Part 14 (2/2)

Bock was also the author of a series of little volumes written in the early seventies, still under the sentimental charm: (1) Empfindsame Reise durch die Visitenzimmer am Neujahrstag von einem deutschen Yorick angestellt, Cosmopolis (Hamburg) 1771--really published at the end of the previous year; (2) . . . am Ostertage, 1772; (3) Am Pfingsttage, 1772; (4) Am Johannistage, 1773; (5) Am Weynachtstage, 1773. These books were issued anonymously, and Schroder's Lexicon gives only (2) and (3) under Bock's name, but there seems no good reason to doubt his authors.h.i.+p of them all. Indeed, his claim to (1) is, according to the _Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen_, well-nigh proven by an allusion to the ”Tagereise” in the introduction, and by the initials signed. None of them are given by Goedeke. The books are evidently only in a general way dependent on the Sterne model, and are composed of observations upon all sorts of subjects, the first section of each volume bearing some relation to the festival in which they appear.

In the second edition of the first volume the author confesses that the t.i.tle only is derived from Yorick,[36] and states that he was forced to this misuse because no one at that time cared to read anything but ”Empfindsame Reisen.” It is also to be noted that the description beneath the t.i.tle, ”von einem deutschen Yorick angestellt,” is omitted after the first volume. The review of (4) and (5) in the _Altonaer Reichs-Postreuter_ finds this a commendable resumption of proper humility. The observations are evidently loosely strung together without the pretense of a narrative, such as ”Allgemeines Perspectiv durch alle Visitenzimmer, Empfindsamer Neujahrswunsch, Empfindsame Berechnung eines Weisen mit sich selbst, Empfindsame Entschlusse, Empfindsame Art sein Geld gut unterzubringen,” etc.[37] An obvious purpose inspires the writer, the furthering of morality and virtue; many of the meditations are distinctly religious. That some of the observations had a local significance in Hamburg, together with the strong sentimental tendency there, may account for the warm reception by the _Hamburgischer unpartheyischer Correspondent_.[38]

Some contemporary critics maintained a kins.h.i.+p between Matthias Claudius and Yorick-Sterne, though nothing further than a similarity of mental and emotional fibre is suggested. No one claimed an influence working from the English master. Even as late as 1872, Wilhelm Roseler in his introductory poem to a study of ”Matthias Claudius und sein Humor”[39]

calls Asmus, ”Deutschland's Yorick,” thereby agreeing almost verbally with the German correspondent of the _Deutsches Museum_, who wrote from London nearly a hundred years before, September 14, 1778, ”Asmus . . .

is the German Sterne,” an a.s.sertion which was denied by a later correspondent, who a.s.serts that Claudius's manner is very different from that of Sterne.[40]

August von Kotzebue, as youthful narrator, betrays a dependence on Sterne in his strange and ingeniously contrived tale, ”Die Geschichte meines Vaters, oder wie es zuging, da.s.s ich gebohren wurde.”[41] The influence of Sterne is noticeable in the beginning of the story: he commences with a circ.u.mstantial account of his grandfather and grandmother, and the circ.u.mstances of his father's birth. The grandfather is an original undoubtedly modeled on lines suggested by Sterne's hobby-horse idea. He had been chosen in days gone by to greet the reigning prince on the latter's return from a journey, and the old man harks back to this circ.u.mstance with ”hobby-horsical” persistence, whatever the subject of conversation, even as all matters led Uncle Toby to military fortification, and the elder Shandy to one of his pet theories.

In Schrimps the servant, another Shandean original is designed. When the news comes of the birth of a son on Mount Vesuvius, master and man discuss multifarious and irrelevant topics in a fas.h.i.+on reminiscent of the conversation downstairs in the Shandy mansion while similar events are going on above. Later in the book we have long lists, or catalogues of things which resemble one of Sterne's favorite mannerisms. But the greater part of the wild, adventurous tale is far removed from its inception, which presented domestic whimsicality in a gallery of originals, unmistakably connected with Tristram Shandy.

Goschen's ”Reise von Johann”[42] is a product of the late renascence of sentimental journeying. Master and servant are represented in this book as traveling through southern Germany, a pair as closely related in head and heart as Yorick and La Fleur, or Captain Shandy and Corporal Trim.

