German Literature: Translated from the German of Wolfgang Menzel, Volume 2Hilliard, Gray,, 1840 - German literature |
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æsthetics ancient animal antique appearance Baron von Zach beautiful became become celebrated character church classical comedies Conrad Gessner court criticism cultivated diseases distinguished earth empire empiricism English enjoyment enthusiasm feeling foreign France freedom French French revolution gained Gallomania genius George Forster German language German poetry Goethe Görres grace Greek hand Hence historians honor idea imitated influence investigation Johannes Müller Justus Möser Klopstock language last century learned less liberal literature living lyric poetry magnetism manner matter merely middle ages mind modern moral nation natural science never noble novels object particularly passion patriotic peculiar period petty philosophy of nature poems poetical poets political princes principle reformation revolution Roman Roman law romanticism Schelling Schlegel sentimental servile single songs soul spirit style taste tendency thing tion Tobias Mayer translated universal history Voltaire Voss whole wholly Wieland wrote
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Page 407 - Galotti, and in Nathan. Humanity and wisdom were never so intimately connected with the romantic essence of manly honor ; and no modern poet — I repeat it, no one — has known how to represent this grace of manliness so well as Lessing. " And what charming daughters has this austere father ! What enchantment is there in Minna, Emilia...
Page 390 - Wolfgang Menzel remarks of him, that he " became the German Thomson, whose ' Seasons ' he imitated in the poem of ' Spring,' which has become so celebrated. He was much distinguished by refined sentiments and beautiful imagery ; but he shared the faults of this species of poetry, which knew not how to express a fine sentiment directly, but could only do so through the medium and in the mirror of reflection, and which, without intending it, perhaps, played the coquette a little with its charms.
Page 375 - They were distortions of the language, in order to show how far its capability extended, but did not exhibit the grace of its proper movement. No one could talk as Voss wrote. Every body would have thought it vexatious and ridiculous, who had been required to arrange his words like Voss. They never sound like any thing but a stiff translation, even when he does not in fact translate. These translations, however, are often so slavishly close, and, therefore, not German, that they are unintelligible,...
Page 380 - Wieland — the cheerful, amiable, delicate Wieland — a genius overflowing, inexhaustible in agreeableness, ease, raillery, and wit — made his appearance. One must know the whole stiff, distorted, ceremonious, and sentimental age which preceded him, to be able to appreciate justly the free and soaring flight of this genius, and to excuse, as it deserves, what we, judging from the higher point of view of the present age, to which he has raised us on his own shoulders, might, perhaps, find reason...
Page 424 - He began his great picture of the progress of the world with the representation of the physical world as a scene of progress and change. We cannot but acknowledge that he produced a highly poetical effect thereby upon his age, and that he contributed no less towards the enriching of science, or at least the improvement of its methods. A great living picture of nature, which would have been intelligible and familiar even to the uninitiated, had hitherto been wanting among the Germans. The most comprehensive...
Page 426 - Adrastea,' he has felt himself impelled to devote a special attention to modern history, since he, too, is a child of the present age. All these works are distinguished both by the truth and clearness with which the subjects are brought at once before us, and particularly by the fact that they are never solitary efforts, never leave an unsatisfied feeling behind, but always refer to a great and harmonious view of the world, and make us see the whole in single parts, just as they, when united, form,...
Page 408 - By this modern costume, by the naturalness of his dramatic characters, and by the prose which he brought into the field against the old French Alexandrine as well as the Greek hexameter, he exerted a great influence on the subsequent age, and became the creator of the proper modern German poetry, which undertook to picture life as it now is, while hitherto nothing but what was ancient and foreign had been imitated. The Anglomaniacs, who also came forward...
Page 371 - H., pp. 370-373. revival of German poetry, which finally ventured to cast off the foreign fetters, and to drop that humble demeanour which had been customary since the peace of Westphalia. It was, indeed, needful that one should again come, who might freely smite his breast, and cry, ' I am a German ! ' Finally, hie poetry, as well as his patriotism, had its root in that sublime moral and religious faith which his
Page 383 - ... source of all their art, the French had very long surpassed us Germans. After Voltaire, however, their best writers had shown such a spirit of routine, that, in fact, there was but little difference between them and the most witty authors of the later period of antiquity, particularly Lucian. Now, when we find, in truth, that Wieland, in his romantic poems, took for models, not only Ariosto, but also Voltaire and Parny ; in his novels, not only Lucian and Cervantes, but also Crebillon, Diderot,...
Bibliographic information
| Title | German Literature: Translated from the German of Wolfgang Menzel, Volume 2 Volume 2 of German Literature, Cornelius Conway Felton German Literature: Translated from the German of Wolfgang Menzel, Cornelius Conway Felton Volumes 7-9 of Specimens of foreign standard literature, George Ripley Volumes 7-9 of Specimens of foreign standard literature. Edited by George Ripley |
| Author | Wolfgang Menzel |
| Translated by | Cornelius Conway Felton |
| Publisher | Hilliard, Gray,, 1840 |
| Original from | the University of California |
| Digitized | Nov 15, 2007 |
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