CHAPTER IX

.

HEINE.

Becomes Interested in India through Schlegel--Influence of India's Literature on his Poetry--Interest in the Persian Poets--Persian Influence on Heine--His Attitude toward the Oriental Movement.

"Was das Sanskrit-Studium selbst betrifft, so wird über den Nutzen desselben die Zeit entscheiden. Portugiesen, Holländer und Engländer haben lange Zeit jahraus, jahrein auf ihren grossen Schiffen die Schätze Indiens nach Hause geschleppt; wir Deutsche hatten immer das Zusehen. Aber die geistigen Schätze Indiens sollen uns nicht entgehen. Schlegel, Bopp, Humboldt, Frank u. s. w. sind unsere jetzigen Ostindienfahrer; Bonn und München werden gute Faktoreien sein."

With these words Heine sent forth his "Sonettenkranz" to A.W. von Schlegel in 1821.[192] These sonnets show what a deep impression the personality and lectures of the famous romanticist made on him while he was a student at Bonn, in 1819 and 1820. Schlegel had just then been appointed to the professorship of Literature at the newly created university, and to his lectures Heine owed the interest for India which manifests itself in many of his poems, and which continued even in later years when his relations to his former teacher had undergone a complete change.

He never undertook the study of Sanskrit. His interest in India was purely poetic. "Aber ich stamme aus Hindostan, und daher fühle ich mich so wohl in den breiten Sangeswäldern Valmikis, die Heldenlieder des göttlichen Ramo bewegen mein Herz wie ein bekanntes Weh, aus den Blumenliedern Kalidasas blühen mir hervor die süssesten Erinnerungen" (_Ideen_, vol. v. p. 115)--these words, with some allowance perhaps for the manner of the satirist, may well be taken to characterize the poet's attitude towards India. Instinctively he appropriated to himself the most beautiful characteristics of Sanskrit poetry, its tender love for the objects of nature, for flowers and animals and the similes and metaphors inspired thereby, and he invests them with all the grace and charm peculiar to his muse. Some of his finest verses owe their inspiration to the lotus; and in that famous poem "Die Lotosblume ängstigt,"--so beautifully set to music by Schumann--the favorite flower of India's poets may be said to have found its aesthetic apotheosis. As is well known, there are two kinds of lotuses, the one opening its leaves to the sun (Skt. _padma_, _paṅkaja_), the other to the moon (Skt. _kumuda_, _kāirava_). Both kinds are mentioned in _Śakuntalā_ (Act. V. Sc. 4, ed. Kale, Bombay, 1898, p. 141): _kumudānyēva śaśāṅkaḥ savitā bhōdhayati paṅkajānyēva_ "the moon wakes only the night lotuses, the sun only the day lotuses."[193] It is the former kind, the nymphaea esculenta, of which Heine sings, and his conception of the moon as its lover is distinctively Indic and constantly recurring in Sanskrit literature. Thus at the beginning of the first book of the _Hitōpadēśa_ the moon is called the lordly bridegroom of the lotuses.[194]

The splendor of an Indic landscape haunts the imagination of the poet. On the wings of song he will carry his love to the banks of the Ganges (vol. i. p. 98), to that moonlit garden where the lotus-flowers await their sister, where the violets peep at the stars, the roses whisper their perfumed tales into each other's ears and the gazelles listen, while the waves of the sacred river make sweet music. And again in a series of sonnets addressed to Friederike (_Neue Ged._ vol. ii. p. 65) he invites her to come with him to India, to its palm-trees, its ambra-blossoms and lotus-flowers, to see the gazelles leaping on the banks of the Ganges, and the peacocks displaying their gaudy plumage, to hear Kōkila singing his impassioned lay. He sees Kāma in the features of his beloved, and Vāsanta hovering on her lips; her smile moves the Gandharvas in their golden, sunny halls to song.

* * * * *

Allusions to episodes from Sanskrit literature are not infrequent in Heine's writings. The famous struggle between King Viśvāmitra with the sage Vasiṣṭha for example is mockingly referred to in two stanzas (vol. i. p. 146).[195] His own efforts to win the favor of a certain Emma (_Neue Ged._ ii. 54) the poet likens to the great act of penance by which King Bhagīratha brought down the Ganges from heaven.[196]

* * * * *

Heine's prose-writings also furnish abundant proofs of his interest in and acquaintance with Sanskrit literature. In the opening chapters of the _Buch Le Grand_ (c. 4, vol. v. p. 114) he brings before us another vision of tropical Indic splendor. In his sketches from Italy (_Reiseb._ ii. vol. vi. p. 137) he draws a parallel between the priesthood of Italy and that of India, which is anything but flattering to either. It is also not correct; he notices, to be sure, that in the Sanskrit drama (of which he knows only _Śakuntalā_ and _Mṛcchakaṭikā_) the rôle of buffoon is assigned invariably to a Brahman, but he is ignorant of the origin of this singular custom.[197] In his essay on the Romantic School, when speaking of Goethe's godlike repose, he introduces by way of illustration the well-known episode from the Nala-story where Damayantī distinguishes her lover from the gods who had assumed his form by the blinking of his eyes (vol. ix. p. 52). In the same essay (ibid. pp. 49, 50), he bestows enthusiastic praise on Goethe's _Divan_, and this brings us to the question of Persian influence upon Heine.

