Attempts at whimsicality, imitations also of the Shandean gallery of originals appear, and the more particularly Shandean style of narration is adopted in the novels of the period which deal with middle-class domestic life. Of books directly inspired by Sterne, or following more or less slavishly his guidance, a considerable proportion has undoubtedly been consigned to merited oblivion. In many cases it is possible to determine from contemporary reviews the nature of the individual product, and the probable extent of indebtedness to the British model. If it were possible to find and examine them all with a view to establishing extent of relationship, the identity of motifs, the borrowing of thought and sentiment, such a work would give us little more than we learn from consideration of representative examples. In the following chapter the attempt will be made to treat a number of typical products. Baker in his article on Sterne in Germany adopts the rather hazardous expedient of judging merely by title and taking from Goedeke’s “Grundriss,” works which suggests a dependence on Sterne.[27]
The early relation of several great men of letters to Sterne has been already treated in connection with the gradual awakening of Germany to the new force. Wieland was one of Sterne’s most ardent admirers, one of his most intelligent interpreters; but since his relationship to Sterne has been made the theme of special study,[28] there will be needed here but a brief recapitulation with some additional comment. Especially in the productions of the years 1768–1774 are the direct allusions to Sterne and his works numerous, the adaptations of motifs frequent, and imitation of literary style unmistakable. Behmer finds no demonstrable evidence of Sterne’s influence in Wieland’s work prior to two poems of the year 1768, “Endymions Traum” and “Chloe;” but in the works of the years immediately following there is abundant evidence both in style and in subject matter, in the fund of allusion and illustration, to establish the author’s indebtedness to Sterne. Behmer analyzes from this standpoint the following works: “Beiträge zur geheimen Geschichte des menschlichen Verstandes und Herzens;” “Sokrates Mainomenos oder die Dialogen des Diogenes von Sinope;” “Der neue Amadis;” “Der goldene Spiegel;” “Geschichte des Philosophen Danischmende;” “Gedanken über eine alte Aufschrift;” “Geschichte der Abderiten.”[29]
In these works, but in different measure in each, Behmer finds Sterne copied stylistically, in the constant conversations about the worth of the book, the comparative value of the different chapters and the difficulty of managing the material, in the fashion of inconsequence in unexplained beginnings and abrupt endings, in the heaping up of words of similar meaning, or similar ending, and in the frequent digressions. Sterne also is held responsible for the manner of introducing the immorally suggestive, for the introduction of learned quotations and references to authorities, for the sport made of the learned professions and the satire upon all kinds of pedantry and overwrought enthusiasm. Though the direct, demonstrable influence of Sterne upon Wieland’s literary activity dies out gradually[30] and naturally, with the growth of his own genius, his admiration for the English favorite abides with him, passing on into succeeding periods of his development, as his former enthusiasm for Richardson failed to do.[31] More than twenty years later, when more sober days had stilled the first unbridled outburst of sentimentalism, Wieland speaks yet of Sterne in terms of unaltered devotion: in an article published in the Merkur,[32] Sterne is called among all authors the one “from whom I would last part,”[33] and the subject of the article itself is an indication of his concern for the fate of Yorick among his fellow-countrymen. It is in the form of an epistle to Herr . . . . zu D., and is a vigorous protest against heedless imitation of Sterne, representing chiefly the perils of such endeavor and the bathos of the failure. Wieland includes in the letter some “specimen passages from a novel in the style of Tristram Shandy,” which he asserts were sent him by the author. The quotations are almost flat burlesque in their impossible idiocy, and one can easily appreciate Wieland’s despairing cry with which the article ends.
