Laurence Sterne in Germany Part 17

[Footnote 53: The review is of "Auch Vetter Heinrich hat Launen, von G. L. B., Frankfurt-am-Main, 1796"--a book evidently called into being by a translation of selections from "Les Lunes du Cousin Jacques." Junger was the translator. The original is the work of Beffroy de Regny.]

[Footnote 54: Hedemann's book is reviewed indifferently in the _Allg. Litt. Zeitung._ (Jena, 1798, I, p. 173.)]

[Footnote 55: Von Rabenau wrote also "Hans Kiekindiewelts Reise"

(Leipzig, 1794), which Ebeling (III, p. 623) condemns as "the most commonplace imitation of the most ordinary kind of the comic."]

[Footnote 56: It is also reviewed by Musaus in the _Allg. deutsche Bibl._, XIX, 2, p. 579.]

[Footnote 57: The same opinion is expressed in the _Jenaische Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen_, 1776, p. 465. See also Schwinger's study of "Sebaldus Nothanker," pp. 248-251; Ebeling, p. 584; _Allg. deutsche Bibl._, x.x.xII, 1, p. 141.]

[Footnote 58: Leipzig and Liegnitz, 1775.]

[Footnote 59: The _Leipziger Museum Almanach_, 1776, pp. 69-70, agrees in this view.]

[Footnote 60: XXIX, 2, p. 507.]

[Footnote 61: 1776, I, p. 272.]

[Footnote 62: An allusion to an episode of the "Sommerreise."]

[Footnote 63: "Sophie von la Roche," Gottinger Dissertation, Einbeck, 1895.]

[Footnote 64: _Allg. deutsche Bibl._, XLVII, 1, p. 435; LII, 1, p. 148, and _Anhang_, XXIV-x.x.xVI, Vol. II, p. 903-908.]

[Footnote 65: The quotation is really from the spurious ninth volume in Zuckert's translation.]

[Footnote 66: For these references to the snuff-box, see pp. 53, 132-3, 303 and 314.]

[Footnote 67: In "Sommerreise."]

[Footnote 68: Other examples are found pp. 57, 90, 255, 270, 209, 312, 390, and elsewhere.]

[Footnote 69: See _Auserlesene Bibliothek der neuesten deutschen Litteratur_, VII, p. 399; _Almanach der deutschen Musen_, 1775, p. 75; _Magazin der deutschen Critik_, III, 1, p. 174; _Frankfurter Gel. Anz._, _July_ 1, 1774; _Allg. deutsche Bibl._, XXVI, 2, 487; _Teut. Merkur_, VI, p. 353; _Gothaische Gelehrte Zeitungen_, 1774, I, p. 17.]

[Footnote 70: Leipzig, 1773-76, 4 vols. "Tobias Knaut" was at first ascribed to Wieland.]

[Footnote 71: Gervinus, V, pp. 225 ff.; Ebeling, III, p. 568; Hillebrand, II, p. 537; Kurz, III, p. 504; Koberstein, IV, pp.

168 f. and V, pp. 94 f.]

[Footnote 72: The "_Magazin der deutschen Critik_" denied the imitation altogether.]

[Footnote 73: I, p. 178.]

[Footnote 74: I, p. 117.]

[Footnote 75: I, pp. 148 ff.]

[Footnote 76: I, p. 17.]

[Footnote 77: III, pp. 99-104.]

[Footnote 78: II, p. 44.]

[Footnote 79: For reviews of "Tobias Knaut" see _Gothaische Gelehrte Zeitung_, April 13, 1774, pp. 193-5; _Magazin der deutschen Critik_, III, 1, p. 185 (1774); _Frankfurter Gel. Anz._, April 5, 1774, pp. 228-30; _Almanach der deutschen Musen_, 1775, p. 75; _Leipziger Musen-Almanach_, 1776, pp. 68-69; _Allg.

deutsche Bibl._, x.x.x, 2, pp. 524 ff., by Biester; _Teut. Merkur_, V, pp. 344-5; VII, p. 361-2, 1776, pp. 272-3, by Merck.]

[Footnote 80: Berlin, nine parts, 1775-1785. Vol I, pp. 128 (1775); Vol. II, pp. 122; Vol. III, pp. 141; Vol. IV, pp. 198 (1779); Vols. V and VI, 1780; Vols. I and II were published in a new edition in 1778, and Vol. III in 1780 (a third edition).]

[Footnote 81: XXIX, 1, p. 186; x.x.xVI, 2, p. 601; XLIII, 1, p. 301; XLVI, 2, p. 602; LXII, 1, p. 307.]

[Footnote 82: See p. 8.]

[Footnote 83: 1777, II, p. 278, review of Vols. II and III. Vol.

I is reviewed in _Frankfurter Gel. Anz._, 1775, p. 719-20 (October 31), and IX in _Allg. Litt.-Zeitung_, Jena, 1785, V, Supplement-Band, p. 80.]

