Part 16

It should be premised that in its beginnings the modern German drama might have seemed likely to be influenced even more largely than the English or the French by the copious imitation of classical models which marked the periods of the Renaissance and the Reformation; but here the impulse of originality was wanting to bring about a speedy and gradually a complete emancipation, and imitative reproduction continued in an all but endless series. The first German (and indeed the earliest transalpine) writer to follow in the footsteps of the modern Latin drama of the Italians was the famous Strassburg humanist Jacob Wimpheling (1450-1528), whose comedy of _Stylpho_ (1480), an attack upon the ignorance of the pluralist beneficed clergy, marks a kind of epoch in the history of German dramatic effort. It was succeeded by many other Latin plays of various kinds, among which may be mentioned J. Kerckmeister's _Codrus_ (1485), satirizing pedantic schoolmasters; a series of historical dramas in a moralizing vein, partly on the Turkish peril, as well as of comedies, by Jacob Locher (1471-1528); two plays by the great Johann Reuchlin, of which the so-called _Henno_ went through more than thirty editions; and the _Ludus Dianae_, with another play likewise in honour of the emperor Maximilian I., by the celebrated Viennese scholar Conrad Celtes (1459-1508). Sebastian Brant's _Hercules in Bivio_ (1512) is lost; but Wilibald Pirckheimer's _Eckius dedolatus_ (1520) survives as a dramatic contribution to Luther's controversy with one of his most active opponents. The _Acolastus_ (1525) of W. Gnaphaeus (_alias_ Fullonius, his native name was de Volder) should also be mentioned in the present connexion, as, though a Dutchman by birth, he spent most of his literary life in Germany. This Terentian version of the parable of the Prodigal Son was printed in an almost endless number of editions, as well as in various versions in modern tongues, among which reference has already been made to the English, for the use of schools, by J. Palsgrave (1540). Macropedius (Langhveldt) belongs wholly to the Low Countries. In Germany the stream of these compositions continued to flow almost without abatement throughout the earlier half of the 16th century; but in the days of the Reformation it takes a turn to scriptural subjects, and during the latter part of the century remains on the whole faithful to this preference.[273] These Latin plays may be called school-dramas in the most precise sense; for they were both performed in the schools and read in class with commentaries specially composed for them; nor was it except very reluctantly that in this age the vernacular drama was allowed to intrude into scholastic circles. It should be noticed that the Jesuit order, which afterwards proved so keenly alive to the influence which dramatic performances exercise over the youthful mind, only very gradually abandoned the principle, formally sanctioned in their _Ratio studiorum_, that the

## acting of plays (these being always in the Latin tongue) should only

rarely be permitted in their seminaries. The flourishing period of the Jesuit drama begins with the spread of the order in the west and south-west of the Empire in the last decade of the 16th century, and then continues, through the vicissitudes of good and evil, with a curious intermixture of Latin and German plays, during the whole of the 17th and the better part of the 18th. These productions, which ranged in their subjects from biblical and classical story to themes of contemporary history (such as the relief of Vienna by Sobiesky and the peace of Ryswick), seem generally to bear the mark of their authorship--that of teachers appointed by their superiors to execute this among other tasks allotted to them; but, as it seems unnecessary to return to this special growth, it may be added that the extraordinary productiveness of the Jesuit dramatists, and the steadiness of self-repetition which is equally characteristic of them, should warn us against underrating its influence upon a considerable proportion of the nation's educational life during a long succession of generations.

Beginnings of the vernacular German drama.

Hans Sachs.

The English comedians.

Separation between the stage and literature.

