Tales from the German, Comprising specimens from the most celebrated authors. Коллектив авторов
Popular Tales were, at the request of his widow, re-edited after his death by the celebrated Wieland, and this is the edition now current. The story of Libussa, which is taken from the Popular Tales is founded on the Latin history of Bohemia, by Dubravius, and the work of Æneas Sylvius, De Boliemorum gestis et origine. The fables which are uttered by the personages will be found in Dubravius.
The name of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is almost as well known here as that of Göthe and Schiller; but the eccentricity of his style, and the quantity of local allusions with which he abounds, will probably for ever prevent his works from being extensively read out of Germany. Jean Paul was born at Wimsiedel, in the Baireuth territory, in the early part of 1763, and died at Baireuth on the 14th of November, 1825. He first wrote under the signature of "Jean Paul" only, this he extended to "J. P. F. Halsus," and it was to his Quintus Fixlein (1796), that he first affixed his real and entire name. In 1780 he went to Leipzig, but this he soon abandoned and resided for some time at Schwarzbach. He visited various cities where he was greatly respected, and received the title of "Legationsrath" from the Duke of Sachsen-Hildburghausen, with a pension, which was afterwards paid by the King of Bavaria. His favourite residence was, however, his native Baireuth. A complete edition of his works, which are very numerous, was published at Berlin in 21 vols., small octavo, in the year 1840, and another in 4 vols., royal octavo, has been published by Baudry of Paris. The short tale of the Moon will give the reader a slight notion – only a slight one – of Jean Paul's peculiarities. It is prefixed in the original to Quintus Fixlein. An interesting paper on Jean Paul will be found in Mr. Carlyle's admirable Miscellanies.
The fame of Ludwig Tieck as a writer of romances, and an enthusiastic admirer of all that belongs to the romantic period of literature, is almost as great in England as in Germany. In the history of the "romantic" school, Tieck takes a most prominent position, being one of the chief colleagues and most zealous partisans of the brothers Schlegel. He was born at Berlin on the 31st of May, 1773, and even at school displayed his talents for composition by the commencement of his Abdallah. He studied at Halle, Göttingen, and Erlangen, and read history and poetry, both ancient and modern, with great assiduity. In 1796, his novel, William Lovell, was published at Berlin. A journey from Berlin to Jena made him acquainted with the Schlegels and Hardenberg (Novalis), and at Weimar he became intimate with Herder. His satirical dramas of Blue Beard and Puss in Boots, displayed an Aristophanic vein, and his works relating to art, began to attract general attention. These were The Outpourings from the Heart of an Art-loving Cloister-brother (Berlin, 1797), the Fantasies of Art (Hamburg, 1799), and Franz Sternbald's Travels (Berlin, 1798), in all of which his friend Wackenrode more or less took a part. Tieck cultivated his taste for the fine arts by a residence in Dresden, Munich, and Rome, and at Jena kept up his acquaintance with Schelling and the Schlegels. In the years 1799-1801, he published his translation of Don Quixote, and about the same period several works of imagination. In 1801-2 he resided at Dresden, and edited, with A. W. Schlegel, the Musenalmanach. For the diffusion of a taste for the middle-age literature of Germany, Tieck made an important contribution by his publication of a selection of the Minnelieder from the Swabian period, that is to say, the period of the German emperors during the dynasty of the Hohenstauffen family, with an elaborate preface, in which he called the attention of the Germans to their old poetry. In 1804 appeared his romantic drama of The Emperor Octavian, and in 1805 he published, in connexion with T. Schlegel, the works of his deceased friend Hardenberg (Novalis),3 which may be classed among the most extraordinary phenomena of modern literature. The preface to this edition is entirely by Tieck. A long pause now ensued in the midst of his literary productiveness, during which he visited Rome. In 1814 and 1816 appeared his Old English Theatre, consisting of translations from our early drama, and in the same year he published the work to which, more than to any other, he owes his celebrity in this country, his Phantasus. The entire work has never been translated, but the tales which are introduced into it, such as the Blond Eckbert and the Trusty Eckart, are generally known. Another contribution to the study of the old German literature he made by his edition of Ulrich von Lichtenstein's Frauendienst (service of ladies), a kind of romance, by a celebrated Minnesänger, and a collection of plays under the title of Old German Theatre. In 1818 he visited London, where he was received with great respect, and employed his time in making collections for the study of Shakspeare, in Schlegel's translation of whom he has taken an important part. Since 1821 he has chiefly been engaged with a series of novels, which are widely different from his former manner, and he is now (we believe) resident at Berlin. The tales from the Phantasus being already so generally known, one of a totally different kind has been given in this volume. The powerful tale of the Klausenburg is from Tieck's collected novels.
