his work was of his time and for his time, but, none the less, it forms a characteristic and indispensable element in German classical literature.

Wieland had comparatively few imitators; and this was Wieland's perhaps fortunate, for the writers who drew their inspira- influence. tion from him did little towards improving the standard of poetry. As a direct force, he had some influence on the development of the "komische Heldengedicht,” a form of the epic which Zacharia first naturalised in German literature. The Abentheuer des frommen Helden Aeneas (1783),1 for instance, a travesty of Virgil in doggerel verse by J. A. Blumauer (1755-98), is in Wieland's style, while J. B. von Alxinger (1755-97)2-also, like Blumauer, an Austrianfollowed closely in the train of Oberon with the heroic epics Doolin von Maynz (1787) and Bliomberis (1791). The most popular of all the comic epics of this time was Die K. A. KorJobsiade, or, with the full title of the first edition, Leben, tum's Jobsiade, 1784. Meynungen und Thaten von Hieronimus Jobs dem Kandidaten (1784),3 by K. A. Kortum (1745-1824), a doctor of Bochum, near Essen. The Jobsiade is written in the straightforward, unrefined style of the Volksbuch, and satirises, with an almost brutal lack of charity, an unfortunate theological "candidate" whose prophesied genius and success forsake him. August von Thümmel (1738-1817), in his comic prose epic, the famous Willhelmine (1764), was almost as much indebted to the older Saxon school as to Wieland; but in his later writings the influence of Wieland predominates. Thümmel's masterpiece, however, is the Reise in die mittäglichen Provinzen von Frankreich (10 vols., 1791-1805), the most original of the many German imitations of Sterne's Sentimental Journey.

Moritz M. A. von

Thümmel, 1738-1817.

The modern German novel in its earliest stages owed The novel. everything, as has been seen, to England. Gellert's Schwedische Gräfin was the starting-point, and, until Rousseau's Nouvelle Héloïse (translated 1761) suggested to Goethe the

1 Edited by E. Grisebach, in the Bibl. der deutschen Nationallitt., 35, Leipzig, 1872. Cp. F. Bobertag, in D.N. L., 141 [1886], 297 ff.

2 Cp. D.N.L., 57 [1888], ed. H. Pröhle, 5 ff.

Ed. F. Bobertag, in D.N.L., 140 [1883].

4 Cp. Erzählende Prosa der klassischen Periode, ed. F. Bobertag, 1 (D.N. L., 136 [1886]), 3 ff. Wilhelmine has also been edited by R. Rosenbaum for the Litteraturdenkmale, 48, Leipzig, 1894.

T

J. T. Hermes, 1738-1821.

S. von Laroche, 1730-1807.

J. K. A. Musäus, 1735-87.

A. von Knigge, 1752-96.

plan of Werther, the works of Richardson, and, in a less degree, of Fielding, were the favoured models.1 A typical novelist of the period of English imitation was J. T. Hermes (1738-1821), a North German clergyman, who wrote a Geschichte der Miss Fanny Wilkes, so gut als aus dem Englischen übersetzt (1766) and Sophiens Reise von Memel nach Sachsen (1769-73). The most readable German story of this class is the Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771), by Wieland's friend, Sophie von Laroche (17301807). Fräulein von Sternheim is written, like its English models, in letters, but it also forms a transition to the fiction of the succeeding period; by the side of sermons on morality and virtue in the manner of Richardson, passion begins to assert its rights. J. K. A. Musäus (1735-87) is now only remembered by his Volksmährchen der Deutschen (1782-86),2 pleasing versions of popular fairy tales, which, however, cannot belie the fact that they were written in an unbelieving age of rationalism. He began his career as a satirist of the Richardsonian novel, and his Grandison der Zweite (176062)-later remodelled as Der deutsche Grandison-was, like Wieland's first novel, an imitation of Don Quixote. Nicolai's Sebaldus Nothanker (1773-76) has already been mentioned, and A. von Knigge (1752-96) was practically the last writer of eminence who took Richardson as his model. His Roman meines Lebens appeared in 1781-82, and was followed by several similar romances, the best of which is Die Reise nach Braunschweig (1792).3 More popular than Knigge's novels was his Über den Umgang mit Menschen (1788), a practical treatise on the rules of social intercourse in the period before the French Revolution. The Austrian novelist, A. G. Meissner (1753-1807), author of a classical novel, Alcibiades (1781-88), and of a voluminous collection of anecdotes and sketches (Skizzen, 14 vols., 1778-96), had something of Wieland's temperament, while the Saxon, A. F. E. Langbein (1757-1835), a talented versifier, at least shared the latter's taste for witty and frivolous themes.

The pedagogic and humanistic ideals of the eighteenth

1 Cp. E. Schmidt, Richardson, Rousseau und Goethe, Jena, 1875.

2 Ed. M. Müller in the Bibl. der deutschen Nationallitt., 3, 4, Leipzig, 1868. Cp. D.N.L., 57, 153 ff.

3 On Knigge, cp. D.N.L., 136, 197 ff. will be found in Reclam's Univ. Bibl., No.

Über den Umgang mit Menschen 1138-40.

century, which had been first embodied in the moralising weekly journals, thus passed over into the fiction of the time. It was not, however, long before the novel sought to free itself from such utilitarian aims, and the didactic tendencies so deeply ingrained in the intellectual life of the century had to find another outlet. The heritage of the weekly journals, Popular refused by the novelists, now fell to a class of writers philo sophical known in Germany as "Popularphilosophen." Towards the writings. end of the eighteenth century, a voluminous literature arose, which aimed at presenting the philosophic ideas and educational schemes of the time in a popular and attractive form. Such works, although outside the province of a literary history, cannot be altogether ignored; for they were often the channels by which ideas of far-reaching importance found their way into poetry. Moreover, several popular philosophers of this period assisted materially in moulding German prose.

