Laurence Sterne in Germany Part 11

"Als Yorik starb, da flog Sein Seelchen auf den Himmel So leicht wie ein Seufzerchen."

The angels ask him for news of earth, and the greater part of the poem is occupied with his account of human fate. The relation is quite characteristic of Schubart in its gruesomeness, its insistence upon all-surrounding death and dissolution; but it contains no suggestion of Sterne's manner, or point of view. The only explanation of a.s.sociation between the poem and its t.i.tle is that Schubart shared the one-sided German estimate of Sterne's character and hence represented him as a sympathetic messenger bringing to heaven on his death some tidings of human weakness.

In certain other manifestations, relatively subordinate, the German literature of the latter part of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth and the life embodied therein are different from what they would have been had it not been for Sterne's example.

Some of these secondary fruits of the Sterne cult have been mentioned incidentally and exemplified in the foregoing pages. It would perhaps be conducive to definiteness to gather them here.

Sterne's incontinuity of narration, the purposeful irrelation of parts, the use of anecdote and episode, which to the stumbling reader reduce his books to collections of disconnected essays and instances, gave to German mediocrity a sanction to publish a ma.s.s of multifarious, unrelated, and nondescript thought and incident. It is to be noted that the spurious books such as the Koran, which Germany never clearly sundered from the original, were direct examples in England of such disjointed, patchwork books. Such a volume with a significant t.i.tle is "Mein Kontingent zur Modelecture."[77] Further, eccentricity in typography, in outward form, may be largely attributed to Sterne's influence, although in individual cases no direct connection is traceable. Thus, to the vagaries of Shandy is due probably the license of the author of "Karl Blumenberg, eine tragisch-komische Geschichte,"[78] who fills half pages with dashes and whole lines with "Ha! Ha!"

As has been suggested already, Sterne's example was potent in fostering the use of such stylistic peculiarities, as the direct appeal to, and conversation with the reader about the work, and its progress, and the various features of the situation. It was in use by Sterne's predecessors in England and by their followers in Germany, before Sterne can be said to have exercised any influence; for example, Hermes uses the device constantly in "Miss f.a.n.n.y Wilkes," but Sterne undoubtedly contributed largely to its popularity. One may perhaps trace to Sterne's blank pages and similar vagaries the eccentricity of the author of "Ueber die Moralische Schonheit und Philosophie des Lebens,"[79] whose eighth chapter is t.i.tled "Vom Stolz, eine Erzahlung," this t.i.tle occupying one page; the next page (210) is blank; the following page is adorned with an urnlike decoration beneath which we read, "Es war einmal ein Priester." These three pages complete the chapter. The author of "Dorset und Julie" (Leipzig, 1773-4) is also guilty of similar Yorickian follies.[80]

Sterne's ideas found approbation and currency apart from his general message of the sentimental and humorous att.i.tude toward the world and its course. For example, the hobby-horse theory was warmly received, and it became a permanent figure in Germany, often, and especially at first, with playful reminder of Yorick's use of the term.[81] Yorick's mock-scientific division of travelers seems to have met with especial approval, and evidently became a part of conversational, and epistolary commonplace allusion. Goethe in a letter to Marianne Willemer, November 9, 1830,[82] with direct reference to Sterne proposes for his son, then traveling in Italy, the additional designation of the "bold" or "complete" traveler. Carl August in a letter to Knebel,[83] dated December 26, 1785, makes quite extended allusion to the cla.s.sification.

Lessing writes to Mendelssohn December 12, 1780: "The traveler whom you sent to me a while ago was an inquisitive traveler. The one with whom I now answer is an emigrating one." The pa.s.sage which follows is an apology for thus adding to Yorick's list. The two travelers were respectively one Fliess and Alexander Daveson.[84] Nicolai makes similar allusion to the "curious" traveler of Sterne's cla.s.sification near the beginning of his "Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und die Schweiz im Jahre 1781."[85]

Further search would increase the number of such allusions indefinitely.

A few will be mentioned in the following chapter.