* * * * *

Starting as he did on his literary career at the time when Goethe's _Divan_ and Rückert's _Östliche Rosen_ had inaugurated the Hafizian movement in German literature, it would have been strange if he had remained entirely outside of the sphere of its influence. As a matter of fact, he took some interest in Persian poetry almost from the outset of his poetical activity, as his letters clearly show. As early as 1821, he mentions Saʻdī with the epithet _herrlich_, calls him the Persian Goethe and cites one of his couplets (_Gul._ ii. 48, _qiṭʻah_; K.S. p. 122) in the version of Herder.[198] In April, 1823, he writes from Berlin that during the preceding winter he has studied the non-Semitic part of Asia,[199] and the following year in a letter to Moser[200] he speaks of Persian as "die süsse, rosige, leuchtende Bulbulsprache," and goes on to imagine himself a Persian poet in exile among Germans. "O Firdusi! O Ischami! (sic for Jāmī) O Saadi! Wie elend ist euer Bruder! Ach wie sehne ich mich nach den Rosen von Schiras." Such a rose he calls in one of his _Nordsee_-poems "die Hafisbesungene Nachtigallbraut" ("Im Hafen," vol. i. p. 218).

Yet, judging from the familiar epigrams of Immermann, which Heine cites at the end of _Norderney_ (_Reiseb._ i. vol. v. p. 101) as expressive of his own sentiments, he seems to have held but a poor opinion of the West-Eastern poetry that followed in the wake of Goethe's _Divan_. He certainly never attempted anything like an imitation of this poetry, and Oriental form appealed to him even less. In the famous, or rather infamous, passage of the _Reisebilder_ (vol. vi. pp. 125-149), where he makes his savage attack on Platen, he ridicules that poet's _Ghaselen_ and speaks derisively of their formal technique as "schaukelnde Balancierkünste" (ibid. p. 136). It is probable, however, that he judged the _γazal_ form not so much on its own merits as on the demerits of his adversary. It is certain at any rate that he has nowhere made use of this form of versification.

Persian influence is not noticeable in his earlier poems;[201] his _Buch der Lieder_ shows no distinctive traces of it. His later poems, _Neue Gedichte_ (1844) and _Romanzero_ (1851), on the other hand, show it unmistakably. The Persian image of the rose and the nightingale is of frequent occurrence. In a poem on Spring (_Neue Ged._ vol. ii. p. 26) we read:

Und mir selbst ist dann, als würd' ich Eine Nachtigall und sänge Diesen Rosen meine Liebe, Träumend sing' ich Wunderklänge--.

The image recurs repeatedly in the _Neue Gedichte_, e.g. _Neuer Frühling_, Nos. 7, 9, 11, 20, 26; _Verschiedene_, No. 7, and in _Romanzero_ (vol. iii.), pp. 42, 178, 253. Even in the prose-writings it is found, e.g. _Florentinische Nächte_ (vol. iii. p. 43), _Gedanken und Einfälle_ (vol. xii. 309).

Again, when Heine speaks of pearls that are pierced and strung on a silken thread ("Kluge Sterne," _Neue Ged._ vol. ii. p. 106), he is intensely Persian; still more so when he calls Jehuda ben Halevy's verses (_Romanz._ vol. iii. p. 136):

Perlenthränen, die, verbunden Durch des Reimes goldnen Faden, Aus der Dichtkunst güldnen Schmiede Als ein Lied hervorgegangen.

The Persian fancy of the moth and candle-flame seems to have been in his mind when he wrote ("Die Libelle," vol. ii. p. 288):

Knisternd verzehren die Flammen der Kerzen Die Käfer und ihre liebenden Herzen....

Still another Persian idea, familiar to us from a preceding chapter, is the peacock ashamed of his ugly feet ("Unvolkommenheit," _Romanz._ vol. iii. p. 103).

