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Untitled Article
posite class of poetry is the lyric , in which the poet gives mainly objects as they are reflected in the mirror of his own individuality . And this certainly is the essential character of odes , elegies , songs , &c . These same classes , designated ge * nerally as the objective and subjective , were called by Schiller the naive and the sentimental , and they have also been named
the real and the ideal . In general , modern poets belong to the subjective class ; and our own Wordsworth , just before the publication of the German theory , with a correct feeling of his own nature and powers , entitled his first work ' Lyrical Ballads . ' We add , for the sake of completeness , that the dramatic poet must unite the powers of both in an equal degree . In the plan of his drama , in the relation of the characters to each other , all in
subordination to the purpose of the work , he must have the epic impartiality ; but in the execution , he is lyric . Each individual developes his own personality with equal subjective truth . In Shakespeare ' s plays , for instance , are a . myriad of individuals , in every one of which it would seem as if the author had exhausted its particular character ; and yet there is not one of all
Shakespeare ' s characters which can be said to represent himself . On the contrary , what are ' Childe Harold / * Don Juan , ' ' The Corsair , ' * The Giaour , * et id omne genus ? They are only the noble lord in different masquerade dresses , with the mask thrown away . It will of course be understood that in the concrete the objective and subjective elements are found blended . The name is given to the kind that is predominant .
To return from this digression : A . W . Schlegel , in a memorable review in the * Athenaeum , ' loudly proclaimed ' Hermann and Dorothea' to be a Germau-epos . He thus concludes : * It is in a high degree a moral poem , not on account of any precise moral purpose , but because morality is the element of beautiful form . Passion is far outweighed by a moral individuality of feeling . The great and dignified in human nature is developed
with no narrow-minded partiality . The clearness of a wellweighed self-government is blended with a genial warmth of benevolence , and claims the same rights . Human concerns are raised above all considerations of a national and political partiality . Its main impression is pathos , but one that , neither effeminate nor weak , excites to beneficent activity . " Hermann and Dorothea" is a perfect work of art in the great style , and at the same time comprehensible , cordial , patriotic , popular—a book
full of golden lessons of wisdom and virtue / We gladly avail ourselves of the authority of so eminent a critic in repeating a eulogy , every syllable of which we assent to , but which from ourselves might have been thought the exaggeration of a partisan . The subject of the epic tale is briefly this : Dorothea is the heroic leader of a band of fugitives , who escape with a drove of cattle over the Rhine , on the advance to the left bank of the triumphant French republicans . She is relieved by Hermann ; the son of our
Untitled Article
282 Goethe ' s Works .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1833, page 282, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2612/page/66/
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