while Freiligrath in his "Irland," which resembles Byron's poem in other respects too, says likewise: Ihr aber seid blasiert und stumpf, Fault und verfault-euch weckt kein Wecker! Freiligrath's "Aus Spanien" was in all probability stimulated by English lyrics, almost all of which hailed the rebellion of Spain against the yoke of Napoleon. Freiligrath takes his motif from the civil war of the forties. In the "Age of Bronze" and "Childe Harold" Byron calls repeatedly upon the Spaniards to think of the old glory and to shake off the fetters of the usurpers. Thus in Stanza VII of the "Age of Bronze": Up! up again! undaunted Tauridor! The bull of Phalaris renews his roar. The same thought Freiligrath gives expression in "Aus Spanien" though he compares the country to the bull and not to the tauridor: Noch ist es Zeit!-Noch hast Du Kraft!-Gesunde! The fact that Freiligrath's "So wird es geschehen" may be traced back to Byron has already been stated by Ackermann.19 Byron's "The destruction of Sennacherib" begins: The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, Freiligrath's war-song starts: Wie der Wolf, der Assyrer, in klirrender Pracht. Ebenezer Elliott, the corn-law rhymer, exerted little influence on the German poet. Two motifs used by Elliott occur also in Freiligrath's works. In "They met in heaven" the poet arrives in heaven and finds there the great Englishmen, "who, battling for right, had nobly died." The conditions on earth which the poets describes, arouse the wrath of the departed spirits. Freiligrath's "Eine Seele" narrates how the daughter of the Hessian Professor Jordan-who was innocently confined to prison while his daughter died-comes to the place of supreme happiness. There she meets the "best German dead," who are indignant at the despotism of the princes. There is, besides, the following parallel: 19 Ackermann, R., Lord Byron. p. 178; quoted by Erbach, op. cit., p. 137. Elliott: Where dwell the great, Whom death hath freed from pain. Freiligrath: Auch der Tod, du weisst es, kann befreien. Freiligrath wrote this poem in the same month in which he translated another political poem of Elliott. Similarities may be found also in Elliott's "Proletarierfamilie in England"20 and Freiligrath's "Vom Harze." In both cases a law is attacked-by Elliott the corn-law, by Freiligrath the hunting-law; and both poets treat the subject satirically, the former by the refrain: "Hurra Brottax und England," the latter by the ironical praise: Es lebe, was auf Erden It is very surprising that there are no distinct echoes from Burns, though Freiligrath esteemed him more highly than any other of the modern British poets. The chief explanation for this is probably to be found in the fact that the Scotchman's political poems, though always liberal and progressive, rarely attempted to make propaganda; while Freiligrath deliberately put his pen at the disposal of the German democratic movement. Although we find in Freiligrath's poems frequently the refreshing defiant note of the Scotch peasant I found only two cases where there is a possibility of the German poet having been influenced by Burns. The latter's "Song of Death" and Freiligrath's "Ein Lied vom Tode" strike the same chord and show also a certain similarity in the expression of the thought; both poems glorify the heroic death on the battlefield. Burns' "Right of Women" starts with a survey of the political situation in Europe before it treats of the rights of women in a satirical manner. Freiligrath gives in "Der Flaschenkrieg" (which is, however, not really a political poem) a similar intro 20 The only edition of Elliott's poems (London, 1833) at my disposal does not contain this poem. I quote, therefore, Freiligrath's translation. duction and then describes a merry battle between wine-bottles. In the same poem Bums empicys the phrase Ça ira which we fnd frequently in Freltgrath's works. Lastly we quote from Richter a parallel between Hood's "Song of the Shire and Freiligmath's "Aus dem schlesischen Gebirge." In the former we read: Seving at once, with double thread A shroud as well as a shirt. which is translated by Freiigrath Mit doppeltem Faden nih ich Hemd, Ja. Hemd and Leichentuch! Compare with this the lines in the German poem: Ich glaub', sein Vater webt dem Kleinen Zam Hunger-baid das Leichentuch! CONCLUSION Freiligrath's change to political poetry was not due to the influence of British poets. After Freiligrath had turned to political poetry he shows occasional dependence upon British sources in the selection of subjects and motifs and the wording of thoughts, but not in his political ideals. And even here it was apparently not Byron but Thomas Moore who exerted any noteworthy influence. The supposition that Thomas Hood's poems caused the German poet to change from political to social poetry is wrong; but that Freiligrath had a high regard for the author of "The