While the scholars of the German Renaissance, who became so largely the agents of the Reformation, eagerly dramatized scriptural subjects in the Latin, and sometimes (as in the case of Luther's protégé P. Rebhun[274]) in the native tongue, the same influence made itself felt in another sphere of dramatic activity. Towards the close of the middle ages, as has been seen, dramatic performances had in Germany, as in England, largely fallen into the hands of the civic gilds, and the composition of plays was more especially cultivated by the master-singers of Nuremberg and other towns. It was thus that, under the influence of the Reformation, and of the impulse given by Luther and others to the use of High German as the popular literary tongue, Hans Sachs, the immortal shoemaker of Nuremberg, seemed destined to become the father of the popular German drama. In his plays, "spiritual," "secular," and _Fastnachtsspiele_ alike, the interest indeed lies in the dialogue rather than in the action, nor do they display any attempt at development of character. In their subjects, whether derived from Scripture or from popular legend and fiction,[275] there is no novelty, and in their treatment no originality. But the healthy vigour and fresh humour of this marvellously fertile author, and his innate sympathy with the views and sentiments of the burgher class to which he belonged, were elements of genuine promise--a promise which the event was signally to disappoint. Though the manner of Hans Sachs found a few followers, and is recognizable in the German popular drama even of the beginning of the 17th century, the literature of the Reformation, of which his works may claim to form part, was soon absorbed in labours of a very different kind. The stage, after admitting novelties introduced from Italy or (under Jesuit supervision) from Spain, was subjected to another and enduring influence. Among the foreign actors of various nations who flitted through the innumerable courts of the empire, or found a temporary home there, special prominence was acquired, towards the close of the 16th and in the early years of the 17th century, by the "English comedians," who appeared at Cassel, Wolfenbuttel, Berlin, Dresden, Cologne, &c. Through these players a number of early English dramas found their way into Germany, where they were performed in more or less imperfect versions, and called forth imitations by native authors. Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick-Luneburg[276] (1564-1613) and Jacob Ayrer (a citizen of Nuremberg, where he died, 1605) represent the endeavours of the early German drama to suit its still uncouth forms to themes suggested by English examples; and in their works, and in those of contemporary playwrights, there reappears no small part of what we may conclude to have been the "English comedians'" _répertoire_.[277] (The converse influence of German themes brought home with them by the English actors, or set in motion by their strolling ubiquity, cannot have been equal in extent, though Shakespeare himself may have derived the idea of one of his plots[278] from such a source). But, though welcome to both princes and people, the exertions of these foreign comedians, and of the native imitators who soon arose in the earliest professional companies of actors known in Germany, instead of bringing about a union between the stage and literature, led to a directly opposite result. The popularity of these strollers was owing partly to the (very real) blood and other horrors with which their plays were deluged, partly to the buffoonery with which they seasoned, and the various tricks and feats with which they diversified, their performances. The representatives of the English clowns had learnt much on their way from their brethren in the Netherlands, where in this period the art of grotesque acting greatly flourished. Nor were the aids of other arts neglected,--to this day in Germany professors of the "equestrian drama" are known by the popular appellation of "English riders." From these true descendants of the mimes, then, the professional actors in Germany inherited a variety of tricks and traditions; and soon the favourite figures of the popular comic stage became conventional, and were stereotyped by the use of masks. Among these an acknowledged supremacy was acquired by the native _Hans Wurst_ (Jack Pudding)--of whose name Luther disavowed the invention, and who is known already to Hans Sachs--the privileged buffoon, and for a long series of generations the real lord and master, of the German stage. If that stage, with its grossness and ribaldry, seemed likely to become permanently estranged from the tastes and sympathies of the educated classes, the fault was by no means entirely its own and that of its patron the populace. The times were evil times for a national effort of any kind; and poetic literature was in all its branches passing into the hands of scholars who were often pedants, and whose language was a jargon of learned affectations. Thus things continued, till the awful visitation of the Thirty Years' War cast a general blight upon the national life, and the traditions of the popular theatre were left to the guardianship of the marionettes (_Puppenspiele_)!

The literary drama of the 17th century.

When, in the midst of that war, German poets once more began to essay the dramatic form, the national drama was left outside their range of vision. M. Opitz, who holds an honoured place in the history of the German language and literature, in this branch of his labours contented himself with translations of classical dramas and of Italian pastorals--among the latter one of Rinuccini's _Daphne_, with which the history of the opera in Germany begins. A. Gryphius, though as a comic dramatist lacking neither vigour nor variety, and acquainted with Shakespearian[279] as well as Latin and Italian examples, chiefly devoted himself to the imitation of Latin, earlier French, and Dutch tragedy, the rhetorical dialogue of which he effectively reproduced in the Alexandrine metre.[280] Neither the turgid dramas of D. C. von Lohenstein (1665-1684), for whose _Cleopatra_ the honour of having been the first German tragedy has been claimed, nor even the much healthier comedies of Chr. Weise (1642-1708) were brought upon the stage; while the religious plays of J. Klay (1616-1656) are mere recitations connected with the Italian growth of the _oratorio_. The frigid allegories commemorative of contemporary events, with which the learned from time to time supplied the theatre, and the pastoral dramas with which the idyllic poets of Nuremberg--"the shepherds of the Pegnitz"--after the close of the war gratified the peaceful longings of their fellow-citizens, were alike mere scholastic efforts. These indeed continued in the universities and _gymnasia_ to keep alive the love of both dramatic composition and dramatic representation, and to encourage the theatrical taste which led so many students into the professional companies. But neither these dramatic exercises nor the _ludi Caesarei_ in which the Jesuits at Vienna revived the pomp and pageantry, and the mixture of classical and Christian symbolism, of the Italian Renaissance, had any influence upon the progress of the popular drama.

