Part 9 (1/2)

Sometimes this effect is produced by a distinct though unintended anti-climax. Nowhere has Heine struck a more truly elegiac note than in the stanza:

Der Tod, das ist die kuhle Nacht, Das Leben ist der schwule Tag.

Es dunkelt schon, mich schlafert, Der Tag hat mich mude gemacht.[213]

There is the most profound Weltschmerz in that. But in the second stanza there is relatively little:

Ueber mein Bett erhebt sich ein Baum, Drin singt die junge Nachtigall; Sie singt von lauter Liebe, Ich hor' es sogar im Traum.

Lenau's lyrics have shown that much Weltschmerz may grow out of unsatisfied love; Heine's demonstrate that mere love sickness is not Weltschmerz. The fact is that Heine frequently destroys what would have been a certain impression of Weltschmerz by forcing upon us the immediate cause of his distemper,--it may be a real injury, or merely a pa.s.sing annoyance. What a strange mixture of acrimonious, sarcastic protest and Weltschmerz elements we find in the poem ”Ruhelechzend”[214]

of which a few stanzas will serve to ill.u.s.trate. Again he strikes a full minor chord:

Las bluten deine Wunden, la.s.s Die Thranen fliessen unaufhaltsam; Geheime Woll.u.s.t schwelgt im Schmerz, Und Weinen ist ein susser Balsam.

This in practice rather than in theory is what we observe in Lenau,--his melancholy satisfaction in nursing his grief,--and we have promise of a poem of genuine Weltschmerz. Even through the second and third stanzas this feeling is not destroyed, although the terms ”Schelm” and ”Tolpel”

gently arouse our suspicion:

Des Tages Larm verhallt, es steigt Die Nacht herab mit langen Flohren.

In ihrem Schosse wird kein Schelm, Kein Tolpel deine Ruhe storen.

But the very next stanza brings the transition from the sublime to the ridiculous:

Hier bist du sicher vor Musik, Vor des Pianofortes Folter, Und vor der grossen Oper Pracht Und schrecklichem Bravourgepolter.

O Grab, du bist das Paradies Fur pobelscheue, zarte Ohren-- Der Tod ist gut, doch besser war's, Die Mutter hatt' uns nie geboren.

It is scarcely necessary to point out that the specific cause which the poet confides to us of his ”wounds, tears and pains” is ridiculously unimportant as compared with the conclusion which he draws in the last two lines.

Evidently then, he does not wish us to take him seriously, nor could we, if he did. Thus in their very att.i.tude toward the ills and vexations of life, there appears a most essential difference between Lenau and Heine.

Auerbach aptly remarks: ”Spott und Satire verkleinern, Zorn und Ha.s.s vergrossern das Object.”[215] And Lenau knew no satire; where Heine scoffed and ridiculed, he hated and scorned, with a hatred that only contributed to his own undoing. With Heine the satire's the thing, whether of himself or of others, and to this he willingly sacrifices the lofty sentiments of which he is capable. Indeed he frequently introduces these for no other purpose than to make the laugh or grimace all the more striking. And with reference to his love affair with Amalie, while the question as to the reality and depth of his feelings may be left entirely out of discussion, this much may be safely a.s.serted, that in comparatively few poems do those feelings find expression in the form of Weltschmerz. Now there is something essentially vague about Weltschmerz; it is an atmosphere, a ”Stimmung” more or less indefinable, rather than the statement in lyric form of certain definite grievances with their particular and definite causes. And that is exactly what we find in Lenau, even in his love-songs. His love-sorrow is blended with his many other heart-aches, with his disappointments and regrets, with his yearning for death. He sings of his pain rather than of its immediate causes, and the result is an atmosphere of Weltschmerz.

Turning to Heine's later poems, especially to the ”Romanzero,” we find that atmosphere much more perceptible. But even here the poet is for the most part specific, and his method concrete. So for instance in ”Der Dichter Firdusi”[216] in which he tells a story to ill.u.s.trate his belief that merit is appreciated and rewarded only after the death of the one who should have reaped the reward. So also in ”Weltlauf,”[217] the first stanza of which suggests a poetic rendering of Matth. 13:12, ”For whosoever hath, to him shall be given and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath,”--to which the poet adds a stanza of caustic ironical comment:

Wenn du aber gar nichts hast, Ach, so la.s.se dich begraben-- Denn ein Recht zum Leben, Lump, Haben nur, die etwas haben.

And again, the poem ”Lumpentum”[218] presents an ironical eulogy of flattery. His failure to realize the hopes of his youth is made the subject of ”Verlorne Wunsche”[219] which maintains throughout a strain of seriousness quite unusual for Heine, and concludes:

Goldne Wunsche! Seifenblasen!

Sie zerrinnen wie mein Leben-- Ach ich liege jetzt am Boden, Kann mich nimmermehr erheben.

Und Ade! sie sind zerronnen, Goldne Wunsche, susses Hoffen!

Ach, zu totlich war der Faustschlag, Der mich just ins Herz getroffen.

A number of these lyrics from the Romanzero show very strikingly Heine's objective treatment of his poems of complaint. Such selections as ”Sie erlischt,”[220] in which he compares his soul to the last flicker of a lamp in the darkened theater, or ”Frau Sorge,”[221] which gives us the personification of care, represented as a nurse watching by his bedside, bring his objective method into marked contrast with Holderlin's subjective Weltschmerz. The same may be said of his autobiography in miniature, ”Ruckschau,”[222] which catalogues the poet's experiences, pleasant and adverse, with evident sincerity though of course with a liberal admixture of witty irony. Needless to say there is no real Weltschmerz discoverable in such a pot pourri as the following:

Die Glieder sind mir rheumatisch gelahmt, Und meine Seele ist tief beschamt.

Ich ward getrankt mit Bitternissen, Und grausam von den Wanzen gebissen, etc.