CHAPTER XIII. 66 GESUNDETE ROMANTIKER." POETS OF THE WAR OF LIBERATION. THE term "Gesundete Romantiker" has been applied to those writers who, while following in the path of Tieck, Brentano, and their fellows, in choice and treatment of subject, and in general mode of thought, abandoned the extravagances which were the blots on much of the work of their predecessors, and so won lasting fame among the German people. Adalbert von Chamisso (1781-1838), a Frenchman by birth, but a German by adoption, is one of the great lyrical poets of modern times. The freshness and brightness of his humorous poems, his power of expressing simple, natural feeling simply and naturally, the tenderness with which he treats the loves and sorrows of everyday life, have long established his fame among general readers. Chamisso may be reproached with too strong a predilection for sensational subjects, and for painful descriptions of horrors which too nearly resemble the defects of modern realism. This is especially visible in his ballads, but usually he entrances without shocking. Salas y Gomez, one of the longest and perhaps the best of his poems, transports the reader to a desert island in the ocean, and shows wonderful descriptive power. The wellknown Frauen-Liebe und Leben tells the joys and sorrows of maiden, wife, and mother, and gives the cry of the widow's heart: "Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz gethan, Du schläfst, du harter, unbarmherz'ger Mann, One of Chamisso's best known poems is "Das Schlofs Boncourt," a tenderly expressed lament for the loss of his birthplace, the Château Boncourt, in Champagne. Many shorter poems, such as "Der Bettler und sein Hund," ," "Die Sonne bringt es an den Tag," "Das Riesenspielzeug," "Die alte Waschfrau," are deservedly popular, while the humorous "Tragische Geschichte" of the discontented man whose pigtail persisted in hanging behind, in spite of all his contortions and changes of position, “Der Zopf, der hängt ihm hinten!" is in Chamisso's gayest style. Read by everyone is the prose story Peter Schlemihl, founded on the popular superstition of the possibility of selling one's shadow to the Evil One. The apparently artless style leads from incident to incident with unflagging interest. Chamisso also wrote an excellent description of his travels. Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857), the last eminent "Romantiker," is noted for his fresh pictures of wood and valley, mountain and lake, inspired by an enthusiastic love of nature and a pure and innocent mind. Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts, his celebrated prose story, is a charming little work, interspersed with spirited songs. Lucius," a narrative poem, is also excellent of its kind, and his "Wanderlieder," such as "Wer hat dich, du schöner Wald?" and "Durch Feld und Buchenhallen," are known to all, as is also "In einem kühlen Grunde." The short poems, written on the death of his child, are among the most moving of the kind in the German language. 66 Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827), the father of Professor Max Müller, wrote love-songs worthy to become real Volkslieder, spoken from the heart and speaking to the heart. Their true poetic simplicity gives them a place among the brightest lyrical gems of the century. We may name Ich schnitt es gern in alle Rinden ein," " Bächlein, lafs dein Rauschen sein!"; and of his "Wanderlieder eines rheinischen Handwerkburschen," the two famous songs, "Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust," and "Im Krug zum grünen Kranze." Müller also wrote the ballad, "Der Glockengufs zu Breslau." August Kopisch (1799-1853) took as his favourite subject, goblins, dwarfs, elves, and "Heinzelmännchen." He was, like his friend Robert Reinick (1805-1852), the author of "Sonntagsmorgen," "Dem Vaterlande," and "Käferlied," a painter as well as a poet. Kopisch and Reinick both spent years in Italy. The former is almost as great a master of versification as Platen, but his happiest efforts are in the bright and sparkling verse with which he writes of the fairies and the elves. Of humorous poems by Kopisch we may name "Die Heinzelmännchen," "Die Zwerge auf dem Baum," and "Der Süntelstein zu Halberstadt;" of serious, "Der Trompeter," "Psaumis und Puras," and the little poem learnt by the German children, “Blücher am Rhein," beginning: "Die Heere blieben am Rheine stehn, Soll man hinein nach Frankreich gehn?" Karl Immermann (1796-1840), who was satirized by Platen as 66 'Nimmermann," wrote in the romantic style "Das Thal von Ronceval," "König Periander und sein Haus," and "Cardenio und Celinde," the subject treated by Andreas Gryphius. His historical plays, "Trauerspiel in Tyrol," and "Kaiser Friedrich II.," justified Platen in his satirical criticisms, to which Immermann replied by his heroic poem, "Tulifäntchen." He wrote also the tale "Die Epigonen," and Münchhausen, his best work. The Westphalian village story "Der Oberhof " is unsurpassed of its kind, and the Vorspiel to the dramatic myth "Merlin" is a production of the very highest merit. One of the great lyric poets of Germany, Heine, may be named in this place, for his genius was firmly rooted in the romantic soil. Although his ultimate identification of himself with France has lost him much of the honour which he would otherwise receive from German writers, it is unjust to deny a very high place in literature to the poet, however the man may be judged. His writings contain many defects: the inner bitterness, the scathing sarcasm, the laxity of religious or moral principle in the man, tainted his writings as his life; yet none can deny that he reached lyric heights to which few have attained. Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) was a Jew who was baptized because as a Jew he laboured under social disadvantages. Early in life he published Das Buch der Lieder, a celebrated collection of love-songs, which acted as a revelation of his genius, though in many of them the passion is more affected than real; then the Reisebilder, in which bitterly satirical references to literary contemporaries-to Count Platen in particularbrought him into universal disfavour. Political references also caused the book to be severely censured. Heine left Germany for Paris, where he spent the remainder of his life, and during his last years received a pension from the French government, for which he has often been blamed. Heine's political prose-writings have lost something of the interest they possessed for contemporaries, but his mastery of language is admirable, his style brilliantly clear, his invective cutting, and his satire merciless. Much of his poetry is marred by a defect which he shared in common with Byron, the constantly recurring sudden transition from pathos to satire, a transition which, effective at first, becomes wearisome from its frequency. He sometimes strove after brilliancy rather than sincerity, and cultivated wit at the expense of truth. Poems which are free from this shallowness of feeling are pearls indeed, such as "An meine Mutter," and the almost rhymeless verses on the Fichtenbaum," the mere suggestion of a poem, and yet how poetical! "Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam Er träumt von einer Palme, Einsam und schweigend trauert Auf brennender Felsenwand." For eight years before his death Heine was the victim of cruel bodily suffering, and unable to rise from his bed. It was then that he showed a species of heroism by his continuous literary work, and his great tenderness for his old mother in Hamburg by hiding his sufferings from her. During these last years he was cheered by the touchingly affectionate care of a lady whom he called "la Mouche." The truest and most heartfelt of all his love-poems was written of her the beautiful "Passion-Flower," speaking of a mystic union between himself, dying, and this girl, the passion-flower: "Frag', was er strahlet, den Karfunkelstein, Die Marterblume und ihr Toter kosen !" Another of Heine's poems, "Die Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar," bears no trace of his mocking lightness. "Das Meer hat |