* * * * *

The Persian manner is even employed, and very cleverly, for humorous effect, for instance, in the poem "Jehuda ben Halevy," cited before. In this Heine asks Hitzig for the etymology of the name Schlemihl, but meets with nothing but evasive replies until:

Endlich alle Knöpfe rissen An der Hose der Geduld,

and the poet begins to swear so profanely that the pious Hitzig surrenders unconditionally and hastens to supply the desired information. This image of the "trousers of patience" reminds us strikingly of such Persian phrases as جيب مراقبه "the cowl of meditation" (_Gul._ ed. Platts, p. 4), فرش هوس "the carpet of desire" (ib. p. 113), etc., which are a particular ornament of the highly artificial rhymed prose, employed in works like the _Gulistān_ and _Bahāristān_. In the latter, for instance, we read of a youth whose mental equilibrium had been impaired by the charms of a handsome girl: لباس دانايی بيفکند و پلاس رسوايی پوشيد "he tore the garment of prudence and put on the rags of disgrace."[202]

The description of a countess in words like those which Heine puts into the mouth of a Berlin chamber-musician: "Cypressenwuchs, Hyacinthenlocken, der Mund ist Ros' und Nachtigall zu gleicher Zeit," ... (_Briefe aus Berlin_. No. 3, vol. v. p. 205) furnishes another instance in point.

And lastly, we must mention one of the best known of Heine's poems, the trilogy "Der Dichter Firdusi," the subject of which is the famous legend of Mahmūd's ingratitude to Persia's greatest singer and his tardy repentance. We may add that scholars are not inclined to accept this legend as historical in all its parts; certainly not in its artistic and effective ending. This, of course, has nothing to do with the literary merit of the poem, which is deservedly ranked as one of Heine's happiest efforts.[203]

* * * * *

After all, however, it is clear that Heine is in no sense an orientalizing poet or a follower of the Hafizian tendency which became the vogue under the influence of Goethe, Rückert and Platen. With him the Oriental element never was more than an incidental feature, strictly subordinated to his own poetic individuality, and never dominating or effacing it, as is the case with most of the professedly "Persian" singers,--those "Perser von dem Main, der Elbe, von der Isar, von der Pleisse"--who thought, as has justly been remarked, that they had penetrated into the Persian spirit by merely mentioning _guls_ and _bulbuls_. Heine had no use for such trivial superficiality. The singer of the "Loreley" sang as he felt, and in spite of so many apparently un-German sentiments in his writings he had a right to say (_Die Heimkehr_, vol. i. p. 131):

Ich bin ein deutscher Dichter, Bekannt im deutschen Land; Nennt man die besten Namen, So wird auch der meine genannt.

FOOTNOTES:

[192] Printed as Nachwort in the Bemerker, No. 10, Suppl. to Gesellschafter, No. 77. See also H. Heines Leben u. Werke, Ad. Strodtmann, Hamb. 1883, vol. i. p. 78.

[193] Similarly Bhartṛhari, Nītiś. 74.

[194] _Atha kadācid avasannāyām rātrāv astācalacūdāvalambini bhagavati kumudinīnāyakē candramasi_.... (ed. Bomb. 1891, p. 7). "Once upon a time when the night was spent and the moon, the lordly lover of the lotuses, was reclining on the crest of the western mountain...." Of other allusions to this lotus we may cite Vikramōrvaṡī, Act 3. ed. Parab and Telang, Bomb. 1888, p. 79; Śak. Act iii. ed. Kale, p. 81, and Act iv. ib. p. 96.

[195] The episode occurs in Rāmāy. i. 51-56. It had been translated as early as 1816 by Bopp in his Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache.

[196] Mahābh. iii. 108, 109; Rāmāy. i. 42, 43; Mārkaṇḍēya Pur. and other works. Heine's acquaintance was due undoubtedly to Schlegel's translation in Indische Bibliothek, 1820. (Aug. Schlegel, Werke, iii. 20-44.)

[197] See article on this subject by M. Schuyler, Jr., in JAOS. vol. xx. 2. p. 338 seq.

[198] Letter to Friedr. Steinmann, Sämmtl. Werke, Hamb. 1876, vol. xix. No. 7, p. 43.

[199] Ibid. No. 15, p. 80.

[200] Ibid. No. 38, pp. 200, 201.

[201] One poem of his earliest period, Die Lehre (vol. iii. p. 276), published in Hamburgs Wächter, 1817 (Strodtmann, op. cit. i. 54), does seem to show it. In this the young bee, heedless of motherly advice, does not beware of the candle-flame and so "Flamme gab Flammentod." We at once recognize a familiar Persian thought, and are reminded of Goethe's fine line, "Das Lebend'ge will ich preisen das nach Flammentod sich sehnet." (Selige Sehnsucht, ed. Loeper, iv. 26.)

[202] O.M. v. Schlechta-Wssehrd, Der Frühlingsgarten von Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami, Wien, 1846. Persian text, p. 38.

[203] For a discussion of the legend see Nöldeke in Grdr. iran. Phil. vol. ii. pp. 154, 155, 158.

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