mermann,

Of the older group of "Popularphilosophen," J. G. Zimmer- J. G. Zimmann (1728-95) unquestionably deserves the first place. 1728-95 Although by birth a Swiss, he spent the latter part of his life in Hanover, where he was physician to the King of England. His reputation rests upon two remarkable books, Betrachtungen über die Einsamkeit (1756; subsequently enlarged, 1784-85) and Von dem Nationalstolze (1758), which must be numbered among the most suggestive prose works of the eighteenth century. Besides a warm sympathy for the ideas of Rousseau, they show wide reading and a ripeness of judgment, which formed a marked contrast to the unbalanced enthusiasm of the "Geniezeit." As he grew old, Zimmermann became a bitter opponent of the rationalistic philosophy, and thus helped to further the interests of Romanticism. To two writers who are usually associated with Zimmermann, Thomas Abbt and Justus Möser, we shall return in the next chapter.

1742-99.

G. C. Lichtenberg (1742-99) 2 belongs to a younger genera- G. C. Lichtion than Zimmermann. From 1769 on, he was Professor of tenberg, Physics in Göttingen and took a prominent position among the scientists of his time. But his talents were as many-sided

1 In Fabeldichter, Satiriker und Popularphilosophen, ed. J. Minor (D.N.L.,

73 [1884]). 331 ff. Cp. R. Ischer, J. G. Zimmermann, Berne, 1893.

2 Lichtenberg's Vermischte Schriften, 8 vols., Göttingen, 1844-46; a selection, edited by F. Bobertag, in D.N.L., 141 [1886].

T. G. von Hippel, 1741-96.

as his interests. In the course of two visits to England in 1769 and 1774 (Briefe aus England, 1776 and 1778), he came into touch with the English scientific and literary world, and was particularly attracted by the English theatre, where Garrick's star was then in the ascendancy. As a humourist and satirist, his genius was of a high order; indeed, no writer has a better claim than he to be called the greatest satirist of modern German literature. Had he chosen, Lichtenberg might have been a German Swift, but instead, his powers were frittered away in trivial and ephemeral work, and almost the only book by which he is now remembered is a masterly commentary on Hogarth, the Ausführliche Erklärung der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche (1794-99).

Hardly another minor writer of this age can boast of so lasting a popularity as T. G. von Hippel (1741-96). Personally, Hippel was one of those problematic natures in which the nineteenth century takes a more sympathetic interest than his own contemporaries could possibly have taken, and something of the contrasts and contradictions of his life and personality have passed over into his writings. Über die Ehe (1774), his best-known book, is a strange apologia for marriage by one who was himself unmarried; even his novels, of which Lebensläufe nach aufsteigender Linie (1778) is mainly autobiographical, are still readable at the present day.1

The strong pedagogic interests of the age that produced Rousseau's Emile (1762) were represented in Germany by J. B. Basedow (1723-90) and J. H. Pestalozzi (1746-1827) -the latter, a native of Zurich. Pestalozzi's Lienhard und Gertrud (1781) remains one of the classics of educational science. Popular philosophers in the stricter sense of the word were Christian Garve (1742-98), whose teaching smacks of the homely ethics of Gellert, and J. J. Engel (1741-1802), who was also the author of a popular novel, Herr Lorenz Stark, ein Charaktergemälde (1795).2

1 Cp. D.N.L., 141, 195 ff. A modernised version of the Lebensläufe, by A. von Öttingen, has reached a third edition, Leipzig, 1892. Über die Ehe, edited by E. Brenning, in the Bibl. der deutschen Nationallitt., 36, Leipzig, 1872. 2 Cp. F. Bobertag, Erzählende Prosa der klassischen Periode, 1 (D.N.L, 136), 317 ff.; also in Reclam's Univ. Bibl., No. 216.

293

CHAPTER VI.

HERDER; THE GÖTTINGEN BUND.

THE line that separates the age of Rationalism from the 121

period

Herder.

new movement which began in Germany as "Sturm und Drang," might be said to pass between Lessing's Litteraturbriefe and the Fragmente of Herder. Lessing, as we Lessing have already seen, is the representative writer of the "Auf- and klärung." With Herder, on the other hand, the new epoch opens; he is the gatekeeper of the nineteenth century. As a maker of literature, a poet, he does not, it is true, take rank beside the masters of German poetry; but as a spiritual force and intellectual innovator, he is second to none. The whole fabric of German thought and literature at the close of the eighteenth century would have been lacking in stability without the broad and solid basis afforded by his work.

1744-1803.

Johann Friedrich Herder,' an East Prussian, was born J. F. in the village of Morungen on August 25, 1744. His Herder, childhood was embittered by privations, his school-life was one long tyranny. He was able, however, to attend the university, where he began by studying medicine, but soon found theology more to his taste. It is significant that the first influence under which he fell was that of Immanuel Kant, who laid in the young student's mind the foundation of the method, by means of which he revolutionised at a later date the science of history. In Königsberg he also came into J. G. immediate personal relations with J. G. Hamann (1730-88), Hamann,

1 R. Haym, Herder nach seinem Leben und seinen Werken, 2 vols., Berlin, 1877-85; E. Kühnemann, Herders Leben, Munich, 1895. The standard edition of Herder's Sämmtliche Werke is that edited by B. Suphan, 32 vols., Berlin, 1877 ff. A selection (10 vols.) in D.N.L., 74-78 [1885-94], ed. by H. Meyer, H. Lambel, and E. Kühnemann.

1730-88.