew in these lands. The variety of animals seems to imply a wide and varied expanse of territory.