DROVE THE SNAKES AND LIONS FAR. A burlesque quotation from Freiligrath's poem "Der Löwenritt," from which also the reference later on to the crocodile is taken.

CANTO XXVII

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE (1785-1858). After abandoning his career as a diplomat, von Ense married the celebrated Rahel. He lived in Berlin, where the salon of his wife became the meeting-ground for artists and writers. In his youth he associated closely with the romantics—de la Motte Fouqué, Chamisso, and Clemens Brentano, the brother of Bettina von Arnim. Though imitating the heavy and cautious style of the later Goethe he was a good writer, and his biographies of celebrated men belong to the best in German literature. He endeavoured, but without success, to win over the all-powerful Austrian Minister Metternich to the cause of "Young Germany."

OTHER TIMES AND OTHER BIRDS! These words refer to the new generation of poets—Georg Herwegh, Friedrich Freiligrath, Dingelstedt, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, and Anastasius Grün—who came upon the scene about 1840, cherished mechanic-democratic ideals and brought about the Revolution of 1848. Heine, by nature an aristocratic poet, who instinctively dreaded the competition of "noble bears," saw all his loftiest principles trodden into the mire by these Utopian hot-heads and the crew of politicians that came storming after them. This doctrinaire and numerical interpretation of the rights of man—for which rights in their proper application the poet himself had fought so valiantly—caused him great unhappiness. He now saw his fairest concepts (as is made clear in his own introduction) distorted as in some crooked mirror, and so, filled with anger, grief and disgust, he conceived and wrote his lyrico-satiric masterpiece, "Atta Troll." The poem has been misunderstood to this very day, for the mechanics and theorists have practically won. The day it is understood, their reign will be over.

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Notes of the transcriber of this etext:

  1. Three instances of "Willy Pogàny" were corrected to "Willy Pogány"
  2. "ond entreaties" was changed to "fond entreaties"