The stage before its reform.

The history of the German stage remains to about the second decennium of the 18th century one of the most melancholy, as it is in its way one of the most instructive, chapters of theatrical history. Ignored by the world of letters, the actors in return deliberately sought to emancipate their art from all dependence upon literary material. Improvisation reigned supreme, not only in farce, where _Hans Wurst_, with the aid of Italian examples, never ceased to charm his public, but in the serious drama likewise (in which, however, he also played his part) in those _Haupt- und Staatsactionen_ (high-matter-of-state-dramas), the plots of which were taken from the old stores of the English comedians, from the religious drama and its sources, and from the profane history of all times. The hero of this period is "Magister" J. Velthen (or Veltheim), who at the head of a company of players for a time entered the service of the Saxon court, and, by reproducing comedies of Molière and other writers, sought to restrain the licence which he had himself carried beyond all earlier precedent, but who had to fall back into the old ways and the old life. His career exhibits the climax of the efforts of the art of acting to stand alone; after his death (c. 1693) chaos ensues. The strolling companies, which now included actresses, continued to foster the popular love of the stage, and even under its most degraded form to uphold its national character against the rivalry of the opera, and that of the Italian _commedia dell' arte_. From the latter was borrowed Harlequin, with whom _Hans Wurst_ was blended, and who became a standing figure in every kind of popular play.[281] He established his sway more especially at Vienna, where from about 1712 the first permanent German theatre was maintained. But for the actors in general there was little permanence, and amidst miseries of all sorts, and under the growing ban of clerical intolerance, the popular stage seemed destined to hopeless decay. A certain vitality of growth seems, under clerical guidance, to have characterized the plays of the people in Bavaria and parts of Austria.

F. K. Neuber, Gottsched, and the Leipzig school.

Ekhof

The first endeavours to reform what had thus apparently passed beyond all reach of recovery were neither wholly nor generally successful; but this does not diminish the honour due to two names which should never be mentioned without respect in connexion with the history of the drama. Friederike Karoline Neuber's (1697-1760) biography is the story of a long-continued effort which, notwithstanding errors and weaknesses, and though, so far as her personal fortunes were concerned, it ended in failure, may almost be described as heroic. As directress of a company of actors which from 1727 had its headquarters at Leipzig (hence the new school of acting is called the Leipzig school), she resolved to put an end to the formlessness of the existing stage, to separate tragedy and comedy, and to extinguish Harlequin. In this endeavour she was supported by the Leipzig professor J. Chr. Gottsched, who induced her to establish French tragedy and comedy as the sole models of the regular drama. Literature and the stage thus for the first time joined hands, and no temporary mischance or personal misunderstanding can obscure the enduring significance of the union. Not only were the abuses of a century swept away from a representative theatre, but a large number of literary works, designed for the stage, were produced on it. It is true that they were but versions or imitations from the French (or in the case of Gottsched's _Dying Cato_ from the French and English),[282] and that at the moment of the regeneration of the German drama new fetters were thus imposed upon it, and upon the art of acting at the same time. But the impulse had been given, and the beginning made. On the one hand, men of letters began to subject their dramatic compositions to the test of performance; the tragedies and comedies of J. E. Schlegel, the artificial and sentimental comedies of Chr. F. Gellert and others, together with the vigorous popular comedies of the Danish dramatist Holberg, were brought into competition with translations from the French. On the other hand, the Leipzig school exercised a continuous effect upon the progress of the art of acting, and before long K. Ekhof began a career which made his art a fit subject for the critical study of scholars, and his profession one to be esteemed by honourable men.

Lessing.