A few words of comment upon Behmer’s work will be in place. He accepts as genuine the two added volumes of the Sentimental Journey and the Koran, though he admits that the former were published by a friend, not “without additions of his own,” and he uses these volumes directly at least in one instance in establishing his parallels, the rescue of the naked woman from the fire in the third volume of the Journey, and the similar rescue from the waters in the “Nachlass des Diogenes.”[34] That Sterne had any connection with these volumes is improbable, and the Koran is surely a pure fabrication. Behmer seeks in a few words to deny the reproach cast upon Sterne that he had no understanding of the beauties of nature, but Behmer is certainly claiming too much when he speaks of the “Farbenprächtige Schilderungen der ihm ungewohnten sonnenverklärten Landschaft,” which Sterne gives us “repeatedly” in the Sentimental Journey, and he finds his most secure evidence for Yorick’s “genuine and pure” feeling for nature in the oft-quoted passage beginning, “I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry ‘’Tis all barren.’” It would surely be difficult to find these repeated instances, for, in the whole work, Sterne gives absolutely no description of natural scenery beyond the most casual, incidental reference: the familiar passage is also misinterpreted, it betrays no appreciation of inanimate nature in itself, and is but a cry in condemnation of those who fail to find exercise for their sympathetic emotions. Sterne mentions the “sweet myrtle” and “melancholy cypress,”[35] not as indicative of his own affection for nature, but as exemplifying his own exceeding personal need of expenditure of human sympathy, as indeed the very limit to which sensibility can go, when the desert denies possibility of human intercourse. Sterne’s attitude is much better illustrated at the beginning of the “Road to Versailles”: “As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look for in traveling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a short history of this self-same bird.” In other words, he met no possibility for exercising the emotions. Behmer’s statement with reference to Sterne, “that his authorship proceeds anyway from a parody of Richardson,” is surely not demonstrable, nor that “this whole fashion of composition is indeed but ridicule of Richardson.” Richardson’s star had paled perceptibly before Sterne began to write, and the period of his immense popularity lies nearly twenty years before. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that his works have any connection whatsoever with Richardson’s novels. One is tempted to think that Behmer confuses Sterne with Fielding, whose career as a novelist did begin as a parodist of the vain little printer. That the “Starling” in the Sentimental Journey, which is passed on from hand to hand, and the burden of government which wanders similarly in “Der Goldene Spiegel” constitute a parallelism, as Behmer suggests (p. 48), seems rather far-fetched. It could also be hardly demonstrated that what Behmer calls “die Sternische Einführungsweise”[36] (p. 54), as used in the “Geschichte der Abderiten,” is peculiar to Sterne or even characteristic of him. Behmer (p. 19) seems to be ignorant of any reprints or translations of the Koran, the letters and the sermons, save those coming from Switzerland.
Bauer’s study of the Sterne-Wieland relation is much briefer (thirty-five pages) and much less satisfactory because less thorough, yet it contains some few valuable individual points and cited parallelisms. Bauer errs in stating that Shandy appeared 1759–67 in York, implying that the whole work was issued there. He gives the dates of Sterne’s first visit to Paris, also incorrectly, as 1760–62.
Finally, Wieland cannot be classed among the slavish imitators of Yorick; he is too independent a thinker, too insistent a pedagogue to allow himself to be led more than outwardly by the foreign model. He has something of his own to say and is genuinely serious in a large portion of his own philosophic speculations: hence, his connection with Sterne, being largely stylistic and illustrative, may be designated as a drapery of foreign humor about his own seriousness of theorizing. Wieland’s Hellenic tendencies make the use of British humor all the more incongruous.[37]
Herder’s early acquaintance with Sterne has been already treated. Subsequent writings offer also occasional indication of an abiding admiration. Soon after his arrival in Paris he wrote to Hartknoch praising Sterne’s characterization of the French people.[38] The fifth “Wäldchen,” which is concerned with the laughable, contains reference to Sterne.[39]
With Lessing the case is similar: a striking statement of personal regard has been recorded, but Lessing’s literary work of the following years does not betray a significant influence from Yorick. To be sure, allusion is made to Sterne a few times in letters[40] and elsewhere, but no direct manifestation of devotion is discoverable. The compelling consciousness of his own message, his vigorous interest in deeper problems of religion and philosophy, the then increasing worth of native German literature, may well have overshadowed the influence of the volatile Briton.
Goethe’s expressions of admiration for Sterne and indebtedness to him are familiar. Near the end of his life (December 16, 1828), when the poet was interested in observing the history and sources of his own culture, and was intent upon recording his own experience for the edification and clarification of the people, he says in conversation with Eckermann: “I am infinitely indebted to Shakespeare, Sterne and Goldsmith.”[41] And a year later in a letter to Zelter,[42] (Weimar, December 25, 1829), “The influence Goldsmith and Sterne exercised upon me, just at the chief point of my development, cannot be estimated. This high, benevolent irony, this just and comprehensive way of viewing things, this gentleness to all opposition, this equanimity under every change, and whatever else all the kindred virtues may be termed—such things were a most admirable training for me, and surely, these are the sentiments which in the end lead us back from all the mistaken paths of life.”
In the same conversation with Eckermann from which the first quotation is made, Goethe seems to defy the investigator who would endeavor to define his indebtedness to Sterne, its nature and its measure. The occasion was an attempt on the part of certain writers to determine the authorship of certain distichs printed in both Schiller’s and Goethe’s works. Upon a remark of Eckermann’s that this effort to hunt down a man’s originality and to trace sources is very common in the literary world, Goethe says: “Das ist sehr lächerlich, man könnte ebenso gut einen wohlgenährten Mann nach den Ochsen, Schafen und Schweinen fragen, die er gegessen und die ihm Kräfte gegeben.” An investigation such as Goethe seems to warn us against here would be one of tremendous difficulty, a theme for a separate work. It is purposed here to gather only information with reference to Goethe’s expressed or implied attitude toward Sterne, his opinion of the British master, and to note certain connections between Goethe’s work and that of Sterne, connections which are obvious or have been already a matter of comment and discussion.