One of Walter Shandy's favorite contentions was the fortuitous dependence of great events upon insignificant details. In his philosophy, trifles were the determining factors of existence. The adoption of this theory in Germany, as a principle in developing events or character in fiction, is unquestionable in Wezel's "Tobias Knaut,"

and elsewhere. The narrative, "Die Grosse Begebenheit aus kleinen Ursachen" in the second volume of the _Erholungen_,[86] represents a wholesale appropriation of the idea,--to be sure not new in Shandy, but most strikingly exemplified there.

In "Sebaldus Nothanker" the Revelation of St. John is a Sterne-like hobby-horse and is so regarded by a reviewer in the _Magazin der deutschen Critik_.[87] Schottenius in Knigge's "Reise nach Braunschweig"

rides his hobby in the shape of his fifty-seven sermons.[88] Lessing uses the Steckenpferd in a letter to Mendelssohn, November 5, 1768 (Lachmann edition, XII, p. 212), and numerous other examples of direct or indirect allusion might be cited. Sterne's worn-out coin was a simile adopted and felt to be pointed.[89]

Jacob Minor in a suggestive article in _Euphorion_,[90] ent.i.tled "Wahrheit und Luge auf dem Theater und in der Literatur," expressed the opinion that Sterne was instrumental in sharpening powers of observation with reference to self-deception in little things, to all the deceiving impulses of the human soul. It is held that through Sterne's inspiration Wieland and Goethe were rendered zealous to combat false ideals and life-lies in greater things. It is maintained that Tieck also was schooled in Sterne, and, by means of powers of observation sharpened in this way, was enabled to portray the conscious or unconscious life-lie.

[Footnote 1: A writer in the _Gothaische Gelehrte Zeitungen_, 1775 (II, 787 ff.), a.s.serts that Sterne's works are the favorite reading of the German nation.]

[Footnote 2: A further ill.u.s.tration may be found in the following discourse: "Von einigen Hindernissen des akademischen Fleisses.

Eine Rede bey dem Anfange der offentlichen Vorlesungen gehalten,"

von J. C. C. Ferber, Professor zu Helmstadt (1773, 8vo), reviewed in _Magazin der deutschen Critik_, III, St. I., pp. 261 ff. This academic guide of youth speaks of Sterne in the following words: "Wie tief dringt dieser Philosoph in die verborgensten Gange des menschlichen Herzens, wie richtig entdeckt er die geheimsten Federn der Handlungen, wie entlarvt, wie verabscheuungsvoll steht vor ihm das Laster, wie liebenswurdig die Tugend! wie interessant sind seine Schilderungen, wie eindringend seine Lehren! und woher diese grosse Kenntniss des Menschen, woher diese getreue Bezeichnung der Natur, diese sanften Empfindungen, die seine geistvolle Sprache hervorbringt? Dieser Saame der Tugend, den er mit wohlthatiger Hand ausstreuet?" Yorick held up to college or university students as a champion of virtue is certainly an extraordinary spectacle. A critic in the _Frankfurter Gel. Anz._, August 18, 1772, in criticising the make-up of a so-called "Landbibliothek," recommends books "die geschickt sind, die guten einfaltigen, ungekunstelten Empfindungen reiner Seelen zu unterhalten, einen Yorick vor allen . . . ." The long article on Sterne's character in the _Gotting. Mag._, I, pp. 84-92, 1780, "Etwas uber Sterne: Schreiben an Prof. Lichtenberg" undoubtedly helped to establish this opinion of Sterne authoritatively. In it Sterne's weaknesses are acknowledged, but the tendency is to emphasize the tender, sympathetic side of his character. The conception of Yorick there presented is quite different from the one held by Lichtenberg himself.]

[Footnote 3: The story of the "Lorenzodosen" is given quite fully in Longo's monograph, "Laurence Sterne und Johann Georg Jacobi"

(Wien, 1898, pp. 39-44), and the sketch given here is based upon his investigation, with consultation of the sources there cited.

Nothing new is likely to be added to his account, but because of its important ill.u.s.trative bearing on the whole story of Sterne in Germany, a fairly complete account is given here. Longo refers to the following as literature on the subject:

Martin, in _Quellen und Forschungen_, II, p. 10, p. 27, Anmerk. 24.

Wittenberg's letter in _Quellen und Forschungen_, II, pp. 52-53.

K. M. Werner, in article on Ludw. Philipp Hahn in the same series, XXII, pp. 127 ff.

Appell: "Werther und seine Zeit," Leipzig, 1855, p. 168.