Among the authors contributing to Mme. Neuber's Leipzig enterprise had been a young student destined to complete, after a very different fashion and with very different aims, the work which she and Gottsched had begun. The critical genius of G. E. Lessing is peerless in its comprehensiveness, as in its keenness and depth; but if there was any branch of literature and art which by study and practice he made pre-eminently his own, it was that of the drama. As bearing upon the progress of the German theatre, his services to its literature, both critical and creative, can only be described as inestimable. The _Hamburgische Dramaturgie_, a series of criticisms of plays and (in its earlier numbers) of actors, was undertaken in furtherance of the attempt to establish at Hamburg the first national German theatre (1767-1769). This fact alone would invest these papers with a high significance; for, though the theatrical enterprise proved abortive, it established the principle upon which the progress of the theatre in all countries depends--that for the dramatic art the immediate theatrical public is no sufficient court of appeal. But the direct effect of the _Dramaturgie_ was to complete the task which Lessing had in previous writings begun, and to overthrow the dominion of the arbitrary French rules and the French models established by Gottsched. Lessing vindicated its real laws to the drama, made clear the difference between the Greeks and their would-be representatives, and established the claims of Shakespeare as the modern master of both tragedy and comedy. His own dramatic productivity was cautious, tentative, progressive. His first step was, by his _Miss Sara Sampson_ (1755), to oppose the realism of the English domestic drama to the artificiality of the accepted French models, in the forms of which Chr. F. Weisse (1726-1804) was seeking to treat the subjects of Shakespearian plays.[283] Then, in his _Minna von Barnhelm_ (1767), which owed something to Farquhar, he essayed a national comedy drawn from real life, and appealing to patriotic sentiments as well as to broad human sympathies. It was written in prose (like _Miss Sara Sampson_), but in form held a judicious mean between French and English examples.

Efforts of the theatre and of literature.

The note sounded by the criticisms of Lessing met with a ready response, and the productivity displayed by the nascent dramatic literature of Germany is astonishing, both in the efforts inspired by his teachings and in those which continued to controvert or which aspired to transcend them. On the stage, Harlequin and his surroundings proved by no means easy to suppress, more especially at Vienna, the favourite home of frivolous amusement; but even here a reform was gradually effected, and, under the intelligent rule of the emperor Joseph II., a national stage grew into being. The mantle of Ekhof fell upon the shoulders of his eager younger rival, F. L. Schröder, who was the first to domesticate Shakespeare upon the German stage. In dramatic literature few of Lessing's earlier contemporaries produced any works of permanent value, unless the religious dramas of F. G. Klopstock--a species in which he had been preceded by J. J. Bodmer--and the patriotic _Bardietten_ of the same author be excepted. S. Gessner, J. W. L. Gleim, and G. K. Pfeffel (1736-1809) composed pastoral plays. But a far more potent stimulus prompted the efforts of the younger generation. The translation of Shakespeare, begun in 1762 by C. M. Wieland, whose own plays possess no special significance, and completed in 1775 by Eschenburg, which furnished the text for many of Lessing's criticisms, helps to mark an epoch in German literature. Under the influence of Shakespeare, or of their conceptions of his genius, arose a youthful group of writers who, while worshipping their idol as the representative of nature, displayed but slight anxiety to harmonize their imitations of him with the demands of art. The notorious _Ugolino_ of H. W. von Gerstenberg seemed a premonitory sign that the coming flood might merely rush back to the extravagances and horrors of the old popular stage; and it was with a sense of this danger in prospect that Lessing in his third important drama, the prose tragedy _Emilia Galotti_ (1772), set the example of a work of incomparable nicety in its adaptation of means to end. But successful as it proved, it could not stay the excesses of the _Sturm und Drang_ period which now set in. Lessing's last drama, _Nathan der Weise_ (1779), was not measured to the standard of the contemporary stage; but it was to exercise its influence in the progress of time--not only by causing a reaction in tragedy from prose to blank verse (first essayed in J. W. von Brawe's _Brutus_, 1770), but by ennobling and elevating by its moral and intellectual grandeur the branch of literature to which in form it belongs.

The Sturm und Drang.

Meanwhile the young geniuses of the _Sturm und Drang_ had gone forth, as worshippers rather than followers of Shakespeare, to conquer new worlds. The name of this group of writers, more remarkable for their collective significance than for their individual achievements, was derived from a drama by one of the most prolific of their number, M. F. von Klinger;[284] other members of the fraternity were J. A. Leisewitz[285] (1752-1806), M. R. Lenz[286] and F. Müller[287] the "painter." The youthful genius of the greatest of German poets was itself under the influences of this period, when it produced the first of its masterpieces. But Goethe's _Götz von Berlichingen_ (1773), both by the choice and treatment of its national theme, and by the incomparable freshness and originality of its style, holds a position of its own in German dramatic literature. Though its defiant irregularity of form prevented its complete success upon the stage, yet its influence is far from being represented by the series of mostly feeble imitations to which it gave rise. The _Ritterdramen_ (plays of chivalry) had their day like similar fashions in drama or romance; but the permanent effect of _Götz_ was, that it crushed as with an iron hand the last remnants of theatrical conventionality (those of costume and scenery included), and extinguished with them the lingering respect for rules and traditions of dramatic composition which even Lessing had treated with consideration. Its highest significance, however, lies in its having been the first great dramatic work of a great national poet, and having definitively associated the national drama with the poetic glories of the national literature.

Goethe.

Schiller.