Heinrich von Kleist, from whom two tales have been taken, is another poet of the romantic school, and was born at Frankfort on the Oder, in 1777. He led an unsettled kind of life, residing successively at Paris, Dresden, and Berlin, and after the battle of Jena, retired from the latter city to Königsberg, where he devoted himself to literary pursuits. Returning to Berlin during the French occupation of Prussia, he was taken prisoner, and though he was shortly afterwards released, this imprisonment seems to have had a fatal effect upon a temperament naturally morbid. In 1811, at Potsdam, he voluntarily terminated his own existence, and that of an invalid lady of his acquaintance. His works, which are somewhat numerous, consist of dramas and tales, and are all distinguished by a sort of rugged power. Of his plays, the most celebrated is the romantic drama, Käthchen von Heilbronn, and of his tales, the narrative of Michael Kohlhaas, contained in this collection. A complete edition of his works was published at Berlin, in 1821, by the indefatigable, Ludwig Tieck. The critical remarks which he has made on Kohlhaas, may be extracted with profit.
"Michael Kohlhaas," says Tieck, "is unquestionably the most remarkable of all Kleist's narratives, and if we see with what firmness he sketches the various forms, how faithfully the events and feelings are deduced from each other, with what steadiness the narrator advances, step by step, we are tempted to believe that this style is more suitable to the author, and that his talents might have shone forth more brilliantly here than in the drama. Here, as in his plays, we see, as in the form of a law-suit, the misfortune and the guilt of a remarkable man unfolded before his eyes. Few writers understand how to shake our hearts to the very depth, like Kleist, and this is precisely because he goes to work with so steady a purpose, and consciously avoids all soft sentimentality. The insulted and injured Kohlhaas becomes unhappy; – nay, becomes a criminal through his misery and his keen sense of justice, until he is called back from his career by the revered Luther, and by his means obtains a hearing for his suit, so that he can stand boldly forward. It is only by chance without any fault on his own part, that he finds at Dresden, that his position has grown more unfavourable. It is unnecessary to call attention to the masterly hand which has portrayed all the characters from the prince and Luther, down to the humblest menial, in such living colours, that we seem to behold the realities themselves. Whether it was by intention or unconsciously, the writer has made important deviations from history. This might be excused on account of his leading motive, and the admirable freshness of his colouring; but he is more culpable for his incorrectness in the necessary circumstances of an event, which did not happen so very long ago, – circumstances which can scarcely escape the recollection of the reader. Kleist forgets that Wittenberg, not Dresden, was the residence of the Elector of Saxony. Moreover, he describes Dresden just according to its present aspect. The old town, (Altstadt) scarcely existed at the time, and what shall we say of the elector himself, who appears as a romantic, amorous, eccentric, fantastical personage, when certainly it must have been either Frederick the Wise, or the Steadfast, who belonged to the period of the narrative? By over haste – for it certainly was not from design – this excellent story loses its proper costume and accompanying circumstances, whereas it would have been far more effective had the author allowed himself time to place himself in the period with greater truth. Another consequence of this deficiency in true locality is, that the author, after long alluring us by his truth and nature, leads us through a fanciful visionary world, which will not accord with the previous one, which he has taught us to know so accurately. That wondrous gipsy, who afterwards turns out to be the deceased wife of Kohlhaas, that mysterious inscription, those ghost-like forms, that sick, half-mad,
An admirable paper on Novalis is in Mr. Carlyle's