The style is of rather forced buoyancy and sprightliness, with intentional inconsequence and confusion, an attempt at humor of narration, which is choked by characteristic national desire to convey information, and a fatal propensity to description of places,[43] even when some satirical purpose underlies the account, as in the description of Erlangen and its university. The servant Johann has mild adventures with the maids in the various inns, which are reminiscent of Yorick, and in one case it borders on the openly suggestive and more Shandean method.[44] A distinctly borrowed motif is the accidental finding of papers which contain matters of interest. This is twice resorted to; a former occupant of the room in the inn in Nurnberg had left valuable notes of travel; and Johann, meeting a ragged woman, bent on self-destruction, takes from her a box with papers, disclosing a revolting story, baldly told. German mediocrity, imitating Yorick in this regard, and failing of his delicacy and subtlety, brought forth hideous offspring. An attempt at whimsicality of style is apparent in the ”Furth Catechismus in Frage und Antwort” (pp. 71-74), and genuinely sentimental adventures are supplied by the death-bed scene (pp. 70-71) and the village funeral (pp. 74-77).

This book is cla.s.sed by Ebeling[45] without sufficient reason as an imitation of von Thummel. This statement is probably derived from the letter from Schiller to Goethe to which Ebeling refers in the following lines. Schiller is writing to Goethe concerning plans for the Xenien, December 29, 1795.[46] The abundance of material for the Xenien project is commented upon with enthusiastic antic.i.p.ation, and in a list of vulnerable possibilities we read: ”Thummel, Goschen als sein Stallmeister--” a collocation of names easily attributable, in consideration of the underlying satiric purpose, to the general nature of their work, without in any way implying the dependence of one author on another,[47] or it could be interpreted as an allusion to the fact that Goschen was von Thummel's publisher. Nor is there anything in the correspondence to justify Ebeling's harshness in saying concerning this volume of Goschen, that it ”enjoyed the honor of being ridiculed (verhohnt) in the Xenien-correspondence between Goethe and Schiller.”

Goethe replies (December 30), in approval, and exclaims, ”How fine Charis and Johann will appear beside one another.”[48] The suggestion concerning a possible use of Goschen's book in the Xenien was never carried out.

It will be remembered that Goschen submitted the ma.n.u.script of his book to Schiller, and that Schiller returned the same with the statement ”that he had laughed heartily at some of the whims.[49]” Garve, in a letter dated March 8, 1875, speaks of Goschen's book in terms of moderate praise.[50]

The ”Empfindsame Reise von Oldenburg nach Bremen,”[51] the author of which was a Hanoverian army officer, H. J. C. Hedemann, is characterized by Ebeling as emphatically not inspired by Sterne.[52] Although it is not a sentimental journey, as Schummel and Jacobi and Bock conceived it, and is thus not an example of the earliest period of imitation, and although it contains no pa.s.sages of teary sentimentality in att.i.tude toward man and beast, one must hesitate in denying all connection with Sterne's manner. It would seem as if, having outgrown the earlier Yorick, awakened from dubious, fine-spun dreams of human brotherhood, perhaps by the rude clatter of the French revolution, certain would-be men of letters turned to Yorick again and saw, as through a gla.s.s darkly, that other element of his nature, and tried in lumbering, Teutonic way to adopt his whimsicality, shorn now of sentimentalism, and to build success for their wares on remembrance of a defaced idol. This view of later sentimental journeying is practically acknowledged at any rate in a contemporary review, the _Allgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung_ for August 22, 1796, which remarks: ”A sentimental voyage ist ein Quodlibet, wo einige bekannte Sachen und Namen gezwungenen Wiz und matten Scherz heben sollen.”[53]

Hedemann's book is conspicuous in its effort to be whimsical and is openly satirical in regard to the sentimentalism of former travelers.