(Oldenburg, 1896, p. 246-250).

Schlichtegroll: "Nekrolog von 1792," II, pp. 37 ff.

Klotz: _Bibliothek_, V, p. 285.

Jacobi's Werke, 1770, I, pp. 127 ff.

_Allg. deutsche Bibl._, XIX, 2, p. 174; XII, 2, p. 279.

Julian Schmidt: "Aus der Zeit der Lorenzodosen," _Westermann's Monatshefte_, XLIX, pp. 479 ff.

The last article is popular and only valuable in giving letters of Wieland and others which display the emotional currents of the time. It has very little to do with the Lorenzodosen.]

[Footnote 4: The letter is reprinted in Jacobi's Works, 1770, I, pp. 31 ff., and in an abridged form in the edition of 1807, I, pp.

103 ff.; and in the edition of Zurich, 1825, I, pp. 270-275.]

[Footnote 5: XI, 2, pp. 174-75.]

[Footnote 6: _Quellen und Forschungen_, XXII, p. 127.]

[Footnote 7: _Ibid._, II, pp. 52-53.]

[Footnote 8: This was in a letter to Jacobi October 25, 1770, though Appell gives the date 1775--evidently a misprint.]

[Footnote 9: Review of "Trois lettres francoises par quelques allemands," Amsterdam (Berlin), 1769, 8vo, letters concerned with Jacobi's "Winterreise" and the snuff-boxes themselves.]

[Footnote 10: XII, 2, p. 279.]

[Footnote 11: Longo was unable to find one of these once so popular snuff-boxes,--a rather remarkable fact. There is, however, a picture of one at the end of the chapter "Yorick," p. 15 in Gochhausen's M . . . . R . . . .,--a small oval box. Emil Kuh, in his life of Fredrich Hebbel (1877, I, pp. 117-118) speaks of the Lorenzodose as "dreieckig." A chronicler in Schlichtegroll's "Nekrolog," 1792, II, p. 51, also gives rumor of an order of "Sanftmuth und Toleranz, der eine dreyeckigte Lorenzodose zum Symbol fuhrte." The author here is unable to determine whether this is a part of Jacobi's impulse or the initiative of another.]

[Footnote 12: Fourth Edition. Berlin and Stettin, 1779, III, p. 99.]

[Footnote 13: "Christopher Kaufmann, der Kraftapostel der Geniezeit" von Heinrich Duntzer, _Historisches Taschenbuch_, edited by Fr. v. Raumer, third series, tenth year, Leipzig, 1859, pp. 109-231. Duntzer's sources concerning Kaufmann's life in Stra.s.sburg are Schmohl's "Urne Johann Jacob Mochels," 1780, and "Johann Jacob Mochel's Reliquien verschiedener philosophischen padogogischen poetischen und andern Aufsatze," 1780. These books have unfortunately not been available for the present use.]

[Footnote 14: For account of Leuchsenring see Varnhagen van Ense, "Vermischte Schriften", I. 492-532.]

[Footnote 15: Schlichtegroll's "Nekrolog," 1792, II, pp. 37 ff.

There is also given here a quotation written after Sterne's death, which is of interest:

"Wir erben, Yorick, deine Dose, Auch deine Feder erben wir; Doch wer erhielt im Erbschaftsloose Dein Herz? O Yorick, nenn ihn mir!"]

[Footnote 16: Works of Friedrich von Matthison, Zurich, 1825, III, pp. 141 ff., in "Erinnerungen," zweites Buch. The "Vaterlandische Besuche" were dated 1794.]

[Footnote 17: Briefe von Friedrich Matthison, Zurich, 1795, I, pp.

27-32.]

[Footnote 18: Shandy, III, 22.]

[Footnote 19: Briefe, II, p. 95.]

[Footnote 20: "Herders Briefwechsel mit seiner Braut", pp. 92, 181, 187, 253, 377.]

[Footnote 21: Quoted by Koberstein, IV, p. 168. Else, p. 31; Hettner, III, 1, p. 362, quoted from letters in Friedrich Schlegel's _Deutsches Museum_, IV, p. 145. These letters are not given by Goedeke.]

[Footnote 22: The review is credited to him by Koberstein, III, pp. 463-4.]