The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume I | Page 2

day; here for the first time they will find the most representative writers
of each period brought together and exhibited by their most

representative works; here for the first time an opportunity will be
offered to form a just conception of the truly remarkable literary
achievements of Germany during the last hundred years.
For it is a grave mistake to assume, as has been assumed only too often,
that, after the great epoch of Classicism and Romanticism in the early
decades of the nineteenth century, Germany produced but little of
universal significance, or that, after Goethe and Heine, there were but
few Germans worthy to be mentioned side by side with the great
writers of other European countries. True, there is no German Tolstoy,
no German Ibsen, no German Zola--but then, is there a Russian
Nietzsche, or a Norwegian Wagner, or a French Bismarck? Men like
these, men of revolutionary genius, men who start new movements and
mark new epochs, are necessarily rare and stand isolated in any people
and at all times. The three names mentioned indicate that Germany,
during the last fifty years, has contributed a goodly share even of such
men. Quite apart, however, from such men of overshadowing genius
and all-controlling power, can it be truly said that Germany, since
Goethe's time, has been lacking in writers of high aim and notable
attainment?
It can be stated without reservation that, taken as a whole, the German
drama of the nineteenth century has maintained a level of excellence
superior to that reached by the drama of almost any other nation during
the same period. Schiller's Wallenstein and Tell, Goethe's Iphigenie and
Faust, Kleist's Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, Grillparzer's Medea,
Hebbel's Maria Magdalene and Die Nibelungen, Otto Ludwig's _Der
Erbförster_, Freytag's Die Journalisten, Anzengruber's Der
Meineidbauer, Wilbrandt's Der Meister von Palmyra, Wildenbruch's
Konig Heinrich, Sudermann's Heimat, Hauptmann's Die Weber and
Der arme Heinrich, Hofmannsthal's Elektra, and, in addition to all
these, the great musical dramas of Richard Wagner--this is a century's
record of dramatic achievement of which any nation might be proud. I
doubt whether either the French or the Russian or the Scandinavian
stage of the nineteenth century, as a whole, comes up to this standard.
Certainly, the English stage has nothing which could in any way be
compared with it.
That German lyric verse of the last hundred years should have been
distinguished by beauty of structure, depth of feeling, and wealth of

melody, is not to be wondered at if we remember that this was the
century of the revival of folk-song, and that it produced such
song-composers as Schubert and Schumann and Robert Franz and
Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauss. But it seems strange that, apart from
Heine, even the greatest of German lyric poets, such as Platen, Lenau,
Mörike, Annette von Droste, Geibel, Liliencron, Dehmel,
Münchhausen, Rilke, should be so little known beyond the borders of
the Fatherland.
The German novel of the past century was, for a long time,
unquestionably inferior to both the English and the French novel of the
same epoch. But in the midst of much that is tiresome and involved and
artificial, there stand out, even in the middle of the century, such
masterpieces of characterization as Otto Ludwig's Zwischen Himmel
und Erde or Wilhelm Raabe's Der Hungerpastor, such delightful
revelations of genuine humor as Fritz Reuter's Ut mine Stromtid, such
penetrating studies of social conditions as Gustav Freytag's Soll und
Haben. And during the last third of the century there has clearly
developed a new, forcible, original style of German novel writing.
Seldom has the short story been handled more skilfully and felicitously
than by such men as Paul Heyse, Gottfried Keller, C. F. Meyer,
Theodor Storm. Seldom has the novel of tragic import and passion been
treated with greater refinement and delicacy than in such works as
Fontane's Effi Briest, Ricarda Huch's Ludolf Ursleu, Wilhelm von
Polenz's _Der Büttnerbauer_, or Ludwig Thoma's _Andreas Vöst_. And
it may be doubted whether, at the present moment, there is any country
where the novel is represented by so many gifted writers or exhibits
such exuberant vitality, such sturdy truthfulness, such seriousness of
purpose, or such a wide range of imagination as in contemporary
Germany.
All these dramatists, lyric poets, and novelists, and with them not a few
essayists, philosophers, orators, and publicists,[1] of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries will speak in the following volumes to America and
other countries of the English language. They have been arranged, in
the main, chronologically. The first three volumes have been given to
the mature work of Goethe and Schiller--time-tested and securely
niched. Volumes IV and V contain the principal Romanticists,
including Fichte and Schelling; Volume VI brings Heine, Grillparzer,

and Beethoven to view;
Volume VII, Hegel and Young Germany; Volume VIII, Auerbach,
Gotthelf, and Fritz