[Footnote 84: See p. 89.]

[Footnote 85: Briefe deutscher Gelehrten aus Gleims Nachla.s.s.

(Zurich, 1806.)]

[Footnote 86: Emil Kuh's life of Hebbel, Wien, 1877, I, p. 117-118.]

[Footnote 87: The "Empfindsame Reise der Prinzessin Ananas nach Gros-glogau" (Riez, 1798, pp. 68, by Grafin Lichterau?) in its revolting loathesomeness and satirical meanness is an example of the vulgarity which could parade under the name. In 1801 we find "Prisen aus der horneren Dose des gesunden Menschenverstandes,"

a series of letters of advice from father to son. A play of Stephanie the younger, "Der Eigensinnige," produced January 29, 1774, is said to have connection with Tristram Shandy; if so, it would seem to be the sole example of direct adaptation from Sterne to the German stage. "Neue Schauspiele." Pressburg and Leipzig, 1771-75, Vol. X.]

[Footnote 88: P. 185, edition of 1805.]

[Footnote 89: See below p. 166-7.]

[Footnote 90: Hannover, 1792, pp. 80, 263.]

[Footnote 91: LXVI, p. 79, 1801.]

[Footnote 92: Sometime after the completion of this present essay there was published in Berlin, a study of "Sterne, Hippel and Jean Paul," by J. Czerny (1904). I have not yet had an opportunity to examine it.]

CHAPTER VII

OPPOSITION TO STERNE AND HIS TYPE OF SENTIMENTALISM

Sterne's influence in Germany lived its own life, and gradually and imperceptibly died out of letters, as an actuating principle. Yet its dominion was not achieved without some measure of opposition. The sweeping condemnation which the soberer critics heaped upon the incapacities of his imitators has been exemplified in the accounts already given of Schummel, Bock and others. It would be interesting to follow a little more closely this current of antagonism. The tone of protest was largely directed, the edge of satire was chiefly whetted, against the misunderstanding adaptation of Yorick's ways of thinking and writing, and only here and there were voices raised to detract in any way from the genius of Sterne. He never suffered in Germany such an eclipse of fame as was his fate in England. He was to the end of the chapter a recognized prophet, an uplifter and leader. The far-seeing, clear-minded critics, as Lessing, Goethe and Herder, expressed themselves quite unequivocally in this regard, and there was later no withdrawal of former appreciation. Indeed, Goethe's significant words already quoted came from the last years of his life, when the new century had learned to smile almost incredulously at the relation of a bygone folly.

In the very heyday of Sterne's popularity, 1772, a critic of Wieland's "Diogenes" in the _Auserlesene Bibliothek der neuesten deutschen Litteratur_[1] bewails Wieland's imitation of Yorick, whom the critic deems a far inferior writer, "Sterne, whose works will disappear, while Wieland's masterpieces are still the pleasure of latest posterity." This review of "Diogenes" is, perhaps, rather more an exaggerated compliment to Wieland than a studied blow at Sterne, and this thought is recognized by the reviewer in the _Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen_,[2] who designates the compliment as "dubious" and "insulting," especially in view of Wieland's own personal esteem for Sterne. Yet these words, even as a relative depreciation of Sterne during the period of his most universal popularity, are not insignificant. Heinrich Leopold Wagner, a tutor at Saarbrucken, in 1770, records that one member of a reading club which he had founded "regarded his taste as insulted because I sent him "Yorick's Empfindsame Reise."[3] But Wagner regarded this instance as a proof of Saarbrucken ignorance, stupidity and lack of taste; hence the incident is but a wavering testimony when one seeks to determine the amount and nature of opposition to Yorick.

We find another derogatory fling at Sterne himself and a regret at the extent of his influence in an anonymous book ent.i.tled "Betrachtungen uber die englischen Dichter,"[4] published at the end of the great Yorick decade. The author compares Sterne most unfavorably with Addison: "If the humor of the _Spectator_ and _Tatler_ be set off against the digressive whimsicality of Sterne," he says, "it is, as if one of the Graces stood beside a Bacchante. And yet the pampered taste of the present day takes more pleasure in a Yorick than in an Addison." But a reviewer in the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_[5] discounts this author's criticisms of men of established fame, such as Shakespeare, Swift, Yorick, and suggests youth, or brief acquaintance with English literature, as occasion for his inadequate judgments. Indeed, Yorick disciples were quick to resent any shadow cast upon his name. Thus the remark in a letter printed in the _Deutsches Museum_ that Asmus was the German Yorick "only a better moral character," called forth a long article in the same periodical for September, 1779, by L. H. N.,[6]

vigorously defending Sterne as a man and a writer. The greatness of his human heart and the breadth and depth of his sympathies are given as the unanswerable proofs of his moral worth. This defense is vehemently seconded in the same magazine by Joseph von Retzer.