His endeavor is markedly in Sterne's manner in his att.i.tude toward the writing of the book, his conversation about the difficulty of managing the material, his discussion with himself and the reader about the various parts of the book. Quite in Sterne's fas.h.i.+on, and to be a.s.sociated with Sterne's frequent promises of chapters, and statements concerning embarra.s.sment of material, is conceived his determination ”to mention some things beforehand about which I don't know anything to say,” and his rather humorous enumeration of them. The author satirizes the real sentimental traveler of Sterne's earlier imitators in the following pa.s.sage (second chapter):

”It really must be a great misfortune, an exceedingly vexatious case, if no sentimental scenes occur to a sentimental traveler, but this is surely not the case; only the subjects, which offer themselves must be managed with strict economy. If one leaps over the most interesting events entirely, one is in danger, indeed, of losing everything, at least of not filling many pages.”

Likewise in the following account of a sentimental adventure, the satirical purpose is evident. He has not gone far on his journey when he is met by a troop of children; with unsentimental coldness he determines that there is a ”Schlagbaum” in the way. After the children have opened the barrier, he debates with himself to which child to give his little coin, concludes, as a ”sentimental traveler,” to give it to the other s.e.x, then there is nothing left to do but to follow his instinct. He reflects long with himself whether he was right in so doing,--all of which is a deliberate jest at the hesitation with reference to trivial acts, the self-examination with regard to the minutiae of past conduct, which was copied by Sterne's imitators from numerous instances in the works of Yorick. Satirical also is his vision in Chapter VII, in which he beholds the temple of stupidity where lofty stupidity sits on a paper throne; and of particular significance here is the explanation that the whole company who do ”erhabene Dummheit” honor formerly lived in cities of the kingdom, but ”now they are on journeys.” Further examples of a humorous manner akin to Sterne are: his statement that it would be a ”great error” to write an account of a journey without weaving in an anecdote of a prince, his claim that he has fulfilled all duties of such a traveler save to fall in love, his resolve to accomplish it, and his formal declaration: ”I, the undersigned, do vow and make promise to be in love before twenty-four hours are past.” The story with which his volume closes, ”Das Standchen,” is rather entertaining and is told graphically, easily, without whim or satire, yet not without a Sternian _double entendre_.[54]

Another work in which sentimentalism has dwindled away to a grinning shade, and a certain irresponsible, light-hearted att.i.tude is the sole remaining connection with the great progenitor, is probably the ”Empfindsame Reise nach Schilda” (Leipzig, 1793), by Andreas Geo. Fr.

von Rabenau, which is reviewed in the _Allgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung_ (1794, I, p. 416) as a free revision of an old popular tale, ”Das l.u.s.tige und lacherliche Lalenburg.” The book is evidently without sentimental tinge, is a merry combination of wit and joke combined with caricature and half-serious tilting against unimportant literary celebrities.[55]

Certain miscellaneous works, which are more or less obviously connected with Sterne may be grouped together here.

To the first outburst of Sterne enthusiasm belongs an anonymous product, ”Zween Tage eines Schwindsuchtigen, etwas Empfindsames,” von L. . . .

(Hamburg, 1772), yet the editor admits that the sentiment is ”not entirely like Yorick's,” and the _Altonaer Reichs-Postreuter_ (July 2, 1772) adds that ”not at all like Yorick's” would have been nearer the truth. This book is mentioned by Hillebrand with implication that it is the extreme example of the absurd sentimental tendency, probably judging merely from the t.i.tle,[56] for the book is doubtless merely thoughtful, contemplative, with a minimum of overwrought feeling.

According to the _Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen_ (1775, pp. 592-3), another product of the earlier seventies, the ”Leben und Schicksale des Martin d.i.c.kius,” by Johann Moritz Schwager, is in many places a clever imitation of Sterne,[57] although the author claims, like Wezel in ”Tobias Knaut,” not to have read Shandy until after the book was written. Surely the digression on noses which the author allows himself is suspicious.

Blankenburg, the author of the treatise on the novel to which reference has been made, was regarded by contemporary and subsequent criticism as an imitator of Sterne in his oddly t.i.tled novel ”Beytrage zur Geschichte des teutschen Reiches und teutscher Sitten,”[58] although the general tenor of his essay, in reasonableness and balance, seemed to promise a more independent, a more competent and felicitous performance. Kurz expresses this opinion, which may have been derived from criticisms in the eighteenth century journals. The _Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen_, July 28, 1775, does not, however, take this view; but seems to be in the novel a genuine exemplification of the author's theories as previously expressed.[59] The _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_[60] calls the book didactic, a tract against certain essentially German follies. Merck, in the _Teutscher Merkur_,[61] says the imitation of Sterne is quite too obvious, though Blankenburg denies it.

