Part 4 (1/2)

[Footnote 62: Werke, Vol. II, p. 81.]

[Footnote 63: Cf. Introduction, p. 1 f.]

[Footnote 64: Werke, Vol. I, p. 89.]

[Footnote 65: Briefe, p. 382 f.]

[Footnote 66: Briefe, p. 403-405.]

[Footnote 67: Werke, Vol. II, p. 175.]

[Footnote 68: Briefe, p. 404.]

[Footnote 69: Werke, Vol. II, p. 68.]

[Footnote 70: Werke, Vol. II, p. 100.]

[Footnote 71: Werke, Vol. II, p. 68.]

[Footnote 72: Werke, Vol. II, p. 85.]

[Footnote 73: Werke, Vol. II, p. 181.]

[Footnote 74: Werke, Vol. I, p. 253.]

CHAPTER III

=Lenau=

If Holderlin's Weltschmerz has been fittingly characterized as idealistic, Lenau's on the other hand may appropriately be termed the naturalistic type. He is par excellence the ”Pathetiker” of Weltschmerz.

Without presuming even to attempt a final solution of a problem of pathology concerning which specialists have failed to agree, there seems to be sufficient circ.u.mstantial as well as direct evidence to warrant the a.s.sumption that Lenau's case presents an instance of hereditary taint. Notwithstanding the fact that Dr. Karl Weiler[75] discredits the idea of ”erbliche Belastung” and calls heredity ”den vielgerittenen Verlegenheitsgaul,” the conclusion forces itself upon us that if the theory has any scientific value whatsoever, no more plausible instance of it could be found than the one under consideration. The poet's great-grandfather and grandfather had been officers in the Austrian army, the latter with some considerable distinction. Of his five children, only Franz, the poet's father, survived. The complete lack of anything like a systematic education, and the nomadic life of the army did not fail to produce the most disastrous results in the wild and dissolute character of the young man. Even before the birth of the poet, his father had broken his marriage vows and his wife's heart by his abominable dissipations and drunkenness. Lenau was but five years old when his father, not yet thirty-five, died of a disease which he is believed to have contracted as a result of these sensual and senseless excesses. To the poet he bequeathed something of his own pathological sensuality, instability of thought and action, lack of will-energy, and the tears of a heartbroken mother, a sufficient guarantee, surely, of a poet of melancholy. Even though we cannot avoid the reflection that the loss of such a father was a blessing in disguise, the fact remains that Lenau during his childhood and youth needed paternal guidance and training even more than did Holderlin. He became the idol of his mother, who in her blind devotion did not hesitate to show him the utmost partiality in all things. This important fact alone must account to a large extent for that presumptuous pride, which led him to expect perhaps more than his just share from life and from the world.

Lenau's aimlessness and instability were so extreme that they may properly be counted a pathological trait. It is best ill.u.s.trated by his university career. In 1819 he went to Vienna to commence his studies.

Beginning with Philosophy, he soon transferred his interests to Law, first Hungarian, then German; finding the study of Law entirely unsuited to his tastes, he now declared his intention of pursuing once more a philosophical course, with a view to an eventual professors.h.i.+p. But this plan was frustrated by his grandmother, the upshot of it all being that Lenau allowed himself to be persuaded to take up the study of agriculture at Altenburg. But a few months sufficed to bring him back to Vienna. Here his legal studies, which he had resumed and almost completed, were interrupted by a severe affection of the throat which developed into laryngitis and from which he never quite recovered. This too, according to Dr. Sadger,[76] marks the neurasthenic, and often const.i.tutes a hereditary taint. Lenau thereupon s.h.i.+fted once more and entered upon a medical course, this time not absolutely without predilection. He did himself no small credit in his medical examinations, but the death of his grandmother, just before his intended graduation, provided a sufficient excuse for him to discontinue the work, which was never again resumed or brought to a conclusion. But not only in matters of such relative importance did Lenau exhibit this vacillation. There was a spirit of restlessness in him which made it impossible for him to remain long in the same place. Of this condition no one was more fully aware than he himself. In one of his letters he writes: ”Gestern hat jemand berechnet, wieviel Poststunden ich in zwei Monaten gefahren bin, und es ergab sich die kolossale Summe von 644, die ich im Eilwagen unter bestandiger Gemutsbewegung gefahren bin.”[77] That this habit of almost incessant travel tended to aggravate his nervous condition is a fair supposition, notwithstanding the fact that Dr. Karl Weiler[78] skeptically asks ”what about commercial travellers?” Lenau himself complains frequently of the distressing effect of such journeys: ”Ein heftiger Kopfschmerz und grosse Mudigkeit waren die Folgen der von Linz an unausgesetzten Reise im Eilwagen bei schlechtem Wetter und abmudenden Gedanken an meine Zukunft.”[79] Many similar Statements might be quoted from his letters to show that it was not merely the ordinary process of traveling, though that at best must have been trying enough, but the breathless haste of his journeys, combined with mental anxiety, which usually characterized them, that made them so detrimental to his health.

