JEANNE MARIE, AND LYRICAL POETRY IN GERMANY.
We are induced to translate for The International the following crisply written critique from Die Grenzboten, not only from its giving for the benefit of certain of our dilettanti German scholars a few judicious remarks on the true merit of their "new celebrity," Jeanne Marie, but because the preceding account of the present state of lyrical poetry in Germany, is very nearly as applicable to lyrical poetry as it now exists among the rising bards of America and England as to that of the father-land:
"It is now about a century since the beginning of our most brilliant German lyrical era, and we are at the conclusion of a series of developments, which individually display all of the peculiarities indicative of the decline of a great epoch in art. The incredible number of subjects which have been artistically treated, has inspired the minds of our cotemporaries with an almost superfluity of poetically adapted figures, forms, tones and materials, with which we are familiar from our first breath. Vast numbers of corresponding series of similes, and combinations of words and sentences have been naturalized in our language, and the spirit of the rising generation cannot be other than powerfully influenced by the incredible variety of forms and phrases, which it acquires during education. From all which a limitation of the creative power naturally results—since there is hardly a sentiment, hardly a perception of the present day, which has not been rendered applicable to poetic art; and the array of these imposing creations ring in the soul of the young poet wonderfully through each other. It is almost impossible to experience a new feeling which has not been sung, and yet the impulse still exists to win for the again and again experienced, a value, and a certain degree of originality. From which results the most desperate efforts, by means of bold, artificial, highly polished or tasteless images and comparisons, to form a style and acquire a peculiar literary physiognomy: efforts which should by no means be despised, even when the critic is compelled to blame its results; for it is natural and unavoidable. Such a superabundance of poetic forms of address, applications, words, and measures, are at present current in the world, that for every poetic feeling a prosaic or metrical reminiscence rings and echoes consciously or unconsciously, and more or less clearly, through the poetic soul. To avoid this wearisome beaten path, our poets are driven, on the one hand, into unheard of refinements of metre and words—or on the other, into an affected barbarism and roughness. And since the quantity of poetic metres, applications, and forms of speech, has become so incredibly large that they every where pass and are received as a sort of spiritual small change, it has become infinitely easier to express an idea in tolerably good poetic language, than it was fifty years ago. Gleim, Holty, and Bürger, are to us great men, not because their poems are so much better than those manufactured at the present day, but because their every poem was a victory gained over the barbarism and want of form in the German language as it then existed—a true conquest for the realm of beauty and art. At present, any fool who has by heart his Schiller or his Heine, can collect and write that which may pass for his 'poem'—though perhaps not an atom of the whole is the result of aught save mere reproduction. What is really wanting to all our writers is the correct and artistic adaptation of terms. For this modern dilettanti reproduction and combination of the thoughts and forms of others is but a rough and uncomely parody of those poetic creations, which were consecrated by an earnest striving and silent battle with the force of language. Among the numerous modern poets in Germany, there live not a dozen who can write a truly correct verse and make just applications of our so poetically adapted language. The which assertion, seemingly a paradox—is nevertheless natural enough.
"And yet the creative impulse lives in many a soul, nor has there for a long time existed a more generally diffused or more exquisite appreciation of lyrical poetry than during the past year. New poets of an aristocratic or pious tendency are eagerly purchased and admired, which is also according to rule, since they reflect the spirit of the age, and correspond with modern wants. Such a peculiar influence on the interest of the public at large has naturally conducted to the most elegant style of publication of recent poems. It has become a real pleasure to see their paper, type, and binding, and their neat garments of fine linen, delicately trimmed and lettered with burnished gold. Such a highly ornamented work at present adorns every table, and appears right well in the white little hand of its fair possessor.
"The poems of Jeanne Marie, the popular romance writer, are by an intelligent and well educated lady. She has evidently observed and reflected much in the world, and had also her own experiences therein—yet knows how to express with propriety and consciousness her most passionate feelings. She is, however, in her poems, rather witty and calculating, than inspired with heart and soul. Those productions are, for the greater part, images and comparisons—not unfrequently very exquisitely conceived and executed—the point being occasionally a gross antithesis, as for example in the poem, Alles nur Du:
"'What I most longed for, thou hast to me given,
What I possess, belongeth all to thee;
Thou art mine I—thine is my life and heaven,
My life is thine, and thine my all To-Be.'
"Or in other poems, the conclusion merely amounts to the explanation of a comparison, as in the New Cloak Song, in which on a rusty nail, a torn cloak explains itself as the cloak of Christian love. But where our poetess simply narrates or describes, her art is truly agreeable, only that the lively and closely detailed perceptions, which shoot forth in her soul, often appear obscure from a want of practice in poetic language, and not unfrequently entirely perverted on account of an utter deficiency in logical acuteness.
"But since this poetess is endowed with far more than her cotemporaries—id est, a peculiar talent to conceive and represent in a lively manner epic details—let us, for the sake of art, gently beg of her to do something for this her talent. She is by far too ignorant of the art of application of terms in lyrical poetry, her delivery is too variable and inaccurate, while botched-up expressions (Flickwörter) and startling instances of incorrectness in language are in her writings every where to be met with. As yet she is a mere amateur and dilettant, and her right, to lay before the literary world her poetic inspirations, may very correctly be doubted; and yet she has evidently in her the material for something far better. This she can attain in only one way. She must lay aside all the flaunt and tawdriness of her similes and figures, and then strive to express a lively emotion or an interesting expression, with the simplest words, first in prose—and then in verse. What she has written should then be carefully thought over—every line and word tested, and no inaccuracy in poetical perceptions, no oblique expression, and no metrical defect be suffered to remain."