Among miscellaneous and anonymous works inspired directly by Sterne, belongs undoubtedly ”Die Geschichte meiner Reise nach Pirmont” (1773), the author of which claims that it was written before Yorick was translated or Jacobi published. He says he is not worthy to pack Yorick's bag or weave Jacobi's arbor,[62] but the review of the _Almanach der deutschen Musen_ evidently regards it as a product, nevertheless, of Yorick's impulse. Kuno Ridderhoff in his study of Frau la Roche[63] says that the ”Empfindsamkeit” of Rosalie in the first part of ”Rosaliens Briefe” is derived from Yorick. The ”Leben, Thaten und Meynungen des D. J. Pet. Menadie” (Halle, 1777-1781) is charged by the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_ with attempt at Shandy-like eccentricity of narrative and love of digression.[64]

One little volume, unmistakably produced under Yorick's spell, is worthy of particular mention because at its time it received from the reviewers a more cordial welcome than was accorded to the rank and file of Sentimental Journeys. It is ”M . . . R . . .” by E. A. A. von Gochhausen (1740-1824), which was published at Eisenach, 1772, and was deemed worthy of several later editions. Its dependence on Sterne is confessed and obvious, sometimes apologetically and hesitatingly, sometimes defiantly. The imitation of Sterne is strongest at the beginning, both in outward form and subject-matter, and this measure of indebtedness dwindles away steadily as the book advances. Gochhausen, as other imitators, used at the outset a modish form, returned to it consciously now and then when once under way, but when he actually had something to say, a message of his own, found it impracticable or else forgot to follow his model.

The absurd t.i.tle stands, of course, for ”Meine Reisen” and the puerile abbreviation as well as the reasons a.s.signed for it, were intended to be a Sterne-like jest, a pitiful one. Why Goedeke should suggest ”Meine Randglossen” is quite inexplicable, since Gochhausen himself in the very first chapter indicates the real t.i.tle. Beneath the enigmatical t.i.tle stands an alleged quotation from Shandy: ”Ein Autor borgt, bettelt und stiehlt so stark von dem andern, da.s.s bey meiner Seele! die Originalitat fast so rar geworden ist als die Ehrlichkeit.”[65] The book itself, like Sterne's Journey, is divided into brief chapters unnumbered but named.

As the author loses Yorick from sight, the chapters grow longer.

Gochhausen has availed himself of an odd device to disarm criticism,--a plan used once or twice by Schummel: occasionally when the imitation is obvious, he repudiates the charge sarcastically, or antic.i.p.ates with irony the critics' censure. For example, he gives directions to his servant Pumper to pack for the journey; a reader exclaims, ”a portmanteau, Mr. Author, so that everything, even to that, shall be just like Yorick,” and in the following pa.s.sage the author quarrels with the critics who allow no one to travel with a portmanteau, because an English clergyman traveled with one. Pumper's misunderstanding of this objection is used as a farther ridicule of the critics. When on the journey, the author converses with two poor wandering monks, whose conversation, at any rate, is a witness to their content, the whole being a legacy of the Lorenzo episode, and the author ent.i.tles the chapter: ”The members of the religious order, or, as some critics will call it, a wretchedly unsuccessful imitation.” In the next chapter, ”Der Visitator” (pp. 125 ff.) in which the author encounters customs annoyances, the critic is again allowed to complain that everything is stolen from Yorick, a protest which is answered by the author quite navely, ”Yorick journeyed, ate, drank; I do too.” In ”Die Pause” the author stands before the inn door and fancies that a number of spies (Ausspaher) stand there waiting for him; he protests that Yorick encountered beggars before the inn in Montreuil, a very different sort of folk. On page 253 he exclaims, ”fur diesen schreibe ich dieses Kapitel nicht und ich--beklage ihn!” Here a footnote suggests ”Das ubrige des Diebstahls vid. Yorick's Gefangenen.” Similarly when he calls his servant his ”La Fleur,” he converses with the critics about his theft from Yorick.

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