Song of the Shirt," is shown by the fact that he not only translated almost all of Hood's social poems, but also gave them a place among his own productions. University of California, 1918, ERWIN G. GUDDE n Richter, op. cit., p. 78. SIR THOMAS BROWNE AND R. L. STEVENSON It is a little strange that Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote so freely upon writing in general and his own writing in particular, should not have left more definite and specific record of the influence of the work of Sir Thomas Browne upon his own writing. References to Browne are, of course, not utterly lacking in Stevenson; he is mentioned, for example, in the oftquoted passage in "A College Magazine" in which Stevenson describes the method by which he learned to write. Browne is here, however, bracketed, in the group of writers to whom Stevenson played the sedulous ape, with Hazlitt, Lamb, Wordsworth, Defoe, Hawthorne, Montaigne, Beaudelaire and Obermann. It is true that Browne is spoken of again in the same paper, this time with Hazlitt and Ruskin, the last having cast upon him merely "a passing spell," as the inspiration of the successive drafts of "The Vanity of Morals"; but these "monkey tricks" are followed by others, in prose and verse, which take for their guiding stars as oddly assorted a group of writers as those first mentioned. It is to be noted that neither here nor elsewhere is Browne singled out for particular recognition as the primary influence in the formation for Stevenson's early style. Yet it is very much to be doubted if any one of the others could be shown to have anything like the direct influence which Browne exerted, upon the style which we think of as characteristically Stevensonian. The generous explanation-and with Stevenson the generous explanation is likely to be the correct oneis that Stevenson, conscious stylist though he was, was still not sensible of the extent or the precise direction of the influence of Browne.1 Leaving aside for the moment the question of style in the narrower sense, reasons why the work of Browne should have attracted Stevenson are not far to seek. The spiritual kinship is unmistakable. The Shorter Catechist who still could heap bitter invective upon the minister of his own sect who had 1 The writer wishes to express his hearty thanks to Professor Morris W. Croll, of Princeton University, who interested him in the larger problem of the genesis and the influence of Browne's prose-style. Professor Croll has been kind enough to read the present paper in manuscript, and has offered very helpful criticism. attacked the memory of Father Damien found a companionable spirit in the seventeenth century Anglican who "could never hear the Ave-Mary Bell without an elevation." It is of record, however, that Stevenson, after the Father Damien episode, deeply regretted having indulged in bitterness, even in this just cause. Must he not have read with entire approval Browne's discussion of "that other Virtue of Charity, without which Faith is a mere notion, and of no existence?" Even Charles Lamb, we recall, was moved to take exception, in "Imperfect Sympathies," to the entire lack of "common Antipathies" in Browne's profession. Browne, indeed, allows but one limitation to his toleration: "My conscience would give me the lye if I should say I absolutely detest or hate any essence but the Devil;" and are we not justified in believing, to use a phrase of Carlyle's on another occasion, that "the very devil himself he cannot hate with right orthodoxy?" In the case of Browne, as in that of Stevenson, the spirit of toleration belonged to a man upon occasion outwardly a skeptic, in matters of ritual, but one whose heart was deeply reverent; it is not, in either instance, the toleration of indifference. Moreover, both men unite this trait with an unmistakable fondness for preaching; Lay Morals is perhaps Stevenson's nearest formal approach to Religio Medici, but, through his work, the lay preacher is seldom silenced for long at a time. It is significant that Stevenson, speaking of Walt Whitman, as "not one of those who can be deceived by familiarity," should compare him with Sir Thomas Browne, to whom also life was "one perpetual miracle." The spirit of universal curiosity expressed in his own nursery rhyme, "The world is so full of a number of things," is one which, very strikingly, Stevenson shares with Browne. There is in each case, too, a thoroughgoing optimism in spite of a curious preoccupation with the thought of death. The subject to which Sir Thomas Browne recurs again and again in Religio Medici, as well as in UrnBurial, is that of man's mortality; and it is this theme which unfailingly inspires him to his loftiest manner. The circumstance of life-long ill health made it inevitable that Stevenson * Familiar Studies of Men and Books, p. 92. References to Stevenson are to the Biographical Edition. |