[Born 1801. Still living.]
One of a family remarkable, like that of the Kembles in England, for dramatic genius. His uncle was a famous actor of his time; his elder brother is a player of repute in Hanover, and his younger brother, Emile (born in 1803) is known in England, as one of the best representatives of Hamlet at the present day. Edward is rather a studious and careful artist, than a man of genius. He is also an author of ability, his dramatic works having obtained considerable favour.
[From a medallion by Ernst Rietschel, dated 1852. In the possession of the sculptor.]
POETS AND DRAMATISTS.
334. Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. Epic and Lyric Poet.
[Born at Quedlinburg, in Prussian Saxony, 1724. Died at Hamburgh, 1803. Aged 79.]
Goethe said well of Klopstock, that to him German literature owed a debt of gratitude, for he was in advance of his time, although he lived long enough for his time to be in advance of him. He is the classical epic poet of Germany, as Milton of England, but with a difference. Milton was nurtured on the overflowing bosom of English poesy. Klopstock had imbibed no such strength at a native fount. The sublime utterance of the one still reverberates through a world that is still the wiser and the better for the heavenly strain. The sonorous rhapsodies of the other already weary the ear of the land on which they originally fell with weight and power. Few were the admirers of England’s blind poet when he sang “of Man’s first disobedience.” To-day they are countless. When Klopstock published the first part of “The Messiah,” Germany was enthusiastic. The learned were at his feet, kings craved his companionship, and the people worshipped a prophet. To-day, a young German critic has the hardihood to say—without being stoned for his heresy—that Klopstock’s poems are like nothing so much as translations from some unknown author, by an erudite but somewhat unpoetical philologist. With the early admiration for the poet, was mingled awe for the sanctity with which his subject had enveloped his person. He became in a nation, what Pollock, the author of “The Course of Time,” has been amongst a class. If he is now taken down from his undue eminence, his just claims to respect must not be disregarded. If Luther constituted an epoch in the moral and intellectual emancipation of his country, Klopstock marked an era in the progress of her poesy. Both names are landmarks, in the history of the language, as cultivated in the service of letters. The latter was, also, a pioneer and a reformer. His odes are striking and lofty; his learning extensive; his piety fervent; and his poetic sensibility profound. The thirst of communing with the soul of his native Germany—since, a widely-possessing enthusiasm—announced itself as a literary virtue, first in Klopstock’s writings. It spoke in the selection of some of his themes: but was chiefly operative in his profound and enamoured study of the language which begins, in his verse, to discover and lavish exuberant wealth.
[By Dannecker.]
335. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Man of Letters.