It is as interesting as it is significant to note in this connection the fact that while on a journey to Munich, just a short time before the light of his intellect failed, Lenau wrote the following lines, the last but one of all his poems:

's ist eitel nichts, wohin mein Aug' ich hefte!

Das Leben ist ein vielbesagtes Wandern, Ein wustes Jagen ist's von dem zum andern, Und unterwegs verlieren wir die Krafte.

Doch tragt uns eine Macht von Stund zu Stund, Wie's Kruglein, das am Brunnenstein zersprang, Und dessen Inhalt sickert auf den Grund, So weit es ging, den ganzen Weg entlang,-- Nun ist es leer. Wer mag daraus noch trinken?

Und zu den andern Scherben muss es sinken.[80]

Holderlin also uses the striking figure contained in the last line, not however as here to picture the worthlessness of human life in general, but to stigmatize the Germans, whom Hyperion describes as ”dumpf und harmonielos, wie die Scherben eines weggeworfenen Gefa.s.ses.”[81]

That Lenau was a neurasthenic seems to be the consensus of opinion, at least of those medical authorities who have given their views of the case to the public.[82] This fact also has an important bearing upon our discussion, since it will help to show a materially different origin for Lenau's Weltschmerz and Holderlin's.

Much more frequent than in the case of the latter are the ominous forebodings of impending disaster which characterize Lenau's poems and correspondence. In a letter to his friend Karl Mayer he writes: ”Mich regiert eine Art Gravitation nach dem Unglucke. Schwab hat einmal von einem Wahnsinnigen sehr geistreich gesprochen.... Ein a.n.a.logon von solchem Damon (des Wahnsinns) glaub' ich auch in mir zu beherbergen.”[83] He is continually engaged in a gruesome self-diagnosis: ”Dann ist mir zuweilen, als hielte der Teufel seine Jagd in dem Nervenwalde meines Unterleibes: ich h.o.r.e ein deutliches Hundegebell daselbst und ein dumpfes Halloh des Schwarzen. Ohne Scherz; es ist oft zum Verzweifeln.”[84] This process of self-diagnosis may be due in part to his medical studies, but much more, we think, to his morbid imagination, which led him, on more than one occasion, to play the madman in so realistic a manner that strangers were frightened out of their wits and even his friends became alarmed, lest it might be earnest and not jest which they were witnessing.

Lenau was not without a certain sense of humor, grim humor though it was, and here and there in his letters there is an admixture of levity with the all-pervading melancholy. An example may be quoted from a letter to Kerner in Weinsberg, dated 1832: ”Heute bin ich wieder bei Reinbecks auf ein grosses Spargelessen. Spargel wie Kirchthurme werden da gefressen. Ich allein verschlinge 50-60 solcher Kirchthurme und komme mir dabei vor, wie eine Parodie unserer politisch-prosaischen, durchaus unheiligen Zeit, die auch schon das Maul aufsperrt, um alles Heilige, und namentlich die guten glaubigen Kirchthurme wie Spargelstangen zu verschlingen.” The letter concludes with the signature: ”Ich umarme Dich, bis Dir die Rippen krachen. Dein Niembsch.”[85] Not infrequently this humor was at his own expense, especially when describing an unpleasant condition or situation, as for example in a letter to Sophie Lowenthal in the year 1844: ”Jetzt lebe ich hier in Saus und Braus,--d. h. es saust und braust mir der Kopf von einem leidigen Schnupfen.”[86] Again, on finding himself on one occasion very unwell and uncomfortable in Stuttgart, he writes as follows: ”Bestandiges Unwohlsein, Kopfschmerz, Schlaflosigkeit, Mattigkeit, schlechte Verdauung, Rhabarber, Druckfehler, und Aerger uber den tragen Fortschlich meiner Geschafte, das waren die Freuden meiner letzten Woche. Emilie will es nicht gelten la.s.sen, da.s.s die Stuttgarter Luft nichts als die Ausdunstung des Teufels sei.--Ich schnappe nach Luft, wie ein Spatz unter der Luftpumpe.--In vielen der hiesigen Stra.s.sen riecht es am Ende auch lenzhaft, namlich pestilenzhaft, und die guten Stuttgarter merken das gar nicht; 'suss duftet die Heimat.'”[87] In his fondness for bringing together the incongruous, for introducing the element of surprise, and in the fact that his humor is almost always of the impatient, disgruntled, cynical type, Lenau reminds us not a little of Heine in his ”Reisebilder” and some other prose works. Holderlin, on the other hand, may be said to have been utterly devoid of humor.